Prime minister Muhammad Shtayyeh called on Germany to put pressure on Israel to abide by its agreements, to fulfill our right to hold elections in all Palestinian territories, including Jerusalem, and to stop all measures and violations by the occupation and its settlers.
This came during his meeting with the President of the German Federal Council (Bundesrat) Peter Tschentscher, today, Thursday, in Ramallah, in the presence of the Head of the Mission of the Federal Republic of Germany to the State of Palestine, Ambassador Oliver Ovcha.
The "elections" demand is interesting, because there are no elections scheduled nor is there any prospect for elections in the future. The last scheduled elections were "postponed" indefinitely because polls showed that Fatah would lose, so Abbas blamed Israel - for not allowing voting in Jerusalem.
The only reason that the Palestinian Authority officials talk to the EU about elections is because they want to use that issue to gain control over "east Jerusalem."
Up until now, Israel allowed Jerusalem Arabs to use ballot boxes in Jerusalem post offices. The boxes then get transported to PA-controlled areas where they are unsealed and votes counted. This way, from Israel's perspective, they are absentee ballots being "mailed" in, and from the PA perspective the ballots are being cast in Jerusalem. It is a convenient fiction for both sides.
But the PA then started insisting that Israel allow campaigning in Jerusalem, which they won't do. So they have been requesting the EU pressure Israel to give in to their demands - which are congruent with official EU policy that Israel has no rights to any part of Jerusalem across the Green Line.
It isn't like the Palestinians care about Jerusalem in itself. Before 1967, under Arab rule, it was all but ignored by Jordan and by Palestinians. The 1964 PLO Charter didn't mention Jerusalem once. Neither did the 1968 version, which is the current version.
But they are keenly interested in taking Jerusalem away from Jews.
When the UN proposed that Jerusalem be an international city, as far as I can tell, there was no outcry from the Palestinian Arabs then against that idea, claiming it was theirs or that it was purely Muslim. All those narrative are said only in the context of taking it away from Israel.
That is their only goal. That is why insisting that Jerusalem be their capital is positioned as non-negotiatible - there is no logical, historic or legal reason Judaism's holiest city must be their capital for them to have a state. There are 193 other nations that manage to survive without their capitals being in Jerusalem.
But taking Jerusalem away from Jews would, they know, be the beginning of the end of Israel. It would be cutting the heart out of the Jewish people.
That is the overriding goal. And it always has been.
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Francesca Albanese, the "UN Special Rapporteur Special Rapporteur on the
Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territory Occupied Since 1967"
observes the strictest standards of objectivity and impartiality.
After all, that august body --
the UN Human Rights Council
-- has a code of conduct that says explicitly that mandate-holders are
expected to:
Uphold the highest standards of efficiency, competence and integrity,
meaning, in particular, though not exclusively, probity,
impartiality, equity, honesty and good faith; [emphasis added]
Going a step further, just take a look at Albanese's actual job application
for the position of Special Rapporteur,
helpfully dug up by Times of Israel (whose article is the basis of this post)
10/ On her application, Albanese denied holding “any views or opinions
that could prejudice the manner in which [she'd] discharge the
mandate.”
Yet last year she said the opposite: that her “deeply
held personal views” on the Palestinian issue “could compromise my
objectivity.”
pic.twitter.com/pseqLOYkoE
America and Europe, one of them subjugated by the Jewish lobby, and the
other by the sense of guilt about the Holocaust, remain on the sidelines and
continue to condemn the oppressed — the Palestinians — who defend themselves
with the only means they have (deranged missiles), instead of making Israel
face its international law responsibilities
The Israeli lobby is clearly inside your veins and system and you will
be remembered to have been on the big brother's side of this orwellian
nightmare caused once again by Israel's greed. [emphasis added]
She hid that last post after Times of Israel asked her about it.
It’s not so much the Jewish lobbies that influence the policies of
European and North American states towards Israel. Rather it is the
existence of pro-Israeli political-economic lobbies in France,
England, Germany, Italy and the United States that defend the international
business of security and arms sales to allow better explain the silence of
Western governments during the last war in Gaza (as in the previous ones).
[emphasis added]
All this preceded her claiming on her application that she held no prejudices
that would hamper her in fulfilling her position.
Clearly, Albanese was less than truthful when she denied her prejudice --
and she clearly is not abiding by the strictest levels of objectivity and
impartiality.
This, of course, makes her the ideal Special Rapporteur for the UN.
And her lack of objectivity combined with her support for Hamas terrorists
who murder innocent civilians has led her to claim that Israel has no legal
claim to self-defense:
Israel cannot claim self-defense while illegally occupying and while
directing an act of aggression against another country,” she said. “Those
who have the right to self-defense are the Palestinians."
There is a right to oppose this occupation....The occupier cannot say he
is defending himself
We can expect Albanese to push these ideas -- that terrorist attacks on
civilians are lawful and that Israel does not have the right to defend
itself from terrorist attacks -- during her term as Special Rapporteur.
After all, as we have already seen, objectivity and impartiality will not
stop Albanese from pushing her personal agenda.
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The UN Commission of Inquiry - which is not a court - decided that Israel's occupation is illegal, which is pretty much new legal ground. And the Commission even admits it!
Its report says, "It is unclear in international law and practice when a situation of belligerent occupation becomes unlawful." But that doesn't stop it from trying - and then pretending it did!
