It is time for the citizens of the world to effect the paradigm shift required to bring about a peaceful resolution to the world’s most infamous conflict.
Twelve years ago today, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued an advisory opinion at the request of the United Nations General Assembly on the legality of the wall Israel has constructed in the West Bank. The ICJ affirmed that all of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, are “occupied Palestinian territory”, and that Israel’s wall, as well as its settlements, violate the Fourth Geneva Convention.
The ICJ’s ruling helps to underscore the prejudicial nature of the discussion about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the Western mainstream media—and particularly in the US. The media never fail to elevate Israel’s policy aims to the same level of legitimacy as international law. For example, we can frequently read in the New York Times, the Washington Post, et al, that East Jerusalem or areas where Israeli settlements are located are “disputed” territory—thus placing equal weight to Israel’s position as the entire rest of the planet, which recognizes Israel’s settlements as illegal and East Jerusalem as occupied Palestinian territory.
Needless to say, this is not balanced journalism, but extremely prejudicial to the rights of the Palestinians living under foreign military occupation. When the illegality of the settlements is alluded to by the mainstream media (all too infrequently), they typically obscure it by saying something like: “Most countries do not recognize the legitimacy of Israel’s settlements.” This leaves readers with the impression that the matter is controversial, that there is debate about it within the international community, that there are two legitimate points of view. It affords validity to Israel’s position when it has none. Translated from newspeak, what that means is that every single government on planet Earth other than Israel itself recognizes the settlements as a violation of international law.
The media bend over backwards to accommodate and attempt to legitimize Israel’s criminal policies. How can the media get away with such outrageously biased reporting? Furthermore, why is the US mainstream media so prejudiced against the rights of the Palestinians?
The answer is simple: the policy of the US government is one of unconditionally supporting Israel’s violations of international law and the human rights of the Palestinian people.
The US Role in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
While the US has long sought to characterize itself as an “honest broker” between the Israelis and the Palestinians, the truth is scarcely concealed beneath the thin veil of rhetoric. The US supports Israel’s violations of international law financially, militarily, and diplomatically.
Military aid to Israel tops $3 billion annually, which aid serves in part as a US taxpayer subsidy for the arms industry as Israel invests in US military technology and hardware. US-supplied arms are routinely used by Israel to commit war crimes, such as its deliberate targeting of schools and hospitals in Gaza under the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) “Dahiya Doctrine”—a reference to the leveling of the Dahiya district of Beirut during Israel’s 2006 invasion of Lebanon and a policy designed to use intentionally disproportionate force in order to punish the civilian population. This policy was implemented during Israel’s military assaults on Gaza in 2008-09 (“Operation Cast Lead”), 2012 (“Operation Pillar of Defense”), and 2014 (“Operation Protective Edge”).
The world superpower also uses its weight to protect Israel from censure for its perpetual violations of international law, acting to prevent Israeli officials from being held accountable for their crimes. For example, in the aftermath of “Operation Cast Lead”, the US sought to bury the report of a UN fact-finding mission (the so-called “Goldstone Report”) that found both Israel and Hamas had committed war crimes. The US’s goal was to ensure that the report’s recommendations were not implemented—particularly the recommendation to refer the matter to the International Criminal Court (ICC) absent credible investigations by the Israeli government and Hamas governing authority into allegations of war crimes, which never occurred (the IDF’s self-investigations, needless to say, were rightfully recognized by the international community as a whitewash).
For another example, in February 2011, the Obama administration—its own rhetorical opposition to Israel’s settlements notwithstanding—went so far as to veto an uncontroversial UN Security Council resolution condemning Israel for its continued expansion of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.
The Mainstream Media’s Complicity
The mainstream media in the US serve the role of manufacturing consent for government policy, with the intelligentsia acting as high priests of the state religion, as dissident American intellectual Noam Chomsky has described it. As before the US’s illegal war on Iraq (among countless other examples), the media mindlessly parrot government propaganda. It is axiomatic among academics and journalists who have a voice in the mainstream that, while the US government might sometimes make “mistakes”, it only ever acts out of benevolent intent. Voices that don’t subscribe to this belief system are excluded from the discussion. “There is indeed something truly religious,” as Chomsky has observed, “in the fervor with which responsible American intellectuals have sought to deny plain fact and to secure their dogmas concerning American benevolence, the contemporary version of the ‘civilizing mission.’”
Far from serving the role of properly informing the public in order for Americans to be able to make objective judgments about world affairs, the media serve to indoctrinate Americans in narratives about the Palestine conflict that fundamentally obscure its true nature.
This extends to the media’s reporting on the conflict’s origins. There are a great many things that “everyone knows” about the conflict that in fact have no basis in reality. For example, it is a widely believed myth that the UN created Israel or otherwise conferred legal authority to the Zionist leadership for the unilateral declaration of the existence of their “Jewish state” on May 14, 1948. This claim is absolutely false. Moreover, the UN plan to partition Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states called for expropriating land belonging to Arabs in order to redistribute it to Jews. The representatives of member countries who drafted this plan recognized that this prejudiced the rights of the majority inhabitants, but the Arabs’ rights were simply of no consideration to policymakers still operating within a framework of racist colonialism, and so they premised their plan upon the explicit rejection of the right of the Arab majority to self-determination (notwithstanding how this violated the very UN Charter under whose authority they were ostensibly operating).
Needless to say, such minor details as this are never reported when the media fill the public in on the conflict’s origins.
Another thing that “everyone knows” about the conflict is that the combined Arab armies invaded “Israel” after the May 14, 1948 declaration of its existence, in an effort to wipe the nascent state off the map. As the New York Times and other major media report it, today’s refugee problem is an unfortunate legacy of Palestinians having to flee or being expelled by Israeli forces as a consequence of this Arab aggression in 1948. Another minor detail willfully omitted in reports by journalists like the Times’ Ethan Bronner is that by the time the neighboring Arab states managed to muster a military response, 300,000 Arabs had already been ethnically cleansed from their homes in Palestine.
By the time the armistice agreements were signed in 1949, over 700,000 Palestinians had been ethnically cleansed, never permitted to return to their homes despite the recognition under international law that refugees of war have a right to do. Although the Jewish community in 1948 owned less than 7 percent of the land in Palestine, by the time the war was ended, Israel had conquered territory beyond even that allotted to it under the never-implemented UN partition plan (never implemented because the UN Security Council recognized that the only way to do so would be by force, and that it had no authority to partition Palestine against the will of the majority of its inhabitants).
Then again in 1967, as the mainstream media tell it, Israel faced a genocidal threat from its neighboring Arab states, and so launched a preemptive attack against Egypt to defend itself and its citizens from extermination. Never mind that, as no less authoritative a source as former Israeli Ambassador to the US Michael B. Oren has documented, Israel’s own intelligence assessed that Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser had no intention of attacking Israel—because he wasn’t insane. Israel had already invaded Egypt once before, in 1956, in collusion with Britain and France, and the CIA observed that Egyptian forces in 1967 had taken up defensive positions in the Sinai Peninsula and informed President Lyndon B. Johnson that a war was brewing and that it would be started by Israel. Former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, too, has acknowledged that this was a war of choice, and that the Egyptian troop presence in the Sinai didn’t prove that Nasser intended to attack Israel.
During that war, of course, Israel invaded and began its occupation of Gaza and the West Bank—an occupation that persists still today nearly five decades on. The ethnic cleansing also continues incrementally as Palestinians’ homes are demolished or life is otherwise made so miserable for them that they are forced to relocate in order for Jewish settlements to be built, “facts on the ground” designed to prejudice the outcome of negotiations under the US-led so-called “peace process”.
And while the media report on the “peace process” as though the US was truly an objective mediator, the truth, also scarcely concealed beneath the thin veil of rhetoric, is that it is the process by which the US and Israel block implementation of the two-state solution, in favor of which there is otherwise a consensus among the international community.
This consensus is based upon the requirement, emphasized in UN Security Council Resolution 242 (passed in the wake of the 1967 war), that Israel must withdraw to the 1949 armistice lines (also known as the 1967 lines or the “Green Line” for the color with which it was drawn on the map) in accordance with the principle of international law that the acquisition of territory by war is inadmissible. It is also based on the internationally recognized right, reflected in UN General Assembly Resolution 194 (passed during the 1948 war), of Palestinian refugees to return to their homeland.
While the US professes to support a two-state solution, it is emphatically not the same as the two-state solution. The latter is premised upon international law and respect for the equal rights of the Palestinians, while the former is premised upon the use of violence to coerce the Palestinians into accepting Israel’s demands to surrender their rights, including by ceding even more of their land and renouncing their right of return.
What Hope for Peace?
There is a popular view that the Israel-Palestine conflict is inevitable, too complicated for a practical solution to ever be found, which leads to resignation that it will just persist forever. This view is mistaken. There is a solution, which is for international law to be applied. This is the outcome that Israel and the US have fought so aggressively to prevent under the “peace process”, which is premised upon the rejection of the applicability of such treaties as the UN Charter and the Geneva Conventions and, instead, elevates Israel’s wants over Palestinians’ rights.
Hence the accommodative reporting in the mainstream media describing East Jerusalem as “disputed” territory, etc., ad nauseum.
So what can be done about this situation? How can the Palestinians ever hope to see justice done, and how can peace ever be realized?
The answer is simple. The citizens of the world simply need to stop waiting for the governments of the world to solve the problem. There needs to be wider recognition that the world’s governments, far from being part of the solution, are part of the problem. This includes the UN organization, which played no small role in helping to create the conflict in the first place, and which continues to play a duplicitous role—most specifically, the UN Secretariat under Ban Ki-moon’s leadership has been complicit in Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians (e.g., calling for negotiations “without preconditions” in his role as Quartet partner, which is a euphemism that simply means the Palestinians must cease demanding that Israel cease its illegal settlement construction before rejoining talks under the guise of the US-led “peace process”—among numerous other gross abuses of the authority of his office).
Israel is able to act with such impunity because it has the backing of the world’s most powerful government. The US government, in turn, is able to persist in its complicity in the oppression of the Palestinian people because the media manufacture consent for its criminal policies. Most Americans simply have a perception of the conflict that has no bearing on reality. The mainstream discussion about the subject is fundamentally misrepresentative of the conflict’s true nature.
That needs to change. What is required is a paradigm shift. The public needs to stop buying into the perpetually told lies and propaganda. Americans, along with other citizens of the world, need to become properly informed. There are of course those who will cling to their worldview regardless of the facts, and those whose own prejudices will blind them to the truth. But those of us who are honest and actually care about the victims of the violence—on both sides, both Jew and Arab—have a responsibility to educate ourselves and take an active role in sharing knowledge with others.
We need to reach a critical mass of knowledgeable citizenry, a tipping point at which enough people are properly informed about the conflict’s true nature that it no longer remains feasible for the US government to continue its policy of trying to sustain the status quo of occupation and oppression. This applies to citizens of other countries, too, whose own governments—even those ostensibly supportive of Palestinians’ rights—are blinded to the reality that the “peace process” is designed to prevent a peaceful solution and which thus act complicity by advocating the continuance of this farce. This framework for negotiations needs to be replaced with a real peace process, one which doesn’t reject the applicability of international law and isn’t fundamentally prejudiced against the rights of those who are living under an oppressive occupation regime—in which the oppressed aren’t forced to “negotiate” with their occupiers over the extent to which they can retain their own land.
The world is moving in this direction, albeit not nearly quickly enough to be of any comfort for the victims. The European Union, for example, has revised its guidelines for trading with Israel to include the requirement that goods produced in illegally constructed Israeli settlements be labeled as such. The growing boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement can claim some success in this regard, but there is another important factor frequently overlooked that led to this development: the UN’s recognition in 2012 of Palestine as a non-member observer state.
With the UN’s recognition of Palestinian statehood comes access to international legal institutions such as the ICJ and ICC, to which the Palestinian Authority (PA) may now turn in order to seek legal remedy for Israel’s violations of international law.
So why hasn’t the PA already done so?
The Role of the Palestinian Authority
The answer to that question, too, is simple. The PA was established under the “peace process” to serve the aims of the US and Israeli governments. It is, simply stated, Israel’s collaborator regime in the occupied territories that serves to keep the Palestinians in line by repressing popular uprisings against the occupation regime.
