AP is
reporting
today that Mahmoud Zahhar, one of the co-founders of Hamas, “most likely will be named foreign minister, according to a preliminary
list of Cabinet ministers given to The Associated Press by officials in Hamas
and the PFLP.”
So I thought I should quickly write up the interview I conducted with Dr.
Zahhar in his mosque-side Gaza home, after the end of evening prayers on
March 6. In it, he oozed self-confidence, and a determination that
the Hamas government would not be making the kinds of concessions to Israel
and the west that were what, in the view of many Hamas supporters, had
led Mahmoud Abbas’s Fateh Party into such a non-productive and humiliating
dead end.
Zahhar described a Hamas program that for the next two years would focus
on rebuilding the Palestinians’ own society as much as possible, while quite possibly redirecting Gaza’s economic links away from Israel
and towards Egypt, and that would not necessarily involve any negotiations at all
with Israel. At one point, when I asked if Hamas could do anything
to help reassure Israelis, he answered flatly, “They should be scared,
because whenever they felt a sense of security they felt it would be okay
to make aggressions… When they felt insecurity, was when they withdrew.
And that was a big victory for us.”
We sat in a large, ground-floor reception room, near a corner in which stood
two large flags: the green Hamas flag and the four-colored flag of Palestine.
An aide brought us first coffee, then tea, from a small kitchen at
the far end of the room.
Next to the kitchen I could see, incongruously, a small, beat-up Japanese
sedan parked in an indoor garage that was not walled off from the reception
room at all. At one point, Zahhar pointed to it. “That’s
my car,” he said. “Did you see the expensive cars that the Fateh leaders
drive?” Later, he said, “The people saw the sacrifice that the Hamas
leaders made for the people’s interest.” He himself lost his son, Khaled,
who was killed, along with a Zahhar bodyguard, when Israeli F-16s dropped
an 1,100-pound bomb on his home in September 2003. That bombing was ordered
the day after Hamas suicide bombers killed 15 young people– including a
number of soldiers– at two locations inside Israel.
Zahhar was at the door of his home when the big bomb dropped. He, his
wife, and one of their daughters were among those injured in the bombing.
He speaks English well. (I think he received some of his training as
a physician in Britain.) We exchanged greetings, and I asked how he
was. He sounded happy and confident as he responded, “I feel good today.”
He referred to some far-reaching constitutional and administrative
changes that the lame-duck, Fateh-dominated Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) enacted February 13, just before it dissolved and made way for the new PLC, elected January 25, in which Hamas held 74 of the 132 seats.
He said,
- I feel good because on February 13 the Fateh Council tried to change
everything. But today in the Council, we overturned everything they tried
to do there– and then they withdrew from the Council! You know, we’re going
to reform everything here, and we’re not going to allow the Fateh people
to wrecks our plan to do that.
If Fateh doesn’t work with us, then we can proceed with just the independents
and the left parties and factions. We can do it even without Abu Mazen.
We invited them to join a national unity government, but now, we’ve heard
that they decided not to come with us.
I noted that of the 150,00 or so people on the PA’s payroll, who include
around 60,000 people in the various ‘security’ services, many had reportedly
gotten their jobs through Fateh’s patronage networks, and suggested that
many of these individuals might be scared of the prospect of Hamas’s people
coming in to run the ministries. He said,
We’re not going to touch the jobs of the Fateh people in government
jobs at all– provided they are are actually working at their jobs. But
we know there are thousands of people on the payroll who are false employees–
they don’t even show up to work. If we sort those out quite quickly,
then we can already save a lot of money.
I asked about the policy a Hamas government would adopt towards the peace
process with Israel.
We are speaking about nothing! There is no peace process!
That was the mistake of Fateh: they believed there was a ‘peace process’.
Fateh recognized Israel on 78% of Palestine [i.e., Israel within its
pre-1967 borders], and Israel recognized the PLO and the PA on not one single
inch of land. Saeb Erakat [a key Fateh peace negotiator] even said
that ‘negotiations are our strategic goal.’ But they got nothing.And yes, the Israelis tried to make problems between Hamas and Fateh. But we
are the majority. Western research centers were saying that Hamas supporters
made up somewhere between 12% and 18% of the population– but these figures
were fabricated.
(In fact, Hamas won 44% of the popular vote in the nationwide portion of
the election. Fateh won 41%. But Hamas’s far greater organizational
discipline brought it a stronger presence within the PLC than those
raw proportions would indicate.)
Zahhar said, “People understood Fateh’s ways, and their goals, and they
clearly chose us as the alternative to that. We used a clear, straightforward
new language, that people responded to.”
He seemed very confident that, despite the campaign that the Bush administration
and other western powers were waging, to isolate and marginalize
the Palestinians’ new Hamas leadership, Hamas would survive– and indeed,
that the western countries would end up talking to Hamas:
We saw during Condoleezza Rice’s recent visit to Arab countries,
when she was trying to line up support from the Arab governments for Washington’s
policy of shunning us, in fact she was very unsuccessful. From some
of the Arab countries she visited, we got some very important statements
[of dissent from her approach.] From President Mubarak, from Saud al-Faisal,
etc.So whatever the attitude of the west now, they will come and talk
to us in the end.The Arab countries are all ready to help us, and give us the support we need.
They know the difference between Fateh and Hamas. Fateh ran such
destructive policies towards the Arab states– with Jordan, with Lebanon,
during the Iran-Iraq war. Their history in the region is one full of bloodshed,
and engagement in axes against this or that Arab state. But the Arab
states know that we are not playing with their security.Besides, our phenomenon is present and known within the Arab
countries.
I think this was a reference to the various national branches
of the Muslim Brotherhood, the broad Islamist movement that incubated Hamas.
(It is not immediately clear to me whether the existence of large bodies of popular
support for these other branches of the Brotherhood would necessarily incline
US-supported governments like those in Egypt or Jordan to be more eager
to support Hamas– or whether it make them more cautious about doing so. But Zahhar
was clearly portraying it as helpful to them.)
He said,
We also have strong support from public opinion in Egypt,
Jordan, and Syria. We are much more respected even than Hizbullah [in
lebanon]– because people know that Hizbullah had two states that stood with
them, but we are completely on our own.Our strategy right now is twofold: to ‘clean the Palestinian house’, and
also to clean up our people’s relations with the Arab countries. In
our own house here, we need to find a good way to make the social and economic
investments that are so badly needed here, and also to clean Palestinian
society from collaborators.
He did not specify who these collaborators were.
I asked whether he thought Israel would allow a Hamas-led government to proceed
with its internal ‘house-cleaning’ and socioeconomic reconstruction project.
He answered with some scorn in his voice:
Israel won’t ‘allow’ Hamas to pursue our goals here.
They didn’t ‘allow’ us to do so in the past– but we did so anyway!
I asked how he foresaw a Hamas government proceeding in the tricky arena
of international trade relations. Ever since the birth of the PA in
1994, its economy has been tied to Israel’s much larger, much wealthier economy
through an agreement called the ‘
Paris Agreement
‘, which delineates a single ‘customs envelope’ around the two countries.
Israel exercises complete control over the movement of all goods into
and out of Gaza and the West Bank– and this control continues, even regarding
Gaza, and even after last summer’s withdrawal of all of Israel’s troops and
settlers from the body of the Gaza Strip. This control over all avenues
for external trade has given Israel a stranglehold over the PA’s economy
that is even tighter than the one that apartheid South Africa used to exercise
over its Bantustans.
The Paris agreement also allows Israel to control all aspects of bilateral
trade between the two entities, a fact that it has exploited by treating
the Palestinian areas as a captive markets for its own goods while placing
extremely high, often insuperable, barriers on the Palestinians’ ability
to export their goods to Israel.
Zahhar spoke with calm determination about the prospect of Gaza breaking
out of the Paris Agreement. “An opening of our trade links to Egypt
and through our seaport is a first option for us,” he said.
The Israelis have violated all the economic agreements
from the Paris Agreement through to the Rafah Agreement [which was concluded
with Secretary Rice’s help just last November]. So we are not obligated
to remain within them.If we push ahead with regard to opening our border with Egypt, we can certainly
make it work to the benefit of both sides. You know, in September,
right after the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza,when our border with Egypt was
unsecured– we learned that our people spent $8 million in El-Arish in just
ten days, because the prices of everything in Egypt are so much lower than
the prices the Israelis impose on us here.
I mentioned a concern that some Palestinians had voiced: that if Gaza broke
out of the Paris Agreement, this would split it off even more from the West
Bank– an area that remains under much tighter and more pervasive Israeli
control than Gaza. Zahhar was unfazed. “Gaza is already cut from
the West Bank,” he said. He noted that any switch by the Gazans from
the customs envelope with Israel to a new economic link with Egypt, “should
of course be by arrangement with Egypt.”
He was harshly critical of the record of the Fateh-dominated security services:
We have 60,000 policemen and they can’t even arrest
one drug seller! Now, the situation has become so chaotic that many
families are even arming themselves Everywhere, there’s insecurity.Our government will really need to work on many different things in parallel.
We need to get investment from the Middle East. We need to build
up many projects here: in the municipalities, in the health services, in
education. And at the same time, we need to speak politically with
others, to win the rights of Palestinians both outside and inside Palestine.
We are their father.We know the West Bank will continue to suffer from occupation, and the people
there must resist that.
I asked what his expectation was regarding the policies Israel would
follow after its election, March 28.
I expect that after the Israeli election there
will be a further Israeli withdrawl in the West Bank… You know, when
Israel undertakes unilateral withdrawals, they are costless to us, because
they do not tie us up in negotiations. They are a big victory for us!
Nearly all the Hamas leaders and activists whom I interviewed viewed the
prospect of negotiations with Israel with considerable wariness, referring
to Fateh’s record in such negotiations and concluding that those negtoations
had just been a very damaging trap. But Zahhar was the most outspoken
on this issue of any of them. “The conflict should not be solved
in our age, because the power equation here is not yet balanced,” he said
at one point. “… If the Israelis leave us alone a while, and want to come
to talk to us later, then okay.”
I noted that many Israelis were extremely fearful of Hamas, and asked him
whether there was not something Hamas might do to use persuasion to
budge Israelis– or at least, those on the left who might be amenable to
such persuasion– toward more openness to Hamas’s position.
He said,
What is the difference between Israeli extreme
rightists and extreme leftists? On central issues like Jerusalem and
the right of return, there is no difference! How can we persuade
people who took away all our rights?Mr. Arafat believed he could, and he helped some of these parties, even with
cash. But look where it got him!They should be scared, because whenever they felt a sense of security
they felt it would be okay to make aggressions, like in 1956, 1967, 1982.When they felt insecurity, was when they withdrew. And that was a big
victory for us.
