There is a new comment on the post “Justice Levy’s Legal Tinsel: The Recent Israeli Report on the Status of the West Bank and Legality of the Settlements”.
Author: Liron A. Libman
Dear Professor Scobbie,
A few comments, I did not succeed in making them brief, thanks for your patience:
1. Occupation and the fourth Geneva Convention (GC IV): In my opinion, the paramount wrong step of the Levy’s commission was the total denial of belligerent occupation law applicability to the territories in question.
Its application is a factual question, independent of Jus Ad Bellum legality issues or rights to title or sovereignty clashes. Israel’s government formal position, to the best of my knowledge, never denied it, but to the contrary: based the administration of the territories on the assumption of belligerent occupation. However, the question what is the body of law that obliges Israel when implementing occupation in these territories is a different question. Here the position was that the 1907 Hague regulations apply, since they are considered customary law, while GC IV does not apply, as a matter of law, although the Israeli government took upon itself’ as a policy decision, to observe the humanitarian parts of this convention. For this reason, it is misleading to state that the Israeli Supreme court determined that GC IV applies: It has determined that there is a state of belligerent occupation. Furthermore, the Supreme Court has determined that the Hague regulations apply and it has referred, often, to GC IV, whether because of the government voluntary but partial acceptance of it, or to strengthen findings, when it can be shown that GC IV support them, too. However, to the best of my knowledge, the Israeli Supreme Court never discussed in depth and ruled on the applicability of GC IV in the territories.
2. The customary nature of the prohibition of transferring your own
population to occupied territory: I have checked the customary law study sources that you kindly gave in reference. With all due respect to military manuals and declarations, I always thought that the core of customary norms is practice (your actions are more significant than your nice words). I found no indication as to China’s practice in Tibet, Turkey’s practice in north Cyprus or Morocco’s practice in Western Sahara, all cases where nationals of the occupying power where transferred to the occupied territory. I like to know your opinion on that.
3. Return to settlements previously inhabited: thank you for the
reference to Judge Meron’s memo, which was new to me. Meron writes about settling Gush Etsion. This is an area in the territories where Jewish Settlements existed before 1948 and were conquered and destroyed by the Jordanian Legion during the War. Meron indicated that re-establishment of these settlements may be justified. There are other places in the west Bank where Jews lived for centuries before being deported in the 1948 or before, like the old city of Jerusalem, in east Jerusalem or Hebron (where a massacre in 1929 forced the Jewish community out). In your opinion, are these settlements illegal, too? Was the intention of the drafters of article 49(6) of GC IV to prevent the return of a population previously deported from the occupied territory?
4. Implications of the Israeli-Palestinian interim agreement: the PLO
(representing the Palestinian people) agreed that the issue of Israeli settlements will be left to the permanent status negotiations and until then, Israel holds control and responsibility over them. Isn’t it a significant factor when considering the settlements legality?
5. ICJ bias: you have called for presenting studies to substantiate
claims of bias of the court. Well, here is one, based on statistical
analysis: Posner, Eric A. and De Figueiredo, Miguel, Is the International Court of Justice Biased? (December 2004). U Chicago Law & Economics, Olin Working Paper No. 234. Available at SSRN:
http://ssrn.com/abstract=642581 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.642581
6. Facts and Law, content and style: (this comment is to Mr. Milanovic comment, too) I find some of the historical comments interesting.
We are not discussing law in abstract (if there is such a thing) but law’s implementation on facts. If you get the facts wrong, the legal analysis will be flawed. Is important to remember that the Israeli-Arab conflict did not start in 1967, as some Palestinians try to conveniently persuade the international community. I understand the details may be tiresome , but ignoring them is not good legal scholarly. I think, Professor Scobbie, you have some fair points worth listening to, and some of the comments ad hominem were not appropriate, but if I may, some friendly advice: maybe if you refrained from words like “tinsel”, “perverse”, ” a travesty of legal argumentation” etc., not really necessary to make you point, some of the these reactions would have been avoided.
Thanks for starting this interesting discussion.
See all comments on this post here:
dweller Said:
More important to Jews than law is JUSTICE. This accounts for their involvement in the civil rights disobedience of law. The EU, UN etc have relied on the jewish ignorance of their own rights but moreso that the jew remains unawre of the CURRENT CONTINUING SWINDLES and the reliance of the swindles on the ghetto jew mntality. This is what the europeans rely on as they continue to swindle jews. It is more important for Jews to wake up and see the facts: the Geneve conventions do not apply to jews, “pal” refugees are important jewish refugees are not, arabs should have more land jews should keep getting less and less, Jews should be expected to coexist with their own muderers, arabs may expel jews but jews may ot expel arabs(how christian of you). If jews wake up and see the continuing despicable evil that continues to abuse them then perhaps they will finally seize and RESTORE justice to jews.
dweller Said:
you keep ignoring my reasoning that success and winning is not the prime motivation of the process. Exposing the swindlers is the point, as Jews find it hard to accept the extent of the swindlers evil(cultural stockholm syndrome).
dweller Said:
I have repeatedly given reasons for my suggestions: here again: Jews were not alwsys docile, suicidal; jews continue to be swindled due to ghetto mentality;pursuing of legal rights is important to jewish education and repudiation of ghetto mentality; if they can repudiate the ghetto mentality they will then more clearly be able to evaluate transfer as a doable, practical, legally precedented,just solution that will eliminate a spurious double standard,bring justice to jewish refugees through quid pro quo, create a new situation that will be a permant solution, can bring economic boom to “pals”, puts the choices and solutions to the arab refugee problem in the hands of the responsible parties after transfer,etc,etc etc. I dont think anyone is really looking at the practical scenario which would ensue with the fait accompli. People and nations will have to act from a new situation and positive solutions for all can ensue depending on the choices made. This however is subordinate and irrelevant to restoring the rights, safety and sovereignty of the jewish people.
@ Bernard Ross:
That’s not at all what I’m saying.
