Jan 3 2012

No, Harriet, Jews living across the green line are not in violation of international law


The Guardian refrain that Jewish communities across the green line (including in “East” Jerusalem) represent a clear violation of international law is repeated so many times that even those who don’t possess antipathy towards Israel could be forgiven for uncritically accepting this as fact.

Indeed, Sherwood’s latest piece, “Israel and Palestinian negotiators meet for first time in a year“, Jan. 2, contains this characteristic throw away line about the “settlements”:

The Palestinians argue that there can be no meaningful talks while Israel continues expanding its settlements in the West Bank, which are illegal under international law.

Of course, Sherwood, as with the countless other Guardian reports alleging the “illegality” of such settlements, doesn’t bother citing a source for such an international adjudication, as no such determination has ever been reached or definitively codified.

What Palestinians, and their advocates at the Guardian, are likely referring to is the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention, the first international agreement designed specifically to protect civilians during wartime.

They specifically charge that the settlements violate Article 49(6), which states: “The occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into territories it occupies.”

To settlement opponents, the word “transfer” in Article 49(6) connotes that any transfer of the occupying power’s civilian population, voluntary or involuntary, is prohibited.

However, the first paragraph of Article 49 reads: “Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive.”

Unquestionably, any forcible transfer of populations is illegal.

But what about voluntary movements?

According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, Article 49 relates to situations where populations are coerced into being transferred. There is nothing to link such circumstances to Israel’s settlement policy.

Historically, over 40 million people were subjected to forced migration, evacuation, displacement, and expulsion, including 15 million Germans, 5 million Soviet citizens, and millions of Poles, Ukrainians and Hungarians.  The vast numbers of people affected and the aims behind such population transfers have no relation to Israeli policy.

International lawyer Prof. Eugene V. Rostow, a former dean of Yale Law School and U.S. Undersecretary of State, stated in 1990:

[T]he Convention prohibits many of the inhumane practices of the Nazis and the Soviet Union during and before the Second World War – the mass transfer of people into and out of occupied territories for purposes of extermination, slave labor or colonization, for example….The Jewish settlers in the West Bank are most emphatically volunteers. They have not been “deported” or “transferred” to the area by the Government of Israel, and their movement involves none of the atrocious purposes or harmful effects on the existing population it is the goal of the Geneva Convention to prevent.

Ambassador Morris Abram, a member of the U.S. staff at the Nuremberg Tribunal who was later involved in the drafting of the Fourth Geneva Convention, is on record as stating that the convention:

…was not designed to cover situations like Israeli settlements in the occupied territories, but rather the forcible transfer, deportation or resettlement of large numbers of people.

Similarly, international lawyer Prof. Julius Stone, in referring to the absurdity of considering Israeli settlements as a violation of Article 49(6), stated:

Irony would…be pushed to the absurdity of claiming that Article 49(6), designed to prevent repetition of Nazi-type genocidal policies of rendering Nazi metropolitan territories judenrein, has now come to mean that…the West Bank…must be made judenrein and must be so maintained, if necessary by the use of force by the government of Israel against its own inhabitants. Common sense as well as correct historical and functional context excludes so tyrannical a reading of Article 49(6.)

Jews have lived in Judea and Samaria—the West Bank—since ancient times. The only time Jews have been prohibited from living in the territories in recent decades was during Jordan’s rule from 1948 to 1967.

So, characterizing any Jewish presence across the green line as illegal would seem to ipso facto endorse Jordan’s illegal ethnic cleansing of Jewish communities from these lands following the armistice agreement of 1949. 

As David M. Phillips noted:

Concluding that Israeli settlements violate Article 49(6) also overlooks the Jewish communities that existed before the creation of the state in areas occupied by today’s Israeli settlements, for example, in Hebron and the Etzion block outside Jerusalem. These Jewish communities were destroyed by Arab armies, militias, and rioters, and, as in the case of Hebron, the community’s population was slaughtered. Is it sensible to interpret Article 49 to bar the reconstitution of Jewish communities that were destroyed through aggression and slaughter? If so, the international law of occupation runs the risk of freezing one occupier’s conduct in place, no matter how unlawful.

While reasonable people can of course disagree with Israeli settlement policy – in the context of efforts to one day reach a final status agreement with the Palestinians – lazily asserting that such settlements are “illegal” has, at best, a questionable basis in international law, and certainly no basis in morality.

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341 comments on “No, Harriet, Jews living across the green line are not in violation of international law”

  2. This is just apologism for Jews-only settlements in the West Bank.

    Jews living across the green line are not in violation of international law

    So Jews born in the US have the right to move to the West Bank.
    Whereas Palestinian Arabs born in what is now Israel have no right to move back there?

    • Oh shut up, you fat moron Pretzelberg. Everything that comes out of your obese mouth is the kind of crap that your appearance indicates you’re regularly putting into it.

      Your asinine comments are one of the few constants here, and are so blatantly dishonest and racist regarding Israel that no one has any reaction but pitying laughter–which from what i’ve heard from those who know you, kinder than the scorn with which they regard your bigoted idiocy.
      Get a life

      • On what grounds do you call me “obese” “bigoted” and “racist”? If you have a shred of decency in you, then you’ll retract those juvenile baseless claims.

        And who the hell are you anyway? I’ve never seen your name before.

        which from what i’ve heard from those who know you

        Bizarre! Who exactly would these people be who know me?

          • We need to take a step back from this war of words and think about 1 simple and obvious fact: Why are these people here who obsessively criticize Israel and ostensibly are so concerned abou the “human rights” of Palestinians? Never mind that not 1 of the region’s Islamic theocracies demonstrates even one iota of respecting human rights for any Jews when they lived there, and in fact continue to show callous disregard for the rights of their own citizens daily.

            So while Syria for example is literally murdering thousands of its own people in the streets, none of the “human rights” zealots who so obsessively try to yux truth and fact around to criticize democratic and human rights respecting Israel, seems the least bit concerned about this horrible daily murder toll. Why might that be?

            That alone should tell you about what the real motivations of these bigots are, and how transparent their hypocrisy by trying so hard to focus on courageous little Israel, a beacon of decency among some very very bad neighbors–none of whose murderous behavior seems to interest the “debutantes” and other patent racists who have nothing better to do than bash Israel and abandon their brothers being murdered in the streets of Syria.

            The “debutantes” of the world need to look at their own hypocrisy and thinly disguised antiSemitism by this badly misplaced “concern” about human rights of the Palestinians, who indeed are treated far better than any Jewish minority was ever treated in an Islamic country.
            Did you ever protest that, you phony liar?

        • Yeah, Marvin, show us documents proving that pretzle-the-church-lady is “obese” (no docs are necessary for proving he´s obtuse, though).

    • The Jewish homeland is Judea, the Arabs that were born in what is now Israel and left during a war the Arabs started had the oppurtunity to stay 63 years ago but left at the behest of the Arab leadership most having never encountered an armed Jew. Their children born in other Arab countries are not refugees by any standard that applies to refugees from other conflicts. These foreign Arabs having been raised in UNRWA concentration camps penned up by the Arab countries are not Israels problem, Israel absorbed twice as many Jews from Arab countries who are Israelis the Arab countries can take care of their own kinsmen like the Jews did theirs

  3. Bhy repeating the “illegal settlements” over and over, the Guardian hopes to embed the idea that they are illegal in the minds of their readers, no matter what international law actually says about the situation. Similarly, those like the Guardian who spend their lives denigrating and legitimatizing Israel.

    Quite simply, if it were in fact true, the issue would have been tried in court. There is no better proof of Israel’s case than the fact that it has not.

    With all the propaganda around the issue by those who clearly should know better, there is not a lawyer who is expert in international law who has been willing to take the issue of illegality to trial because he or she knows in advance that they have no case and would lose.

  4. Poor Pretzelberg! He has no answer to the thorough refutation of Harriet’s charge of “illegal settlement”. One must therefore assume that Adam is right. Settlements in Judea and Samaria (or the “west bank” as P prefers) are perfectly legal. So P is forced to go off at a tangent.

    Even his tangent shows no understanding of the Israel/arab conflict. Yes, a Jew can settle anywhere in Israel, including Judea or Samaria, irrespective of where he was born. Its the Jewish homeland. And no, an Arab refugee from the 1948 war cannot return, any more than Jewish refugees from Arab lands cannot return. Nor for that matter can Sudeten Germans or the 40 million refugees from the India-Pakistan conflict. Life is tough Mr. P

      • They’re not? Gee, guess you’ve just corrected 2000 years of erroneous history. Thanks for your scholarly work Pretzelberg–now back to your lunch, which i understand is the pivotal point of your day!

        • I’m afraid arguments based on mysticism carry little weight in a world of grown up discussion. The state of Israel didn’t exist until 1948, and the West Bank has never been part of it.

          Although, if Likud gets its way, a one-state solution will be realised, so maybe the West Bank will become part of what is Israel today.

          • “I’m afraid arguments based on mysticism carry little weight in a world of grown up discussion.”

            I’m afraid attempts at framing the Islamic imperialist ambition to rob the Jews of their one and only nation-state in the world as a “grown up discussion” carries little weight among people with the ability to see the reality beyond the masks.

            If you believe any part of this conflict is about international law, then I hereby offer you a bridge for sale at bargain price.

              • dubi, there already is a two-state solution.

                1) Israel
                2) Jordan

                Perhaps you are hoping for a three-state or four-state or whatever-state solution?

                BTW, Jordan is “palestine”.

                I am impressed how the late King Hussein dealt with the islamofascist “palestinians” in his kingdom.

              • “…but it’s the one that Fatah and Hamas support.”

                Delusional.

                And he dares to caution against mysticism.

              • My personal view is that it’s a terrible solution,…

                I have to inform you that your opinion regarding the solution of the I/P conflict has the relevance and effect of an enema administered to a dead body.

                …but it’s the one that Fatah and Hamas support.

                Hamas supports the two-state solution!
                This assertion of you shows that you are not of the dangerous type af an asshole antisemite but an amusing one.

                • “Hamas supports the two-state solution!
                  This assertion of you shows that you are not of the dangerous type af an asshole antisemite but an amusing one.”

                  Hamas have repeatedly offered to negotiate a solution based on international law, but Israel’s list of extreme preconditions still includes a refusal to allow international law into any negotiations.

                • You are really a gift Dubi showing the intellectual and moral qualities of
                  a real Israel hater.
                  Let’s quote some details from Ismail Haniyeh’s speech from December 2011 less than a month ago.

                  …Today, we say, in a clear and unambiguous fashion: The armed resistance and armed struggle are our strategic choice and our path to liberate the Palestinian land, from the [Mediterranean] Sea to the [Jordan] River, and to drive the usurping invaders out of the blessed land of Palestine…

                  Jerusalem belongs to us, not to the oppressors. Jerusalem is Palestinian, Arab, and Islamic. I don’t mean only East Jerusalem. Jerusalem in its entirety is the capital of the state of Palestine, Allah willing….

                  ….The principles [of Hamas] are definitive and non-negotiable: Palestine means Palestine in its entirety, from the River to the Sea. There will be no concession of a single inch of the land of Palestine. The fact that Hamas, at one stage or another, accepts the goal of gradual liberation – of Gaza, of the West Bank, or of Jerusalem – is not at the expense of our strategic vision …

                  Dubi you are giving a brand new meaning to the words “reality”, truth” and especially “legal expert”..But you are really an invaluable asset demonstrating the expertise, the integrity, the objectivity and knowledge of the facts of the legal experts paior Jew bashing.
                  Thank you for your contribution to the Zionist cause.

                • As we know, the gap between propaganda and reality is non-trivial. This applies to Hamas as much as it does the GoI.

                  If we believed Israeli propaganda, Israel would be peace loving, law abiding nation of diplomats and pacifists, for whom the resort to force was the last considered option.

                  And if we believed Hamas’ propaganda, well, we would believe that they were a fearsome military force, fully believing and intending to reunify Palestine and undo the Zionist conquest.

                  The two propagandas are aimed at different people, and for different reasons. Judge them both by actions, not by their propaganda.

                • Please continue Dubi digging your hole deeper. Seeing your twisting of facts is extremely amusing.
                  What you say about Hamas is the truth and what Hamas iself says about Hamas is propaganda.
                  A real legal expert…

                • In which case, can you explain, when Likud’s charter commits itself to expanding its borders to engulf all of the West Bank and Gaza, does Likud intend to expel the indigenous Arabs? Or does it intend to bring about an end to the Jewish majority, and hence the Jewish state?

                • Dubi I don’t like to kick somebody lying debunked so I won’t continue this sweet dialogue.
                  You realized that you lost so now changed the subject. As every unintelligent liar would do in your place.
                  And even they pay you for this… a lucky guy…

                • So in other words, you want to take everything Hamas says literally, but you don’t know how to get around the fact that you would also have to take everything Likud says literally too.

                  Make sure you chew that double standard properly Peter, we don’t want to see you choke on it.

                • Continue whining Dubi, the next shop you can buy a pack of fresh tissues must be close…
                  Meantime I have more important things to do like going home in my stolen house in occupied Palestine and enjoy the fruits of my daily opression of the Arab people – you are destroying yourself under your own steam anyway.

                  Are you sure that you aren’t an employee of the Israeli propaganda machine tasked to trolling on this site painting tha anti-Israeli crowd dumber as it is? (if it is possible at all)

                • Our friend?

                  Your friend Dubi is the Jew-hater priest Ben White and probaly the bubonic plague too.
                  To sum it up Dubi I’m your enemy as I’m the enemy of every other racist scum.

                • “To sum it up Dubi I’m your enemy as I’m the enemy of every other racist scum.”

                  Let the record show that our friend Peter not only has no answer to a simple proposition, he is now so infuriated that his double standard has been exposed that he is now spitting venom.

                • ‘So in other words, you want to take everything Hamas says literally, but you don’t know how to get around the fact that you would also have to take everything Likud says literally too.’

                  a) Netanyahu has endorsed the principle of a Palestinian state, and he is Likudi (though I am not)

                  b) Likud does not (repeatedly) speak of expelling all Palestinian Arabs from the land.

                  It seems you, my English friend, have a consistent problem with acknowledging expulsionism or eliminationism in Palestinian and other Arab Muslim and Christian nationalist discourse, past or present, as though Israeli or Palestinian Jews were obliged to take it all figuratively. It’s almost as though you +don’t want+ to see it…

                • ‘And it’s worth noting that Haniyeh’s speech is pretty much the exact mirror image of official Likud policy (although not Likud propaganda).’

                  That’s a stretch.

                • @Shamili – “a) Netanyahu has endorsed the principle of a Palestinian state, and he is Likudi (though I am not)”

                  The Likud party constitution, the platform on which they were elected expressly rejects the two-state solution, and calls for Israel to expand its borders. And although he has endorsed the principle, he has insisted on so many preconditions he has all but ruled it out.

                  “b) Likud does not (repeatedly) speak of expelling all Palestinian Arabs from the land.”

                  And yet, the land thefts continue, as do the home demolitions.

                  “It seems you, my English friend, have a consistent problem with acknowledging expulsionism or eliminationism in Palestinian and other Arab Muslim and Christian nationalist discourse”

                  On the contrary, it’s very important to read what is a very real part of Palestinian nationalist discourse. But as I said, propaganda (my main area of interest) and reality are separated by a non-trivial distance.

                  If you’re going to acknowledge one discourse, you have to acknowledge the other. To fail to do so results in a tailspin, as we’ve seen with Peter.

                  “‘And it’s worth noting that Haniyeh’s speech is pretty much the exact mirror image of official Likud policy (although not Likud propaganda).’

