(1) What are the steps that need to be taken by the international community to thwart the cleansing tactics of Israel? And (2)... who leads such a change effort?
At what point does the world demand Israel reform? And short of simply recognizing the problem for what it is... what steps can people take from their corner of the world to help?
Does the world care enough for the Palestinian people to come to their defence?
The whole World recognizes the occupation as illegal, and the whole World supports a U.N Resolution - U.N 242 - that calls for an immediate withdrawal of Israeli's from the territory it occupied during, and after, the 1967 war. Every year at the Security Council the whole World votes to implement this resolution, and every year the U.S stands alone in the World in opposing it, and uses it's power of automatic veto to block it. This has been the case for the past 45 years. The whole World on one side, and the U.S and Israel on the other.
What can you do? Write to your local representative and tell him that you're disgusted that your tax dollars are funding the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. Tell him you're disgusted that $4Billion of U.S tax dollars are being used to pay for weapons that are being used to murder children - 3 Palestinian children every day, on average, for the past 13 years.
I wrote to my local representative in England a couple of times regarding this issue. His name came up in the news as he'd castigated somebody publicly for stating that the present borders of Israel could not be permanent, or words to that effect. This MP then accused her of trying to 'delegitimize Israel', e.t.c. - he basically just trotted out all of the usual platitudes that he'd been fed over the years by the British media. Anyway, I wrote him a long letter, and he appeared to respond well to it.
Yosi said you should put pressure on your local representatives. I said you should write to your local representatives. Yosi then makes a snide remark about my advice being 'constructive'.
So, it looks like the 15 year old American boy, beaten by Israeli police, is the cousin of Mohammed Abu Khdair, the 16 year old Palestinian who was abducted and burnt to death during the rampage of Israeli's through Palestinian areas, largely inspired and instigated by Netanyahu.
Now we know: In the Jewish state, there is pity and humane feelings only for Jews, rights only for the Chosen People. The Jewish state is only for Jews.
By Gideon Levy - 06.07.14
The youths of the Jewish state are attacking Palestinians in the streets of Jerusalem, just like gentile youths used to attack Jews in the streets of Europe. The Israelis of the Jewish state are rampaging on social networks, displaying hatred and a lust for revenge, unprecedented in its diabolic scope. Some unknown people from the Jewish state, purely based on his ethnicity. These are the children of the nationalistic and racist generation – Netanyahu’s offspring.
For five years now, they have been hearing nothing but incitement, scaremongering and supremacy over Arabs from this generation’s true instructor, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Not one humane word, no commiseration or equal treatment.
They grew up with the provocative demand for recognition of Israel as a “Jewish state,” and they drew the inevitable conclusions. Even before any delineation of what a “Jewish state” means – will it be a state that dons tefillin (phylacteries), kisses mezuzot (doorpost fixtures with prayer scrolls), sanctifies charms, closes down on the Sabbath and keeps strict kashrut laws? – the penny has dropped for the masses.
The mob was the first to internalize its true significance: a Jewish state is one in which there is room only for Jews. The fate of Africans is to be sent to the Holot detention center in the Negev, while that of Palestinians is to suffer from pogroms. That’s how it works in a Jewish state: only this way can it be Jewish.
In the Jewish state-in-the-making, there is no room even for an Arab who strives his utmost to be a good Arab, such as the writer Sayed Kashua. In a Jewish state, the chairman of the Knesset plenary session, MK Ruth Calderon (from Yesh Atid – the “center” of the political map, needless to say), cuts off Arab MK Ahmed Tibi (United Arab List-Ta’al), who has just returned all shaken up from a visit to the family of the murdered Arab boy from Shoafat, impudently preaching to him that he must also refer to the three murdered Jewish teens (even after he did just that).
In a Jewish state, the High Court of Justice approves the demolition of a murder suspect’s family home even before his conviction. A Jewish state legislates racist and nationalist laws.
The media in the Jewish state wallows in the murder of three yeshiva students, while almost entirely ignoring the fates of several Palestinian youths of the same age who have been killed by army fire over the last few months, usually for no reason.
No one was punished for these acts – in the Jewish state there is one law for Jews and another for Arabs, whose lives are cheap. There is no hint of abiding by international laws and conventions. In the Jewish state, there is pity and humane feelings only for Jews, rights only for the Chosen People. The Jewish state is only for Jews.
The new generation growing in its shadow is a dangerous one, both to itself and its surroundings. Netanyahu is its education minister; the militaristic and nationalist media serves as its pedagogic epic poem; the education system that takes it to Auschwitz and Hebron serves as its guide.
The new sabra (native-born Israeli) is a novel species, prickly both on the outside and the inside. He has never met his Palestinian counterpart, but knows everything about him – the sabra knows he is a wild animal, intent only on killing him; that he is a monster, a terrorist.
He knows that Israel has no partner for peace, since this is what he’s heard countless times from Netanyahu, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Economy Minister Naftali Bennett. From Yair Lapid he’s heard that they are “Zoabis” – referring dismissively to MK Haneen Zoabi (Balad).