I’ve said — frequently — that the Jew is lawful at his core.
It’s more important to him than perhaps to anybody ELSE that he be lawful, and KNOW himself to be lawful.
I’m just not too sanguine about the prospects of success in pursuing international mandamus.
— I’m not against it, Bernard (TOLD you that in another post); just not holding my breath in hopes of its success.
That’s an assumption — based, I suspect, more in hope than reason.
dweller Said:
dweller Said:
If you read my posts you would see that winning is not the only criteria but that changing Jews minds is the most important point. All of the denials of justice to the Jews, which you state is the most likely outcome, will serve to point out to the Jews the utter hypocrisy of “international “law”. At some point the Jews will have to realize that only unilateral action, without double standards geared to serve the interests of others, will save them. Jewish docility borne from centuries of brainwashing is the impediment to jewish existence. Israel, like the jews for centuries, has been terrorized by the same usual suspects. However, this terror has enabled Israel to build its military expertise. A paradigm shift in Jewish iinternal psychology, that paints the 2000 year slaughterers as existential enemies, will enable Israel to use its military not only for defense but also for its benefit. (at this moment in another belman article the same slaughterers of yore are conspiring to swindle the jews of their homeland and deliver them to the savages). When Jews come to realize the extreme culturally congenita, chronic evil which emanates from their 2000 year slaughters they will despise and repudate them at every turn rather than seek their blessing and approvel. Only a fool seeks the bleesing of their own killers. The Europeans are very familiar with how to keep jews docile. Basically you are saying that “law” is a futile path for the Jews and therefore they should not traverse it. However, I say that the more futile it becomes the more the Jews will awake from slumber. They will need no standing from their slaughterers of Yore if they unilaterally proceed to deliver to the gander what was given to the goose.
@ Bernard Ross:
In re extraordinary writs (e.g., mandamus):
As with the former League Council-member-nation signatories of the LON Mandate Charters
— so with the San Remo Resolution signatories.
Why should they incur the headache of hearing such inconvenient matters when they don’t have to?
Hearing extraordinary writs is (so far as I’m aware) strictly a matter of discretion on the Court’s part. All they need do to weasel out of it is deny standing.
Where STANDING is denied, however, one does not GET to argue law, principle, or anything else.
Where standing is denied, the Court, in effect, says, “Get out of here. YOU can’t talk about that HERE.”
Yes, “just when you thought it was safe” (hearing the theme music from JAWS in your mind?) to declare the uttermost boundaries to CHUTZPAH
— along come our Arab friends, who proceed to show you just how mistaken you were. . . . ROFLMAO.
Of course, the real problem there is perhaps less with the Arabs themselves
— than with a world community which unfailingly indulges them in these over-the-edge fantasies,
and thus makes itself the Arabs’ ENABLER.
dweller Said:
Also signatories to san remo including Japan and US as guarantors.
dweller Said:
This s a problem with the Jews, once they argue a case in their minds, and inevitably lose therein, they abandon the case ass being futile. NOt so the Arabs: they undertake the most absurd of positions and promulgate those absurdites to a point bordering on reality. One must undertake the cases regardless of the outcome, which in the case of corrupt societies is likely to be disappointing(as they must support their own corruption). The advantage of the process would be to shine light on the existence of Jewish rights and especially on the manner in which the Jews have been, and continue to be, swindled. Media who dont give a hoot would cover the case. Nothing ventured nothing gained. If one does not even undertake a case that is based in strong law and principle then that one is beyond hope and aid. One should begin in Israel because Israel has the current prime responsibility to fulfill as it is the current administrator of the area in question and the only party who can unilaterally fulfill the directive to settle jews west of the jordan river.
@ Wallace Brand:
Feisal & Abdullah — Musical Chairs
As I’ve tried to show, above [and as exquisitely fleshed out in Friedman’s exhaustive research, masterful scholarship & glorious prose], the balancing act proved altogether too much for the winsome Feisal. Yale carefully examines the consequences of the manipulative skill of the Young Arabs:
“The masses of fellaheen and bedouins, who do not even understand the word Nationalism, support [it] because they believe that it means Moslem supremacy and independence, and because they are ordered to. Among the effendi class in general in the cities [it] has received support because it will, they believe, maintain their position… as overlords, [while] the Moslem clergy and fanatics were pleased to see in it Moslem supremacy and independence…”
Capt. Yale did not overlook the presence of a scattering of young men among the masses with vague & embryonic and even passionate buddings of nationalistic impulses, but “the majority of the people were fanatically Islamic” — and this Yale saw as seriously fraught with peril.
“I am firmly convinced, and this conviction has come from what I have seen and heard during the past month, that the present movement in Syria and Palestine is not really a national movement [but that] of pan-Arabism and Pan-Islamism [and] that it is a very dangerous movement… it is almost certain that the present Arab movement or Syrian national movement will turn into fanatical Islamism.”
[Yale, Ibid., pp. 244-47; as cited in Friedman, Ibid., pp. 276-77]
In the face of this kind & dimension of manipulation, Feisal was a babe in the woods. Hence, the apprehensions of the Quay d’Orsay & French insistence that they handle the country their own way. Under the circumstances Maysalun was perhaps inevitable. This, then, was the Hashemite prince whom Churchill & Lawrence installed — following Feisal’s expulsion by the French from Syria — in the new, mandated country of Iraq.
Then, in place of Iraq, the older Abdullah, seen by Lawrence as “lazy and by no means dominating” — yet, by Churchill’s lights, “a cheery-faced, shrewd, genial little man”: and thus regarded as better suited to the more laid-back role envisioned for Britain’s reigning-but-not-ruling, transJordanian proxy, vassal & puppet — got all of Palestine east of the River Jordan.