                  That’s a stretch.”

                  Not at all. Likud’s constitution calls for Israel’s borders to expand to cover all of the West Bank and Gaza – the exact mirror image of Haniyeh’s speech.

                  Treat them both literally, or treat them both as propaganda, elements of a “nationalist discourse” which have to be assessed in combination with reality.

                  But don’t make Peter’s mistake.

                • I’m not infuriated Dubi but deeply disgusted and saddened that your kind of trash highjacked a very important area of human activity: the protection of human rights.

                • Dubi you should worry less about my mental health and must concentrate on remebering your lies more than five seconds.
                  And maybe this is over your understanding skills so I repeat it slowly: Reading your opuses the only emotion I feel is utter disgust and not hatred.

                • Did you know that Israel not only funds Sharia courts, but also enforces it in some instances. How terrible this must be for you.

                  There are 8 Sharia courts in Israel, in Jerusalem, Jaffa, Haifa, Be’er Sheva, Nazareth, Acre, Taybeh, and Baka Al Garabiya.

                • So, debutante, if Israel has Sharia courts, don´t that causes not even a hint of cognitive dissonance with your accusation that Israel is racist? Are you that perverted? Most Judeophobes are.

                • Well, this pretty much sums up your “knowledge” of the I-P conflict, debutante. You are an Judeophobic asshole indeed, and not even that amusing.

              • ‘The only thing which will preserve Jewish supremacy in Israel is the Two State Solution. ‘

                As opposed to preserving any kind of Israel. For you Jewish survival is Jewish supremacy.

                Interesting.

                ‘My personal view is that it’s a terrible solution, but it’s the one that Fatah and Hamas support.’

                Re. Hamas, now you are just deluded, perverse or both.

                Re. Fatah, not according to Central C’tee member Azzam al-Ahmed:

                http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=223181

                • Let the record show that this debutante-dilletante is intellectually dishonest, a moral equalizer-relativist, double-faced liar, obfuscator, grotesque hypocritical fraudster, Judeophobic obsessive moron.

                • Oh come on, that’s trivial:

                  Khalid Mishal, the head of Hamas’s politburo, stated in a March 2008 interview, for example, that “most Palestinian forces, including Hamas, accept a state on the 1967 borders.”

                  — Mouin Rabbani, “A Hamas Perspective on the Movement’s Evolving
                  Role: An interview with Khalid Mishal, Part II,” Journal of Palestine
                  Studies (Summer 2008).

                  Even right after the Gaza massacre, Mishal reiterated that “the objective remains the constitution of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, the return of the Israelis to the pre-67 borders and the right of return of our refugees.”

                  — Gianni Perrelli, “Con Israele non sarà mai pace” (Interview with Kha-
                  lid Mishal), L’espresso (26 February 2009; htt p://tinyurl.com/clcw8q).

                  In a complementary formulation Mishal told Jimmy Carter in 2006 (and later reaffirmed in a Damascus press conference) that “Hamas agreed to accept any peace agreement negotiated between the leaders of the PLO and Israel provided it is subsequently approved by Palestinians in a referendum”

                  — Jimmy Carter, We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land: A plan that will work
                  (New York: 2009), pp. 137, 177.

                • a) Mashaal is not speaking of a permanent state of affairs; more like a truce or a hudna; a Palestinian state as a stepping stone
                  b) the return of refugees would end a Jewish majority and any Israel shortly thereafter
                  c) What Carter ‘relates’, without direct corroboration, is ultimately worthless
                  d) Haniyeh is as dedicated to Israel’s extinction as ever.

                  That may be trivial to you, but it is not to the Jews concerned.

                • “a) Mashaal is not speaking of a permanent state of affairs; more like a truce or a hudna; a Palestinian state as a stepping stone”

                  To quote former Mossad head, Ephraim Levy:

                  “The Hamas leadership has recognized that its ideological goal is not attainable and will not be in the foreseeable future…They are ready and willing to see the establishment of a Palestinian state in the temporary borders of 1967. . . . They know that the moment a Palestinian state is established with their cooperation, they will be obligated to change the rules of the game: They will have to adopt a path that could lead them far from their original ideological goals.”

                  There are numerous scholarly resources to which I could direct you to help you better understand Hamas, but a willingness to learn is required.

                  “b) the return of refugees would end a Jewish majority and any Israel shortly thereafter”

                  Polls suggest very few Palestinians who would be entitled to return to Israel would do so. I don’t think you should fear it as much as you think you should.

                  Fear of losing Jewish supremacy isn’t a reason to oppose the two-state solution anyway. But is that your position? You oppose it?

                  “c) What Carter ‘relates’, without direct corroboration, is ultimately worthless”

                  I was waiting for someone to attack Carter, you get the prize!

                  “d) Haniyeh is as dedicated to Israel’s extinction as ever.”

                  Do you honestly feel that you’re better informed than diplomats and the former head of Mossad?

                • dubi claims:

                  “Khalid Mishal, the head of Hamas’s politburo, stated in a March 2008 interview, for example, that “most Palestinian forces, including Hamas, accept a state on the 1967 borders.”

                  Really? To prove your claim, please show us the amended hamass charter which clearly states that hamass accepts a final border based on 1967 borders.

      • But you are definitely a case-A obese, mentally speaking and according the the entire world (who also think evolution is false).

  5. Pathetic argument. Even By Adam’s lofty standards.

    Adam correctly cites the correct part of the Geneva Conventions which Israeli settlements are a breach of, namely Article 49, paragraph 6:

    “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”

    The ICRC, which Adam correctly identifies and cites as an authority on international humanitarian law says of paragraph 6:

    “It is intended to prevent a practice adopted during the Second World War by certain Powers, which ***transferred portions of their own population to occupied territory for political and racial reasons or in order, as they claimed, to colonize those territories.*** Such transfers worsened the economic situation of the native population and endangered their separate existence as a race.

    The paragraph provides protected persons with a valuable safeguard. It should be noted, however, that in this paragraph the meaning of the words “transfer” and “deport” is rather different from that in which they are used in the other paragraphs of Article 49, since they do not refer to the movement of protected persons but to that of nationals of the occupying Power.”

    In short, paragraph 6 was adopted precisely and exactly to prevent colonisation of occupied land, as per the West Bank.

    As Adam well knows, in 2004, the highest authority on international law (the ICJ) issued what was a notably uncontroversial advisory opinion on (amongst other things) the legality of Israel’s colonisation of the West Bank. Needless to say, it was pretty trivial stuff from the legal perspective and the court was almost unanimous.

    Even the lone dissenting Judge (American, obviously), in what was a half-hearted dissenting opinion had to sheepishly say that he accepted much of what the court had decided.

    Now, Israel’s own legal adviser, Theodore Meron, in 1967 advised the government of the day that any colonisation of occupied land would be illegal. To quote him, he concluded “that civilian settlement in the administered territories contravenes explicit provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention.”

    Now, please enter your arguments below about why Mr Meron is a raging anti-Semite.

    And Adam, stick to preaching hate, because an international lawyer you’re not, and any time you venture a legal argument, you run the risk of having your argument publicly ripped to shreds.

    • The forbidden transfers relate to belligerent occupation. That means that an aggressor attacks in order to take land. Arabs attacked, so there goes the concept of belligerent occupation.

      The other component is that a High Contracting Party must be involved on each side of a dispute. It is very noticeable that Israel;s enemies – and that does include those Arabs who want the land but will do nothing towards a peace agreement – never mention UNCSR 242 – which never mentions Palestine or Palestinians – but want a deal based on what they rejected in 1947. They are not a High Contracting Party. The land Israel acquired in a defensive war did not belong to the Arabs who now claim it.

      • I could point out the obvious gaps in your knowledge, but it’s more fun to watch someone think that they are more knowledgeable than the 15 most senior judges on the planet AND Israel’s own legal advisor.

        • @dubitante: well, the West Bank was part of Jordan before Jordan attacked Israel and lost, hunch the acquired territories if the so coaled legal advisors stop and look around than after all Germany lost the war they started, but according to you and so coaled “legal” advisors should advise Poland to give back to Germany Silesia, Czech Sudeten, Ukraine give back to Poland Lithuania and part of Bielaruss and this is country’s that are there for centuries, and as Arabs in Palestine have rejected to have they own country in 1947 so West Bank to Palestinians was no man’s land, but according to history it was Jewish for the fact in name only, so you know what you can do with yours and others stupid advice :)))

        • Oh, thanx a LOT for sparing us your so-called knowledge. Well appreciated.

          PS: it´s fun to watch your little masquerade too.

        • It is amazing that the fact that International law is the Law of Agreed upon Treaties is something that you are unaware of. The only agreed upon treaties that apply to the area in question established the Jewish peoples right to settle the area in 1922, this right has never been superceded by any other treaty. Article 80 of the UN charter reaffirms the right of peoples to retain the rights granted by other “existing international instruments” I challenge you to find anywhere a Sovereign claim to this territory, One High Contracting Party that has been “Occupied” in the legal sense. The ICJ has no power at all to abrogate International law or to declare Treaties null and Void. You can shout till doomsday and support those who preach hate and prolong conflict and you undoubtedly will, but until Israel agrees to relinquish its rights they are its rights.

    • Oh shut up, your mushbrained antiSemitic moron “dubitante”, with your totally stupid comments revealing transparent prejudice characteristic among the intelligence-challenged among us.
      The proof of the pudding for bigots like you is that while obsessed with trying desperately to yux facts and history around in rather pathetic and incredible attempts at trying to find something to criticize courageous and democratic little Israel about, you NEVER mention 1 word about ANY of the literally daily murderous brutality carried out by the Islamofascists–quite amazing really.
      Just one “small” current example is what’s been going on recently in Syria, no doubt some place you really admire since it’s run by Islamofascists: they’ve openly been in the process for months of murdering their own citizens in their streets on a daily basis! Funny isn’t it, that that kind of mass murder never seems to bother pinheaded antiSemites such as yourself.

      Instead you’re obsessed with trying to conjure up more lies to criticize Israel, a wonderful beacon of human rights and incredible accomplishment, clearly a light unto other nations, and especially shining in the midst of a sea of brutal and horrible Islamic theocracies whose only noticeable export is hatred and murder. Unfortunately the disease of antiSemitism lives on among those almost always jealous of the intelligence, success, and wonderful humanisitic traditions of the Jews.l

      I’m not Jewish, but frankly am so sick and tired of what’s apparently become almost acceptable antiSemitic crap spewing from a handful of highly bigoted Brits like you and amplified by the lying Fascist racists masquerading as “journalists”, at the rag known as The Guardian.

      And BTW, i’m not Jewish.

      And BTW, you need to get a life.

      • If you think I’ve made a mistake, please outline what that mistake is, citing where appropriate.

        When I cite the International Court of Justice and Israel’s own legal adviser, it’s a pretty lame response to simply shout “lies!” It’s even lamer to suggest that my citing authoritative sources should be classed as “anti-Semitic”.

        • The court is wrong because

          a) the territory was conquered in defensive war and
          b) at the time when settlement began, no peace deal was in the offing.

          Settlement was simply the cheapest and most effective way for Israel to hold onto said territory and resources, the only bargaining chips Israel has ever had to make peace. The why you tell it, Dubitante, the Arabs accepted international law back in 1947, instead of wholly resisting it (‘resisting’ being the buzz word, these days). It’s not for Israel’s enemies to dictate to her how best she should protect herself from them! (and that includes you…)

          It’s true settlement becomes more problematical post-1988, but, even so, by 1988 the clock couldn’t go back to 1947 or 1967, and all developments subsequent had to be negotiated. It’s not as if the P.L.O. accepted international law in its entirety in 1988: they have never accepted, for instance, the Jewish right of return to the land that UNSCOP assumed as the basis of a Jewish state. The P.L.O. has never actually accepted the legality of a Jewish state period, and has employed all kinds of double speak as to what it means by accepting Israel. It insists on a Palestinian right of return, though, and refers to Zionist Jewish ethnic cleansing, while conspicuously omitting to mention that threatened by Arabs, even by itself, up to 1988, at least (no Jew resident in Palestine post 1917 being allowed Palestinian citizenship, according to the 1968 P.L.O. charter).

          And once it is allowed that settlements up to 1988 at least may be permitted to exist, then it is at least arguable they may be permitted to grow, to some degree. As it is all settlements comprise less than 2% of all territory in the West Bank, and do not threaten to exceed that, the so called ‘expansion’ on which the media harps rarely exceeding the boundaries of existing settlements, or not by very much. The actual areas involved are tiny.

          In short, Dubitante, the matter is a great deal more complicated than your simplistic account allows.

          • “The court is wrong because…”

            And your legal credentials are…? Is there any reason that on a point of international law the 15 most senior judges in the world AND Israel’s own legal adviser should be overruled by a pseudonymous forum poster?

            You’re living in an alternate reality.

            • ‘And your legal credentials are…?’

              My intellect, which chimes with a fair number of Israeli and other Jews, not a few lawyers and judges themselves.

              As I said, the matter is a deal more complex than you allow.

                • Why are you talking about credentials when you yourself have none?

                  People have put forward legal arguments [which are backed by people with the highest of credentials, including people like Stephen Schwebel who headed the ICJ at one point iirc. The problem with ‘judicial’ bodies such as the ICJ (which is the judicial body of the UN) and indeed the UN iself, is that they are affected heavily by politics (see ‘Zionism is Racism’ resolution) and furthermore, as is evident by the varying arguments put forward by people who couldn’t possibly have any more credentials, international law – like any other form – is subject to interpretation.

                  So instead of deflecting answers to your ‘infallible’ copy-pasta legal arguments with ad-hominem nonsense, why don’t you actually try picking them apart as they have done with yours?

                • “Why are you talking about credentials when you yourself have none?”

                  I don’t cite my own legal opinions. Your friend Shamili does. I cite the legal opinions of Israel’s own legal adviser and the 15 most senior judges on the planet.

                  The problem with people writing an article, or giving an individual opinion is that they can go off on ideological tangents. On the ICJ, where 15 judges have to sit, deliberate and give considered legal opinions, there is less room for ideology.

                  So I could contend with the unqualified opinions of cable warriors, or I could treat them as irrelevant, which they, of course, are.

                • ‘I cite the legal opinions of Israel’s own legal adviser and the 15 most senior judges on the planet.’

                  One of Israel’s advisors.

                  And the US judge, pretty senior, dissented.

                  Jews are used to being a minority report. Just because you are a minority (in whatever forum), doesn’t mean you’re wrong.

                  Arab and other Muslims think, for the most part, Israel an a priori abomination. Israel dissents.

                • ‘On the ICJ, where 15 judges have to sit, deliberate and give considered legal opinions, there is less room for ideology’

                  Less, perhaps. But not none. And they can still be mistaken.

                  To give one example: it is often said that Israel’s holding the old city, temple mount or western wall is illegal.

                  But

                  a) in that case, so was that of Jordan, which expelled its Jews, and wreaked untold damage to Jewish sites and artifacts

                  b) it is only by virtue of Israel’s possession of the same, that Jews have had any kind of access to the holiest sites of the Jewish people (including Hebron and the tomb of the patriarchs, denied wholly to Jews even during the Mandate period).

                  You can argue Israel’s possession is illegal until you’re blue in the face. Israeli Jews know full well it is only by virtue of such possession they have any access at all. Nor are they unaware of the anti-Zionist discourse in P.A., Fatah and Hamas circles which deny any Jewish association with such sites at all (or Jews’ historical exclusion from them, by imperial Christian and Islamic apartheid).