Later, he said about the election campaign then just getting underway in
Israel, “We understand the political map in Israel: to get elected there,
you need to have blood on your hands. The only one who didn’t was Shimon
Peres– and he didn’t get elected.”
He claimed that Hamas had received expressions of support for its position
from many prominent political figures in the Arab world, including veteran
Nasserist Mohamed Hassanein Haikal and others whom he described as “historic
leaders”. He added,
Nowadays, we see many countries inviting
us to visit. But when Abu Mazen went to Qatar to ask for financial
support there, they turned him down.These days, the US presence in Iraq is helping the Palestinian people, because
the failure of the US project there will certainly weaken Israel. Also,
the picture of the US as oppressing people– at Abu Ghraib, or Guantanamo,
or elsewhere– all this increases anti-US attitudes.Also, this issue with the [Danish] cartoons raised the feelings of Muslims
against the West in general…You know, when the PLO was hit in Lebanon in 1982, by the Israelis, no-one
helped them. Why? because they had previously behaved so badly
toward so many Arab peoples. We are different. Hamas is welcomed
everywhere in the Arab world.
He described the visit that Hamas political bureau chief Khaled Mashaal had
recently made to Moscow as
a breakthrough in our relations with the
Quartet. And now, we are hoping to have a breakthrough with the Europeans,
because they will not be prepared to follow the US forever. You know,
the boycott against Danish goods here in the Middle East reminds people of
the 1973 oil boycott…
I asked what he predicted the Palestinian situation would look like in another
two years.
I see a further Israeli withdrawal in
the West Bank. There will be a flourishing in our eceonomy and in our
society. We’ll be represented in the international community, and people
around the world will see a good example of how a people without resources
can build strong industries.
He notably made no mention of peace talks with Israel during that time.
Almost alone among the Hamas leaders I talked to, Zahhar said that the victory
the organization won in the January election had not come as any surprise
to him. “I told the Egyptians before that I thought we’d get 70 seats.
They said no, 40 or so. So we got more than 70!” He said
that people who consider all Muslims to be terrorists were “deeply shocked”
by the election result. “But when they see how we run the institutions
here, they’ll be very surprised.”
I asked about Hamas’s relations with the Christians in Palestinian society,
and with those Palestinian Muslims who are not as religiously observant as
the Hamas people. He referred to the electoral alliances they had
entered into, with people in both of those camps, and noted that those alliances
had worked well for everyone concerned. “People will become persuaded
by our actions,” he said confidently.
They will stop opposing us once they
see what we can achieve. But what is the ideal of Fateh? As everyone
can now see, they only have one ideal, and that is money.
I asked about Hamas’s relations with Al-Qaeda. He said,
I want to tell the American people:
we are not against the American people, but we do note those individuals
who support Israel’s aggressions against us.The Muslims are not against any other people. In history we have been
the most tolerant, and we have had relations with all other civilizations.
We believe in cooperation, not conflict.Americans should understand: We are a moderate organization. We are
not Qaeda at all.
I had a few more questions. But it was time for the next set of prayers.
(Actually, in the middle of the interview, the muezzin had sounded
balefully out from the mosque across the street, and Zahhar took three or
four minutes to say one set of prayers quietly under his breath, as he sat
there in the chair next to me. The rhythms of the prayer day are very
important to the Hamas people I’ve encountered.) On this occasion,
though, Zahhar said he needed to go across to the mosque to pray. He also
had another political meeting right after. I took my leave.
… I found Zahhar to be forthright, smart, self-confident, and fairly inflexible.
But above all I found him determined. Earlier, one of his colleagues
in the Hamas leadership had expressed quiet satisfaction to me that, though in 2003-2004
the Israelis tried to wipe out all of Hamas’s top leadership– and in
the course of that, they did succeed in killing Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and four
or five other top leaders– “Still, we not only survived that wave of assassinations, but we also, in the
election, showed that our organization emerged from it intact, and strong.”
So maybe some of Zahhar’s determination and self-confidence comes from the
fact that he has personally embodied that spirit of tough survival. Or
maybe it comes from his religious faith. Anyway, if Mahmoud Zahhar
is indeed going to be the Palestinians’ next Foreign Minister, the world’s
other diplomats will find him to be a man of clear vision and intelligence–
but very little of the kind of flexibility that the West is now seeking.
Unfortunate. If his words signal how Hamas will proceed from here, then both the prospects for peace and the prospects for a better life for the Palestinians have taken a significant downturn.
H’mmm… Somehow, Joshua, after all the highly antagonistic, strongly pro-Israeli things you’ve written here on JWN , your professions of concern for “the prospects for a better life for the Palestinians” don’t ring terribly true to me…
Do tell us, though: on what basis do you feel that you know what’s best for the Palestinians? Do you talk to a lot of Palestinians? Tell us what they say! Or have you studied their situation after ten years of Fateh rule and 39 years of Israeli occupation, very closely? What have you learned?
There is no peace process so how can the prospects for peace and for the Palestinian people get better anyway. The only process that is happening is Israel shitting on the Palestinians in the hope that they will disappear.
I honestly hope that they succeed in their goals. Many here in the ME sympathise with them knowing that Israel and the American administration will not waste any opportunity to wreck their efforts and to make Hamas people appear helpless in front of the Palestinians who elected them. Today, as reported in Aljazeera TV,Israel blocked the transfer of flour to the West Bank and Gaza and Israel will not hesitate to starve the Palestinians . Your interview with Al Zahar clearly shows that people in Hamas are not fooling themselves and understand exactly what they are facing and understand the nature of the Israelis they are dealing with. As he told you , Israel will never feel that it is enough of the Palestinian blood or land. Those who have more Palestinian blood on their hands will win the election and those who steal more of their land will remain in power . The experience of the last 10 years and the fate of Arafat just prove that . It is obvious from your interview that Hamas assimilated that experience. I hope that Al Zahar (and Hania and the others) live long enough to achieve some of his goals before Israel assasinate him or poison him.By the way , the sympathy with hamas is not out of sympathy with the Muslim Brotherhood or other religious factions in the ME (I’m against the MB here in Egypt for example) but because of the enormous unjust those people are facing and because it appears that they are not corrupted.
I just forgot to say that I enjoyed reading the interview and your previous posts from Gaza and the West Bank. Whether you meant it or not your reporting of the environment that surrounded your meeting with AlZahar gave the interview a deeper meaning . Those people has virtually nothing but their faith .
Helena, I strongly resent your accusation. I would love nothing better than to see the Palestinians prosper. What I object to is the repeated, one sided, evidence lacking, accusations against Israelis.
On what basis do I make my statement? My statement was not based on what I subjectively think is “best” for the Palestinians. My statement was based on how the Israelis will most likely react to this.
Zahhar’s bravado is so typical of the rhetoric of Palestinian “leadership.” On the one hand, they will regularly shriek at out how terribly off they are, and that Israel is about to either commit genocide, or take the rest of their land, or do some other horrible thing. On the other hand, they crow about how their “resistance” has brought them victory.
As for the basis of my statements? I think well being is subjective, but there are also objective benchmarks, such as IM rates, literacy rates, GDP and the like. The one time we tried to discuss such matters, you blew up and started to delete posts, because you knew that you couldn’t actually back up your assertions with evidence.
Joshua, I don’t doubt that at some level (and on your own, evidently very strongly pro-Israeli, terms) you might have good intentions toward the Palestinians. But the proposition that you– an outsider from a distant land who doesn’t evince much familiarity with actual Palestinians or even with the social-science literature about them; and an outsider, moreover, who leaps into every discussion with harangues that express a strongly partisan, pro-Israeli point of view– are actually in a position to “know what is best for Palestinians” strikes me as incredibly imperialist and paternalistic.
Sort of like the folks in the Bush administration assuring everyone back in the early days of the US occupation of Iraq that they “knew what was best” for Iraqis…
So all round, a little humility and a little more commitment to trying to engage as an equal with people who actually are Palestinians, Iraqis, or whatever, and to listening to them rather than preaching to them might be in order before you sound off, pronouncing on what is good for them?
I think my idea that the next year will look a lot like the last year is supported by this interview. That is, an extension of the “Calm” or Hudna-in-place without either major negotiations or a major flare up in violence. Gaza will be more independent and the two peoples will increasingly separate.
If the number of Palestinians who commute to work in Israel goes down and stays down, both economies will suffer, and I think this is likely. If Gaza manages to get trade going to Egypt or through a seaport the would help them. But if there are boatloads of weapons brought into Gaza then there could be another military flare up. The question is what kind and when? An Intifada or something different? I don’t think anybody will give planes or tanks to the Palestinians, and they wouldn’t last long if they had them. But artillery and rockets can be smuggled in.
Hamas is essentially part of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is not at all popular with the current government of Egypt, so I expect cooperation to be limited. But what happens after Mubarak, who is now 78 years old, leaves office?
As long as Israel is concerned about another Intifada or Hamas getting a nuke from Iran, though, I think Israeli control of ports would be pretty active.
I think Joshua is right when he says that the more intensive the conflict, the more injury to the Palestinian economy. This is important because there is a theory that a better economic situation for the Palestinians will be more likely to produce peace.
The Israeli assassination program seems to have had the desired effect of reducing Hamas military aggressiveness. It will be interesting to see how far and for how long. The interview didn’t cover the personal emotional reaction of Mahmoud Zahar to the deaths of Yassin and Rantisi, (as well as his son) but I would be interested to find out. Zahar is physician who has seen death in his family and in Hamas. He may be telling truth when he says he is a moderate, at least by his lights. Of course, moderates can go to war.
And Hamas is not shy about saying that their plan is to build up their forces so they can start another war when the outlook is brighter for them. The trick would be to do this without triggering a pre-emptive Israeli declawing of the new Hamas/PA.
Helena,
I think more or less everyone wants the same thing. To live in peace, to have good prospects to make a living, freedom of movement, etc.
My belief that the election of a racist group like Hamas is not based on any “paternalistic” or “imperialisitic” thinking. It’s based on my observations of the conflict. When Palestinians resort to terror and violence, Israel hits them back, hard.
If Hamas thinks the past five and a half years have been good to the Palestinians, I guess that they can feel that way, though. I’ll remember that the next time people say that Israel’s actions during that time have “prevented a two state solution” or have “economically strangled the Palestinians” or have “been conducting a slow genocide” or the other alarmist statements I’ve heard. Zahhar says that the Palestinians are doing peachy keen beacuse of his resistance. So it must be true.
Helena: I don’t think you have to be a great social scientist or be fluent in Arabic to know the basics about what’s “best for Palestinians”.
