The Legal Status of the Territories Beyond the Green Line (video)

Avi Bell is an Israeli Professor of Law at the University of San Diego School of Law and at Bar-Ilan University's Faculty of Law, as well as a Senior Fellow at the Kohelet Policy Forum.

From that estimable organisation UK Lawyers for Israel comes this video, not quite one hour long,  of the professor in conversation with Oxford-educated London barrister Natasha Hausdorf, who has a LLM from Tel Aviv University in the areas of international law and the law of armed conflict.

Using illustrative matter to explain his points, Professor Bell enlightens us on the topic "Israel, Territory and International Law".

https://youtu.be/WARqkJp_IxU

David Singer: Trump Should Reaffirm Core Bush-Congress Commitments to Israel

Here's the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:

President Trump’s decision to reverse his partial US government shutdown – the longest in history – could have important consequences for the release of his long-awaited plan to resolve the Arab-Jewish conflict – postponed yet again until after Israel’s elections in April.

Trump’s shut down – aimed at forcing Congress to negotiate on Trump’s election promises to build a wall to stop illegal immigration and drug smuggling through a porous border with Mexico – failed in the face of Congress’s unequivocal demand that Trump first reopen the government.

Trump’s supporters are angry and confused at his cave-in to Congress’s demand whilst his detractors are jubilant – as three weeks of negotiations between Trump and Congress now try to resolve the Trump-Congress stand-off.

The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) will feel vindicated – after Congress’s resolute stance – in having refused – sight unseen – to negotiate Trump’s peace plan with Israel after Trump had recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and relocated the US Embassy there from Tel Aviv.

The PLO will be emboldened to continue rejecting Trump’s proposals until Trump reverses his decisions on Jerusalem.

The Wall Street Journal on 11 November 2016 exclusively revealed president-elect Trump’s intentions to make an “ultimate deal” for “humanity’s sake” on “the war that never ends”.

The further delay in releasing his deal comes as the PLO now assumes virtual control of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) proceedings for 2019 – as chairman of the 134 member Group comprising the G77 and China – ensuring a barrage of UNGA resolutions condemning Trump’s deal when published.

Trump’s attempts to woo Jordan, Egypt and possibly other Arab states to replace the PLO in negotiations with Israel remains a work in progress.  Trump’s chances of now succeeding – after his surrender to Congress – appear to have diminished greatly.

The upcoming Israeli elections will give Israelis the chance to vote on the future direction Israel’s new government should take in resolving the future of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and Gaza (“disputed territories”) – the last remaining 5 per cent of the territory of the Mandate for Palestine where sovereignty still remains unallocated between Arabs and Jews.

The choices offered to Israeli voters should be explicitly spelt out by the political parties contesting the elections. The newly-elected government’s stated policy should be implemented. This basic premise of democracy has been undermined in America as Trump’s election commitment to build his promised border wall remains unfulfilled because of Congress’s opposition.

Trump should not similarly attempt to thwart the mandate of Israel’s next government.

Trump should shelve his long-overdue ultimate deal indefinitely – due to the changed circumstances that have demonstrably arisen since his well-intentioned thought bubble in November 2016.

Instead – Trump should:

• Pledge his Government’s full support for Israel’s next duly elected Government
• Reaffirm the core commitments made by President Bush to Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in Bush’s letter dated 14 April 2004 – endorsed overwhelmingly by the Congress by 502 votes to 12 (“Bush/Congress Commitments”).

Those core American commitments – made to procure Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza – included:

1. Opposing any peace plan other than the 2003 Bush Roadmap
2. Being strongly committed to Israel’s security and well-being as a Jewish state.
3. Not supporting any right of return by Palestinian refugees to Israel
4. Regarding as unrealistic a full and complete withdrawal from the disputed territories.

Congress could endorse this Trump initiative – reinforcing continuing bipartisan support for Israel.
Peace will remain elusive – but Trump will have saved himself from drowning in a cesspool that has swallowed previous American presidents who believed they had the answer to ending this unresolved 100 years old conflict.

