Israel must pull out of settlements, UN report says

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.

January 26, 2013 | 500 Comments »

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  1. yamit82 Said:

    anyone who believes that justice for Jews can be found in Non Jewish Laws

    Balfour is a declaration which recognizes the connection of the Jewish people to the land of Israel. LON,San remo, UN Charter are all agreements based on the same recognition and form a global agreement re this recognition. It is not a seeking in Non jewish law for justice, it is a demand to keep agreements and promises with the Jewish people. The importance of bringing this to the light of day is that those who break agreements cannot then expect agreements to be honored. Pretending that promises and agreements have not been broken maintains the charade of credibility and authority of international law and agreements. Right now there are Jews who believe that agreements are being broken by the Jews rather than by the internationals.

  2. @ Bernard Ross:
    Yes, Japan was a signatory to the San Remo Resolution but also a member of the League of Nations at the time the Mandate for Palestine was confirmed, whether you see that as July 1922 or September 1923. I misread the year Japan resigned from the League as 1923, but it was 1933.

  3. @ Bernard Ross:

    If you go to a comment with the frowning face, highlight it, and press “highlight and quote”, in the comment box the emoticon will appear in its letter form. So you will know its code.

    I have forgotten the letter for the frowning.

  4. yamit82 Said:

    I don’t know a single Israeli who predicates his world view re: our rights to all of the Land of Israel on any of the vagaries of international Law, Mandates, Balfour, San Remo etc. We know we are here and that the rest of the world would rather we not be and support our cousins the Ishmaelim to reduce us and finally to destroy us.

    Those Israelis appear not to be in the majority in Israel. Is it their view that as HaShem has exiled and returned them that he will also do the rest and therefore there is no reason to do anything?

  5. yamit82 Said:

    Wars and conquest and the power to hold the territorial gains are all that count and anyone who believes that justice for Jews can be found in Non Jewish Laws is partly to blame for we Jews being where we are.

    Israeli jews have the power to hold the territorial gains. Do you think they will continue to hold those gains, which they have occupied for decades,
    and give Justice for Jews? Apparently Israeli Jews are observing non jewish laws, which are not even relevant in non jewish law, and appear to be on the road to relinquishment.
    Is your anathema to the employment of “non Jewish law” based on the assumption that employing it is a violation of Jewish Law or that it offends G_D?

  6. @ yamit82:

    Get your rest now Carido, eat lots of oysters and pomodordoros, and build up you strenght, I have to look for sailors,I prefere Zoomies,I’ll just grab one as he flies over Mt Olympus.

  7. my number 28 comment to Yamit is in moderation. the moderation is becoming ridiculous as it appears that if you quote a poster you are likely to be moderated. The software needs adjusting as quoting and links to sources are necessary on an intelligent site which posts more than the expression of an opinion. the same with Spam: an ongoing discussion means repeat posting which triggers spam. software is no good as it inhibits discussion and the exchange of ideas, this software is better for lesser forums.

  8. yamit82 Said:

    Mandate shmandate it’s a red herring……

    don’t agree, if it were a red herring it would be attracting some attention. The red herring is the GC which attracts much more attention than the internationally guaranteed legal rights of Jewish settlement.

    In the real world the only thing that counts is the relative power and influence of the contending parties.

    Only if that power and influence is exerted. Israel has exerted its power, and won repeatedly, and yet in spite of stunning victory is not enjoying the fruits of its power. This is because it has not exerted its power and influence in the other theaters of diplomacy, public opinion and law which are intertwined.
    yamit82 Said:

    The second you try to justify yourself based on someone Else’s laws,

    It’s not about justifying it’s about employing a tactic to use their own laws against them.
    yamit82 Said:

    One reason Israel does not invoke international law in claims for land in Y&S is that Arabs have equal claims of land inside Israel and Western Jerusalem.

    The arabs are already inside Israel and Jerusalem with free movement. The Jews are not in YS with free movement or settlement.
    yamit82 Said:

    Don’t want to go there we would lose more than we would gain.

    Israel does not have to make the claim on YS if it does not want to. Individual jews and jewish organizations can make the claim for the Jewish settlement right without regard to who is the sovereign over the territory. Israel can act as a disinterested party in terms of its own interests BUT as the current defacto administrator of the area in question it has a legal obligation to encourage the settlement of Jews as did Britain and Jordan. The fact that neither Israel nor Jordan did not fulfill the obligation is not a basis for the rights being cancelled. It remains an unfulfilled right of the jewish people and the internationally accepted basis for this right is the mandate and the suceeding relevant agreements. It is Israels abandonment of Jewish rights which has caused the rest of the world to also abandon those rights. After all an unclaimed debt becomes an ignored and forgotten debt.