This is not to say that the PA leadership under “President” Mahmoud Abbas—who remains in office illegitimately, his term having long ago expired—is entirely dedicated to serving Israel’s interests. But the US and Israel have their ways of forcing his compliance, such as Israel’s withholding of Palestinian tax dollars it collects on the PA’s behalf in the occupied territories, or the US’s threats to cut off aid to the PA if it steps out of line.
Of course, these are bluffs on the part of Israel and the US since they need the PA in order to sustain the status quo of occupation. Neither wants to risk causing the collapse of the PA—least of all the Israeli military establishment, which prefers to have a collaborator regime in place to do its dirty work for it. While Abbas has taken an important step by successfully submitting Palestine’s application for a status upgrade in the UN General Assembly, he has to date remained too cowardly to take the next step by pursuing legal claims against Israel in the international institutions now available to his government.
It is the risk that Palestine might eventually do so, no doubt, apart from the influence of the BDS movement, that has prompted the EU to revise its trade guidelines with Israel so as to take a modest step away from its complicity in the wholesale criminal violation of Palestinians’ rights.
A Global Intifada
This raises a conundrum for the Palestinians. The weight of the world’s governments, meaningless rhetoric to the contrary nothwithstanding, is against them. Absent recognition as a “state”, they had no recourse to legal mechanisms to compel Israel’s compliance with international law. Yet even with such recognition, they remain powerless given complicity of their own government in their oppression. So it comes to this: if the PA—which has been all too willing to lay Palestinians’ rights on the negotiating table in order to preserve the privileged status of its crony elites—will not act to support the rights of its own people, then the Palestinian people must act to rid themselves of its rule over them.
It is time for another popular uprising, an intifada grounded in the principle of non-violent resistance to occupation and oppression. Hamas and other armed groups must realize that, apart from being illegal and immoral, committing acts of terrorism or engaging in war crimes such as indiscriminate rocket fire into Israeli residential communities are a strategic mistake since such actions serve to hand Israel the very pretext it requires in order to preserve its occupation regime.
This is not to say that the Palestinians must renounce their right to legitimate armed resistance against foreign military occupation, which, too, is codified under international law; it is simply to recognize the futility of trying to gain freedom in this particular case through the barrel of a gun and to see that disallowing Israel even the slightest pretext for its own incomparably greater violence is the surest path to creating the conditions necessary for Israel’s policies to no longer remain politically feasible.
It is up to the rest of us to support the Palestinians in that struggle. We must all rise up in solidarity with the oppressed and become active participants in this Third Intifada. The governments of the world aren’t going to get the job done. It is up to the informed citizens of the world to effect the paradigm shift required to compel state leaderships to cease being part of the problem and to do what is right for the victims on both sides.
That will require a change in the nature of the media’s reporting on the conflict, which, although a daunting task, in this age of the internet and social media is foreseeable. It is up to each of us who cares about human rights to take an active role in the discussion, to educate ourselves and others about the true nature of the Israel-Palestine conflict, and to share that knowledge with others by whatever means available. Enough people need to be knowledgeable enough about the conflict—and the US government’s role in it—that it no longer remains permissible for the mainstream media to serve as the government’s very own Ministry of Propaganda.
That is to say, it is time for the world’s citizens to free themselves from the indoctrination of the state religion and recognize that the state itself—as an institution fundamentally grounded in the use or threat of violence to compel desired behaviors—is the enemy of Liberty and of Peace. Yet so long as these political institutions remain on this planet, they ought to hold themselves to their own obligations under the treaties that comprise the body of international law—and they ought to hold each other’s leaderships accountable when those laws are violated and especially when war crimes are committed. It is toward this end that our collective efforts ought to be focused.
Peace can be achieved. There is a path to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But we shouldn’t make the mistake of focusing so much on establishing respected borders between conflicting parties that we fail to realize what a peaceful, civilized world would look like: one without borders.
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Timed to coincide with the anniversary of the ICJ’s 2004 advisory opinion, today marks the official publication date of the author’s new book, Obstacle to Peace: The US Role in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Empower yourself with the knowledge to become an effective voice for peace. Click here to learn how you can read the entire first chapter free and get an email primer course on the conflict.
This assertion by the author – ” When the illegality of the settlements is alluded to by the mainstream media (all too infrequently),” – is not only wrong and incorrect but is stupid. If one claims that when any simple Google search will prove the exact opposite, who will believe Hammond about anything?
You ought to quote the rest of the sentence. What is utterly stupid is chopping it off like that to deliberately obfuscate its point.
Not really. But this is real obfuscation: “Hamas and other armed groups must realize that, apart from being illegal and immoral, committing acts of terrorism or engaging in war crimes such as indiscriminate rocket fire into Israeli residential communities are a strategic mistake since such actions serve to hand Israel the very pretext it requires in order to preserve its occupation regime. This is not to say that the Palestinians must renounce their right to legitimate armed resistance against foreign military occupation, which, too, is codified under international law; it is simply to recognize the futility of trying to gain freedom in this particular case through the barrel of a gun…”.
Only a “strategic mistake”? Or perhaps a war crime? And if they have a legitimate right to resist in an armed fashion, what was Israel doing in June 1967 if not legitimately resisting terror and aggression?
Yisrael, why do you ask, “Only a ‘strategic mistake’? Or perhaps a war crime?” as though you hadn’t JUST QUOTED ME condemning such actions as a war crime?
You can likewise also find the answer to your question about the 1967 war if you bother to actually read the article with a view to learning something from it, rather than going out of your way to try to deliberately misconstrue what I wrote.
You know, you’re correct. I must have been obfuscated.
But my point was, that in your mind Israel cannot be right, always engages in war crimes and deserves to be resisted, even with armed violence, whereas the Arabs get a basic free pass because their worse error is but a “strategic mistake”.
Yes, I know what your point was. Hence my observation of how ridiculous your fallacy is — which you just repeated despite my just having pointed it out to you.
“Israel cannot be right”
Jews are the most violent people in the Middle East.
The banner of Islam should fly over every inch of the Middle East land mass. The banner of Islam only flies over 99.9% of the Middle East land mass now!
Jerusalem should be a 23rd Arab Capital.
Israelis should relax their borders and go back to the weekly terrorist attacks.
A weapons blockade is totally unnecessary.
All Jews whose family came from ashes Europe to the newly formed Jewish State must return to Europe.
And five million so-called Arab refugees should be allowed to return to Israel proper, where 1.5 million Arabs already live as Israeli citizens, making it an automatic Arab State, where Islam Sharia will be the new law.
If it sounds like a sarcasm, it is because it is a sarcasm.
Israel’s terrorism against Palestinians occurs on an incomparably greater scale than Palestinian terrorism against Israelis.
The “Jewish state” was established by ethnically cleansing most of the Arab population from Palestine.
East Jerusalem is under international law “occupied Palestinian territory”.
Israel’s blockade of Gaza is not an act of self-defense, but an illegal policy of collective punishment of the entire civilian population.
The illegal blockade targets the civilian sphere. “It’s like an appointment with a dietician”, as Sharon’s senior adviser described it when this policy was escalated following Hamas’s 2006 election victory. “The Palestinians will get a lot thinner, but they won’t die.”
Jews who immigrated to the area of former Palestine from Europe needn’t return to Europe — they just need to respect the equal rights of the Arab inhabitants, such as ceasing the illegal settlement expansion in the West Bank.
The right of refugees to return to their homes is an internationally recognized right.
If it sounds serious, it is because it is serious.
Since Israel became and State, Palestinian Arab populations have quadrupled both inside and outside of Israel proper. 1.5 Million Palestinian Arabs live in Israel proper, on land that hypocritical activists claim is ethnically cleansed.
“The right of refugees to return”
UNRWA definition of a Palestine refugee in 1952: “A Palestine refugee is a person whose normal residence was Palestine for a minimum period of two years preceding the outbreak of the conflict in 1948 and who, as a result of this conflict has lost both his home and his means of livelihood.”
Israel has legal authority under international law of blockade: A blockade must be declared and notified to all belligerents and neutral states, access to neutral ports “cannot” be blocked, and an area “can” only be blockaded which is under enemy control.
San Remo Manual on International Law – #67 Merchant vessels flying the flag of neutral States may not be attacked unless they: (a) are believed on reasonable grounds to be carrying contraband OR breaching a blockade, and after prior warning they intentionally and clearly refuse to stop, or intentionally and clearly resist visit, search or capture.
The argument that since 20% of the population of Israel today is Arab, therefore Palestine was not ethnically cleansed in 1948 is a non sequitur.
Indeed, there is the view held by some Zionists, such as Israeli historian Benny Morris, that Ben-Gurion’s sin was not doing a thorough enough job of cleansing Palestine of its Arab population. More than half of that population (700,000+) was not enough, in this view.
Not sure what your point is regarding UNRWA’s definition of “refugee”.
No, Israel does not have any “legal authority” for its blockade, which constitutes collective punishment of the civilian population, a violation of international law.
There’s also an entire section in Obstacle to Peace addressing your hasbara about the San Remo Manual. What it actually has to say is quite different. For example, the article you cite only applies when there is a legal blockade to begin with — which isn’t so in the case of Israel’s collective punishment of the civilian population of Gaza.
Get the book here and brush up on what the San Remo Manual actually has to say about it:
http://www.obstacletopeace.com/#buy
“Not sure what your point is regarding UNRWA’s definition of “refugee”.”
UNRWA definition of a Palestine refugee in 1952: “A Palestine refugee is a [person] whose normal residence was Palestine [for a minimum period of two years] preceding the outbreak of the conflict in 1948 and who, as a result of this conflict has lost both his home and his means of livelihood.”
The above UNRWA definition omitted the reference to persons of Arab origin in the 1948 General Assembly proposal, and opened the possibility of including all stateless persons who had been residents of Palestine.
It is worth noting that the Palestinian Arab refugees are the only refugees in the world whose status is permanently inherited. While every other refugee population in the world, such as the millions of displaced persons after the Second World War, has decreased with the passage of time, the Palestinian refugee population continually increases. Therefore, those refugees from 1948 have today become millions. The Arab world’s demand that these refugees be allowed to return to the State of Israel, known as the “Right of Return”, therefore becomes a powerful weapon, as an influx of that magnitude would cause the demographic destruction of the Jewish State. This would be in violation of Paragraph 11 of Resolution 194, which required that those returning should and desiring to “live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date.” The Right of Return, being a weapon for the demographic destruction of Israel, fits neither the “live at peace” clause nor the “earliest practicable date” clause. There is no practical, let alone moral, way for Israel to accept and enable its own demise.
You are simply exposing your own racism.
What specific race are you talking about? Be very specific, because the whole mediterranean, middle east, and north Africa are a thorough mix of races, cultural heritage, and national origins, as am I, as is my President (USA)
No world leader has done more for Israel than President Obama. Is he exposing his racism as well?
Yes, Obama exposes his own racism, too, with his endorsements of Israel’s demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a “Jewish state”, which simply means they must accede that the unilateral declaration of the state of Israel on May 14, 1948, and the ethnic cleansing by which the “Jewish state” came into being were legitimate.
This is ipso facto bigotry.
Personal question– What is your cultural heritage and whose land are you living on, making a living, and raising your family? Please be honest
My cultural heritage, place of residence, and family is irrelevant to this discussion.
I repeat: your insistence that Israel remain a “Jewish state” is pure bigotry in light of the fact this “Jewish state” was established by ethnically cleansing most of the Arab population from Palestine and the fact Israel rejects the internationally recognized right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homeland.
Your cultural heritage, where you chose to live and call your home is relevant to to whether you are a hypocrite.
The international right of return for Palestinian refugee???? UNRWA definition of a Palestine refugee in 1952: “A Palestine refugee is [a person] whose normal residence was Palestine for a [minimum period of two years] preceding the outbreak of the conflict in 1948 and who, as a result of this conflict has lost both his home and his means of livelihood.”
Today’s Palestinian Arab so-called refugees have a right to return to a Palestinian State. It is not mathematically feasible for all the offspring of Arab refugees to have inherited right of return to Israel proper until the end of time. There is neither the room, jobs, or resources to accommodate another five million people that would cause the destruction of Israel from the inside out. Your position is bogus. It is not even remotely plausible or possible.
