The counterproductive (if one were interested in peace, that is) Israeli attitudes at play are vividly displayed in a paper published this week by Efraim Inbar and Max Singer of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, a version of which appeared as an op-ed in the Jerusalem Post. Their piece is titled “The Opportunity in Gaza”—it's interesting how a violent, destructive clash is viewed as a “opportunity.” They argue for a full-scale invasion of the Gaza Strip now—one even bigger and more damaging than Cast Lead, with the objective of destroying as much of Hamas as possible. They blatantly recommend exploiting the U.S. electoral calendar, arguing that “until November, the U.S. is likely to restrain rather than promote international action against Israel in response to an action in Gaza.” They say “deterrence created by Cast Lead” is “wearing thin,” and “military action now could restore deterrence.” Someone should point out to Inbar and Singer than when you repeatedly have to go to war that means deterrence is not working. But they don't seem to care, fully accepting the prospect that in the future “Israel will probably have to 'mow the grass' again.” There is not a single word in their paper about the lives and livelihoods of the residents of the Gaza Strip, or the effect what they are recommending would have on those lives.
May both Palestinians and Israelis be spared from such perverse thinking.
Image: Al Jazeera/Wikimedia Commons
Comments
The peace process that commenced with the Madrid peace conference of 1991 will resume when two conditions are met: (1) The process is conducted based on international law concering the Arab Israeli conflict and the way to resolve it, i.e. San Remo Conference of 1920, League of Nations decisions of 1922, United Nations Charter, Article 80, 1945, and finally, United Nations Security Council Resolution, 242, of 1967. (2) When the Arabs realize and internalize that they are not likely to dislodge Israel from what is rightfully the Jewish people's homeland and the nation-state of the Jewish people, thus accepting this reality at the end of the process and are ready to consider an agreement as the end of the conflict and the end of all future demands. The alternative, as this poster sees it, is the application of Israeli law to Area C and much of Area B in Samaria, Judea and the Jordan Valley, thus incorporating these parts of what the League of Nations and the United Nations in its Charter have assinged to be "the national home for the Jewish people", i.e. the Jewish people's nation-state. In this sense, Israel's government would follow the Contour for Peace as pronounced by the late Mr. Yitzhaq Rabin in his last speech at the Knesset in Octobeer 1995.
Jehudah Ben-Israel wrote:"The peace process that commenced with the Madrid peace conference of 1991 will resume when ... the Arabs realize and internalize that...."Okay folks, now let's hear how *any* similar statement like that sounds with just the change of one word:"The peace process [or indeed anything] will change when the jews realize and internalize that...." Interesting double standard: As everyone recognizes anyone saying the latter would be read out of polite society in an instant as a racist anti-semite. But in fact it's just another in a long list of blinding double standards: Mr. Ben-Israel for instance wants to invoke international law and the U.N., except international law condemns Israel's launching of the '67 war that saw it grab the occupied territories, which the U.N. has repeatedly re-affirmed and condemned, and international law declares it an actual war crime to settle one's own citizens on occupied territories which Israel has been doing for forty years now. But, once again, there's a different, special standard to be applied some folks it appears. Always and forever a different, special standard.
The fundamental of international law related to the Arab Israeli conflict are as follows: San Remo Conference decisions, 1920. League of Nations decisions, 1922. The United Nations Charter, Article 80, 1945. And, UN Security Council Resolution, 242, 1967. Israel, the liberal democratic nation-state of the Jewish people, has adhered to the above fundamental elements in international law that have come to bring about an accommodation of peaceful coexistence between Arab and Jew, between the Muslim-Arab world, local and regional, and itself. Why should the Arabs, local and regional alike, accept the same objective criteria by which to live peacefully alongside Israel?
Jehudah: You can't just pick and chose which U.N. resolutions and statements and points of international law that you like and ignore the rest. Not even by calling them the "fundamental" ones. Or, rather, maybe *you* can, but do you really believe you can persuade the rest of the world of that? That ... the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and its settlement activity there is just irrelevant? Or that the blockade and treatment of Gaza is? Or that either is in any manner whatsoever consistent with the "accommodation of peaceful coexistence between Arab and Jew" that you say Israel adheres to? C'mon my friend; Israel has its valid points and rights, in spades even, but to pretend that there's nothing for it to talk about legitimately gets us nowhere.
