T. Belman. It is important to note that Israel made it a prerequisite to the signing of the Oslo Accords, that the PLO accept Res 242. This was so because the Arab countries had all rejected this resolution ever since the Khartoum Conference in 1968. If the Resolution is now rejected that would be the end of the Accords. But Israel has long refused to enforce all the terms of Oslo like its proscription of incitement and violence. The mere fact that Israel hasn’t threatened the PA with aborting it, if the PA tries to replace the resolution is indicative of what the Israeli government will do.
In the Bush letter of ’04 to Sharon he reiterated that “Israel must have secure and recognized borders, which should emerge from negotiations between the parties in accordance with UNSC Resolutions 242 and 338.” Finally he committed the US to “do its utmost to prevent any attempt by anyone to impose any other plan.” Israel has relied on this commitment making it binding. Obama, nevertheless, ignored the commitment and rejected the letter.
Former FM director-general: Since 1973 the US has assured Israel it won’t back changes to UNSC 242.
US support for a resolution to replace UN Security Council Resolution 242 would conflict with commitments given to Israel by Washington going back to 1973, former Foreign Ministry director-general Dore Gold told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.
“I remember that after the ’73 war the United States gave Israel commitments that it would not allow for a change in United Nations Security Council Resolution 242,” Gold said.
“The United States is Israel’s major ally, that has not changed,” Gold told the Post on the sidelines of a speech he delivered to the Israel Allies Caucus conference in Jerusalem.
“While we have tactical disagreements from time to time, I believe that America will stick by its commitments to Israel.”
Resolution 242 was approved in November 1967, some five months after the Six Day War. It is the basis on which the entire Israeli-Arab peace process is structured.
Most significantly, its text specified an Israeli withdrawal from “territories” – not “the territories” – captured during the war.
“All the peace agreements [and initiatives] were based on this resolution,” Gold said.
The Palestinians have long pushed for a revision of Resolution 242, to explicitly state that Israel must return to the 1949 armistice lines.
In the past, the US has opposed such resolutions. As one of five UN Security Council members with veto power, it has been able to thwart past efforts to replace 242.
Israel has been fearful that US President Barack Obama, however, might back and even initiate his own revision to Resolution 242 in the two months he has between the November 8 US presidential election and when he leaves office in January. The US has hinted that Israel does not have its automatic support at the UN Security Council.
The concern is that Obama might want to place his stamp on the peace process by pushing for a resolution that sets new parameters for the peace process, including specifying the territory from which Israel must withdraw.
On Wednesday night, in response to a Channel 2 story about possible moves by Obama during his last two months in office, Netanyahu said he expects the US position to remain the same.
But he added that he hopes Obama would not follow in the path of past presidents who used that time to set forward new initiatives.
Israel has maintained that a UN Security Council resolution that imposes the terms of a peace deal discourages the Palestinians from negotiating such an agreement.
Gold told the conference that those in the international community who support the idea of replacing 242 have to decide whether they want to encourage or discourage a negotiated peace deal.
Resolution 242 “did not envision a full Israel withdrawal from the territories that were captured in 1967 for a very simple reason. It was a war of self-defense, and Israel had claims to secure and recognized boundaries,” Gold said.
“Jerusalem was not even mentioned in 242. What is clear, given the chaos in the region that exists today, is that Israel has every right to resist calls to withdraw to the 1967 lines.”
Gold also spoke about another option that Israel fears, a Security Council resolution against West Bank settlement activity.
“A settlements resolution would be a blunt instrument. It would not distinguish between an unauthorized outpost and neighborhoods in the heart of Jerusalem,” Gold said. “It would violate a core commitment in the Oslo agreements that all permanent-status issues must be negotiated.”
Gold said that under the 1993 Oslo Accords there were six such issues, and that it was not possible to just deal with one of them.
Gold clarified that, under Oslo, Israel is not prohibited from engaging in settlement activity, because it is presumed that such activity would be addressed in a final-status agreement.
“The adoption of a UN Security Council resolution just on that question breaks down the peace process and makes resuming serious peace negotiations in the future much more difficult,” Gold concluded.
@ Austin:
As a very young man , my Father clerked for a Entertainment Attorney named Kalsheim. Kalsheim was Sophie Tucker’s lawyer so my Father had the privilege of meeting Miss Tucker and many occasions.
I greatly enjoy your Irish remenisants.
mar55 Said:
” The bigger they come, the harder they fall”
Texas saying.