A number of legal experts have identified several principles that, when adhered
to, may be used to determine the legality of an occupation. These include whether
sovereignty and title are not vested in the occupying power, the occupying power is
entrusted with the management of public order and civil life in the occupied territory,
the people under occupation are the beneficiaries of that trust in view of their right to
self-determination, and the occupation is temporary.
In the present report, the Commission focuses on two indicators that may be
used to determine the illegality of the occupation: the permanence of the Israeli
occupation, already noted in its previous report to the Human Rights Council at its
fiftieth session, and actions amounting to annexation, including unilateral actions
taken to dispose of parts of the Occupied Palestinian Territory as if Israel held
sovereignty over it.
No legal precedent. Just asking some "experts" who are anti-Israel - and not asking legal experts who are not already antipathetic towards the Jewish state.
In short, the UN is making things up to come to a pre-determined conclusion by cherry picking legal scholars who agree with that conclusion - and not even seeking the opinions of anyone else.
Yet none of these assumptions as to what makes an occupation illegal - a concept that is virtually sui generis, made up for Israel - are based on actual legal rulings. They are making up novel arguments, treating them as established law, and hoping that people believe it.
There is one case that is precedent for the legality of Israel's presence in the West Bank. And, naturally, the UN doesn't cite it.
The PLO had claimed that Israel's occupation is illegal based on a hodgepodge of arguments, such as claiming that Israel violates the Hague Convention IX of 1907, Article 5, that says "In bombardments by naval forces all the necessary measures must be taken by the commander to spare as far as possible sacred edifices, buildings used for artistic, scientific, or charitable purposes, historic monuments, hospitals, and places where the sick or wounded are collected, on the understanding that they are not used at the same time for military purposes...."
The court acidly noted that there were no bombardments of Jerusalem.
More importantly, the French court ruled that the PLO's claims of being occupied under the Hague and Geneva Conventions were invalid to begin with, because those conventions are based on one nation invading the territory of another "high contracting power" and the PLO was not a state.
It is the first time since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 that an independent, non-Israeli court has been called upon to examine the legal status of West bank territories under international law, beyond the political claims of the parties.
While this court does not decide international law, it examined international law and ruled according to those laws. As such, it should have been referred to by the UN COI as a precedent, or at least as a source for legal arguments.
Of course, the COI does nothing of the sort. The French court ruled the "wrong" way and therefore must be ignored, while wholly new legal opinions must be promoted.
Because the UN COI is not trying to determine the truth. Its entire purpose is to twist law and facts to create a new legal framework and a new "truth" tailor-made to damn Israel.
(h/t Yerushalimey)
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Palestinian prime minister Mohamed Shtayyeh has arrived in Sharm el-Sheikh to participate in the COP27 climate conference.
As usual with these kinds of international meetings, the Palestinian intention is to try to hijack the conference into an anti-Israel sham.
His speech will "focus on the environmental challenges imposed by the Israeli occupation," according to the official Palestinian Wafa news agency.
Moreover, it says, Shtayyeh "will hold, on the sidelines of the summit, meetings with international officials on environmental and political issues and in order to mobilize support for the Palestinian cause."
Palestinians do this all the time - with literally every international conference they attend, whether the topic is women's rights, refugees, climate change, the world's oceans, children's rights, human rights, world heritage, and even COVID-19.
With virtually all of these, Palestinians are guilty of what they accuse Israel of doing.
You just know that the people who organize these conferences are really upset over Palestinians trying to make everything about them. But they cannot say anything about it because they don't want to be on the receiving end of that same hate.
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It happens again and again. A major institution, whether the UN, Amnesty or HRW, issues a report that asserts what it considers facts, it refers to a footnoted publication, and the footnote proves that they are lying.
Here is an example from the latest UN Commission of Inquiry report. It finds that Israel's "occupation" is unlawful under international law. It says:
The occupation of territory in wartime is, under international humanitarian law,
a temporary situation, which deprives the occupied Power of neither its statehood nor
its sovereignty. Occupation as a result of war cannot imply any right whatsoever to
dispose of territory.
The footnote to this points to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), commentary of 1958 on article 47 of the Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War.
The wording of that commentary makes it clear that Israel is not occupying "Palestinian territory" which is the linchpin of the entire argument.
It says:
This provision of the Hague Regulations is not applicable only to the inhabitants of the occupied territory; it also protects the separate existence of the State, its institutions and its laws. ...As was emphasized in the commentary on Article 4, the occupation of territory in wartime is essentially a temporary, de facto situation, which deprives the occupied Power of neither its statehood nor its sovereignty.
What state is Israel occupying? If there was no state there, there is no occupation. The UN report's own footnote betrays that the assumptions behind the entire report itself is false.
The commentary emphasizes that the purpose of the Convention is to protect the people, not the State. Israel agrees with this and its High Court rulings have always upheld the humanitarian aspects of the Geneva Conventions even without the existence of a Palestinian state in the territories it controls.
However, the text itself makes it clear that there is no occupation if there is no previously existing State that had legal title to the land - and there wasn't one. It sure isn't Jordan, whose annexation of the West Bank was illegal by virtually every yardstick. It cannot be the "State of Palestine" because we are told - by the UN - that the territories have been occupied since 1967 and no one claims that the "State of Palestine" existed before 1988 at the earliest.
I have yet to find an international law expert say the exact date that "occupied territories" of 1967 became "occupied Palestinian territories." But the UN retroactively says that the territories that Israel won in a defensive war have been "Palestinian" since 1967 - they even have had a "Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967."
