The biggest news story of the week, perhaps of the year, slipped under the media radar yesterday: Edna Adato of Israel Hayom revealed the main points of a report drafted by the Committee to Examine the State of Construction in Judea and Samaria, headed by retired Supreme Court Justice Edmond Levi. The report touches upon the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and makes sense of the matter. One can say that the government received permission to toss attorney Talia Sasson’s report on settlement outposts into the dustbin of history.
Levi’s report concludes that Israel has the right to settle Jews in Judea and Samaria, and that it is incorrect to say that building settlements is illegal according to international law: “According to international law Israelis have the legal right to settle in all of Judea and Samaria, and at the very least in territories under Israeli control based on agreements with the Palestinian Authority; and therefore the creation of settlements in and of itself is not an illegal act.”
The committee also concludes: “From the viewpoint of international law, statutes regarding the ‘occupation’ are inapplicable due to the special legal and historical circumstances regarding the decades-long Israeli presence in Judea and Samaria.”
Since the 1970s, senior jurists in Israel and abroad have argued that Israel is completely within its rights to settle its citizens in Judea and Samaria. Among them are the President of the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Judge Stephen Schwebel; Prof. Elihu Lauterpacht of Cambridge University; and Prof. Eugene Rostow, the former Deacon at Yale’s school of law, all of whom, along with others, have voiced their clear opinions in regards to Israel’s just claim over Judea and Samaria within the historical and legal circumstances.
Since the Six-Day War, however, Israel has refrained from declaring the permanent status of the territories it won, excluding Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.
Into this vacuum Chief Justice Aharon Barak and others inserted the legal paradigm of “Belligerent Occupation,” according to which military governance draws its authority from the rules of international law in territories that were won in war. The significance is that Israel is deemed, allegedly, to be a foreign occupier, and it doesn’t have the right to apply its sovereignty over, or to move its civilian population into, those territories.
Some of the measures which hostile legal bodies have taken against the settlement enterprise in Judea and Samaria stemmed from this perception. These measures, which aimed at strangling the settlement enterprise, received justification from the State Prosecutor’s Office due to its adoption of the Belligerent Occupation paradigm, despite the current government’s many objections.
If the territories aren’t occupied, the Left has argued over the years, they must be annexed, including the populations there. But the reality isn’t a polar one, it is complex. The current report recognizes an intermediate reality: At hand is a disputed territory; two entities hold it; none of the sides is considered an “occupier.”
There is disagreement regarding ownership, which needs to be clarified through different means, but there is no definition of “occupation” in the international legal sense of the word.
A perception of Belligerent Occupation occurs when one country conquers the territories of another country. In our case, the last sovereign power was the British Mandate, which received its legitimacy from the League of Nations to create a national home for the Jews in the Land of Israel.
The Jordanian occupation was never recognized (aside from Britain and Pakistan), and Israel never conquered “Jordanian territory.” Moreover, Jordan renounced its sovereignty over these territories toward the late 1980s.
Another dramatic point in the report is its stance on communities which were built without a government decision (“Unauthorized”). The report concludes that because their creation and development occurred with the knowledge, encouragement and agreement of the most senior government echelons, “this conduct must be considered to be ‘authorization.'”
Therefore, “the act of eviction from these communities is impractical and a different solution must be found, such as compensation or alternative land offers. For this reason the committee has suggested to the state that it refrain from carrying out demolition orders in these communities, which it is in essence responsible for creating.”
If the government adopts the report’s conclusions, it means that the folks working with Mike Blass over at the State Prosecutor’s Office will no longer be able to deny, in the state’s name, the existence of these communities and won’t be able to advance their destruction through dry legal claims.
The government has taken a great step in the right direction on this matter, much to the chagrin of the enemies of the settlement enterprise, and to the joy of its supporters, comprising most of the Jewish population in Israel.
Now a world war will ensue against the report and against Levi.
All the old arguments and slandering tactics will be dusted off and put to use; left-wing organizations will enlist the help of their friends from across the globe, and the alienated juridical elite will fight against the most natural thing to us as a people: the return to our homeland, the cradle of our nationhood.
There is no need to become over-excited; this is exactly what this government was elected for. It is the will of most of the people, and it is also a historical decree.