This is not, by any means, however, to say that the investiture would begin to slake (let alone, sate) Abdullah’s ongoing & hardly covert ambitions — more like those of his father, the Sharif, before him than those of Feisal — for a vast Arab empire of his own: to supplant that of the Ottomans, and embrace both parts of Palestine (Eastern and Western) as well as Syria-Lebanon — ambitions which would only grow greater with the soon-to-come, traumatic loss of the Hijaz homeland to the Sa’udis & their Wahabi Ikhwan associates.
As quixotic & unlikely as Abdullah’s trek thru transJordan clearly was, he must’ve sensed that his prospects for success of SOME sort were promising. Arguably, the elements of restored personal birthright & family honor would have made for a heady brew in the consciousness of Abdullah, laid back or no.
@ Wallace Brand:
More Yale on Feisal
By characterizing the Emir Feisal as “not a strong man,” Capt. Yale had reference to the sway exercised over Feisal by — among other forces — surviving elements of the prewar, Arab secret societies now dominating the “Young Arab” movement that created the postwar First & Second General Syrian Congresses.
Based on his careful observations, Yale believed that — notwithstanding their appeal to Christians & liberal (or lax) Muslims [there are no openly “lapsed” Muslims] for support for “Syrian Unity” & “Syrian Nationalism” — that in fact, as Prof. Friedman relates, in quoting the Captain:
“The purpose of the Young Arabs…was not to build a liberal, multi-national [or multi-ethnic], and multi-religious entity. Their ultimate aim was to create “a Moslem Arab state and eventually a Moslem Arab Empire… They succeeded in duping many Syrian Christians,” and in taking advantage of Feisal’s weakness as ‘an instrument…to secure their aims’…”
While it was clear to Yale that the benevolently inclined & sincerely intentioned Feisal genuinely “wished all the sects and denominations in the country to cooperate for the best interests of the State,” Yale could not ignore the fact that
“…he [Feisal] has not enough power and influence in the country to make his ideas prevail…he is loved but not feared; he is courted but not obeyed. Should the Emir fail to saisfy the Young Arab Party, they would dispense with him.”
[William Yale, “A Report on Syria, Palestine, and Mount Lebanon for the American Commissioners, prepared by Capt. William Yale, Technical Advisor to the American Section of the International Commission on Mandates in Turkey,” dated 26 July, 1919, pp. 14-15, Record Group 59, General Records of the Dept. of State, USA; as cited in Friedman, Ibid., pp. 265-66]
One more installment, this one including Churchill’s view of Abdullah as a suitable prospect for transJordan.
@ Wallace Brand:
Feisal & Abdullah, etc
Okay, I’m coming to the nub of the matter. As I think you’ll see, it wasn’t that Abdullah was so much “more warlike” than his kid brother Feisal. It’s true that Abdullah did make his move on Eastern Palestine [transJordan] presumably to take back Syria after Maysalun & Feisal’s ouster — but there was also ANOTHER factor.
The Emir Feisal — who, as the principal postwar Arab leader, would present the Arab position at the coming Versailles Conference — would sign a draft agreement with the Zionist movement, confirming that Arab welcome back to the Jews (mentioned in the previous post), and, moreover, pledging wholehearted cooperation with the Zionist endeavor to create Palestine as “a national home for the Jewish People.”
Notwithstanding Weizmann’s early & earnestly sanguine impressions, however, and granting the undeniable authenticity of the rapport between the two, Feisal’s intelligent bearing and charming & kindly presence belied a man who, in actuality — in Meinertzhagen’s, and others’, perhaps more sober reckoning — “was no leader.”
Remarked the noted Austrian orientalist, Dr Alois Musil — long a student of Arab mentality [author of Northern Negd, A Topographical Itinerary (NY, 1928)] and a sojourner admidst Arab culture, who had married an Arab woman & actually embraced the Islamic faith: “Feisal is a weak character. He is influenced by his [entourage] and is unable to take up a leading role… Afraid of deposition, he always relies on the more radical elements and thereby is alienating the more prudent elements.” [Ibid., pp. 215-16]
Musil’s perspective on Faisal (and the Hashemite Sharifians generally) may well, of course, have been colored, in part, by his view (as a Muslim) that during the war, Feisal’s father, Sharif Hussein, had “committed perjury” by reneging, after a year, on his oath of allegiance to the (Turkish) Caliphate.
State Dept Syria expert, William Yale, however, had similar things to say regarding the Prince’s leadership capacities.
Yale, an Arabic-speaking, long-time resident, and culturally perceptive, US Intelligence Officer in Cairo during the War [before that, a regional Standard Oil rep there] — and who subsequently became an American delegate to the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, where Feisal would present the Arab case — reported that, while the latter was most assuredly a gentleman of “pleasing manner…[striking] appearance, liberal minded and kindly disposed to all parties …[nevertheless] he is not a strong man and is surrounded by clever and unscrupulous politicians, who can easily influence him.” [Wm Yale Papers, Report No. 112, 9 Nov 1918; cited in Friedman, Ibid., p. 216]
More of Yale’s observations, shortly.
@ Wallace Brand:
More Feisal & Abdullah —and why Feisal got Iraq, Abdullah got transJordan
From the time of their first meeting in Aqaba in the spring of 1918, Feisal & Weizmann had appreciated each other, both personally & politically. Feisal wrote to Mark Sykes [a member of Lloyd-George’s War Cabinet Secretariat, as well as chief architect of the Sykes-Picot Agreement — and, at the postwar, 1919 Versailles Conference, a senior advisor to the UK Foreign Office on Middle Eastern affairs]:
“I have a perfect notion of the importance of the Jews’ position, and admiration for their vigor and tenacity and moral ascendancy, often in the midst of hostile surroundings… On general grounds, I would welcome any good understanding with the Jews.” [Ibid., p. 236]
And Weizmann wrote to his wife, Vera, enthusiastically of Feisal:
“He is the first Arab nationalist I ever met. He is a leader! He’s quite intelligent and a very handsome man, handsome as a picture! He is not interested in Palestine, but on the other hand he wants Damascus and the whole of northern Syria. He talked with great animosity against the French, who want to get their hands on Syria. He expects a great deal from collaboration with the Jews! He is contemptuous of the Palestinian Arabs, whom he doesn’t even regard as Arabs!” [Ibid., p. 256]
Months later, at a banquet held in his honor by Lord Walter Rothschild, Feisal — who held the French suspect & feared that, if awarded a mandate over Syria, the Quay d’Orsay would exploit its position to ultimately colonize the Levant after the North African model — characterized the Jews, on the other hand, as “our cousins by blood” and effusively asserted,
“No true Arab can be suspicious or afraid of Jewish nationalism… and I do say to the Jews — welcome back home… Dr Weizmann’s ideals are ours.” [Central Zionist Archives, Z4/56, English-language text in T.E. Lawrence’s personal handwriting; cited in Isaiah Friedman, Palestine: A Twice Promised Land? Volume One: The British, the Arabs and Zionism, 1915-1920 (Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, NJ, 2000), p. 220]
More coming up.