Anyone can see that the recent Palestinian leadership has led them into war and caused economic loss. By any normal standard, a two-state solution with the two peoples living side by side in peace and prosperity would be better for the Palestinians than the decades of war have been. The current Hamas leadership does not even have this as a goal. The recent leadership of Arafat was unable to engage reality sufficiently first to abandon rejectionism and second to accomplish peace.
But the proposition that you– an outsider from a distant land who doesn’t evince much familiarity with actual Palestinians or even with the social-science literature about them; and an outsider, moreover, who leaps into every discussion with harangues that express a strongly partisan, pro-Israeli point of view– are actually in a position to “know what is best for Palestinians” strikes me as incredibly imperialist and paternalistic.
What brought on this attack? I think that Joshua’s two-sentence comment about the interview was quite reasonable and certainly far less presumptuous than many of the idiotic statements (e.g. about genocide) that pass here without comment.
BTW, being pro-Israel – even “strongly” such – does not mean that a person does not care about the prospects of a better life for Palestinians.
Joshua,JES – what a load of crap, frankly, to pretend concern that the Palestians “have a better life” and “prosper” and that the current plight of the Palestinians is somehow due to their tactical mismanagement of Israel’s aggression.
Just give them back their land per UN 242, that’s it – and they will prosper, have peace, and a better life! Not one of you “mionders” (including WarrenW) uses semantics which acknowledge the two most operative causes of inhumane injustice and suffering to Palestinians: Israeli and US co-sponsored occupation and land appropriation.
You three “minders” of Helena’s page want the “Cherokee” peace that the US forced by military might 179 years ago. Take their land, force them out, starve them, and when they either capitulate from exhaustion, are gone or dead, then there is “peace” and you can give them a dry stony “reservation” for their “prosperity, peace and ‘better life’ “.
You fear Hamas because it is not inclined to any “white man’s bargain”. And if the Cherokee’s fate is any lesson, how right Hamas is!
it bears repeating…the Fedayeen attacks on Israeli civilians beyond the Green Line predated the settlement of a single Israeli in the West Bank…the only occupation predating the 1967 banishing of the UN Sinai peacekeepers and the blockade of the Straits of Tiran was by Egypt (Gaza) and Jordan (West Bank).
and it is quite obvious that the prosperity of Arabs living on the West Bank and Gaza would be an enormous boon to Israel.
Timothy,
Do me a favor. Don’t tell me what I think, and I won’t tell you what you think!
“I think more or less everyone wants the same thing. To live in peace . . .”
There’s where you’re wrong, Joshua. The problem is, and always has been, that a small but potent minority of people are not content just to live in peace. They don’t see why they should give up anything that they can take by force. We are all familiar with their many rationales – social Darwinism, manifest destiny, natural law, religious duty, the right of discovery, cultural enlightenment, free market economics, etc. It all amounts to the same thing: what’s mine is mine, and what’s yours is mine too, if I can get it.
To those of us without 5 years to kill obtaining a masters in social science, or the time available to travel to the West Bank and Gaza to interview the elected leaders there, Helena’s reports are valuable.
“there is no difference… between Israeli extreme rightists and extreme leftists”; “[Israelis] should be scared”. Hamas isn’t bound by the terms of the Rafah agreement. “the US presence in Iraq is helping the Palestinian people”.
Quite informative. Keep up the good work Helena.
Well, JES, I am not a mind-reader but I am a word reader. And you write that one can be strongly “pro-Israel” and yet “care about the prospects of a better life for Palestinians”. You tell me, JES, does “strongly pro-Israel” allow for acceptance of UN 242 as the final solution? What’s a “pro-Israel” definition of the better life for the Palestinians? Getting enough flour into Gaza to prevent starvation? Would you go for returning to West Bank Palestinian farmers enough water so they aren’t forced from their land? Do you include returning to Palestinians the agricultural use of the Jordan Valley?
You tell me how you define “a better life for the Palestinians”, JES. If not UN 242 then I have you marked pretty well for how you think. “Expansion beyond the Green Line …. by all means necessary”. The Cherokee solution.
“Does ‘strongly pro-Israel’ allow for acceptance of UN 242 as the final solution?”
242 calls for Israeli withdrawal from “territories” occupied in 1967 – not from “THE territories”.
That suggests negotiation between the parties to settle on the extent of withdrawal. Indeed, Israel has successfully negotiated with Egypt a withdrawal from occupied Sinai.
The UN Security Council declined to adopt a draft resolution which called for the withdrawal from “ALL territories”. The author of Resolution 242, U.K. Ambassador to the United Nations explained, “We didn’t say there should be a withdrawal to the ’67 line; we did not put the ‘the’ in, we did not say all the territories, deliberately.. We all knew – that the boundaries of ’67 were not drawn as permanent frontiers, they were a cease-fire line of a couple of decades earlier… We did not say that the ’67 boundaries must be forever.” (link below)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UN_Security_Council_Resolution_242#Arguments_against_.22all_territories.22_reading
Yes, WmPeele, there are real problems at Wikipedia. One is the use of such edited, dubious quotations. When I get the energy I’ll try to fix this quite misleading article. The usually omitted half of such quotations from Mr. Foote, who had been a policeman in Mandatory Palestine, and knew the area and the border quite well, says that SC 242 meant that the Green Line changes would be trivial border-straightening – “minor and mutual adjustments” that should be settled by a boundary commission. Looking at it again, I think that this may not be Caradon at all, rather Rostow or Goldberg – I think Wiki may have gotten the attributions mixed up. (And of course Rostow and Goldberg are on record supporting the “virtually complete withdrawal” (the exact words the US used to Israel at the time of SC 242, cf. e.g. Quandt’s Peace Process) border straightening “interpretation” before they decided to play games. Really, such SC 242 quibbles are old hat and have been done to death. One thing that should confuse the “pro-Israel” is: if SC 242 was so nice for Israel, why did the Arabs, Jordan and Egypt ( and Lebanon) accept it first, while Israel only did very grudgingly? (My apologies for repetition.) Some less standard quibbling over your earlier post – if you want to call, reasonably enough, the control of the WB by Jordan an occupation, why do you not call the control of the other half of the proposed Arab state by Israel an occupation also? After all, the WB was ruled pretty much the same as any other part of Jordan, and had at least one state recognize it, while the other area was under the control of an Israeli Military Government until 1965-66, and Israel did the same sort of hijinks, against its own Arab citizens – robbing land at gunpoint to plant settlements, massacring them (Kfar Kassem).
I think the Palestinians are in good hands .
Hamas is an honest broker . They are trustworthy .
They promissed a cease fire. Had they broke their promise, not once .
They are forced to recognize Israel right to exist, they refuse and rightly so, why ? because Israel to this day does not aknowledge its borders . Hamas is an honest broker .
Hamas gave their word, it is the palestinian people who will decide, when the time comes, by a referundum wether they will recognise Israel or not, they argue this is not a government decision, nor a leaders one, it is the people right .
So far so good .
“Why do you not call the control of the other half of the proposed Arab state by Israel an occupation also?”
Are you referring to that portion of the State of Israel that was alloted to the Arabs by the UN Partition Plan of 1947, which was rejected by the Arabs and rendered moot by the invasion of the nascent State of Israel by several Arab armies, their defeat and the subsequent 1949 Armistice Agreement?
“There are real problems at Wikipedia. One is the use of such edited, dubious quotations.”
yes, doubtlessly that online encyclopedia is a Zionist organ.
Wm Peele:
Wikipedia is a questionable source at best. It is open to anyone who wants to write an article, regardless of their bias, or their lack of command of the facts. Therefore, anything that appears there is to be taken with at least a very large grain of salt. Although it might be a decent source for some kinds of information, I personally do not use it at all for that reason.
And the old, tired argument that the famous missing definite article in 242 means that Israel is not required to make a full withdrawal is pure rubbish. Just for starters that argument completely contradicts the main principle on which the Resolution is based – i.e. the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war. Both the plain language and the intent of 242 are clearly that Israel was and is not free, under any circumstances, to keep any part of the territories it occupied. As John R. has pointed out, the intent was that there would be minor adjustments to the 1949 boundaries such that neither side would realize a net increase in territory. The purpose of these adjustments was purely to make the border straighter and more defendable, not to allow either side to profit by adding to its territory.
And I really do wonder why everyone in the IUA crowd remains so silent on the question – asked repeatedly here – of why, if 242 really means what you insist it does, Israel was so reluctant to come on board. It begins to look as if you are ignoring the question because you have no answer that does not ruin your little story.
Wikipedia is not an infallible source, although interestingly, a group of researchers compared it to Encyclopedia Britannica, and found that Wikipedia entries tended to be as accurate, if not a little more.
The entry in question is not an authority on international law. It simply points out the arguments both sides have made with respect to their interpretation of UNSC 242.
In any event, this debate has gone on ad nauseum here. Sherry and the Palestine Uber Alles crowd repeat the same talking points, even when the flaws in those points are painstakingly pointed out to them.
Joshua,
You clearly think you are making some kind of point by addressing me by a name other than the one I use here. It just never seems to have anything at all to do with the matter under discussion, so I really can’t figure out what point you think your are making. Perhaps you could clarify it for me so I can understand.
As to the 242 debate, you guys simply do not have a leg to stand on. Both the plain language and the intent (as stated unequivocally by principle author, Lord Caradon, among others) of the Resolution make it clear that it is based on the principle of the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war. Further, there is nothing in the Resolution that explicitly or implicitly allows either side to take any steps toward the acquisition of territory as a result of the war, or to do anything counter to the UN Charter, the Geneva Conventions, or any other international agreement. Therefore the repeated attempts to claim that it allows Israel to establish “settlements” (i.e. colonies) or to take any action under any circumstances toward keeping any of the territories siezed in 1967 fall completely flat.
And I would still love to see one of you address the question asked by John: If UNSC 242 really means what you claim it means, then why did the Israeli government refuse to sign it for nearly two decades, and why were the Arabs clearly far more amenable to it?
PS Joshua, your silly little attempt to characterize me and others here as the “Palestine uber alles crowd” is misplaced and downright childish. Furthermore, it has no relationship to reality. Unlike you and your comrades, who clearly support Israel’s continued domination of the Palestinians and their land, not to mention its obvious expansionism, no one here is advocating Palestinian dominance over Israelis or anyone else, and no one is suggesting that Palestinians should take over any part of what is actually Israeli territori. Calling for Israel to cease its domination and land grabbing, and for Palestinian independence hardly constitutes a “Palestine uber alles” position.
…does “strongly pro-Israel” allow for acceptance of UN 242 as the final solution?
Great choice of words, Timothy. This goes well with Helena’s “Israel uber alles” insult. You do credit to the fan club.