I have seen Cowboys kicked out of a stall by a sick cow and march back in the shed bleeding and batter only to be kick out once more. And the same said Cowboy whine over a splinter. Men !!!!!!!!!
@ honeybee:
I was going to also use this quote, it was the first thing that came to mind because I can still visualise this quote under one of a row of framed “legal” drawings, actually like coloured cartoons, on the wall in my master’s office when I was his 4 year legal apprentice…so many years ago, probably in your grandfather’s time. I failed, because then and probably now, in Ireland, a solititor must be able to conduct a complete case in Gaelic, a horrendous language. I spent weeks in The Gaelteacht, a Gaelic speaking district of Sligo, using it every day, but, failed my finals, never wanted to do it again, wanted to go into business which I did right there and then. In school I was almost a fluent speaker, at least always got top marks, and my late brother got Gold Medals in University for his expertise, used to travel around with De Valera making speeches about the beauty of the “Teanga” because a Jew fluent in Gaelic was like a set of hens’ teeth….. but……..Ah me……
I mean that a few weeks living in a little two-room whitewashed thatched cottage, with dogs and cats all around, the “toilet”, a hole in the ground about 40 yards down the back field, a well a little further than that down the road, living on raw carrots, cabbage leaves, hard boiled eggs and matzo, took all the “taste” for it away. Only the first few days were not bad, as my dear mother had packed food for me……….
The only “store” within miles was a little ruin of four walls and a roof, with a couple of barrels supporting a couple of planks, which sold guinness, boots clothes ropes fishing gear,and all sorts of odds and ends, with chazar sausages hanging in ropes from the rafters,and etc. The place was always packed, especially on Mondays, when every one of the male denizens would get their “Dole” plus a bit extra for speaking Gaelic, as absolutely nobody worked in a job.(the Govt -all farbrente Nationalists- made enormous efforts to revive an almost dead language -only 22,000 speakers in a 3 million population.). But what they all wanted to do was to speak to me in English, so as to learn enough to go up the the “big city” meaning Dublin, and get a job and see a movie….
As a side-note the owner of that “store” left nearly 100.000 Pounds at death, every cent of Govt Dole of 14 shillings (.7 of a pound) eventually finding its way into his grubby hands… Talk about the days of Dickens, that’s about the way it was there at that time.
@ honeybee:
This place is more animated that it has been before.
Nice people contributing. I must go to sleep now. Tomorrow have to get up early Simchat Torah. Two days.
I’m very sleepy. Good night. I hope your husband recuperates as soon as possible. You take it easy because when men get sick or have an operation the work for us increases. Be well and take care.
@ honeybee:
Totally agree with your stament which is exactly what I have been saying for years. Do what you have to do and the UN should get the message. I hope Trump gets the presidency and defund the UN with its bunch of hypocrites.
@ Goldi Steiner:
@ Austin:
The Jewish People have retuned and hold the land of the ancestors, legal smeagel the rest is all BS.
@ Austin:
Nothing is clearer than Austin’s comments re Israel’s Legal Rights. And yet, of all the nations in the world there is not one that neglects to live up to its RIGHTS, to the point of hiding it as is the case with the LEVY REPORT.
And what is even more critical is its REFUSAL, yes, refusal to EDUCATE its youth, the future generation of voters and leaders about these rights, thus losing them to the the rhetoric of our enemies bent on distroying us.
By the time they enter university, all they hear on campus is the libel by well paid thugs, such as JFP (Justice for palestine) and others, that we are “Occupiers” stealing THEIR land, and worse.
I call on all lovers of Israel, and supporters of justice and truth to energetically call on the Israeli leadership, and officials to embrace the imperative to arm our youth with fact based knowledge about our Legal Rights.
There is ample material available, among which I will recommend a concise, well written book by Salomon Benzimra, titled: The Jewish People’s Right to the Land of Israel. Available in PDF format in Hebrew, and on Amazon in English: http://www.amazon.com/pd/B0065WZM14
@ honeybee:
In apology for the above song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUVEq6NC7mM
as a young child I use to tap dance to this song.
@ Austin:
The Texas equivalent, I play this every Mother’s Day. In tribute to myself. You may have to listen closely, heavy Okie accent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doXIrXKCrcw
Better understandable Texas accent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5WWuQ0yiPA
I am sure by now I absolutely horrified you.
Austin Said:
I love that !!!!!!!!!
Austin Said:
” The law is an Ass”. Charles Dickens “Bleak House” As I said before I was raised to be a Viking. Israel should do what needs to do to survive the UN be damned.