Being left wing or a seeker of justice in the Jewish state is deemed a crime, civil society is considered treacherous, true democracy an evil. In a Jewish state – dreamed of not only by the right wing but also by the supposed center-left, including Tzipi Livni and Lapid – democracy is blurred.
It’s not the skinheads that are the Jewish state’s main problem, it’s the sanctimonious eye-rollers, the thugs, the extreme right wing and the settlers. It’s not the margins but the mainstream, which is partly very nationalistic and partly indifferent.
In the Jewish state, there is no remnant of the biblical injunction to treat the minority or the stranger with justice. There are no more Jews left who marched with Martin Luther King or who sat in jail with Nelson Mandela. The Jewish state, which Israel insists the Palestinians recognize, must first recognize itself. At the end of the day, at the end of a terrible week, it seems that a Jewish state means a racist, nationalistic state, meant for Jews only.
The occupation would have been brought to an end a long time ago if hadn't been routinely given a green light by Washington at the U.N. As Gideon Levy points out, the Israeli leadership have never offered any concessions at the negotiating table, they've simply argued for what they want, ignoring completely what they're entitled to under international law. This is why the occupation continues, and why people continue being killed as we speak.
The question of whether ending the occupation would threaten or strengthen Israel's security is irrelevant. There are not, and cannot be, any preconditions for restoring justice.
By Gideon Levy - Nov. 25, 2007
...Israel is not being asked "to give" anything to the Palestinians; it is only being asked to return - to return their stolen land and restore their trampled self-respect, along with their fundamental human rights and humanity.
...Just as a thief cannot present demands - neither preconditions nor any other terms - to the owner of the property he has robbed, Israel cannot present demands to the other side as long as the situation remains as it is.
Security? We must defend ourselves by defensive means. Those who do not believe that the only security we will enjoy will come from ending the occupation and from peace can entrench themselves in the army, and behind walls and fences. But we have no right to do what we are doing: Just as no one would conceive of killing the residents of an entire neighborhood, to harass and incarcerate it because of a few criminals living there, there is no justification for abusing an entire people in the name of our security. The question of whether ending the occupation would threaten or strengthen Israel's security is irrelevant. There are not, and cannot be, any preconditions for restoring justice.
He says the Jewish state means a racist state. A state run by, and for, Jews, and to the detriment of non-Jews. Just what I said. He also says that Israel has no desire for peace, and simply wants to keep expanding the settlements in accordance with it's Zionist ideology. Just what I said.
But I'm an anti-Semite, and he isn't? Is this because...?
He says the Jewish state means a racist state. A state run by, and for, Jews, and to the detriment of non-Jews. Just what I said. He also says that Israel has no desire for peace, and simply wants to keep expanding the settlements in accordance with it's Zionist ideology. Just what I said.
But I'm an anti-Semite, and he isn't? Is this because...?
I read his piece to be a condemnation of and a lament for what the extreme right wing, and in his view an increasing segment of the mainstream, have come to understand as the meaning of a Jewish state. I didn't read it as an indictment of the concept as such. The last paragraph in particular, I think, makes clear that in his view a Jewish state could embody liberal values. As I read it, he's condemning people who take the idea of a Jewish state and imbue it with racism. He's not saying that the concept of a Jewish state is racist as such.
That's very different than what you have said, which is that the very notion of Jewish self-determination is racist.
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
Also, and I know you find context to be anathema, but there's a big difference between an Israeli criticizing the racism of other Israelis out of a concern for the social fabric of his own country, and you, who thinks that the entire polity as such should cease to exist.
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
(1) What are the steps that need to be taken by the international community to thwart the cleansing tactics of Israel? And (2)... who leads such a change effort?
At what point does the world demand Israel reform? And short of simply recognizing the problem for what it is... what steps can people take from their corner of the world to help?
Does the world care enough for the Palestinian people to come to their defence?
The whole World recognizes the occupation as illegal, and the whole World supports a U.N Resolution - U.N 242 - that calls for an immediate withdrawal of Israeli's from the territory it occupied during, and after, the 1967 war. Every year at the Security Council the whole World votes to implement this resolution, and every year the U.S stands alone in the World in opposing it, and uses it's power of automatic veto to block it. This has been the case for the past 45 years. The whole World on one side, and the U.S and Israel on the other.
A thorough, straightforward, and very well-sourced legal analysis of Resolution 242, written by a professor of international law. http://jcpa.org/text/resolution242-lapidoth.pdf Suffice it to say that the Resolution does not actually say what you claim that it says.
And here's the wikipedia bio for the author, just so we can dispense with the notion that she doesn't know what she's talking about.
Professor Ruth Lapidoth is a Senior Researcher at the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies and Professor Emeritus of International Law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She is a recipient of the 2006 Israel Prize in Legal Studies and of the 2000 Prominent Woman in International Law Award from the WILIG group of the American Society of International Law.
Lapidoth formerly served as a Legal Advisor to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has been a guest lecturer and researcher in several leading academic institutions, including Oxford University, Georgetown University and the American Institute for Peace, and is the author of nine books and more than ninety articles dealing with international law, human rights, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and Jerusalem.