By “better life for the Palestinians”, I would hope to see them follow the lines of, for example, the Irish Republic, which succeeded in only a few decades to leave behind centuries of religious conservatism and dependence on subsistence farming and primogeniture to become one of the fastest growing economies in Europe. Not only do the Palestinians fully deserve this type of economic and social progress; they will also be less inclined to endanger it by engaging in pointless violence.
John R,
Let me just offer a few facts here. Lord Caradon (not Mr. Foote) clearly stated that the definite article was left out of the resolution to allow for negotiation on future borders. What’s more, he stated explicitly that these would not be identical to the armistice lines of 1949, and, especially in Jerusalem, he was quite clear that, in his opinion, the sovereign territory of Israel would include parts of East Jerusalem, most notably the Jewish Quarter of the Old City. I know this because I heard him say it myself when he was here during the early 1970s.
I think that it is further clear that your remark about “trivial border-straightening” is self-serving interpretation for the sake of your own argument. It is quite clear from UNSC Res. 242 that the purpose of any border changes and other alterations on the ground (which were to be negotiated) were not simply making the lines look prettier, as you imply. On the contrary, they were chiefly intended to prevent what had happened commencing on June 5, 1967, particularly in reference to the unprovoked shelling of Israeli civilians in both Jerusalem (after the Arab Legion illegally occupied UN headquarters and other points in that city’s environs), and in the Sharon region. This is why Resolution 242 clearly includes, among other issues, the need for possible inclusion of demilitarized zones within the negotiated settlement.
why did the Arabs, Jordan and Egypt ( and Lebanon) accept it first, while Israel only did very grudgingly?
This is simply disingenuous. The fact is that Caradon and Goldberg spent weeks going back and forth among the parties to produce a resolution worded such that all sides would agree before it was passed by the Security Council. Syria and Iraq rejected the resolution out of hand. Jordan, Egypt and Israel all accepted pretty much immediately. (Note to Shirin: Nobody “signed” the resolution.) Your use of the term “grudgingly” is a nice trick, but the fact is that the three sides all accepted pretty much at the same time, each with its own interpretations and exceptions. (Most important that the Arab side insisted on return of territories prior to recognition and negotiation, while Israel adopted a position of land-for-peace through negotiations that were predicated on some form of recognition – like, for example, sitting at the same table during negotiations and speaking directly.) Israel’s acceptance was no more “grudgingly” given than was Nasser’s, who told his own national assembly to ignore what he says about accepting 242 and that Arab honor would be preserved by retaking by force of arms what had been taken by force. Further, to augment what you stated earlier, Khartoum and the “three Nos” may have taken place prior to adoption of Resolution 242 by the Security Council, but Arab acceptance (“grudgingly”?) did not preclude subsequent meetings of the Arab League from restating their support for the Khartoum decision.
if you want to call, reasonably enough, the control of the WB by Jordan an occupation, why do you not call the control of the other half of the proposed Arab state by Israel an occupation also? After all, the WB was ruled pretty much the same as any other part of Jordan, and had at least one state recognize it, while the other area was under the control of an Israeli Military Government until 1965-66….
This is simply not true. The West Bank was held by Jordan under military administration, just as Arab towns and villages were in Israel until 1966. There were curfews that lasted for days, as well as other collective punishments on the West Bank, arrests and detention without trial and forced population relocations of civilians to villages on the border. I know this because I heard it directly from “actual Palestinians” while doing anthropological fieldwork in East Jerusalem and its environs in the early 1970s.
JES,
Look JES and others if the Israelis like you all others talking without end and with long Tongues and keep arguing telling this and that. It’s really obvious to all Muslims that the Israelis never been truthful in their words this in our Holly Book Qura’n and what you and other trying here all the time demonstrated that very clearly.
In other words if you reckon you live for ever and you have the power for ever I thick this is a big mistake, just read your history carefully and take lessons from the two times that your temple destroyed.
You know, when Israel undertakes unilateral withdrawals, they are costless to us, because they do not tie us up in negotiations. They are a big victory for us!
Interesting. This is exactly what Netanyahu says and it is the centerpiece of the Likud campaign messaging.
JES, you say you heard Lord Caradon speak on it – a 1970s radio address? – I’ve seen a transcript or quotes, damned if I can remember where. Of course, as always, he made clear then that the idea was boundary-commission trivial border rationalization, which is not at all my “self-serving interpretation” (I am not an Arab state) but the only accurate one. I hope you’re aware that Hugh Foot and Caradon are one and the same.
It is absurd to concoct reasoning that the intent was solely to safeguard Israeli security from what was in actuality a rather perfunctory assault, when the history, intent and exact wording make it clear that all states’ security are to be protected – and the Arab states have at least as much to fear from Israeli aggression as vice versa. True, Syria did not accept the resolution til 1972. “Grudging” is however quite accurate for Israeli acceptance. Secret acceptance (communicated to the UN Sec Gen) did not come until February 1968, months after Jordan and Egypt publicly accepted. Israel’s acceptance, with its own self-serving interpretation (notably unclear and recalcitrant on withdrawal) was quite secret – the international law literature of the time speculates about when Israel would finally accept the resolution. Public acceptance and pronunciation of the crucial word “withdrawal” came only in 1970 in connection with the Rogers Plan, and prompted Begin to resign from the cabinet. (Simple-minded Begin and Dayan were against acceptance because they were honest enough to agree with the “Arab” interpretation on withdrawal.) Of course each side had their own extreme and self-serving interpretations at first, and of course each moved from them. That is how negotiations work. As you imply, basically each side wanted something for nothing at first. (Land in one case, recognition in the other.) Notably, too, Israel refused to talk about substantive matters with Jarring for about a year – not a very helpful attitude. Saadia Touval’s The Peace Brokers is excellent on the micromovements of negotiating positions. However, the Arabs (Jordan and Egypt) moved to a very complete and forthright acceptance of the letter and spirit of 242 by 1971, offering full peace, but Israel simply refused (against the advice of Ben-Gurion, near his death; and in the full knowledge it would lead to war), for no other reason than greed for land. This is quite well documented – the phrase that recurs is that such peace offers are quite acceptable, but that we think we “can get a little more.” This insane sacrifice of peace for “a little more” land is what the conflict is basically about since then. This 1971 Arab action clearly constituted violation of the Khartoum resolution, and Khartoum was formally repealed anyway by 1973 (see Syria and the Middle East Peace Process, A. Drysdale and R. Hinnebusch). If Israel got to the point of acceptance of “the other” and of law that Jordan and Egypt were in 1971, and the PLO was in a few years later, the conflict would be over. You are probably right about the WB under Jordan at times, but I had been under the impression that Hussein ruled militarily or civilly over the whole country or not uniformly but at different times.
Gllaaarggh, sorry to all about more long SC 242 blather, not too relevant to the topic. It’s about as much fun as a root canal, but it’s hard to avoid getting argumentative, even against one’s better judgment. Again, I apologize.
John R,
I am glad that you, at least tacitly, agree that there were mistakes made by both sides. I have not denied this. For example, in June 1967 Moshe Sneh approached Levi Eshkol with a strongly worded case for Israel to immediately enter into negotiations with Palestinian representatives about a solution to the situation in the West Bank. I think that Sneh was quite right, and that Eshkol missed an important opportunity by turning down the suggestion. For the record, the Israeli cabinet did decide (I believe that this was in July of 1967) to return Sinai and the Golan Heights as the basis for negotiations in exchange for peace. At the same time, they failed to agree on the West Bank and Gaza, again a mistake. Further, it is quite clear that there were a number of differing views within the government, as there had been in the original decision to carry out a preemptive strike. This is normal within a democracy. I also believe that much of the settlement policies of the Labour government were undertaken unwisely (particularly following Sebastia), as were most of those carried out by subsequent Likud governments. The former were for the most part, I believe, due to military concerns that were pretty valid at the time, but are far less relevant today.
No, I did not know that Lord Caradon was Hugh Foote. I’m not ashamed to say that I learned something here. Yes, I did hear him interviewed on Israel Radio during a visit here. Regarding Jerusalem, he was quite clear that there was an evident line for dividing the city based on current population (at the time) and history, and that this included the Jewish Quarter (and its approaches, which would mean the Armenian Quarter as well). As I recall, he mentioned Salah ad-Din Street as a line of demarcation, as well as Ramot Eshkol and the French Hill neighborhood.
I did not mean to imply that the intent of Resolution 242 “was solely to safeguard Israeli security”, and I do not think that this was the case. However, I also do not agree with the appraisal that what had happened was “a rather perfunctory assault” either. Michael Oren’s Six Days of War presents, I believe, the most complete analysis to date of the build-up to the war based on declassified documentation not only from Israel, but also from archives in Egypt, Jordan and the Soviet Union. The Egyptian armies were positioned offensively until the Soviet Union warned Nasser based on their misreading of talks with Israeli diplomats led them to believe that Israeli intelligence knew of their plans to attack (which they didn’t). The fact that they temporarily withdrew in response did not mean that they abandoned their plans to attack. The battle plans of the Arab Legion were to cut through West Jerusalem – destroying everything in their path, including civilian populations – using as access the same areas surrounding the city that Israel has since built up and settled. On the morning of June 5, the IAF destroyed two, fully-armed Ilyusian medium bombers on runways in the Sinai. These were certainly not there, loaded with bombs, for “defensive” purposes. Finally, Egyptian MiGs had violated Israeli airspace prior to June 5, flying deep into the Negev, and Israel had no means to intercept or down these flights.
As far as “trivial border rationalization” is concerned, I believe that this is a highly relative assessment. The area in question is pretty much the “Ariel salient” that broadens the narrow corridor in Israel’s middle. (The width of this corridor is, by the way, precisely the same as the corridor separating the northern and southern portions of the West Bank as specified at Taba – a fact which has often been equated with the creation of a “non-viable” state comprising two “Bantustans”.) Not only did Jordanian control of this area enable shelling of population centers in the Sharon prior to the Israeli attack on Jordan, but elements of the Iraqi army were also positioned on the border with plans to drive westward, through the Jordan Valley and the West Bank, and divide Israel in two. The fact that the UAR chain of command was disorganized and somewhat inept does not, however, make the threat of assault “perfunctory”.
The fact that Israel may have formally accepted Resolution 242 two months after Egypt and Jordan is pretty insignificant, in my opinion. What is, I believe, more important are the differences between the parties in terms of pre-conditions. Israel did not want to repeat the armistice talks of 1949, which provided a military ceasefire but failed to provide a political solution (including borders) to the conflict. Egypt and Jordan wanted to undo the mess that they had gotten themselves into. Perhaps Israel should have agreed to withdrawal first. I somehow doubt, however, that this would have resulted in a solution to the problem of the Palestinians or resulted directly in the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Lord Caradon was of course the same person as Hugh Foot. I used to know his son Paul Foot fairly well.