Israel also has the absolute right to protect its own soldiers and citizens from harm that comes from the territories, under the same Geneva Conventions. As always at the UN and with other modern antisemites, a question of competing rights is being treated as if only one side has human rights, and they assume that Jews simply do not have such rights.
The UN's fast and loose definition of "occupation" is made clear in footnote 10:
For the purposes of the present report, “the territories that Israel occupies” and equivalent terms
are a reference to East Jerusalem, the Syrian Golan, Gaza and the West Bank outside East
Jerusalem.
Israel doesn't occupy Gaza by any definition of the term that existed in any legal manual or article before Israel's withdrawal from the territory in 2005. Those who claim that Israel occupies Gaza without having a single soldier there have literally made up a new definition of occupation to apply to Israel only. Essentially, the UN is admitting - not for the first time - that it doesn't care about the legal definition of occupation to begin with; it applies the label to Israel without any regard to what it means.
Which is this entire report in a nutshell. If Israel is not occupying "Palestinian territory" under the legal definition of occupation then there is no "occupation" that can be declared illegal. The UN decided to make the declaration of illegality first, and tried to justify it afterwards, all while pretending to give an impartial legal analysis.
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"Russia adheres to justice and international law, and that is enough for us," Abbas said.
With this, Abbas has placed a "halal" sticker on Russia's invasion of Ukraine as being legitimate, legal and just.
Palestinian activists for years have been repeating the mantras of supporting "justice" and "international law." Now we see that both major Palestinian parties support Russia's interpretation of those two concepts.
And now the same Palestinian activists who have tried so hard to associate Palestinians with Ukrainians look like idiots because Palestinian leaders themselves fully support Russia's invasion - and occupation - of Ukraine.
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The Media Line has an article on the Oktoberfest in Taybeh, happening this month for some reason, which features Taybeh Beer:
It was the first microbrewery in the Middle East. Nadim says that, despite their great success, they operate under harsh conditions.
“We face many challenges; many stem from the Israeli occupation and the harsh restrictions it imposes on our exports and imports of ingredients we need for our operation,” he said.
Madees says her goal is to turn her family brewery into a global beer brand, and they must overcome many hurdles.
“But our biggest challenge is the occupation, it’s disruptive. We don’t have our own water, we don’t have enough water, 95% of beer is water and we can’t produce as much as we are able to because of the lack of water,” she explained.
All the beers are brewed in small batches, without additives or preservatives, and using natural spring water flowing from a nearby village. The other ingredients are imported from Europe: Belgian and French malts, Bavarian and Czech hops, and yeast from London that, as Nadim says, "gives good characteristics to the beer."
It doesn't sound like they had any problems with imports then, and their access to water is from a spring, not through Israel's water carrier.
Similarly, the Boston Globe reported about the brewery in 2014:
There is also the question of water — a scarce resource in this arid part of the world. Continued Israeli settlement expansion has led to a disparity in water access, though Taybeh is able to use fresh water from a local spring. While they are all right for now, Khoury worries that in the future there may not be enough water to meet an increasing international demand.
Taybeh’s secret is high-quality water from the Ein Samia spring five kilometers away, explains Buthina Canaan Khoury, Nadim’s and David’s youngest sister, in charge of brewery tours during the festival.
The "Israel is stealing our water" theme seems to have only become part of the Taybeh beer family's narrative recently, such as in this DW article from 2019:
Today, an end to the occupation seems far off. And Taybeh needs access to water from a nearby spring that has fallen under the control of Israel. Hops, malt and yeast are imported from Europe.
The Israeli authorities can shut off that water supply at any time, Khoury said; they have done so more than once in the past. "We can't work without water," he said.
I am not aware of any changes of the status of Ein Samia in recent years. The spring itself seems to be under full Palestinian control, according to B'Tselem's map of the territories. The UN declared in 2011 that Ein Samia was at "risk" of being taken over by "settlers" but it never happened.
Apparently, Taybeh's owners have realized that the narrative of brewing their beer under horrible Israeli occupation, with restrictions on imports and exports that seem to not affect their ever-increasing sales, is a good business move, no matter what the truth is.
Oh, and they have a new market:
“We are in 18 countries; we started in Palestine, now we are selling in San Francisco, Boston, Denmark, Japan, Canada, all over the world,” he [Nadim] said, adding that “next week we’ll send the first shipment to the United Arab Emirates. For the first time.”
If Israel hadn't normalized relations with the UAE, that wouldn't have happened. So maybe Israel is helping Taybeh Beer more than they are hurting it
Not that the current September Oktoberfest wave of articles would mention that.
(h/t Irene)
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Israel-hater and antisemite Roger Waters is in the midst of a North American tour. The Times of Israel writes about the concert and the protesters outside his New York show on Tuesday.
Waters puts political messages on a massive screen, and among them are messages about how awful "occupation" is.
Waters became a spokesperson for BDS in 2011, so it is safe to say that he held these opinions for over a decade.
If all that is true, then how come he performed Pink Floyd's "The Wall" in 2013 - in Istanbul, Turkey? You know, the country that occupies part of Cyprus?
Waters, in his own words, must endorse the Turkish occupation of Northern Cyprus.
Which means Roger Waters, human rights activist, endorses occupation.
Everyone knows about Turkeys' occupation of Northern Cyprus.
But Turkey also occupied large swaths of territory in northern Syria, and the people who scream about the evil of Israeli "occupation" are silent.
Not only that, but Turkey is threatening to invade Syria, and - again - the people who are upset about countries like Russia invading their neighbors seem to not have much of a problem with this.