Post edited by yosi on
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
Also, and I know you find context to be anathema, but there's a big difference between an Israeli criticizing the racism of other Israelis out of a concern for the social fabric of his own country, and you, who thinks that the entire polity as such should cease to exist.
'Out of a concern for the social fabric of his own country'? Really? Is that why you think Gideon Levy critical of the occupation and Israel's oppression of the Palestinians? Out of a concern for the social fabric of his country? And you even have the audacity to regard that one-eyed, self-serving analysis as 'context'.
Once again Yosi shows his true colours. In one breath he talks of the need for a two-state solution, and pretends that he's interested in a peaceful settlement of the conflict, and an end to Israel's expansion (despite his contradictory assertion that he's a Zionist, and adheres to an ideology that preaches that Israeli's have a rightful claim to ownership of their imagined Bliblical homeland stretching from the Jordan river to the sea).
Then in the next breath he states that the Palestinians themselves are responsible for their occupation, and for the theft of their land. And then he produces a convoluted 15 page article by an Israeli professor which attempts to reinterpret the meaning of U.N Resolution 242, and of international law itself. For example, she pretends that the preamble to the resolution which points out "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war”, is "lawful if it is the result of an act of self-defense". Unfortunately for her, even if Israel's attack on Egypt and Syria in 1967 could conceivably be classed as 'self-defense' in her, and Yosi's topsy-turvy World, Israel's acquisition of Palestinian territory would still be illegal.
Finkelstein - knowing Too Much [Regardless], Prior to as well as immediately after the June 1967 war leading authorities in international law rejected the proposition that a state can aquire legal title to territory in a war of self-defence:
Ian Brownlie (1963) - "lawful belligerants should not be permitted to act ultra vires [i.e, beyond their power] by acquiring territory as a result of a lawful war" R.Y Jennings (1963) - "the suggestion that the state that does not resort to force unlawfully, e.g., resorts to war in self-defence, may still aquire a title by conquest...is to be regarded with some suspicion. It seems to be based upon a curious assumption that provided a war is lawful in origin, it goes on being lawful to whatever lengths it may afterwards be pursued...Force used in self-defence...is undoubtedly lawful. But it must be proportionate to the threat of immediate danger, and when the threat has been averted the plea of self-defence can no longer be available...It would be a curious law of self-defence that permitted the defender in the course of his defence to seize and keep the resources and territory of the attacker".
D.W Bowett (1971) - "there is virtually universal acceptance of the principle...that states cannot acquire territory by resort to force...It is impossible to conceive self-defence as justifying the acquisition of title to territory. One can conceive of self-defence justifying the temporary occupation of territory but never the permanent acquisition of title and there is no system or principle of law which conceives of such a thing."
These conclusions have been reiterated in recent scholarly studies. Sharon Korman finds that the U.N Charter, as well as the league of Nations Covenant before it, "prohibit all acquisitions of territory by force, irrespective of the lawfulness of the cause of war," while John Dugard finds that " the United Nations expressly refuses to accept the argument that territory may be acquired as a result of action taken in lawful self-defence," and that "larger majorities in the General Assembly in support of this principle [prohibiting acquisition of territory by means of the lawful use of force] and the failure of any major power to veto it in the Security Council must surely provide prima facie evidence that this principle is part of the International public order, and, by implication, a peremptory norm."
She then goes on to try and alter the meaning of international law herself, and in quoting Professor George Shultz in her concluding paragraph, makes the utterly absurd claim that, at least as far as the Middle East is concerned, we should do away with the very notion of borders, and of nation states altogether:
Prof. George Shultz, 'Today, the meaning of borders is changing, and so is the notion of sovereignty....In these [i.e., the Middle East] territories a vision is needed that transcends the boundaries of traditional nation-states and addresses the clear requirements for the parties’ security, political voice, economic opportunity and community life on an equal basis. ...The juxtaposition of territory for peace need not be a matter of where to draw lines, but how to divide responsibilities.'
If ever a more arrogant, self-serving analysis of international has been written, then I'm yet to see it.
She also states that: "..it is necessary to draw attention to the fundamental difference between military occupation and the acquisition of territory. The former does not entail any change in a territory’s national status, although it does give the occupier certain powers as well as the responsibilities and the right to stay in the territory until peace has been concluded. Mere military occupation of the land does not confer any legal title to sovereignty.
It may be concluded from the above survey that Resolution 242 requires the parties to negotiate in good faith in order to reach agreement on the basis of a withdrawal of Israeli forces, the establishment by agreement of secure and recognized boundaries, the termination of any state of belligerency, and the recognition by all parties of each other’s independence and sovereignty."
However:
"...implicit in Israel’s occupation policy, [is] that if no peace agreement is reached, the ‘default setting’ of UN Security Council Resolution 242 is the indefinite continuation of Israel’s occupation. If this reading were true, the resolution would actually be inviting an occupying power that wishes to retain its adversary’s territory to do so simply by means of avoiding peace talks – which is exactly what Israel has been doing. In fact, the introductory statement to Resolution 242 declares that territory cannot be acquired by war, implying that if the parties cannot reach agreement, the occupier must withdraw to the status quo ante: that, logically, is 242’s default setting. Had there been a sincere intention on Israel’s part to withdraw from the territories, surely forty years should have been more than enough time in which to reach an agreement." http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n16/henry-siegman/the-great-middle-east-peace-process-scam
Suffice to say, Yosi yet again scrapes the bottom of the barrel, and uses more trickery, and slippery lawyers bullshit to try and circumvent international law in his desperate efforts to paint Israel and its occupation of the Palestinians in a positive light.
