All? Sorry I don’t look at accepting Israel proper as a compromise at this point, any more than my accepting that I’ll never play for the NBA is a compromise - it is a simple fact. It would have been accepting a compromise back in 1948, to accept a tiny Jewish state, but that compromise was declined. So the ground shifted. Then the Arab leadership had the chance to accept Israel inside Green line borders and build an independent Palestine inside what is now OT (or even just continue to hold onto the land that was suppposed to have become an Arab Palestine themselves) … that compromise was declined at that point. So the 1967 War ensued. The Arab leadership then had the chance to compromise and accept a return to the Green line in return for comprehensive peace, but, surprise! declined. So now the starting point is not “No Israel” and any acceptance of Israel is a compromise. The starting point now is that the Israel controls all of the OT and the PA want all of the OT for a new independent country. They were offered the vast majority of that. Not all. It was another compromise declined. No counter-offerres were made or at least were not until it was way too late in the process.
All? No. Some. Yes.
MC, no offense, but the Palestinian leadership has to accept some ugly facts. The Arabs have tried to have it all and they lost the wars to achieve that goal, they lost it all. They are the losers in the wars with Israel. Each time you lose, you lose somerthing. (Talk about a tautology) They won’t get everything they are believing and that you are believing they “deserve”. Not accepting that reality is just as counter-productive as any denial of an extant Palestinian peoplehood. And it condemns them to an abject future.
The Israeli settlement movement is probably the greatest obstacle to peace in the middle east because its explicit purpose (as articulated by Rav Kook’s Gush Eminum group) is to establish a de facto claim to all of Eretz Yisrael, making it literally impossible for Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories. With 400,000 settlers in those territories, control over about 42% of the land, and a huge military force operating under the guise of providing “security” for settlements that by their very existence in the heart of arab populations, that goal may well have already been accomplished. (Evacuation of the settlements, as currently advocated by Labor candidate Mizna, would probably spark a civil war.)
Via the settlements, Israel is in the process of annexing most of the best and most valuable resources in the region; the next step will be “transfer” (i.e., ethnic cleansing) of the arab population, a once taboo subject now being openly discussed at the highest levels of Sharon’s government.
"But Mr Barghuti said Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s government is simply aiming to seize land and pile more pressure on the Palestinians in the West Bank.
“I don’t think their aim is to take back the settlements - they are taking some of the best land with them and I am concerned that the fence is being used as an excuse for annexation and that the plan is to slowly starve the population and start a program of subtle ethnic cleansing,” he said.
Mr Barghuti said what he described as “Sharon’s policy of expansion in the West Bank” was also illustrated by recent reports that fenced-in buffer zones would be set up around settlements in a bid to prevent Palestinian infiltrations."
So the Palestinians should continiously accept substanially less than their due or risk losing even more? Well that’s just blackmail and no basis for a peace settlement.
As I said before the Israeli settlements are illegal and immoral, why shouldn’t they be removed? Applying the same logic to suicide bombing which is also illegal and immoral, I don’t think any Israeli would accept a peace plan that allowed and legalised for the continuation of suicide bombings in pre-agreed areas of Israel.
The end of the settlements/ocupation and suicide bombings are not things that either side will compromise on and no-one in the international community expects them too (Donald Rumsfield and OBL excepted), they are both things that must result from peace deals.
That an unjust peace is no peace was lesson that was learnt bitterly during in WWII after Versailles, any deal that deserves the word “peace” infront of it, must change the facts on the ground in a fair way so that both sides will feel that there is more to be lost by fighting than gained (blackmail will not acheive this).
Going back to 1948 and playing the blame game, yes the Arabs could of compromised and given up a quarter of Palestine to mostly newly arrived immigrants (I don’t mean to spin it so much but don’t pretend the Arabs had no reasons to feel disgruntled with the UN partition) then we would not but simlairly after the war if Israel had been willing to make the not unreasonable compromise of NOT ethnic cleansing the land gained in that war we would not be in this situation either.
Here’s a simple peace plan: the PA meets Israel’s conditions of ending the suicide bombings, recognising Israel and ceases it’s belligerency toward Israel; AT THE SAME TIME Israel meets the Palestinains conditions by withdrawing from the occupied territories, recognising the right of self-determination of the people living there, allowing FULL Palestinian statehood* and removing all illegal settlements. None of these demands on either side are unreasonable and they are the founding principles of the Israeli peace bloc and it is also the offical framework for peace by the UN. On these principles Israel has nothing to lose and everything to gain and the Palestinians have at least something to lose by fighting, because at the moment they don’t really have anything to lose.
