By Leo Rennert, AMERICAN THINKER
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently appointed an advisory commission of jurists to explore the legality of Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
The panel, headed by former Supreme Court justice Edmund Levy, concluded that the West Bank — biblical Judea and Samaria — cannot be construed as “occupied” territory under international conventions, because the world never recognized Jordan’s illegal occupation before 1967, when Israel captured the area in the Six-Day War.
Ergo, there are no legal impediments to Jewish settlements, given also a long history of Jewish ties to this land. Consequently, “according to international law, Israelis have the legal right to settle in Judea and Samaria,” the jurists concluded. However, they also urged the government to establish clearer guidelines and demarcations for authorized settlements.
Basically, there is little news in any of this. Dispassionate journalistic observers – and their ranks sadly are dwindling – long have labeled the West Bank as “disputed” — not “occupied” — territory. Israeli governments – in 2000 and 2008 – have offered to vacate 95 percent of it for creation of a Palestinian state. Yassir Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas rejected the offers, aiming to grab all of it, including all of East Jerusalem. In the meantime, Netanyahu is ready to put the entire issue of settlements on the agenda for resumption of peace talks, if only Abbas were willing to negotiate. But Abbas has no appetite for negotiations – or compromise.
Given this context, how does the New York Times report the findings and conclusions of the advisory commission? In short, it goes apoplectic. The Times, having already decreed that Jews have no business in Judea and Samaria, slams the legal brief with a barrage of furious strokes.
Here’s Jerusalem correspondent Isabel Kershner’s lead in the July 10 edition:
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“Flouting international opinion, an Israeli government-appointed commission of jurists said Monday that Israel’s presence in the West Bank was not occupation and recommended that the state grant approval for scores of unauthorized Jewish outposts there.” (“Validate Settlements, Israeli Panel Suggests) page A4).
Taking her cue from some amorphous sort of “international opinion” is just for starters. In the second paragraph, Kershner sternly warns that “such a move would inevitably stir international outrage and deal a significant blow to prospects for an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement.” Funny, but the Times never seems to view Abbas’s refusal to negotiate or his glorification of terrorist killers as a “blow to prospects for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.”
Still, Kershner isn’t done. In case you haven’t gotten her drift, she substitutes her legal prowess to that of the jurists on the advisory panel: “Most of the world views the areas that Israel conquered from Jordan in the 1967 war, and where the Palestinians want to establish a future state, as occupied territory, and all Israeli construction there as a violation of international law,” she writes.
For good measure, Kershner also relies on the views of a couple of leftist, self-proclaimed human rights groups that — surprise, surprise — agree with her.
After her lengthy trashing of the panel’s conclusions — the article jumps from page A4 to page A7 — Kershner ends thusly: “In another development, gunmen from Gaza opened fire on Monday evening into southern Israel, hitting a civilian car that was empty at the time, according to the Israeli military. The military published photographs of the car, which contained a baby seat, punctured by bullets. There were no injuries.”
A single, lonely paragraph at the very end of her piece about another terrorist attack that somehow does not qualify as a blow to the peace process or to flouting international law and opinion, as far as Kershner and the New York Times are concerned.
A dispute about land, and the Times goes bananas. Not so, however, when Israeli civilians come under terrorist attacks. A telling contrast about the paper’s journalistic and moral priorities.
Leo Rennert is a former White House correspondent and Washington bureau chief of McClatchy Newspapers
Israel owns all of the land it has. It occupies no one else’s land. God gave it to them, therefore only Israel has a deed for the land of Israel and it came from the creator of everything that is.
The New York Times, does not speak for America.
Clearly Judea and Samaria are not occupied and, I would submit, not disputed in any real sense. For there to be a dispute each disputant must have some basis for making a claim. As far as I can see, the Arabs have none. They have no real cliam to statehood, they rejected partition, they aggressed and repeatedly lost. Neither Israel nor the world can accept that a gang of bloodthirsty aggressors can go on the war path again and again and incur no penalty. In short, as far as I am concerned the local Arabs had no claim to statehood and they have forfeited any concession which had been offered.