                  Israeli Jews are not going to pay your legal opinion any mind at all. You think these sites should revert to Palestinian Arab national control. Israeli Jews think different.

              • ‘You’re living in an alternate reality.’

                To flog a dead horse, you’re a northern English cultural Christian. Not much to do with the reality of most Israeli Jews. I appreciate you think you have a special insight, superior to that of all of us.

                But we beg to differ.

                • Shamili, I can understand you getting hot under the collar about dubitante’s pernicious form of passive-aggressive antisemitism, but please, I beg you, be careful about the possibility that what you say tars all English Christians with the same brush!

                  I live in the UK and know many decent Christians who wouldn’t want to be associated with a wretch like dubitante.

                • Accusing someone of antisemitism is a pretty serious charge. Please substantiate that claim or retract it.

                • ‘I beg you, be careful about the possibility that what you say tars all English Christians with the same brush!’

                  Does it? Why?

            • And your legal credentials are “dubitante? We already know what your bigotry and racist credentials are, since they’ve been issued to you by the Bigots in Charge @ The Guardian.

        • Dubitante: Your parents made a mistake in bringing a Miskeit like you into the world. (Google it, as you would say!)

          You should seriously examine yourself, your bigotry, hatreds and biases, since they’re so transparent to others but apparently not yourself. I’m sure you’ll discover some deep-seated cause for your primitive hateful antiSemitism leading to incredibly distorted and stupid comments.

          And gee, you’ve never said 1 word about all the Islamofascist-driven murderous violence, both in the Mideast and indeed worldwide–why that glaring omission in someone ostensibly very concerned about “human rights”?
          This shameful denial makes makes your motives in relentlessly and monotonously criticizing Israel even more morally repugnant.

          And I don’t think you can hide behind your homosexuality, which apparently is well known where you live, but in no way provides an excuse for your hateful racism. Many gays I know are very fair-minded and of course therefore support Israel.

          • Sorry Alf, but love dubitante or loathe her, her sexuality has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with this matter.

            Please do the decent thing and withdraw those comments.

            • As soon as she withdraws her innumerable lies and racist slurs and Israel, Israeli history, israeli birthright, and says one word of truth about what the real problem is the Mideast–Islamofascist irredentism and relentless violence and hatespeech against Israel.
              To say nothing of her incredible hypocrisy in somehow being able to blithely ignore little details of fact which don’t fit into her peanut brain, like the daily murder of civilians going on in Syria. It’s obscene that the career Israel-bashers who populate this site have such distorted mindsets that none of them says 1 word about the elephant in the Mideast room–relentless murderous islamofascist violence.

              Anything else written purporting to describe Israel as the “real problem” in the Mideast is either naive, stupid, or in dubitante’s case, so departed from truth and fact that it can only represent naked antiSemitic racism.

              • I’m not Amnesty International. I cannot do everything. This blog cannot do everything. It is very narrow, and very focused. The topic is perceived anti-Israel bias at the Guardian.

                When Adam posts things which are demonstrably untrue, should he be challenged? Or left to churn out the untruths?

                If your’re going to criticise journalists for having what he perceives as low journalistic standards, it would make sense for him to stop publishing things which demonstrably false, else he will end up looking like a prize hypocrite.

            • Pretzelberg:

              Don’t be so defensive–no one is criticizing your sexual preferences. Nor is your obesity the real problem; rather it’s your relentless irrational and obviously bias-driven drivel you predictably spew whenever there”s a chance to try bashing courageous and decent little israel.’

              Really you need to do some serious self-assessment to see what in your background indeed does impel you to bigotry, hatred and mindless racism.’

        • Well it’s a well known fact that the Guardian if not for the financial injection of oil money from Arab lands this paper wouldn’t exist, like so many islamofashists who are in UK, and the UK Gov is allowing it, just asking for a civil war I’m afraid.

        • You are mistaken and mendacious in you fake-legalistic pseudo-humanitarianism. Why don´t you go preach your byzantine international-lawyerism at the many pro-palestinian blogs around the web?

    • @dubitante

      Thank you for once again exposing your rank ignorance.

      You base your primary argument by citing the ICJ advisory opinion however there are a number of problems with this line of argument:

      1. The ICJ opinion was an advisory opinion and therefore does not create international law.
      2. The ICJ advisory opinion dealt with the legality of Israel’s security barrier that was constructed to protect Israelis from murderous suicide bombings which took the lives of over 1,000 Israelis during the Second Intifada.
      3. The ICJ was convened to give the advisory opinion as a political means of delegitimizing the state of Israel.
      4. The ICJ advisory opinion contained numerous falsehoods and legal blunders including the following:
      – fallacious interpretation of Article 51 (right to self defense) of the UN Charter which purported to limit its application to attacks by foreign states only (as opposed to non-state actors) despite the absence of any such qualifying wording in Article 51;
      – false claim that the inalienable rights of the Palestinians has its origin in the Mandate for Palestine (including the false claim that the Mandate was a Class “A” Mandate) – the Mandate said no such thing and in fact said the opposite that its goal was the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine;
      – incorrect reading of status of Resolution 181;
      – failure to recognize Palestinian terrorism as root cause of construction of security barrier;
      – use of the highly charged word “wall” (which constitutes about 5% of the barrier and was constructed in areas to prevent sniper fire) as opposed to opting for a more neutral term such as fence or barrier;
      5. 23 of the 26 states that provided affidavits to the ICJ are categorized as “not free” by Freedom House and nearly one half of the briefs were from nations that don’t recognize Israel’s right to exist.
      6. Many of the judges were from nations that are traditionally hostile to Israel including Jordan, Egypt, China, Venezuela, Brazil and the Russian Federation.
      7. Perhaps most seriously, the iCJ advisory opinion ignored the fact that the legally binding Mandate for Palestine provides the right – which is still valid today – for Jews to settle anywhere between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean.

      Sloppy doesnt even begin to describe how bad the ICJ advisory opinion is from a legal and political stand point.

      Regarding the Meron opinion, there are numerous legal commentators that refute Meron’s conclusions including Prof. Eugene Rostow and besides if you’ve bothered to read the Meron opinion you’ll see that the basis for his conclusion is legally weak.

      Better luck next time Dubitante.

      • “1. The ICJ opinion was an advisory opinion and therefore does not create international law.”

        Straw man. I never claimed that the advisory “created” international law. The ICJ’s advisory “merely” gives the most authoritative interpretation of existing law with respect to Israel’s legal position.

        “2. The ICJ advisory opinion dealt with the legality of Israel’s security barrier that was constructed to protect Israelis from murderous suicide bombings which took the lives of over 1,000 Israelis during the Second Intifada.”

        Read it. To answer the questions of the legal implementation of the wall, the ICJ had to consider the legality of the settlements. They found the settlements to be illegal under international law for the reasons cited above.

        “3. The ICJ was convened to give the advisory opinion as a political means of delegitimizing the state of Israel.”

        Lame. Baseless. Dumb. Running out of adjectives. To “delegitimize” means to make illegal what once was illegal. The West Bank has never been part of Israel, and the settlements have never been legal. You’ll need to try harder.

        “4. The ICJ advisory opinion contained numerous falsehoods and legal blunders including the following:”

        And your legal credentials are…? Is there any reason the considered legal opinions of the 15 most senior judges on the planet should be overruled by a pseudonymous forum poster?

        “fallacious interpretation of Article 51 (right to self defense) of the UN Charter which purported to limit its application to attacks by foreign states only (as opposed to non-state actors) despite the absence of any such qualifying wording in Article 51;”

        Both the Chatham House Principals of International Law and the International Court of Justice both state the same thing, namely that:

        “unless an attack is directed from outside territory under the control of the defending State, the question of self-defence in the sense of Article 51 does not normally arise.”

        In other words, as Palestine is under belligerent occupation, article 51 is not relevant. I’m afraid they are quite correct on that front.

        “false claim that the inalienable rights of the Palestinians has its origin in the Mandate for Palestine (including the false claim that the Mandate was a Class “A” Mandate) – the Mandate said no such thing and in fact said the opposite that its goal was the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine;”

        Claims that Palestine was NOT a Class A mandate are a distinctly Zionist affair. Such claims are trivially dismissed.

        http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/FRUS/FRUS-idx?type=goto&id=FRUS.FRUS1919Parisv13&isize=M&submit=Go+to+page&page=101

        http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9B0CEFDF1239EF3ABC4851DFB1668389639EDE

        You could also read the memorandum of Lord Curzon regarding the class A Mandates, Catalogue Reference: CAB/24/115. If you want me to quote it for you, let me know.

        As a class A mandate, i.e. a mandate over a people who were nearly ready for autonomy, it spoke clearly of protecting the civil and religious rights of Palestine’s non-Jewish inhabitants. So once again, the court is right, and you are wrong.

        “failure to recognize Palestinian terrorism as root cause of construction of security barrier;”

        The barrier is very porous. There are numerous unguarded gaps in it which people hike to and walk through every day. To make the above argument, you would need to explain why would-be suicide bombers would be put off by a brisk walk.

        “5. 23 of the 26 states that provided affidavits to the ICJ are categorized as “not free” by Freedom House and nearly one half of the briefs were from nations that don’t recognize Israel’s right to exist.”

        No state on Earth has a “right to exist”. Israel is no exception to this, as much as it might claim to the contrary.

        “6. Many of the judges were from nations that are traditionally hostile to Israel including Jordan, Egypt, China, Venezuela, Brazil and the Russian Federation.”

        Oh yes, everyone’s out to get you aren’t they? If only you could have an all Jewish ICJ, then you’d get a fair hearing…right?

        “7. Perhaps most seriously, the iCJ advisory opinion ignored the fact that the legally binding Mandate for Palestine provides the right – which is still valid today – for Jews to settle anywhere between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean.”

        No it didn’t. What kind of witchcraft is this? The Mandate committed Great Britain to using its “best efforts” to facilitate the establish a Jewish homeland (not state) somewhere in Palestine. It did not give carte blanche to Zionists to do as they please over all of the class A mandate.

        Of course, the mandate came to an end without such creation, and the matter was handed over to the UN.

        So although you’ve been shown to be ignorant, you have ably demonstrated why we don’t take the word of pseudonymous forum posters over the word of the 15 most senior judges in the world AND Israel’s own legal adviser.

        • “Did not give Zionists Carte Blanche” Actually what the mandate gave the Jews was the right to “closely settle” on all land west of the Jordan River. A right Jews still retain and legally exercise to this day. It’s not “Wichcraft” it’s the legal wording. As far as the matter being turned over to the UN, the UN was obliged in Article 80 of its charter to recognized the existing rights retained by the Jewish people. The “brief walk” you describe must inhibit suicide bombers because the barrier has been working. When whatever people you are a member of loses one third of its members in less than a decade then you can make snide comments implying that Jews who are threatened with extinction throughout the Arab world in all of that worlds state sponsored media outlets are paranoid. Otherwise you are showing a despicable lack of humanity. As if taking up the cause of those who willingly sacrifice their own people to further genocidal aims does not already reveal that dearth of civilized humanity and reveals you to be an animal filled with hatred.

          • “Actually what the mandate gave the Jews was the right to “closely settle” on all land west of the Jordan River.”

            No it didn’t read it.

            “A right Jews still retain and legally exercise to this day.”

            Not only are you wrong about what the Mandate actually said, but you also seem ignorant of the fact that the Mandate no longer exists, nor do any of its provisions.

            “The “brief walk” you describe must inhibit suicide bombers because the barrier has been working.”

            Post hoc ergo propter hoc. Google it.

            • Actually the right to closely settle on all state lands and waste lands not required for public purpose is the rights that are still retained by Jews to this day. The Mandate was an existing legal instrument at the time of the formation of the UN charter which clearly stipulated in Article 80 that rights held by any peoples under any existing legal instruments could not be abrogated by any of the provisions of the UN charter. Whether the Mandate exists today or not Jewish rights in international law under the mandate have not to this date have not been superceded and are retained by the legal Jewish inhabitants East of the Armistice lines of 1949. Lines that were specifically not an international border

        • And none of the pap Debitante continues to disgorge deviates 1 iota from her pathetically obvious, monotonous and hateful antiSemitic distortions.

          Don’t you feel ridiculous with your incessant and obsessive bashing of Israel, the Mideast’s only democracy and veritable bastion of human rights, while almost comically avoiding any mention of the real source of Mideast and indeed worldwide instability–Islamofascist violence and jihad-fueled terrorism.

          There have been 9840 documented terrorist murders around the world SINCE 9/11, highlighting what pretty much every sentient human being on the planet has come to realize–radical Islam is the world’s chief security threat and enemy of peace–that’s their stated goal.

    • Israel has the only sovereign claim to the territory west of the Jordan River, therefore the term “Occupied” is meaningless legally. The crime of “occupation occured between 1948 and 1967 when Arab irredentists ethnically cleansed the Jewish population and sought to illegally incorporate territory as part of Jordan, that under International Law, the Law of agreed upon treaties, was part of the Jewish national homeland on which Jews were legally entitled to settle, this is still International Law, no other agreements regarding this territory has ever been made with the one nation, Israel that has exerted a legally recognized sovereign claim over the area. The complaints of politically immature Arab irredentists unable to effectively govern, Arabs whose only political cohesion is not based upon building a nation but destroying another nation are legally meaningless, support of such irredentism serves only to prolong conflict and to ensure the continued suffering of those Arabs who suffer the actual apartheid of UNRWA camps in their own Arab homeland throughout Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. Supporting the gangsters that feed them a steady diet of and unrealistic expectations truly makes you an accomplice to an ongoing crime against humanity.

      • “Israel has the only sovereign claim to the territory west of the Jordan River, therefore the term “Occupied” is meaningless legally.”

        Cunning. In spite of being a pseudonymous forum poster with presumably no legal credentials, by appending the word “legally” on to the end of your sentence, you have completely won me over. Great argument.

        • Have you any legal credentials, dubitante?

          Third class honours perhaps from a Mickey Mouse University?

          (If you don’t answer I shall know you haven’t even that)

          • I never cite my own legal opinion. That’s the difference. I cite the opinion of Israel’s own legal adviser and the opinion of the 15 most senior judges on the planet.

            The people arguing with me are typically relying on their own unqualified opinions, or the opinions of sources junior to my sources.

            • No you don’t. You may think you do, but you don’t understand what you cite.

              Whereas these cunning Jews argue so well …… at the very least well enough to keep you exercised.

              • Arm waving and denial? No actual arguments to make?

                You don’t want to explain how I misunderstood Israel’s legal adviser when he said in a top secret memorandum “My conclusion is that civilian settlement in the administered territories contravenes explicit provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention.”

          • I don’t cite my own legal opinion Ellen, for precisely that reason.

            The difference is, the people you’re defending view their unqualified opinions as carrying more weight than the opinions of not only Israel’s own legal adviser, but the 15 most senior judges on Earth.

      • Terrific post Eric–just don’t confuse the antiSems who invariably try the “blame Israel first” tactic for everything, with anything like facts. They interfere with their racist bleatings.

        • I’m sure this blog is suffering from some sort of reality inversion disorder, where black is white and up is down.

          Someone quotes the ICJ and Israel’s own legal adviser, and this is an anti-Semitic distortion.

          Someone spouts unqualified, baseless drivel, and this is a “terrific post”. What trouble this blog is in, lol.

          • Well you should know dubitante:

            look up “paranoid projection” – google it.

            That applies to everything you have just written:

            The “reality inversion” is yours , your own antisemitic distortions, your criticisms of others’ posts when your own are “unqualified, baseless drivel” again and again.

