What should the Palestinian do?

Great Debates
21

Lemur, in war people die. It is a sad and tragic truth.

As someone who served in the Armed Forces, and spent time in the Middle East, I accepted that. I also accepted being at risk for people like you and your daughter to defend your right to exist, and further my countries political views. So to lecture me on loss or sacrifice is an exercise in futility, as I sacrificed friends and family for other peoples values and beliefs.

As far as your references to the attrocities of the Third Reich and your references to Anti-Zionist sentiment my response is a bit more clouded. Look at no point is any Individual/Group/Country allowed to arbitrarily decide that some one else does not deserve to live simply because of a personal choice or trait. This type of behavior in not tolerable by either side of the issue though.

If I believed that by giving my life I could end terrorism around the world for every race. creed, sex, and religion I would do so without regret. But that is not an option, and quite frankly I have accepted that.

Now if you want to cast stones at the U.S., or any other nation that looks upon this whole situation with frankly nothing short of disgust then feel free. But if you think that the actions being taken now are justified by the activities that took place in the 1930’s and 40’s then this whole then there is only one solution to this whole situation.

So before you cast stones, or vent your personal family tragedies look around and think. I answered and spoke to a simple issue, and as such I have that right. I think that I earned that right by serving my time for god and country, and in truth feel no remorse for having done so. But I do not bemoan the decisions I made or the harm I put my loved ones in by choosing to take them with me in to a hostile place. And if I did make that decision I would never put it out for public consumption. But these are my choices to make and I live with them, and accept the responsibility they represent.

But to lump me and or my comments in with Nazi’s or Terrorists to assuage your guilt is one of the lowest forms of denial I have ever seen. So in closing ther it is, no dancing and no evasion. If the whole region decided to fight till only one person survived to claim the land so be it. Have at it. Just do not waste the lives of my fellow service members for any more of your squabbles.

Trust this addresses your curiosities.

Chris

22

Oy.

The Indian analogy has been attempted here many times before. To try to be polite, it is quite faulty. To debate the whys would be a major hijack so how about if we stick to the specifics of this situation. Same with the Nazi analogy.

Some major confusions are being put forth here. Israel never invaded and occupied Palestine. There is no UN border to Palestine. There is no Palestine right now. There was one. The Arab countries annexed it in 1948. Israel won land from these Arab countries in a series of defensive wars. In 1967 it won the land of the West Bank from Jordan. Some in Israel wanted to annex it, which would have been acceptable under international law and tradition for land on in a defensive war. The choice was made to not annnex it but to use it as a bargaining piece in future negotiations. The choice to place settlements there would have been legit with the UN if Israel annexed the land, but since it occupied it, such was considered improper by the UN rules.

Maybe there will be a Palestine. And if I was a palestinian I’d work to that goal more than to revenge and the perpetuation of hate. Such a goal is best served by peaceful means. Mainstream Israel wants out of the West Bank. Create a situation where that can occur.

23

Gee, talking about the Israelis, here? Or are you, like so many of their apologists, sweeping the atrocities they’ve committed under the rug?

If you want to make Nazi comparisons, compare Deir Yeissin with Kristallnacht. The only difference was one of scale.

What’s the difference between a terrorist and a freedom fighter? Apparently, which one has US backing. <snort>

24

squish Oh you must mean the Jenin massacre. That never occurred. In short what are you imagining that Israel has done? What is that you are <snort>ing?

No doubt Israel has not been perfect. Real people make mistakes. Arabs under Israeli control are sometimes treated nearly as badly as Arabs under Arab control and that is unconscienable. Innocents have been hurt during operations which had the aim of rooting out terroists and their infrastructure. Possibly they could have been more careful and subjected their own troops to even greater risks. Houses have been torn down and groves destroyed. But there has not been any intentional targetting of civilians. Not by the Israeli government. And the few civilians who have resorted to planning terror are arrested and punished. No murder. Of children. On purpose. For political ends.