  9. Marjorie Stamm Rosenfeld Said:

    @ yamit82:
    With an hour and 15 minutes till market close, the NASDAQ is up 30.10 points. That’s not exactly diving south.

    Inside joke but if you are a player I advise take your profits now and buy real gold/silver. 2013 is not going to be a good year for anyone but those with some foresight.

  10. the phoenix Said:

    Yamit, I am glad you are feeling better as evidenced by your post.

    Thanks, I am feeling better not yet 100% but around 50% and getting stronger hourly 🙂

  11. the phoenix Said:

    @ yamit82:
    Yamit, I am glad you are feeling better as evidenced by your post.
    I agree with mr Ross point NOT as a means to win over world opinion (I say to hell with world opinion).
    I think it would have many benefits were it to be directed to misguided members of the tribe, to enforce their backbone as it were.
    To awaken an attitude of ‘ goddam it! As god is my witness i”ll never be swindled again’
    As far as holding onto what is, thanks to power….
    It is the only way… Another poster commented something along the lines of quoting Mao that power comes from the barrel of a gun….

    I think you are confusing the Jewish diaspora with the Israeli attitude vis a vis our national rights. I don’t know a single Israeli who predicates his world view re: our rights to all of the Land of Israel on any of the vagaries of international Law, Mandates, Balfour, San Remo etc. We know we are here and that the rest of the world would rather we not be and support our cousins the Ishmaelim to reduce us and finally to destroy us.

    <strong>The burning bush is burning, but it is never consumed by fire. So, too, the Jewish people seem to be forever a nation in danger of being destroyed yet always miraculously preserved by divine intervention. When Moses encounters God at the burning bush, God identifies Himself repeatedly (Exodus 3:6, 3:13, 3:15, 3:16, 4:5) as the God of his forefathers—Abraham, Isaac and Jacob with whom He had made an eternal covenant.

    This is an extremely important passage because later on in Jewish history a lot of different people are going to come—the Christians, for example—claiming that God changed His mind, abandoned the Jews and made a new covenant (new “testament” to use the Greek term) with them.

    God has a master plan for humanity and the Jews have an absolutely essential part in that plan.

    At this juncture, God has decided to bring the Jews out of Egypt. And it’s important to keep in mind that God put the Jews in Egypt in the first place – It says in the Talmud, you have to bless the bad as well as the good. 6Traditionally, whenever a Jew hears bad news (ie someone has passed away) the first response is “Boruch Dayan Emet -Blessed is the truthful Judge (God). “There is no concept in Judaism of a devil who does evil and competes with God. God is omniscient and omnipotent and nothing is outside His knowledge or control. While we finite human beings may perceive events as good or bad, from God’s infinite perspective everything that happens is part of a master plan and ultimately for the good.

    Parashat Bo – No concessions!

  12. @ the phoenix:
    Now we’re getting somewhere! By the way, I misread the year that Japan got out of the League of Nations as 1923. It was 1933. So Japan was still in the League when the Mandate for Palestine was confirmed. I have written both Shurat HaDin and the Office for Israeli Constitutional Law about the EU initiative. This is the gist of what I wrote (realizing now, though, that I made a mistake about Japan):

    “Why isn’t the Israeli government reminding the European states which ratified the Mandate for Palestine of their vote on this? There is a list of the member states of the League of Nations up to the time of the ratification of this Mandate, the original members and those who joined before 29 September 1923, at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_states_of_the_League_of_Nations

    “Only Argentina and Japan withdrew from League membership prior to the ratification of the Mandate for Palestine on 29 September 1923, leaving 52 member states of the League of Nations who ratified this Mandate. Many are now members of the European Union. A list of members of the European Union is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_Union_member_states. The doctrine of estoppel in international law binds states to agreements they originally made. And Article 80 of the U.N. Charter preserves the rights of peoples under all previous legal instruments. The Mandate for Palestine has never been amended or abrogated, and the European states which ratified that Mandate should not now be suggesting a giveaway of land that was designated by them for the Jewish homeland in a binding legal instrument (a trust, in fact a “sacred trust”).”

    Of course, I would argue that the United States should also be reminded of its obligations under the 1924 Anglo-American Convention, and the U.N. should be reminded of Article 80 in its own Charter. And non-European nations who were in the League should be reminded of their obligations under the Mandate. But I was hoping to help forestall an unfavorable EU decision. To date I have not heard from either organization to which I addressed my message.

