Analysis: US Rejection of Term ‘Occupied Territories’ Brings Peace Closer
Analysis: US Rejection of Term ‘Occupied Territories’ Brings Peace Closer
https://worldisraelnews.com/analysis-state-depts-rejection-of-term-occupied-territories-could-bring-peace-closer/
The State Department’s omission of the word ‘occupied’ when referring to the territory of Judea and Samaria may ultimately facilitate a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
New neighborhood in Efrat, an established city in Judea. (Gershon Elinson/Flash90)
By: Daniel Krygier, World Israel News，April 26 2018 (Op/Ed, but containing indisputable facts)
A US State Department report recently dropped the word ”occupied” in reference to Judea and Samaria for the first time since 1979. In isolation, this move may seem insignificant, but it may also indicate a new US Middle East policy in the making that could facilitate a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Ever since the Arab countries failed to destroy Israel during the Six-Day War in 1967, the international community has increasingly framed the conflict as an “Israeli occupation of Palestine.” However, the international term “Occupied Palestinian Territories” is political and not rooted in international law or documented history. “Palestine” is the Roman name for occupied Judea, and no “Palestinian” Arab state has ever existed in the Land of Israel.
In his monumental work “The Legal Foundation and Borders of Israel under International Law,” late scholar Howard Grief argued that the legal title of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel was recognized by the international community at the San Remo Peace Conference in 1920.
Judea is not French Algeria
The implications of this recognition are that Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria are legal under international law even if regularly condemned by the politicized United Nations and the European Union. Unlike formerly French-occupied Algeria, Judea and Samaria constitute the ancestral heartland of Israel. Israel won the territories in a defensive war after being attacked by Arab forces. Since “Palestine” is fiction, Judea and Samaria should legally be defined as disputed rather than “occupied” territories. This means that Israel has legal rights in Judea and Samaria that the French colonialists in Algeria or Vietnam did not have.
This does not mean that Israel will annex the entire disputed territories anytime soon. It is not in the Jewish state’s interest to add another 2 million Arabs to its population. However, parts of Jewish-populated areas of Judea and Samaria could eventually be annexed by Israel in a future Arab-Israeli peace deal. This is consistent with the spirit of the key UN resolution 242, which envisions that Israel will retain some of the disputed territories.
Core of the Arab-Israel conflict
This brings us back to the State Department report’s omission of the word “occupied” when referring to Judea and Samaria. This is important because the core of the Arab-Israel conflict was never about “occupation,” but a deeply entrenched Muslim Arab opposition to a reborn Jewish state within any borders. It is the Arabs, not the Jews, who have systematically rejected a two-state solution since it was first suggested by the British Peel Commission in 1937.
Israel is not an “occupier.” Nor was it established as a “haven for refugees from the Holocaust,” as recently claimed by Hollywood actress Natalie Portman . Israel’s final borders are yet to be defined. However, what is beyond any doubt is the fact that modern Israel is the historical and legal realization of the Jewish people’s return to its ancestral homeland. The path to genuine peace requires a recognition of this fundamental truth.
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It's important to comprehend legal reality, rather than rely on Palestinian and Arab propaganda and the misconceptions created thereby, in order to intelligently comment on this article.
Link to the original please?
no, but i did find this
Oh, I thought you meant the link to the article about International Law.
When I post the author, the source and the date of a seeded article, and post the exact original text, I don't feel that a link should be necessary, unless someone thinks I "doctor" the seeds I post. The title, author, source and date should be enough for anyone to find the original as easily as you did.
The only problem with that is it’s a requirement in the COC.
“Content from other sources (i.e. quotes, seeds) should have the URL cited along with the content.”
You are correct and I believe it is mainly a copyright issue.
But primarily I was interested in following the link to other current stories - such as the flash floods that brought down some of the security walls,
and the number of Israeli's tragically drowned in those same flash floods.
Things one normally doesn't see about Israel.
So is it skirting or a straight up COC violation?
For further information about the deaths of the students due to the floods, two staff members of the military academy who ignored the flood warnings and sent the students (some of whom were concerned for their safety in the circumstances) to a flood-prone area have been arrested for negligent homicide.
https://worldisraelnews.com/2-arrested-following-death-of-10-teens-hit-by-flash-floods-on-school-trip/?utm_source=MadMimi&utm_medium=email&utm_content
Buzz's pro-Israel articles seem to be getting more and more extreme as the Trump administration emboldens the right wingers in Israel to claim whatever eventual outcome in the disputed areas they can happily imagine.
The truth will make you free. Denial is a dead end. Reliance on Palestinian/Arab propaganda is an expected response these days.
Typical response from John. The sun rises in the east! John's response? Well, Trump is ________. People in Israel have been claiming this truth since well before I was born, has nothing to do with the current president of the United States, President Trump (I like saying that because it upsets some) or the last one for that matter.........