25

Henry, I’ve yet to hear your ideas about what a Palestinian should do. Do you think that practicing terror, murdering children, lionizing those who do, aiding and abetting those who do, teaching your children from the crib that to kill Jews is a ticket to heaven, especially if you kill yourelf while doing it, guarenteeing additional Israeli rsponses and preventing any negotiations from resuming, that all of this is what they should do? Or should they work for peace and for the establishment of a country that offers their children a promising future, rather than offering them furtive empty promises and a life of continued desperation as Arafat’s personal fiefdom?

I’m curious.

26

Cornerstone of modern (post world war 2) international relations and law is that land taken by force can *never * be justified.

Of course there are many cases of where territory has been taken by force, and become de facto and perhaps even de jeure legitimate.

27

China guy, this is the first time that I have heard that claim made by anybody. I do not have a cite myself, other than what others who I have reason to trust have told me in the past, so I would be willing to be educated about international law … do you have a cite for such a claim? What was passed in what body after WWII that changed tradition and precedent and thereby mandated that land won in a defensive action could not be annexed legally and justifiably? Certainly it did not apply after Israel’s creation and in other Arab-Israeli conflicts prior to 1967 in which Israel won land after Arab forces unsuccessfully tried to destroy her. I have heard no one claim that Israel was required to retreat to the 1948 mandated borders after each time she was attacked, which is what your claim would require if true.

And I still wonder what Henry would do, if he was a Palestinian. Would he blow up children or work to a future for his children? If the latter, how?

28

Dang, I knew yesterday that you would ask for a cite and I didn’t have a handy one. My knowledge on this issue comes from the case of Tibet rather than Palestine. That stance is taken by international lawyer Michael van Walt van Praag of the Netherlands, and you can read his legal opinion in this published book. http://s1.amazon.com/exec/varzea/ts/exchange-glance/Y02Y5305138Y0528837/qid=1025224624/sr=1-1/002-1148768-5794433 I don’t have a copy handy, but it includes a full bibliography and full citations. I did a quick google search for international law and “land taken by force” and got lots of hits, but a 30 minute search did not pull up any decent legal documents. Regardless, Michael van Walt’s book is quite researched if you’re interested.

Still, I think if you only consider the idea that land taken by force can never be legitimized, that it is logical. Harkens back to gunboat dipolomacy. Easy enough to fabricate “incidents” in order to seize territory. Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t the 1967 war actually initiated by Israel? Sure, Israel had indications that an Arab attack was imminent, but didn’t Israel attack first? How would international law define who was the aggressor? Was it justified? I’m not trying to debate this issue, just pointing out this would not be necessarily easy to answer. Obviously, it is a lot more clear cut if the international community accepts the sanctity of recognized borders.

29

China Guy, DSeid: The problem here is this apparently, at least in part, falls under “customary international law” which apparently is not specifically codified:

*The second source of international law is Customary Law. For a rule to become customary law, two elements must be present: first, there must be a practice, a course of action, or some kind of behavior followed by nations over a period of time; and secondly, that practice or course of action must be viewed by these nations as binding upon them. Originally (from about 1648 onward), international law grew mostly as new customary rules came into existence; but, over the last 100 years or so, treaty-made rules have become the far more dominant source for international law rules. There is really no complete, written compilation of international customary law, but one finds evidence of customs (and hence tends to proves their existence) in court decisions, writings of international law scholars, collections of diplomatic correspondence, and similar sources. *

From this site:
http://www.iulaw.indy.indiana.edu/library/InternatlLaw1.htm
The case for Tibet is laid out here:

http://www.tibetjustice.org/materials/germany/germany1.html

An relevant excerpt:

*Under current international law, annexation does no longer result in effective territorial rights. The freedom to annexation under old international law was the result of the principle of the right to free warfare. With the development of modern international law, the right to free warfare was replaced with the prohibition of violence (Article 2, Paragraph 4, U.N. Charter). Thus followed a change from freedom to annexation to prohibition against annexation. Already before the effective date of the U.N. charter, it was commonly recognized that all annexations which took place during a war, also in completely occupied states, were ineffective under international law. The prohibition against violence only confirmed this legal status. It this follows that due to the annexation prohibition, China practices a de facto territorial domination over Tibet without effective territorial rights. *

Of course UN resolutions ( several, 242 for one )and the Fourth Geneva Convention are also cited by various Palestinian sites as being applicable in this particular case. There are also, of course, some competeing Israeli ( or pro-Israeli ) sites that argue the specifics of the legality of those resolutions re: the Occupied Territories.

  • Tamerlane
30

Oh and some sources, apparently do consider annexations made as the result of a defensive war to be potentially valid. Others don’t seem to make any such distinction. There is an enormous amount of blather on this and I can find no concise, semi-objective ruling after an hour of poking around on the net.

I would guess ( layman that I am and after just this brief burst of research ) this remains a grey area and continues to be a matter of legal dispute. Where are our international law experts on this board :)?

  • Tamerlane
31

So neither of us really know … and we’re both honest enough to admit it! :slight_smile:

As for the logic of it … wars are fought for many reasons and borders have been among the causes. One side thinks the border should be here, another there. Insofar as force and war are ever legitimate ways to settle disputes, they are no more so or less so for border disputes than for conflicts over ideology or independence. My impression is that international law tries to stay out of those issues for the very reason that you point out, “this would not be necessarily easy to answer.” Generally if a country has won land while defending itself they have kept it. I can’t think of many (?any?) examples in which a country defended itself and returned land won other than as part of a negotiated settlement. But if you are occupying, by your own decision, then there are conventions that apply to an occupying force.

Anyone with definitive knowledge of the law or of historic precedence should feel free to educate both of us.

32

And having seen the contribution by Tamarlane *after/i] I posted up … thanks for the clarification about how murky it is.

33

Just want to note that there are some of peaceful Palistinians and a number of people ready to see this thing come to some kind of end even if it’s short of the complete annihilation of Israel. It only takes a few sucide bombers to mess everything up though. I can’t really say that I have a complete picture of Palistinian public opinion, but just want to acknowledge that there are shades of grey to being a Palistinian.

Living in that country does not mean you teach your kids to suicide-bomb jews. Not to say there isn’t a lot of animosity, but it’s not universal and comes in varying degrees. There was (and still is) a lot of racism in the southern US but that didn’t mean that all white people taught their kids to lynch black people.

I would also like to add that I think that the Palistinians would be more than happy to attack the Israeli military if they thought it would have any effect. I don’t think that they really relish the idea of killing civilians, but they’ve probably come to justify it because it’s the only targets they can attack effectively.

I saw some analogies being thrown around: how about Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Civilian targets? Yes. Were there children there? Yes. Was it justifiable? Some think so.

34

There is no such thing as a single code for international law, courts or legal system, so there will be exceptions everywhere. One oculd follow the lead of the UN and perhaps the World Court in the Hague. I can’t find a web site for the international council of jurists, but certainly they discuss this issue.

Recent example would be East Timor or what was formerly Serbia. Look at the former Soviet Union member countries. Let’s not even get started on the Germany/France border changes over the past 100 years. I’m sure there are examples in Africa, but I’m not up on that region.

FWIW, I’ve never seen a UN charter or other generally accepted international body that proclaims land taken in a defensive war goes to the victor. If you’ve got a cite, I would be interested in checking it out.

Tamerlane does this mean you’ve added international law to your Mongolian, Middle Eastern portfolio? :slight_smile:

35

If I were in charge of Palestinian Authority, I would use any and all means at my disposal to crush Hammas, and the Islamic Jihad. I would ask for US assistance in this. I would ask for Israeli assistance in this.