  13. @ yamit82:
    Yamit, I am glad you are feeling better as evidenced by your post.
    I agree with mr Ross point NOT as a means to win over world opinion (I say to hell with world opinion).
    I think it would have many benefits were it to be directed to misguided members of the tribe, to enforce their backbone as it were.
    To awaken an attitude of ‘ goddam it! As god is my witness i”ll never be swindled again’
    As far as holding onto what is, thanks to power…. 🙂
    It is the only way… Another poster commented something along the lines of quoting Mao that power comes from the barrel of a gun….

  14. dionissis mitropoulos Said:

    Dweller, i remember your having claimed that Yamit scares people away from Israpundit.

    As far as i am concerned, i now know that you have that potential impact.

    I protest putting me and dweller on the same level in scarring people off Israpundit is insulting to me. Why because it puts my comments and his as having equal impact. I doubt very many readers read his comments in the first place to have any effect at all. His comments are pseudo-erudite and oh, so very very boring.

  15. Marjorie Stamm Rosenfeld Said:

    I am with you, Honey Bee. I can’t imagine why we are discussing anyone’s sexual identity in this forum. I don’t care–and in fact usually don’t notice–whether a person is homosexual, bisexual, transsexual, gay, lesbian, or hermaphrodite. I only know whether I like the person (and I usually do). Nor do I understand why we seem to be having a competition here on which commenter is the most erudite. I thought that, between all of us, we were arriving at some good ideas for validating the ratification of the Mandate for Palestine.

    Mandate shmandate it’s a red herring of no real significant consequence today. History has moved on so get with the program as it exists not as you might wish it to be. In the real world the only thing that counts is the relative power and influence of the contending parties.

    If the Jews can return and claim the land after 19 centuries the Arabs can do so after 100 years or even 60 years. The second you try to justify yourself based on someone Else’s laws, then you open yourself up to counter claims where in the eyes of some may be as valid if not more than yours. It’s a crap shoot and if you lack the edge in the power equation you are out of luck in any event.

    One reason Israel does not invoke international law in claims for land in Y&S is that Arabs have equal claims of land inside Israel and Western Jerusalem. Don’t want to go there we would lose more than we would gain.

    Wars and conquest and the power to hold the territorial gains are all that count and anyone who believes that justice for Jews can be found in Non Jewish Laws is partly to blame for we Jews being where we are.

    Lets talk sex much more interesting than boring legal arguments nobody will ever use, invoke and win by even if they did. Let’s discuss if America and Europe will still exist by the end of the current century and if yes as what? Israel is eternal America and Europe are not and nobody has yet found a replacement for sex at least one that is as gratifying don’t y’all agree?? 🙂

  16. My very big and important comment #37 in the previous page still in moderation. Since it is a personal matter, could someone take it out of moderation, please?

  17. Bernard Ross Said:

    I think that the approach should be like a legal class action suit representing global jewry which is filed in all the countries, including Israel, and forums which obstruct jewish settlement in policy and through indirect funding of NGO’s. It would be money well spent and would require legal research but there are organizations like shurat har din and the one that marjorie rosenfeld mentioned. All the signatories to san remo, LON plus the UN, EU, Japan, etc. Suits to estop thepractice of obstructing the settlement and mandamus(or whatever legal principles apply) to coerce the govts to fulfill their legal obligations to encourage jewish settlement. If adelson spent on that it would not be wasted like the money spent on romney. I believe strongly that it could transform the situation. It needs money and a strong legal team but also a PR arm that guarantees public attention to each filing in the various countries and venues. What a shock it would be when it is disccovered, after carefully being hidden, that Jews actually have a guaranteed internationally legally binding, unexpired right to “close settlement west of the Jordan river.” Not only a right, but are to be “encouraged”.

    agreed.
    but for all that to happen, we need money. and we’re not talking here little chai and double chai donations…
    we are talking BIG BUCKS…
    as i have written in my earlier post (which for clarity and for the sake of ease of reference i shall copy paste here) BEFORE we get to the ‘class action’ phase i think there should be a ‘planned attack’ to obtain the funds to allow us to go to the next level…
    short of that….it would be just more comments on a blog…

    Bernard Ross Said:

    Adelson would have better spent his 100 million supporting that cause.