As a law student, reading your comments, I can safely say that you didn't understand what she wrote. You've quite simply completely misunderstood and misrepresented her article. None of those quotes contradict her analysis in the slightest.
I love how you accuse others of arrogance and then proceed to dictate to me what Zionism means. As I've said many times before, Zionism does not have a single monolithic meaning, and while some may share your interpretation of it, Zionism need not manifest itself in the manner that you describe. It certainly doesn't for me. But then maybe you'd like to educate me about the content of my own beliefs? I'm sure you're the greater expert in that area.
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
Prof. Ruth Lapidoth pretends that the 1967 war was a war of self-defence, and that this therefore justifies, and makes legal, Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory.
Prof. Ruth Lapidoth : "As an act of self-defense, this military occupation was and continues to be legitimate, until a peace settlement can be reached and permanent borders defined and agreed upon."
Unfortunately, the historical record doesn't concur with her lies.
Firstly, lack of agreement does not entitle the occupier to maintain the occupation, especially when the occupier has done everything in it's power to prevent any agreement.
Secondly, even if the 1967 war was fought as a war of self-defence, it would still be illegal to acquire the territory it seized during that war, as I demonstrated above.
And lastly, it wasn't a war of self-defence, it was a war of aggression.
'Prime Minister Menachem Begin, in a speech delivered at the Israeli National Defense College, clearly stated that: "The Egyptian army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him"(Jerusalem Post, 20 August 1982).
A few months after the war, Yitzhak Rabin remarked: "I do not think Nasser wanted war. The two divisions he sent to the Sinai on 14 May would not have been sufficient to launch an offensive against Israel. He knew it and we knew it" (Le Monde, 29 February 1968).
'General Matityahu Peled, one of the architects of the Israeli conquest, committed what the Israeli public considered blasphemy when he admitted the true thinking of the Israeli leadership: "The thesis that the danger of genocide was hanging over us in June 1967 and that Israel was fighting for its physical existence is only bluff, which was born and developed after the war"(Ha'aretz, 1975)
March 1972). Israeli Air Force General Ezer Weizmann declared bluntly that "there was never any danger of extermination" (Ma'ariv, 19 April 1972). Mordechai Bentov, a former Israeli cabinet minister, also dismissed the myth of Israel's imminent annihilation: "All this story about the danger of extermination has been a complete invention and has been blown up a posteriori to justify the annexation of new Arab territories"(Al Hamishmar, 14 April 1972).
After the 1967 war Israel, claimed it invaded because of imminent Arab attack. It claimed that Nasser's closing of the Straits of Tiran constituted an act of war. It also cited Syrian shelling on the demilitarized zone of the Syrian-Israeli border. The claim that the Arabs were going to invade appears particularly ludicrous when one recalls that a third of Egypt's army was in Yemen and therefore quite unprepared to launch a war. On the Syrian front, Israel was engaging in threats and provocations that evidenced many similarities to its behavior in the lead up to the Gaza raid of 1955.
The demilitarized zone on the Syrian-Israeli border was established by agreement on 20 July 1949. Israeli provocations were incessant and enabled Israel to increase and extend its sovereignty by encroachment over the entire Arab area. According to one UN Chief of Staff, Arab villagers were evicted and their homes destroyed (E.L.M. Burns, Between Arab and Israeli, Ivan Obolensky, 1962, pp. 113-114).
Another Chief of Staff described how the Israelis ploughed up Arab land and "advanced the 'frontier' to their own advantage" (Carl von Horn, Soldiering for Peace, Cassell, 1966, p. 79). Israel attempted to evict the Arabs living on the Golan and annex the demilitarized zone. When the Syrians inevitably responded, Israel claimed that "peaceful" Israeli farmers were being shelled by the Syrians. Unmentioned was the fact that the "farmers" were armed and using tractors and farm equipment to encroach on the demilitarized zone (David Hirst, The Gun and the Olive Branch: the Roots of Violence in the Middle East, Faber and Faber, 1984, pp. 213-15). This was part of a "premeditated Israeli policy [..] to get all the Arabs out of the way by fair means or foul."
Shortly after the Syrian response on 7 April 1967, the Israeli Air Force attacked Syria, shooting down six planes, hitting thirty fortified positions and killing about 100 people (Hirst, op. cit., p. 214). It was unlikely that any Syrian guns would have been fired if not for Israel's provocation. Israel's need for water also played a role in the 1967 attack. The invasion completed Israel's encirclement of the headwaters of the Upper Jordan River, its capture of the West Bank and the two aquifers arising there, which currently supply all the groundwater for northern and central Israel.'
And just to be clear, I didn't post the article above to argue against a two-state solution. Quite to the contrary, the whole gist of the analysis is that 242 calls for a withdrawal of Israeli forces on the basis of a negotiated peace. I just object on principle to blatant misrepresentations regarding legal norms.
