One might also say the Jewish Oslo gamble was irresponsible and ill advised.
On reading the article below, I wrote the following to Alan Baker.
I read your excellent article and wanted to ask you a specific question.
In the Oslo Accords, did Israel agree to limit itself to negotiating “secure and recognized borders” pursuant to 242 rather than to demanding its rights to Judea and Samaria under the Mandate.
In other words did she explicitly waive any claims she had pursuant to the Mandate?
PM Netanyahu talks about our historical rights but never our legal rights from the Mandate. Although he mentions our historical rights he claims nothing which might flow from them with respect to Judea and Samaria.
If I am right in believing that we waived our rights, can we reassert them if the UN violates 242 and if the PA violates the Oslo Accords.
You wrote that for the PA to declare a state would be a fundamental breach of the Accords. It seems that there has been a number of fundamental breaches. Namely I refer to their incitement and violence. But Israel chose not to act on them.
I am also of the belief that the UN and the international community and Obama care nothing about the law and certainly don’t want to be bound by it. The UN just has to declare that our actions are a threat to peace and then pass a Chap VII resolution.
I would appreciate your detailed comments on the above.
Ted Belman
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The Palestinian leadership has announced its intention to abandon the negotiation process and to unilaterally seek a UN resolution that will impose a solution upon Israel. Facing a possible veto in the Security Council, the Palestinians are aiming to impose a UN resolution through the General Assembly “Uniting for Peace” procedure, which they hope will be supported by the UN member states.
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While such a resolution would not have the authority to alter the legal status of the territories, the negative consequences of such a course of action would nevertheless serve to void the very basis of the peace process. It would undermine the legal existence of the Palestinian Authority and violate commitments by Yasser Arafat to settle all issues by negotiation.
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Such unilateral action outside the negotiation process would constitute a fundamental breach of the 1995 Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement, thereby releasing Israel from its reciprocal commitments.
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Such unilateral action would undermine the international community’s reliance on Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 which form the foundation of all the agreements between the parties. It would also place into question the integrity and credibility of any Security Council resolutions or agreements resolving conflicts between states.
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It would render as meaningless the signatures of the major powers as witnesses to previous negotiated agreements. It would also be incompatible with provisions of resolutions and agreements requiring negotiated solutions to the Jerusalem and refugee issues.
Sure does make life easier for them, doesn’t it?
What’s the point of “telling” the world anything that’s based on a point-of-reference and authority which that world does not even acknowledge (i.e., God), let alone recognize as controlling?
Two points:
1. I will grant you that the authority of the Almighty trumps that of San Remo/Mandate — but only because I acknowledge both, and have a sense of perspective. As I’ve said, however, the WORLD has no use for “God” (or doesn’t think it does).
2. If you’ve actually read the two documents you’ve cited, then you know that neither San Remo NOR the Mandate asserts “charity” as the basis for its commands. In both documents (each of them in the nature of an international treaty), the basis of the commands is JUSTICE.
Even Churchill’s first White Paper as Colonial Secretary flatly stated that the Jews are in Palestine “as of right and not on suffrance.” [Command Paper 1700, 3 June 1922]
There was no caritas there.
This was — and is — strictly about tz’dakah (and in its most fundamental sense).
I propose a publicity campaign outlining the Roman and Muslim actions that have grievously harmed the Jews. This history is verifiable on the internet. This means something to people who have no idea why there is such a protracted battle over Jerusalem and the Holy Land. The Jews returning to the Holy Land can be seen as universal justice for long ago misdeeds. Even the Quran states this.
I don’t see any way that Jerusalem can be taken away from the Jews, unless they are totally wiped out which would wipe out everybody else and Jerusalem too. Muslims need to face facts about their violent history and the damage it has done to other Mid-East cultures, like the Armenians. I discovered when posting at IslamOnline that many Muslims have no clue about their history. The Quran whitewashes King David into a perfect man. I think this is to keep Muslims in line. If Moses, David etc. can live perfect lives, so should Muslims. It appears, though, that young people throughout the Middle East saw the light, freedom, kind of like the motto of the state of New Hampshire: Live free or die.
Don’t fret about Jerusalem, it has been returned to the Jews.
Bland, more. If the Fakestinians sue the Jews in the court of world opinion, who do you think would win, no matter what Israel says or does?
Like the Native N. American, perhaps the world will allow Israel to retain a few reservations. If we’re lucky, they’ll let us run our own casinos. No dice.
Bland, that was somewhat of my point. My response to Catarin was actually a continuation of her claim on another article that Israel should campaign for its rights to Israel according to this and that legal precedent, to which I responded it’s time that Israel told the world that G-d has brought is back home to the land He gave our forefathers and gave to us.