Analysis: US Rejection of Term ‘Occupied Territories’ Brings Peace Closer
What this article describes as "brings peace closer" is really Israel claiming complete and total "victory" over the Palestinian assertions.
Funny how Arabs whine over this territory when they could have had a Palestinian state decades ago, but instead chose to go to war.
They lost but still want the original deal NOW?
Fat chance!
And that claim is valid, if you follow the trail of mandates, agreements, and other historical facts leading to the fact that Israel OWNS those lands, but at this point will not annex them or the two million Muslims/Arabs will, because of REAL DEMOCRACY in Israel, soon create a Muslim theocracy that will negate the fact that Israel was, is, and ALWAYS WILL BE a Jewish homeland. I think Bob Nelson has outlined that well, and I guess he needs to yet again publish his well-studied and factual 4-part history of the area in order to convince deniers of reality. If anyone is OCCUPYING those lands, it's the Muslims/Arabs, which is one of the reasons why Israel has always called them the "DISPUTED" territories.
In my opinion, Israel gave up the right to a HISTORICAL claim to the west bank when they agreed to the partition plan that would have given the west bank to the Palestinians in 1947.
Of course they won back the land in a war, but that is not the same as an "ancient " claim.
Why are they saying now that "Judea and Samaria" are so important? Because they are setting the stage for a one state solution.
What I think will eventually happen is that Judea and Samaria will end up being carved up to allow for most of the Israeli settlements to fall into the Israeli side of what will become an agreed-to border between those areas of Judea and Samaria and the greatly populated by Palestinians area of the West Bank. It will still be a 2-State solution, which will still leave the great majority of Palestinians with their own State of Palestine. That is, of course, if the Arabs give up their claim on ALL of Israel (due to Koranic decree, any lands that once belonged to Muslims will ALWAYS belong to Muslims, and the Ottoman Empire did at one time take in all of Palestine, did it not?)
I agree. Land in the south might be given in compensation.
It's not easy to define "defensible borders" in such a small space.
Only problem is that IMO peace will never happen - between the incorrigible Hamas (and who knows, Hamas might take over the West Bank) and the fact that any leader in the West Bank knows they will be assassinated if they make peace with Israel, the only thing that can possibly unify all of Israel and bring peace to the area is an all-out war between Israel and all belligerent entities with total victory going to Israel, or the USA supporting the Palestinians instead of Israel.
I agree that there's no apparent short-term path to two states. That's why I think the best way forward is "one and a half states". Israel should give internal autonomy to Judea and Samaria, under the PA, while keeping foreign affairs, defense, and perhaps justice, for as long as it takes for the PA to demonstrate that it is a credible negotiating partner.
Israel should publicize the conditions for full independence. That way, everyone would know exactly how things stand, and how things must advance.
There's nothing "extreme" here, John.
The term "occupied territories", applied to Judea and Samaria, is an abuse of language. It implies that the area "belongs" to a different power. It doesn't and never has.
The Kingdom of Jordan was the previous sovereign of the area, having seized it by military action in the 1947-48 war. Then in 1967, Jordan had the very bad idea of joining Nasser's Egypt and Assad's Syria in a war against Israel, which occupied the region. Jordan abandoned its naked-force "title" to the area when it signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1996.
That is to say that under international law, Israel is now the "rightful sovereign" over Judea and Samaria. Israel could annex the area if it so desired, but as the seed says, the Jewish state would be foolish to suddenly integrate two million Muslims. So Israel continues to hang onto the region, because there is no trustworthy Muslim authority to whom it could be transferred.
In the original plan to partition the land into a Jewish state and a Palestinian state, prior to or at the time of the establishment of the state of Israel, which group was going to occupy the area known as "the West Bank"?
The original plan declined by the Palestinians and almost the whole Arab world?
If I understand the seeded article, it is saying that the Palestinians have no rightful claim to West Bank land, and are there only because of the beneficence of the Israeli government.
Yet, the original plan for partitioning 'Palestine' into a Jewish state and a Palestinian state had Palestinians living in the west bank area.
How can it be historically Jewish land when the historic plan to create these two nation states shows the west bank assigned to the Palestinians?
That doesn't make the west bank historically Jewish land.
The plan which the United Nations created made the west bank Arab (Palestinian) land.
What do the names Judea and Samaria have to do with that?
Then they should have TAKEN the DEAL back in the 1940's instead of attacking Israel?
Do you honestly expect Israel to live up to some agreement made in 1947 that THEY agreed to, only to be refused by Arabs and then they attacked Israel?
Israel can make any claim they want.
In order to have a two state solution, the second state needs to have enough land to hold and support it's population.
Israel is increasingly less interested in the two state solution so we see articles intended to remove any Palestinian claim on the land of the West Bank.
The United Nations intended a two state solution in 1947, that is why the west bank was apportioned to the Arabs (Palestinians) at that time. If a two state solution is still to be the goal, what is the sense of Israel claiming that according to "ancient" considerations, the land is theirs?