Turkey's president told journalists that Ankara remains committed to rooting out a Syrian Kurdish militia from northern Syria.
"Like I always say, we'll come down on them suddenly one night. And we must," Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on his plane following his Saturday visit to Azerbaijan, according to daily Hurriyet newspaper and other media.
Without giving a specific timeline, Erdogan said that Turkey would launch a cross-border operation against the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units, or YPG, which it considers a terrorist group linked to an outlawed Kurdish group that has led an insurgency against Turkey since 1984. That conflict with the Kurdistan Workers' Party, PKK, has killed tens of thousands of people.
However, the YPG forms the backbone of U.S.-led forces in the fight against the Islamic State group. American support for the group has infuriated Ankara and remains a major issue in their relations.
Ankara has launched four cross-border operations into Syria since 2016 and controls some territories in the north with the goal of pushing away the YPG and establishing a 30-kilometer (19-mile) deep safe zone where Erdogan hopes to "voluntarily" return Syrian refugees.
In 2019, an incursion into northeast Syria against the YPG drew widespread international condemnation, prompting Finland, Sweden and others to restrict arms sales to Turkey. Now Turkey is blocking the two Nordic countries' historic bid to join NATO because of the weapons ban and their alleged support for the Kurdish groups.
Nearly six years ago I gave a lecture at Yeshiva University on how to answer anti-Israel arguments. Since the lecture was over an hour and twenty minutes, I decided to break it up into 20 sections, one each to answer one popular anti-Israel argument.
Sound is not too good here, sorry.
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The language of occupation is an
oft-wielded weapon against Israel. Those who use it have interests at odds with
the existence of the Jewish State. They may refer to Israel as an “illegal
occupier,” and the Jewish State’s presence in the Middle East as an “illegal
occupation.” The IDF, Israel’s military, is variously known by the anti-Israel media as “occupying
forces," the “military occupation,” and even Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF). Judea and Samaria, and sometimes all of Jerusalem, are referred to as “occupied territories.” We also
see “OPT," shorthand for “Occupied Palestinian
Territories,” in lists of countries we must choose from when filling out online forms or making purchases.
The purpose of this language is
to negate the right of the Jewish State to exist on land that Arabs assert
belongs to them. And since Arabs assert that all of Israel is on land that belongs
to them, all of Israel is, according to this narrative, illegally occupied by the
Jewish people, or put more simply, Israel is illegal, and therefore, has no
right to exist. To date, there is no part of the current State of Israel in
which Arabs would accept a Jewish state. Everywhere that Israel is, it is an
occupier.
But the word “occupier” is more
than just a vehicle for negation. There’s an unsavory quality to the word, suggesting
that the entity in question is a usurper. Meaning: hey, that land belongs to
someone else!
And of course, if Israel is an “occupier”
and the land belongs to someone else, that makes Israel a thief. And the someone
else must be Arabs.
The new media editor of the Times of Israelsays that Ahed Tamimi's family lives under occupation. But the Tamimi Family lives in Nabi Saleh, which is governed by the Palestinian Authority.
Having painted Israel in this
hideous light, the image of the Jewish State evolves into something shady and repellent.
Using the language of occupation, in other words, serves not only to state your
politics on the subject of Israel, it tells others that you have an actual
dislike of Israel: that Israel disgusts you and is seen by you as morally
corrupt, a thief that stole land that belongs to others—others with brown skin!
The language of occupation suggests,
in fact, that you’ve made a moral choice regarding the State of Israel. That you
believe Jews have no right to their ancient and indigenous territories, since
some Arabs were born there in the 19th or 20th centuries.
You believe this latter day history cancels out Jewish rights. And certainly it
cancels out the bible, which is describing really old stuff, if any of it
happened at all. Which you doubt.
Some people who use occupation
language use it in an “ethical” sense. They aren’t talking about mandates and
borders. They are talking about one people ruling over another people by force.
They are saying that Arabs don’t wish to be ruled by Jews, therefore Arabs who
live under Jewish rule are “occupied” and live under “occupation.” And here’s
where it really gets nutty. Because the protests on the Gaza border are
supposedly against Israeli “occupation.”
Except that Israel doesn’t rule Gaza. Hamas
rules Gaza. Israel left Gaza, lock, stock and barrel, in 2005. The IDF is
not in Gaza, therefore there are no “occupation forces” in Gaza. Hence, Gaza is
not “occupied.” Not even a little bit.
What then are the people of
Gaza, protesting? That our soldiers are on their border to prevent them from
killing us? Is this the meaning of occupation? The United States has soldiers
along its border with Canada. Does that mean that the United States is occupying
Canada?
Is everything occupation? Or is
it only occupation when it concerns the “thieving” Jews?
From a legal standpoint, of
course, the entire subject of occupation remains murky. At the very least,
clarification is in order. We know that when Jordan acquired Judea and Samaria
and parts of Jerusalem in 1948, this was not considered a legal occupation by
the nations of the world. Only the UK and Pakistan deemed Jordan’s occupation of
these territories a legal one, representing a minority opinion. You’d think that
if Jordan was the illegal occupier of Judea, Samaria, and Jerusalem—a thief,
and a usurper of another’s land—that would make the Jews the ones they stole
from. Unless we’re missing something, here.
Which we’re not. Because the truth
is that the Mandate for Palestine remains legally
binding until today. And the Mandate for Palestine sets forth the right of
the Jewish people to settle anywhere west of the Jordan River. Which is why
Jordan was labeled an illegal occupier by the nations of the world.