I suppose that I am not quite as pessemistic as the above writers, but as I see it, Netanyahu has been quite effective in stalling for time and for the election of a Republican president who has stronger feelings for Israel.
The PM could have had a Palestinian state long before now if he really wanted it. There will be no Palis state ever unless the win it by force and that scenario is very doubtful. With a friendlier government in the US, the possibility of annexation is strong and that might settle the Arab desire for a long time. Give them a touch of freedom and they will not want to go back to their old doctrine.
An invisible Cyber Zapper keeps vaporizing my talkbacks.
Dear Ted Belman. If my posts on this page are piling up at the moderator’s end, please ignore them except for the last one. Sorry about that. I took it as a challenge to try to get past the Cyber Zapper.
Will the invisible Cyber Zapper vaporize my talkback again? 🙂
I have stripped my talkback of all web links and fancy punctuation and emphasis and wavy lines. Sigh….
To Arnold Harris:
Partition is still the government’s goal.
I wish I could share your optimism.
No matter how many Jews live in Yesha, the elite is determined to facilitate the creation of an Arab state on Jewish land. This is the REAL DANGER.
~
In spite of thousands of infiltrators getting across the southern border, the government’s main priority now is to complete the barrier to separate Jewish settlements from the future Islamic State of Palestine.
~
If the border with Gaza is a source of constant terror for small Jewish towns nearby, imagine what it will be like for the much denser population on the other side of the Islamic State of Palestine.
One needs to SERIOUSLY question why would anyone want to repeat fatal mistakes Israel has made in just a few years:
1) Surrendering land for “peace” (Treaty with Egypt is toast)
2) Surrendering Gaza for not even a lie. Just for the heck of destroying Jewish communities and handing Jewish land over to terrorists.
Both decisions have shown EVIDENT fatal consequences that nobody can spin or deny.
Still, the government continues to pursue more of the same.
~
The government is so determined to keep the illusion of the Peace Partner going that
Israel sought a $1 billion IMF bridging loan for the Palestinian Authority earlier this year, but was turned down.
Haaretz reported that Israel’s central bank chief Stanley Fischer approached the International Monetary Fund for the money after discussing the Palestinian Authority’s financial crisis with Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad. (See Fresno Zionism)
~
The government knows it would be harder to sell partition (through agreement or disengagement) to Israelis if Hamas is in control in the PA.
But knowing that Islamic takeover of the PA is inevitable, the government is creating a barrier in the hope of giving settlers a false sense of security when the time comes to give up the rest of the land.
~
The government also knows that once there is an independent Islamic State of Palestine, their allies (Iran, Russia, and even the West) will not allow Israel to retaliate.
Daily terror against settlers will force them to choose between becoming mass victims of Arab attacks or vacating the settlements.
~
In face of all these considerations any suggestion of annexing ONLY Area C is a euphemism for DISENGAGEMENT PART 2. Or a Partial Disengagement.
I hope Israelis can see through it.
To Arnold Harris: Partition is still the government’s goal.
I wish I could share your optimism.
No matter how many Jews live in Yesha, the government is determined to facilitate the creation of an Arab state on Jewish land. This is the REAL DANGER.
~~~~~~~~~~
In spite of thousands of infiltrators getting across the southern border, the government’s main priority now is to complete the barrier to separate Jewish settlements from the future Islamic State of Palestine.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/157580
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If the border with Gaza is a source of constant terror for small Jewish towns nearby, imagine what it will be like for the much denser population on the other side of the Islamic State of Palestine.
One needs to SERIOUSLY question why would the government want to repeat fatal mistakes Israel has made in just a few years:
1) Surrendering land for “peace” (Treaty with Egypt is toast)
2) Surrendering Gaza for not even a lie. Just for the heck of destroying Jewish communities and handing Jewish land over to terrorists.
Both decisions have shown EVIDENT fatal consequences that nobody can spin or deny.
Still, the government continues to pursue more of the same.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The government is so determined to keep the illusion of the Peace Partner going that
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The government knows it would be harder to sell partition (through agreement or disengagement) to Israelis if Hamas is in control in the PA.
But knowing that Islamic takeover of the PA is inevitable, the government is creating a barrier in the hope of giving settlers a false sense of security when the time comes to give up the rest of the land.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
The government also knows that once there is an independent Islamic State of Palestine, their allies (Iran, Russia, and even the West) will not allow Israel to retaliate.