@ Wallace Brand:
Don’t know that it would be safe to characterize Abdullah as “more warlike than Feisal.” Abdullah was the elder of the two (after Ali & before the 4th bro, Ze’id), but it was Feisal who had led the Hejazi forces attached to Lawrence (albeit with limited success) in the Great War. There’s a bit of personal stuff about the two that’s often much overlooked:
Feisal — whom Lawrence regarded as the more “active and inspiring personality” of the 2 brothers, and thus presumably better equipped to hold in balance the disparate & newly cobbled, ethnic, cultural & religious elements of a freshly minted & fractious country — got, as his Syria-consolation prize in the postbellum, Arab Mid-east sweepstakes, Iraq.
Viewed by Weizmann as a man of insight & honor, Feisal certainly posed a sharp contrast to the corrupt Palestine a’ayan: Arab family elites, who treated the country as a hereditary fiefdom — who flagrantly exploited the fellahin [local peasantry], and turned them against the Zionist movement that genuinely meant only well by them.
Prince Feisal, it was clear, was strikingly different from Palestine’s Arab “notables,” who, in Weizmann’s words, constituted nothing short of “a cancer ruining the country.” [Yehuda Reinharz, Chaim Weizmann: The Making of a Statesman (Oxford Univ. Press, NY, 1993), p. 232]
By contrast, Feisal’s vision, openness & understanding would, in Weizmann’s estimation, make him a superb partner to the Zionist venture & enable the Prince to communicate to Palestine’s Arab masses the objective, and increasing, benefit to them that the Zionist presence concretely represented.
I’ll continue this in another post; don’t want to get botted, so I’m trying to keep them brief.
@ Wallace Brand:
Yes, quite so.
But what do you suppose the likelihood, Wallace, that the Crown would confer standing (on ANYBODY) asking to be heard on an extraordinary writ over San Remo — even by way of the 1924 Convention?
@ vivarto:
Yes. It seems that in this neighborhood, the “Art of the Deal”
— turns out to be less of an ‘art’ than a snare.
I’ve long believed that what’s wrong with prisons is that they separate miscreants only from society
— when it’s clear that such people need to be separated from EACH OTHER as well.
They bring out the worst in one another.
And the cultural matrix they rely on doesn’t help either.
I’d put serious offenders in solitary confinement
— an imposed silence with no distractions: no TV, no computer, no phones, no clocks, no reading material whatsoever (including scripture [of any kind]), no academic studies, no hobby stuff, no athletic or exercise equipment, no music, etc, etc. If they want to sing to themselves, fine — til they get tired of it (and they will). The energy to continue evaporates quickly when there’s no audience.
Plain but adequate rations, no desserts; no sweets (or otherwise spiced foods) of any kind. No halal — or other special — food either. (If they won’t eat anything else, fine. . . . that’s their choice. . . .)
No prayer rugs, no special foot-washing paraphernalia, etc.
One 10-minute shower, and one 15-minute walk in the sunlight — both supervised, both solitary — daily. That’s it.
When a man is left entirely to himself without distractions, all the rot inside him (that WAS being evaded thru distraction) gradually bubbles to the surface for review.
It’s never a pretty sight even in the best of men. In the WORST
— it’s downright TERRIFYING to observe.
But the sheer beholding of it will either
— kill you
or cure you.
If you’re in there for a serious crime, then that’s most fitting.
Even apart from rights under International Law, as a party to the Anglo American convention of 1924, England is bound to observe the San Remo Agreement as domestic or treaty law.
@ Bernard Ross:
Yes I think I there may well be a place for a Writ of Mandate (maybe other extraordinary writs as well). Though not necessarily in preference to estoppel; rather, in addition to it.
In any event, I raised the issue of estoppel only in the specific context of your observation [post #1] that
— in Scobbie’s asking “how does one account for the fact that the United Kingdom [which issued the Balfour Declaration] has consistently and frequently affirmed that Jewish settlements are illegal” —
“Scobbie’s only argument against the jews legally guaranteed rights is that the nation who violated its mandate trust… etc. [may hardly be viewed as authoritative]”
That is, HIS argument is that HMG’s present stance of opposition to settlements must represent a lawful repudiation of Balfour. Estoppel says “not so fast: having given your word, you must keep your word (or your govt’s word) — you don’t get to change your mind merely because altered circumstances make fidelity to your word inconvenient.”
Signatories to the LON Mandate specifically, yes.
Remember, however, that it was not the entire League Assembly that actually signed, but rather the League COUNCIL (albeit unanimously) on BEHALF of the entire 51-member League. And even then, I daresay one would have a rough time getting the Courts of any of those Council-member-nations to grant standing to anybody hoping to argue mandamus before them in this matter.
Getting standing with GOI, on the other hand, could prove most promising, given a sympathetic govt.
dweller Said:
You are right. The problem is that you are taking the analogy too far.