Hell, I would ask Bozo the clown to help out if I thought it would do any good.

I would disarm the PA security body save for some small, elite group that is loyal to the concept of peace.

I would petition the “Israeli Arabs” to see if I could drum up grass-roots support for the creation of a Palestinian state.

Any time a suicide bomber came out of the wood-work, I would arrest all his friends and find out what the deal was, where he got his supplies, and crush that without question.

If my brother turned out to be part of it, I would put him in jail for life, or execute him, depending on law.

Then, we would see what would happen.

36

Dseid,

I think you will agree that in the recent uprising, innocent Israelis have been killed by Palestinians, and innocent Palestinians have been killed by Israelis. You say “Innocents have been hurt during operations which had the aim of rooting out terroists and their infrastructure”. I will go further. Innocents have been killed. This is, I believe, indisputable.

in each set of circumstances the end result is the same, the Palestinians and Israelis are just as innocent and just as dead. think it follows that in these circumstances each action is just as wrong.

There is a difference between the way these deaths happen. One happens because an individual, in defiance of what his leader says publicly*, chooses to take the lives of others.

The other happens because soldiers, following exactly the orders of their elected leader, invade Palestinian homes and communities. These soldiers kill people who are terrorists, they allege. They don’t show their evidence of this to anyone, as far as I know, and they kill people in the crossfire.

I have seen it written on these boards that this can’t be helped, because terrorists stay in the homes of civilians, and Palestinians use human shields in the streets. I don’t know if this is true, no-one’s posted any cites to my knowledge, but I don’t think it really matters. The Israelis have so much more firepower, so many more tanks, armoured personnel carriers, helicopters etc. than the Palestinians that they can surely carry out their manoeuvres without being so gung-ho.

But this apart, the Israeli government kills people without showing they are guilty of anything. This is assassination. Suicide bombers kill people without showing they are guilty of anything. This is assassination.

I think both are wrong. To address the OP, I don’t know what I’d do if I was a Palestinian or an Israeli. Being brutally honest, I think I’d leave the area so I didn’t get killed. The only lever there appears to be in this process is the will of the US, and to a lesser degree, Europeans leaderships. I guess I’d lobby them.
In your next post, I notice that you advocate Palestinians behaving peaceably as doing otherwise is “guaranteeing additional Israeli responses”. Why can’t the Israelis work for peace, as driving tanks through Palestinian homes guarantees Palestinian response? Healer, heal thyself.

  • Lots of times I’ve heard that Arafat publicly decries suicide bombers, but encourages them privately. I’ve never heard any conclusive evidence that this is still the case, if it ever was. It’s a good excuse for re-invading the OT though, if you happen to be an Israeli hawk.
37

Well, neither have I, to be honest. I just ran across a few sites that have made that claim. I think - Could be I was just misinterpreting arguments about the West Bank/Gaza situation in particular. Here is a couple of sites ( with axes to grind ) that defend the legality of Israeli settlements and the
“annexation” of East Jerusalem, but actually skirt the annexation issue by claiming that those lands were not legitimately part of a state and therefore aren’t really annexations per se:

http://www.c4israel.org/articles/english/e-e-00-0-kort-intlawtrial.htm

Ah, on quick review I found one:

*"… International law forbids acquisition by unlawful force, but not where, as in the case of Israel’s self-defence in 1967, the entry on the territory was lawful. It does not so forbid it, in particular, when the force is used to stop an aggressor, for the effect of such prohibition would be to guarantee to all potential aggressors that, even if their aggression failed, all territory lost in the attempt would be automatically returned to them. Such a rule would be absurd to the point of lunacy. There is no such rule….