If you wish to try to make the case that I’m a hypocrite, you are welcome to try. I don’t live in an illegally constructed settlement on stolen land in occupied territory.
Palestinian refugees have a right to return to THEIR HOMELAND. Period. This right is internationally recognized and codified in international law.
I gave you the United Nations definition of a Palestinian refugee. I repeat— UNRWA definition of a Palestine refugee in 1952: “A Palestine refugee is a [person] whose normal residence was Palestine [for a minimum period of two years] preceding the outbreak of the conflict in 1948 and who, as a result of this conflict has lost both his home and his means of livelihood.”
You repeat yourself as though your comment somehow belies the fact that Palestinian refugees have an internationally recognized right to return to their homeland. It does not, and I repeat: Palestinian refugees have a right to return to their homeland.
You are right to point out that the US, too was established through the ethnic cleansing of the native inhabitants. But your attempt to characterize me as a hypocrite simply because I’m white and live in the US is simply absurd. I wasn’t responsible for that and did not participate in it, unlike Israeli settlers today who are participating in the violation of Palestinians’ rights by residing in illegally constructed settlements. The violation of natives’ rights is an condemnable historical legacy of the US, but, unlike the situation in Palestine, is not ongoing today with continued incremental ethnic cleansing, illegal demolitions of natives’ homes to make way for white housing developments, collective punishment against the native population and murderous military assaults on their communities, etc. I also have native friends who also live here and enjoy equal rights as me, such as the right to own property, unlike the situation in Palestine in which the government of Israel still refuses to allow those ethnically cleansed to return. Etc. Spare us your hypocritical asininity.
Just for balance: If the Jews controlled 22 Countries in the Middle East and the banner of Judaism flew over 99.9% of the Middle East land mass, what would you be asking of Jews in the name of world peace? Would you be fighting for all the minority ethnic and religious groups who have always lived in the Middle East without autonomy or equal rights? How would you balance the scales in the Middle East and North Africa?
Just for balance: If it had been an Arab, mostly immigrant minority who owned less than 7 percent of the land and who ethnically cleansed most of the Jewish population of Palestine in order to establish an “Arab state”, I would condemn it and support the rights of the oppressed Jews.
Again, you are the only hypocrite here.
The solution to the refugee problem is simple: respect their right to return to their homeland. Those who want to do so should be allowed to do so.
You answered your own question, that is why there are twenty two “Arab” states and the banner of Islam flies over 99.9% of the Middle East land mass, without regard to all the other ethnic minorities and religions. That is why they all belong to the League of “Arab” Nations. That is why all Middle East Countries, with the exception of Israel, belong to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (which has 57 member state in total). Calling me a “hypocrite” will not change the matt. Do you know what a balanced scale looks like?
What percentage of the “land” did Palestinian Arabs actually own? Please be specific
You’re not helping yourself out much here by trying to justify the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in order for the “Jewish state” to be established. If you have an argument, of course, you are welcome to make it.
Under international law, ethnic Jews are in principle entitled to establish and maintain communities anywhere in the area of Mandate Palestine west of the Jordan River.
Ladies and Gentlemen, witness an instructive example of what I meant in the above article when I wrote, “There are of course those who will cling to their worldview regardless of the facts, and those whose own prejudices will blind them to the truth.”
Facts be damned!
What “facts?” Incidentally, the oft-quoted UN Resolution 242, whilst it does say that Israeli armed forces should leave territories occupied as a result of the June 1967 war (as part of an overall peace settlement), makes no mention of Israelis [i.e Israeli civilians] or of Jews, does it? Jews also have rights.
Well, read the article.
False. Resolution 242 does not condition the requirement of Israeli withdrawal. It does not say that the Palestinians must negotiate a peace settlement that includes a final agreement on borders while under foreign military occupation. It calls for a full Israeli withdrawal from occupied territory, period.
I don’t understand this question and comment. Are you suggestion 242 was prejudicial to Jews’ rights?
You need to read the whole of 242, but especially the first paragraph, which goes as follows:
BEGINS
1. Affirms that the fulfilment of Charter principles requires the establishment of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East which should include the application of both the following principles:
(i) Withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict;
(ii) Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgment of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force;
ENDS
So 242 (a) most certainly does not call for “a full Israeli withdrawal” but only and merely for the withdrawal of “Israeli armed forces”. This subsection does not apply, therefore, to Israeli civilians or to Jews, does it?; (b) is predicated on the basis that all High Contracting Parties [to use somewhat antiquated diplomatic parlance] will acknowledge “the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area …” This applies (does it not?) to the Palestinians, who are enjoined to acknowledge the soveriegnty etc of the State of Israel.
OK?
Geoffrey, you need to read the whole of Resolution 242, which actually begins as follows:
It’s understandable you would omit that, for the obvious reason.
Resolution 242 most certainly does call for a full Israeli withdrawal from occupied territory, in accordance with the principle of international law that the acquisition of territory by war is inadmissible.
You are, of course, simply parroting Zionist propaganda, a frequently told lie about the resolution’s meaning.
Sub-paragraph (i.) of the first operative clause is not conditioned upon sub-paragraph (ii.), or vice versa. The resolution calls for both full Israeli withdrawal and a peace settlement. The Security Council was perfectly clear about 242’s meaning: full Israeli withdrawal is required.
The resolution certainly does not commit the Palestinians to negotiate with the Occupying Power while remaining under foreign military occupation! This is an absurd interpretation on its face.
In fact, there’s a whole section in Obstacle to Peace addressing this nonsensical Zionist lie. You can get a copy here:
http://www.obstacletopeace.com/#buy
UN Resolution “242”, does not say Israel must withdraw from “all” the territories occupied after the Six-Day war. This was deliberate, so that the “Arab” States could not use these territories to attack Israel again. The “Arab” States pushed for the word “all” to be included, but this was rejected by the UN Security Council. Read the UN notes and additions.
Your logic is patently self-defeating. UN Resolution 242 does not say that Israel must withdraw from only “some” of the occupied territory.
That, of course, would be incompatible with the principle of international law that the acquisition of territory by war is inadmissible.
Zionist lies notwithstanding, the Security Council was unanimous on the meaning of 242: a full Israeli withdrawal to the 1949 armistice lines.
Addressed in the UN Resolution 242 is the “inadmissability of the acquisition of territory by war.” Some people read 242 as though it ends here and the case for requiring a total Israeli withdrawal from the territories is proven. On the contrary, this clause does no such thing, because the reference clearly applies only to an offensive war. If not, the resolution would provide an incentive for the aggressor. Multiple Arab countries used these occupied territories to attack another country (Israel), and the defender repels the attack and acquires these occupied territories in the process, a false interpretation would require the defender (Israel) to return the land it acquired to the original OCCUPIERS (Jordan and Egypt). That means the aggressors would have nothing to lose because they would be insured against the main consequence of defeat, and Jordan and Egypt re-occupy the territories. Instead, Jordan and Egypt have maintained a peace treaty with Israel for decades, and want nothing to do with that land, especially Hamas’ Gaza.
Egypt banned Hamas and branded it a terrorist organization.
Jordan banned Hamas in 1999. In 2013, Jordan rejected requests to allow Hamas to return.
Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah disagree and are fighting with each other in Syria (Sunni/Shiite conflict).
Syria- Hamas is an uninvited guest
Can you name one Arab Country that supports Hamas or their methods? Please be specific!
1) The principle of international law is that it is inadmissible to acquire territory by war. Period. (Every state that conquers territory in war, of course, claims it is acting out of self-defense.)
2) The 1967 war began on the morning of June 5, when Israel launched a surprise attack against Egypt, an act of aggression, “the supreme international crime” as defined at Nuremberg.
Again, in keeping with that principle of international law, Resolution 242 required Israel to fully withdraw from all occupied territory.
If Israel launched a surprise attack, why did Arab forces have approximately 465,000 troops and more than 2,800 tanks on her borders, and yes, I am sure they were surprised when Israel let them know that never again meant never again.
There is no “if”. It is a completely uncontroversial historical fact that the 1967 war began on the morning of June 5 with a surprise Israeli attack on Egypt.
Regarding the Egyptian troops, READ THE ARTICLE. Then read Obstacle to Peace for more details:
http://www.obstacletopeace.com/#buy
You missed the point! Arab forces had hundreds of thousands of troops and thousands of tanks on Israel’s borders, therefore, collective Arab Countries were prepared to attack Israel. Arabs were not there to attack each other.
Like I said, READ THE ARTICLE. I’ve already addressed your fallacies, so there’s no sense continually repeating them. Again, Egyptian forces took up defensive positions, and Israel’s own intelligence assessed that Nasser would certainly not attack Israel.
Israel had peaceful means available with which to seek redress for its grievance over Egypt’s closing of waterways to Israeli shipping. The simple fact is that the war was, as Menachem Begin acknowledged, a war of choice — a war of aggression, “the supreme international crime” as defined at Nuremberg.
You can read more about this in Obstacle to Peace:
http://www.obstacletopeace.com/#buy
Why were the Egyptians surprised if they Egypt and Iraq hand troops and provision in Jordan poised to target Israel. If it is all fallacies, then there is nothing left to talk about.
Your question makes no sense. The Egyptians had no way of knowing that Israel would launch an aggressive war against them precisely on the morning of June 5, 1967.
Because the Egyptians thought that Israel would be intimated by their overwhelming numbers of men and military hardware, surrounding the tiny Country. The Egyptians were surprised that Israel let them know that they were not having any of it, and stopped the enemy at the gates.
You keep missing the part about Israel’s own intelligence assessing that Egypt would not attack Israel.
You are impervious to facts.
On what date and time was that intelligence given, as Israel’s position was that, facing economic strangulation and the imminence of war on three fronts, with hundreds of thousands of enemy troops and hundreds of tanks massed on its borders, and given that shipping had been blockaded in the Straits of Tiran (90% of Israeli oil passed through the Straits of Tiran, and especially in light of the social and economic impossibility of maintaining her civilian army call-up indefinitely, Israel had little choice but to initiate preemptive action.
Keep in mind, that in 1967, there were no Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, so what was the purpose for the massive confrontation with the tiny Israel?
You remain impervious to facts. Again, there was no imminent threat of an attack from Egypt on Israel, as both Israeli and US intelligence recognized.
On what date and time was that intelligence recognized? I don’t know what Country you live in, but if your sworn enemies were amassing troops and military armament on your borders, you would hardly dismiss it as a threat. Attempt to be honest.
Yes, let’s please be honest. Here’s no less authoritative a source than former Israeli Ambassador to the US Michael B. Oren, the timeframe of May 1967 in the weeks just prior to Israel’s aggression against Egypt:
And here’s a relevant excerpt from Obstacle to Peace:
You really need to read Obstacle to Peace so you can educate yourself on the facts and deprogram yourself from this indoctrination into Zionst hasbara. Get it here:
http://www.obstacletopeace.com/#buy
I repeat– “I don’t know what Country you live in, but if your sworn enemies were amassing troops and military armament on your borders, you would hardly dismiss it as a threat.” Wars are not always begun by shots fired, but by actions taken.
And I repeat: Israel’s own intelligence assessed that Israel was under no threat from Egypt.
You are impervious to facts.
Obviously that was not the case the week of the attack? What is the date of that intelligence report?
Oren doesn’t give the exact date. Like I said, in May, in the few weeks before Israel’s act of aggression.
Again, Israel’s own intelligence assessed Egypt would not attack, and if you have any evidence that assessment ever changed in the weeks or days before it launched its war of aggression, you are welcome to present it.
I have no absolutes as to what Israeli intelligence knew weeks before the attack.
1. UN Resolution 242 does indeed refer to the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war. Can we agree – therefore – that it is inadmissible for the Palestinians to acquire or occupy East Jerusalem, which by virtue of UN Resolution 181 is to be an internationally administered city?
2. Can we also agree that sub-paragraph 1 of the first operative clause of Resolution 242 only refers to the withdrawal of Israeli armed forces?
3. Please direct me to that portion of Resolution 242 that in your view requires all Jews [Jews, please note, not Israelis] to withdraw from territories occupied by Israel as a result of the 1967 conflict.