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
As a law student, reading your comments, I can safely say that you didn't understand what she wrote. You've quite simply completely misunderstood and misrepresented her article.
She also states that: "..it is necessary to draw attention to the fundamental difference between military occupation and the acquisition of territory. The former does not entail any change in a territory’s national status, although it does give the occupier certain powers as well as the responsibilities and the right to stay in the territory until peace has been concluded. Mere military occupation of the land does not confer any legal title to sovereignty.
It may be concluded from the above survey that Resolution 242 requires the parties to negotiate in good faith in order to reach agreement on the basis of a withdrawal of Israeli forces, the establishment by agreement of secure and recognized boundaries, the termination of any state of belligerency, and the recognition by all parties of each other’s independence and sovereignty."
However:
"...implicit in Israel’s occupation policy, [is] that if no peace agreement is reached, the ‘default setting’ of UN Security Council Resolution 242 is the indefinite continuation of Israel’s occupation. If this reading were true, the resolution would actually be inviting an occupying power that wishes to retain its adversary’s territory to do so simply by means of avoiding peace talks – which is exactly what Israel has been doing. In fact, the introductory statement to Resolution 242 declares that territory cannot be acquired by war, implying that if the parties cannot reach agreement, the occupier must withdraw to the status quo ante: that, logically, is 242’s default setting. Had there been a sincere intention on Israel’s part to withdraw from the territories, surely forty years should have been more than enough time in which to reach an agreement." http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n16/henry-siegman/the-great-middle-east-peace-process-scam
That second quote merely points to the inadequacies of the document itself in that when it was written it clearly envisioned some sort of immediate peace process and was never intended to address the reality as we find it today. It doesn't change the fact that 242 doesn't say what you says that it says.
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
Prof. Ruth Lapidoth : "As an act of self-defense, this military occupation was and continues to be legitimate, until a peace settlement can be reached and permanent borders defined and agreed upon."
Finkelstein - Knowing Too Much
P. 170: 'U.S appraisals of Nasser's Intentions on eve of 1967 war'
Major General Meir Amit, head of the Mossad, told senior American officials on 1st June that "there were no differences between the U.S and the Israeli's on the military intelligence picture or it's interpretation". "The Egyptian build-up in Sinai lacked a clear offensive plan," Israeli scholar Avraham Sela reports, "and Nasser's defensive instructions explicitly assumed an Israeli first-strike."
25th May - CIA Appraisal: 'In our view, UAR [Egyptian] military dispositions in Sinai are defensive in character...The steps taken thus far by [other] Arab armies do not prove that the Arabs intend an all-out attack on Israel....In sum, we believe these are merely gestures in the interests of the fiction of Arab unity, but have little military utility in a conflict with Israel.'
26th May - General Earle Wheeler, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff: 'The UAR's dispositions are defensive and do not look as if they are preparatory to an invasiob of Israel...'There was no indication that the Egyptians would attack. If the UAR moved, it would give up it's defensive positions in the Sinai for little advantage.'
26th May - CIA's Board of National Estimates: 'Clearly Nasser has won the first round. It is possible that [Nasser] may seek a military show-down with Israel, designed to settle the whole problem once and for all. This seems to us highly unlikely...The most likely course seems to be for Nasser to hold to his present winnings as long as he can, and in as full measure as he can.'
Comments
Every year at the Security Council the whole World votes to implement this resolution, and every year the U.S stands alone in the World in opposing it, and uses it's power of automatic veto to block it. This has been the case for the past 45 years. The whole World on one side, and the U.S and Israel on the other.
What can you do? Write to your local representative and tell him that you're disgusted that your tax dollars are funding the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. Tell him you're disgusted that $4Billion of U.S tax dollars are being used to pay for weapons that are being used to murder children - 3 Palestinian children every day, on average, for the past 13 years.
I wrote to my local representative in England a couple of times regarding this issue. His name came up in the news as he'd castigated somebody publicly for stating that the present borders of Israel could not be permanent, or words to that effect. This MP then accused her of trying to 'delegitimize Israel', e.t.c. - he basically just trotted out all of the usual platitudes that he'd been fed over the years by the British media.
Anyway, I wrote him a long letter, and he appeared to respond well to it.
Funny that.
Our wretched Jewish state
Now we know: In the Jewish state, there is pity and humane feelings only for Jews, rights only for the Chosen People. The Jewish state is only for Jews.
By Gideon Levy - 06.07.14
The youths of the Jewish state are attacking Palestinians in the streets of Jerusalem, just like gentile youths used to attack Jews in the streets of Europe. The Israelis of the Jewish state are rampaging on social networks, displaying hatred and a lust for revenge, unprecedented in its diabolic scope. Some unknown people from the Jewish state, purely based on his ethnicity. These are the children of the nationalistic and racist generation – Netanyahu’s offspring.
For five years now, they have been hearing nothing but incitement, scaremongering and supremacy over Arabs from this generation’s true instructor, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Not one humane word, no commiseration or equal treatment.