My point is that by being willing to compromise Jews have lost credibility. By being uncompromising Arabs in general and Pals in particular have gained credibility. The more we are willing to accommodate the more we loose credibility.
In the extremely rare cases when Bedouins rape a Bedouin girl, the clan murders the relatives of the rapist. Because of that, such events are extremely rare.
Jews on the other hand give a maximum of 8 years in jail to the Arab if they are lucky to catch him. Then they let him out after 5 years, meanwhile the Arab has earned his master’s degree in urban anthropology…
@ Bernard Ross:
BOTH tendencies were clearly present.
Lloyd-George’s war cabinet had been — as war cabinets typically are (for stability’s sake & national unity) — a coalition cabinet.
After the war, FM Balfour left that post (1919) to head up the UK delegation to the Paris Peace Conference.
— whereupon he was replaced as FM by Lord Curzon — a down-the-line colonialist, as different from Balfour as night is from day.
From that point onward, the fix was in : to reverse the promises made to the Jews and indeed “to control the situation to their own benefit at the expense of the beneficiary.”
@ vivarto:
The true mother was willing to GIVE UP the child to save his life.
The Palis relinquish nothing, Vivarto.
If anything they are like the false ‘mother’ — who denied the true one her child: even if it meant killing him
— in that they were willing to fight to keep the Jews from independence.
The Palis had no concept of statehood, and rejected partition NOT because it didn’t provide them the whole enchilada
— but because they were determined that the Jews not get any piece of it.
In their view, the proper status for Jews is — today as yesterday — dhimmi or dead.
Statehood is the furthest thing from their minds, Vivarto — even today.
At most, sovereignty is seen as a tool — a weapon — for use against the Jews.
And if Arabs rape Arab girls? — then what?
@ Bernard Ross:There is much to be said that the mandate system was really a cover to retain European Colonialism with the spheres of interest divided up in the Sykes-Picot agreement. Lansing, certainly thought so. However there was a large opposition to the Balfour policy on the grounds that it was antidemocratic to place a 10% minority of Jews in control by giving them sovereignty. This was Woodrow Wilson’s view. While the Jews had had a plurality of population in Jerusalem since 1845, and a majority since 1863, in 1917 they constituted only about 60,000 out of about 600,000 population in all Palestine. I don’t think the view that awarding sovereignty to a small minority of population was wrong. Look at the bloody mess that the French made by giving sovereignty in Syria to the Alawites. Not only the massacre still going on now, but the earlier massacre of Hafez Assad in an effort to maintain control. But whether it was a good idea or not, or whether the concern with an antidemocratic situation was their genuine concern or not. this is the reason that the British Foreign Office said they were proposing in effect, a two step process. The first step would be to give the Jews a National Home to build a population majority over time and would facilitate immigration from the diaspora for that purpose. The second step, when that tacit condition was fulfilled was to give legal dominion over those political rights to the beneficiaries, the Jews, so they could exercise sovereignty. Toynbee and Namier, the authors of the British Foreign Office memorandum of September 19, 1917, were predicting this is what would occur to prevent the Balfour policy from being antidemocratic, and that it actually had occurred was confirmed by Winston Churchill after WWI and by David Lloyd-George at the Paris Peace Conference. Whether it was the genuine motive of the British or not, it was the expressed intention of the British government and therefore evidence of “legislative intent” or legislative purpose.
There was no “collusion” involved in the creation of the state of Jordan. Read Sir Alec Kirkbride’s account of what happened (A Crackle of Thorns) when Abdullah and his army showed up in Eastern Palestine against the predictions of His Majesty’s government. You will find it in Chapter 3. Basically, Feisal was deposed from the throne of Syria after the battle of Maysalun. The British had put him there at the end of the War but had also promised to France, in the Sykes Picot agreement that Syria would be in the French zone of influence. So Churchill gave Feisal the throne of Iraq to appease him and Hussein, his father. The father of Feisal and Abdullah had promised the throne of Iraq to Abdullah. So Abdullah, who was much more warlike than his brother Feisal, marched his army to East Palestine to make war on the French in Damascus. Sir Alec notified the British Command in Jerusalem that Abdullah would be coming and he could do little to stop him, but got a reply that “he wouldn’t dare”. But come he did and after the fact the British accepted his presence their as a fait accompli. Churchill decided to give him East Palestine to prevent him from raiding the French in Damascus. And then, according to Sir Alec, the British made the “remarkable discovery” that their really had never been any intent to give ALL of Palestine to the Jews for first a National Home (and then a reconstituted state).
So there was hardly collusion. What there was, was a betrayal by England of its fiduciary responsibility to World Jewry whose exclusive political rights over all Palestine were recognized by the WWI Allies at San Remo and were placed in trust with England as the trustee.
vivarto Said:
Except in the case of the Jews. The Jews won the physical battle but are hostage to the psychological battle with the ghetto mentality. The Jews are afflicted with a kind of cultural Stockholm syndrome in that they identify with their captors. This is a form of duress and it is under this duress,especially post holocaust, that the Euro swindlers and their allies, have been able to keep swindling, supporting and financing the slaughter of Jews and getting the hoodwinked brainwashed Jews to agree with it. The Jews are the only people who could not be able to simply say “you expelled me and so now I expel you”. A simple principle that has the Jews riddled with guilt to the glee of their detractors. It is only under such a psychosis that Jews are expected to protect and empathize with their enemies(e.g.Corries). What will help is for jews to stop thinking about the others and concentrating on their own interests. The arabs and euros are focusing on their interests and apparently the jews are also busy focusing on the enemies interests. By the way it is a basic principle of law that statements and agreements made under duress are not legally binding. This is a principle under which Israel can seek to reverse swindles and injustices made prior. The main reason for all this is to convince jews and others of their rights and when Israel finally embarks unilaterally to seize those rights their will be a “legal” excuse to support Israel. In the end it will be as you say force which will call the shots but the Jews first have an internal psychological battle to avert suicide.