            Also, look up “wish fulfilment”

            You are obviously HOPING that CiF Watch is in trouble, aren’t you, and your post has illustrated the usual cognitive distortion of the ignorant hater – the too-readiness to believe hopes and thoughts to be facts.

            You should learn to stop digging when you are in a hole. You are making yourself look very silly now

                • If you had read my response, you would know that not only did I understand it, I also knew specifically how it was mostly fiction.

                  Again, if you disagree with anything in my response, say what, put forward your argument and cite your sources clearly. If you don’t know what you’re talking about, either don’t respond or just attack me instead.

              • Funny that you seem to have missed the point: Syrians murdering citizens in their streets by the thousands RIGHT NOW! Have you by chance noted that minor detail “dubitante”?
                Now that you’ve been made aware, i have no doubt you’ll transfer all the time and energy heretofore spent making a bigoted and uninformed jackass out of yourself by hilarious fabrications and distortions of Mideast history in desperate attempts to serve your well-recognized antiIsrael bigotry.

                Can’t wait to see your next post–about Syria!

          • It’s pretty clear what dubitante is suffering from–a well-known potentially lethal condition known as cranial-rectal inversion (you can Google it dubitante!)
            The net result of this feared affliction is acute confusion between right and wrong, the aggressors and the victims, and a compulsion to claim fact when none exists, along with an irresistable urge to beat up on those who have suffered more than any other ethnic group in history, the Jews.
            This disease is also a well-known precursor to blatant antiSemitism, in the form of thinly cloaked relentless criticism of courageous and democratic little Israel.

    • The only thing “pathetic” here is “dubitante’s” obsessive Israel bashing, lying about history and fact, and apparent deep-rooted feelings of her own jealousy and inadequacy driving irrational rants about the ONLY country in the Mideast which is democratic, respects human rights, tolerates all minorites, and allows freedom of worship.
      Which of the charming Islamofascist theocracies you slurpingly admire constantly trying to deligitmize courageous little Israel, fulfills these criteria? I’ll wait for you to draw up the long list.
      While you’re “thinking” (dubious possibility) about these simple truths obvious to everyone who isn’t embittered and twisted by racist antiSemitism, i would also welcome your list of posts about the daily murder of Syrian citizens by its own government. Certainly someone as concerned with “human rights” as “debutante” must have cried out loudly and frequently about this mass murder being conducted as we speak by the the horribly atavistic and brutal Assad dictatorship?

      I’ll wait for that too…

      • I don’t mean to insult you, but I’d add to dubitante’s request, that you should be more honest than him/her.

        For dubitante is selective which is akin to lying and ignorant which is more dangerous.

  6. It should be noted, the U.N and all the Arab countries condemned Israel for arresting Eichmann in 1960.
    The U.N and the Arab countries said it was against international law to kidnap Eichmann and these fools actually demanded Israel return Eichmann to Argentina.
    The U.N also condemned Israel for the heroic Entebbe rescue in 76.
    And ofcourse the U.N condemned Israel for bombing Iraq’s nuclear facility in 81.
    If Israel didn’t bomb Iraq’s nuclear facility in 81, instead of gassing the Kurds, Saddam Hussein would have used atomic weapons against them.
    If Harriet Sherwood was around in 1960, she would have also demanded that Israel send Eichmann back to Argentina and would have written how it was against International law to arrest Eichmann.

  7. Pingback: CiFWatch on "Illegal Settlements" - ScrollPost.com

  9. Outstanding post Adam–very important factual information important not just to show how asinine and bigoted these Guardian monkeys are but more importantly for this information to get promulgated more widely.

    This myth about the West Bank being “occupied terroritory” has been parrotted so many times by the moronic antiIsrael Lefty chorus out there that I truly believe most non-Israelis incl. Americans have accepted it as “fact”!

    • Presumably, by “factual” you mean “demonstrably false?”

      This isn’t a question of ideology, nor of left vs right. It is a question of international law. The ICJ and Israel’s own legal adviser have conclusively shown that Adam doesn’t have the faintest idea what he’s talking about.

      If Adam had higher standards than the journalists you and he criticise, he would retract his errors. But he won’t. This is about ideology for Adam, facts are just an inconvenience to be overcome.

      • It is a question of international law, D., and that means keeping with its spirit as well as merely formally accepting its letter.

        E.g. the right of Jewish return on which Balfour Declaration, League of Nations Mandate and UNSCOP are predicated.

        Or acknowledging the exclucivist, expulsionist and eliminationist nature of Palestinian Arab Muslim and Christian nationalism for most of the 20th century, as well as harping on Zionist Jewish acts of ethnic cleansing.

        Your trouble, D., is that you think law and justice just work to benefit one party. A kind of intellectual and moral apartheid, on your part.

          • dubi, Here is more for your pot.

            – hijacking passenger planes and flying them to Cuba or Libya
            – hijacking passenger planes and flying them into buildings
            – hijacking the 1972 Olympics
            – hijacking cruise ships
            – Somali pirates
            – bombing passenger planes like Pan Am 103
            – using poison gas (a WMD) on the Kurds of Halabja
            – bombing London buses and the Undground on 7/7/05
            – invading Kuwait
            – bombing Bali
            – bombing trains in Madrid
            – murdering ethnic Chinese in Indonesia because they were too successful
            – beheading bound captives (like journalist Daniel Pearl) whilst masked terrorists shriek allah akbar
            – threatening the UK and Europe with massacres
            – murdering people in Mumbai India
            – murdering filmmaker Theo Van Gogh
            – threatening cartoonists with death for drawing cartoons
            – threatening Salman Rushdie, a writer of fiction, with death for writing a story
            – assassinating a US Presidential candidate – Senator Robert F. Kennedy
            – stoning women to death for “family honor”
            – hanging gay teens in an Islamic Republic
            – the Assad family dictatorship massacring it citizens
            – 8 year Iraq/Iran war
            – near nuclear war between India and Pakistan
            – religious Apartheid in Saudi Arabia
            – genocidal rallies in the Islamic Republic of Iran

            dubi, the above and much, much more, a never ending torrent of Islamofascist atrocities that you would like to ignore, is why you will lose outside the FAKE anti-war socialists and islamist friendly circles you travel in.

            • Lot’s of whataboutery by thank god I’m an idiot here, but that’s to be expected when he/she has nothing else to say.

              But let’s for a second enter the alternate world some people here inhabit. There is no denying that many other countries have committed atrocities, but they don’t have a team of apologists around the world covering up their dirty tracks.

              • Don’t you just love the idiots who desperately try to lump democratic, peace-seeking, human rights tolerating Israel , with all the brutal ruthless Islamofascist murderers around the world.

                Somehow now quite exactly the same, but “mostly harmless” seems “mostly mindless”, so wouldn’t be expected to see that not-so-subltle differences.

              • mostly brainless, Awww. I’m sorry if I burst your bubble.

                Is it Islamophobic to remind people of islamofascist atrocities committed all over the world?

                I understand you’d rather that people don’t know about the many Crimes Against Humanity your islamofascist pals have committed, but I LIKE being “counter-revolutionary”.

          • ‘Hello, Kettle? This is pot. You’re black’

            OK, so what makes your views superior to mine?

            Why am I a hard-core racist ultra-nationalist, but you are not?

            • Because debutante is a renown international-lawyerist. But he won´t reveal his superior accomplishments. For instance, he was “legal advisor” to Abu Mazen´s holocaust-denialist doctoral dissertation at the prestigious Lumumba Center of Advanced Regressionism.

      • dubi darling – give it up.

        Most children learn, usually by the age of seven, that just because they may say a thing doesn’t mean that it’s true, and particularly not, as in your case, when others have shown what they say to be untrue?

        Now, you must be older than seven years, so there’s really no excuse for such stupidity is there, unless you are suffering from some sort of arrested developmental disorder?

        • I back up my points with references to the documentary record. I don’t rely on my own opinions.

          No one has yet cited a single credible source to contradict what I’ve written. And yet you think I’m the one convincing myself? Interesting. More of the CifWatch reality inversion perhaps?

        • SarahLeah, you like to revert to your standard ad hominem attack, comparing everyone you don’t agree with having child like characteristics. I could continue in a similar vein, but that would be juvenile.

          • If the cap fits, then dubitante should wear it. It’s true that dubitante, you and all like you have this tendency to believe that what you think is bad about Israel is actually true in spite of the avalanche of evidence which proves that it isn’t. What has to be seriously out of whack is the rigidity and persistence of those ideas.

            I remember long ago, when I could be bothered to write to CiF, reminding another poster of exactly what Israel had done for the Gazans and other Palestinians in spite of the latters’ murderous inclination towards them, and offering that as evidence of at least more civilised behaviour. The reply, as I remember it, was indication of the shrivelled, dark world view that such people tend to possess, that there must have been something in it for Israel.

            Hawkeye pointed out to dubitante how wrong she is and how flawed are her arguments and in true weasel fashion – the strong suit I think of the mindless antiZionist – she promptly changes the goal posts in her reply and argues as if THOSE are facts, too!

            Such wilful refusal to recognise reality even when it is proven to one is at least child-like when it isn’t evidence of florid cognitive disorder, but I’m not a psychologist so I wouldn’t like to accuse her of that.

            It’s curious, though, that she persists in the vein she does and that so many people who are anti-Israel/anti-Jewish exhibit similar characteristics when they are faced in incontrovertible proof that what they write or say is provably wrong.

            • I’m afraid “Hawkeye” embarrassed himself by saying things which were uncontroversially false. For example, he claimed that the Palestine Mandate was not a class A mandate – a mistake anyone familiar with the Mandate period would not have made.

              I have to say, I’m impressed at how I’ve made the transition from male anti-Semite, to female anti-Semite, to lesbian anti-Semite in just 2 days. I’m quite used to people attacking me rather than my arguments, but this is a first.

              • I’m certain the transition through these gender identitys has made you quite sore, I am curious however as now that sans penis you are still attracted to women do you miss the penis? have you had it preserved in any fashion and if so is it floating limp in a Jar of formaldahyde or stuffed and shellacked to a shiny hardness so that you and you girlfriend can enjoy it. This amazing transitional phase you have went through should have been studied closely throughout at a prestigious institute such as Johns Hopkins and for the sake of science could you set aside your anti-semitism long enough for a former Zionist soldier Dr. Ruth Westheimer to partake in such an amazing study?

              • Aww, diletante is now in that heroic mood, ‘the indomitable fighter” in the midsts of attacks. A victim, in sum. Won´t stick, though.

            • Simply outstanding post Sarah–“tell it like it is”! I for one am sick and tired of what’s become acceptable bigotry against Israel and Jews from the Lefties, Huff Post, Salon.com, etc. etc.
              These people need to wake up and see how biased and bigoted their twisted views about israel show them to be.
              Good for you.

          • And you, sir, should quit whining about this blog, while repeatedly coming back to post your very same inanities.

      • Drop this mask of faka international-lawyerism. International Law is a joke and everybody knows it. If you had an ink of honesty and concern for humanity and any real hope of improving international standards, you´d be focusing on the most pressing human rights violations going on all over the planet, particularly involving you islamic heroes. But, instead you are obsessed with Israel, a tiny democratic country, far from perfect, but which has a MUCH better human rights record than most countries in the world. In fact, that´s exactly why bothers your ilk to no end, so that your boiling little hatred has to be mask in pseudo-legalese.

        Your are quite transparent, dilletante.

  10. I think the issue is simpler. In 1920 the League of Nations decided to give land that formerly belonged to the Ottoman Empire (who had already given up land, for example to the Greeks, and then lost WWI and dissapeared forever) to the Jewish people. This land included Judea and Samaria. This was the last legal and binding document regarding the posession of that piece of land. It was the whole legal basis of the presence of the British Empire in that land from 1920 to 1948.
    When Israel captured that land in a defensive war (though if it had been an aggressive war by Israel it would not have made a difference, legally), she was liberating that territory, not occupying it, since Jordan’s presence there was illegal from the beggining.
    When the UN and Israel recognized Jordan as a country beyond the Jordan river, that was the end of the legal claim of the Jewish people to what is now Jordan.
    But the legal claim to Judea and Samaria by the Jewish people never expired. And please be aware that I have not quoted the Bible even once in this argument.
    The only thing that prevented Israel from annexing Judea and Samaria and therefore actualizing her claim over the land was the presence of a significant Arab population there, and the refusal of Israel to expel them for her land. Had the 1967 war endured longer than six days, the whole danger of battles near inhabited towns would have emptied the Arab population from Judea and Samaria naturally, the way it happened in 1948 with territories inside Israel. What Palestinians are today would have simply remained outside Israel Hashlema (Israel with Judea and Samaria) nursing their wounds in refugee camps or integrating themselves in the Arab countries.
    This of course does in any way negates Israel legally valid claim to Judea and Samaria. And given that TODAY there are enough Arabs in those territories to make them a demographic problem for Israel if it decided to annex the territories, a compromise between the parts (Israel and the Palestinians) is needed in which Israel will cede parts of Judea and Samaria for a Palestinian state.
    However, should war start again between the Israelis and the Palestinians, or a regional war occur that made Judea and Samaria a military danger for Israel, you can expect that this time Arab-Palestinians will leave Judea and Samaria and Israel will take final control and annex those territories. It all depends on the behavior of the Palestinians actually.

    • “In 1920 the League of Nations decided to give land that formerly belonged to the Ottoman Empire …to the Jewish people.”

      When you base your arguments on such falsehoods, it’s never going to end well.

      • Cite your sources, diletante, or give arguments. Calling people liars is pure ad hominem and doesn´t contribute to the debate. Thanx in advance.

  11. ‘When Israel captured that land in a defensive war’

    Judging by his blog, D. doesn’t accept it was defensive. He seems to think Palestinian and other Arab Muslims and Christians were a nation of priests and saints, crucified by predatory alien Zionist Jewish interlopers.

    He harps on international law, but doesn’t accept there should be any penalty for Palestinian and other Arab Muslims and Christians for having Resisted it for at least 40 years.

    No, it seems Israel is the one mainly in the wrong, who has to pay the bigger price.

    • “Judging by his blog, D. doesn’t accept it was defensive.”

      It would take some pretty creative thought processes to convince yourself it was defensive. In 1967, the UN was split between condemning Israel as the sole aggressor, and condemning both sides for the conflict.

      That sounds about right to me. Israel was undoubtedly the aggressor. But the Arab states certainly did their best to provoke and were certainly not blameless.

      • No, dubitante, it would take the capability to stand outside your biases and accept proven fact as well as an in-depth awareness of the history of the region and in particular the attitude of Islam to Jews.

        So far as I can see you may be able talk a blue streak but you know little or nothing about these.

          • I note you don’t mention which “historians”.

            Do yourself a favour. Do lots more reading around this subject – all the different “histories” as portrayed by the different sides. Synthesise the information although it might cause you considerable discomfort and come to your own conclusions rather than sounding like a political leaflet. Show that you know even a little of Israel’s point of view, again from several disinterested sites synthesised with your own freely-arrived-at opinions.

            Steer well clear of anything from the UN or any “bash Israel” site.

            Then come here and debate with us and you would be worthy of the blurb you have written about yourself on Twitter. Deal?

            • “Steer well clear of anything from the UN or any “bash Israel” site.”

              Unfortunately, the UN is still the framework in which international relations operate. You might not like it, but that’s your problem, not mine. No one forced Israel to swear to uphold the charter, no one forced them to join, no one is forcing them to stay. But whilst international law is still the legal framework of international relations, and whilst the UN and ICJ a key components in this framework, we cannot “steer clear” of the UN.

