By Ted Belman
In an Israel National News article we learn,
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Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein has warned Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu that expropriating land and homes from Palestinian Authority Arabs in Judea and Samaria and giving them to Jews could lead to the issue of the Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria being brought before the International Court in The Hague. [..]
To be fair, there may be validity in this in that the FGC prohibits expropriation except in limited circumstances. But that in no way puts the settlements themselves in issue.
- The report said that the concern is that Israel or Israeli officials will be prosecuted in the criminal courts in The Hague under the Fourth Geneva Convention, which stipulates that transferring an occupying population into occupied territory is a war crime.
But is this so?
In my article The Truth about “the occupation” and “the settlements”, I discussed in detail the Forth Geneva Convention. According to my understanding, the FGC does not apply because the lands in question were not the lands of “another High Contracting Party” In the advisory opinion by the ICJ on the fence the court held otherwise. So even if their decision holds, the settlements are not illegal and the settlers are not criminals. The FGC prohibits the occupying power from directly or indirectly transferring populations and it is argued that when a state gives inducements, it is indirectly transferring. But I wrote;
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The anti-Zionists reject the notion that the proscription is against only forced transfers and argue that the FGC proscribes inducement to move as well. But how can there be a crime of inducement when the person committing the act, the settler, has done nothing wrong. How can you be guilty of a crime by inducing someone to do something which is not a crime? Furthermore, this inducement would be a War Crime on an equal footing with Genocide. The equation is ludicrous. And if the settlers settle on their own volition and not due to inducements, what then? Also it is impossible to prosecute an occupying power. So what individuals would be held responsible?
Even if someone in Israel was convicted of offering inducements to settle, the settlers would not be affected and could remain in the settlements if they wished.
Matas opines, “The interpretation defies the ordinary understanding of criminal responsibility where the person committing the act is the primary wrongdoer and the person inducing the act is only an accessory.”
The absurdity of it all is plain. Yet Bibi is cowed. This is another example of Bibi playing it safe. Aniv Shalev said much the same thing in Israeli politics is the art of avoiding conflicts. This is not leadership. It is the avoidance of leadership.
Netanyahu refused to apply Israeli law to the settlements because of Weinstein’s report. But so far as I am aware it is not against the law to apply Israeli law to parts of the occupied territory and it is not against the law to annex part of them as Israel did when it annexed Jerusalem. The only bone of contention is whether what Israel did to induce settlements is proscribed by law. This is another case of the anti-Israel community distorting the law in order to make a case against Israel.
Even if they succeed in making their case, the settlements are still legal.
Like it or not, Netanyahu is intimidated by the international community. What hope is there for him to say “no” to further concessions by Israel in the peace process?
I ouldn’t be surprised if Bibi is dead in a month. He’s selling the country out.
What so many people fail to realize is that Judea and Samaria; in fact, all of Palestine and then some belongs to the Jewish people as their ancestral homeland. That’s not my oinion, it says so in the Bible.
I understood that international law conferred on the jews the right to settle east of the Jordan and that right has never been rescinded?? If the geneva conventions does not protect the Jews who were expelled from arab lands, after the conventions ratification, then how is it now operative?
The “goldstone commission” conclusions about the mavi marmara case proved beyond any doubts that Israel will always be found faulty in any legal situation.
It is easier said than done but we should definitely stop dreading the shadows of others ………….
@ yamit82:
Bibi has a cushy job and wants to keep it. Israel? Who’s Israel? Ah, shekels! money! THAT Israel! So what about it? Pass the kosher lasagna…
Israel has caved in again:
Israel is going to hell in a handbasket. No more guts, no more backbone. Israel no longer is shooting rock throwers, or braking their bones.Nor does Israel destroy the homes of criminals or seizing land or property and giving it to the settlers..What ever happened to the good old days?
I don’t believe this report BB since 96 has never legalized any settlements in dispute or pushed for them except campaign polemics. Since he gave up Hebron he keeps promising the same promises and reneging them each time. He keeps selling the Brooklyn Bridge to the suckers and they always are willing to buy. I think BB is more afraid of what Haaretz and Yediot will say than any fear from ICJ.
If he is afraid of the ICJ does anyone really expect him to attack Iran? TR said speak softly but carry a big stick. Big Bluster (BB)barks loudly and carries a little twig.
BB caved into criminals and terrorists.
He wants to avoid any controversy.
That is not standing up for Israel’s best interests. Its denying their importance to Israel’s future.
Under the terms of the Oslo Accords the palesimian authority agreed to Israeli presence in Area B and C and in fact the IDF is required to be there to provide security. Calling it “occupied” is like called South Korea “occupied” because they have American troops there.
Fuck the FGC.
To my understanding the FGC does not confer nor protect individual property rights but rather sovereign rights of states – “High Contracting Parties”. So leaving aside the obvious fact that in Judea and Samaria there has not been a sovereign entity since the conclusion of WWI, to what would the ICJ be ruling in favour if it found against Israel? Jordan who illegally seized and held these lands from 48 to 67? Well no and even if it was a legitimate sovereign it signed off on any claims in it’s treaty with Israel. The “Palestinians”? There were no such creatures when these lands came under Jordanian occupation and only sprouted out of thin air once Israel become the occupier and these creatures are not a state nor any national entity much less a “High Contracting Party” at the time of the FGC which is the only relevant time frame, even if the ICJ thought otherwise in their egregious ruling on the security fence.
In fact the only legitimate sovereign based on international law is Israel and the only thing preventing the exercise of this sovereignty is Israel itself and the cowardly Bibi.
The Israeli leadership, as well as America and the entire free world are castrated.
Thank heaven for the Geneva Convention! Because of it, the Communists have never expropriated land — not in Russia, not in China, nowhere! And the Egyptians never took the Suez Canal from the British and French, and we all live in a yellow submarine!