dweller Said:
I agree with the use of estoppel but I thinkk there is even a greater case for Mandamus which is about compelling a govt to perform a duty in order to fulfill its legal obligations. All the signatories to San Remo were guarantors of tha treaty and legally obligated to fulfill those guarantees. Signatories and perhaps even members to the LON and the UN are charged with facilitatiing the “encouragement” of JEWS to settle west of the Jordan River. Israel as either the current adimistrator, or occupier, or sovereign, or successor mandate trustee, or agent of the Jewish people is LEGALLLY OBLIGATED to encourage the settlement of Jews(which is not synonymous with Israelis)west of the JOrdan River. I have yet to see any legal argument which nullifies, cancels, rescinds or Limits the JEWISH right to settle west of the Jordan River. All the arguments attempt to obscure jewish rights by arguing against the state of Israel. Therefore I say separate legal arguments as 2 separate issues, both of which can be separately determined, and then the right of the Jewish people will come to the fore and the absurdity of banning Jews after guaranteeing their rights becomes apparent. Any time you find your self arguing about the state of Israel think instead of the Jewish people as a separate entity. A paradigm shift can be accomplished if the GOI recognizes that it has not performened its obligations to the jewish people under any of the roles it wishes to assume. After that it can freely declare the west bank completely open to Jewish settlement at will and as administrator be obligated to their protection. A writ of mandamus brought against the state of Israel seeking to compel the GOI to fulfill its legal obligations as administrator, as mandate trustee successor or as jewish agent would at the minimum the publication of Jewish rights to Jews. Peace now would have no qualms about doing that for the arabs. The arabs know how to undertake a battle without regard to winning(UN application) but the Jews have to debate and win a legal battle in their own minds before entering a court of law or even public opinion. This leaves many legal battles un-entered which would at least serve the purpose of publicizing Jewish rights; media would all flock to cover the details which they now try to censor.
Wallace Brand Said:
I agree with most of what you say but this statement, I must wonder. I think they retained sovereignty not for reasons of democracy but for reasons of being able to control the situation to their own benefit at the expense of the beneficiary: which they in fact did. They clearly left out political rights for the arabs at the outset as they only sought the guarantee of religious and cicil rights for the arabs. Furthermore, they colluded to create the apartheid state of JOrdan on the jewish homeland and banish jews therefrom. Hardly a state interested in democracy.
Wallace Brand Said:
In my view this is all a red herring that I have spoken to prior. By separating the legally binding international guarantees which “encourage the jewish people to close settlement” west of the Jordan River from arguments related to Israel’s occupation, Israel’s sovereignty, Israels citizens we can then easily see what is really nonsense: if the Jews have these guaranteed settlement rights how can the existence or actions of Israel bar them from their rights or reduce those rights to a smaller area. If we substitute the name of another state for israel it becomes clear in that ANY state who is administrating the west bank has a legal obligation to settle Jews there. The confusion is that Israelis can also be Jews and are therefore considered synonymous. Another confusion is that Jordan violated these agreements during its occupation with the consent and recognition of perfidious albion. All swindles which seek justice still today. A writ of mandamus brought against the state of Israel seeking to compel the GOI to fulfill its legal obligations as administrator, as mandate trustee successor or as jewish agent would at the minimum the pulication of Jewish rights to Jews.
I don’t know why you say this is a bad analogy.
The Pals are like the woman that would rather give up the baby than divide it.
They would rather not have their state (on half the land).
Anyway, this is too much philosophy and way to much moralizing.
The point is that in war only one thing matters, and that’s victory.
Jews seem to be satisfied with claiming moral superiority, Arabs prefer victory.
I agree with the Arabs and only wish that Jews could be “savages”.
There are many great “savage” things that Jews could do:
Death penalty for unrepented jihadis.
Collective punishment, killing the mothers and fathers of terrorists as a punishment for bring up the monsters, and as a means to discouraging the jihadis.
As well as death penalty for any Arab raping of Jewish girls.
@ vivarto:
With all due respect, not a good example.
The incident with Solomon & the two whores was only superficially about “dividing” the baby.
The true mother was willing to GIVE UP the baby to save his life.
The word “savage” has perhaps undergone too many cultural & colloquial corruptions to be of much use here.
This is about an animal instinct
— common to all men, it’s true
but who, unlike animals, are gifted with TWO natures
— one strictly animalistic, and ANOTHER intended to modify that one. . . . if they so choose.
In the aggregate, Arabs have yet to discover it.
Take them away from Arab culture (especially as it intersects the Religion of Peace), and as individuals they have a far better chance of discovering it.
One man’s opinion, of course.
dweller Said:
Actually this is true about all people, not just Arabs.
Once Jews were normal and were able to see this simple truth.
King Solomon ruled that the woman who was willing to divide a baby could not be the true mother.
Nowhere in the known history of the world has a country won the war, liberated its occupied land and then begged the defeated enemy to please most of it back in exchange for a piece of paper.
So please forgive me, but this is not about Arabs being savages, it is about Jews having lost any sense of state craft.
@ vivarto:
Arab culture has no tradition of compromise
— i.e., we each get half-a-loaf and in return, relinquish thereafter our existing claims to the rest of loaf.
If you make such a suggestion to Arabs, they’ll see your stance as evidence that you don’t believe in your cause enough to fight over it in its entirety.
Moreover, they’ll view your very proposal as evidence of ‘weakness’ — and take it as a signal that this is a good time to attack you for the whole g’shmeer.
So even if you actually WANT them to have a piece of the action (howsoever imprudent such a situation might be), it’s a mistake to suggest it.
Offer an inch. . . .
Their culture virtually guarantees that where THEY (as a group) are concerned, it has to be all or nothing. No way around it.
The reason that there is any doubt about about to whom the territory belongs is that Israelis say that they are willing to give it away to the enemies. On the other hand the enemies are very clear that it is their, and that they will never accept the “occupation”. The enemy is willing to endure the two step solution with the clearly stated goal to eventually liberate all of Palestine.