Indeed, one should be aware of all UN resoluitons, and first and foremost the UN Charter, the equivalent of a constitution. Therefore, I focus here on that element of the UN Charter that is relevant to the Arab Israeli conflict and the partition of "Palestine" by the League of Nations, i.e. UN Charter, Article 80, 1945. It was very much with this Article in mind that UN Security Council resolution, 242, 1967, was designed to resolve the Arab Israeli conflict. And in this UN Security Council resolution,, sure enough, there isn't a call for an additional partition of "Palestine" and the setting up of an additional political entity between the Jordan River and the Med. Sea. Nor, incidentally, is there even the use of concepts such as "Palestinians" or a "Palestinian state". Any serious drive to resolve the Arab Israeli conflict, local and regional, must be based on international law rather than on "narratives", i.e. short fictional stories designed for political expediency. And, the fundamentals of internatioanl law related to the Arab Israeli conflict and the way to resolve it are: The San Remo Conference decisions, 1920; League of Naitons decisions, 1922; the United Nations Charter, Article 80, 1945; and, UN Security Council Resolution, 242, 1967. And, until that takes place, the way to govern the situation is strictly on the September 1995 Interim Agreement.
Well okay, Jehudah, let's indeed take just the first of the "fundamental" documents that you rely on and see what it says: Well, gee, right off the bat in the UN Charter, Chapter I, Article 1, it talks about "respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples." Now of course probably every country can be accused here and there of not having fully honored this injunction, but for 40+ years now—with no end in sight for the future—Israel has been sitting on the Palestinians and denying them not just the right of self-determination given the refusal to extend citizenship and the vote to same, but denying them *any* rights at all. As per Israel's own statements, whatever it allows the Palestinians to do is not a right but a favor. And then, just a few words further in the UN Charter, we come to Article 2 which talks about how members are to refrain from "the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any *other* manner...." And yet what do we see but Israel still sitting on all that territory it seized in the war that it openly acknowledges it started in 1967, and clearly maneuvering to keep large portions of that territory for itself forever. And *every* country in the world including the United States says that Israel's settlements there are illegal under international law, which makes the issue fundamental enough. And then even just taking the first few words from the document you yourself say is "fundamental"—thus presumably being among the most important words in the document—it's clear that at the very least Israel is in a major way crosswise with the U.N. Indeed, given the centrality of those fundamental words and then the length and degree to which Israel has behaved in a contrary manner as compared with others, one might even say that Israel is behaving not unlike some totally rogue state in this respect. Moreover, the simple fact is that thanks in large part to the world's reaction to Naziism, territorial expansionism and colonialism and ethno-racial supremicism or exclusivism are at the very top of what the world regards as wrong if not indeed evil and criminal now. And no tortured selectiveness involving this or that international document, clause or law is going to change that.
The univerally accepted right of national self-determination and independence applies to all peoples, indeed, including the Jewish people. It is based on this right that "Palestine" - a territory, not a nationality or a state of course - was partitioned in 1921 and 1922, and a small part of it, only 23% of the territory, was assinged to the Jewish people. The rest, 77% of "Palestine", was assigned to the largest group of people in the territory, the Arabs, and rightly so. The fact that they chose to call it Jordan since "Palestine" is not an Arab term is part of their right of national self-determination.
But Jehudah, first you are trumpeting the allegiance we all ought to pay to the U.N. Charter and its resolutions and etc., and now you're kvetching about Israel "only" getting some supposedly too-small a chunk of territory from same presumably by way of saying that Israel is justified in its grabbing of more. (Which grabbing is most emphatically not endorsed by the U.N., nor indeed by anyone else on the planet.) And because you have to concede the U.N.'s endorsement of the right of self-determination you say they we should recognize this for the Palestinians in Jordan. Except, you might notice, the Palestinians *didn't* chose Jordan and *haven't* chose Jordan and certainly Israel wouldn't stop them if they wanted to go there, and instead of doing so they are above all demanding a separate state. I.e., you can't call it "self-determination" when you reject someone else's "determination" and instead insist on another one for them. That's called *your*-determination.