Daily terror against settlers will force them to choose between becoming mass victims of Arab attacks or vacating the settlements.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
In face of all these considerations any suggestion of annexing ONLY Area C is a euphemism for DISENGAGEMENT PART 2. Or a Partial Disengagement.
I hope Israelis can see through it.
To Arnold Harris – I tried to send you a reply but it got zapped on the way – twice. Can’t be a signal from above. It’s not Shabbat here yet.
Who actually owns the “West Bank”?
Liberals hate Jews, Jewish Israel, and christianity. To counterbalance Judaism and christianity, liberals glorify islam and sharia. Since islam is fundamentally a savage and primitive form of Judaism, the liberals have to do a lot of whitewashing, tap-dancing, and misdirection to try to minimize how bad islam really is.
Today’s case in point: land ownership in sharia. Luckily for Jewish Israel, muhamad was really greedy. He made sure that islam would make him rich. So allah conveniently proclaimed to him that all land conquered by muslims would essentially belong to muhamad and his successors.
Accordingly, there is little individual permanent private ownership in islam, and it is largely limited to houses within towns and cities.
Almost all the land is owned by the state through its ruler. The ruler then leases out the land to whomever he favors, in return for a yearly rental payment. The ruler can give and take the land as he pleases, and when one ruler passes, the new ruler takes full control.
The “West Bank” (Judea and Shomron) has followed this system since the muslims conquered it from the christians 1400 years ago. The Turks were the muslim rulers from 1500 to 1917. In accordance with sharia, the Turkish sultan owned almost all of the land. In 1858 there was a half-hearted attempt at reform, in order to increase individual permanent land ownership. It did not change things much. In 1917, the muslim Turks were defeated by the christian British. The Turks destroyed whatever land records there were, or took them back to Turkey when they withdrew.
The British didn’t change anything between 1917 and 1949. Muslim Jordan annexed the “West Bank” in 1949, and the muslim king of Jordan took the place of the muslim Turkish sultan, claiming ownership of all state lands.
In 1967, the Jewish State of Israel took control of the “West Bank” from the muslim State of Jordan. Subsequently, the muslim king of Jordan renounced all claims to the “West Bank”. Therefore, as the ruling power, the Jewish State of Israel owns all the “state lands” in the “West Bank” (at least 50% of the total land).
The Jew-haters of the “international community” (the Democrats, the EU, the UN, the muslims, etc.) are sh*tting bricks over this. They claim that somehow, there is a virtual “state of palestine”, although no actual state of palestine has ever existed, and that the “palestinian residents” of this “virtual state of palestine” are the true owners of the state land in the West Bank, even though they have never had any legal ownership, and thus are actually tenants at best or squatters at worst.
And of course, you will never read any of this in the liberal media, since the idea that, in this instance, sharia works to the “dirty” Jews’ advantage at the expense of the muslim palestinian “victims”, is an idea that liberals can never acknowledge.
As the old adage goes “There is no gain without pain.” Even if a world war will ensue against the report and against Levi, the truth will eventually win. I believe there are many people around the world who have been fed deliberate and misleading and fabricated lies about Israel and the so called “occupation.” If Israel won’t fight fire with fire in order to debunk the lies which have spread like a prairie fire by telling its legal, historical and moral rights to the entire world more than ever, its enemies will continue to have an upper hand in the court of public opinion. Why not the right-wing organizations enlist their friends from across the globe and fight for their very existence and the existence of the only Jewish state in the world like those who fight against them?
@ Arnold Harris:
Partition is still the government’s goal.
I wish I could share your optimism.
No matter how many Jews live in Yesha, the government is determined to facilitate the creation of an Arab state on Jewish land. This is the REAL DANGER.
~~~~~~~~~~
In spite of thousands of infiltrators getting across the southern border, the government’s main priority now is to complete the barrier to separate Jewish settlements from the future Islamic State of Palestine.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/157580
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If the border with Gaza is a source of constant terror for small Jewish towns nearby, imagine what it will be like for the much denser population on the other side of the Islamic State of Palestine.