Thank you
1. No. Your conclusion does not follow. East Jerusalem was not the UN’s to take or give. It is, under international law, as the UN emphasizes and the ICJ has affirmed, “occupied Palestinian territory”. But how extraordinarily hypocritical of you to suggest such a thing while rejecting the application of this principle of international law when it comes to Israel’s occupation.
2. Yes, sub-paragraph (i.) refers to Israeli armed forces. If you are suggesting, however, that therefore the settlements are legitimate, this, too, is a non sequitur. They are a violation of international law.
3. I never said this. You are arguing a strawman, yet another logical fallacy. In fact, I emphasize in Obstacle to Peace that Jews ought to be free to remain in Palestine.
Order a copy here:
http://www.obstacletopeace.com/#buy
1. Am I correct, therefore, in assuming that you regard the entire UN partition resolution [181] as illegal ab initio? Do you also regard the League of Nations’ Palestine Mandate as illegal?
2. Presumably you acknowledge the right of Jews – in principle – to dwell in the entire area of what was Mandate Palestine? I ask this because – helpfully – you state quite clearly that in your view “Jews ought to be free to remain in Palestine.” That being the case, what undertakings to this effect have you been able to extract from the current Palestinian leadership? From Fatah? From Hamas?
Resolution 181 violated the UN Charter inasmuch as the partition plan was premised upon the explicit rejection of the right of the majority Arab population to self-determination.
The League of Nations’ Mandate system was simply the Great Powers’ way of “legalizing” their conquests and occupations. The Palestine Mandate essentially recognized Britain as the Occupying Power in Palestine and Transjordan.
Yes, Jews certainly have a right to dwell anyplace they want in the territory of former Palestine, so long as they aren’t violating the equal rights of others. The settlements are illegal. The land on which they are built should return to its rightful owners, who would be free to do with it as they please, including allowing Jews currently living there to continue living there as tenants or selling the land to them, so long as those Jews choose to remain living in Palestine.
You state categorically that although “Jews certainly have a right to dwell anyplace they want in the territory of former Palestine, so long as they aren’t violating the equal rights of others” nonetheless “the settlements are illegal.” This surely cannot be true of – say – Hebron, where Jews lived for hundreds if not thousands of years until their massacre by Palestinian terrorist Islamists in 1929. And what about the Jewish Quarter of the old city of Jerusalem?
I must also point out that during the period of the British Mandate Jews bought the land on which they dwelt, paid for it, and obtained receipts. Are they not, therefore, “its rightful owners?”
I am glad that you mention Jordan. This Kingdom was carved out of Mandate Palestine by the British authorities, and settlement in it (including the purchase – or even renting – of land) forbidden to Jews. Presumably, therefore, you would wish this Kingdom to be dissolved as such and all anti-Jewish prohibitions revoked.
I must also repeat my former question relating to undertakings from the current Palestinian leadership relating to the rights of Jews to dwell in (as you put it) “the territory of former Palestine.” Have you, to date, been able to extract from the current Palestinian leadership any such undertakings?
There simply is no contradiction between saying:
* “Jews certainly have a right to dwell anyplace they want in the territory of former Palestine, so long as they aren’t violating the equal rights of others”
and
* “The settlements are illegal.”
Israel’s settlements violate the equal rights of the Palestinians. This is precisely why such actions are forbidden under international law.
As for legal purchases of land by Jews, when the Zionists unilaterally declared the existence of their “Jewish state”, the Jewish community owned less than 7 percent of the land in Palestine.
They conquered the rest through violence and ethnic cleansing.
As for your claim that Jordan forbids Jews from becoming citizens or owning property, that is simply another hasbara lie:
I don’t know what the PA’s official position is with respect to the solution concerning Jews currently living in illegally built settlements in Palestine. To my knowledge, it does not have one. I’ve stated my own view clearly.
I am – deliberately – not talking about Israeli settlements or even (as you write) “Israel’s settlements,” but purely and exclusively about Jewish settlements. Under international law ethnic Jews are entitled – in principle – to establish and maintain communities anywhere in the territory of Mandate Palestine west of the Jordan River. That is – presumably – why Resolution 242 says nothing about such communities.
As you know, after the Mandate had been established the British had second thoughts about Jewish settlement on the East Bank, which was subsequently renamed the Emirate of Transjordan. Jews were prohibited from settling within this Emirate, and even today it is exceedingly difficult (pursuant to a Jordanian law dating from 1954) even if technically not impossible for any ethnic Jew to acquire Jordanian citizenship. Interestingly, it was none other than Winston Churchill (then British Colonial Secretary) who in March 1921 gave Emir Abdullah the assurance that no Jews would be allowed to settle in Transjordan [see W. R. Louis, The British Empire in the Middle East 1945-1951 (Oxford University Press, New York, 1984), at page 348].
My point is that if you wish to regard the entirety of Mandate Palestine as the nation-state of the Palestinians, it must logically follow that the Emirate of Transjordan [now “Jordan” be dissolved and its territory re-integrated with the West Bank – to say nothing of Israel proper. And in that case, surely, all restrictions on Jewish settlement there [meaning the East Bank] must be lifted.
Or is there to be one law for Arabs and another for Jews?
Even if, purely for the sake of argument, we were to accept your view that in 1948 “the Jewish community owned less than 7 percent of the land in Palestine,” you would surely agree that – insofar as that 7 percent is concerned – the land was legally bought. And, if so, how can Jewish settlements built upon it be illegal?
Or is there to be one law for Arabs and another for Jews?
Geoffrey, you’re comments are nonsensical, but if you are trying to suggest that Israel’s settlements (i.e., your “Jewish settlements”) in the West Bank aren’t illegal, you’re wrong.
If Jews wished to purchase land in Palestine for their residence, of course they have a right to do so and the Palestinian government shouldn’t have a problem with that.
That, of course, isn’t what has happened. What has happened is outright theft. Certainly, no people, including Jews, are “entitled” to thieve land from other people.
As for the amount of land legally owned by the Jewish community in 1948, this isn’t my “view”, but an uncontroversial fact. It was less than 7 percent.
We are making progress!
You now acknowledge that a percentage [never mind how much or how little] of the land now settled by Jews in the area of Mandate Palestine is in fact legally occupied. Could you please communicate this acknowledgement to the Palestinian Authority and copy us all into the response (if any!)?
You say to me: “if you are trying to suggest that Israel’s settlements (i.e., your “Jewish settlements”) in the West Bank aren’t illegal, you’re wrong.”
Am I?
Not all Israelis are Jews, and not all Jews are Israelis, are they? There is – therefore – a basic difference between being Jewish and being Israeli. In my original post (9 July) I deliberately and explicitly referred to the rights of Jews, not Israelis.
You declare that “If Jews wished to purchase land in Palestine for their residence, of course they have a right to do so and the Palestinian government shouldn’t have a problem with that.”
But Sir, the Palestinian government most certainly does have a problem with that – in present-day Hebron for example.
The problem that the Palestinian government has is that Jews have returned to Hebron.
This brings me to the much more fundamental issue, namely the root cause of the conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbours. The root cause is – of course – religious (which is why Jews were massacred in Hebron in 1929). Islam was founded, in part, on the basis of an explicit anti-Jewish discourse, added to which Islamic theology rejects the view that any part of the “Realm [or House] of Islam” can ever be ruled over by those who are not Muslim. So the notion of Jewish self-determination in Palestine is an affront to this theology.
George, please share with us one example of what you are referring to when you suggest there are “Jewish” settlements in the West Bank distinct from “Israeli” settlements that, unlike Israeli settlements, have been established legally.
I don’t speak for the Palestinian government, and they don’t speak to me, so you can stop referring to them.
The root cause of the conflict is the rejection of the right to self-determination of the Palestinians. I’ve written a book on that: The Rejection of Palestinian Self-Determination: The Struggle for Palestine and the Roots of the Israeli-Arab Conflict, which you can get here:
http://www.jeremyrhammond.com/the-rejection-of-palestinian-self-determination/
Of course, this rejection continues today, as you can read about in great detail in my new book Obstacle to Peace: The US Role in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, which you can get here:
http://www.obstacletopeace.com/#buy
Well, for starters, and ignoring for the moment your contention that Israeli settlements are “illegal,” there’s Hebron, isn’t there?
Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine are illegal. That is an uncontroversial point of fact under international law.
Jews living in Hebron today live in illegally constructed Israeli settlements.
Well, the Jews of Hebron couldn’t have been living in what you term “illegally constructed Israeli settlements” in 1929, could they?
I need at this point to draw attention to the so-called “Palestine Papers” – material leaked to Al Jazeera and now available online, and specifically to document 3369 originating with the Palestinian “Negotiating Support Unit” and drafted in September 2008: (www.ajtransparency.com/en/document/3369 ).
Entitled “Rights of Jews within the OPT [Occupied Palestinian Territories] acquired pre-1967”, we have here a Palestinian admission that Jews owned land and other property in Judea, Samaria and Gaza prior to 1948, that this land was confiscated by the Jordanians and Egyptians, and that such Jews “have the right to have their land restored to them or to be compensated, if restitution is not materially possible”.
OK?
Thanks for the link. Yes, certainly, such Jews have that right. Just as Palestinians who were expelled from their homes and had their lands stolen from them do.
So you accept that there are some Jews (let’s not argue at this stage about how many) who have a legal entitlement to settle on the West Bank, and that the settlements they have constructed and/or inhabit are in fact legal. And presumably you also accept that these rights adhere whether or not these particular Jews happen to be Israeli citizens?
Certainly, there are some Jews who have a legal right to return to the West Bank due to their having fled or having been expelled from there by Jordan.
It does not follow that any of Israel’s settlements in the West Bank are legal. They are not. All of Israel’s settlements in the West Bank have been constructed in violation of international law. As the source you so kindly shared with us notes:
“Certainly, there are some Jews who have a legal right to return to the West Bank due to their having fled or having been expelled from there by Jordan.”
Excellent! I knew we were making progress!
Well done!
Are we (making progress)?
I have yet to see you condemn Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians or say anything supportive of their rights.
I see no progress in our discussion whatsoever.
Yes, we certainly are making progress because at the outset of our dialogue you had insisted that all so-called Israeli “settlements” on the West Bank were and are illegal, whereas now you concede (and I quote) that “Certainly, there are some Jews who have a legal right to return to the West Bank due to their having fled or having been expelled from there by Jordan.” In so conceding you also acknowledge that there’s a difference between Israeli settlements and Jewish settlements (don’t you?)
That’s progress, surely!
See, we are making no progress at all. You are still trying to claim that Israeli settlements in the West Bank are not illegal. They are.
Every.
Single.
One.
I still have yet to see you condemn Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians or say anything supportive of their rights.
So no progress whatsoever.
I have deliberately not, in this thread, addressed the issue of the legality or illegality of what you term “Israeli settlements” in the West Bank. What I have addressed, from the outset, is the legality of Jewish settlements. And you have agreed that some – at least – of these Jewish settlements are legal because (and I quote you again)“there are some Jews who have a legal right to return to the West Bank due to their having fled or having been expelled from there by Jordan.”
Nor, in this thread, (and again, deliberately) have I addressed what you term “Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians.”
What I will say is that Palestinians have rights. But – as far as much of the West Bank is concerned – they are broadly speaking the rights of the tenant, not the rights of the landlord.
OK?
Geoffrey, you said: “you had insisted that all so-called Israeli “settlements” on the West Bank were and are illegal…”
That certainly suggests to me that you are claiming that: 1) they are not “settlements” because the land is either Israel’s or privately owned by Jews (neither of which is the case), and 2) some if not all of Israel’s settlements are legal (which is not the case; they have all been constructed in violation of international law).
As for the right of a small number of Jews to return to property they had lost during the 1948 war, I’ve already been quite clear, and there is simply no such thing as a “Jewish settlement” distinct from an “Israeli settlement”. For any of these Jews to return to their former homeland in the West Bank and resume private ownership, that is not a “settlement”.
The settlements are all Israeli state projects, as clearly explained in your own source, which you so kindly shared with us. Please refer to my previous comments in that regard.
Please acknowledge that Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal so we may register some progress in this discussion.