              The only reason I come here is to watch the wonderful sight of hard core racists and ultra-nationalists thrashing around as their arguments unravel, and to see just what lengths they will go to to maintain their beliefs in the face of verifiable citations of the documentary record.

              I know it’s cruel to expose such people to facts. I just can’t help myself. The anarchist in me is hard wired to prod ultra-nationalists with a stick.

              • Look at the state of the world dubitante because of the UN’s consummate failures and biases!

                Don’t try to obfuscate either by referring to international law – much of which is based in fairness and is disinterested or at least began that way – in the same sentence as the UN!

                The real reason you come here is because you are projecting your own racism onto us. You have little insight – people stuck in the paranoid projection rarely, if ever, possess it – but how does your “righteous arguing” actually feel? Do you get a rush from it? It must be reinforcing in some way otherwise you wouldn’t keep doing it.

                I think you are meant to “steer clear” of UN -based rationales for wrongful condemnation of Israel, biased as they are, dubitante (and here again your reaction to that sentence is evidence of your wilful distortion of what you are told).

                And as for “..I know it’s cruel to expose such people to facts. I just can’t help myself. The anarchist in me is hard wired to prod ultra-nationalists with a stick….”

                Yet more evidence of paranoid projection (google it). We have seen that you distort facts to suit whatever you are trying to peddle to us, so it’s doubtful that you would recognise a fact, much less how to reality test it against opposing facts from disinterested sources so as to know whether it’s true and, if it’s not, have the intelligence and maturity to say so. You may be able to lie to yourself very well as your Twitter blurb shows, but please don’t lie to the good people here. We can see right through you.

              • ‘I know it’s cruel to expose such people to facts. I just can’t help myself. The anarchist in me is hard wired to prod ultra-nationalists with a stick’

                Ultra-nationalists? But you sound as though you have a problem with Zionists, Jewish nationalists, full stop. You rather read as though you think Zionism = ultra-nationalism.

              • ‘The only reason I come here is to watch the wonderful sight of hard core racists and ultra-nationalists thrashing around as their arguments unravel’

                So you think I am a hard core racist and ultra-nationalist, my northern English cultural Christian friend?

                That’s odd, because you must think, then, most Israeli Jews are hard core racists and ultra-nationalists, since they mostly subscribe to the view that the 67 war was defensive, and that, for the most part, the settlements will stay, in exchange for territory from Israel elsewhere, if the P.A. is prepared to negotiate.

                They don’t think that settlement from 1967 was inherently racist or illegal. They think the matter a great deal more complicated than your simplistic account allows. The way you tell it, one would conclude Israeli, Palestinian or Zionist Jews have crucified some Palestinian and other Arab Muslim and Christian national Christ -Christlike in essential innocence, if not actual virtue.

                Israeli Jews definitely take issue with that. They don’t think they are the crucifying villains in this piece, even if you do.

                • The way you tell it, one would conclude Israeli, Palestinian or Zionist Jews have crucified some Palestinian and other Arab Muslim and Christian national Christ

                  Has dubitante made comments suggesting that?

                  What is this “cultural Christian” stuff about anyway?

                • Not strictly relevant, it’s true. It’s just I listened to his voice, and concluded that is what he was. It was mainly wrt to his alternate reality comment i.e. he is in a very different reality to most Jewish Israelis, nor hardly has much contact with what they experience.

                • ‘Has dubitante made comments suggesting that?’

                  I mean that he paints a very black and white picture, absolute villains persecuting the fundamentally innocent. The Zionists are the fundamental bad guys, in his view.

                • NOWHERE. There is NO MENTION of it.

                  I thought it was originally obvious I employed it as a metaphor for black vs. white, absolute villains versus fundamentally innocent, the way Dubitante seems, to me, to view the conflict.

                  When you asked for clarification, I thought it was obvious I was saying I was employing it as a metaphor, for black versus white, good versus evil.

              • ‘The only reason I come here is to watch the wonderful sight of hard core racists and ultra-nationalists thrashing around as their arguments unravel’

                Gosh, you really think you are pinning us down, don’t you? Sticking it to us, nailing us, crucifying us.

                And you really take pleasure in the thought of it, don’t you?

                Sorry, Dubitante, old chap. But forgive us if we conclude you have an a priori animus against Israel and Zionism.

                Forgive us our Doubting, Dubitante, you have our best interests to heart.

              • Oh so you’re an anarchist now? Well how can one in one hand advocate “International law” then claim to be Anarchist. International law is nothing but the treaties nations have agreed to but since you decry nationalism how can you advocate abiding by treaties nations have agreed to? Your are inherently illogical and it is clear why the logic of the words in the treaties of nations in no way enter your thinking. International law is what you the interpreter thinks it should be. It’s all about how you feel your feelings, International law based on your anarchist feeling, the structure of words and meanings are to rigid possibly to hold the anarchy of feelings you have. You feel that something must be racist or ultra nationalist because it reads words that were defined to give a certain people National rights.

              • The only reason I come here is to watch the wonderful sight of hard core racists and ultra-nationalists thrashing around as their arguments unravel, and to see just what lengths they will go to to maintain their beliefs in the face of verifiable citations of the documentary record.

                That’s never been a reason for me – but it is an in turns entertaining/disturbing sideshow. About a month ago the poster walt kovacs was roundly applauded here for their “nuke the Arabs” comment.

              • Aww, still in your heroic mood, dilletante? Fact is that you just can´t help obsessing about Israel. That´s your mental problem, not ours.

          • Sarah, even Israeli historians don’t believe the defensive war myth any more.

            And they are certainly correct. Some well known facts:

            Some weeks prior to the war Israel closed the Tiran-straits the only entry point to Egypt from the Red-Sea,
            the same time Israel expelled the UNEF troops separating the Israeli attack forces from the Egyptian defenders,
            In May 16 the Israeli dictator Gamal Nasser started to mass divisions along the Egyptian border, declared that his aim is the annihilation of Egypt, organised huge demonstrations in the Israeli capital, declaring that the Israeli people want to fight, threatening that the Egyptian cities will be flooded with the blood of Arabs,
            Dubitante, your expertise in history is on the same level with your legal knowledge.
            You are gift who keeps giving.

            • Peter, the documentary record is very clear. The Israelis and Americans knew that Nasser wasn’t about to attack, and even if he did, alone or in concert with other, Israel would, in Lyndon Johnson’s words, “whip the hell out of them”. The Israelis agreed. This is all on record.

              Now I know Nasser was talking the talk, but, unless you’re 7 years old, that’s no reason to start a fight.

              Unlike hardcore opponents of Israel, I do not place sole responsibility for the war on Israel’s shoulders. But as they initiated the war, the lion’s share has to remain with them.

              Not one state at the UN, not one, not even the US condemned the Arab states as the aggressors. But the history of the 1967 war has been airbrushed to within an inch of its life, and if you were to look only at “official” versions of history, you would believe, as most people do, that Jews were facing a second Holocaust, Israel was on the brink of destruction and it was a miracle they survived.

              In reality, there was no threat, and there was never any prospect of an Israeli defeat. To claim otherwise is, if nothing else, and insult to Israel’s armed forces.

              • Thank you for proving my point about your knowledge of history.

                Peter, the documentary record is very clear. The Israelis and Americans knew that Nasser wasn’t about to attack, and even if he did, alone or in concert with other, Israel would, in Lyndon Johnson’s words, “whip the hell out of them”. The Israelis agreed. This is all on record.

                Maybe some references about these records…

                Now I know Nasser was talking the talk, but, unless you’re 7 years old, that’s no reason to start a fight.

                Yes talking the talk means closing the Tiran straits and expelling the UNEF troops…
                In reality, there was no threat, and there was never any prospect of an Israeli defeat. To claim otherwise is, if nothing else, and insult to Israel’s armed forces.

                There is an insignificant problem with this assertion. I personally know a lot of people who personally witnessed/participated in these events.
                All of them beg to differ.

              • Again you simplisticate. The general consensus is that Nasser was caught out in and by his own anti-Zionist rhetoric. That alone is significant. You speak as though Israel should just have ‘played along’. Nasser acted in an extremely aggressive manner. Whatever other signals he may have sent out, Israel wasn’t obliged to invest the one directly in their face with less meaning.

                As to threat, who is an anti-Zionist enemy such as you, who seems to airbrush Palestinian and other Arab nationalist expulsionist or eliminationist discourse from history, to lecture?

                Who do you hope to convince? Not the Jews concerned, clearly.

                Moreover, you overlook the simple fact that it is merely by capturing, holding and occupying land and resources that Israel has been able bargain with its neighbours/enemies for recognition at all.

              • Hindsight is not 20/20 in your case Dubi dooby do, That’s quite an explanation though and you may get away it it in some circles and even here if it weren’t for so many pesky facts. Just 25 years prior to the 6 day war Jews learned an important lesson. When someone threatens to annihilate you believe them. When someone with 5 times the Size as you in armed strength threatens to annihilate you, you better have the initiative. All human leaders including Arabs are prone to follow through on bellicose words uttered in haste publicly one cannot threaten for days then quietly go back on ones words war might have been prevented if U Thant had stood his ground possibly Nassar thought that he would but when he did not a confrontation was inevitable he could not not attack and then face his people and the rest of the Arab world. The Die was cast.

          • What +none+ of them?

            That’s not my impression. In 1967 Israel was surrounded by states either adamantly opposed to the existence of a Jewish state, and threatening its extinction on a regular basis, or allied to such states.

            That is a very hostile environment (which ultimately expelled all its non- or anti-Zionist Arab Jews). Land and resources captured and occupied are the only bargaining chips Israel has had to compel recognition or negotiations.

            Your account is simplistic, to say the least. Which surprises me, given how much you pride yourself on your understanding, compared with such as us.

            You call us ‘ultra-nationalist’. Well a case could be made that, by your sins of omission, you are a de facto pro-Palestinian and other Arab Muslim and Christian, but anti-Jewish, nationalist yourself.

            Which could be argued to be pretty ultra in its own right.

      • ‘It would take some pretty creative thought processes to convince yourself it was defensive’

        That’s not what Israel and Israelis, think, nor most Israeli judges.

        If you are blind to the expulsionism or eliminationism in Palestinian and other Arab nationalist discourse of the time (never mind rank antisemitism), Israeli Jews are not obliged to take you seriously.

  12. ‘However, should war start again between the Israelis and the Palestinians, or a regional war occur that made Judea and Samaria a military danger for Israel, you can expect that this time Arab-Palestinians will leave Judea and Samaria and Israel will take final control and annex those territories. It all depends on the behavior of the Palestinians actually.’

    Definitely a threat of ethnic cleansing there.

    Fabian, it looks to me as though the P.A.-Hamas alignment are considering storming Israel’s borders with large numbers of Palestinian refugee civilians.

    I must say, that would put Israel in an invidious position. I wonder what I would do as a soldier, guarding the border. What would I do? With what could I live?

    If I cannot in the final analysis keep them out but by shooting, would I? Part of me couldn’t live with myself. I can’t imagine living with it, really. But I wouldn’t be desperate to become a minority in my own state, either, least of all a Palestinian Arab Muslim and Christian majority state, given that people’s track record with regard to Israeli, Palestinian and other Jews.

    • Why would Israel’s response to a violent invasion attempts be expected to be any different than any other country’s expected response? We don’t have to spend a long time wondering what Syria or Iran, among other charming neighbors, would do if ANYONE tried to storm their borders.
      They certainly wouldn’t hesitate to shoot every one of them, since they’re had a lot of practice by doing this regularly to their own citizens!
      Smailli’s pseudo-conundrum is just 1 more illustration of the incredible hypocrisy Israel’s critics are guilty of in attempting to hold them to standards no other country in the world would observe.

      Get a life.

  13. Shamili: of course I don’t want a war, but should a war happen, then I expect it to be the last.

    I also think that many people in the left (and I was in the left once) don’t realize that even if everything goes according to plan up until the creation of a Palestinian State in Judea and Samaria, repeatead threats from that front after the signing of a peace treaty can devolve us all to a second occupation. What are we going to do then? Go back to where we are now or try to reach the end of conflict over that land by other means?

  14. It never ceases to amaze that bigots like “debutante”, so obsessed with attempting to manipulate facts and history in vain attempts to characterize Israel as some type of aggressor, never seem to notice other minor violations of the “international law” this butchy (?)lady seems so very concerned about.
    E.g. Syria’s murdering literally thousands of its own citizens in its streets? As did Egypt? Iran executing dissidents, gays and political opponents, wll the while they’re developing a nuclear capability only a mindless Islamoslurp like you could possibly believe is for anything other than starting WWIII, in flagrant violation of all the prohibitions place on them by the IEC, the U.N. , and virtually every civilized country in the world.

    Your ignoring these brutal realities in favor of pathetic dishonest and racist bashing of Israel explains why 78% of Americans favor Israel in the Mideast conflict, and despise little Islamoslurps like yourself.

  15. According to dubitante, she is definitely not a bigot, on Twitter at least. According to her blurb (and bear in mind that she’s not renowned for her qualities of insightfulness) “Analyst of propaganda. Advocate for a peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine.”

    As they say, they walk among us….

    Wonder if she’s another disciple of Greg Philo, who’s also unhealthily interested in what he calls Israeli propaganda, which he gets all het up about because it’s true and he can’t stand it?

  17. To be fair to her, dubitante has made some well-argued points on this post, and has never stooped to the personal abuse that some have done.

    Having said that, her argument is fundamentally flawed. She is basing her view on the legal interpretation of the UN and its institutions. That’s the UN, with its one Jewish member state (which has limited influence as it will never be elected to represent its grouping on the Security Council or other senior committees) and its dozens of muslim member states and their satellites.

    According to German law in the 1930s, a Jew who attempted to buy land from a non-Jew, or perhaps even marry one, was “legally” in breach of domestic law, and subject to the sanctions set by that law, but that doesn’t make it right.

    You can quote UN resolutions all day, but the UN is a fundamentally flawed body. You ask in an earlier post whether Israel would get a fair hearing from a court made entirely of Israeli judges. My answer to that is yes, and I cite the Israeli Supreme Court as evidence. The State of Israel is regularly brought to account by this body of Israeli judges, who treat each case fairly an on its merits, not as a quasi-political opportunity to add to the near-universal hysteria about a small democratic state trying to survive in the best way it can, as the UN does.

    • You may well be correct GoonerEll, but I am not at all inclined to be fair to dubitante.

      I can’t actually have respect for or show respect to someone so lacking in the capacity for insight, viz the waffle about wanting peace in her Twitter blurb wihch is so at variance with what is on her blog and what she writes here.

      Having said all that, you make good points about the UN, stacked as it is with anti-Israel members and sentiment to the extent that it cannot be impartial, and your comparison between the situation of Israel with the UN and the Jews in Nazi Germany fits for me.

    • To be fair to “dubitante”, i’ve seen lots of her obsessive Israel-bashing, and it’s “argued” alright, but rarely with the benefit of fact or history. Every item no matter how false is yuxxed around in pathetic attempts to bash Israel, and truth is something that dubitante is rarely encumbered by.

      The simple and obvious proof of the pudding is that 100% of her disjointed rants are anti-Israel–not 1 word about the “elephant in the room” in the Mideast–relentless murderous Islamofascist violence, against Israel, Christians, and indeed their own indigenous populations.

      Dubitante’s blabs are so 1-sided, in such denial about these regional realities that it’s hard to imagine her as anything but a very confused, very disturbed obsessed bigot.