JES, you turned your back on my specific questions about how a “strongly pro-Israel” position allows for a “better life for the Palestinians” with an utter default. Instead of answering about water, Jordan Valley, etc. you gasp only “I would hope to see them (the Palestinians)”. So we all know, the pro-Israel crowd has no agenda for a “better life for the Palestinians”, wshich we see every day in Aipac’s promotion and Israel’s implementation of the “Cherokee final solution”.
As to UN 242, no one claims, and correctly so, that UN 242 allowed for anything other than “minor adjustments” of the geography of the military occupation. It did not allow, mention or legalize pre-negotiation civilian settlements or annexation – all of which are without any legal basis that any “pro-Israel” propagandist can cite. And what’s the prejudice to Israel about a delay in negotiations of small amounts of land extra-terrirtorial from Israel proper? None. So quibbles about 242 and the absence of a definite article are just BS when it comes to confiscatory settlements and annexation. And nowhere near borders to boot.
It is the factual vacuity of “pro-Israel” expansionists that is the motive for AIPAC’s drive to prevent public argument about US complicity in Israel’s expansion into the WB – because it is, when bared to the light of day, without legal basis at all. Like the invasion of Poland, and the genocidal transfer of the Cherokee.
A footnote to my last post:
Israeli historians Gershom Gorenberg’s op-ed in the NYT on March 10, 2006 confirms that Israel knew it was criminal under the Geneva Conventions to annex and/or settle any part of the military occupation zone, and intentionally and knowingly (malice aforethought) chose the criminal course.
So, “pro-Israel” is simply a euphemism for “pro-criminal” in the context of Gaza and the WB.
Timothy,
Please read what I posted.
Israel is not the one who must have an agenda for a “better life for Palestinians”. The Palestinians – like the Irish or, for that matter, Israelis themselves – need to have their own agenda. (That said, I posted here several months ago statistics that showed the dramatic improvement in Palestinian social and economic conditions following 1967. I also posted a story concerning plans Israel had to create permanent housing for refugees in the Gaza strip that were thwarted by the UN and PLO. The only response here was an ad hominem attack on the source.)
If you read my adjacent post, you will see that I tend to agree that the vast majority of settlement policy was a mistake. It drained valuable resources from Israel proper and created facts on the ground that are now difficult to deal with and have created hostility between Israelis and Palestinians.
Concerning Gorenberg’s work this points out that the Government of Israel was aware of a legal opinion concerning settlement. Take a look at the relevant article (Article 49) in the Fourth Geneva Convention. I think that it is at least interesting that this states that “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies” and appears in an article that deals explicityl with various forms of forcible transfers and deportations. (Taken in the context of when this was written, I think it is reasonable to assume that the last line of Article 49 referenced the deportation and transfer of German civilians to places like Auschwitz-Berkenau in occupied Poland.)
Once again, Israel chooses “Peace for Land.” Sooner or later both sides must live together. It would be better for the Israelis to start that process now, instead of waiting.
I suggest both sides give up their artillery, tanks, air forces, navies, and nuclear weapons as a start.
“I suggest both sides give up their artillery, tanks, air forces, navies, and nuclear weapons as a start.”
even better, both sides (including Hizbullah in Southern Lebanon) should give up their Qassam rockets and suicide bombing attacks. And both sides (including Lebanon and the Palestine Authority) should disarm independent militias and leave the patrolling of the borders to the national army.
JES.
Concerning Gorenberg’s work this points out that the Government of Israel was aware of a legal opinion concerning settlement.
The government was also aware of its own law, its own military order referred to in Meron’s opinion that explicitly stated the Geneva Conventions applied. (I often criticize Israel, but it is worth noting that this is probably the first time that any government anywhere explicitly published such an order and Israel deserves kudos for at least attempting to play by the rules for a while.)
Take a look at the relevant article (Article 49) in the Fourth Geneva Convention. I think that it is at least interesting that this states that “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies” and appears in an article that deals explicitly with various forms of forcible transfers and deportations. (Taken in the context of when this was written, I think it is reasonable to assume that the last line of Article 49 referenced the deportation and transfer of German civilians to places like Auschwitz-Berkenau in occupied Poland.)
No, it is not in the least reasonable to say this. This is a truly repulsive, truly dishonest argument – I don’t think you or anyone posting here has anywhere near the level of moral degeneracy to come up with this, rather people are just the victims and transmitters of disgusting arguments which they do not understand well enough to see how disgusting they are.
SC 242 is one thing there is at least a particle of room for dispute and confusion – it was meant to be a little vague. But the 4th Geneva Convention consciously bent over backward to be utterly clear, utterly exhaustive. People should be aware of the relative strength of their arguments. The “pro-Israel” arguments against the applicability of the Geneva Conventions are in general frivolous, but this particular one is the lowest of the low. Anyone competent who makes it is utterly unscrupulous and dishonest, intending only to deceive the ignorant.
The earlier parts of article 49 were intended to deal with forcible transfers, especially of enemy populations. The last clause is unambiguously aimed at things like the Israeli settlements (otherwise it would be superfluous). Take a look at the ICRC commentary here http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/COM/380-600056?OpenDocument – which was written long before the Israeli settlements, and was based on negotiations Israel took part in and a document Israel signed. The Germans took homes and land from the various untermenschen, Slavs and Jews, and settled ethnic Germans, mostly from the East on this land. This is precisely, precisely what Israel is doing. It is a testament to the foresight and wisdom of the drafters of the convention that they made this highly illegal, a grave breach. They saw how destructive this policy could be – personally I have little doubt that there would have been a reasonable 2 state settlement a long time ago if the US and the UN SC had done nothing else different, but had just rigorously enforced this one provision.
John R,
Instead of rushing to invective and insults, I suggest that you take the trouble to read again what I wrote, as well as the ICRC document that you cited, particularly:
It should be noted, however, that in this paragraph the meaning of the words “transfer” and “deport” is rather different from that in which they are used in the other paragraphs of Article 49, since they do not refer to the movement of protected persons but to that of nationals of the occupying Power.
It would therefore appear to have been more logical — and this was pointed out at the Diplomatic Conference (14) — to have made the clause in question into a separate provision distinct from Article 49, so that the concepts of “deportations” and “transfers” in that Article could have kept throughout the meaning given them in paragraph 1, i.e. the compulsory movement of protected persons from occupied territory.
This would appear to fly in the face of your assertion that “the 4th Geneva Convention consciously bent over backward to be utterly clear, utterly exhaustive,” and that the ICRC authors noted exactly the same contradiction and lack of clarity that I did (although I am not a lawyer).
Further, it is clear from the ICRC document that Article 49 does refer to the “deportations and transfers” to occupied Poland to which I referred:
…transferred portions of their own population to occupied territory for political and racial reasons or in order, as they claimed, to colonize those territories.
The “they” who made the claim of colonization where not, I believe, the deportees or those being transferred!
Just an aside. One last interesting point about the ICRC commentator(s): In describing this policy of the Germans transferring portions of their own population for “political and racial reasons” they state that:
Such transfers worsened the economic situation of the native population and endangered their separate existence as a race.
It didn’t do much for the transferred population’s welfare either!
JES, are you intentionally misreading? The ICRC comments are an index of how careful and clear they are trying to be, picking apart the language to be utterly precise, when anyone familiar with the history of the war, and the plain language of the convention would find the clarification mainly unnecessary. The previous parts of Article 49 cover things like deportations to death camps. (It should be noted that German Jews were usually deprived of German citizenship, so they were generally not German nationals at the time of the deportation to death camps, so para 6 could not apply.) The purpose of paragraph 6 was to prohibit things like Israel settling privileged, not oppressed, Jews in settlements on occupied territory, or Germany settling privileged Aryan German nationals on property stolen from Jews and Slavs, for example in Poland or illegally annexed areas. Anyone able to understand the treaty and commentary who argues that covering such actions, which was clearly the main intent of the clause, is not even addressed is a very disgusting liar, as again, is obvious to anyone reading the commentary.
It didn’t do much for the transferred population’s welfare either! True, by the end of the war, but initially it did benefit them (the correct referent of “them” – the Aryan German settlers) to receive stolen property, just like the Israeli settlers receive the benefit of theft from Arabs. The “they” who made the claim of colonization certainly were the ones being transferred, or more prominently their fellow “Aryans”, the Nazis. The Nazis did not claim they moved German Jews to Auschwitz to benefit or control Poland by colonizing it with German Jews. They did it to expel them from Aryan lands and to conveniently murder them. Is it necessary to say the purpose of the convention is to protect “protected persons” especially in occupied territories, not the nationals of a state from their own government? From the commentary to article 4 : “The Convention thus remains faithful to a recognized principle of international law: it does not interfere in a State’s relations with its own nationals.” Looking at paragraph 6 again, I guess you can incidentally shoehorn the fraction of people who were German nationals who were deported to death camps in occupied territory into it; this is manifestly not the primary target of the clause. If Israel someday puts death camps in the West Bank for Israeli Arabs, it could thus incidentally violate this clause too. This is not an argument showing that Israel is not violating the clause now.
John R,
You provide an interesting interpretation of what is written in pretty clear English.
The “they” who made the claim of colonization certainly were the ones being transferred, or more prominently their fellow “Aryans”, the Nazis. The Nazis did not claim they moved German Jews to Auschwitz to benefit or control Poland by colonizing it with German Jews.
I think that any reasonable reading of the quoted phrase from the ICRC commentary clearly leads to an understanding that the “they” refers to the Nazis, not the transported population. And, yes, the Germans did claim that they were transporting Jews (and others) to the “East” to resettle them; not for the “benefit” of the Poles, but for that of the Jews themselves. That was their public rationale, their claim, and it is what they told the world, as well as the transported people themselves (and that is why they even instructed them to bring personal belongings and furnished them with postcards, ostensibly to be sent to their families, stating that they were being resettled in the “East” and that they would be notified after arrival.) Their actual intent (deportation and transport “for political and racial reasons” and extermination) is what stands in contrast to the claim. Indeed, the claim of resettlement and colonization is similar to that of Arbeit Macht Frei. And, need I point out that the wording implies that had the claim been true, then the colonization would have been okay under Paragraph 6 of Article 49?
Also note that the ICRC commentary states that:
in this paragraph the meaning of the words “transfer” and “deport” is rather different from that in which they are used in the other paragraphs of Article 49….
