ALL THE MORE REASON TO EMBRACE THE LEVY REPORT
Jerusalem rejects ‘biased’ Human Rights Council finding that West Bank Jewish communities are illegal
TIMES OF ISRAEL January 31, 2013, 2:36 pm 4
JTA — A United Nations investigation into the impact of Jewish West Bank settlements on the Palestinian population said that Israel should immediately begin to withdraw all settlers from the territory.
The report issued Thursday by the UN Human Rights Council based in Geneva said that settlement violate the 1949 Geneva Conventions and that failure to withdraw could lead to a finding of war crimes at the International Criminal Court.
The Palestinians have threatened to take Israel to the ICC since the Palestinian Authority was recognized as having non-member state status in the General Assembly in November.
The Human Rights Council’s investigation began last March. Israel did not cooperate with the investigation, including barring investigators from entering the territory, saying that the council is biased against the Jewish state. The council has issued more resolutions regarding Israeli human rights violations than any country.
The report said that Israel “must, in compliance with article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, cease all settlement activities without preconditions. It must immediately initiate a process of withdrawal of all settlers from the OPT,” or Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Investigators interviewed about 50 Palestinians in Jordan in order to prepare the report. The report said that the Palestinians were prevented by the settlements from reaching their farming lands and water resources.
The report estimated that 520,000 settlers live in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem in some 250 settlements.
This, according to the report, “prevents the establishment of a contiguous and viable Palestinian state and undermines the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination.”
Israel’s Foreign Ministry rejected the report, calling it “counterproductive.” The report “will only hamper efforts to find a sustainable solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict,” the ministry said in a statement.
“The only way to resolve all pending issues between Israel and the Palestinians, including the settlements issue, is through direct negotiations without pre-conditions,” the ministry said. .
“The Human Rights Council has sadly distinguished itself by its systematical, one-sided and biased approach towards Israel. This latest report is yet another unfortunate reminder of such approach,” the ministry concluded.
@ Honey Bee:
Honey Bee Said:
Gelded shall it be.
@ dionissis mitropoulos:
I can’t spell those fancy a** Greek words how about gelded
@ Honey Bee:
Honey Bee Said:
That’s incitement to civil disobedience.
@ Honey Bee:
Honey Bee Said:
No way would i let him enjoy such a privilege, Goddesses looking down upon him, degrading him, laughing at him.
Eunuch, yes. Phoenix, do you mind lending a hand?
@ dionissis mitropoulos:
C’boy almost fell of the lader up it one winter when the rungs were icy. No ghosts just clumsey. I love ghost stories but noticed that Jews are rarely haunted.
As for Curious American turn him into a enoch and let the Greek godesses tease him.
Norther on the horizon Loki ,the computor acting up. Adios Ask CA why Obama can kill American without due process?
dionissis mitropoulos Said:
look up lag baomer…
or just a good old fashioned auto da fe…
@ the phoenix:
the phoenix Said:
I know phoenix.
@ Honey Bee:
Honey Bee Said:
It’s so old, it must be haunted.
What’s the equivalent of an exorcism in the Jewish religion?
I mean, what else could you possibly do if you found out that the ghost was one of Curious American’s ancestors?
😛
@ Aphrodite:
Aphrodite Said:
So, it’s two of us now.
But your presence belies our adored one’s claim that he is short of acolytes these days.
Maybe you are driving in the wrong lane?
@ the phoenix:
I have a windmill in my house yard!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Its 100 plus years old.
dionissis mitropoulos Said:
kalimera dionissis!
your comment is timely. the weather vane on my house is no longer turning…any suggestions?
(you DO KNOW i am teasing, right?.. 🙂 )
@ dweller:
The Law my dear Dweller is an ASS.
@ dweller
dweller Said:
A few comments above, i defended you with this very argument when Mr Ross attributed to you a petty exhibitionism manifested in your spotting a seemingly irrelevant detail (butt or barrel).