“there is simply no such thing as a “Jewish settlement” distinct from an “Israeli settlement”.”
Why not? Is it – perchance – because you have simply never considered that Jews might have rights distinct from those pertaining to Israelis?
“The settlements are all Israeli state projects.” Really? Please explain to everyone on this thread how the Jewish settlement at Hebron – which we all agree (I take it) predated the proclamation of the State of Israel – is nonetheless an “Israeli state project.”
Incidentally, as the current occupying power the State of Israel has, under international law, the obligation to protect Jewish West Bank settlements (call them residences if you must) reclaimed after 1967.
The Jewish settlements in the West Bank are projects of the state of Israel.
There are no Israeli settlements that predate the proclamation of the state of Israel (needless to say).
All Israeli settlements in the West Bank are all illegal under international law.
Please reread this comment.
You are confusing “Israeli settlements” with “Jewish settlements.” The two are quite distinct.
The Jewish settlement of Hebron predated [by many centuries] the proclamation of the State of Israel. How else do you explain that there could have been a massacre of Jews in Hebron in 1929?
No, there is no distinction. All Jewish settlements in the West Bank are Israeli settlements.
Are there any Jews living in Hebron today who do not live in an Israeli settlement? To my knowledge, no.
There are in fact an indeterminate number of Jewish settlements on the West Bank that have most certainly not been authorised by the Israeli authorities, who from time to time attempt to “dismantle” them – i.e. shut them down. See for example: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4759748,00.html
Jews also have rights, do they not? Including the right of national self-determination.
How many times do I have to emphasize that Jews and Arabs have equal rights before you stop asking this question: “Jews also have rights, do they not?”
We have yet to see you affirm that Arabs have rights, including the right to self-determination, which was violated when Palestine was ethnically cleansed to establish the “Jewish state” and which is violated perpetually under the occupation and settlement regime.
Regarding your link, if Jew legally purchases land from a Palestinian and lives on that land, that is not a “settlement”. The Palestinian law forbidding Palestinians from selling land to Jews is condemnable, but also understandable given how Palestine was ethnically cleansed of its Arab population by Jews, how Palestine remains under Israeli military occupation, how Palestinians’ land is stolen from them and their homes destroyed to make way for illegal Israeli settlements, and how the occupation regime deprives Palestinian landowners of means to make a decent living and thus puts them into a position where they feel it necessary to sell their land to citizens of the very country that has so long oppressed them in the first place.
Of course Arabs have rights- including the right of national self-determination. That’s [partly] why Mandate Palestine was partitioned in 1921, and that part of it lying to the east of the Jordan River declared prohibited to Jews. But Jews also have rights – including the right to establish and maintain communities to the west of that River.
What the Muslim world objects to is – quite simply – any attempt by Jews to assert their right of national self-determination in any area previously under Islamic control. That’s to say, it’s an example of religiously-inspired racism.
Let us assume – purely for the sake of argument – that the whole of what was Mandate Palestine had comprised one multi-national, multi-ethnic state. At any point in the future, the Jews in that state could have declared themselves in favour of independence – just as, in 1992, the Slovaks declared independence from the Czechs. This demand could not in all justice have been refused.
I must, for the record, categorically deny your assertion that “Palestine was ethnically cleansed of its Arab population by Jews.” As I have written elsewhere, there were – it is true – a small number of instances [around six] of Arabs being forcibly ejected from their homes during the Israeli War of Independence [1948-49]. The overwhelming majority of Arabs left of their own accord, hoping no doubt to return once the Jews had been disposed of.
Don’t take my word or this. Read, rather, the words of none other than Mahmoud Abbas, who has reportedly admitted that the Arabs of Sfat [from where his family came] left quite voluntarily: http://www.iris.org.il/blog/archives/3102-Abbas-admits-that-Arabs-of-Safed-Left-Voluntarily.html .
Added to which we must surely recall that between 1948 and 1952 some 750,000 Jews were ethnically cleansed from Arab lands.
This is nonsense. Arabs living in Palestine (not Transjordan) had a right to self-determination in Palestine (not Transjordan).
So we’ve still yet to see you condemn the establishment of Israel via the ethnic cleansing of most of the Arab population, or to otherwise affirm the equal rights of the Palestinians, including the right to self-determination. On the contrary, you simply deny the uncontroversial historical fact that 700,000 Arabs were ethnically cleansed from Palestine in order for the “Jewish state” to be established. These Palestinians did not leave “of their own accord”. They fled out of fear of massacres like that at Deir Yassin, out of fear of war, or were expelled by Zionist forces (“People were motivated to run away… They feared retribution from Zionist terrorist organizations…” — from your own link); moreover, they were never permitted to return to their homes and, indeed, their villages were wiped completely off the map.
You are simply a willfully ignorant hypocrite.
“Arabs living in Palestine (not Transjordan) had a right to self-determination in Palestine (not Transjordan).”
But Transjordan was part of Palestine, wasn’t it?
And in which territory do you suppose the Jews had a right to self-determination?
I notice – and no doubt, too, will others – that you are apparently silent on the ethnic cleansing of Jews from Arab lands.
No. The Palestine Mandate included both Palestine (west of the Jordan) and Transjordan (east of the Jordan; hence the name).
Jews had a right to self-determination in the land they had legal rights to, of course, which amounted to less than 7 percent of the territory of Palestine.
I condemn the ethnic cleansing of Jews from Arab states — just as I have clearly already condemned, above, the expulsion of Jews from the West Bank in 1948 by Jordan.
You are the only one applying a hypocritical standard here.
“Jews had a right to self-determination in the land they had legal rights to, of course, which amounted to less than 7 percent of the territory of Palestine.”
If so, why did the Arabs object? Even to self-determination within this (as you put it) “less than 7 percent?”
Your question answers itself. The plan to partition Palestine was racist and inequitable and was premised on the explicit rejection of the rights of the majority population of Palestine to self-determination. The Arabs proposed that the independence of Palestine be recognized and a single democratic state in which the rights of the minority were respected, but the Zionists rejected this in favor of establishing their “Jewish state” through the ethnic cleansing of most of Palestine’s Arab inhabitants from their homes.
Are you saying that the majority Arab population should have been permitted to enforce its will against the then minority Jewish population?
Are you aware of the tragic history of Jews under Arab rule?
What – in principle – is wrong with a “Jewish state?”
No. I’m saying exactly what I said — that the minority Jewish population should not have enforced its will against the majority Arab population by ethnically cleansing Palestine, obviously.
What is wrong with that is obvious. You just have to apply an equal standard, rather than contenting yourself in hypocrisy.
You need to accept that minorities also have rights.
If there is to be a “return” to Israel of Palestinians displaced therefrom in 1947-48, then there has to be a concomitant right of “return” for Jews displaced from Arab lands 1948-51 or thereabouts. Either both, or neither.
Which is it to be?
By the way – as I’ve said on the media countless times – I support the Four State Solution: three Arab states [Jordan, “Palestine” and Gazastan] and one Jewish state [Israel]. I can’t be fairer than that, can I?
You say that as thought I had not repeatedly emphasized that all peoples have equal rights, as though I had said something prejudicial against the rights of Jews, and as though I had not just repeatedly acknowledged the right of Jews who fled or were expelled from the West Bank in 1948 to return.
The hypocrisy here is your own. We have yet to see you affirm that the Palestinians have equal rights as Jews, such as by condemning Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.
“You say that … as though I had not just repeatedly acknowledged the right of Jews who fled or were expelled from the West Bank in 1948 to return.”
I’m afraid it’s not just a matter of the rights of Jews who fled or were expelled. It’s also a broader matter of the Jewish right to national self-determination in what was Mandate Palestine. On the question of the legality or otherwise of what you term “Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank,” I need to point out that under international law Israel is obligated to support not merely the general Jewish right of national self-determination but also the specific right of Jews to establish and maintain communities in Mandate Palestine west of the Jordan River.
Geoffrey, you are simply exposing even further your extraordinary hypocrisy.
The Zionists did not have a “right” to establish a “Jewish state” in all of the formerly mandated territory of Palestine. Once again, the minority Jewish community who owned less than 7 percent of the land had no rights to the land outside of that 7 percent. No such “right” exists under international law, as you falsely and absurdly claim.
It’s enough to point out once again how your view is premised upon the rejection of the majority population — who owned more land in every single district in Palestine, including Jaffa — to self-determination.
My claim is neither false nor absurd. I hope, next year, to present a paper on it at an international conference.
Both Jews and Arabs have rights to national self-determination. I affirm the rights of both. Why don’t you?
Geoffrey, it is both false and absurd, for the reasons I’ve already given you, and you are patently the one rejecting the equal right of both Jews and Arabs to self-determination — an equal right I have repeatedly affirmed throughout this discussion.
Which is to say, again, that you are an extraordinary hypocrite.
Not at all. I have already made clear, I support the establishment of no less than three Arab states in Mandate Palestine: Jordan; “Palestine”; and Gazastan.
Your original post was entitled “The No-State Solution to the Israel-Palestine Conflict.” But now you say that you support the right of the Jews to national self-determination. So May I ask in which territory you believe this right should be exercised?
Indeed, you have certainly made yourself perfectly clear in your rejection of the right of the Arab Palestinians to self-determination.
As for your question about which territory Jews have a right to exercise self-determination, I have already answered it clearly and repeatedly and grow tired of repeating myself to satisfy your vain efforts to project your own hypocrisy upon me.
“As for your question about which territory Jews have a right to exercise self-determination, I have already answered it clearly and repeatedly …”
Well, please tell us all just once more: in which territory in your view do the Jews have a right to exercise self-determination?
Which territory is it? In your answer, please draw a distinction between the right to own property and the right to exercise national self-determination.
You also say you grow tired of repeating yourself. May I remind you of the saying “if you don’t like the heat, get out of the kitchen?”
Geoffrey, I’ve already been perfectly explicit in answering that question and am perfectly content at this point to let others read my article and our comments and judge for themselves which one of us is the rejectionist.
In view of your latest answer, I must state for the record that I support the establishment of no less than three Arab states in Mandate Palestine: Jordan; “Palestine”; and Gazastan, plus the establishment of one Jewish state. Unless I hear from you to the contrary I shall assume that you agree with this view.
You’ve also already stated for the record your rejection of the right of the Arab Palestinians in 1948 to self-determination in their homeland.
So, again, I’m content to let other readers judge which of us is the rejectionist.
I hereby affirm the right of Arab Palestinians in 1948 to self-determination in their homeland.
I also affirm the right of Jews in 1948 to self-determination in their homeland.
By the way, a colleague who has read our dialogue has pointed out that self-determination is not normally based on land ownership: if it were [he says], the territory of Mandate Palestine should have been divided between the countries of the absentee landlords.
You will have to reconcile that with your previous statements rejecting that right for this to have any meaning.
Please direct my attention – and that of all readers of this dialogue – to any statement I have made anywhere denying the right of Arab Palestinians in 1948 to self-determination in their homeland.
And whilst you’re doing this, could you also confirm your support for the right of Jews to national self-determination in their homeland? You do support this right, don’t you?
Thanks
I have affirmed that Jews have a right to self-determination repeatedly throughout this conversation. I have also repeatedly pointed out that the Jews had no rights to most of the land they took for the “Jewish state” by ethnically cleansing the Arab population, and you have continually argued the point with me. Hence, you reject the equal right of the Arab Palestinians to self-determination.
Your argument amounts to a complete non sequitur. After all, currently, Arabs control and exercise self-determination in approximately 78 per cent of the territory that constituted Mandate Palestine.
But I feel bound to ask you to describe – in general terms – the geographical areas of Mandate Palestine in which you feel that Jews have a right to self-determination.
You keep asking me these questions as though I hadn’t already explicitly answered them repeatedly and consistently.
This comment of yours is simply yet another manifestation of your rejection of the right of Arab Palestinians to self-determination in Palestine (i.e., not in Transjordan).
Please oblige me with a direct answer to my request: please describe – in general terms – the geographical areas of Mandate Palestine in which you feel that Jews have a right to self-determination.