(Author’s note: The cartoon — commissioned exclusively for this article — is by Yaakov Kirschen aka “Dry Bones”- one of Israel’s foremost political and social commentators — whose cartoons have graced the columns of Israeli and international media publications for decades. His cartoons can be viewed at Drybonesblog)

David Singer: Hamas and PLO Entrench Apartheid in Gaza and West Bank

Here's the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:
 
The British Foreign Office showed appalling judgement when scheduling a visit by Prince William to a refugee camp in the West Bank which should have been closed down long ago. The Prince  – obviously moved by what he saw – remarked:

“I saw at Jalazon (refugee camp) the tremendous hardships faced by the refugees, and I can only imagine the difficulties of life lived under these conditions, the ed (sic) resources and the lack of opportunity”

Regrettably Prince William failed to question why:

1. Jalazon had not been dismantled during the past 25 years after it came under Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) control.

2. Jalazon’s inhabitants should still be classified as “refugees” when they are living in part of former Palestine now under PLO occupation.

Prince William’s visit was closely followed by a meeting between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and United Nations (UN) Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process  – Nickolay Mladenov.

During their meeting Abbas stressed the UN's important role in providing protection for
the “Palestinian people” and the necessity of continuing to provide services to the “Palestinian refugees” through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

Undiscussed between them was why the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza have failed to close down the 27 refugee camps still remaining within their respective fiefdoms.

The West Bank currently has 775,000 registered “refugees” – around a quarter of who live in 19 refugee camps. Most of the others live in West Bank towns and villages. Some camps are located next to major towns and others are in rural areas.

UNRWA provides services in these 19 Palestine refugee camps – but does not administer or police the camps – as this is the responsibility of the PLO – intriguingly identified as the “host authority” by UNRWA Gaza has 1.3 million registered “refugees” – of who 500,000 currently live in 8 refugee camps. As in the West Bank – UNRWA does not administer or police these camps -this being the responsibility of the “host authority” – Hamas.

The West Bank refugee camps are all located within Areas “A” and “B” – some 40% of the territory of the West Bank – being under full PLO administrative control as designated by the Oslo Accords. 95% of the West Bank Arab population – including all those living in the refugee camps – live in Areas “A” and “B”

Many of these camps and their inhabitants date back to 1949. Severe overcrowding problems, high rates of unemployment, personal safety and poor infrastructure are common to them all.
Gaza’s entire population has been under Hamas occupation since 2007.

The PLO and Hamas have maintained their discriminatory two-tiered refugee segregation systems in Gaza and the West Bank for at least the last ten years under which:

1. 800000 “refugees” live in refugee camps

2. 1,570,000 “refugees” live among the general population

Closing these refugee camps and integrating their long-suffering populations among the general population are long overdue. The failure of the PLO and Hamas to do so allows them to maintain and exploit a hard core of hate-filled and desperate Palestinian Arabs who can be readily incited and used as pawns and martyrs to undertake acts of terrorism against Israel.

UN and UNRWA complicity in refusing to pressure the PLO and Hamas to close these squalid camps and end an ever-worsening humanitarian crisis is reprehensible, immoral and completely inexcusable.

Entrenching apartheid by segregation and discrimination whilst denying equal rights to all members of the Arab populations in Gaza and the West Bank spells disaster for both Hamas and the PLO.

(Author’s note: The cartoon – commissioned exclusively for this article—is by Yaakov Kirschen aka “Dry Bones”– one of Israel’s foremost political and social commentators – whose cartoons have graced the columns of Israeli and international media publications for decades. His cartoons can be viewed at Drybonesblog)

David Singer: PLO-Hamas Referendum Could Boost Trump Peace Plan

Have you seen this video (English subtitles) from Israelly Cool?  If not, have a look and spread its fame.

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=RRpDGA_ZAtM

Meanwhile, here's the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:

There is little hope that reconciliation talks between Hamas and Fatah will end a decade of bitter internecine feuding which has seen a parallel entrenchment of territorial divisions between them in Gaza and the West Bank.

Gazan and West Bank Arab populations will continue to be the victims of this ongoing power play as both groups remain bitterly opposed to recognising Israel as the Jewish National Home.

Elections have not been held since January 2006 when Hamas won a large majority in the new Palestinian parliament trouncing the governing Fatah party.

Since then, conflict between Hamas and Fatah has seen any prospect of the peaceful creation of a second Arab State – in addition to Jordan – in the territory encompassed by the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine – consigned to the diplomatic scrapheap.

Now it seems that Hamas and Fatah are seeking yet again to come to some form of reconciliation  – which will only be about preserving their own organisations and retaining their current powers and privileges and have nothing to do with giving their long-suffering populations any say in their own future.