One needs to SERIOUSLY question why would the government want to repeat fatal mistakes Israel has made in just a few years:
1) Surrendering land for “peace” (Treaty with Egypt is toast)
2) Surrendering Gaza for not even a lie. Just for the heck of destroying Jewish communities and handing over Jewish land to terrorists.
Both decisions have shown EVIDENT fatal consequences that nobody can spin or deny.
Still, the government continues to pursue more of the same.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The government is so determined to keep the DECEPTION of the Peace Partner going that
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The government knows it would be harder to sell partition (with an agreement or through disengagement) to the Israeli population if Hamas is in power in the PA.
But knowing that Islamic takeover of the PA is inevitable, the government is creating a barrier in the hope of giving settlers a false sense of security when the time comes to give up the rest of the land.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
The government also knows that once there is an independent Islamic State of Palestine, their allies (Iran, Russia, and even the West) will not allow Israel to retaliate.
Daily terror against settlers will force them to choose between becoming mass victims of of Arab attacks or vacating the settlements.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
In face of all these considerations any talk of annexing ONLY Area C is a euphemism for DISENGAGEMENT PART 2. I hope Israelis can see through it.
@ Arnold Harris:
Partition is still the government’s goal.
No matter how many Jews live in Yesha, the government is determined to facilitate the creation of an Arab state on Jewish land. This is the REAL DANGER.
~~~~~~~~~~
In spite of thousands of infiltrators getting across the southern border, the government’s main priority now is to finish the barrier to separate Jewish settlements from the future Islamic State of Palestine.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/157580
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If the border with Gaza is a source of constant terror for small Jewish towns nearby, imagine what it will be like for the much denser population on the other side of the Islamic State of Palestine.
One needs to SERIOUSLY question why would the government want to repeat fatal mistakes Israel has made in just a few years:
1) Surrendering land for “peace” (Treaty with Egypt is toast)
2) Surrendering Gaza for not even a lie. Just for the heck of destroying Jewish communities and handing over Jewish land to terrorists.
Both decisions have shown EVIDENT fatal consequences that nobody can spin or deny.
Still, the government continues to pursue more of the same.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The government is so determined to keep the DECEPTION of the Peace Partner going that
http://fresnozionism.org/2012/07/cosigning-for-the-devil/
The government knows it would be harder to sell partition (with an agreement or by disengagement) to the Israeli population with Hamas in power in the PA.
But knowing that extreme Islamic takeover of the PA is inevitable, the government is creating a barrier in the hope of giving settlers a false sense of security when the time comes to give up the rest of the land.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
The government also knows that once there is an independent Islamic State of Palestine, their allies (Iran, Russia, and even the West) will not allow Israel to retaliate.
Daily terror against settlers will be inevitable.
Settlers will just have to choose between becoming mass victims of terror or vacating the settlements.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
In face of all these considerations any talk of annexing only Area C is a euphemism for DISENGAGEMENT PART 2. I hope Israelis can see through it.
CO,
There are about 750,000 reasons why the leadership establishment of Israel cannot for much longer ignore the legality of Jewish settlement in Shomron and Yehuda, because that is the estimated present collective population of the territories taken from Transjordan and Syria, including Golan, Shomron and Yehuda, and eastern Jerusalem. Each such reason is a living human organism with his or her own intent and will to power. Moreover, nothing in Israel is growing at a faster rate than that population. The old-time Zionists talked repeatedly about “facts on the ground”. Such facts create an entirely new reality, irrespective of anybody’s interpretation of purports to be international law.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Prediction: the government will argue, obfuscate, plead for more time, claim unbearable international pressure against it, suggest a compromise, send it to committee, confuse, frustrate and wear down everyone, and eventually IGNORE this report. While they continue to facilitate Arab facts on the ground.
This and past governments have completely ignored strong legal proof of Israeli ownership of Judea and Samaria based on the League of Nations/St Remo Conference.
Documents:
Office for Israel Constitutional Law – http://www.justicenow4israel.com/
~~~~~~~~~~~~
The writer says: “If the government adopts the report’s conclusions
IF…..
Citizens need to set up a group to monitor government response to this report – and to keep the issue current in the media.
Such group would need to energize the old but still valid legal documentation by the League of Nations.
(Don’t you wish you already had an independent and adequately well-funded Yesha organization?)