I don’t need to describe it in general terms. I’ve already described it in explicit terms, and repeat once more that the Jews had a right to self-determination in the land they had legal rights to. They did not have a right to establish a “Jewish state” in place of Palestine, where there was an Arab majority that owned more land than the Jews in every single district. Your assertion that they did simply constitutes a rejection of the equal right of the Arab majority to self-determination.
The only people who “have a right to
self-determination” in “the geographical areas of Mandate
Palestine” are the Palestinian people. So would you please stop obsessing about “Arabs” and “Jews”, and asking asinine questions that make you look racist and stupid.
Yes, the only people who had a right to self-determination in historic Palestine were the Palestinian people, including the Jewish Palestinians.
Just to be clear.
“the Jews had a right to self-determination in the land they had legal rights to. They did not have a right to establish a “Jewish state” in place of Palestine, where there was an Arab majority that owned more land than the Jews in every single district.”
What do you mean by “district?” If we agree – purely for the sake of argument – that Jews had legal rights to land in Hebron, or Jerusalem, are you saying (as you seem to be) that in those places the Jews had a right of self-determination? If so, the fact that there might well have been “an Arab majority that owned more land than the Jews” is irrelevant, isn’t it?
“The only people who “have a right to self-determination” in “the geographical areas of Mandate Palestine” are the Palestinian people.”
But you’ve just said [see above] that “the Jews had a right to self-determination in the land they had legal rights to.”
What do you mean by “the Palestinian people?” Does this phrase encompass Jews?
Palestine was divided into numerous districts. If you don’t know what a district is, you can look it up in a dictionary.
Why do you continually ask questions you already have my answers to? Why do you say “purely for the sake of argument” as though I had not already affirmed that, indeed, there were some Jews who owned land in, e.g., Hebron? And why do you ask again whether they had a right to self-determination in those places when I have already repeatedly affirmed that they did?
This is becoming wearying.
As I’ve already explicitly stated, yes, this includes Jewish Palestinians.
You are the only one applying a hypocritical standard here.
If “indeed, there were some Jews who owned land in, e.g., Hebron” and if these particular Jews “had a right to self-determination in those places,” then I must put it to you that your call for a “no-state solution” to the Israel-Palestine conflict is doomed ab initio.
If you think I’ve erred on any point of fact or logic in the article, you are welcome to make an argument.
Yes, I do think your logic is questionable.
It was announced yesterday that the Palestinian government is contemplating a lawsuit against the UK government over the 1917 Balfour Declaration. The Palestinian foreign minister is quoted as saying: “based on this ill-omened promise [The Balfour Declaration] hundreds of thousands of Jews were moved from Europe and elsewhere to Palestine at the expense of our Palestinian people.”
[See http://www.thejc.com/news/world-news/161170/well-sue-uk-over-balfour-declaration-says-palestinian-leader ]
What interests me is the reference to “Jews.” This quarrel/dispute/conflict was always about Jews, wasn’t it?
And my invitation to you to point out any error in fact or logic on my part remains open. I’ll merely note that yet again in your latest comment you’ve chosen not to do so.
Your question has no meaning. You could just as well as, “This quarrel/dispute/conflict was always about Arabs, wasn’t it?” And the answer, whatever it may be, would be the same.
It was not I who used the word “Jews” in the quotation I cited. It was a high official of the Palestinian government. You need to ask your self why he used the word “Jews” and not simply “people?” What have the Palestinians got against “Jews?”
So my question does have meaning, even if one is afraid of the answer – which is that the root cause of this quarrel/dispute/conflict lies in Arab attitudes towards Jews, doesn’t it?
What a silly question, asking what Palestinians have got against Jews.
The fact they were ethnically cleansed from their homeland and their villages wiped off the map for a “Jewish state” to be established, for starters.
It would be superfluous to list the long list of additional grievances.
(This also answers your question about the root cause of the conflict, i.e., the rejection of Palestinians’ rights by the Zionists.)
You need to ask yourself whether the Palestinian reaction would have been quite so racist if the immigrants had been Arabs rather than Jews.
You also need to confront the myth of there being or having ever been a Palestinian “people.” Here is what the PLO leader Zuheir Mohsen had to say on the subject: “The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. … Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct “Palestinian people” to oppose Zionism. For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.” [source: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Zuheir_Mohsen ]
As though ethnically cleansing Palestine of Arabs in order to establish a “Jewish state” wasn’t racist!
Funny how, if Palestinians didn’t exist then, David Ben-Gurion could speak of “Palestinian nationalism” in 1936…
This trope is tired old racist tripe.
There was no “ethnically cleansing” of Arabs in Palestine. On the contrary, Palestine east of the Jordan River was made an exclusively Arab entity, in which Jews were specifically forbidden to settle. You have already agreed that in principle Jews living in Palestine had a right to national self-determination. The question is, do you really believe that to be the case?
I didn’t say that “Palestinians” didn’t exist. What I did infer was that the idea of a Palestinian “people” was a myth. Ben-Gurion was however right to refer to “Palestinian nationalism,” which was a very late development based on western notions of the nation-state. The Arabs who immigrated into and colonized geographic Palestine in and after the 7th century did not view themselves as “Palestinians,” but simply as Arabs.
You are presumably aware of the history of the persecution of Jews in Arab societies.
Ignorance is not an argument.
Once again, the “Jewish state” came into existence via the ethnic cleansing of 700,000 Arabs from Palestine.
Once again, Jews and Arabs have an equal right to self-determination; ethnically cleansing Palestine and stealing Arabs’ lands was not a legitimate exercise of that right.
What right did Arabs have to colonise Palestine in and after the 7th century?
We are not talking about the 7th century. We are talking about the 20th and 21st centuries. The Arabs who had lived and worked the land for generations had rights to that land. The Jews had no “right” to take it from them by force and ethnic cleansing. The Palestinians have already made the enormous concession of agreeing to accept their state on just 22% of historic Palestine. Yet Israel rejects the two-state solution and continues to violate international law and Palestinians rights with its occupation regime.
Why shouldn’t we go back to the 7th century? Why go back to a date of your choosing but not of my choosing?
The land which the Jews resettled from the end of the 19th century was bought from those who owned the land, and receipts obtained. If you feel that the landowners should not have sold the land, by all means take this up with their descendants if you feel you really must!
Your insistence that “the Palestinians have already made the enormous concession of agreeing to accept their state on just 22% of historic Palestine” is incorrect. Palestinians currently occupy approximately 78% of “historic Palestine.” It is we Jews who have agreed to accept just around 22%. Don’t take my word for this. Look at the map.
OK?
I’m concerned about people who are suffering injustice and oppression today, not ghosts from centuries ago. What happened in 1948 is relevant to that discussion. What happened in the 7th century is not.
I have never suggested that I feel the 7 percent of the territory Jews legally purchased should not have been sold to them, so that is a puzzling comment.
The West Bank and Gaza comprise 22% of historic Palestine. The Palestinians’ acceptance of a state in this territory is an enormous territorial concession, given that, as we’ve been over ad nauseum, the Zionists had no legal claim to most of the land they took for their “Jewish state” by ethnically cleansing 700,000 Arabs from their homes and wiping their villages off the map.
You are conveniently forgetting that the country now called Jordan was part of “historic Palestine,” aren’t you?
“I’m concerned about people who are suffering injustice and oppression today, not ghosts from centuries ago. What happened in 1948 is relevant to that discussion. What happened in the 7th century is not.”
Oh, but it is! It is entirely relevant.
No. Palestine was the territory west of the Jordan. The territory east of the Jordan River was Transjordan (hence the name). The Palestine Mandate included both Palestine and Transjordan. (Haven’t we already been over this?)
The West Bank and Gaza comprise just 22% of historic Palestine.
Yeah, that would be in all of mandate Palestine.
[FTFY]
Zionism is, in fact, demonstrably antithetical to the fundamental principle of self-determination, as articulated in the UN charter.
“….every country on the planet other than Israel itself recognizes Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, as occupied Palestine.”
Israel was a regular target for terrorism before there was a single Jewish settlement in the West Bank (OCCUPIED by Jordan) and Gaza (OCCUPIED by Egypt) until 1967.
Every last Jew was removed from Gaza 11 years ago, and within weeks, Hamas rockets rained down on Israel’s civilian populations (lesson learned). Every rocket fired into Israel is an act of war, with a known Israeli response. What is the purpose to repeat the process over and over and over again, and then complain to the international community?
After the Jordanians captured the “West Bank” including East Jerusalem in 1948, they forcibly evicted all Jewish residents who were rightfully there. They uprooted Jewish cemeteries, using the grave-markers for pavers and other projects. They destroyed almost every synagogue. Later Jews rightfully started to return. Jews have lived in Judea and Samaria—the West Bank—since ancient times. The only time Jews have been prohibited from living in the territories in recent decades was during Jordan’s rule from 1948 to 1967.
I am an atheist, but just for balance, the West Bank is the birthplace of David, Solomon, and Jesus. What is the chances of a non-Muslim even getting close to the birth place of Muhammad?
You are simply repeating more Zionist hasbara, and I fully address this propaganda in Obstacle to Peace, which you can order here:
http://www.obstacletopeace.com/#buy
Briefly, it’s enough to point out that Israel was created via the wholesale violation of the rights of the majority Arab population, most of whom were ethnically cleansed from Palestine in order for the Zionists to establish their “Jewish state”.
As for Gaza, that hasbara, too, is fully addressed in the book, but, briefly, you ignore the fact the ceasefire following Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza was observed by the Palestinians until Israel killed Palestinians in a raid into the West Bank. You ignore the fact that Sharon’s “disengagement plan” was designed to give Israel the political leverage necessary for an expansion of illegal settlements in the West Bank. You ignore the fact that Israel placed Gaza under a state of siege, collectively punishing the entire civilian population, a policy amounting to a war crime under international law. You ignore Israel’s frequent and incomparably greater violence and terrorism against the people of Gaza, etc.
Get the real story here:
http://www.obstacletopeace.com/#buy
You hold up the word “hasbara” as if that absolves you from leaving out all the facts and circumstances surrounding each issue.
Nearly 80% of the British Mandate Palestine was and is Jordan. Jerusalemites are of varied national, ethnic and religious denominations and include European, Middle Eastern and African Jews, Georgians, Armenians, and Muslim, Protestant, Greeks, Greek Orthodox Arabs, Syrian Orthodox and Coptic Orthodox Arabs, among others. Many of these groups were once immigrants or pilgrims that have over time become near-indigenous populations and claim the importance of Jerusalem to their faith as their reason for moving to and being in the city.
Do you think these people want to see the Pan-Arab colors black, white, green, and red flying over Jerusalem? Individually, each of the four Pan-Arab colors were intended to represent a certain Arab dynasty. The black was the color of the banner of Muhammad and the Rashidun Caliphate; white was used by the Umayyad Caliphate; green was used by the Fatimid Caliphate; and red was the flag held by the Khawarij.
More hasbara. The Palestine Mandate included both Palestine and Transjordan. This idea that the Arab Palestinians ought to have just picked up and moved across the Jordan so the Jews could take over their land is extraordinarily racist.
You keep talking about international law– The question of Statehood was resolved with the 1947 U.N. Partition Resolution (a Jewish State and an “Arab” State living side by side in peace). However, six “Arab” armies invaded the newly formed Jewish State, several times, in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to destroy it, and they lost. They chose war and they lost. Now Palestinian Arab seek statehood via that path they have rejected for Israel all these years.
With all the Arab wars against the Jewish State, and after subsequent defeats, they created the doctrine of the limited-liability war. Under this theory, an aggressor may reject a compromise settlement and gamble on war to win everything in the comfortable knowledge that, even if they fail, they may insist on reinstating the status quo in the original 1948 UN Mandate Partition Plan.
You are repeating myths and Zionist hasbara.
Resolution 181 was never implemented.
By the time the neighboring Arab states managed to muster a military response, 300,000 Arabs had already been ethnically cleansed from Palestine.
For details on both those subjects, read Obstacle to Peace:
http://www.obstacletopeace.com/#buy
What exactly, Geoffrey are “ethnic Jews”?
I`m aware that the Hebrews originated in Iraq, when it was Egypt of course, and Abraham was born in the ancient city of Ur, near modern Basra.
That would make the Hebrews what today would be called ethnic Arabs with a belief in the God of Abraham.