They grew up with the provocative demand for recognition of Israel as a “Jewish state,” and they drew the inevitable conclusions. Even before any delineation of what a “Jewish state” means – will it be a state that dons tefillin (phylacteries), kisses mezuzot (doorpost fixtures with prayer scrolls), sanctifies charms, closes down on the Sabbath and keeps strict kashrut laws? – the penny has dropped for the masses.
The mob was the first to internalize its true significance: a Jewish state is one in which there is room only for Jews. The fate of Africans is to be sent to the Holot detention center in the Negev, while that of Palestinians is to suffer from pogroms. That’s how it works in a Jewish state: only this way can it be Jewish.
In the Jewish state-in-the-making, there is no room even for an Arab who strives his utmost to be a good Arab, such as the writer Sayed Kashua. In a Jewish state, the chairman of the Knesset plenary session, MK Ruth Calderon (from Yesh Atid – the “center” of the political map, needless to say), cuts off Arab MK Ahmed Tibi (United Arab List-Ta’al), who has just returned all shaken up from a visit to the family of the murdered Arab boy from Shoafat, impudently preaching to him that he must also refer to the three murdered Jewish teens (even after he did just that).
In a Jewish state, the High Court of Justice approves the demolition of a murder suspect’s family home even before his conviction. A Jewish state legislates racist and nationalist laws.
The media in the Jewish state wallows in the murder of three yeshiva students, while almost entirely ignoring the fates of several Palestinian youths of the same age who have been killed by army fire over the last few months, usually for no reason.
No one was punished for these acts – in the Jewish state there is one law for Jews and another for Arabs, whose lives are cheap. There is no hint of abiding by international laws and conventions. In the Jewish state, there is pity and humane feelings only for Jews, rights only for the Chosen People. The Jewish state is only for Jews.
The new generation growing in its shadow is a dangerous one, both to itself and its surroundings. Netanyahu is its education minister; the militaristic and nationalist media serves as its pedagogic epic poem; the education system that takes it to Auschwitz and Hebron serves as its guide.
The new sabra (native-born Israeli) is a novel species, prickly both on the outside and the inside. He has never met his Palestinian counterpart, but knows everything about him – the sabra knows he is a wild animal, intent only on killing him; that he is a monster, a terrorist.
He knows that Israel has no partner for peace, since this is what he’s heard countless times from Netanyahu, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Economy Minister Naftali Bennett. From Yair Lapid he’s heard that they are “Zoabis” – referring dismissively to MK Haneen Zoabi (Balad).
Being left wing or a seeker of justice in the Jewish state is deemed a crime, civil society is considered treacherous, true democracy an evil. In a Jewish state – dreamed of not only by the right wing but also by the supposed center-left, including Tzipi Livni and Lapid – democracy is blurred.
It’s not the skinheads that are the Jewish state’s main problem, it’s the sanctimonious eye-rollers, the thugs, the extreme right wing and the settlers. It’s not the margins but the mainstream, which is partly very nationalistic and partly indifferent.
In the Jewish state, there is no remnant of the biblical injunction to treat the minority or the stranger with justice. There are no more Jews left who marched with Martin Luther King or who sat in jail with Nelson Mandela. The Jewish state, which Israel insists the Palestinians recognize, must first recognize itself. At the end of the day, at the end of a terrible week, it seems that a Jewish state means a racist, nationalistic state, meant for Jews only.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/demands-of-a-thief-1.233907
Demands of a thief
The question of whether ending the occupation would threaten or strengthen Israel's security is irrelevant. There are not, and cannot be, any preconditions for restoring justice.
By Gideon Levy - Nov. 25, 2007
...Israel is not being asked "to give" anything to the Palestinians; it is only being asked to return - to return their stolen land and restore their trampled self-respect, along with their fundamental human rights and humanity.
...Just as a thief cannot present demands - neither preconditions nor any other terms - to the owner of the property he has robbed, Israel cannot present demands to the other side as long as the situation remains as it is.
Security? We must defend ourselves by defensive means. Those who do not believe that the only security we will enjoy will come from ending the occupation and from peace can entrench themselves in the army, and behind walls and fences. But we have no right to do what we are doing: Just as no one would conceive of killing the residents of an entire neighborhood, to harass and incarcerate it because of a few criminals living there, there is no justification for abusing an entire people in the name of our security. The question of whether ending the occupation would threaten or strengthen Israel's security is irrelevant. There are not, and cannot be, any preconditions for restoring justice.
Yosi, is Gideon levy an anti-Semite?
He also says that Israel has no desire for peace, and simply wants to keep expanding the settlements in accordance with it's Zionist ideology. Just what I said.
But I'm an anti-Semite, and he isn't? Is this because...?
That's very different than what you have said, which is that the very notion of Jewish self-determination is racist.
http://jcpa.org/text/resolution242-lapidoth.pdf
Suffice it to say that the Resolution does not actually say what you claim that it says.
And here's the wikipedia bio for the author, just so we can dispense with the notion that she doesn't know what she's talking about.
Professor Ruth Lapidoth is a Senior Researcher at the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies and Professor Emeritus of International Law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She is a recipient of the 2006 Israel Prize in Legal Studies and of the 2000 Prominent Woman in International Law Award from the WILIG group of the American Society of International Law.