The difference in meaning here clearly does not deal with the nature of “transfer” and “deportation” (i.e. a forced movement of populations from one place to another). Rather it deals with the object of the forced movement – the populations. (“Protected persons” within the occupied territories vs. nationals of the occupying power.) To argue otherwise is what followers of Rehav’am Ze’evi and Moledet have claimed concerning their proposed program of “transfer” – i.e. that they are really talking about “voluntary transfer”, when they are actually talking about induced ethnic cleansing.
Look, I am, and have been, against settlement policy for years. There are enough, more compelling reasons to be against it without creating a legal reason. These have to do with the negative economic and social impact on both Israelis and Palestinians. From an Israeli perspective, the moral implications, as well as the split in Israeli society are far more serious than anything that the ICRC or the UN might have to say.
I am not fooling myself into believing that a present-day ICJ or UN Human Rights Commission would adopt this interpretation in regard to Israeli settlements. But I also don’t believe that cases of the settlement of Turkish nationals in Cyprus or Armenian nationals in Nagorno Karabakh will ever be seriously discussed before these bodies either.
By the way, John, what was the claim that the Germans made to representatives of the ICRC when they came to inspect Theresienstadt in occupied Czechoslovakia?
Jes, frankly, I am reading your arguments with increasing disgust. You point out a couple of places I erred or could have written it better – it was late. But you avoid the core of what I and everyone else says about this article. As I said, the German Jews were in general not covered by paragraph 6 because they were stripped of German citizenship. This made them stateless, protected persons, and covered by the other clauses of Article 49. NOT PARAGRAPH 6. Political prisoners on the other hand might be more likely to be covered. You seem to want to desperately shoehorn this red herring example into this clause in order to eliminate the true object of it. There is no “creating a legal reason” here – there is using a clause for precisely the purpose which was intended. Distinguishing “legal reasons” from the “negative economic and social impact on .. Palestinians” is comical. The commentary explains that a reason for the plain legal prohibition of settlement is precisely these “negative economic and social impacts.” The law embodies the morality. I am sure that Israeli society would take it quite seriously, more seriously than moral qualms, which have been ineffective heretofore, if the UN SC threatened Chapter VII Iraq style economic sanctions on Israel for its flagrant violations of 49-6, as it has every right, and indeed obligation, to do.
And, need I point out that the wording implies that had the claim been true, then the colonization would have been okay under Paragraph 6 of Article 49?
Forgive my invective if I misunderstand you, but you appear to be saying that if Germans had moved the Jews, voluntarily?, (and had they been German citizens) to real nice German Jewish colonies in Poland, like the Israeli settlements, that this would be OK under paragraph 6. No, the wording does not imply this at all, and you don’t need to point this out, unless you want to demonstrate that you are (a) not literate in English (b) insane or (c) consciously lying. I happen to think the murder in Poland of German Jews was a bad thing. I happen to think that using them as a red herring to shove aside and cover up another sort of victim and crime is a sick game. This mythical Hitler was a nice guy, best friend of the Jews hypothetical is precisely the Israeli settler / Aryan settler scenario para 6 was aimed at. The “difference in meaning” of the commentary clearly does deal with both the object, (who is being moved) and “the nature of ‘transfer’ and ‘deportation'” otherwise only just “deport” would be used, not “transfer” too. (Note the word “compulsory” in the last sentence of the commentary as a point of distinction. This means 49-6, as the plain meaning of the wording implies, is intended to cover non-compulsory “settlement” “voluntary transfers.” So clearly “Rehav’am Ze’evi and Moledet” dishonestly calling ethnic cleansing “voluntary transfer” is another red herring. That they use words dishonestly does not mean the ICRC cannot use the words honestly; your implication otherwise is absurd.) You attribute the most blithe inhumanity imaginable to the ICRC for you imply that the only thing that they are complaining about deportation to death camps (the generally irrelevant and not covered red herring you seem to want this clause to be solely about) is that “Such transfers worsened the economic situation of the native population and endangered their separate existence as a race. The paragraph provides protected persons (here the local Poles) with a valuable safeguard. ” (I guess they’re saying the smell of burnt flesh depressed Polish property values?) I am not going to argue any more over whether death camp deportations qualify under 49-6, it’s like arguing whether Jeffrey Dahmer deserved a parking ticket. I just ask you – do you think the Israeli or Aryan (or mythical voluntary German Jewish citizen colonist) settlements are not covered by this clause? If so why not? The plain meaning of the words cover them. The commentary is clearly referring primarily to them.
John R,
Regarding your theory about the Geneva Convention, I note that you are applying it as if it were the only pertinent document. Am I wrong in thinking that laws should, where possible, be reconciled? If so, does not the Geneva Convention also have to account for the rights granted in the Palestine Mandate, which, as you well know, remains in effect by virtue of Article 80 of the UN Charter. Or, in simple terms, Jews have the legal right to settle in historic Palestine including in land conquered in 1967. I do not see that provision to have been revoked and I do not see the Geneva Convention as revoking it.
With that in mind, I think the issue of the applicability of the Geneva Convention, as it relates to Israeli villages, needs to be read with the valid claim of any individual Israelis to close settlement in historic Palestine, including land conquered in the 1967 war. The only legal issue, then, is the assistance which the Israeli government may provide to Jews interested in living in historic Palestine in land conquered in 1967. I recall the the Geneva Convention refers to transportation. Is that what the Israeli goverment is doing?
Now, I do not think that such close settlement is always wise policy. But, wisdom and legality are two different things. On the other hand, on the portion of land Israel is not going to cede – so that it could have a secure boundary as promised in UN 242 – I see no legal or moral objection to people settling. I certainly see no moral obligation to hand land over the a group which is ruled by HAMAS, a group of thugs and religious fanatics which, wherever similar groups have ruled, people have died in droves.
As for your comments regarding UN 242… No, this is not a particularly ambiguous amendment. The debate on the floor of the UN made its meaning rather crystal clear. One need only read what the UK Ambassador, the US ambassador and the Soviet and Brazilian ambassadors stated. All acknowledged that the amendment did not call for Israel to return to the Armistice line. At the same time, it did not say that Israel could keep land either. What was envisioned was the parties would come to terms on the secure and recognized boundaries to which Israel might return. And, the terminology secure and recognized was, as noted by the UK Ambassador on the floor of the UN, intended to address Israel’s concerns.
John R,
Regarding your theory about the Geneva Convention, I note that you are applying it as if it were the only pertinent document. Am I wrong in thinking that laws should, where possible, be reconciled? If so, does not the Geneva Convention also have to account for the rights granted in the Palestine Mandate, which, as you well know, remains in effect by virtue of Article 80 of the UN Charter. Or, in simple terms, Jews have the legal right to settle in historic Palestine including in land conquered in 1967. I do not see that provision to have been revoked and I do not see the Geneva Convention as revoking it.
With that in mind, I think the issue of the applicability of the Geneva Convention, as it relates to Israeli villages, needs to be read with the valid claim of any individual Israelis to close settlement in historic Palestine, including land conquered in the 1967 war. The only legal issue, then, is the assistance which the Israeli government may provide to Jews interested in living in historic Palestine in land conquered in 1967. I recall the the Geneva Convention refers to transportation. Is that what the Israeli goverment is doing?
Now, I do not think that such close settlement is always wise policy. But, wisdom and legality are two different things. On the other hand, on the portion of land Israel is not going to cede – so that it could have a secure boundary as promised in UN 242 – I see no legal or moral objection to people settling. I certainly see no moral obligation to hand land over the a group which is ruled by HAMAS, a group of thugs and religious fanatics which, wherever similar groups have ruled, people have died in droves.
As for your comments regarding UN 242… No, this is not a particularly ambiguous amendment. The debate on the floor of the UN made its meaning rather crystal clear. One need only read what the UK Ambassador, the US ambassador and the Soviet and Brazilian ambassadors stated. All acknowledged that the amendment did not call for Israel to return to the Armistice line. At the same time, it did not say that Israel could keep land either. What was envisioned was the parties would come to terms on the secure and recognized boundaries to which Israel might return. And, the terminology secure and recognized was, as noted by the UK Ambassador on the floor of the UN, intended to address Israel’s concerns.
In my last post, I used the word “amendment” where I should have written “resolution.” Sorry for the confusion.
Neal, it is not “my theory”. It is the theory held by almost every legal expert, Jewish or Gentile, American, Chinese, European or Israeli, excepting a very few closely connected to the government of Israel. In particular it the theory held unanimously by the International Court of Justice, including 2 Jewish members, and a unanimous vote of the Security Council (SC 465), as well as being the original official theory of the government of Israel, and its advisor Theodore Meron, cf Gorenberg’s recent book. It is hard to think of any issue more complicated than say, “the Treaty of Versailles was not about naming cheeses” where there is more agreement.
Later law supersedes earlier law. If Israel had any settlement rights, it clearly, consciously and irrevocably gave them up when it signed the Geneva Convention. (Even though it is thus not relevant, I do not believe it had them – the Mandate was not in effect, GA 181 being more recent and IMHO valid law and superseding it; in addition Israel formally renounced claims to the West Bank in the 1950s in front of the Conciliation Commission for Palestine.) You are entitled to say “I do not see that provision to have been revoked and I do not see the Geneva Convention as revoking it” but basically no one agrees with you, or understands how to come to such a conclusion. Such arguments are not what Israel relies on itself (at least in the main); I am sure they see them as so embarassingly bad, just like everyone else, that they would be ashamed to make them. I’ve already spilled too many electrons on SC 242 here; I stand by asserting the standard academic and legal viewpoint that it means “virtually complete withdrawal” as the US informed Israel in 1967. see Quandt’s Peace Process, and will not say more. I only introduced it again to say that there was a little intentional wiggle room put in SC 242, while wiggle room was exactly what the 4th GC was intended to avoid, as the commentary to one of the early articles explicitly says. (In part because the Germans made creative use of wiggle room in earlier humanitarian treaties.)
In particular it the theory held unanimously by the International Court of Justice, including 2 Jewish members….
I fail to see what the two Jewish members of the ICJ have to do with anything.
This aside, I take exception to your argument that “the German Jews were in general not covered by paragraph 6 because they were stripped of German citizenship.” This, again, is not the issue. They could not have been covered by Article 49, Paragraph 6 because there was no such document at the time. My argument (and I believe that this is fully borne out by the ICRC commentary) is that the Convention includes the wording, where it is, because of this and other events which had happened during the war, and precisely because they wanted to make it clear that even if the Jews had not been stripped of their German citizenship, they would have been protected one way or the other.