    dear mr ross,
    this might be a crazy idea, and totally off the wall, but then again, fwiw, quite a few good things initially started as a ‘crazy idea’ that either evolved, or led to something else alltogether, that might be even better than the original idea…
    ok so with that as an introduction, to follow up on that part of your comment…
    100 million is not exactly chopped liver, nonetheless, i daresay, for someone that is one of the richest men in the world…ANOTHER 100 million (and perhaps MORE?) would not make a huge dent in his pocket.
    do you (or anybody else on this forum) think that we could try to brainstorm how to GET to have adelson join the cause that you are so eloquently advocating in most of your posts (and by so doing open his wallet wider, WIDER, W.I.D.E.R. )
    i.e. give birth to a jewish organization that is WELL VERSED with jewish history and ESPECIALLY the era after ww1 till 1967 (and of course till now)
    there are many logistics to consider but first, do you think there is any merit ?
    all the arguments that are flying back and forth here on this forum, will be flying into the face of stunned internationals (a verbal eisner moment, if you will…) who will just ask each other “was that a JEW that spoke to us that way?”

  18. @ Honey Bee:
    I am with you, Honey Bee. I can’t imagine why we are discussing anyone’s sexual identity in this forum. I don’t care–and in fact usually don’t notice–whether a person is homosexual, bisexual, transsexual, gay, lesbian, or hermaphrodite. I only know whether I like the person (and I usually do). Nor do I understand why we seem to be having a competition here on which commenter is the most erudite. I thought that, between all of us, we were arriving at some good ideas for validating the ratification of the Mandate for Palestine. I think we should stick to that or else end the discussion here and go on to other valuable articles Ted has posted.

  19. @ the phoenix: the original post must have become unmoderated because someone gave it a like
    February 7, 2013 at 7:00 am I think the numbers of the replies might be undependable and showing differently to the poster in moderation.

  20. Bernard Ross Said:

    moderation on my reply 49 to phoenix which was a repost of a 33 on a prior page which went into moderation.

    groan….
    come on ted… there has got to be a better way surely?

  21. @ the phoenix: I am retrying with part of the original post made

    I think that the approach should be like a legal class action suit representing global Jewry which is filed in all the countries, including Israel, and forums which obstruct jewish settlement in policy and through indirect funding of NGO’s. It would be money well spent and would require legal research but there are organizations like shurat har din and the one that Marjorie Rosenfeld mentioned. All the signatories to san remo, LON plus the UN, EU, Japan, etc. Suits to estop the practice of obstructing the settlement and mandamus(or whatever legal principles apply) to coerce the govts to fulfill their legal obligations to encourage jewish settlement. If adelson spent on that it would not be wasted like the money spent on Romney. I believe strongly that it could transform the situation. It needs money and a strong legal team but also a PR arm that guarantees public attention to each filing in the various countries and venues. What a shock it would be when it is discovered, after carefully being hidden, that Jews actually have a guaranteed internationally legally binding, unexpired right to “close settlement west of the Jordan river.” Not only a right, but are to be “encouraged”.

  22. moderation on my reply 49 to phoenix which was a repost of a 33 on a prior page which went into moderation.

  23. @ the phoenix:

    February 7, 2013 at 7:00 am

    the phoenix Said:

    give birth to a jewish organization that is WELL VERSED with jewish history and ESPECIALLY the era after ww1 till 1967 (and of course till now)

    I think that the approach should be like a legal class action suit representing global jewry which is filed in all the countries, including Israel, and forums which obstruct jewish settlement in policy and through indirect funding of NGO’s. It would be money well spent and would require legal research but there are organizations like shurat har din and the one that marjorie rosenfeld mentioned. All the signatories to san remo, LON plus the UN, EU, Japan, etc. Suits to estop thepractice of obstructing the settlement and mandamus(or whatever legal principles apply) to coerce the govts to fulfill their legal obligations to encourage jewish settlement. If adelson spent on that it would not be wasted like the money spent on romney. I believe strongly that it could transform the situation. It needs money and a strong legal team but also a PR arm that guarantees public attention to each filing in the various countries and venues. What a shock it would be when it is disccovered, after carefully being hidden, that Jews actually have a guaranteed internationally legally binding, unexpired right to “close settlement west of the Jordan river.” Not only a right, but are to be “encouraged”.
    Like or Dislike: 1 0

  24. the phoenix Said:

    my comment to you was on this thread actually, # 16 two pages earlier (feb 7 @ 3;40am)

    yes I had replied and it went into moderation(33 a couple of pages ago. I will attempt to repost it

  25. dionissis mitropoulos Said:

    ..you spout the same sentences that glorify your benevolent caution and thoughtfulness even at times when you haven’t been either cautious or thoughtful.

    It is called hypocrisy: fraudulent preachers,pompous pontificators and other dispesers of gems of wisdom are often infected with the disease. When being clever and important, other considerations are secondary.