Clearly whatever game of musical chairs they intend to play – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made Israel’s position very clear – reportedly stating that as part of any reconciliation Hamas must:

1. recognise Israel

2. dismantle Hamas’s military wing and

3. Break off ties with Iran.

Any hope of these conditions being met is a pipe dream. Netanyahu also declared:

“We expect everyone who talks about a peace process to recognize the State of Israel and, of course, the Jewish state. We cannot accept fake reconciliation on the Palestinian side that comes at the expense of our existence.”

Again this is simply not going to happen.

Whatever window dressing occurs between Hamas and Fatah will therefore be of no consequence in resolving the Jewish-Arab conflict or in influencing President Trump to believe that such steps are capable of contributing to the President successfully brokering an end to that 100 years old conflict.

The absence of elections for eleven years has created a void that has had disastrous consequences for the Gazan and West Bank Arab populations – impacting the lives of every single Gazan and West Bank Arab.

The likelihood of free and fair elections continues to be a distant dream.

PLO leader Yasser Arafat – perhaps in an unguarded moment – made the following promise back in May 1983 when interviewed in Middle East Review:

“When the occupied territories are liberated, we will move towards a referendum that will set up constitutionally a framework for special relations between Jordan and liberated Palestine.”

That referendum has failed to materialise despite the fact that since 2007:

1. Hamas has controlled 100% of Gaza and its entire population

2. The PLO – of which Fatah is the major member – has controlled 40% of the West Bank within which 95% of the total West Bank Arab population currently reside.

Arafat’s referendum proposal should be implemented – if elections are once again denied.
Holding this referendum would indicate a willingness by both Hamas and Fatah to work towards a peaceful resolution of the Jewish-Arab conflict - working arm in arm with Jordan – rather than continuing their belligerent confrontation with Israel – both militarily and diplomatically – that has marked the last 10 years.

Such a referendum would send a clear signal to President Trump that there could indeed be some possible light at the end of the Gazan terrorist-tunnels – that a framework involving Jordan represents the best possible way forward out of the current impasse.

Seeing the referendum realised remains the challenge for Trump to pursue.

Bibi's Message To Marianne: "Welcome to Israel. You seem to have gotten lost ..."

With Israel's peaceful interception early on Monday about 100 nautical miles off Gaza of  the Marianne of Gothenburg, lead vessel of the anti-Israel stunt called Freedom Flotilla III, now expected to be taken into Ashdod, the skipper of the vessel, like several sailing mates, has issued a prerecorded SOS.  [Update: more on this here]

The burden of their message is reflected in this whinge from the flotillaristas.

 And then there's this:

The true state of affairs has been well articulated by Bibi Netanyahu:

“I would like to commend the sailors and commanders of the Israel Navy for their determined and efficient action in detaining the passengers on the ship that tried to reach the Gaza coast in contravention of the law. This flotilla is nothing but a demonstration of hypocrisy and lies that is only assisting the Hamas terrorist organization and ignores all of the horrors in our region. Preventing entry by sea was done in accordance with international law and even received backing from a committee of the UN Secretary General. [Emphasis added, here and below]

 Israel is the only democracy that defends itself in accordance with international law. We are not prepared to accept the entry of war materiel to the terrorist organizations in Gaza as has been done by sea in the past. Just last year we foiled an attempt to smuggle by sea hundreds of weapons that were destined for use in attacks against Israel’s citizens.

There is no siege on Gaza. Israel assists in transferring goods and humanitarian equipment to Gaza – approximately 800 trucks a day that have recently brought into Gaza more than 1.6 million tons of goods. Moreover, Israel assists in hundreds of humanitarian projects, through international organizations, including the building of clinics and hospitals.

Israel is a state that seeks peace and acts in accordance with international law so that the residents of Gaza might have safe lives and their children may grow up in peace and quiet.”

And as he informed the thwarted sailors in a written message: 

“Welcome to Israel,

You seem to have gotten lost. Perhaps you meant to sail to a place not far from here – Syria, where Assad’s army is slaughtering its people every day, and is supported by the murderous Iranian regime.

Here in Israel we face a reality in which terrorist organizations like Hamas try to kill innocent civilians. We defend our citizens against these attempts in accordance with international law.