        • dubi, you one-note disingenuous prig, you base your entire argument on whether a constructing a home is legal according to some judges.

          What do those same judges have to say,

          what decisions have they issued about…

          – hijacking passenger planes
          – flying hijacked planes into buildings and murdering ~3K people
          – hijacking cruise ships
          – hijacking the 1972 Olympics
          – Somali piracy
          – bombing the London transit system on 7/7/05
          – murdering British policewoman Yvonne Fletcher
          – hate speech in British mosques, exposed by a Dispatches program
          – death threats against the UK and Europe
          – death threats against writers of fiction like Salman Rushdie
          – death threats against cartoonists
          – using poison gas, a WMD, on the Kurds of Halabja Iraq
          – threatening fellow UN member nations with genocide
          – violating the EU definition of anti-Semitism
          – hanging gay teens from construction cranes
          – stoning to death or disfiguring Afghan girls for “family honor”
          – bombing an elementary school in Beslan
          – shooting a US presidential candidate to death
          – the Islamic Republic of Iran using children to clear mine fields
          – brainwashing children with kiddie show to hate a particular ethnic group
          – Assad family dictatorship of Syria
          – Castro family dictatorship of Cuba
          – Kim family dictatorship of North Korea
          – lack of human rights for gays in the Islamic Republic of Iran
          – the Islamist attack on Mumbai India

          One-Note dubi, why are you a defender of islamist racism, islamist fascism, islamist death worship, islamist gender separation, islamist hate of non-Infidels, muslim only cities?

          Here is something for you dubi, a short video just for you.

          “Useful Idiots for palestine”

        • It was done before many times, “professor” dilletante. Now, enough of your spoiled-brat demandings, you are sounding just like the palestinians. Surprise!

  18. GoonerEll has it. Anyone whose arguments against Israel rely mainly or solely on legally and morally questionable UN resolutions against her is on very thin ice indeed.

  19. Dubitante thanks for saving me the trouble of quoting chapter and verse as you have. The overwhelming majority of legal opinion considers the settlements as illegal. Whilst Cif Watch is entitled to its opinion it should not expect the Guardianto follow its own minority view. It should also not simPly quote the minority dissenting voices and present that as the legal fact. The Guardian cannot be expected to write footnotes explaining the legal position every timeit refers to the illegal settlements. So stop complaining or worse still disingenuously presenting a t

  20. Dubitante thanks for saving me the trouble of quoting chapter and verse as you have. The overwhelming majority of legal opinion considers the settlements as illegal. Whilst Cif Watch is entitled to its opinion it should not expect the Guardianto follow its own minority view. It should also not simPly quote the minority dissenting voices and present that as the legal fact. The Guardian cannot be
    expected to write footnotes explaining the legal position every timeit refers to the illegal settlements. So stop complaining or worse still stopdisingenuously presenting a totally one sided legal argument and pretending it represents anything other than a small minority view.

    • ‘So stop complaining or worse still stopdisingenuously presenting a totally one sided legal argument and pretending it represents anything other than a small minority view’

      Well, Jews have always had to be content with being the Minority Report.

      Israeli Jews know what they know. If you expect them to know different, you are flogging a dead horse.

      And the U.S. does dispute the assertion of blanket illegality for Israeli settlements. The matter is much more complex than the witnesses you adduce allow. Much more complex.

    • I note that you say “opinion” See the opposing arguments here, particularly about the necessity to distinguish opinion from law and fact.

      I note also that most of that overwhelming majority has made the cognitive error of not being able to separate out legal fact from what they want to be true, yourself included apparently.

      In other words, I care not one jot for what the overwhelming majority thinks, led as it is by the nose, following the notion of the Big Lie which repeated often enough becomes true for lazy minded folk.

      Hawkeye and Serendipity have laid out the answers and argued very well enough to convince intelligent people passing by, or at least to encourage them not to foreclose before having investigated for themselves.

      dubitante, the Guardian riff-raff and others who can’t seem to be educated or can’t be bothered, likewise fail miserably at this. Theirs is, quite literally the lazy, as well as the dishonest, way out.

  21. dubitante this should interest you, you being totally bias-free, about Class A status and of course you are confusing myth with fact yet again.

    There is much to be gained by attributing Class “A” status to the “Mandate for Palestine.” If the inhabitants of Palestine were ready for independence under a Class “A” mandate, then the Palestinian Arabs that made up the majority of the inhabitants of Palestine in 1922 (589,177 Arabs vs. 83,790 Jews) could then logically claim that they were the intended beneficiaries of the “Mandate for Palestine” – provided one never reads the actual wording of the document:

    1. The “Mandate for Palestine” never mentions Class “A” status at any time for Palestinian Arabs.

    2. Article 2 of the document clearly speaks of the Mandatory as being:

    “… responsible for placing the country under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment of the Jewish national home.”

    The “Mandate” calls for steps to encourage Jewish immigration and settlement throughout Palestine except east of the Jordan River. Historically, therefore, Palestine was an anomaly within the Mandate system, in a class of its own – initially referred to by the British as a “special regime.”

    Many assume that the “Mandate for Palestine” is a Class “A” mandate, a common but inaccurate assertion that can be found in many dictionaries and encyclopedias, and is frequently used by the pro-Palestinian media and lately by the ICJ. In the Court Advisory Opinion of July 9, 2004, in the matter of the construction of a wall in the “ Occupied Palestinian Territory,” the Bench erroneously stated:

    Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire. At the end of the First World War, a class [type] ‘A’ Mandate for Palestine was entrusted to Great Britain by the League of Nations, pursuant to paragraph 4 of Article 22 of the Covenant. …

    Indeed, Class “A” status was granted to a number of Arab peoples who were ready for independence in the former Ottoman Empire, and only to Arab entities.41 Palestinian Arabs were not one of these Arab peoples. The Palestine Royal Report clarifies this point:

    (2) The Mandate [for Palestine] is of a different type from the Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon and the draft Mandate for Iraq. These latter, which were called for convenience “A” Mandates, accorded with the fourth paragraph of Article 22. Thus the Syrian Mandate provided that the government should be based on an organic law which should take into account the rights, interests and wishes of all the inhabitants, and that measures should be enacted ‘to facilitate the progressive development of Syria and the Lebanon as independent States.’ The corresponding sentences of the draft Mandate for Iraq were the same. In compliance with them National Legislatures were established in due course on an elective basis.

    Article 1 of the Palestine Mandate, on the other hand, vests ‘full powers of legislation and of administration,’ within the limits of the Mandate, in the Mandatory.”

    The Palestine Royal Report highlights additional differences between the Mandates:

    Unquestionably, however, the primary purpose of the Mandate, as expressed in its preamble and its articles, is to promote the establishment of the Jewish National Home.

    Articles 4, 6 and 11 provide for the recognition of a Jewish Agency ‘as a public body for the purpose of advising and co-operating with the Administration’ on matters affecting Jewish interests. No such body is envisaged for dealing with Arab interests

    But Palestine was different from the other ex-Turkish provinces. It was, indeed, unique both as the Holy Land of three world-religions and as the old historic national home of the Jews. The Arabs had lived in it for centuries, but they had long ceased to rule it, and in view of its peculiar character they could not now claim to possess it in the same way as they could claim possession of Syria or Iraq.

    Glad to be of service

    • I said cite your sources clearly, not copy and paste pages from MythsAndFacts without attribution! But I suppose it’s a step in the right direction. I will help you out, you copied and pasted from here:

      http://www.mythsandfacts.com/conflict/mandate_for_palestine/mandate_for_palestine.htm

      So, on the one hand we have the pro-Israel website myths and facts, and on the other hand, the official documentary record. It’s a tough call, I can see why you went with MythsAndFacts.

      So, we have the UN:

      http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/6199D7529E2481A385256299006E8E4F

      We have the Americans:

      http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/FRUS/FRUS-idx?type=goto&id=FRUS.FRUS1919Parisv13&isize=M&submit=Go+to+page&page=101

      We have the highest legal body on Earth:

      http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/index.php?p1=3&p2=4&k=5a&case=131&code=mwp&p3=4

      And we have the mandatory power itself:

      http://www.juancole.com/2010/03/lord-curzon-on-palestine-as-class.html

      So, MythsAndFacts vs the documentary record. It’s a tough one. Let me know which way you decide to go.

      • We have the highest legal body on Earth: the ICJ…

        Maybe you will be very disappointed to hear that the ICJ has any authority only in the eyes of your kind. The only and highest legal authority in Israel is the Israeli High Court of Justice and not the ICJ – a body mostly consisting third rate “legal experts” from fifth rate dictatorships, staffed with two-bit politically motivated lawyers. The members of the ICJ are delegated by their governement – haven’t any democratic credentials.

        …we have the pro-Israel website… says Dubitante then quotes from Juan Cole! You couldn’t make it up really.
        Anyway Cole is a historian and a ME scholar and has nothing to do with legal matters.

        • Would it surprise you to learn that with regards to international relations, Israel’s Supreme Court (as good as it is) isn’t even a footnote?

          And I wasn’t quoting Juan Cole, he was quoting Lord Curzon. Any comments on the memorandum from Lord Curzon….no?

          • You must be surprised to know that in Israel the ICJ even not a footnote, it is absolutely and totally irrelevant. And maybe you should explain the international character of a matter between a country and a non-existent entity Palestine?

            And I wasn’t quoting Juan Cole, he was quoting Lord Curzon.

            Cole being as he is, his quote not reliable at all. Maybe he translated this as he did with Amadinejad famous speech. But why should we give a fick about Lord Curzon at all?

            • “You must be surprised to know that in Israel the ICJ even not a footnote, it is absolutely and totally irrelevant.”

              I agree. It’s a view shared by most rogue states.

              “And maybe you should explain the international character of a matter between a country and a non-existent entity Palestine?”

              You’ve already articulated your rejection of international law, so if you reject that framework, there’s no discussion to be had. At least you are openly and honestly supporting criminality rather than dishonestly trying to argue a case.

              “Cole being as he is, his quote not reliable at all. Maybe he translated this as he did with Amadinejad famous speech.”

              I know you’re fond of the ad hominems, if you’d like me to quote further sources regarding the mandate’s class A status, let me know.

              • ‘I agree. It’s a view shared by most rogue states.’

                But you don’t even think Israel should +exist+.

                Why should Israel listen to the views of such as you?

          • Any comments on the Class A mandate status not being granted to Palestine business you were so resoundingly wrong about above, dubitante? No? Why ever not?

            Why should we believe you’re correct about Curzon either?

      • Dear Dub,

        were a Martian to descend to Earth and visit the UN, he, she or it would have to conclude that Israel is the most evil state on earth.

        I am afraid that I think no small reason for the plethora of resolutions against her is that the General Assembly guarantees an almost certain majority against Israel via the Organization of Islamic Countries. Most of whom successfully block the resolutions of which they would fall foul (e.g. apartheid against most of their (former) Jewish citizens).

        Were Israel to have heeded the majority, as you call it, she would have dissolved herself long ago. But, as I said, Jews are used to being a minority report. Unlike you, they don’t think it a vice.

      • You have the Americans, do you, Dub?

        See, I thought that the U.S. does recognise e.g. the complex legal character of the settlements issue, refugees and the 67 lines. That is why such as you have such a problem with them.

        Unlike you, they don’t see the matter as black and white, good versus evil.

        • The documentary record regarding the Americans and the mandate of Palestine is from 1919. If you regard the record I cited as fake, or incorrect, say so, and cite the documentary record in support of your thesis.

          If you can’t cite the documentary record, how are you arriving at your opinion?

          • All I can find in the document you cite is that, on page 102, the U.S. concluded treaties with Britain regarding its nationals in Palestine.

            Woodrow Wilson drew up the Covenant of the League of Nations, while a Republican congress declined to join, in no small part to embarrass him.

            It’s odd, but you complain endlessly about Israel or the U.S. not comporting with U.N. resolutions, but now cite the U.S.’s having not joined the U.N.’s precursor as some kind of legal precedent it should follow.

            However, the Balfour Declaration +was+ overwhelmingly endorsed by both Houses of Congress in 1925.

            Are you saying the U.S. doesn’t recognise the complex legal character of the settlements?

            I’m sorry, English, I don’t see much evidence for the logical or legal savvy on which clearly you pride yourself over mere ‘Zionists’ (by which you mean ‘Ultra-nationalist Jewish supremacists’), such as ourselves.

      • ‘I said cite your sources clearly, not copy and paste pages from MythsAndFacts without attribution!’

        That’s a bit rich from someone who is too lazy to even select, copy and paste. All you’ve done is paste a series of links. If you are too lazy to select and adduce from your sources, why should we do the editing which you find too taxing?

        I thought you were the brains here, Mr, Englishman.

        As an aside, I believe Jews were promised a Jewish national home in Palestine, which assumed some kind of Jewish right of return as of justice and need. UNSCOP decided to fulfil that in the form of a Jewish state in Palestine, which would have ended the matter, had the other party or parties accepted it, and not fought a war or issued all manner of threats against the Jewish state, in the case of the P.L.O. until at least 1988, Hamas arguably until today.

        That complicates the matter considerably. By 1988, the clock couldn’t go back to 1947 or 1967. All developments subsequent had to be negotiated.

        You seem to think that laws exist in a vacuum, that interpretation of them cannot vary, given circumstances e.g. one, other or all parties accepting or rejecting them.

        • “As an aside, I believe Jews were promised a Jewish national home in Palestine”

          They were promised little, if anything. The British committed itself to giving its best efforts to that end. And the British was to facilitate Jewish immigration into Palestine under certain conditions.

          “UNSCOP decided to fulfil that in the form of a Jewish state in Palestine”

          UNSCOP’s recommendation, via resolution 181, was a recommendation to the British that the mandatory power should partition Palestine. The British decided not to go down the route of partition.

          • ‘UNSCOP’s recommendation, via resolution 181, was a recommendation to the British that the mandatory power should partition Palestine.’

            To create a Jewish state.

            You clearly have a problem with that.

            That seems hard to reconcile with your alleged adhering to international law. It seems you don’t adhere to its basic principles in this conflict or situation.

            • “To create a Jewish state. You clearly have a problem with that.”

              It was a recommendation that was not accepted by the British. Why would I have a problem with it? It’s history.

              “That seems hard to reconcile with your alleged adhering to international law.”

              And yet the British were of the opinion that it was legally wrong to recognise Israel before the establishment of an Arab state. Funny that.

                • 19th of May, 1948, the British Foreign Office legal advisers sent the following to the British delegation at UN headquarters:

                  “The present juridical situation as regards Palestine is obscure and we cannot be sure whether other governments besides that of the Jewish state will emerge. It would be unfair and LEGALLY WRONG in these circumstances to admit the Jewish State to the United Nations at this early stage and thus to give it international recognition, while not taking any similar steps for the rest of Palestine”

                  Emphasis mine.

                • So what? Britain had not endorsed partition, having effectively cancelled the Balfour Declaration in 1939, in an effort to appease Palestinian and other Arab nationalists.

                  And Britain did take ‘similar steps etc’, by arming and advising (if not leading) the Arab Legion in its war against Palestinian Jews. The Jordanians alone enjoyed any military success against the Jews, in no small part for that reason.

                  What’s your point?

              • Then your claim to adhere to or support international law is bogus.

                Palestinian Jews were hardly responsible for the fact that Palestinian and other Arab Muslims and Christians had decided it was more important to deny Jews a state, than acquire one themselves.