*See UN framework/Gush Shalom plan for details of how the Gaza Strip and West bank as a unit can acheive something approaching full statehood.
Hi Everybody. I’m back!
(smiling as my two feet come slamming down onto the floor!)
Interesting variation on a familiar discussion theme. I really have to credit boyohboy17, the author of the OP, for presenting a hypothetical that gives perspective on the issue sorely lacking in other threads on the same topic.
What I like about the OP is that it exposes the false symetry that so often creeps into “common sense” analysis of the conflict.
A question for boyohboy:
You say you are presenting a farfetched hypothetical. Why not be even more imaginative and fetch one that envisions real peace - the kind that implies that hostilities have ended between the two groups? Do you think that hatred of Israel (anit-semietism?) is so deeply rooted in the underlying (metaphysical?) structure of the universe that it will never subside? Do you think that Islamic extremeism is a demonic force that simply cannot be suppressed? In sum, Why is it inconceivable that Jews will be accepted by the world and by their neighbors as residents of Bethlehem, Shechem, Hebron and their enviorns?
What this concept has to do with is the legal status of the areas which are now being disputed. If Palestine existed as a country with a government that gave expression to the national identity of the people it governed and was recognized internationally for doing so, then establishing and alternative national state in the same physical space would be called “occupation” of one country by another group. But since this wasn’t the case, what we have here is two national groups neither of whome had in the immediate past exercised the rights of sovereignty, competing for that right. The Jews have claims. The Arabs have claims. Its a dispute between competitors, not an occupation.
The relevance of this is simply that it undermines the argument that Jews found on the Palestinian side of the border are there only by force of illiegal actions (land theft) and should therefore be the target of continued hostilities even after other issues between Israel and the Palestinians are settled.
Akohl, the legal status of the occupied territories is that they are occupied territories and are bound by the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War:
Yes, 242 allows for dynamics in the final settlement, but do not take this to mean that this changes the status of the territories or that it is the Palestinians only who have to cede land.
The settlements are illegal and therefore give no currency to Israel in any negotiations.
Also on another note, the land which they occupied WAS stolen, it was not bought in any legal transactiona, but confiscated from private land owners and the local authorities.
If you bother to read the texts concerning occupied terroritories, it does not matter that there was never an independant political entity known as Palestine, or that Israel are not currently fighting a sovereign country, the appropiate Geneva conventions are still applicable. It is not the Palestinians rights that are in a gray area of international law, it is the settlers. As they are there illegally the do not count as protected persons and attacks against them (according to AI) are not technically war crimes, though obviously any murder is still governed by ‘crimes against humanity’.
Do you realize that the wording of this line was debated before the final wording was adopted?
There were those who wanted to establish the principle that ALL the territories captured in that war were undisputed Arab national possesions. But the conclusion of the deliberations was to leave out the word “all”. The adopted wording implies that when Israel withdrew from territories that she is not expected to lay claim to, she would retain those that she was expected to lay claim to.
You seem to accept this because you claim that both sides would have to conceed land, or did you mean that the Palestinians would be explected to conceed pre-67 Israel?
The other concepts that you raise are just too close to home for me to comment on. According to your logic, a palestinian military unit could surround an Israeli village and massacre all of its inhabitants, and this would not be considered a war crime.
Not necessarily war, but anmity. We don’t threaten to execute FBI agents for giving secrets to Spain, but if one gets caught selling secrets to the Russians…
Now we’re not at war with Russia, but we’re not exactly in a state of trust either.
Yes I do know about the dispute over the wording, however just because a final settlement may or may not need to be along the 1967 lines (but 242 never allowed for Israel gain land from war, just allowing for a reshaping of the borders, for security, contiunity and to accomadate the Palestinian refugees), does not change their current legal status as occupied territories and thus Israel is bound by the appropiate international law.
On the point about the legal status of the Israeli settlers, because they are there illegally there is no provision made for them (i.e. they do not have protected persons status) in the Geneva convention concerning occupied territories, so a crime committed against them would probably not fall into the LEGAL catergory of ‘war crimes’, however as I said above, ‘crimes against humanity’ need no special conditions in the way war crimes do and the crime of ‘murder’ is just one of many that comes under the catergory of ‘crimes against humanity’.
You may have to do a bit more searching for the defintions of “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity” (I believe there are about five documents which define these, the Rome Treaty lists most of the catergories of crimes against humanity), but the documents listedon that page mention the relevant treaties.