And get this straight: it was
never about 1967. Take it from Mahmoud Abbas,
leader of the pack:
"Israel, since 1948, has
persisted with its contempt for international legitimacy by violating United
Nations General Assembly resolution 181 (II), the partition resolution, which
called for the establishment of two states on the historic land of Palestine
according to a specific partition plan. Israeli forces seized more land than
that allotted to Israel, constituting a grave breach of Articles 39, 41 and 42 of
the United Nations Charter.”
Do you see anything about 1967
borders, there? Nope. He’s talking about Partition. Which was just a
recommendation. Which his people rejected.
Let’s face it: the Arabs made
out big time after WWI when they divvied out the bits and pieces that make up
the Middle East. There are 22 states where Arabic is the national language and
Islam the national religion. Their culture holds sway all over the Middle East.
Not to mention the fact that
the Arabs could have stayed right where they were in Israel as a privileged
minority. Israel is a democracy. It would have been fine. But since they up and
left, the 22 states comprising their brethren should have absorbed them and
poof! No more refugee problem. It’s what we
did with the Jews THEY threw out of their countries. It’s called: “population
exchange.”
Look, they made a gambit for
the Mandate. They lost. We won. Finished. Time to man up and be a graceful
loser.
Implying that Jews are thieves, having taken land that belongs
to others, or telling Jews that they cannot build homes within the territory
that comprises the Mandate for Palestine, is ugly and antisemitic, as it flies
in the face of unanimously accepted international law. Professor Eugene V. Rostow,
an expert in international law who helped draft resolution 242, explained that
having affirmed the Mandate with the right to Jewish settlement anywhere
between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, the world essentially
negated any future Arab claims to the territory.
“Under international law, neither Jordan nor the Palestinian
Arab ‘people’ of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip have a substantial claim to
the sovereign possession of the occupied territories. Jordan cannot base a
claim to the territory on its military occupation and administration of the
West Bank between 1948 and 1967, after the Arab war of aggression in 1948. Neither
can it base a claim on its attempt to annex the territory in 1950. The
annexation was not widely recognized and has been withdrawn. By protecting Arab
"civil and religious rights," the
mandate implicitly denies Arab claims to national political rights in the area
in favor of the Jews; the mandated territory was in effect reserved to the
Jewish people for their self-determination and political development, in acknowledgment
of the historic connection of the Jewish people to the land. . . (emphasis
added)
“There remains,” said Rostow, “simply the theory that the
Arab inhabitants of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip have an inherent ‘natural
law’ claim to the area. Neither customary international law nor the United Nations
Charter acknowledges that every group of people claiming to be a nation has the
right to a state of its own. International law rests on the altogether
different principle of the sovereign equality of states. And nearly every state
inherited from history contains more than one ethnic, religious, or cultural
group: the French in Quebec, for example; the Basques in France and Spain; the
Flemish in Belgium; the Kurds in Turkey, Iran, and Iraq; and so on.
“Therefore, it is a rule essential to international peace
that claims of national self-determination be asserted only through peaceful
means. The international use of force to vindicate such claims is and must be
strictly forbidden by the United Nations Charter,” insisted Rostow, making the violent
Gaza protests an obscene mockery, considering the people of Gaza were granted
the right to self-determination, unilaterally, by Israel, in 2005.
The Lodge-Fish Resolution affirming the Jewish right to settlement in the Mandate for Palestine was passed unanimously and ratified many times over by bodies in the U.S. and U.K.
The late Howard
Grief, an advisor to Israel on international law, suggested that Article 80
of the UN Charter, once known unofficially as the Jewish People’s
clause, stipulates that the UN may not transfer any part of Palestine to any non-Jewish
entity. That would include the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, for instance. Article
80, in fact, gives Jews the right to build settlements anywhere they wish from
west of the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.
Which makes one wonder about the legality of Israeli Jews
being barred from “Area A,” which, after all, is west of the Jordan River. Who or
what is an occupier? And who is right at home?
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Back in 2009, the Palestinian Arabs were jubilant that they managed to get Jerusalem declared to be the "capital of Arab culture" for the year, in between Damascus and Doha.
It looks like this UNESCO/Arab League initiative has ended, as the last capital of Arab culture was Sfax, Tunisia in 2016.
At a meeting in Cairo, the Palestinians made it clear yet again that their interest in Jerusalem has nothing to do with culture and everything to do with Israel. Their representative said, "The identity of Jerusalem is well established and the attempts of the occupation will collapse in the face of the steadfastness of Palestinians and Jerusalemites in particular." He "reviewed the Israeli attempts to obliterate the Arab identity of the city."
The Palestinian delegation also presented two films, the first about the destruction of the Mughrabi Gate and the second about the theft of the Palestinian heritage by Israel.
Nothing about how important Jerusalem is to them. Only about how awful it is that Jews claim it to be theirs.
Richard Landes, in his talk during my symposium in Jerusalem on Sunday, described the Palestinian desire for the city as "mimetic envy" - a desire that is wholly driven by someone else possessing something you don't have, even though you showed no interest when you did have it.
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The European Union and UNICEF launched a project Thursday to build a desalination plant in the Gaza Strip to provide 75,000 Palestinians with drinking water.
A joint statement said the project will be implemented by UNICEF thanks to a 10-million-euro ($13.7-million) EU grant.
Just 5.8 percent of Gaza households have good quality water because of increased salinity caused by sewage infiltration of groundwater, according to a statement released Thursday by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics ahead of World Water Day on Saturday.