Now,
masterprofessor, if you are not going to be giving me credit and praise for such timely and efficient defensive interventions on your behalf, i might as well become somebody else’s acolyte (Yamit’s?).😉
@ dionissis mitropoulos:
I adore Dweller
@ dionissis mitropoulos:
Yawl are awake when a Iam taking my beauty sleep. If we toss Curious American inot the foutain of eternal youth he wil turn into a teenager and we can have those Greek Godesses of yours “tease him”. nother one of weather systems blowing, and Loki the computor will go down.
@ dweller
dweller Said:
Dweller, Bernard meant me as the adoring acolyte. He was mocking both of us!
🙁
@ dionissis mitropoulos</a
Yawl are awake when I am asleep[beauty rest] Curious American wil turn into a teenage boy and we will have those Greek Geodessses of your tease hin? Must post quickly as another front is or wind and Loki [ my computor a norse god]will missbehave.
@ Bernard Ross:
Well, well, Mr Ross!
Would that be true?
@ dweller:
dweller Said:
It was not a typographic mistake, just a graphic inanity of mine. I had in mind Israel and the fact that the Jews have the right to settle, and i meant that, unless they exercise their right as much as they want, the right cannot be terminated. It came out all wrong.
dweller Said:
The legal principle(s) in deference to which the Acquired Rights Doctrine was crafted must be applicable to property rights, contract Law rights etc. It might be worthwhile for me to delve into the more general issue concerning rights termination.
Anyway, it is crucial to educate ourselves on this issue, since the standard anti-Israel response will be “well, that was a long time ago, things have changed, international scholars take a different view now” and so on. I want to be able to answer any of the potential objections in detail and in real legal parlance.
Thanks for the link and your analysis, and in case you run upon anything more concerning the legal issues please give me the links.
@ Marjorie Stamm Rosenfeld:
Ms Rosenfeld, thank you very much for the link. It will be a very useful reference.
Marjorie Stamm Rosenfeld Said:
I have read something about Trusts in Eugene Rostow (i think). I will pursue this issue about rights termination (either in general, or specifically for the rights of a beneficiary).
It is a pity that there are not so many legal resources online pertaining to the Mandate-generated Jewish rights. I would have also liked to see a general discussion of the concept of legal rights, how they are born, what types of rights exist, how each type is terminated, and things like that. But we have to make do with what we have.
PS. Very wise decision to detox. The symptoms should be gone in a week’s time, the latest. It helps tremendously if it is coupled with a diet heavy on fruits (preferably organic) and abstinence from meat or fish – this last one, vegetarianism, is a good practice for ever, not just for the period of detox.
@ Bernard Ross:
Actually if it’s the UN specifically that you’re talking about, at the end of WW2 the only thing required for membership in the newly formed UN was a seat at the victors’ table.
— That required a declaration of “war” on the Bad Guys. C’est tout. That was the only price of admission — that was the ticket that got you past the drooling schlemiel at the gate.
And if a country had spent the war-years on the sidelines, it was enough that they make a formal declaration at any time right up until the last day of the month of February 1945.
That’s how a major chunk of the Arab world joined the UN. Most of the existing Arab states: Egypt, Syria, Lebanon after independence, etc., had sat out the war, in every formal diplomatic & martial sense (while unhesitatingly collaborating with the Nazis): waiting until 1945, to see who would win, before declaring themselves.
@ Bernard Ross:
That would work only if we were the shopkeeper.
We aren’t.
@ Marjorie Stamm Rosenfeld:
Israelis acquired the general attitude, early in the game, of paying less than careful attention to the law. I’ve long suspected that this was largely because, virtually from the moment that Balfour’s signature went down on the Declaration that bears his name, the Powers — and the world generally — were hard at work jewing-down the Jews
— seeking to nullify the demands of the law in re their obligations to the Jews.
So Israelis learned to take matters of law with a grain of salt.
It complicates life, to be sure.