Lapidoth formerly served as a Legal Advisor to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has been a guest lecturer and researcher in several leading academic institutions, including Oxford University, Georgetown University and the American Institute for Peace, and is the author of nine books and more than ninety articles dealing with international law, human rights, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and Jerusalem.
Then in the next breath he states that the Palestinians themselves are responsible for their occupation, and for the theft of their land.
And then he produces a convoluted 15 page article by an Israeli professor which attempts to reinterpret the meaning of U.N Resolution 242, and of international law itself. For example, she pretends that the preamble to the resolution which points out "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war”, is "lawful if it is the result of an act of self-defense". Unfortunately for her, even if Israel's attack on Egypt and Syria in 1967 could conceivably be classed as 'self-defense' in her, and Yosi's topsy-turvy World, Israel's acquisition of Palestinian territory would still be illegal.
Finkelstein - knowing Too Much
[Regardless], Prior to as well as immediately after the June 1967 war leading authorities in international law rejected the proposition that a state can aquire legal title to territory in a war of self-defence:
Ian Brownlie (1963) - "lawful belligerants should not be permitted to act ultra vires [i.e, beyond their power] by acquiring territory as a result of a lawful war"
R.Y Jennings (1963) - "the suggestion that the state that does not resort to force unlawfully, e.g., resorts to war in self-defence, may still aquire a title by conquest...is to be regarded with some suspicion. It seems to be based upon a curious assumption that provided a war is lawful in origin, it goes on being lawful to whatever lengths it may afterwards be pursued...Force used in self-defence...is undoubtedly lawful. But it must be proportionate to the threat of immediate danger, and when the threat has been averted the plea of self-defence can no longer be available...It would be a curious law of self-defence that permitted the defender in the course of his defence to seize and keep the resources and territory of the attacker".
D.W Bowett (1971) - "there is virtually universal acceptance of the principle...that states cannot acquire territory by resort to force...It is impossible to conceive self-defence as justifying the acquisition of title to territory. One can conceive of self-defence justifying the temporary occupation of territory but never the permanent acquisition of title and there is no system or principle of law which conceives of such a thing."
These conclusions have been reiterated in recent scholarly studies. Sharon Korman finds that the U.N Charter, as well as the league of Nations Covenant before it, "prohibit all acquisitions of territory by force, irrespective of the lawfulness of the cause of war," while John Dugard finds that " the United Nations expressly refuses to accept the argument that territory may be acquired as a result of action taken in lawful self-defence," and that "larger majorities in the General Assembly in support of this principle [prohibiting acquisition of territory by means of the lawful use of force] and the failure of any major power to veto it in the Security Council must surely provide prima facie evidence that this principle is part of the International public order, and, by implication, a peremptory norm."
She then goes on to try and alter the meaning of international law herself, and in quoting Professor George Shultz in her concluding paragraph, makes the utterly absurd claim that, at least as far as the Middle East is concerned, we should do away with the very notion of borders, and of nation states altogether:
Prof. George Shultz,
'Today, the meaning of borders is changing, and so is the notion of sovereignty....In these [i.e., the Middle East] territories a vision is needed that transcends the boundaries of traditional nation-states and addresses the clear requirements for the parties’ security, political voice, economic opportunity and community life on an equal basis.
...The juxtaposition of territory for peace need not be a matter of where to draw lines, but how to divide responsibilities.'
If ever a more arrogant, self-serving analysis of international has been written, then I'm yet to see it.
It may be concluded from the above survey that Resolution 242 requires the parties to negotiate in good faith in order to reach agreement on the basis of a withdrawal of Israeli forces, the establishment by agreement of secure and recognized boundaries, the termination of any state of belligerency, and the recognition by all parties of each other’s independence and sovereignty."
However:
"...implicit in Israel’s occupation policy, [is] that if no peace agreement is reached, the ‘default setting’ of UN Security Council Resolution 242 is the indefinite continuation of Israel’s occupation. If this reading were true, the resolution would actually be inviting an occupying power that wishes to retain its adversary’s territory to do so simply by means of avoiding peace talks – which is exactly what Israel has been doing. In fact, the introductory statement to Resolution 242 declares that territory cannot be acquired by war, implying that if the parties cannot reach agreement, the occupier must withdraw to the status quo ante: that, logically, is 242’s default setting. Had there been a sincere intention on Israel’s part to withdraw from the territories, surely forty years should have been more than enough time in which to reach an agreement."
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n16/henry-siegman/the-great-middle-east-peace-process-scam
I love how you accuse others of arrogance and then proceed to dictate to me what Zionism means. As I've said many times before, Zionism does not have a single monolithic meaning, and while some may share your interpretation of it, Zionism need not manifest itself in the manner that you describe. It certainly doesn't for me. But then maybe you'd like to educate me about the content of my own beliefs? I'm sure you're the greater expert in that area.
Prof. Ruth Lapidoth : "As an act of self-defense, this military occupation was and continues to be legitimate, until a peace settlement can be reached and permanent borders defined and agreed upon."
Unfortunately, the historical record doesn't concur with her lies.