“Access to clean water is a fundamental human right for all. And yet many Gazans face acute water shortages on a day-to-day basis,” EU representative John Gatt-Rutter said as the first stone was laid for the project.
“Others can only access water of very poor quality,” he added, saying the new plant “offers the prospect of access to clean water for many thousands of families”.
The plant at Deir al-Balah in the center of the territory is expected to become operational in 2015, and will supply fresh water to 75,000 people in Khan Yunis and Rafah in the south.
Who could possibly be against this?
Well, a lot of organizations, actually - and all of them pretend that they care about Palestinian Arabs!
A couple of years ago, when UNICEF put out the bids for the desalination equipment, Gaza unions said they would boycott UNICEF if it allowed Israeli companies to bid on the project. It is unclear if UNICEF caved to their demands, but it shows that politics is more important than public health for Gaza unions.
But they are not alone.
As AIJAC pointed out recently, an entire consortium of Palestinian Arab NGOs have come out against the concept of desalination in Gaza.
...The undersigned organizations would like to voice their concerns regarding the implications of seawater desalination for Gaza as well as the challenges facing it:
1. Perpetuating the status quo while accommodating the occupation...
2. Increasing the isolation of Gaza whilst enabling Israel to ignore its obligations...
3. Increasing the vulnerability of the civilian population of Gaza...
4. Desalination plant requires significant amounts of electricity which Gaza does not have...
5. Seawater desalination plant is environmentally unsustainable, which will further deteriorate the already deplorable environmental situation in Gaza...
6. Further sustainable and right-based alternative solutions exist...
The "right" they are demanding is for Israel to provide the water to Gaza at a discount.
Isn't it fascinating that "pro-Palestinian" organizations are asking for Gaza to be more dependent on Israel, rather than more independent?
Instead of adding new freshwater to a region that is already in crisis, they want Israel to redistribute the water it has - to its own detriment.
And who are these brilliant NGOs who don't want Gaza to have new sources of fresh drinking water?
Endorsing organizations:
EWASH members:
1. DanChurchAid
2. Applied Research Institute Jerusalem (ARIJ)
3. Polish Humanitarian Action
4. Institute of Environmental and Water Studies - Birzeit University
5. Near East Council of Churches-Jerusalem
6. Middle East Children's Alliance
7. Palestinian Environment NGO Network (PENGON)
8. We Effect – Swedish Cooperative Centre
9. MAAN Development Centre
10. House for Water and Environment (HWE)
11. Palestinian Wastewater Engineers Group (PalWEG)
12. Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees (PARC)
Other civil society organizations:
13. Al-Mezan Centre for Human Rights
14. The Palestinian Centre for Human rights
15. Media Environmental Centre
16. Palestinian Farmers Union (PFU)
17. Earth and Human Centre for Research and Studies (EHCRS)
18. Palestinian Farmers Association
19. Land Research Centre
20. Institute for water and environment – Al-Azhar University
21. Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UWAC)
22. Palestinian Environment Friends (PEF)
23. Arab Centre for Agricultural Development
Keep this list in mind, because these orgsnizations - including so-called "human rights" organizations - are so obsessed with hurting Israel that they are willing to increase the suffering of Gazans to accomplish it.
Yesterday's post about the Red Crescent-branded ambulances being part of the Hamas terror convoy brought a reaction from Juan-Pedro Schaerer, ICRC Head of delegation for Israel and the Occupied Territories, on Twitter.
these ambulances do not belong to the PRCS [Palestinian Red Cross Society]
I asked:
So Hamas is misusing the Red Crescent symbol? Is anything being done to go after them?
He responded:
not so simple responsibility for authorising use of RC emblems rests with State & use regulated by domestic law... As far as I remenber there is no law in #Palestine for the protection of the emblem (see here.)
He appears to be right. In previous cases of the Red Cross complaining about the misuse of its symbol, it was the national Red Cross societies that lodged the complaints, not the ICRC. Even so, since the PA Red Crescent is not likely to lodge its own complaint, it would seem to behoove the ICRC to publicly dissociate itself from Hamas' use of these ambulances with their logo.
Schaerer also implies that these Hamas ambulances, by not being authorized, would lose their protection in any military campaign. I asked him if he would agree, but he has not yet answered.
The document he referred me to, however, has a very interesting section on how the Red Cross/Red Crescent symbol should be used in occupied territories.
Last month, I pointed out that the ICRC's definition of Gaza as being "occupied" made no sense and contradicted even the defintions of the international legal scholars gathered by the ICRC itself. The same Juan-Pedro Schaerer responded by saying that the ICRC uses a "functional theory" of occupation, a position that is patently absurd.
Briefly, the "functional theory" states that occupation law applies even when the occupation is only partial, and it applies to those areas that it is possible to be applied. So the definition of "occupation" is no longer "boots on the ground" and "effective control" of the area, but...something else that is not very well defined. Needless to say, this "functional theory" is only applied to Israel. And needless to say, this vague theory allows people to twist international law against Israel because now organizations like the ICRC can define what parts of Gaza Israel is responsible for and what parts aren't.
This Red Cross document shows, again, how that theory makes no sense.