@ dionissis mitropoulos:
One more attempt at the link to the Grief essay mentioned above.
(May as well, since the last one went into moderation anyway.)
@ dionissis mitropoulos:
Here’s the link to the Grief essay http://www.acpr.org.il/ENGLISH-NATIV/02-issue/grief-2.htmI that I mentioned briefly above. Actually the quote itself is from the text of the Vienna Convention.
There are also a pair of 1990 & 1991 articles in the New Republic, by Eugene Rostow [Dean of Yale Law School & USA Undersecretary of State during the 1967 War that brought the heartland provinces into Israeli possession] which may be useful:
AND
@ dionissis mitropoulos:
Not sure what this means.
— A right is guaranteed permanent so long as it’s never been exercised? (is that a typo?)
There IS a legal doctrine that articulated rights (& duties) within treaties, having no statute of limitations, do not, as a matter of course, ‘expire’ with their original incorporating instruments. This is actually long-settled practice; known colloquially in international jurisprudence as the Acquired Rights Doctrine, and codified in law in 1969 as an integral part of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties [informally, “the Treaty on Treaties”]. Grief cites it from time to time, Article 70 (1) b:
Hence, e.g., though the Mandate was surrendered in 1948, the rights articulated IN it — insofar as they are linked to specifically identified parties — remain in perpetuity.
The Mandate’s Preamble & 28 Articles contain at least 15 explicit references to Jews, the Jewish people, the Jewish national home, the Zionist Organization, the Jewish Agency, etc. There’s not one single allusion by name to any other people, ethnicity, nationality, etc.
Will continue this in another post.
@ Bernard Ross:
Actually Israel shot herself in the foot in her Declaration of Independence in which it sounds as though Israel’s existence is owing to the Partition Plan and subsequent U.N. confirmation of her statehood rather than the Mandate, and Israel shot herself in the foot again when she accepted the idea that her occupation of the West Bank and Gaza after 1967 was a belligerant occupation.
Marjorie Stamm Rosenfeld Said:
Actually I dont think it would make a difference whether individual counmtries such as egypt signed on directly as such countries already break agreements. The UN charter clearly states the contiuation of the mandate and the European nations and US are direct signatories to various documents stating a commitment to jewish settlement. They have apparently forgotten and no one deems it to be important to remind them. I have never heard of the right of jewish settlement, deriving from the various agreements and treaties, declared to have been canceled, expired, or modified by any of those parties. perhaps this is why they got frantic when the Levy report first came out. They appear to assume that Israel had agreed to waive the rights of the Jewish people.
dweller Said:
Actually, if we are to use this analogy, I am suggesting to disengage from the counterfeit coin of the realm and substitute in its place a real coin or gold. A sign stating that the shop only accepts real money. No checks, credit or counterfeits. when they come with their counterfeits point out the sign and tell them you will not accept their counterfeit money.
dweller Said:
usually an admission to a club or organization involves signing an agreement to observe the
Charter. I don’t see how they could join the UN org. but be at odds with the Charter.
Marjorie Stamm Rosenfeld Said:
Actually dweller mentioned that it was implied but that it did not specifically refer to each mandate. I surmised, in so many words, that it may be expressly stated that by signing an UN agreement for admission it would likely refer to the member agreeing with the Charter which I believe would be equivalent. This is the usual format for admission to a members club.
@ Bernard Ross:
It’s not a sexual term. It’s a general reference to emotional pleasure, psychical satisfaction.
Sometimes that may be applied to sexual release, but it needn’t be.
— In any case, I rarely make sexual references online or in print.
Well, since I vividly recall posting the comment, and I know that sex was truly the furthest thing from my mind when I posted the remark (while you, OTOH, seem to have gone straight TO it, upon reading my words), I’d have to give you a NO answer to that.
You’d said you found it “positive,” that it “sent a clear message.”
— I simply added my suspicion that you took pleasure in it — which is not at all the same thing.