Austin Said:
@ Michael Maguire:
Yes Shamgar is to blame but even more so than you realize.
Prior to the Armistice Agreement of ’49 Ben Gurion passed a law, now known as Ben Gurion’s law, that provided that Israel law would apply to all lands conquered by Israel beyond the partition lines. This law in effect made these extra lands part of Israel. It is for this reason that the armistice lines became our new boundary.
In ’67 no action by Israel was required to make these lands our sovereign lands. Shamgar set out to preempt the working of this law by substituting his determination that we held it in belligerent occupation. And so it remains. The government of Israel can pass legislation over ruling Shamgar’s declaration as being illegal in the face of Ben Gurion’s law.
@ Michael Maguire:
Assuming that you are correct about the High Court and Shamgar, those decisions were still against valid, acknowledged (by the 1945 UN Art.80 of founding Charter) International Law, which, moreover is, although ignored and relegated to the basement, still United States Law, by virtue of the 1924 Anglo-American Treaty.
It is they and the UN who are committing illegal acts not Israel. Otherwise they are not entities of Laws, but of Anarchy.
So, I still don’t really understand why these Laws cannot be invoked as against Shamgar and the High Court. Israel prides itself on hewing to the Law, especially International Law and Treaties, even the obscene Oslo Agreement, which, because of the foregoing, can be classified as legally null and void. That the Arabs never carried out a single article of it, just reinforces it’s lack of validity.
Just expressing my opinion.
@ Michael Maguire:
You have the answer at the beginning, Madness and I can add ..utter soft -headed stupidity. Perhaps a sudden relaxation after the great danger was past…. Whatever it was, it has spawned an obscene, never-ending series of offspring.
It is well said that nobody can display as much stupidity as the normally intelligent. Oscar Wilde said that ” when a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it’s always for the noblest motives. The Great Napoleon said that, “in politics, stupidity is not a handicap”…well…he was wrong in this case.
And I recall some science fiction writer said that the 2 most common elements on earth were hydrogen and stupidity.
I think that covers what the Israel actions after 1967 amounted to.
@ honeybee:
Honeybee, dear lady….. I just can’t listen to this without seeing my revered mother listening with tears in her eyes. So although I myself have the record in yiddish and English, I never played it after my mother passed away. I am a bit emotional about my parents of whom, when I grew uip, I realised how hard they struggled and slaved just for us, their children. And the older they became the more I appreciated them.
You must have really top computer skills to be able to drag up and display anything you want. I marvel at it.
@ Ted Belman:
Thank you for your response. I think…sort-of… that I understand. But if they ignore the Primary Level, which, after all was the basis for all that followed, how can there be any validity to other levels which oppose the primary level. If, as you say, they can attack us that the settlements are illegal, can’t we ignore their attempt to re-write International Law and point to the primary Law which says they ARE legal. After all, those International Treaties and agreements have not been abrogated, and moreover, were assumed by the UN in 1945. That the opposition changes the level, need not be accepted by Israel who can bring them back firmly to that Primary Level.
You can see that I know little about the law, except what I learned during bitter many-years-long legal cases, of which I’ve had several. (I won a decision a couple of years ago, after 26 years). As for International Law, I know nothing, but what is the purpose of signing these agreements into Law, if we can’t refer to them. After all, I was taught that the most potent factor in deciding a legal matter is “precedent”. This was in mid-20th cent. Ireland which was probably patterned after Blackstone et al.
In a previous post a week or so ago…I postulated that, as politicians make many declarations and promises, including Heads of State, which are never kept, why can not the same attitude be given to Netanyahu’s Cairo speech. He could at least hint, that those times were more propitious, but since then, and the huge terrorist campaigns and wars, the situation on the ground as regarding the 2-state solution has deteriorated, and must be held in abeyance or even reconsidered.
No one answered me. So I STILL don’t see-lacking a true explanation- why this attitude cannot be adopted by Netanyahu and the Israeli Govt. He wheels-and-deals so much, in and out of cover, that it would be quite normal. A furore would occur of course, but that happens on a weekly basis against Israel.
It could go into the realm of a “definite maybe” as Sam Goldwyn has said.@ honeybee:
Michael Maguire Said:
“How can man give away what THE ALMIGHTY has ordained to bestow”. Dicha of Deborah
. Click on .pdf below for full legal assertion in the brief.
http://arizonalawreview.org/pdf/58-3/58arizlrev633.pdf
@ Barry:
I wonder if the answer to your quandary is to be found in what happened at the end of the 1967, 6-day war.