Because this almost never happens. When you have a group of people (in this case, the Arabs) that hate another group (Jews) it is rare that they just hug and make up. I am not saying that the Arabs have specific complaints that Israel can redress. They hate the Jews because they exist and because they succeed.
Did Jordan, Syria, and Egypt really feel that Israel was such a gigantic threat in 1967? Each of those countries is many times the size of Israel with many more times the population. However, this hatred led them to attack, and Israel was lucky enough to see it coming. And what was their goal? It was “to throw the Jews into the sea.” Tell me that a peace settlement will end such a hatred.
Now, MC, you seem to enjoy quoting international law. What you are forgetting is that both sides are violating international law. It hardly seems reasonable to only accuse Israel.
What a load of crapola. You act as if there weren’t huge Jewish communities in Baghdad, Jerusalem, and many other Arab cities prior to the creation of Israel. The Arabs hate the Jews because they see them as having pushed them off of land that was/is rightfully theirs.
Quite frankly, I don’t think Israel should have been created. But it is here now, and it’s something the Palestinians will have to deal with. The Israelis hold all the cards at this point; the Palestinians need to accept that they will never get the right of return, and will likely not get all of their land back to the 1967 borders back. What they should negotiate for is two contiguous sections of their state, one in Gaza and one in the West Bank, and if they are good, they may get East Jerusalem back. And if they are smart, they will try and negotiate for a large aid package to develop their infrastructure. If they want more than that, they will have to change their tactics to peaceful ones and that may help them achieve that. But maybe not, but violence will only bring more Israeli retaliation, rightly or wrongly.
If they don’t accept reality, then they will just continue to die and live in poverty. And that’s a cold fact.
But these treaties make up the body of international law (the ones on the UNHCHR website refer to humanitarian law and rules of engagement), it is the duty of the high contracting parties, the UN and the international court in the Hague to enforce these laws and to prosecute those who break them. This was why when Mofaz visited England recently a complaint was filed against him for war crimes and crimes against humanity, as the UK as a high contracting party is obligated to investigate and prosecute those guilty of such offences (Scotland Yard has a special squad to deal with complaints like this). Infact the obligation goes beyond prosecuting those on your territory, but also to seek out and prosecute the guilty wherever they may be (This is why in Belgium a case was brought against Sharon for the Sabra Chantila massacres and also why Milosevic and other war criminals were sought out/are being sought out in the FY and are being prosecuted in the Hague.
And I say again - there is no such thing as international law.
The basic model of international politics is liberatarianism, with every nation having sole power over the area it rules and absolutely none outside of it. Beyond that, there’s only treaties - which are no more than handshake agreements, based on mutual trust - and the exercise of power, be it raw or subtle. Institutions such as the UN (whose authority I’ll be willing to accept as soon as it only allows members whose governments are democratically elected) and the Hague are just fig leaves, institues whose sole purposes are to give nations the means and excuses to further their own interests. Imparciality in international politics does not exist, and only a total fool believes it does.
In othe words - law is a function of government, and for there to be an international government, there needs to be an international executive body, an international legistlative body, and an imparcial international judiciary, all democratically chosen and supervised. If such a thing existed, and if my country freely chose to join it, perhaps I’ll obey its laws. Untill then… in 10 days I going to vote for a government that’ll follow Israeli laws, and nothing else. My government serves me, and a servant can’t serve two masters.
BTW, If the British government were to arrest the Israeli Secretary of Defense it would be seen in Jerusalem as a major international crisis at least, a clear causus belli at worst. To say nothing about some pissant little “nation” like Belgium (Belgium!) arresting the premier.
Is Brussels within F-15I range of Israel? Or should we just use Jherico missiles?
Just for curiosity, and it is somewhat a hijack. For those who think that the creation of Israel was a bad idea, what would you have done if you were King of the World in 1945? Remember there were Jewish refugees liberated from the camps, refugees moving to Palestine, refugees trapped in holding camps in Cyprus. What about the Jews who you couldn’t or wouldn’t repatriate back to their homes in Russia, Lithuania, and Poland?
While I disagree about Alessan about “no international law” – there are plenty of well-enforced international treaties that work which form some sort of corpus for international law. Otherwise, things like airports wouldn’t work all that well. But I do agree with him on the rest. Until there is a fair international World Court which is as free of local politics as possible, there is no fairness in Belgium arresting and bringing people like Kissinger and Sharon to trial. I think that it is a question of jurisdiction. Neither of these men are angels and in fact I find both of them utterly reprehensible. But I don’t think it is right for Belgium to insist that every person on the planet has to conform to a Belgian standard of law at every time, even before the laws were codified.
