Comments on: Update: Kfar Etzion, Ma’aleh Adumim and the Law

By: Who By Fire

Who By Fire — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 13:39:07 +0000

[...] I’ve mentioned that I had a fire in my apartment on Rosh Hashanah. My new column in Moment Magazine tries to make [...]

By: Yisrael Medad

Yisrael Medad — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 19:43:16 +0000

Explain how Meron’s opinion is better/overrides that of Prof. Blum even not its merits but simply the bureacratic rational of them both?

By: fiddler

fiddler — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 16:06:59 +0000

YBD, you’re right, the Oslo accords don’t deal with the settlements. So? Here’s Arafat’s letter to Rabin, of September 9, 1993:
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Peace/recogn.html
So he explicitly recognized Israel and renounced the contrary articles in the Palestinian Covenant.
How you glean from the absence of a statement about the settlements a recognition of their legality is beyond me.
Here’s a proposition: break into someone’s house and steal something. Get caught. In court, make your defense strategy that, since the house owner hadn’t explicitly prohibited your burglary, the ownership of the stolen goods will be determined “politically”, that is, you’ll keep them (until the cops bust your door and take them away). If your attorney doesn’t tell you you’re nuts, the judge will.

Now that Olmert is on the way out, he can very conveniently promise the Palestinians the moon. Even if he’s sincere, he won’t have to make good on it.

I’m afraid you’re right to be skeptical about the govt following a possible court decision against the settlements. House demolition orders are almost always enforced against Palestinians, rarely against Jewish Israelis. The army’s practice of taking Palestinian human shields continued after the 2002 injunction and the 2005 ban by the Supreme Court. When it relates to Palestinians, everything’s “political”; who needs such quaint concepts as the rule of law.

By: Y. Ben-David

Y. Ben-David — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 05:47:40 +0000

Thank you for bringing up the Oslo Agreements. Fiddler-The Oslo Agreement barely mention the settlements. The Palestinians did not insert a clause saying the are “illegal”, the agreements imply their future will be determined politically.
So we can say that the PLO recognized their legality, just as you say they did regarding the territories Israel occupied in 1948.

Why hasn’t the Supreme Court not been asked about the settlements “legality”? Doesn’t Shalom Achshav and various other organizations do things like that?
What if the Court were to rule they are all “illegal”? Do you think the gov’t would suddenly order the residents out? Why hasn’t the UN Security Council passed a resolution that the settlements are illegal? I know what you will answer “because the US will veto such a resolution”. So , again, it comes down to a political question. Working one’s self into a “righteous fury” over the supposed “illegality” of the settlements is simply a waste of energy. Olmert has already said he would withdraw to the pre-67 lines. So to him, the legality or illegality of the settlements is irrelevant. If using the matter is rather a form of political propaganda, meant to turn Israeli public opinion against the settlements, then it opens up the whole question of 1948 and the “legality” of the presence of Israel in the territories occupied then. Don’t forget, although you claim that the PLO “recognized” the 1948 borders, they also insist to this day on the Palestinian “right of return” which means they do NOT recognize Israel’s sovereign rights within those borders because they claim to have the right to force Israel to accept the refugees against its own sovereign will.

By: JUMP

JUMP — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 01:32:17 +0000

fiddler, the difference is not the PLO, but Israel itself: the territories conquered in the 1948 War were annexed by Israel, with (remaining) Arab inhabitants given (nominally equal) rights as citizens (eventual), and the borders were recognized by every country in the world except Iraq. Meanwhile, the territories occupied in 1967 aren’t Israel according to any government (Israeli, American, or otherwise) in the world, making Israelis moving their colonists – whose presence destabilizes the whole region (arguably, the world) and forces the Israeli army to continue to occupy Israel to defend them…and thus, bad.

By: fiddler

fiddler — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 18:22:32 +0000

YBD: “Also Jews have privately bought land, and also owned land in Judea/Samaria before 1948. So what’s the problem with building settlements on those locations?”

If you are prepared to let Palestinians build settlements everywhere they owned land before 1948 (including, needless to say, in Israel proper), then go ahead, and more power to you. Goose, gander.

The Supreme Court hasn’t ruled on all the settlements because is has never been asked to.

The prohibition on moving one’s civilian population into an occupied area is entirely independent of ownership of the land. It’s self-evident that everyone in living their life makes abundant use of land they do not personally own, if it’s only crossing the public road to go for groceries. The relevance for the OPT is just as self-evident, especially at this time of the year, when some thugs among the settlers will once again try to prevent their neighbours from bringing in the harvest.

You do have a point about the robbing of those who fled or were expelled from the land captured in 1948. (It wasn’t “just” the land, their movable property, even their bank accounts were robbed, too – there is no other term than “armed robbery” for this.) The difference is not that those were “good” settlers, as opposed to today’s “bad” ones – the difference is that the PLO in 1989 and again in 1993 recognized Israel.

By: Y. Ben-David

Y. Ben-David — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 05:33:12 +0000

I don’t have the legal background to argue the points you have. You claim that Rostow (whom you seem to claim is a bigot and racist because he disagrees with you) is a “tiny, minority opinion”. However, as I understand it, when President Carter said “settlements are illegal”, the international law division of the State Department said that is not so. Is this correct?
You state that the Geneva Convention prohibits expropriation of land. How does this make the settlments illegal if they were NOT built on exprorpiated land but state land, which is the case with most, as I understand it? Also Jews have privately bought land, and also owned land in Judea/Samaria before 1948. So what’s the problem with building settlements on those locations?
Politically, the large majority of the Supreme Court is on the Left and politically agrees with you. So why haven’t they ruled that all the settlements are illegal, if the case is so clear as you make it?

In any event, according to your logic and precedents, much of pre-1967 Israel is full of “illegal settlements” because it was captured in a war outside the boundaries of the UN Partition Plan of 1947 and the Arab owners fled, but did not give up their claims of ownership. Or is that “different” because MERETZ-affiliated Kibbutzim grabbed that land, and since they don’t wear kippot, they are entitled to it, unlike the settlers in Judea/Samaria whom you don’t take a liking to?