If that IS important (and I agree that it is), then it’s particularly important that anywone SEEKING to put an end to such games be personally free of both sadistic and masochistic inclinations.
Rest assured, Bernard, that I’ve seen enough of professors to have precious little use for them as a species — so entering their ranks is nowhere to be found on my “to-do” list.
What’s more, if you see me “surrounded by adoring acolytes” on this site these days — then you’ve probably reached the age where it’s wise to start scheduling eye-doctor appointments a little more frequently, because you’re not safe in traffic.
It wasn’t a bit obvious that you used it as a verb. I didn’t know that till you said so. (My guess is that most other readers didn’t either.)
Using a rifle butt on somebody’s face is enormously more damaging than merely slamming the side of a rifle barrel against it. Eisner was simply warning the heckler to back away from his space, and using his weapon as punctuation.
Offhand, I’d say it’s just your general insecurity asserting itself by over-reacting — not that one need be a “psychoanalytic expert” (a walking oxymoron) to draw that conclusion.
— Simple observation & common sense will do the trick nicely without costing the kinds of fees that help a shrink make the payments on his Porsche.
Bernard ross Said:
It appears to me that in the marketplace of discussion the Jews are discussing what others want to discuss while others ignore the jewish discussion. The Jew spends his time discussing the GC and ignores Jewish settlement and the international obligations to jewish settlement. Even in the Levy report it appeared that more effort and focus was placed on the GC discussion and the international obligations to the Jews was not even brought up. The discussion should begin with the international commitment and obligation to jewish settlement and end with the obvious inapplicability of the GC. The GC only flies by omitting history. Other than being inapplicable and irrelevant I still see the GC and a red herring distraction to the real issue of Jewish settlement rights and international obligation to those rights. I remain unconvinced of the efficacy of other GC discussions.
@ dweller:
I certainly agree with dweller that it would be far preferable to have something with signatures to wave in front of the doubters. That is why I have looked for this on the Internet almost every day for weeks. We may never find it, though. However, I think it is possible to search the League of Nations archives for minutes of their meetings (the Council and the Assembly) and it might help to find those. See http://www.princeton.edu/~sbwhite/un/leagwebb.html.
I am going to have to bow out for a while, though. I am doing a DMSA detox to get heavy metals out of my body, and this causes extreme itching, a headache, and occasional breaking out into a sweat as the toxic stuff hits my blood stream and I get chemical hypersensitivity reactions.
@ dionissis mitropoulos:
luckily, i ‘ve learnt from the last exchange, so my computer screen is not dammaged… 🙂
you really crack me up dionissis
@ dionissis mitropoulos:
What I keep reading is that the Mandate for Palestine has never been abrogated or amended and is therefore still in force. I note that it was a trust, in fact it was termed “a sacred trust.” The rights given a benefiary by a trust don’t expire until the beneficiary either gets what the trust promises or agrees to expiration of those rights. (At least, this is my understanding of trust law, though where it comes from I can’t tell you. I.e., I am not a lawyer.) Israel agreed to the U.N.’s 1947 Partition Plan, which actually violated the terms of the Mandate. If the Palestinian Arabs had agreed, the non-binding U.N. General Assembly’s partition proposal (Resolution 181) would have become binding. But the Palestinian Arabs’ rejection of partition invalidated it.
I like Berhard Ross’ idea that agreement to the Mandates was implicit in membership of the League of Nations. In fact, this seems implicit in Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, the article on the mandatory system. You can find the Covenant at http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/publisher,LON,,,3dd8b9854,0.html. I also found a site which gives numbers and locations for the Minutes of the League of Nations for the relevant period when the Mandate for Palestine was confirmed, whether you understand that as July 1922 or September 1923: http://www.princeton.edu/~sbwhite/un/leagwebb.html
@ the phoenix:
the phoenix Said:
Just curious to see his American counterpart.
@ dionissis mitropoulos:
do you REALLY want tomas de torquemada to re-emerge ?
@ the phoenix:
the phoenix Said:
No, phoenix, no!