Sara, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah (the four Matciarchs) were not Jewish until they married and adopted Judaism, even the wife of Moses was not Jewish until she married Moses.
Then there are Chinese Jews and Indian Jews that could only have converted to Judaism while retaining their Chinese or Indian ethnicity.
Adolf Hitler used Eugenics to support his claim of a “Jewish race” but his eugenics research has long been discredited.
Even an Israeli Tourist Board publicity film emphasised the wide range of differing ethnic backgrounds of Israelis.
So, tell me, what exactly are “ethnic Jews”
By “ethnic Jews” I mean not merely persons following the Jewish religion in one or other of its many forms, but persons who identify themselves as Jewish by virtue of a shared ancestry, history, language and/or culture. This is the essence of ethnicity, which is wider than religious practice but which must also be differentiated from “race,” which is a purely biological term. I draw attention in this context to the seminal judgment of the [British] House of Lords in Mandla & Another v. Dowell Lee & Another (1983), in which it was held that the term “ethnic” was to be construed “in a broad cultural and historic sense,” and that an “ethnic group” had to have “a long shared history” and “a cultural tradition of its own … often but not necessarily associated with religious observance.”
Lord Fraser`s judgment in the House of Lords, Geoffrey was specifically related to the 1976 Racial Discrimination Act, for England and Wales.
This resulted after several failed prosecutions on a technical loophole, created when the proposals for a Racial Discrimination Act was written and approved in the House of Commons.
To enable future prosecutions to succeed Lord Fraser amended the act with every definition that he could think of that described Race.
That amendment had the unintended result of racist Englishmen successfully suing black immigrants who called them “Arrogant Englishman” which they were of course, but black immigrants were criminalised for saying it.
It`s a teeny weeny bit disingenuous to imply that Fraser`s attempt to redefine flawed English legislation, as being universally relevant.
So to your clarification of what is “Ethnic Jews” would be; anyone who want`s to be regarded as Jewish, is therefore ethnically Jewish? (My great great great great great grandfather was Jewish, Gov, would work then? And what about Hitler? Several writers have claimed he had Jewish ancestors!)
And presumably Mark Zuckerberg, would have ceased to be an “Ethnic Jew” when he renounced Judaism, and conversely former Christian, Ivanka Trump would become a “Ethnic Jew” when she converted to Judaism.
It seems to me Geoffrey, that just about everyone could be an Ethic Jew! Or I missing something?.
I was merely asked to define what I meant by “ethnic Jews.” I did so, referring also to the supremely important Mandla case, which was really about whether the UK 1976 Race Relations Act also protected sections of the community that were not “racial” in the narrow, biological sense. The judgment in Mandla [which involved the Sikh community] has been of enormous benefit to British Jews. As for us Jews, it is possible to be Jewish by religion but also by birth or conversion. Jews in my view are in no sense a “racial” group, but can claim an ethnic dimension (if I can put it that way!). Of course if you wish to employ a different definition of ethnicity that’s your privilege.
It was your claim, Geoffrey, that “Under International Law, Ethnic Jews are in principle entitled to establish and maintain communities anywhere in Mandated Palestine, west of the Jordan River”.
International Law, and the Geneva Convention regards Zionist Israeli colonies in the occupied West Bank as illegal, I was intrigued at your assertion that that International law did not apply to “Ethnic Jews”.
Perhaps you are relying a little too much on the Hasbara archives? I lost faith in them years ago when I started to find conflicting inconsistencies.
But thank`s for your courtesy.
Be very specific, because the Jewish people’s right to settle in the land between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea is enshrined, by, among other authoritative documents, the Balfour Declaration, the San Remo Treaty, the League of Nations’ Palestine Mandate (Article 6), the Anglo-American Convention, United Nations Charter (Article 80), and implicitly by U.N. Security Council Resolution 242. Statements to the contrary, even by U.N. officials, are political in nature, not legal.
Thanks for your opinions, peepsqeek.
I regret that I have no interest whatsoever in anyone who relies on the Hasbara archives, the information there has long been discredited for what it is, one sided Zionist propaganda that is effective only to the ignorant who have a need to maintain their beliefs.
You seem completely unaware when you mention “The Balfour Declaration” that while containing the statement that the British Government looked favourably on a “Jewish Homeland”, it also stated; “It being clearly understood that nothing be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine”.
You may find solace in Hasbara nonsense, however it is not conducive to adult debate, I have indulged your fantasies far longer than you deserve..
You have conveniently omitted the fact that the UN Rules of War supersede UN Resolutions. The UN Partition Resolution for the British Mandate Palestine, was followed by six “Arab” armies who chose war and they lost.
Crying “Hasbara” as your basis for every argument that you cannot address otherwise is weak at best.
This is a nonsensical statement.
Again, by the time the neighboring Arab states managed to muster a military response, 300,000 Palestinians had already been ethnically cleansed from their homes by the Zionist forces.
“Hasbara” is a perfectly appropriate description for your arguments.
Your 300,000 is not a accurate depiction of the whole story. During the same time period in 1948 there were 851,000 Jews claiming refugee status in Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia, Yemen/Adan. Today there are 3,700. Where is your balanced scale of Arabs absorbing Palestinian Arabs born in Arab Countries?
Are you trying to suggest that since Jews’ rights were violated in other Arab countries, therefore the Zionists’s ethnic cleansing of Palestine was justified? What is your argument?
No, I am clearly pointing out the Middle East dynamics. There is no balanced scale in the Middle East. You are still claiming “the ethnic cleansing of Palestine” when in fact Palestinian Arabs have quadrupled in population both inside and outside of Israel since 1948. Palestinian Arabs living in Israel as citizens have a longer life expectancy than Americans living in America.
The argument that since the Arab population both inside and outside of Israel has increased since 1948, therefore Palestine was not ethnically cleansed in 1948 is a non sequitur.
Indeed, there are Zionists like Israeli historian Benny Morris who hold to the view that Ben-Gurion’s mistake was not doing a thorough enough job of cleansing Palestine of Arabs.
Actually other people are very good at ethnic cleansing.
[Assyrian News Agency 2013- “Concerned Christian organizations from the Middle East met in Brussels today under the umbrella of the Middle East Christian Committee (MECHRIC) to demand action on the brutal and merciless ethno-religious cleansing against Assyrians, Copts and other Christians taking place in the greater Middle East.”
AINA News
Swedish Media Wake Up to Plight of Assyrians in the Middle East
Assyrian International News Agency
Posted 2013-08-20 14:59 GMT
Stockholm (AINA) — Swedish media have begun to show an increasing interest in the plight of Christians of the Middle East in general and the Assyrians in particular. The large Assyrian community in Sweden, more one hundred thousand, has played an important role in raising awareness. Recently Swedish public service television aired a report on the attacks against the Copts in Egypt by Islamists and another report on the difficult circumstances Assyrians are facing in Syria because of the Islamist elements in the Syrian rebels. The main Swedish morning paper, Dagens Nyheter, featured an article today on Assyrians from Syria fleeing to their relatives in Sweden.
In a report aired on Monday evening Swedish news Aktuellt, Fredrik Malm, foreign affairs spokesman of the liberal party Folkpartiet said “Keep in mind that these Christian minorities, the Assyrians, Armenians, Copts, are actually the original inhabitants of these areas with roots going back thousands of years before Christianity. What we’re seeing is a systematic attempt to cleanse the Middle East of its original inhabitants, this is a continuation of the genocide that took place in Ottoman Turkey in 1915.”
I used the word “Hasbara” in preference, peepsqueek to the far more apt word, “Idiotic”.
I could also have used senseless, deluded, ignorant or ill informed., all would apply to your nonsensical irrelevancies.
You have very quickly demonstrated that you have not the faintest idea of the historical realities, choosing instead to accept verbatim discredited propaganda that you consider sufficient.
Since you are again having delusions of relevance, please tell the readers what is your “final solution”?
“Final Solution”, peepsqueek, is an immature suggestion.
Nothing ever stays the same, the world evolves, it never stays as it is.
Britain at the height of its power created an artificial de facto Zionist State as early as 1944, the USA emerged as the worlds superpower after WW2 and has sustained Zionist Israel ever since.
Zionist Israel has imposed it`s will because of military superiority.
No one would doubt that “the west” and in particular the USA are convinced that this situation is fully justified, that assumption, however is not held by some 400 million Arabs and some 80 million Iranians.
Universally, amongst the intrinsic population of the M.E. there is deep resentment at the creation of a European colony in the heart of the M.E. and of the repressive conduct of those Zionist Colonists in repressing Palestinians.
For the last 100 years the intrinsic people of the M.E. have been powerless to act, that goes without saying, but it would be extremely foolish to assume that will always be the case.
Indeed it`s not difficult to see that change is happening, just 5 short years ago Zionist Israel was stating that Iran would be attacked and it`s nuclear facilities destroyed.
The USA was preparing world opinion for USA military support for Zionist Israeli action.
Today the UN has lifted 17 years of US inspired sanctions against Iran, China, with Russian support instigated that, with Britain France and Germany supportive, the USA (and Zionist Israel) effectively impotent.
China and Iran have today natural trading and diplomatic links going back some 1,500 years, long before the British Empire and US power, it`s a “Will of the people” thing peepsqueek, and it`s where the real power lies.
Today Hezbullah democratically holds the balance of power in Lebanons Parliament, today Hezbollah has an effective army fighting to support the Assad Government in Syria. Today Russia is providing military support to the Assad Government.
5 years ago there was no direct challenge to USA policy in Syria, that would have been inconceivable back then.
We are seeing the beginning of the end of USA world dominance, China will replace the USA, probably sooner than later, with India forecast to exceed the USA in wealth production by 2050. and India is also renewing ancient trade and diplomatic ties with Iran.
The future for Zionist Israel is , peepsqueek, unless Zionist Israel can make the efforts to become acceptable to the intrinsic population of the M.E. That would be a solution, but by no means the final one.
You do not appear to realize that all these independent Arab States are mainly due to the allied powers in the World War I and that the Allies’ victory, helped to bring about the emancipation of all the so called Arab territories from 400 years of being ruled by a Turkic people. If the OttomanTurks and their German allies had won the War, it is improbable that all these so-called Arab [territories], would have become independent “Arab” states.
As for Iran, what ever happened to the land of the Persian land of the Zoroaster?
UN News, GENEVA — 15 March 2013: The cradle-to-grave attacks against Bahais in Iran represent one of the broadest and most obvious cases of state-sponsored religious persecution in the world, said Heiner Bielefeldt, the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief. Speaking on 6 March 2013 in Geneva at a side event during the 22nd session of the Human Rights Council, Dr. Bielefeldt discussed the release of a new report by the Baha’i International Community, which documents rising violence against Iranian Baha’is and the utter impunity enjoyed by attackers.
The Bahai World Center is now in Israel. You probably want them out as well. And the number one destination for Iranians leaving Iran has been to the USA, as we have the largest population of Iranians outside of Iran.
On Jan. 7, 2014, Iran’s Minister of Science, Research and Technology Reza Faraji Dana said, “Every year, about 150,000 highly talented people emigrate from Iran, equaling an annual loss of $150 billion to the economy.” Though the monetary value may be inaccurate (the World Bank put the economic cost of Iran’s brain drain at $50 billion in 2010), the fact is that Iran has experienced one of the highest levels of brain drain over the past decades. According to the International Monetary Fund, Iran has the highest brain drain rate in the world. An estimated 25% of all Iranians with post-secondary education now live in “developed” countries of the OECD. — And we (the US) are happy to receive all these educated and productive people. Educated Iranians are not happy with the Islamic regime.
Any 6th Form English student of British Imperial History, peepsqueek will have been taught about the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement which, with Imperial Russian approval, anticipating victory if WW1 allocated Turkish Ottoman M.E. territories between Britain, France and Imperial Russia.
The fall of Imperial Russia in 1917 left the field to Britain and France, who drew the current Jigsaw of borders we now see and imposed them by 1922 (Hijaz in 1934).
The British Lawrence of Arabia persuaded the Hashemite Dynasty to fight the occupying Turkish forces, with the promise of Arab independence at the end of the war.
In 1918, Britain and France swept aside nearly 600 years of Ottoman occupation and a system of Governance that had evolved with Arab approval and replaced it with artificial countries and puppet Administrations.