Firstly, lack of agreement does not entitle the occupier to maintain the occupation, especially when the occupier has done everything in it's power to prevent any agreement.
Secondly, even if the 1967 war was fought as a war of self-defence, it would still be illegal to acquire the territory it seized during that war, as I demonstrated above.
And lastly, it wasn't a war of self-defence, it was a war of aggression.
'Prime Minister Menachem Begin, in a speech delivered at the Israeli National Defense College, clearly stated that: "The Egyptian army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him" (Jerusalem Post, 20 August 1982).
A few months after the war, Yitzhak Rabin remarked: "I do not think Nasser wanted war. The two divisions he sent to the Sinai on 14 May would not have been sufficient to launch an offensive against Israel. He knew it and we knew it" (Le Monde, 29 February 1968).
'General Matityahu Peled, one of the architects of the Israeli conquest, committed what the Israeli public considered blasphemy when he admitted the true thinking of the Israeli leadership: "The thesis that the danger of genocide was hanging over us in June 1967 and that Israel was fighting for its physical existence is only bluff, which was born and developed after the war" (Ha'aretz, 1975)
March 1972). Israeli Air Force General Ezer Weizmann declared bluntly that "there was never any danger of extermination" (Ma'ariv, 19 April 1972). Mordechai Bentov, a former Israeli cabinet minister, also dismissed the myth of Israel's imminent annihilation: "All this story about the danger of extermination has been a complete invention and has been blown up a posteriori to justify the annexation of new Arab territories" (Al Hamishmar, 14 April 1972).
After the 1967 war Israel, claimed it invaded because of imminent Arab attack. It claimed that Nasser's closing of the Straits of Tiran constituted an act of war. It also cited Syrian shelling on the demilitarized zone of the Syrian-Israeli border. The claim that the Arabs were going to invade appears particularly ludicrous when one recalls that a third of Egypt's army was in Yemen and therefore quite unprepared to launch a war. On the Syrian front, Israel was engaging in threats and provocations that evidenced many similarities to its behavior in the lead up to the Gaza raid of 1955.
The demilitarized zone on the Syrian-Israeli border was established by agreement on 20 July 1949. Israeli provocations were incessant and enabled Israel to increase and extend its sovereignty by encroachment over the entire Arab area. According to one UN Chief of Staff, Arab villagers were evicted and their homes destroyed (E.L.M. Burns, Between Arab and Israeli, Ivan Obolensky, 1962, pp. 113-114).
Another Chief of Staff described how the Israelis ploughed up Arab land and "advanced the 'frontier' to their own advantage" (Carl von Horn, Soldiering for Peace, Cassell, 1966, p. 79). Israel attempted to evict the Arabs living on the Golan and annex the demilitarized zone. When the Syrians inevitably responded, Israel claimed that "peaceful" Israeli farmers were being shelled by the Syrians. Unmentioned was the fact that the "farmers" were armed and using tractors and farm equipment to encroach on the demilitarized zone (David Hirst, The Gun and the Olive Branch: the Roots of Violence in the Middle East, Faber and Faber, 1984, pp. 213-15). This was part of a "premeditated Israeli policy [..] to get all the Arabs out of the way by fair means or foul."
Shortly after the Syrian response on 7 April 1967, the Israeli Air Force attacked Syria, shooting down six planes, hitting thirty fortified positions and killing about 100 people (Hirst, op. cit., p. 214). It was unlikely that any Syrian guns would have been fired if not for Israel's provocation. Israel's need for water also played a role in the 1967 attack. The invasion completed Israel's encirclement of the headwaters of the Upper Jordan River, its capture of the West Bank and the two aquifers arising there, which currently supply all the groundwater for northern and central Israel.'
No hypocrisy there then.
Finkelstein - Knowing Too Much
P. 170: 'U.S appraisals of Nasser's Intentions on eve of 1967 war'
Major General Meir Amit, head of the Mossad, told senior American officials on 1st June that "there were no differences between the U.S and the Israeli's on the military intelligence picture or it's interpretation". "The Egyptian build-up in Sinai lacked a clear offensive plan," Israeli scholar Avraham Sela reports, "and Nasser's defensive instructions explicitly assumed an Israeli first-strike."
25th May - CIA Appraisal: 'In our view, UAR [Egyptian] military dispositions in Sinai are defensive in character...The steps taken thus far by [other] Arab armies do not prove that the Arabs intend an all-out attack on Israel....In sum, we believe these are merely gestures in the interests of the fiction of Arab unity, but have little military utility in a conflict with Israel.'
26th May - General Earle Wheeler, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff: 'The UAR's dispositions are defensive and do not look as if they are preparatory to an invasiob of Israel...'There was no indication that the Egyptians would attack. If the UAR moved, it would give up it's defensive positions in the Sinai for little advantage.'
26th May - CIA's Board of National Estimates: 'Clearly Nasser has won the first round. It is possible that [Nasser] may seek a military show-down with Israel, designed to settle the whole problem once and for all. This seems to us highly unlikely...The most likely course seems to be for Nasser to hold to his present winnings as long as he can, and in as full measure as he can.'