If Belgium were to start prosecuting anyone who has committed a crime anywhere, there is nothing from stopping Belgium from arresting anyone who has ever broken any of its laws when they cross into Belgium. To take the argument to a ridiculous conclusion, if action X were illegal in Belgium and not in Holland, and someone admitted publicly to doing action X 10 years ago in Holland, there is nothing stopping Belgium from arresting the dude when he crosses over into Belgium. Or, someone who raped a woman 20 years ago and served 10 years in prison in the USA could be rearrested in Belgium and retried and repunished. I think that the laws apply specifically to war crimes, “war crimes” is quite a loose definition and can probably be applied to whole set of crimes.
Israel tried Sharon, found him guilty of complicity and negligence in Sabra and Shatila, and punished him. This is a very important point. As Alessan said, a lot of what actually passes for international law is the respect between other countries’ judicial system. I understand there is a lot of gray area to this, and I understand things quickly become political points. But Sharon was found innocent of committing war crimes and has won libel suits in the USA against those accusing him of being a war criminal. Belgium sets a very dangerous precedent. How would you like it if Italy or Spain or another Catholic country started arresting American doctors who performed abortions or prescribed birth control? I can think of dozens of other examples. I hate to get all morally relativistic on everyone, but just because Belgium is doing this with their definition of war criminals doesn’t necessarily make it more right. I hate to get all preachy social libertarianist but Belgium’s court actions smacks of cultural imperialism not much different than those who seek to export Christianity or Islam to the unwashed masses. It is like Belgium is saying “we have the most tolerant and civil society in the world and we will enforce our order on the rest of the planet.”
In short, what gives Belgium the right to define what constitutes a war crime, who should be arrested, and what the punishment should be?
In most western countries, for example the UK and Belgium, international law is part of the legal system. In Belgium the inditment against Sharon was brought by a group representing the victims families and was brought in a simlair manner to a normal criminal inditment, meaning that it was in the hands of the Belgium judicary and had the same protections from government interference as a normal criminal case. The complaint against Mofaz was made to the UK police, who were bound to investigate it in the same way as a criminal complaint.
The defintion of war crimes and crimes against humanity are the same in all countries and one of the links above is bound to have several of the treaties covering this. As I said before while all signatories of the treaties are bound to comply to international law, the high contracting parties (for example the US, UK, Belgium) are the ones that are obligated to enforce the laws and to prosecute those responsible for breaking them. By signing the Geneva convention Israel has basically said that it promises to comply with it and accepts the right and obligation of the high contracting parties to enforce it and prosecute those who break it.
Sharon has not been found innocent of war crimes, the case you are referring to was a US civil case under US civil law, though I know it was brought against Time magazine, I do not know the whys and wherefores of that case, however I do know that it would not effect the outcome of a case brought under international law.
International law exists for a good reason and yes it is not completely immune from politics, but this does not result in poltically motivated prosecutions, rather the opposite: politically motivated failure to prosecute.
You know this would spell the end of Israel, right? The rest of the EU would come to the aid of Belgium, probably the US, and I’m sure the Arabs would love another crack but this time with massive international support.
Anyway, you’d have to use F-151s (maybe with in-flight refueling) or Shavits, since I’m not sure Brussels is in Jericho range.
As for international law, Alessan is correct. There really is no such thing as international law, at least no relevent thing as international law. People make references to it all the time, but the truth is that unless someone feels like enforcing it, it’s just some crap someone wrote down. And when nations do attempt to enforce it, it’s usually just used as a convenient causus belli for a conflict they wanted anyway or using some mutually agreed upon arbiter. But even if the arbiter comes to a decision, there’s no way to enforce it. International law mostly is just a handshake agreement.
Wrong - the Agranat commitee found Sharon guilty of gross - but not criminal - negligence and forced him to resign his position as Secretary of Defense. As far as Israeli is concerned, the case is closed. Are you claiming that the Israeli government did not have jurisdiction? That its decisions are invalid?
Besides taht, I think your attitude is, at best, dangerously naive. Just because certain parties, with certain agendas, claim something exists, that doesn’t make it so.
P.S.: ** Neurotik**, I was being faecitious. You’re almost certainly right - although I wouldn’t be so sure about the U.S.