                Britain had supported and armed Jordan in its professed war to that end. Which is why it recognised the legality of Jordan’s annexing the West Bank and Old City. Presumably you haven’t a problem with that, either.

          • ‘They were promised little, if anything.’

            IF ANYTHING? IF ANYTHING?

            i.e. NOTHING!!!!

            You think the Balfour Declaration or League of Nations Mandate promised NOTHING?

            And you claim to adhere to international law???

            Farcical.

            • Of course it promised nothing. Well, that’s not true. It promised that the British would use their “best efforts” to facilitate the establishment of a Jewish homeland (not state) somewhere in Palestine, in a way that did not infringe upon the rights of the indigenous Arab majority.

              • So what? You yourself declare that most countries were created by conquest, so your phony-legalese is worthless. If it´s the law of the jungle that prevails, why are you obsessed with rights and such? Again, you are a fraudster, debutante.

              • Yes, a Jewish national home (though the Martin Gilbert essay, to which Ariadne links above, shows how its instigators did envisage, for the most part, an eventual Jewish state). Not nothing, and certainly not nothing for the Jews concerned.

                Had Jews been allowed to settle throughout Palestine, and not bottled up in increasingly restricted parts of Western Palestine

                a) more Jews could have been settled, with less friction with Palestinian Arab Muslims and Christians; and
                b) a more numerous, yet more interspersed population could have made the birth of a bi-national state more likely. Much closer to your single state ideal.

                By banning Jewish immigration to Transjordan, and further restricting where Jews could live, Britain effectively made the subsequent series of wars all the more likely.

                Moreover, Britain pretty much cancelled the Balfour Declaration by the White Paper of 1939, in response to the 1936-39 revolt, whose rebels cried ‘The English to the sea; the Jews to the grave'; promising, effectively, to eventually surrender the Jewish minority to Palestinian Arab Muslim and Christian majority rule, whose leadership had called for Palestinian (and other) Jews’ expulsion or elimination, too.

                Such was the hostility of Palestinian (and other) Arab Muslims and Christians to Palestinian and other Jews, UNSCOP decided the only way further Jewish immigration was possible (if not to allow Palestinian Jews to survive, never mind thrive), was to sanction a Jewish state, in whose territory, Jews were an autonomous majority.

            • Exactly. So “indigenous arabs” were also promised nothing. As debutante, in his realpolitik mood declares, most countries arised through conquest, anyway. Though others, such as the fake-state of Jordan, were a pure invention of classical British Imperialism. But debutante won´t obsess with Jordan or any of those fake-Islamic states and the rights of 800.000 Jews that were expelled and expropriated.

              Double-standards. Monomania. Judeophobia. That´s your resumé, debutante, you fraudster.

      • I’ll take up the challenge, Dubi. Curzon was talking about the difference between a) establishing a Jewish national home in Palestine and b) turning the whole of Palestine into a Jewish national home, and set out why the mandate was re-drafted to show that the intention was the former and not the latter. OK.

        Now consider that Curzon was talking of “Palestine” being the entire mandate area that now constitutes Israel, the “Occupied Territories” AND JORDAN. The administrative area of Trans-Jordan, which became the Hashemite Kingdom, was the sop to tthe Arab population Curzon was referring to in his memo.

        Finally, I note that Juan Cole refers to Curzon’s comments about a “future government of Palestine” and somehow draws the conclusion from this that the British intended there to be an Arab state of “Palestine”. This is patently nonsense. Curzon did not have a crystal ball – he could not predict that the Jews would decide to cal their national homeland Israel, nor that the Arabs would call theirs Jordan. The only term he had for the area was the word Palestine – not a state, but an administrative area.

        • “Curzon was talking about the difference between a) establishing a Jewish national home in Palestine and b) turning the whole of Palestine into a Jewish national home, and set out why the mandate was re-drafted to show that the intention was the former and not the latter.”

          Given that under a class A mandate, the indigenous Arab majority was held to be almost ready for self rule (aahh, colonialism at its best), can you elaborate on your thesis, and quote/cite accordingly?

          For example, if the indigenous Arab majority was nearly ready for self rule, how do you reconcile this with turning all of Palestine into a state solely for the Jewish immigrant minority?

          • “How do you reconcile this with turning all of Palestine into a state solely for the Jewish immigrant minority?”

            Dubi. Did you not read my post – even the bit you quoted? I agree that Curzon’s memo sets out the British intention – NOT to turn the whole of Palestine into a Jewish state.

            What I go on to say is that the “whole of Palestine” to which Curzon refers includes Trans-Jordan (almost 70% of mandate Palestine).

            “Can you elaborate on your thesis and quote/cite accordingly?”

            I refer you to the text of Curzon’s memo and Cole’s commentary on it using the link you yourself provided. All I did was read this with an objective eye and offer you my summary of it in the context of general knowledge about the extent of British Mandate Palestine (which I presume you do not dispute) and applied it to the topic of this thread. Pretty standard process really.

            • Yes, I apologise, I misread your comment.

              The complicating factor of course was that prior to the Balfour declaration, the British had already entered into a treaty committing Britain to facilitating Arab independence across Palestine.

              Although maps drawn up by the Foreign Office showed otherwise, the British later claimed that the promise to the Arabs did not include the area to the West of the river Jordan. The legal and political fudge that followed was the Transjordan memorandum.

              So they were left with an area to the West of the Jordan, in a class A mandate, with an Arab majority. What happened next is pretty well understood.

              • The issue was complicated, as you might say, by the special case that was Palestine i.e. the issue of a people widely held (if not universally recognised in (including Palestinian) Christendom and Islam) as historically exiled or dispossessed from that place. That is hardly the fault of the Jews concerned.

                Britain was the first empire in 2000 years to rule the land which permitted a Jewish return; that did not see it as its Christian or Islamic duty to subject Jews, or maintain them as a people largely humiliated and dispossessed.

                But such was the pressure on European Jews in the late 19th, early 20th centuries, had Britain not offered the Balfour Declaration, it would have had to decide whether to allow Jews return, anyway, or continue, like the Christian and Islamic empires that preceded it, to discourage or deter them.

                I do not see why or how Britain acted wrongly by not so doing.

                • Support for Zionism was driven largely by anti-Semitism, but in an unusual way.

                  Balfour, for example, was an anti-Semite who didn’t want European Jews flooding into Britain. Brandeis, for example, was an anti-Semite who didn’t want Russian Jews coming to the US.

                  And Hitler, of all people, was one of the biggest supporters Zionism ever had, perverse as it may sound. Zionist organisations also enthusiastically collaborated with anti-Semitic regimes.

                  This is why Zionism was largely held to be anti-Semitic by European Jews in the early 20th century. It was not popular, not by a long shot.

                  So be careful when you retrofit 21st century Zionist discourse onto earlier Zionist history. It doesn’t fit.

                • So what? Jews were persecuted in Europe, no matter how well they contributed their nations and tried to assimilated, like in Germany. So your european anti-Semitism was a main drive of Zionism. It´s all your people´s fault.

                  People separate because they can´t live together. That´s why the UN proposed a partition. But arabs (and your ilk) just can´t stand the existence of a sovereign, succesful JEWISH state. You just can´t. It´s in your cultural tradition, no matter how enlightened you think you are. Just as Voltaire was a rabid anti-Semite. And your hero, Kant, that wrote that “the true religion of humanity is the euthanasia of Judaism”.

                  Yeah, debutante, mull over it. Swallow it. Rave and rant about it. Have a stroke; Have an ulcer.

          • The West Bank of the jordan River which was set aside under international law for a future Jewish State in 1922 then illegally occupied and ethnically cleansed of Jews between 1948 and 1967 is Part of the Ancestral homeland of the Jewish people and part of the Jewish State. The Arabs have no national rights west of the Jordan River they also show a marked inability to create a functioning state.

            • “The West Bank of the jordan River which was set aside under international law for a future Jewish State in 1922″

              I’m afraid that’s completely inaccurate. Just adding “under international law” to your post doesn’t make it less inaccurate. In 1922, the area to the EAST of the Jordan (which had been promised for Arab independence) was made exempt from British attempts to facilitate a Jewish homeland (not state) in Palestine.

              • ‘In 1922, the area to the EAST of the Jordan (which had been promised for Arab independence) was made exempt from British attempts to facilitate a Jewish homeland (not state) in Palestine.’

                No. The British didn’t exempt themselves from British attempts, Mr Logic. The BRITISH formally banned all Jewish immigration into former Eastern Palestine, now Trans-Jordan, and Jewish landownership, as a matter of law.

                It was the British, the English i.e. YOU (as ’twere: since you clearly LOVE the idea of banning Jewish immigration into Palestine), Dub.

                • Debutante misses so much the old times of perfid Albion rule… A pity indeed that your islet has become such an insignificant player in world affairs, eh?

                • In that case, she/he/it had no right to seccede from the British Empire, which was established by conquest, a legitimate process as, after all, most countries were thus created. So, we conclude the US is violating International Law by merely existing. But all Muslim states are ok.That´s the type of non-sense one can reach by debutante´s scholarly logic.

                • The Mandate was expressly meant to facilitate Jewish the formation of a Jewish Government which would lead to Statehood, If one reads the wording of the document this is obvious.

              • Wow, how can you be so hypocritical, debuntante? You are the one that keep posting BS in the name of “international law”, and now you criticized others for that?

                Again, you´re a pathetic fraudster.

      • Again, any comments on your blooper about the Class A status for “Palestine” (see my post above)?

        Thought not.

      • Would you be so kind to explain that what is the relevance in Israel today of a third rate British politician who dead almost hundred years ago? Why should any Israeli give a whatever for his memorandum???
        Since his times there were some insignificant changes in the world, like the WWII like the Holocaust, like the genocides in the Communist countries, the end of the so called “peace camp” and yes Dubi the eshtablishment of a Jewish state called Israel. (I know this last example causes you great distress but life is hard – you have to learn to live with it.

        • Peter – I agree with you in principle (see my other posts about the Arabs childishly failing to deal with the reality of the situation, and hoping that if they pretend 1948 and 1967 didn’t happen, the Israelis will just go away), but the topic of this thread is the legality or otherwise of Israeli “settlements” in the West Bank, and much of the discussion has looked back to the terms of the British Mandate.

          Not much relevance to the reality on the ground today, no, but to the topic of this thread – it is relevant.

        • I agree with Gooner insomuch as the class-A mandate is interesting from a historical perspective, but it’s of little value in terms of a peaceful settlement today.

          Someone above claimed that it wasn’t a class-A mandate, presumably in an attempt to whitewash the Zionist conquest. I was just pointing out the obvious that the ICJ, the UN, the Americans and the mandatory power itself were under the impression it was a class-A mandate.

          • Mind your language. There was no “Zionist conquest”. Perhaps the result of WWI escapes you as it escapes so many of Israel’s enemies.

            Related to the childishness mentioned above. perhaps. Pretend WWI didn’t happen.

                • Oh, is that so? So, what are u up to with your phony international lawyerism? Why are you obsessed with Israel, debutante? Try to be honest and clear. Nah, that´s asking to much, isn´t it?

                • ‘Of course it is. It’s my view that Israel is entirely legitimate…I’ve never contended otherwise.’

                  You’re a two-faced liar, English. You said that Two states = Jewish supremacism i.e. the very existence of Israel is racist.

                • You also contend that it is possible (if not highly likely) the BD or Mandate promised the Jewish people NOTHING i.e. that even a Jewish national home should not consist in ANYTHING.

                  You also contended the legality of the Mandate, by adducing a U.S. state department view of the League of Nations Covenant.

                  You couldn’t even bring yourself to acknowledge that UNSCOP called for the creation of a Jewish state.

              • ‘The establishment of the state of Israel was an act of conquest. In that respect, it is no different to most other states.’

                The difference is that it is the only, or the chief, state you would dissolve or cease to exist.

                The one Jewish state in the world, for its alleged apartheid qualities. Into a surrounding sea/desert of Arab, Islamic states and societies, including the Palestinian, all of which are apartheid, by your criteria, at the very least with regard to Jews, and often with regard to other groups.

                You have a strange obsession, Mr English cultural Christian. And it conspicuously has to do with Jews.

                • Then why aren’t you there, you waste of oxygen and human DNA, Anthony Posner? A schwartze and nachtige jahr to you and all who sail in you

                • You are a moron, Thank God I’m an Infidel (AKA Anthony Posner). Have a long and torturous 9th of Av

                • For the benefit of Getanakba and yet another nakba already.

                  From the IDF English website:

                  “IAF thwarts attempted Gaza rocket fire

                  IAF aircraft target terrorists responsible for previous rocket fire, moments before another launching
                  Date: 30/12/2011, 10:00 AM Author: IDF Website

                  A short while ago, IAF aircraft targeted a terrorist squad that was identified moments before firing rockets at Israel from the northern Gaza Strip. A hit was confirmed, thwarting the rocket fire attempt.

                  The aforementioned squad is responsible for the firing of rockets at Israel in the past number of days.

                  The IDF will not tolerate any attempt to harm Israeli civilians, and will operate against anyone who uses terror against the state of Israel. The Hamas terror organization is solely responsible for any terrorist activity emanating from the Gaza Strip.”

                  Happy Nakba Y’All!

                • ‘What have I written about Jews that suggests to you I have an obsession? Have I written *anything* about Jews?’

                  Er, Two states = Jewish supremacism?

                • ‘What have I written about Jews that suggests to you I have an obsession? Have I written *anything* about Jews?’

                  Pretty much everything you write has to do, one way, or another, with Israeli, Palestinian or Zionist Jews.

                  As if you didn’t know.

                • And where have anyone here written *anything* about all muslims?

                  See, debutante, your little word-games always get back to you. Mull over that.

                • ‘Isn’t it considered anti-Semitic to conflate Jews with the actions of the state of Israel?’

                  It depends which Jews.

                  And you still obsess solely with Jews.

                • The establishment of Israel was actually the foiling of a conquest. The Arabs you say have been here thousands of years actually came recently from other Arab lands, the vast majority are non indigenous and arrived in the late 19th and 20th centuries. Palestinian Nationalism never existed prior to Zionism and is simply Arab irredentism. The Local Arabs after 20 years have proved their political immaturity, unwillingness and inability to form a functioning state. We will annex soon. It’s the only viable option.

              • ‘The establishment of the state of Israel was an act of conquest. In that respect, it is no different to most other states.’

                Had Palestinian Jews lost the war of 1947-49, your single, Palestinian Arab Muslim and Christian majority state would have been an act of conquest, with few to no Jews.

                But, then, you don’t believe they had a right, for the most part, to have come there in the first place.

                • There was no “right” to establish a Jewish state on what was predominantly Arab land, of course there wasn’t. This is a historical fact, but it doesn’t help us today.

                  There are two peoples living in historic Palestine. Israelis have the full benefits of self determination and statehood, and the Palestinians are being denied statehood and the right to self determination on a fifth of what is left of their ancestral homeland.

                  I support a peaceful resolution of the conflict. It’s hard to find a peaceful settlement without a minimum standard of justice.

                  Out of interest, do you support the two state solution? i.e. more-or-less the 67 borders with minor and mutual land swaps and East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital with a right of return for their refugees?

                • ‘There was no “right” to establish a Jewish state on what was predominantly Arab land,’

                  I spoke not of state. I spoke of return.

                  ‘of course there wasn’t. This is a historical fact,’

                  Not for the Jews concerned, whose ancestors had prayed thrice daily for the restoration of Israel to the land of Israel, for over a thousand years.

                  ‘but it doesn’t help us today.’