Then the Arabs SHOULD HAVE TAKEN THE DEAL INSTEAD OF ATTACKING ISRAEL.
They CHOSE NOT to.
And you think the SAME deal is now available to them without ANY repercussions for their decades old hatred and attacks on Israel?
That's precious!
At some point a set amount of land has to belong to the Palestinians or there is no two state solution.
Israel's claim to all of the west bank is simply meant to undermine the possibility of a two state solution.
The UN partition plan is a dead letter. It was refused by the Arab states. (The "Palestinian people" was not yet a recognizable group, and was not consulted. So it was never anything more than a "plan".. among many...
No one is saying that the Palestinian people do not have a moral claim on the region. OTOH, they have no legal claim. Israel would like nothing better than to be rid of the problem, but they can hardly be expected to hand over power to declared enemies. They did that in Gaza, and we see the result.
Israel does not want Judea and Samaria. That's two million Muslims. Their arrival would completely overturn the Jewish nature of Israel.
The hardliners in Israel certainly want that land. They also want other Arab states to absorb those two million people outside of Israel.
John,
What do you mean by "original plan"?
The original 1920s Palestinian Mandate, from the League of Nations to Great Britain, included what is now Jordan. So in one manner of observing the situation, there has already been a partition, with Muslim Jordan getting three-quarters of everything.
This is part of the problem: when was the start of the current mess? In a land that where Jews had lived for thousands of years before Muhammad came along, "anteriority" is a very tricky subject! I'm not sure it's helpful.
That makes no sense.
Do you imagine for a single second that there are serious proposals to expulse two million Palestinians?
The 1947 UN plan shows the west bank being part of the "Arab state".
You say that the 2 million Palestinians will not be welcome to become full fledged citizens of Israel, yet Israel claims the land they now live on. What is supposed to happen to these 2 million people from the Israeli point of view other than having them absorbed by other Arab countries?
Even Abbas admitted the Arabs and Palestinians made a big mistake in NOT accepting the UN Partition Plan. That fact seems to be beyond a denier in these comments.
BINGO!!! The Jordan Option:
Notwithstanding the Partition Plan, and even the Oslo Accords, THE BORDERS WERE NEVER SPECIFIED - THEY WERE TO BE NEGOTIATED. IN MY OPINION, THAT'S NOT A DONE DEAL.
No. Very definitely no.
Israel cannot claim that territory unless they also take the people who live there, and that would transform the Jewish state.
You must understand that there is no legal "border". There's a seventy-year-old cease-fire line (going back to the 1947-48 war. When, someday, there's a formal treaty to establish a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria, a legal boundary will have to be drawn. Israel will surely keep the towns it has created, but there could be compensatory adjustments elsewhere.
Not incidentally, Jordan was careful NOT to get involved in the border question, when they signed a treaty with Israel in 96. They repeated that the border would have to be part of an Israel / Palestine treaty.
Of course they made a huge mistake. But keep in mind that that fact only became clear after the Arabs lost a few wars against Israel. When the Arab states (the common people were not consulted by Nasser, Assad and King Abdullah of Transjordan, of course) refused partition in favor of invasion, they intended to eliminate the state of Israel.
History isn't a game. There are no "do-overs".
Nobody gave a shit about the almost one million Jews who were forced out of various Arab lands at the time of Partition and later - no UNRWA was created for them, but they were absorbed by other countries and mostly by Israel with no help whatsoever. What's so fucking special about Palestinians?
It's even more atrocious than what you recount, Buzz.
Those Jewish refugees were almost all Sephardi, from North Africa where they had fled after their expulsion from Spain in 1492. (That date must ring differently in Jewish ears...
) Most Jews in Israel were Ashkenazi, of Eastern European origin. Two populations with very different cultures and speech, but the refugees were welcomed and within a very few years, integrated.
Meanwhile, the Muslim refugees (roughly equivalent in number) were in no way distinguishable from the areas to which they fled: same religion, same culture, same dialect of Arabic, ... But the Muslim refugees were not welcomed by their Arab "brothers". The Muslim refugees' "brothers" put them in barbed-wire-enclosed camps... and have kept them there for seventy years.
The Muslim refugees from Israel were indeed mistreated... but not by Israel. Their Arab "brothers" did the deed.
Occupied or liberated?
You know where I stand.
I hope the former Jordanian and former Egyptian citizens who occupy the West Bank and Gaza get a land for their own.
They will not succeed in this through any means other than renouncing violence, electing a government whose sole goal is to attend to their welfare.
To make this happen, fully recognize the State of Israel as a legitimate Jewish State whose capitol is the undivided city of Jerusalem.
Keep the border safe on all sides.
Engage in full diplomatic, economic, cultural and every other manner with Israel.
Since the reconstruction and development of the modern state of Israel the Land of Milk and Honey has reached out to its neighbors in search of mutual peace and prosperity.
This only works if things are multi lateral.
Peace and Abundant Blessings to All.
Enoch.
Good news!