For anyone to claim that the M.E. today is full of “Independent Arab States” is simply living in cloud cuckoo land. The M.E. today was created to serve Imperial interests, for Britain and France that was protecting the Suez Canal and for Britain alone, an overland rout to Indian.
All bog standard historical facts imposed on every English 16 year old with history as a subject.
You miss the point about Iran (how many points is that you`ve missed?) Iran is in a very strong position today when compared with just 5 years ago, and the US position is not as strong as it was 5 years ago!
Today, China cannot be brushed aside by the USA, indeed China is starting to assert it`s authority, not like 5 years ago.
During the Iraq Iran 1980-1988 war, the US supported Iraq.
Iran had only just completed it`s revolution which was not at all certain to last. Iraq`s invasion had the effect of created a unity of all Iranians behind the Ayatollah.
All revolutions are dirty affairs, did you know 60,000 Americans fled the 13 Colonies after the American War of Independence? they preferred Canada or the Caribbean colonies or back to Britain, anywhere but the USA?
The Iranian Revolution was particularly nasty, over 15,000 executions of anyone who questioned the Government and many more cases of torture of family members, there are no mitigating circumstances that could justify the horrors that took place in Iran.
Save one! Iran`s Revolution succeeded and Iran today is beyond the reach of the USA, unless the USA is willing to pick a fight with China.
It`s the changing world.
Now peepsqueek, this really is the last time I shall attempt to educate you.
And to save you the trouble of one up-manship, , yes, yes, I KNOW the British burned down the White House, I`m really sorry about it.I.
Why did you ignore: “You do not appear to realize that all these independent Arab States are mainly due to the allied powers in the World War I and that the Allies’ victory, helped to bring about the emancipation of all the so called Arab territories from 400 years of being ruled by a Turkic people. If the OttomanTurks and their German allies had won the War, it is improbable that all these so-called Arab [territories], would have become independent “Arab” states.”
peepsqueek, you are seriously out of your depth, if you believe I did not address the creation of “Independent Arab States”.
If you had even a schoolboys history knowledge, you would be aware that European Colonial attitudes made foreign occupation of “Arab States” inevitable.
Even as late as 1941 Italy joined on Germany`s side with the primary aim of getting hold of French and British North African and M.E. colonies.
Your enthusiasm is laudable but your ignorance is embarrassing.
“You are seriously out of your depth” “If you had even a schoolboy’s history of knowledge” “Your ignorance is embarrassing” and you actually think that these premises give greater weight to your arguments? Now that is ignorant and embarrassing!
To your other point- Most Italians were anti-fascist and helped to hide their Jews as well. The contribution of Italian anti-Fascist partisans to the campaign in Italy in World War II has long been neglected. These patriots kept as many as seven German divisions out of the line. They also obtained the surrender of two full German divisions, which led directly to the collapse of the German forces in and around Genoa, Turin, and Milan. Mussolini got his just due in the end, and Hitler shot himself in the head.
Mussolini was the leader in Italy, he latched on the the success of Hitlers Nazi conquest in 1940, at the time only Britain opposed Germany, and Britain was expected to fall to Germany (even by the British!).
Mussolini had designs on British and French colonies in North Africa, which in 1940 were there for the picking.
But for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, the USA would not have entered WW2, (American public opinion was at that time, pro German, certainly not pro-British).
A fine example of “Nothing ever stays the same”!
Another good example was when Hitler broke the peace treaty he had negotiated with the USSR by invading Russia, no one saw that one coming!
It was Russia that broke the back of Germany`s military strength, making the Normandy invasion much less costly to the Allied forces than it could have been.
Mussolini was assassinated by Italian Communists and Italy quickly changed sides, as I say, The Will of the people is far more important than military activities.
From a distance of several thousands of miles, you may well be very pro-Zionist Israel, that is simply your opinion.
But the far more important and relevant opinions are those of some 400 million Arabs, and some 80 million Iranians, who are, peepsqueek, directly affected and very much opposed to the Zionist Israeli Genocidal Apartheid policies that the intrinsic population of Palestine are subjected to.
Nice re-write of history. In 1940 the US was rearming, the forces the Great Depression was finally beginning to ease , and Americans were earning more and buying more so being able to buy goods and further fueling the economy. Naturally they did not want to enter into another world war . But outside of America Germany invaded France which meant between Germany and Italy most of Western Europe was controlled by them except for England. In the US the feel good feeling of leaving the depression behind.
After your hero got 60 million Europeans killed and after leaving a devastated Germany, Hitler was right to shoot himself in the head. Five million Germans starved to death in occupied Germany after the war, and another two million died in labor camps. Millions of Germans died as a result of ethnic cleansing carried out by, Russians, Poles, Czechs, and Serbs according to the former German Prime Minister Konrad Adenauer.
Or maybe you were just referring to Hitler’s “superior race” doctrine.
Or maybe it was Hitler’s “No retreat” order. This was Hitler’s biggest stupidity in Russia and one of the biggest military blunders of all time, and ultimately costing the lives of 2 million Germans.
Now Europe is facing a new enemy from the South- Islamism
In 1939, USA military forces were smaller than those of Portugal.
The “Will of the American People” was to be supportive of Nazi Germany, in 1938 the New York “Time” magazine chose Adolf Hitler as their Man of the Year, and in 1939 there were huge pro Nazi Germany demonstrations in Chicago and New York.
Congress refused to “assist” Britain`s war effort, Roosevelt had to manipulate Congress for approval of “Lend Lease” supply of obsolete destroyers at an inflated price to Britain.
USA public opinion was anti-British and pro-Nazi Germany, until Nazi Germany`s ally Japan, attacked Pearl Harbour, then USA public opinion swung completely the other way.
This peepsqueek, is an example of how things never stay the same as well as an example of the will of the people, which you seem determined to ignore.
Your comment “Now Europe is facing a new enemy from the South, Islamism” reflects what seems to be a USA need to have “An Enemy”. Post WW2 that enemy was communism and US anti communism was ferocious.
From 1946 to 1949, the USA bomber Mao`s Peoples Army, just because they were communist (China today commemorates that episode with annual remembrance services). North Korea, then Vietnam were attacked by the USA, plus Cambodia and Laos, and just because they chose communism.
Cuba suffered years of sanctions, after accepting communism, have Cubans change their minds? Castro is still venerated!
Even the British Island of Grenada was invaded by the USA, just because they got a communist leader, it never crossed the mind of the Ronald Regan administration to consider contacting Britain first, Myopic or what!
You seem oblivious that Al Qaeda was a CIA creation, training and equipping Bin Laden in “terrorist” methods against the USSR when occupying Afghanistan.
Naive in the extreme to assume he would accept similar imposition of US interests in the M.E.
Delusional to assume Islam is to blame for all the worlds problems, you (the USA) cannot afford to accept that USA actions in the Middle East is resented by the populations of the Middle East, it`s resentful indignation and has nothing to do with religious beliefs.
Your attitude peepsqueek reflects those of redneck southern volunteers for the USA army, not the brightest button in the box and susceptible to simple minded gung-ho army propaganda,or as they say in the US, conditional bias, it makes you offensive peepsqueek, which is a great shame.
I never asserted “that international law did not apply to “Ethnic Jews”.” I asserted, rather, that under international law, ethnic Jews are in principle entitled to establish and maintain communities anywhere in Mandate Palestine west of the Jordan River.
This entitlement of course predates the re-establishment of the Jewish state, and it’s a right that is enjoyed by Jews, not by Israelis unless they are Jewish.
Very good article. However, many commentators feel it is important for us not to continue calling this ‘a conflict’, as this language plays into the rhetoric that allows it to be seen as an equal struggle by both sides…
Instead, it is more accurate to call it what it actually is: a colonial occupation, or a settler-colonial project.
Point taken, but there is literally conflict between the two peoples. Noting so does not belie the fact it is a struggle of the oppressed against their oppressors.
If you were truly concerned about the oppressed, you would look at the bigger picture in the Middle East and see if Arabs are the oppressed or all other ethnic and religious minorities, even mention the oppression of women tells the readers a little about yourself. The fact that you are always narrowly focused on Israel, also tell the readers something as well.
Writes a bigoted hypocrite trying to justify the oppression of the Palestinians.
See, unlike you, I condemn the oppression of any people anywhere rather than applying moral standards selectively.
If you believe I am the “hypocrite” in this discussion, then you are having delusions of relevance. “Bigot” might be appropriate if we are talking about my feelings or description of political Islam, Islamic sharia, and Islamism to counter your bigotry of anything having to do with a tiny Jewish State in the Middle East.
Your hypocrisy is not a matter of opinion, but demonstrable.
All you have to do to prove me wrong is to condemn Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians.
We both know that won’t happen.
So, again, you are a hypocrite.
Crimes are committed in every war. Mostly it is Israel’s response to Palestinian acts of war and war crimes of “specifically” targeting Israeli civilians, that you couch as criminal. These kinds of terrorist acts have been going on long before there was a single settlement in the West Bank or Gaza.
Arabs have lost every war against Israel, and then immediately following the loss, they demand that Israel return to the status quo in 1947 UN Partition Resolution. Nothing will ever be fair to the Palestinian Arabs and Islamists, short of the total destruction of the Jewish State.
Thanks for proving your hypocrisy for us once again by refusing to condemn Israel’s crimes, but attempting once more to justify its violations of international law and Palestinians’ human rights as somehow being “necessary”.
An excellent summary that only those with uninformed or bigoted opinions could realistically object to.
The Israeli Foreign office propaganda program has for years brainwashed, particularly the US public, into believing the propagated myths that are essential if Israel is to continue it`s policy of Palestinian exclusion from a Zionist State.
It influences even those who seek to expose the reality of unacceptable Israeli actions.
Two examples of this, in this article, is the use of the word “Settlements” and the phrase “Jews and Arabs”.
An accurate word for the reality in the illegally occupied Palestinian West Bank is “Fortified Apartheid Colonies, a Settlement is something agreed to, a Colony is a place that has recently been populated with a permanent population.
“Jews and Arabs” is also a carefully promoted but highly inaccurate phrase, Arab is a 3,000 year old name created to describe the population of the Middle East.
“Arab” describes an ethnic group, there are Arab Muslims, Arab Christians and Arab Jews.
A far more accurate and valid phrase to describe the two sides would be “Zionists and Palestinians”. Zionists being those who were or are motivated to immigrate to Palestine and Palestinians being the intrinsic population of that land.
Zionism is a Nationalistic Racist Political Movement that hides it`s activities behind the skirts of Judaism
Israeli Zionists represent only some 40% of the worlds 15 million or so followers of Judaism, which is a well respected old Religion and the foundation of the two later Semite Religions of Christianity and Islam.
The vast majority of worldwide Jews may have automatic support for Zionist Israel, but they have neither the need nor the desire to live on stolen Palestinian land.
Indeed there are Jews who strongly object to the creation of Zionist Israel, and a growing number of Jews who object to the Racist Apartheid policies of Zionist Israel, they have coined an accurate phrase to describe themselves, it is Jewish Anti-Zionists and they are a rapidly growing number with growing influence.
Even within Israel itself there are organisations seriously concerned about Zionist Israeli Human Rights abuses, “B`Tselem” was formed simply to document Israeli Human Rights abuses in the occupied West Bank and more recently “Breaking The Silence” was organised by IDF and ex IDF soldiers who are seriously concerned at being ordered to commit Human Rights abuses in the West Bank.
Zionist Israel brings shame upon Jews.
Very insightful article. I think Mr. Hammond is absolutely right that change on this issue can only begin once people become more informed. Knowledge is the key to progress – challenging the constructed narratives we are presented with daily by the media is something that can help us in solving not just the occupation of Palestinian territories, but also in other issues all over the globe. We become stuck inside narratives that we assume we have no power to change…and thus we accept what we see and decide that change is impossible so let’s leave it to the governments to deal with. As Mr. Hammond said – the problem is that it is these very governments and institutions who are maintaining the problem – a solution will never come from them, because they are not driven by finding a solution at all. Until we use knowledge as power – nothing will change. Those seemingly concrete narratives can’t be broken unless we challenge them.