We want to test the hypothesis that the Lake of Youth turns people into their past selves, so we should experiment by throwing Curious American in and waiting to see if he turns into his former persona.
But you are not going to let him come out, you will drown him!!!
@ dionissis mitropoulos:
Did you call me dionissis?
@ Bernard Ross:
Of course.
But there’s nothing like having it in writing, spelled out in black-&-white & with dated signatures.
You can wave it like a banner.
— Can’t do THAT with implicit presumptions.
@ dweller
dionissis mitropoulos Said:
That was supposed to be crossed out, not in bold letters. i mixed the html code!
Honey Bee Said:
So if we throw Curious American in it, will he come out as an Inquisitor?
Professor! How nice to see that you are here again! Please tell me how i can be of service to you!
@ dweller:
dweller Said:
I have been recently reading a little on the legal subtleties. I want to bring the discussion to the Mandate when i engage the anti-Semitic enemy the opponents of the Israeli view, and i remember Howard Grief having stated that, once a right is generated, it cannot be terminated unless it is exercised. I will delve into my old Law books to study a little about rights’ termination so that i will understand the general theoretical issues clearly and be able to speak effectively, but if you could point to some online resources you’d be great help.
@ Honey Bee:
Honey Bee Said:
Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes
The Latin means that you should be afraid of Geeks even if they bring yogurt as a gift!
Happy birthday Honey Bee.
Honey Bee Said:
😛
@ Bernard Ross:
Not so; I always allow for that possibility.
But I give him the opportunity to show me what he’s made of — and IF he is disingenuous, the opportunity also to decide for himself whether he wants to continue that way, at least for the purposes of the exchange (and maybe, for more than that).
Nor, apparently, to get their attention either.
Look, there may be no value in engaging certain elements of the opposition. But if you’re going to engage them, you’ll have to get their attention; no way around that.
But why should they listen to you (let alone, draw the appropriate conclusions)? — As a practical matter, put yourself in their shoes for a moment:
— From the outset, they are likely to be every bit as sure about their position (misbegotten though it be) as you are of ours. If you can’t get into their head, where they live — then everything you say or do will only confirm to them the ‘rightness’ of their stance (& the ‘inconceivability’ of yours).
Again, the issue is not one of either the FGC parts or its inapplicability — but, rather, where you’ll place your EMPHASIS.
It’s all well-and-fine to hold out for the most pristine of positions, but at some point the human factor will have to assert itself when you carry the ball down the field.
@ the phoenix
Thank-you Phoenix,21 again. In Dallas there is the Fountain of Youth, it is called Neiman-Marcus [ the mothership].
@ Bernard Ross:
But how would you know (since the obligation is implicit)? — do you expect somebody to STATE, flat-out & up-front, that they are so responding? — get real, Bernard.
For better or for worse, GC discourse is the coin-of-the-realm these days.
The coin may be counterfeit, but if you wish to engage yourself in the commerce of the realm, you have to use it (or at least appear to use it).
No need, however, to let it DOMINATE once you’ve entered the fray. What I’m saying is that a thoughtful response to FGC claims is your ticket of entree; from that point onward, it’s up to you as to where you’ll take things.
Only if you permit it. My OWN experience is that having addressed GC, and focused on the Mandate, I am then in a position to subsequently INSIST on a response to the Mandate’s case if the adversary persists in ignoring it.
At that juncture, I have NO problem openly forcing the issue (forensically speaking):
— ‘I addressed your claims; if you lack the courtesy to address mine, or to at least explain why you insist on ignoring them, then this discussion is over. Your choice.’
@ Honey Bee:
a very happy birthday to you honey bee!
🙂
@ dionissis mitropoulos:
Big day today,went into to Cosco because it my birthday and I get to go to town for my birthday [once a year] and there I saw Greek yogert with Jalepeno Peppers. AN HISTORIC CULTURAL EXCHANGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GREEK AND TEX/MEX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!