Listening to both sides, nobody can have any doubt that the territory belongs to Arab and Muslims.
The first thing Jews need to do is to start treating as traitors all Jews who want to give away Jewish land.
Once the traitors are hung, the world will believe this is Jewish land.
There is only one scientific proof for who’s territory it is.
The territory rightfully belongs to whoever is willing to fight for it and win.
@ Bernard Ross:
Actually he’s trying to invalidate the Balfour Declaration by suggesting that what one of HMG’s can give, another of HMG’s may withdraw. [“The Lord hath given; the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the Name of the Lord.”]
— Professor Scobbie as Job
Obviously the dear fellow hasn’t yet gotten ’round to discovering the meaning of Estoppel.
The Principle and Doctrine of Estoppel
The following few introductory notes come from Black’s Law Dictionary, 6th Ed.: Centennial Edition, 1891-1991 (West Publishing, St Paul, MN, 1990). A brief discussion, excerpted from earlier-published remarks of Howard Grief, of the application of estoppel to the rights at issue, will begin immediately after the cited Black’s Dictionary notes.
From Black’s, Centennial Edition, 551:
“Estop: to stop, bar or impede; to prevent, to preclude.
“ ‘Estoppel’ means that [a] party is prevented by his own acts from claiming a right [including a right to disclaim an erstwhile duty — dw], to the detriment of another party who was entitled to rely on such conduct and has acted accordingly…
“[‘Estoppel’ is a] principle that provides that an individual [or sovereign power — dw] is barred from denying or alleging a certain fact or state [of] facts because of that individual’s [or power’s] previous conduct, allegation or denial…
“[‘Estoppel’ is a] doctrine which holds that an inconsistent position, attitude or course of conduct may not be adopted to the loss or injury of another…”
From Black’s, Centennial Edition, 552:
“By ratification [as indeed the Lloyd-George cabinet did ratify, the Balfour Declaration (1917), the San Remo Resolution (1920) & the Mandate Charter (1922) — and as the US Senate did ratify, in 1924, the Anglo-American Convention on Palestine — dw],
a party is bound because he intended to be,
while under ‘estoppel,’ he is bound because another party will be prejudiced unless the law treats him [i.e., the first party] as legally bound.”
Howard Grief’s remarks on the applicability of estoppel to the post-Mandate situation are as fitting in re the UK as they are in re the USA:
My own reply to Scobbie:
I agree with the Levy Report because I reached the same opinion myself shortly before the Levy Report was issued. It was written in a two part op ed published in Arutz Sheva. You can find it on line. Part 1: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/11408
Part 2: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/11412
I will add the following. The British Mandate was nothing more than a trust as was explained by D. CAMPBELL LEE. M.A.. LLB.,
of the Middle Temple, Barrister-at-Law; and of the New York Bar, Counsellor-at-Law. in a lecture delivered under The Cecil Rhodes Benefaction at University College, London University, MONDAY. MAY 23rd, 1921. When it is analyzed with this in mind, the analysis becomes much clearer. The intention was to recognize the exclusive political rights of the Jews but not to give them sovereignty until the Jewish population of Palestine was the majority population. To give the Jews sovereignty immediately was viewed as antidemocratic. To avoid this objection, legal dominion over the exclusive political rights that was the trust res, was not to vest until a later time when the Jews had a majority population according to a memo of the British Foreign Office dated September 19, 1917. In the meantime, sovereignty would be exercised by the trustee who had legal dominion at the time. Therefore, the political rights were put in trust with the Jews getting only a beneficial interest and England getting legal dominion and the temporary right of sovereignty until the tacit condition was fulfilled and the Jews became the majority population of Palestine. Of course England’s sovereignty was limited by the terms of the trust. What screwed things up were principally, 1. The trustee decided to abandon the trust before the tacit condition was fulfilled, and 2. The trustee, although having a fiduciary responsibility to the beneficiary, betrayed that responsibility by first transferring a part of the trust res to Abdullah, and his Hashemite tribe — a foreign power — (expressly prohibited by the Mandate), and 2. Blocking the immigration of the Jews into Palestine, when the facilitation of that immigration was also an express condition of the trust.
A good description of how the first occurred can be found in Chapter three of Sir Alec Seath Kirkbride’s, “A Crackle of Thorns”. Following the advice from Headquarters that Abdullah would never dare march into East Palestine, over which he had control, Sir Alec found him there with his Army. His Majesty’s government accepted this fait accompli and then there was “a remarkable discovery” that the Jews weren’t intended to get all of Palestiine.
Finally, what was intended in the Geneva Convention from prohibiting nations from coercing major segments of the population to move to another area or state, became a requirement that a state prohibit its citizens from moving to another area or state even though such a prohibition is expressly violative of the UN Declaration of Human Rights. That seems nonsense.
The Professor here, as does Professor Berman at Brown, makes much of the fact that there are more lawyers that adhere to his opinion than those who approve of the Levy opinion. But the simple reason for that is that the lawyers who adhered to opinions like that of Levy found themselves barred from public fora so they had no way of disseminating their views. That was my own experience in attempting to air my views at the Harvard Conference of March 3,4 this year and the UCLA conference on May 15. I relate this story at http://israelagainstterror.blogspot.com/2012/06/salubrius-responds-to-eli-hertz-myths.html My reply to Professor Berman can be found in the Times of Israel at http://israelagainstterror.blogspot.com/2012/08/professor-bermans-mistaken-views-on.html
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I personally think that the whole debate is a bunch of holy smoke.
The way things work is that the winner is right.
If Israel lost the war, there would have been no Israel.