It says:
If the competent body of the Occupied State is still functioning, it should be allowed by the Occupying Power to continue granting official recognition and the authorization to display the emblem. If it is no longer functioning and cannot grant official recognition, the Occupying Power has to substitute itself for the authorities of the Occupied State and issue the documents granting recognition and the right to display the emblem, to civilian hospitals (in particular, new ones), and to civilian medical units, personnel and transports.103 The Occupying Power is ultimately responsible for ensuring that recognition and authorization to display the emblem are properly granted,104 and for issuing identity cards and armlets to the staff of civilian hospitals.105 The Occupying Power should grant official recognition and authorization to display the emblem only to the hospitals, staff and medical transports that fulfil the conditions laid down in Articles 18, 20 and 21 of GC IV.106
The note 104 says:
"the distinctive emblem should not be affixed without the consent of the competent authority of this Party (which may also be an adverse Party for that matter, particularly in the case of occupied territory)."
The document makes it appear that Israel would be "ultimately responsible" for the proper use of the symbol if is is considered the occupying power of Gaza. This is just one absurdity with the unique "functional theory " of occupation put forth by the ICRC in regards to Israel.
Schaerer answered with the same "functional" definition:
Israel continues to be bound by occ.law Gaza but since the control exercised today is limited, so are the responsibilities.
I don't know how that jives with being "ultimately responsible." That wording appears to me to blow apart the "functional theory" because if Israel is the occupier, as ICRC claims, then it is "ultimately responsible" no matter whether the occupation is traditional or "functional." Obviously in this case Israel cannot be considered responsible, which means it cannot be considered the occupier.
I responded
P. 45 says occupier is "ultimately responsible" for use of symbol. You are saying Israel isn't, but is still occupier?
He didn't answer that either.
One additional point: The ICRC considers Israel responsible for the hospitals in Gaza by insisting that their being stocked with medicines (for example) is a responsibility under occupation law. So according to this theory, the hospitals are under Israeli effective control but the ambulances are not?
There are two kinds of settlements in Judea and Samaria: the ones that are legal under Israeli law, and the ones that are not.
The illegal settlements, often called "outposts" because they are often tiny, are, under international law - legal!
Let me explain.
The entire reason any settlements are considered "illegal" under international law is because of a tortured reading of the Fourth Geneva Conventions, Article 49, paragraph 6:
The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies. The argument that Jewish settlements are illegal comes from bizarre idea that people who choose voluntarily to live there are somehow being "transferred" by Israel. The arguments for that are very strained, to say the least. They are usually centered on how Israel supports the settlements it considers legal by building infrastructure or otherwise making life there any easier for its citizens, as if that fits the definition of "transfer."
But the people who choose to break Israeli law and build their own illegal settlements cannot by any stretch of interpreting Geneva be considered to be "transferred" - their decision to move is purely voluntary and not encouraged at all by the Israeli government.
Which means that these outposts that are illegal under Israeli law are legal under international law - no matter how you try to misinterpret Geneva Art. 49!
(This is all moot, despite all the NGOs that say that settlements violate Geneva. For an in-depth look at Article 49 and why it clearly doesn't apply to Jewish settlements, see here for the travaux préparatoires.)
Last week I wrote a post about how the International Committee of the Red Cross was, in my opinion, hypocritical for ignoring the opinions of experts it gathered to discuss the definition of "occupation" and choosing instead to consider Gaza to still be occupied, against all normative legal opinions.
I received two responses from Juan-Pedro Schaerer, ICRC Head of Delegation, Israel and the Occupied Territories, in the comments. The first one:
While this article provides a summary of an important expert's workshop, the author ignores essential facts used by the ICRC when applying of the Law of Occupation to Gaza.
The ICRC closely monitors developments in the Gaza Strip, since facts on the ground are crucial to determining whether the elements of effective control required for occupation continue to be met. While it cannot be said that the Gaza Strip is a "classic" situation of occupation, Israel has not entirely relinquished its effective control over the Strip. This control includes amongst other the almost total control over the borders of the Gaza Strip (except for the border with Egypt), the control over the airspace and the entire coast line, the control over who can move out of the Gaza Strip, the control of the population register, control over all the items that can be imported and exported from the Strip and the control over a no-go zone along the Gaza fence inside the Gaza Strip. These facts and others allow ICRC to determine that Israel exercises effective control and therefore remains bound by the law of occupation in the case of Gaza.
This article ignores such essential facts and concludes in a facile way that the ICRC is hypocritical, biased and politically-motivated. The ICRC has no doubt that much of the hardship caused to the 1.7 million people living in Gaza would be reduced if international humanitarian law was fully understood and respected. ICRC works in a neutral and impartial way to promote a better understanding of international humanitarian law, and to alleviate the suffering caused by those who fail to respect it.