My question on Theresienstadt was not meant to be rhetorical. It has very clear bearing on the issue. The ICRC was told by the Germans that this “city” was established as a model settlement for Jews in the occupied territories, and there are those who argue that the ICRC may have gone along a little too willingly with the charade based on this claim. If you will, members of the ICRC administration may be seen as bearing a certain amount of “personal responsibility” in the fate of those men, women and children, in the same way as the responsibility attributed to Ariel Sharon by the Kahan Commission in relation to Sabra and Shatila.
You are correct that the local populations (including tens of thousands of Jews who were executed by Einsatzgruppen) in parts of Western Poland were very negatively impacted by the Germans during 1940 when they were forcibly transported, by order of the Reich, to make room for German settlement. Most of Article 49, as well as many other parts of the Convention, were designed specifically to prevent this in the future. We are fully in agreement here. However, can you enlighten us as to precisely how many “privileged Aryans” from Germany itself were actually resettled in these territories? My understanding is that the vast majority of Germans transferred West following the war were not “privileged Aryan settlers”. Rather, they were ethnic Germans who had lived in Western Poland for generations prior to its annexation to Poland following World War I.
Regarding Meron’s opinion, this was precisely that, a legal opinion to the government. Further, it was based on a context with which you do not deal. Israel’s position was that the West Bank and Gaza (in contrast to Sinai, the Golan Heights and small parts of Jordanian territory returned following the signing of the peace agreement with King Hussein) were not occupied territory, as they had not been under the sovereignty of a state at the time of the war. Despite the fact that Israel has never felt that the IVth Geneva Convention applies in this case, Israel nevertheless took it upon itself to apply the Convention as a basis for dealing with protected populations. This was the context in which Meron issued his opinion. You and I may agree with this position or not, but that certainly does not make one of us a “liar”, as you say.
Neal’s reference to the Mandate is interesting, particularly as it relates to political influences on the application of international law. The Mandate was international law. The British violated this international law twice. First when they arbitrarily declared roughly half of the territory under the Mandate to be off bounds for Jewish settlement. (They also dragged their feet on transferring State Lands classified as waste lands to Jewish settlers – as stipulated in the Mandate – even when these lands were clearly outside the areas they had restricted to Jewish settlement.) Then when they essentially banned all Jewish immigration to the area under the Mandate. Both violations were made based on political considerations of the British Empire – not as part of their duty as administrators of the Mandate itself – and were undertaken as a result of political pressures brought to bear by, among others, the local Palestinian leadership, including Haj Amin al-Husayni. True, they masked these in bogus claims concerning “absorptive capacity” of the land, but the decisions were made as a result of geopolitical considerations. The latter violation cost, perhaps, hundreds of thousands of lives.
As I stated earlier, the whole argument about “the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war” and the illegality of settlements would be far more compelling if these international principles were applied with the same degree of interest and intensity to, for example, the Turkish areas of Cyprus, Nagorno Karabakh and Tibet.
John R,
The Palestine Mandate is part and parcel of the UN Charter. The Israelis did not give it up by becoming part of the Geneva Convention. Which is to say, you have not addressed my argument.
JES and John R,
JES writes: As I stated earlier, the whole argument about “the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war” and the illegality of settlements would be far more compelling if these international principles were applied with the same degree of interest and intensity to, for example, the Turkish areas of Cyprus, Nagorno Karabakh and Tibet.
That, of course, is the main point. A law which is not generally applied is not a law. The Israelis have every right to sneer at the demand that Israelis follow a “law” which is not even followed by a member of the Security Council – China -. Israelis have the right to read what John R writes and wonder what happened to the promises actually made by the World community – promises he claims were given away, albeit only by his idea that the UN Charter does not enshrine such rights – as it does and was rather explicitly intended to do.
Now, I have no brief for those who would settle on land that Israel is willing to cede. That, to me, is counterproductive. But the notion that individuals do not have the legal and moral right to settle where they can find places to live – even on land Israel would cede – is, to me, an immoral position that flies in the face of International law as it relates to the right of migration and, more specifically, the Palestine Mandate as it was agreed to by the League of Nations and later incorporated into the UN Charter. But, even if the Charter does not apply and even if the Palestine Mandate does not apply, the rights of individuals to live where they may find homes – something they did in good faith – is an outrage that hardly deserves comment.
Now, if there is an argument that the assistance of the Israeli government to the settlers oversteps the Geneva Convention, that may or may not be the case. But that relates to the government, not those who settled as they have legal rights as previously noted.
John R claims there is basically no question about the law. Yet, legal scholars over the years have said otherwise. I have read the argument that it is a close question, not a sure thing. I have also read arguments that the issue is moot as it is governed by the rule that long standing control of land ends its status as occupied land. Such was, you will note, one of Eugene Rostow’s arguments.
And the ICJ ruling mentioned was an advisory opinion based on a dictated statement of facts and without the benefit of the legal brief of the Israeli government. Moreover, the UN did not to take any action on the opinion so it is basically a nullity. By implication, the failure to take cognizance of the decision is is essence a rejection of its findings. Further, the Israeli High Court – hardly a slouch among courts and, in fact, among the world’s more respected courts – does not hold settlement of the land to be per se illegal. I have seen no reason to trust the ICJ’s advisory opinion over the opinion of the Israeli High Court, which issued rulings in an adjudicated decision.
By contrast, I see the party to which Israel is asked to cede land take the position that a member of the UN has not right to exist – in violation of the UN Charter -. I understand its leaders to hold to the line that the state must be destroyed by force of arms – again, in violation of the UN Charter. In such a circumstances, I do not see that the legalities of whether Israelis settle land which, if given to Palestinian Arabs, would be used to further their war aims as being an important question as it pales by comparison with the attack on the UN Charter by the Palestinian Arab side.
In fact, I would think that such stated war aims by the Palestinian Arabs are justification for the Israelis to view the land as disputed territory – exactly as the Palestinian Arabs in essence now claim -. I also see such position by the Palestinian Arabs as justifying the settlement of the land in question for defensive purposes. So, I do not see John R’s argument as anything but a theoretical argument about a world which does not exist.
The Myth of the “illegal” 1921 Partition of Palestine
JES: Neal’s reference to the Mandate is interesting, particularly as it relates to political influences on the application of international law. The Mandate was international law. The British violated this international law twice. First when they arbitrarily declared roughly half of the territory under the Mandate to be off bounds for Jewish settlement.
Another digression we should apologize for, but I think it worth exploring. More on the other topics later.
You are referring to the amazingly successful myth of the (nonexistent) 1921 partition of Palestine, perhaps the most successful fabrication of the entire conflict. It appears in almost all reference works, and histories by everyone, even lefties like Ilan Pappe or Tom Segev, but it is nothing but a conscious fabrication and distortion of what really happened, and has become a cornerstone of rightwing propaganda. It is a good example to show how careful one has to be with the history of this region. The British action was not illegal, nor in any way breaking a promise to the Zionists. There was no partition of the British Mandate of Palestine because (Trans)Jordan was not originally part of the British Mandate of Palestine before 1921 to begin with! In the wake of Abdullah’s armed arrival across the Jordan, what the April 1921 Cairo Conference decided was to add TransJordan to the British Mandate, not to impossibly split it off. It ratified the original, already existing, provisional eastern border of the Mandate – the Jordan river – as the boundary between the older part of the Mandate, and the newer addition, TransJordan, to be ruled by Abdullah. Simultaneous with the addition, an article was added to the draft mandate allowing Britain to restrict Jewish immigration to the added part, TransJordan. At no time whatsoever did the British ever promise that the Balfour declaration applied anywhere east of the Jordan.
The 1921 partition myth is due to Jabotinsky, who was on the Zionist Executive that ratified this decision. After he left it he immediately made up the “partition” story and acted as if “We wuz robbed”(of our “right” to settle in TransJordan), raging against the very decision he had approved! Jabotinskian “Revisionism” refers to these “revised” borders, amusingly as he was the one doing the year-old “historical” revisionism. The best explosion of this myth is in Bernard Wasserstein’s excellent Israelis and Palestinians: Why do they fight?. Other books with accurate and relevant history are Leonard Stein’s Balfour Declaration; You can get some idea of the truth from the inconsistent account in David Fromkin’s Peace to End All Peace (unthinkingly repeats the myth, but provides contradictory evidence.) or Howard Sachar’s Making of the Modern Middle East. Stein and Wasserstein quote from the crucial documents in the Documents on British Foreign Policy series dating to the inception of the civil administration of the Mandate under Herbert Samuel in June 1920, that established the eastern boundary as the Jordan, and explicitly excluded “TransJordan.” (San Remo, of course, had left the borders undetermined.)
Nice try John. However, I wasn’t talking about the creation of Transjordan in 1921.
The British, following the al-Husayni led rioting and ethnic cleansing of Jews from Hebron and Kfar Silwan in 1929, simply declared roughly half of the actual Mandate (i.e. from the river to the sea) to be off bounds for Jewish land purhase settlement.
Well, I misunderstood you then; what I wrote about is the far more common example of supposed British territorial perfidy. The unforeseeable progress of events made the Mandate practically impossible to execute while respecting the rights of the previous inhabitants , and the “absorptive capacity” is not all fictional. At times the constraint on Jewish immigration was this – lack of money, not British restriction.
The unforeseeable progress of events made the Mandate practically impossible to execute while respecting the rights of the previous inhabitants , and the “absorptive capacity” is not all fictional.
The “absoptive capacity” argument was palpably fictional. Just look at the testimony of representatives of the Jewish Agency to the Peel Commission.
Several hundreds of thousands of Jews could have been absorbed in “close settlement” on the coastal plain without negatively impacting the Arab inhabitants. Particularly since the British had placed the majority of the lands of rural Palestinian inhabitants – in the hilly areas of what later became the West Bank – off limits to Jewish settlement. And Palestine had been absorbing fairly large numbers of Arabs during entire decade and a half of the Manadate to that point. In fact, by all indications, the opposite is quite true. From an economic point of view, the Palestinian Arabs would have probably been better off in the long run.
One could argue that this collusion between the British and the Palestinian leadership had much worse and more far-reaching effects.
Prior to the restrictions that essentially doomed hundreds of thousands of Jews to death, there was a significant body of support among Zionists within Palestine for what might ultimately have become a bi-national state. The prime concern of the majority of Zionists has always been the protection of Jews. The failure of both the British and, more importantly, the Palestinian leadership to act in this regard at the most critical time had a dramatic impact on those who had dreamed of a joint Jewish-Arab social revolution. For all that Palestinians today (along with people like Ahmedinejad) say about how the Holocaust was a “European” thing, when push came to shove, the Palestinians helped force the doors (again, in violation of international law) closed, thereby making themselves complicit. (And need I remind you that Haj Amin al-Husayni went on to make his complicity more direct?)