 Despite this, Israel transports goods and humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip – up to 800 trucks a day. In the past year we enabled the entry of over 1.6 million tons of products, an average of one ton per person in the Gaza Strip. By the way, these supplies are equivalent to 500,000 boats like the one you came in on today.

Israel provides assistance to hundreds of humanitarian projects through international organizations, including the building of clinics and hospitals.

However, we will not allow the terrorist organisations to transfer weapons into the Gaza Strip by sea. Only one year ago, we thwarted an attempt to smuggle hundreds of weapons into the Gaza Strip by ship. These weapons were meant to target innocent Israeli civilians.

There is no siege on the Gaza Strip, and you are welcome to transfer any humanitarian supplies for the Gaza Strip through Israel.

Barring the entrance of boats and ships into the Gaza Strip is in accordance with international law, and was even backed by a committee commissioned by the United Nations Secretary General.

If you were truly concerned about human rights, you would not be sailing in support of a terrorist regime which summarily executes citizens in the Gaza Strip, and uses children as human shields.

If you were to travel around in Israel, you would see for yourself that the only stable democracy in the Middle East guarantees equality for all its citizens and freedom of worship for members of all religions; it is a country that upholds international law so that its people can live in safety and its children grow up in peace and quiet.”

British Labour MP Condemned For Analogy Between Gaza & The Holocaust

A commenter on my previous post observes:

'Israel was created bec[a]use of the Jewish connection to the land and exists in spite of the Holocaust not because of it. The Mandate for Palestine preceded the Holocaust by two decades and the first partition plan, the Peel Commission was from 1937.  As long as the arabs are seen as "paying the price" for European antisemitism Israel will never be able to win over public opinion.'

An astute comment, and one relevant to the remarks of  Yasmin Qureshi, MP for the safe Labour seat of Bolton South East, made during a Commons debate on Palestine last Wednesday:

"What has struck me in all this is that the state of Israel was founded because of what happened to the millions and millions of Jews who suffered genocide.

Their properties, homes and land –  everything – were taken away, and they were deprived of rights. Of course, many millions perished.

It is quite strange that some of the people who are running the state of Israel seem to be quite complacent and happy to allow the same to happen in Gaza."

 Observes the director of Labour Friends of Israel (as reported here):

"In her remarks, she directly links Israeli policies towards the Palestinian people to the Nazis' efforts to exterminate world Jewry.

This is both deeply offensive to the memory of the Holocaust and its millions of victims, but also wilfully ignorant of the actual situation in Gaza.

We would ask Ms Qureshi to apologise for her remarks, and to cease using such upsetting and offensive comparisons."

There is, however, a better riposte, and Raheem Kassam of the Henry Jackson Society thinktank wasted no time in making it:

"Pakistani-born Qureshi is a long-standing critic of the State of Israel, which most people know was founded in 1948 not as a direct result of the Holocaust but because of a historic Jewish link to the land. The Balfour Declaration, which established British support for the establishment of the Jewish State in what would soon become the British Mandate of Palestine, was issued in 1917.

But that doesn't stop Qureshi and her fellows from seeking to hinge the entire notion of a Jewish homeland in the Middle East on the events in 1930s Europe. For them, this makes Israel easier to attack, especially using their offensive logic in comparing the situation in Gaza to the systematic slaughter of 6 million Jews across Europe."

Having reminded us of Ms Qureshi's demonstrated past sympathy for Hamas, Kassam adds:

'... Qureshi gave the game away early on in the debate on Wednesday, when she rudely interrupted one of her colleagues, James Clappison MP, when he stated: "I do not believe, and will not be persuaded, that the state of Israel has any interest in imposing the present conditions on the people of Gaza for the sake of it."

"Come off it!", she heckled, as if to imply that she does believe that Israel's reaction to Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza is simply "for the sake of it". But Clappison shot back: "Honourable Members need to contain themselves". 

He's right. And if they cannot, then their party leadership should certainly do it for them.'

Read all of Kassam's article here

Sharon's Legacy Haunts Obama And Kerry, Argues David Singer

Here's the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.  It's entitled
"Palestine: Sharon's Legacy Haunts Obama And Kerry".

Writes David Singer:

'President Obama and his Secretary of State John Kerry have a lot on their minds as they grapple with conflicts and political issues involving countries like Syria, Iran, Iraq, Sudan and Afghanistan
 – which no doubt must be causing massive overloading of their respective memory banks.