The problem, as I see it, is that a succession of Israeli governments have been reluctant to take the normal step of annexing land that fell to them in defensive wars and have acted as though they were occupiers rather than owners of those lands. With the peace process farce reeking of death and in need of a quick burial, Israel must annex Judea and Samaria and expel, with adequate compensation, hostile residents living in those areas. At present, while the very clever farce is acted out, Israel’s enemies act as though “Palestine” was a state under an unjust Jewish administration and are calling for a boycott of exports from Judea and Samaria. The most recent, to balance the Levy panel report is from James Crawford, a Cambridge don who wrote a report to the UK Trade Union Congress in which he claims to have found that the boycott of goods from Yesha is legal. With annexation, that report could be filed in the dustbin of history.
C.R., You said it. When Israel puts it’s foot down there will be peace. When Israel tries to accommodate world opinion there will be war.
C.R. Said:
@ C.R.:
Right on, Ted. The land that is being fought over was God given to the Jews and who are we or any country going to fight against Him? Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus!
@ Laura:
Way to go Laura, now we need to get everyone to repeat this a 100 times or more.
If said enough everyone will finally believe it.
@ Ed Katz:
Ed, you got that right.
We likewise need to repeat this 100 times plus.
In addition, you need to make sure the Israeli leadership understands it.
None of this crap will stop until our PM tells the US, the EU, Russia and all of the Arabs to F— Off. You ain’t getting this back and for those Arabs who live in Judea and Samaria, if you will not swear allegiance to Israel, we will find another home for you that you will appreciate.
As for the NY Times, I ask that ALL advertisers pull their business from them.
The key word in this sentence is opinion. The world’s opinion on the matter of Israel’s presence in Judea and Samaria and Jewish settlements does not make for a legal case against Israel. Especially considering so many nations dependence on Arab oil, fear of islamic terrorism and the world’s historical animosity towards the Jewish people, international opinion on this matter cannot be viewed as objective in any way.
All of Israel belongs to the Jews. Let the NY slimes seethe.
Thank G-d Israel does not take advise from the New York Time and their columnists such as Thomas Friedman. When it come to Israel and the Middle East they are always wrong. Wrong about the Arab Spring, wrong about Turkey, wrong about Syria, wrong about Gaza, wrong about Oslo… just always WRONG!
Seems to me that The GOD of Israel said it was ‘His’ land from the get go, but nobody
bothers to ‘quote’ what He says anymore.
@ BlandOatmeal:
Based on this it seems that Israel may be the ONLY country that is NOT occupying someone else’s land.
It’s good to hear that the New York Slime is so upset over the truth. The truth always bothers them. I hope those wretches who publish the vomit that other mindless antisemites read lose plenty of sleep over the Levy report.
Oh my that moderation thing is at it again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Listen folks the New York slime is not even worthy of wrapping of dead fish.
This scumbag so called news rag is anti-Semitic and anti-American.
The Israeli government needs to forget about trash such as this and world opinion.
Notice world opinion has not much to say about the constant rain of Hamas rockets into Israel.
Time for Israel to take the land that rightfully belongs to them and forget world opinion.
Remember G-d is on your side.
Since when did Israel live and die by the approval of the New York Times?
Jewish national rights are not up for negotiation. They are inalienable and in any case there is nothing to discuss with those seek to murder Jewish babies!
@ Ted Belman:
When Israel [Jews collectively–no Marxist pun intended] does not assert their God given right to the lands of Israel–this is when they become an obstacle to peace!
The NY Times owned by self hating, Israel hating Marxist Jews–and staffed by many Marxist Jews who are also self hating and Israel hating–has a long history of hatred of both America and Israel and working to undermine and destroy both–primarily by promoting Soviet style Marxism!
Oh yes–the NY Times rag–like nearly every other organization which promotes the agenda of the Marxist democrat party–is not a profitable organization–they consistently lose money.