Schaerer Juan Pedro
ICRC Head of Delegation Israel and the Occupied Territories
And a second one, after I commented:
In response to your comments and for the purpose of clarification, I wish to emphasize that the ICRC does not maintain that Israel has retained all elements of authority and governmental functions in Gaza. Rather, our position is that even after the withdrawal of its forces in 2005 Israel continues to exercise effective control over certain key elements of authority in Gaza and therefore remains bound by obligations under the law of occupation within the territorial and functional limits of the competences it has retained. This reflects a functional approach to the law of occupation that emanates from the underlying purpose and rationale of that body of law. In simplified terms it means that to the extent that an occupying power retains control of key functions and authorities in the occupied territory it also remains bound by the relevant provisions of the law of occupation. Where there is control there is responsibility. For an elaboration on this see T. Ferraro, Determining the beginning and end of an occupation under international humanitarian law, 94 IRRC 133, 159 (aviliable online here:)
The argument first used by Mr. Schaerer was taken near verbatim from one invented by Gisha, a political pro-Palestinian NGO. It is not an argument that has any basis in general international law. Mr. Schaerer’s argument consisted of a list of factual assertions, some of which are obviously correct but irrelevant (yes, Israel controls Israel’s own land borders with Gaza), and some of which are obviously both false and irrelevant (no, Israel does not “control … all the items that can be imported and exported from the Strip” – Gaza imports and exports goods through its land borders with Egypt). None of the factual assertions relate to the generally understood legal criteria for effective control as understood in international law, as ICRC officials would readily acknowledge if Israel were not in the dock. Is there any other case in recorded history where the “facts” offered by Mr. Schaerer have been interpreted as sufficient “effective control” to create a belligerent occupation notwithstanding the absence of (1) boots on the ground and (2) any administration by the purported “occupier”? The answer, of course, is no. It is curious that Mr. Schaerer didn’t even try to analyze how the generally applicable test for belligerent occupation would apply to Israel and Gaza. Instead, he said that a set of irrelevant facts “allow ICRC to determine that Israel exercises effective control.” Well, sure. ICRC is “allowed” to make any determination it wants. It is “allowed” to determine Spain occupies Portugal, if it wants. Mr. Schaerer’s “clarification” is even more mystifying. He appears to be saying that the ICRC acknowledges that Gaza is not occupied by Israel, but that the ICRC claims that Israel can still be bound by some of the rules of belligerent occupation due to legally insufficient effective control. This is a novel theory that was advanced by Gisha after its earlier arguments that Israel “occupies” Gaza found no support among legal scholars not pre-committed to the Palestinian side. Needless to say, Gisha’s new theory has no basis in the text of any treaties, and it has never been applied against any other country in recorded history. In other words, it is a brand-new anti-Israel theory aimed to create legal duties that restrict the conduct of the Jewish state, but not of any other state in the world. There are several additional oddities in Mr. Schaerer’s clarification. First, it is a lie. The ICRC continues to treat Gaza as belligerently occupied territory (see, e.g., here.) I cannot find a single public statement of the ICRC that acknowledges that Gaza is not actually belligerently occupied by Israel, but rather that Israel is bound by some laws of occupation under the “functional” theory even though Gaza is not occupied. Even Mr. Schaerer’s fails to acknowledge this openly in his “clarification.” Instead, Schaerer’s characterizes the ICRC position in a disingenuous manner. Schaerer claims that the ICRC restricts itself to asserting that “Israel ... remains bound by obligations under the law of occupation within the territorial and functional limits of the competences it has retained.” This is, of course, a flat-out lie. The ICRC continues to assert that Israel is bound by the law of occupation well beyond any “functional limits of the competences [Israel] has retained.” For instance, the ICRC continues to blame Israel for the failures of Hamas’ health care system in Gaza, the lack of variety of goods exported from Egypt to Gaza, and numerous other “competences” that have nothing to do with Israel. Second, not only does Mr. Schaerer refuse to acknowledge the nature of the new theory he is advancing, he pretends that it is existing and well-known international law. The disingenuousness of Mr. Schaerer’s claims on this score can be seen by looking at his citation of an article by an ICRC advisor that Mr. Schaerer claims supports the bizarre anti-Israel theory used by the ICRC. The article is written by a senior legal advisor at the ICRC, so it naturally attempts to support the ICRC’s position. But ironically, the article does little more than show just how baseless the ICRC’s anti-Israel position is. Mr. Schaerer claims the article shows that "[w]here there is control there is responsibility" and Israel has "control" according to the ICRC, and it must therefore have responsibility. But the article actually says quite the opposite. According to the article, the general understanding of international law when not distorted to attack the Jewish state is that a state only has control if three ingredients are present at the same time: (1) the armed forces of the occupying state are physically present in a foreign territory without the consent of the local government; (2) the effective local government has been or can be rendered substantially incapable of exerting its powers by virtue of the foreign forces’ unconsented-to presence; and (3) the foreign forces are in a position to exercise authority over the territory concerned (or parts thereof) in lieu of the local government. As it happens, exactly ZERO of these ingredients are present in Gaza. In other words, the article cited as authoritative by Schaerer shows just the opposite of what he claims. Of course, the article is produced by an ICRC lackey, and it attempts to fabricate a new legal theory that can justify the ICRC’s position against the Jewish state. Thus the article offers for unnamed “specific and exceptional cases” the “functional theory” that Mr. Schaerer uses to try to impose legal duties on Israel to support Hamas’s rule in Gaza. But the article does not even try to claim that there has ever been such a specific and exceptional case in recorded history. In fact, the article introduces its discussion of the “functional theory” by contrasting it with existing law, making it clear that even the article’s author cannot seriously claim that the ICRC’s anti-Israel position reflects international law as it currently stands. Instead, the article offers the “functional theory” as an innovation for which the article cites not a single legal authority nor any legal precedent. However, I should acknowledge that Mr. Schaerer is right in saying that it is “facile” to accuse the ICRC of hypocrisy. We do not have any clear evidence of the ICRC officials’ motivation in distorting legal standards to create a uniquely harsh anti-Israel standard. The only things that can be clearly demonstrated are that the ICRC is using a harsher standard against Jewish state than it has used against any other country in recorded history, that its anti-Israel standard has no basis in international law as it is currently understood and applied, and that ICRC employees advocate the ICRC’s anti-Israel position by means of falsehoods and disingenuous argumentation. Until an ICRC employee is willing to be more forthcoming, the reasons for the ICRC’s bias against the world’s only Jewish state will remain a mystery.
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