Jewish Settler Attacks = Terrorism

yosi said:

http://jcpa.org/text/resolution242-lapidoth.pdf
Suffice it to say that the Resolution does not actually say what you claim that it says.

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.

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.

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.'

yosi said:

I just object on principle to blatant misrepresentations regarding legal norms.

Yet you just posted an article containing many blatant misrepresentations regarding legal norms.

No hypocrisy there then.

yosi said:

This is unbelievably rich. In the same sentence you exalt international law and denigrate me for "slippery lawyers bullshit." Who do you think is responsible for developing international law? The analysis in the article I gave is, in my professional opinion (and here we're talking about my actual profession) a very thorough, reasonable, and I think convincing legal analysis. I'm sorry that it deprives you of a talking point. Deal with it.

'Deal with it'?

What's the matter Yosi? Feeling a little uptight?

For the record, I don't give a flying fuck about the fact that you've studied law. Tony Blair also studied law. Does that make all of his lies suddenly become truth?
I think sometimes your arrogance blinds you to reality. I suggest you try climbing down from that mantle you've concocted for yourself.

yosi said:

It's incredible to me that you accuse others of arrogance and yet you presume to know more about international law than a highly regarded professor in the field. Really, you're just an astounding piece of work.

Except I didn't say that I know more about international law than this 'highly regarded' professor of yours. I simply focused on the particular article you've pounced on in your ongoing desperation to paint Israel's crimes in a positive light, and exposed a handful of it's falsehoods.
And I don't need to go through every sentence in that article and deconstruct it with a fine-toothed comb. I've already demonstrated that the article is a piece of dishonest, self-serving trash.