The New York Times’ Pinchy Sulzberger is the heir to the Ochs-Sulzberger Publishing Family. Just as Arthur Hays Sulzberger buried the Holocaust in the back pages of the Times so does his grandson Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr. bury Arab atrocities in the back pages of the Times, and just as his grandfather opposed the formation of Israel so does his grandson oppose Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria (or in his parlance The West Bank). The only difference is that his grandfather did it as a doctrinaire Classical German Reform Jew and his grandson does it as a secular lapsed Episcopalian. BTW, the Jewish Post-Zionist Elite in Israel who deem Settlements as illegal are also proteges of German Jewish Intellectuals who opposed the establishment of Israel (they wanted a Bi-national State) and never recognized the validity of the Balfour Declaration nor the San Remo Agreement which validated and supported close Jewish settlement of all of the Palestine Mandate (also including Trans-Jordan – present-day Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan).
@ Andrew:
More recent “occupiers”: The Turks in Cyprus, the Khartoum Arabs in Darfur, the Russians in Moldova, the Ukrainians in the Crimea, the Croatians in Kraina, NATO in Yugoslavia, the Armenians in SW Azerbaijan, the Indians and Pakistanis in Kashmir, the Chinese in Tibet, the Vietnamese in the Montagnard lands, the Laotians in Hmong lands, the Burmese in Chin, Kachin and Karen areas, the Indonesians in New Guinea, innumerable tribal feuds in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Sinhalese in NE Sri Lanka, the Melanesian Fijians in Indian areas, the Bantus in Cape Province… those are just recent “occupations”, not to mention more ancient tiffs.
The UK was charged with the creation of a Jewish homeland consisting, in the least, of cis-Jordanian Palestine. They failed miserably, then washed their hands and ran away. The Israelis took matters into their own hands, as have so many peoples in Europe, Asia, Africa and America before and since. If that gives world leaders a headache, they should take aspirin, acetaminophen or ibuprofin. If that fails, maybe they can OD on heroin: they can get it by the ton from NATO-OCCUPIED Afghanistan.
Again and Again. Japan asks for the kurile islands back and Russia says get lost. Spain asks for Gibralter back and England says get lost. Argentina asks for the Falkland Islands back and England says get lost.
When is Israel going to get a leader who says J&S belongs to us. You don’t like it? Well get lost.
@ dweller:
I have written an article that the American Thinker will publish today in which I make the point that ever since 1881 US has accepted that settlements were legal. Its position is that the Jews should not exercise their rights because to do so would be an “obstacle to peace”
The Israeli “settlements” are ABSOLUTELY legal — and always have been.
And even the present, hopelessly perverse, US Administration knows it.
Mr Obama & Mrs Clinton NEVER characterize the Jewish presence in the heartland provinces as “illegal” — they always use the WORD “illegitimate,” while expecting the reader or listener to THINK “illegal.” (It’s a very interesting little shell game they play.)
It is precisely for this reason that the Administration’s UN ambassador, Susan E. Rice, was constrained to cast a veto — the solitary “no” vote — AGAINST the 18 Feb 2011 Security Council Resolution offered by the Lebanese representative, the text declaring that
“Israeli settlements established in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including east Jerusalem, are illegal and constitute a major obstacle to the achievement of a just, lasting and comprehensive peace.”
To have FAILED to reject an avowal of such evident, plain & patent perversity in law would have meant opening a can of worms which the Obami know only too well they could not close.
That’s why they moved heaven & earth trying (unsuccessfully) to get the phraseology of the measure — as insisted upon by the Palestinian-Arab UN Observer, Riyad Mansour — changed, with the word “illegitimate” substituted for “illegal.”
More discussion.
😮 Don’t look now, but I think Isabel Kershner is Jewish. Methinks, if it weren’t for Jew-hating Jews, Israel would live at ease in her own land. The vast majority of goiim simply don’t give a damn what happens there.
“such a move would inevitably stir international outrage ……….
What, may I ask does NOT stir international outrage when it comes to Israel????
Flouting ANY opinion sounds like a good idea to me; particularly “international” opinion.
I think she means “most of my world”.
What she writes is based on pure emotion; no facts required. There’s no substitute for intelligence; not even in journalism.
What exactly did you expect from the New York Times or the “international community” for that matter? The overwhelming perception is that of “belligerent occupation” and Israel itself is as much to blame for that perception as the Jew hating world at large.