Yet this would be a lame excuse for them forgetting about – or seeking to minimise – the existence and crucial importance of the letters exchanged on 14 April 2004 between President Bush and Israel’s then Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, who died recently after languishing in a coma for seven years.

These letters enabled courageous and highly dangerous decisions being taken by Sharon to kick start President Bush’s stalled 2003 Road Map – whose goal had been to end the Jewish-Arab conflict by 2005.

President Bush's letter provided the catalyst – and the political justification – for Israel unilaterally evacuating the entire Jewish population of 8000 from Gaza and withdrawing Israel’s army totally from there – without any preconditions or undertakings being sought from the Palestinian Authority.

The Presidential letter set out the framework that Bush would support in negotiations between Israel and the PLO – conditions that Obama cannot possibly now discard as Kerry finalises his own framework agreement.

President Bush’s letter clearly – and unambiguously – assured Sharon that;

1. The borders of any Palestinian Arab State would not encompass the entire West Bank despite successive Arab leaders having demanded this outcome for the previous 37 years,

2. Jewish towns and villages in the West Bank would be incorporated into the borders of Israel

3. The Arabs would have to forego their demand to be given the right to allow millions of Arabs to emigrate to Israel and

4. Israel’s existence as a Jewish State would be non-negotiable

Bush's commitments to Sharon were approved – almost unanimously – by both the US House of Representatives and the Senate.

It didn't take too long however for these Congress-endorsed commitments to be downplayed by Bush and his advisors.

In an editorial published on 14 May 2008, former Jerusalem Post editor David Horovitz revealed the extent of the American resistance to remaining bound by President Bush's 2004 letter following a meeting with Bush in the White House with a group of Israeli journalists:

“Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, however, has been known to minimise the significance of this four-year-old letter. Just last week, for instance, she told reporters that the 2004 letter “talked about realities at that time. And there are realities for both sides….

Bush’s National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley has also given briefings to the effect that Israel had tried to overstate the importance of a rather vague letter, which was issued at a time when Sharon was seeking to bolster support for the pullout from Gaza.

And in answering my question, Bush did not at first even realise that I was referring to the 2004 letter. Hadley, who was also in the Oval Office, had to prompt him. “Okay, the letters,” the president then said, remembering.”

This was far worse and more sinister than mere memory loss. An attempt was being made – as early as 2008 – to renege on America’s clear and unequivocal commitments given to Israel as the price for Israel’s total evacuation of Gaza.

Israel had already paid a high price relying on Bush’s Congress-endorsed letter. Gaza had become a de facto terrorist State – with Hamas firmly entrenched as the governing authority.

Israel had – since its evacuation of Gaza in 2005 – been subjected to a sustained barrage of rockets and mortars fired indiscriminately into Israeli population centres from Gaza by a bewildering variety of terrorist groups and sub-groups who would have had no chance of operating so freely from Gaza if the Israeli Army had remained there.

Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert – who succeeded Sharon – had neither forgotten nor overlooked the critical significance of President Bush’s letter when agreeing to resume negotiations with the Palestinian Authority in 2007.

At the international conference held in Annapolis in November 2007 to announce a breakthrough in the resumption of those negotiations, Olmert told Bush and the world leaders gathered there that:

“The negotiations will be based on previous agreements between us, U.N. Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, the road map and the April 14, 2004 letter of President Bush to the Prime Minister of Israel.”

The subsequent failure of those negotiations can be directly attributed to the Palestinian Authority's refusal to countenance the Bush commitments made to Sharon.

 As Obama gets ready to approve Kerry's framework agreement, he and Kerry need to have their memory banks updated to remind them of the importance of honouring Bush's commitments.

Any attempt by Obama and Kerry to resile from or circumvent Bush’s Congress-endorsed commitments to Sharon will torpedo any prospects for success in the current negotiations – leaving Obama and Kerry with no one but themselves to blame for bringing the current negotiations to an ignominious end.

The idea that any American President would not consider himself bound by the written commitments of a former President – as endorsed by Congress – would undermine America's very democratic foundations.

Disavowing the Bush commitments would prejudice the integrity of American diplomacy world wide
 – ensuring any political decisions by the current administration would not be worth the paper they are written on.

Sharon has left behind a bitter pill – which Obama and Kerry must reluctantly swallow.

Congress will be there to make sure they do.'