                  No, it doesn’t. Israeli Jews are unlikely to listen to anyone whose they or their ancestors had no fundamental right to have come there in the first place.

                  ‘There are two peoples living in historic Palestine. Israelis have the full benefits of self determination and statehood, and the Palestinians are being denied statehood and the right to self determination on a fifth of what is left of their ancestral homeland.’

                  Most of Palestine having been banned to Jews. Palestinians need to come to direct negotiations with Israel. Then Israeli Jews can enjoy the full benefit of knowing their state is recognised as a permanent thing, along with the principle of Jewish return and self-determination that is at the heart of it, and for which it was founded in the first place.

                  ‘I support a peaceful resolution of the conflict. It’s hard to find a peaceful settlement without a minimum standard of justice.’

                  Which you deny the Jews concerned, whom you say had no fundamental right to have come there at all! You deny the justice of the very basis of either a Jewish national home or a Jewish state.

                  ‘Out of interest, do you support the two state solution? i.e. more-or-less the 67 borders with minor and mutual land swaps and East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital’

                  A divided Jerusalem, old and new.

                  ‘with a right of return for their refugees?’

                  To a Palestinian state.

                  I support the Geneva Accord

                  http://www.geneva-accord.org/

                • “Not for the Jews concerned, whose ancestors had prayed thrice daily for the restoration of Israel to the land of Israel, for over a thousand years.”

                  Compare and contrast this with your views on the right of return of Palestinians to their ancestral homeland, a land that many of them can still remember.

                  You think that Jews have a special right to turn the clock back thousands of years to exploit what are, at best, tenuous links to Palestine, but Palestinians don’t have the right to turn the clock back a few decades to return to their homeland which they had lived in and worked for centuries.

                  A perplexing argument indeed.

                • Yeah, debutante, if Jews could turned the clock back, they´d have avoided the pogroms, the expulsions (from your pathetic island, for instance) and extermination.

                  But, who cares about your ever shifting pseudo-arguments, your pathetic fake-concern for “human right” and justice.

                  You fool nobody. You jare a classic anti-Semite, quite in synch with european tradition. You shoud be proud.

                • ‘Compare and contrast this with your views on the right of return of Palestinians to their ancestral homeland, a land that many of them can still remember.’

                  As I said, an ror to a Palestinian state.

                  ‘You think that Jews have a special right to turn the clock back thousands of years to exploit what are, at best, tenuous links to Palestine’

                  Some kind of Jewish right of return, as of justice and need, was the basis of the Balfour Declaration, League of Nations Mandate and UNSCOP’s recommending the formation of a Jewish state.

                  ‘but Palestinians don’t have the right to turn the clock back a few decades to return to their homeland which they had lived in and worked for centuries.’

                  And where they have discriminated against Jews, in a form of imperial Christian then Islamic apartheid, holding Jews to be a people exiled and dispossessed for their rejection of Jesus and the prophets, and, conversely, Christians and Muslims possessed of Jerusalem and the land for their superior virtues. Then, when Jews began to slip in through the cracks of the crumbling Ottoman Islamic empire, birthing a Palestinian Arab Muslim and Christian movement, that evolved from seeking to ban all Jewish immigration to seeking to expel or eliminate Palestinian or Israeli (or indeed other) Jews.

                  As I said, a special case.

                  As I also said, an ror to a Palestinian state.

                  ‘A perplexing argument indeed.’

                  My argument being, 2 states, for 2 peoples, borders on the 67 lines, or territorial swap, a divided Jerusalem, old and new, 2 rights of return etc.

                • ‘“Not for the Jews concerned, whose ancestors had prayed thrice daily for the restoration of Israel to the land of Israel, for over a thousand years.”’

                  You seem to think that because Jews have been ‘Palestinians’ for 2000 years, that makes their ror less potent than Palestinians who have been merely ‘Jews’ for 60 years (and ‘Jews’ who still live mostly within the borders of original British ruled Palestine; fed, housed and watered, free of charge, by the U.N.).

                • “As I said, an ror to a Palestinian state.”

                  And refugees who were cleansed from Israel?

                  In my view, I do accept that giving the right of return of refugees who were cleansed from what is now Israel is politically difficult. I think Israel should acknowledge the right, and talk openly about these difficulties, and offer compensation packages.

                  “Some kind of Jewish right of return, as of justice and need, was the basis of the Balfour Declaration, League of Nations Mandate and UNSCOP’s recommending the formation of a Jewish state.”

                  Systematic dispossession of the Arabs of Palestine could hardly be described as “just”.

                  But at least you’re not in the realms of the extremists, that’s something. You’re still demanding large concessions from the Palestinians and are offering no concessions in return.

                • ‘‘You think that Jews have a special right to turn the clock back thousands of years to exploit what are, at best, tenuous links to Palestine’’

                  For most of European, North African, Asian and, above all, Palestinian Christian and Islamic history, Jews have been regarded as a people dispossessed for their rejection of Jesus and the prophets.

                  And that includes English Christian history, were you aware of it, which, clearly, you are not.

                  That belief led, in the 19th and 20th centuries, to, inter alia, European or, say, Arab Jews being regarded, not so much as nationally European or Arab, say, as Judean, that is to say, ‘Palestinian’.

                  With the further result of their effectively being driven out, either from this world or, before 1914, mostly to America; after 1914 mostly to Palestine or what became Israel.

                  Christendom and Islam taught Jews they were a people displaced and dispossessed; then confirmed it by further dispossessing them.

                  What you call ‘tenuous’ has been driven home by most of your fellow European, North African, Asian and Palestinian Christians; and, by extension, Muslims.

                  The fact that you do not seem to know that is hardly the responsibility of the Jews concerned, nor are they prepared to pay the price for it, yet again.

                • ‘“As I said, an ror to a Palestinian state.”

                  And refugees who were cleansed from Israel?’

                  To a Palestinian state. Unless Jews can have an ror to the territory of that too (as originally envisaged by the Mandate).

                  You write as though Palestinian Arab Muslims and Christians accepted partition in 1947, and didn’t fight with their allies to subjugate, expel or eliminate Palestinian or Israeli Jews: in the case of the P.L.O. until at least 1988; in the case of Hamas, until today.

                  By 1988, the clock couldn’t go back to 1947 or 1967.

                  ‘In my view, I do accept that giving the right of return of refugees who were cleansed from what is now Israel is politically difficult. I think Israel should acknowledge the right, and talk openly about these difficulties, and offer compensation packages.’

                  Will the P.A. acknowledge a Jewish ror to the territory of Israel, let alone all of historic Palestine?

                  Compensation is part of the G..A.

                  “Some kind of Jewish right of return, as of justice and need, was the basis of the Balfour Declaration, League of Nations Mandate and UNSCOP’s recommending the formation of a Jewish state.”

                  ‘Systematic dispossession of the Arabs of Palestine could hardly be described as “just”.’

                  Asides your ‘systematic’, it depends. The same or worse was threatened against Palestinian or Israeli Jews. Similar things happened in other ethnic wars that birthed other states.

                  ‘But at least you’re not in the realms of the extremists, that’s something. You’re still demanding large concessions from the Palestinians and are offering no concessions in return.’

                  I beg to differ. 2 states etc. You know my formula.

                • “There was no “right” to establish a Jewish state on what was predominantly Arab land, of course there wasn’t. This is a historical fact, but it doesn’t help us today.” Debutante

                  Well, Judeophobic prick, as you yourself said, countries, such as your little pathetic islet, have no “right” to be established but by conquest;

                  So, make up your mind.Oh, I see, you only have Israel in your mind. Well, that´s it. Mull over it.

                • There´s also no right for England to exist. Or any country whatsoever. So, why are you so transfixed with Israel? I bet it´s Judeophobia.

                • “There´s also no right for England to exist. ”

                  Unusually for you, you’re absolutely right. No state on Earth has a right to exist, so you can ponder why Israel is alone in demanding recognition of this non-existent right, and why they demand it only from the Palestinians.

                  If you get stuck, let me know.

                • “Unusually for you, you’re absolutely right. No state on Earth has a right to exist, so you can ponder why Israel is alone in demanding recognition of this non-existent right, and why they demand it only from the Palestinians.” dilletante

                  So, debutante, why you have a fixation on Israel? If every country in the world is the same, whey the heck you waste your precious time bashing Israel and worried about Palestinians? Why you waste thousands of words on pseudo-legalese, on UN resolutions and empty
                  hypocritical BS about “human rights” and justice?

                  “If you get stuck, let me know.” debutante

                  No need to worry, everyboy knows the answer: Judeophobia. Mull over it.

                • ‘so you can ponder why Israel is alone in demanding recognition of this non-existent right, and why they demand it only from the Palestinians’

                  Because it is important for Israel to know that, when it comes to a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians, it is a permanent, real peace. Not simply a temporary truce or hudna, in an ongoing jihad whose ultimate goal is Israel’s dissolution.

                  For instance, like White (English) Man, you speak with forked tongue:

                  you +profess+ to accept a two state solution, to see Israel as “entirely legitimate”, but, when one reads your fine print, and the rest of what you believe in your discourse, it turns out you don’t think Israel’s existence, or a priori a Jewish state, is legitimate at all. You think its very existence is an act of ‘Jewish supremacism’, and your +actual+ goal is to dissolve her and Jewish constituents into a Palestinian Arab Muslim and Christian majority state and society, whose defining characteristic for most of the 20th century and before, with regard to Jews, can +only+ be described as apartheid, based on the criteria for which such as you seek to perfect the one Jewish state in the world from existence.

                  Thanks, but no thanks, English. Friendship such as yours, we can do without. As 3/4 of the world discovered.

                  It’s your very creepy obsession with the Jews concerned, in what would be to their ultimate hurt, that begs the kind of question Ser Jew asks.

                • @Serjew – “If every country in the world is the same”

                  They aren’t the same. I just said that no state has a right to exist. Israel is alone in demanding recognition of this non-existent right.

                  “whey the heck you waste your precious time bashing Israel and worried about Palestinians?”

                  Through my research, I’ve come to know a lot about the history of the conflict, about the history of Zionism, about the formation of the state of Israel, about Zionist propaganda etc. And when I see nationalists blindly parroting propaganda to the detriment of the Palestinian people (and the Israeli people) it’s hard to keep my mouth shut.

                  “Take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” Elie Wiesel

                • ‘And when I see nationalists blindly parroting propaganda to the detriment of the Palestinian people (and the Israeli people) it’s hard to keep my mouth shut.’

                  You clearly have no such problems with pro-Palestinian Arab Muslim and Christian, but anti-Jewish, nationalists. You parrot their propaganda endlessly.

                • What “Refugees” are you speaking of. Refugee status has never been transferred from one generation to the next by any group other than Arabs, It is merely Arab irredentism. There is no Arab homeland for them in Israel Those in camps in Lebanon Jordan and elsewhere are in their homeland from which their great grandparents originally came, however they are forced into stasis by Arab irredentism.

                • “And when I see nationalists blindly parroting propaganda to the detriment of the Palestinian people (and the Israeli people) it’s hard to keep my mouth shut.” debutante-delirante

                  Oh, is that? You feel this urge and outrage, eh? Nothing moves you so much, eh? Not the *real* humanitarian disasters going on all over the world, mostly involving ISLAMISTS, killing themselves and others in the thousands. No, you only get apoplectic about the poor palestinian people “(and the Israeli people)” (what a masterpiece of cynical rethorical bull).

                  You are nothing but a run-of-the-mill, unoriginal and pretty pathetic Jew-hater.

                  PS: feel free to not recognize Israel, or any other country. No one gives a flying f***.

                • “Oh, is that? You feel this urge and outrage, eh? Nothing moves you so much, eh?”

                  It’s my academic focus, the area I know best, why would I spend my time on areas I know less well?

                  “Not the *real* humanitarian disasters going on all over the world, mostly involving ISLAMISTS, killing themselves and others in the thousands.”

                  Classic racism. I don’t blame Judaism or Jews as a collective for crimes committed by Jewish people, but you blame Islam for crimes committed by Muslim people.

                  The biggest atrocities in this world have been, and will continue to be committed by us white folk. Atomic bombs on Japan, Holodomor, Shoah, destruction of Iraq, massive scale environmental damage, the list goes on.

                • I guess “dubitante: as result of his wide reading and copious study of Mideast history, somehow forgot about the Balfour Declaration!
                  How very curious indeed for an “academic”!.
                  And i would support Israel’s return to the pre-1967 border of the U.S. returns Texas, Arizona, and California to their original owners

                • ‘Through my research, I’ve come to know a lot about the history of the conflict, about the history of Zionism, about the formation of the state of Israel, about Zionist propaganda etc.’

                  You’re an ignorant English twit who thinks his prejudices and assumptions constitute actual knowledge. You don’t even know the basics.

                • Yeah, prof debutante, you surely took sides. The wrong one. The side of Judeophobic arrogant pricks that hide behind a humanist mask.

                  Once again, if you think no country has the right to exist, you should
                  focus in dismantling YOURS first and foremost, instead of meddling with other people´s bussiness.

                  So, take sides for *real* and go dismantle England. Enjoy!

  24. Let´s play a bit with your little word games, debutante: you can´t conflate a people with an institution, those are different categories, aren´t they? So, what do you mean? Are you using a metaphor? Or, God forbid, are you using a generalization, that pillar of racism? Define your words, don´t be such a sloppy “scholar”. What do you mean by “conflate”? Which “actions” you refer to?

    • Rather than answer, I will direct you to one of the examples of anti-Semitism listed on this website:

      “Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel.”

      Now, I think this is a problematic definition, but let’s run with it.

      If it is your contention that by criticising the actions of the state of Israel, I am somehow criticising Jews, have you not fallen foul of this? Maybe, maybe not.

      Do we accept that it is permissible to criticise the actions of the state of Israel?

      Is criticising the actions of the state of Israel the same as criticising Jews collectively?

      • ‘Is criticising the actions of the state of Israel the same as criticising Jews collectively?’

        No. But obsessing with the one Jewish state, for, for instance, qualities allegedly apartheid, which every Arab, Islamic state or society, including the Palestinian, has with regard to Jews, at least, is a definite case of singling out, and obsessing solely with the Jews concerned, to the exclusion of justice applicable everywhere else in the situation or region.

        You have a problem, Mr. Englishman.

  25. You are still playing with words, debutante. You know very well that criticizing the actions of the State of Israel is NOT anti-Semitic. Israelis are the most ferocious critics of their government, as it should be in a real democracy.

    But demonization, delegitimation and double-standards are anti-Semitic classics. And YOU, professor debutante, do that all the time, particularly in your single-minded focus almost exclusively on Israel; ignoring context and history; using phony-legalese; and holding Israel to impossible standards of perfection, that you don´t demand from anybody else. THEN, you claim to be sooooo dissapointed and com with your condescending lectures. NO, that´s not “criticism” but Judeophobia, pure and simple.

    • “You know very well that criticizing the actions of the State of Israel is NOT anti-Semitic.”

      I’m glad we agree.

      “But demonization, delegitimation and double-standards are anti-Semitic classics.”

      I’m not interested in demonizing Israel. I fully accept the legitimacy of the state of Israel. Can you point to a double standard I’ve employed?

  26. Correction

    No, it doesn’t. Israeli Jews are unlikely to listen to anyone who SAYS they or their ancestors had no fundamental right to have come there in the first place.

  27. SerJew, I did see your response above. This is a failed lawyer who has jumped opportunistically on a bandwagon and though we have plenty of perverted haters I don’t think she is one of “ours”.

    Perhaps it is her livelihood,

    I’d like to see her banned for time-wasting.

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