“International law, therefore, gives a triple underpinning to Israel’s claim that she is under no obligation to hand back automatically the West Bank and Gaza to Jordan or anyone else. In the first place, these lands never legally belonged to Jordan. Second, even if they had, Israel’s own present control is lawful, and she is entitled to negotiate the extent and the terms of her withdrawal. Third, international law would not in such circumstances require the automatic handing back of territory even to an aggressor who was the former sovereign. It requires the extent and conditions of the handing back to be negotiated between the parties.” *

Quoted from Prof. Julius Stone, from this ( again, obviously biased ) site:

http://www.telfed.org.il/occupation.html
But additional searching does seem to be leaning against the whole “defensive is okay” concept in general. And I did find one concise and unambiguous cite, finally, from the Oxford Law Library definition of annexation:

http://www.xrefer.com/entry/464313

Hah! Hardly :). As my uncertain and stumbling approach above indicates.

  • Tamerlane
38

Well, what can one say on this matter?

First, I find the disingenous pieties and irrealism to be irritating.

It strikes me odd that the same sets of posters who argue vociferously in one context for the right of a people to armed defense, in another context argue for passive resistance. All driven by the political affinity of the day.

Bloody idiocy and/or hypocrisy.

Now, of course in an ideal world, the Palestinian’s would adopt a cohesive program of aggressive non-violent mass resistance.

However, making such a thing stick requires coherent leadership, active leadership, intelligent leadership and also effective grass-roots networks.

Those don’t exist. For many reasons. Some – l the majority – of reasons are to be found in the internal weaknesses of Palestinian society and the particular characteristics of the structure of the resistance movements. Internal warfare, serious factional disputes and an extreme radicalization of segments of the displaced population. The factionalism is old and unlikely to go away under present circumstances.

Some are to be found in some effective but ultimately self-defeating policies of Israel itself. E.g. the Israeli security services’ cynical promotion of Hamas to undermine the PLO and Israel’s policy of locking up or assasinating the more effective leaders, leaving largely the lucky and the morons. An old and often effective strategy, often used by European colonial powers. Only makes the final reckoning worse in the end.

In the end, the peaceful resistance solution can’t be adopted unilateraly at this time.
An analysis of how a real decision maker must look at it -by which I mean not a pet sand nig/collabo or otherwise unrealistic fantasy actor.
(a) Palestinian society has too long been fragmented and many opposition movements will not swear off violence per se.
(b) The Israeli current government will clearly use any act of violence by any party to blame the whole and as corrallary
© Resort to effective agitprop to break up image of peaceful resistance
(d) Unilateral action against violent groups without halt to settlment expansion and commitment to near-term state will only end up having your influence evaporate like piss in the desert.

A more realistic action on the part of a clever and effective (including capacity to effect) PA would be to end civilian attacks in Israel, focus on military objectives in occupied territories, barring some actual movement to undertake actual negotiations for an actual final settlement and not more ‘negotiate and expropriate and bomb and kill each other’

39

tamarlane and chinaguy,

So what has been the custom that nations have practiced under? Have nations defending themselves typically returned land that they won, if they indeed won land, or have they kept land won in conflict? I can think of examples of the latter, but not the former.

Comments on other statements made here that cannot understand the difference between terrorism and unintended consequences later. (Although it does repeat past conversations …)

40

Morality and legal niceties are not always the deciding factors in the way the world works. Israelis have done things of questionable morality and legality. So have Palestinians. So have Americans and Russians and members of every other nationality.

The Palestinians have to recognize some reality. Israel is a poweful nation that’s been around for over fifty years. It’s not going to go away, so the Palestinians are going to have to negotiate with it to get what they want.

In my opinion, the Palestinians would be more likely to get better results form a organized program of non-violent resistance than with their current program of terrorism or past programs of military force.

But non-violent resistance probably isn’t going to happen any time in the near future. There are numerous organizations within the Palestinian community, or supporting that community from without, that have agendas other than negotiating the best possible terms from Israel. These organizations favor terrorism and continued hostility towards Israel because it enhances their stature and power within the Palestinian community even if it is detrimental to that community as a whole.