When the war was over Israel decided to give the recovered territory of East Jerusalem (later annexed) Judea & Samaria the status of “under belligerent occupation” by the IDF.
Why did Israel do that? I haven’t got a clue. Madness; fear; compassion; exchange land for love and acceptance by the world comminity. Your guess is as good as mind.
But involved in that asinine decision were:-
1. The supreme court of Israel.
2. The Attorney-General’s Office.
3. The Ministry of Justice.
4. The International Law section of the IDF, operating under the Military Advocate-General’s Command.
5. The Law faculties of Israel’s universities.
The individual who bore the greatest responsibility for this insane decision was Meir Shamgar, who was Military Advocate-general from 1961 to 1968. Later he became the Attorney-General of Israel and the President of the Supreme Court.
Meir Shamgar was at the centre of the decision made by Prime Minister Levi Eshkol’s National Unity Government during the Six Day War to apply the laws of war to all the liberated Jewish territories, in particular the provisions of the Hague Regulations of 1907, as well as the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949.
In other words the Israeli government and Israeli’s best legal minds together, decided that Judea, Samaria, and East Jerusalem was not to be rejoiced over as recovered Jewish territory, that had been under illegal occupation by an enemy Arab force for the previous 19 years, namely Jordan. Which had not even honoured the terms of the 1949 Armistice Agreement, to allow free and unhindered access by Jews and Christians to their holy sites in East Jerusalem.
I can only presume the then Labour government fully intended to hand the territory back to the Arab enemy when the politics of the day was conducive. In 1967 the Arab enemy, intent on Israel’s destruction, had been calling themselves the Palestinian People for the 3 years prior to the war starting.
It would appear that successive Israeli governments, Bibi’s included, have all been waiting for that conducive window of opportunity, to give away the land covenanted to Abraham and his descendents in the line of Isaac, Jacob and the Twelve Tribes.
@ Austin:
These are both very good comments.San Remo and what resulted are the legal basis of Israel having legal title to the lands in question. Especially with Jerusalem and surrounding areas, no Israeli politician ever mistakenly said the lands were occupied, so the simple truth is that our best defence should be that we have legal title, and that the matter has been settled.
So why no Israeli government invokes these historical documents that support our people is something difficult to figure out. Is it that the left wing Supreme Court will not allow them to? Is is American governments, such as the one led by Obama, forbid Israeli leaders to do so? I don’t have the answer but I do not that these documents and international agreements our much like our immune systems, the first and last defence before serious illness strikes.
@ Austin:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qmemTfIZFQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msXoInq243c
@ Austin:
Countries can attack us on many levels and we can defend on many levels. What you have mentioned is the primary level The PA has recently taken Britain to task for the Balfour Declaration. This is the primary level.
But when some one says that the settlements are illegal, we must defend on the same level and demonstrate that their facts and reasoning are false. We must make the case that the conclusion is not well founded and use the same documents that they use to do so.
The same for when they say we are occupiers. They argue that the 4GC applies. We have to argue that it doesn’t. Of course level 1 can come into play here. So does the Levy Report. Unfortunately Bibi has declined to embrace the conclusions of the Levy Report.
Also Bibi has accepted the two states for two people as the solution. He therefore can’t argue that we own the land by virtue of level one. We are left to argue not on the ’67 lines or not now.
Ted, Is there some reason that we, the public don’t know about which prevents Israel from invoking the San Remo Conference which embodied the Balfour Declaration which incidentally was approved by Feisal, Lawrence’s friend, who attended the Paris Peace Conference in, I think, 1919. Also the Treaty of Sevres which sealed the San Remo decisions. Also Israel can invoke the League of Nations British Mandate for Palestine, and the VERY important (in these days) Anglo-American Treaty, which fully ratified and agreed with the Mandate conditions, and was passed UNANIMOUSLY by both Houses of Congress, and endorsed and signed into American Law by President Harding, and when he suddenly died, his successor Calvin Coolidge. Also Art. 80 of the UN founding Charter which guarantees to fully carry out all international Treaties and obligations taken over from the League of Nations, which included all of the above irrevocable International Treaties and Laws.
Very few if ever mention these extremely important documents, which gave full ownership to the Jewish People, the Mandate to make sure that when the Jews were capable of becoming an independent Sovereign State, they would hand over the Land. The Arabs were given Trans-Jordan in a slimy deal with France.