Regarding Meron’s opinion, this was precisely that, a legal opinion to the government. Further, it was based on a context with which you do not deal.
False, I ‘ve dealt with the little-known context several times. You do not seem to understand what I have said about it.
Israel’s position was that the West Bank and Gaza .. were not occupied territory, as they had not been under the sovereignty of a state at the time of the war.
False. You do not understand what Israel’s position was and is. For the first five months of the occupation, Israel said the convention applied.. Israel agreed with everyone else on the planet. This was contained in Military Order 3, which set up the military court system in the West Bank. This was the context of Meron’s opinion, which made it clear that settlement was illegal. This was important enough for the ICJ to mention MO 3 in a few lapidary paragraphs devoted to applicability, for estoppel (you can’t take back what you once said), while not absolutely decisive in international law is very strong. I forget if I’ve said this before, but Israel deserves praise for this, it was the first time any government anywhere had issued such an order.
Despite the fact that Israel has never felt that the IVth Geneva Convention applies in this case,
False, for the nth time.
Israel nevertheless took it upon itself to apply the Convention as a basis for dealing with protected populations. This was the context in which Meron issued his opinion. You and I may agree with this position or not, but that certainly does not make one of us a “liar”, as you say.
I did not say you were lying about these particular issues, how could I? – Maybe I’m more tired than I think, but I don’t recall arguing with you about them before!
You may be confusing the situation with the current situation. Israel does say that the WB is occupied, cf the recent wall decisions. Its position, at least since the Elon Moreh decision of the late 70s is that it is occupied under the meaning of the Hague Regulations, but not the 1949 Geneva Convention. (It uses a frivolous argument based on Art 2 of the 4GC to exempt itself from the 4GC.) Further it pretends it applies the unspecified “humanitarian” provisions of the Geneva Conventions, which is probably what you mean by “takes it upon itself.” But this posturing is 10 years after 1967.
The basic idea is to leave things confused and confusing, and pretend to be following international law, while flouting it flagrantly. There’s an old paper at B’tselem’s site with an excellent analysis of these points. Again, the number of legal experts independent of Israel who agree with the state of Israel is minuscule, especially if you insist they be alive. There’s a reason people keep quoting Rostow’s and Stone’s arguments. There’s no one else to quote. The only reason the Israeli supreme court goes along with this is that they are entirely corrupt on this point. There’s not a snowball’s chance in hell they actually, abstractly, believe this crap, it would be an insult to their intelligence. One of the main authors of this crap, Meir Shamgar, later Chief Justice, (very lightly) hinted as much. (By the way, he was writing articles on non-applicability of the GCs if the rest of the old Mandate came into Israeli hands – before the 6-day war. Hmm.) About China, the probably most common view is that China had sovereignty already, so it wasn’t acquiring territory by war. Tibet tried to get recognition before the Chinese came in, but they couldn’t get one state to.
I did not say you were lying about these particular issues….
Fine. Then exactly what were you accusing me of lying about in your previous posts – twice?
It uses a frivolous argument based on Art 2 of the 4GC to exempt itself from the 4GC.
Exactly which argument, and why is it frivolous?
The only reason the Israeli supreme court goes along with this is that they are entirely corrupt on this point.
Would you care to expand on this “total corruption”? (BTW, did you know that there is an Arab judge on the High Court of Justice bench, just like there were two Jewish judges sitting on the ICJ panel that ruled on the security barrier?)
About China, the probably most common view is that China had sovereignty already, so it wasn’t acquiring territory by war. Tibet tried to get recognition before the Chinese came in, but they couldn’t get one state to.
Uh-hu. Yes, and exactly who had sovereignty over the West Bank and Gaza on June 4, 1967? And what about Turkey-Cyprus and Armenia-Nagorno Karabakh?
This all sounds very much like the bogus arguments made by Hizballah and Syria about Cheba Farms.
Finally, any word on the number of “privileged Aryans” transferred by the Germans to Occupied Poland?
JES, I never said you were lying. You were not and are not clear enough to be lying. I think I have convinced you that article 49-6 makes settlement in occupied territory illegal, but I am not sure. It clearly is not directed mainly at crimes committed against the nationals/settlers/transferees/deportees; but I don’t care too much about convincing you of that.)
The total corruption of anyone who votes that the GCs do not apply de jure to the West Bank, Gaza etc. is proven by the terminal weakness of their arguments, as evinced by the fact that no one else on the planet takes them seriously.
It’s remarkable that an argument I hadn’t even made yet sounds to you like “the bogus arguments made by Hezbollah and Syria about Cheba farms ” (everybody’s arguments about it are bogus, but could we just not talk about them for now?)
Who had sovereignty is entirely irrelevant. That is one of several reasons the article 2 argument is bogus. Israel pretends it is relevant by a purposeful misreading of article 2, making the second sentence – intended to only extend the definition of “occupation” – into a restriction, and then misreading the invented restriction so it applies; the ICJ decision decisively disposes of this by citing the negotiation history; it’s also clear from the commentary, the text and the history of the law of belligerent occupation. It’s the best argument Israel has, it’s the best one there is, but it is still a joke. Look at the convention – hope this is enough for you to understand the argument and why it is silly.
You want me to say Turkey bad, Armenia bad? I just did. How about dealing with them when their occupations are as old as Israel’s is now?
What the number of Germans has to do with anything, I don’t understand. If you’re interested, find out yourself.
Horatius, who defended the bridge over the Tiber against the forces of Tarquin and his ally, Lars Porsenna, was called Cocles, meaning one-eyed.
The bridge was successfully destroyed while Horatius was defending it with his two companions, and the Roman republic was temporarily saved.
Horatius, according to some reports, fell into the Tiber and was drowned. At any rate he was not heard of again.
The republic’s cause was lost as it turned into an empire and came to a spectacular end.
One-eyed defenders are wasting their time, and ours.
I think I have convinced you that article 49-6 makes settlement in occupied territory illegal, but I am not sure.
Think what you may. You think wrong. Your argument on this makes assumptions that even the ICRC doesn’t make. Further, it makes no sense, as I don’t believe the the colonization by the transfer of “privileged Aryans” you presuppose ever really happened to any meaningful extent, nor does Article 49, Paragraph 6 or the ICRC commentary that you cited suggest that this was the basis for that particular clause.
…the ICJ decision decisively disposes of this by citing the negotiation history….
And might not the members of the ICJ be corrupted by political interests? Certainly they are no more immune than are the members of the High Court of Justice – even if they did have two enpaneled Jews and every single person on the planet agrees with them!
You want me to say Turkey bad, Armenia bad? I just did. How about dealing with them when their occupations are as old as Israel’s is now?
Saying that the Turks and Armenians are wrong and then speaking of the longevity of the occupation (China’s occupation of Tibet is almost twice as long as Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza – and that is why the issue of sovereignty, which you brought up, is important) is simply a cop-out. To the best of my knowledge no one – not the UN, or the ICJ, or the Human Rights Commission, or the ICRC – has treated these matters in any serious way as a legal issue, despite the fact that a variety of international bodies have been fixated on Israel and the Occupied Territories for most of the past 39 years.
Dominic, I wonder what you mean by your strange post; I don’t think I am wasting anyone’s time, only Helena’s bandwidth. The “for a while” was several centuries, y’know. Horatio could have done worse. Would he have helped things by attacking his two companions?
Think what you may. You think wrong. Your argument on this makes assumptions that even the ICRC doesn’t make. Further, it makes no sense, as I don’t believe the the colonization by the transfer of “privileged Aryans” you presuppose ever really happened to any meaningful extent, nor does Article 49, Paragraph 6 or the ICRC commentary that you cited suggest that this was the basis for that particular clause.
Jes, well I’m glad you are being more clear, though unhappy I have not convinced you after all. I do not recall making any assumptions; as for the colonization, I saw a TV program mentioning it a few months ago, showing some of these mainly eastern Germans (I’m calling all the Germanic settlers transferred “privileged Aryans”) and the people that were victimized by the colonization. It mentioned how the Nazi authorities would tell the settlers to just pick out a house or business, and grab it from the owners; if they were lucky, the new owners would let them stay or be employed in their old business. It’s an accepted, known, part of history; and the commentary clearly does cite it. That anyone could read the treaty or the commentary and not conclude that such transfers into occupied territory are illegal, where the victims are considered to be the locals, not the transferees, as the commentary very clearly implies, is amazing, and I stand by madness, illiteracy or dishonesty or some combination as the only conceivable reasons for this. Israel of course does not (usually) stoop so low, only its lobbyists. It’s like arguing “settlement in occupied territory” doesn’t mean “settlement in occupied territory,” the words the 4GC uses are practically the same.
You’re wrong about international organizations and Turkey/Cyprus, and Western Sahara, which sometimes comes up comparatively, for the latter, what is interesting is that even some of the same people have been prominently involved (e.g. James Baker). Don’t remember about Armenia too well. By the way, Walt’s book IIRC mentions the nascent “Armenia lobby” for squelching criticism on Nagorno-Karabakh – so he is being evenhanded. This will be my last post on the matter for now.
John R, I’m sorry you feel attacked, my good companion. I’m afraid the usual response has to be: If the cap fits, you must wear it.
But the warriors I had in mind were the likes of WarrenW, JES, Joshua, and the new one, Neal.
Each one steps up in a spirit similar to Horatius or to Roland at Roncesvalles. They seem to be powered by such myths. Each imagines himself almost alone, in a narrow defile, facing a menacing horde, while behind him innocents cower in fear, depending upon his heroic stand.
The myth of Horatius’ act had nothing intrinsically to do with republicanism. On the contrary, this myth shifts the nature of the fight for a republic from the realm of ideas to the realm of brute force. It is actually an expropriation, in Imperial times, of the founding myth of the republic. It’s a terrible lie, exactly the same in kind as the terrible lies of George W Bush and of the persecutors of the Palestinians.
These latter have created an artificial defile between themselves and Gaza, which they now block up with obsessive absurdity. But their madness is also tragic, for the Palestinians and for themselves.
The JES’s and the rest present us with an immediate case study of this phenomenon. It is as well to reflect upon, strange as it may seem.
As for the time scale, what is that? You might instead note that empires take less time to rise and fall these days. Like the 1000-year Reich that lasted 13, or Ian Smith’s Rhodesian UDI that also lasted 13 years.
Mike Furir Mike 505
Dominic, then I must apologize to you too. As I said elsewhere, I was getting a bit too hot here. I agree that tragic madness and myths are powerful forces fueling the conflict. It is entirely natural that the Israelis would be paranoid; but as the real and reasonable cause for this receded, myth-making only intensified and trapped more true believers, who become unable to see that they act in a way similar in kind but not in degree to their former oppressors. (My last last post!)