Yamait, I want to add that the arabs got 77% of the palestine mandate territory JEW FREE. Not one inch more should be conceded to these gluttons and thieves
yamit82 Said:
My main reason for dealing with this issue is to convince Jews, first,that they must stop seeking justice for everyone else at the expense of the Jews. Jews need reasons to accept justice for themselves because they are brainwashed for generations that Justice for Jews is undeserved or as said now: is the last item of importance. When others talk of arabs I say no, we will talk about jews, about crimes to jews, justice to jews, land for jews, homes for Jews, education for Jews, happiness for Jews. There is no room in my heart to think of what is for the arabs as gluttony, violence and intolerance is all they exhibit. Have you ever heard of them being concerned about Justice for the Jews? The main obstacle to Justice is the Jews. The legal arguments are not for court but to convince jews who need this approach, to give a basis for unilateral action and an excuse for those who would find it convenient to be on the Jews side. The arabs are always busy about what they want and apparently the jews are also always busy talking about what the arabs want. When Jews come to accept that they continue to be swindled by all the usual suspects, that no one cares whether they live or die(the muslims want them dead) they will cease all this begging from their former masters and embark on great adventures to seize their due. As it stands now international law, the Geneva Conventions and the ICC only serve to deprive the Jews of Justice and seek to swindle them. This howeever is the fault of the Jews, with good reasons of duress, and it is inside the Jews from which change will come. Perhaps all these obstacles to agreement are the only way that G_d is able to prevent the Jews from continuing to hurt themselves. IIf Israel focuses and acts as if it expects the nations to honor their binding legal commitments to jewish settlement, and on nothing else in its place, then they will succeed.
@ Bernard Ross:
I do not disagree with most if not all of your opinions #1
If international law does not benefit Israel, why should Israel pay it any attention?
Questioning the Jewish right to the land ignores the crucial issue: what right do Arabs have to it? Many mistakenly believe Palestinians today lay claim to land they once owned. Israel did not violate their right of ownership. Rather, the Palestinians claim they lost jurisdiction over a country they never had. Before the rise of Palestinian nationalism in the 1970s, the Arab rioters and terrorists were anti-Israeli, not pro-Palestine. If private ownership of some land means jurisdiction over the whole country, the Jews who bought land had a better claim to Palestine in 1947 than the indigenous Arabs who largely lacked title. But private ownership of land is unrelated to jurisdiction even over that parcel, let alone over any wider entity. The Arabs claimed more land than they actually needed and already had in Palestinian dominated Jordan. The Israelis had to force an accommodation.
No viable state has ever been created, let alone sustained, peacefully. All nations were created in bloodshed and are sustained by power; anything on paper is irrelevant. Israel cannot be built on agreements with the Arabs. International agreements are the legal by-products of inhumane military victories.
I
International law is a joke and can be argued in any way beneficial to a particular position. Why bother with it? The facts on the ground are that anytime Israel cedes land to the Arabs it suffers as a result. For its’ own defense Israel needs every bit of land under its’ jurisdiction.
The scobbie “analysis”, and this articles reply, proves what I have been writing for some time: that the intenationally guaranteed rights of world jewry to “close settlement west of the jordan river” are being obfuscated by issues regarding the state of Israel. For example, in Scobbies long analysis he dedicates only one sentence to this issue, and in a disingenuos fashion I might add. Rather than deal with the legal implications of San Remo, LON and UN Charter art. 80 he asks the following solitary question:
He knows it does not matter in law what UK affirms. Scobbies only argument against the jews legally guaranteed rights is that the nation who violated its mandate trust, the nation that severed 77% of the jejwish homeland to create a JEW FREE muslim state, the only other nation other than Pakistan to recognise the jordanian occupation, the nation who slaughtered jews attempting to reach their homeland after the holocaust, “affirmed jewish settlements are illegal”. This shows how weak the detractors arguments are when postulating Jewish rights as opposed to Israeli sovereign rights and occupation issues. Look how much is dedicated to the occupation arguments in Scobbies article and in this article. There is a need for detractors to bring Israel into the issue because they have no LEGAL argument against Jewish rights. All the arguments are always about Israeli occupation, Israeli sovereighty; the 2 issues are obscured to the disadvantage of the jews. Here are simple questions:
when and by what process did world Jewry lose its legal right to settle west of the Jordan river? Even if Israel became agent for the Jewish people it still had a duty to encourage settlement west of the Jordan river. What BINDING legal document or process reduced the area of close settlement west of Jordan River to west of green line?
My position is that whether the state of Israel is an occupier or not it has the duty under internationally legally binding documents to facilitate the close settlement of Jews west of the Jordan River. Neither the Jordanian or the Israeli administration, or the UNGA 181 partition legally reduced that settlement area right. The focus of Jews and Israelis should be placed on the jewish rights of settlement as being distinct from Israeli sovereignty and occupation issues as no one can argue against the Jewish settlement rights. Jewish settlement is the most important issue and Israel sovereignty can even come later after Jews represent majority of west bank. In fact the mandate had exactly that goal. The issue of Jewish settlement rights and Israeli occupation can proceed separately and are not legally bound together.
Israel can reverse its position by apologizing to the jewish people for not fulfilling its obligations under the relevant treaties and admitting the error of confusing its own PERCEIVED self interest with the interests of world jewry. Israel like most brainwashed victims, has operated under a condition of duress in that it needed world approval in order to survive: this explains the kapo and appeasement reactions of self survival. However, Israel’s duress and misjudgments do not alter the jews legal rights. Furthermore, agreements and statements made under duress are not considered legally binding in basic law. Any country or entity which administers the “west bank” is still bound to san remo, LON and UN art 80 to “encourage the close settlement of Jews west of the Jordan River” This right has not been replaced by the arrival of the modern state of Israel. The detractors keep focusing the worlds attention on Israel rather than on the LEGALLY BINDING JEWISH RIGHTS OF CLOSE SETTLEMENT WEST OF THE JORDAN RIVER. In fact, jews have a right to bring legal action, in Israeli courts, to force Israel to fulfill its legal duty or to abdicate its representation of the jewish people with regard to the “encouragement” of these settlement rights. This is what Peace Now would do for the enemy.