We are not here on the charity of the San Remo agreement or the Mandate.
Shy Guy,
For your information, most Native American (“American Indian”) peoples have sued in court for their rights, and many tribes have profited handsomely. I was recently told by a Seneca cousin, to encourage my aunt and first cousin to apply for tribal membership (My father was eligible through his mother), as it would be worth thousands of dollars to them. If the Israeli homeland were located in the United States, the Jews would have a good chance of establishing a homeland here; but the Middle East is not the Middle West.
Dead Jews can’t sue or collect!
“White men” and Muslims later on have been and still are used to ignore the right of the Jews, never out of reason based-argument but always by the use of brute power. It does not bode well to argue with a majority that is anti-Semitic while most of the rest is scared. The new version of the human rights council is the prime example.
Our only hope is a genetic mutation of one kind or another. That kind of luck is not for tomorrow.
I think Native American Indians should argue the point…
I think Israel should argue the point that beginning with the advent of Islam in Arabia, the Muslims murdered Jews and stole their land and property. This continued over the centuries with the ejection of Jews from all Muslim countries and their land and property confiscated, probably to the tune of billions of dollars in present day reckoning. There is a Jewish organization compiling lists of these events.
On top of that the Romans stole the land from them in 135 CE, and it has taken the Jews 1872 years to get Jerusalem back, and they are not about to trade it away for a peace that would be iffy at best. The idea of a split Jerusalem is a nightmare and would only cause more descension. The Muslims owe the Jews big time.
Thank you, Ted, for a cool-headed appraisal of the matter.
Resolution 242 demands that the parties involved negotiate until arriving at “secure and recognized” borders. The “secure” end of the matter has never been an issue: Israel had its most secure borders to date, after capturing Judea, Samaria and Golan, and re-capturing Sinai and Gaza, in 1967. The borders and demilitarizations agreed upon with Egypt and Jordan in subsequent treaties provided somewhat less secure, but nonetheless internationally recognized borders. Thus was 242 fulfilled, in 1994. Israel’s foolish subsequent agreement at Oslo, to negotiate further concessions, was actually AGAINST Resolution 242, since no further concessions between the Jordan and the Mediterranean could in any way be construed as “secure”. Please correct me, if I am wrong on any of these points.
Up until the ascension of King Obama as ruler, the US has used its veto power in the Security council, to block serious attacks on Israel by its enemies. As it stands today, the five permanent, veto-holding powers in the Security Council are all hostile to Israel; and the recent acquiescence of China and Russia to the war on Libya demonstrates that the UN has become a rubber stamp for American-led (anti-Israeli) policy. This means that UNSC Resolution 242, the “legal bedrock” of Israeli international legitimacy, has the bearing strength of quicksand.
The Palestinian “gamble” is therefore no gamble at all: The Pals have been dealt five aces, and the Israelis five deuces, and everyone can see the cards.
All in good time.
Are you sure you aren’t confusing Alan Baker with James Baker?
Of course Baker is going to side with Muslims. His busom buddies are the Saudis. He has made millions from dealing with them. To agree with Israeli policies would, in essence, commit financial suicide.
What was the intifada: Chopped Liver?
I thought 7000 rockets and mortars from Gaza before Hamas took over…… in all but declaration abrogated any agreements with PA?
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I thought 1500 Israeli murders by Palestinians and over 10,000 wounded abrogated any prior agreement with the PA?
I don’t believe he said this!! Yes I do. As the legal who authored Oslo he has no shame. Maybe no brain either.
Baker must be one of the few dead heads who cede the UN and UNSC with any prior integrity and credibility. He is a true believer and one who will never let the facts get in the way of his world view.
Heh Baker they are meaningless. Except for your tiny little mind and those of your ideological ilk.
Of course it’s a one sided act but is that news or New? What closet has Baker been hiding in all these years?
I can’t go on. This fool and those like him have brought us to this situation. If anyone wishes to know what’s wrong with Israeli PR and schizophrenic policies, It’s jerks like Baker who have consistently muddied our waters with Utopian impracticable beliefs and visions devoid of realities and are always shocked and surprised when there efforts are confounded by their Gross, even criminal misreading of all situations they try to influence.
My Barber who came to Israel from Tunisia has a clearer understanding of the Arabs and their mindset than all the Bakers of the world put together.
What pisses me off most of all based on his reply’s; for him it’s as if the past 19 years never happened.
No Mea Culpa’s from the Likes of Baker, Peres, Beilin Amos Oz and the whole Oslo Gang who almost murdered the State of Israel May they all rot in Hades!