Source: Jerusalem Post
Submitted by Dan Friedman
After nearly six months of investigations, three legal experts known colloquially as “the outpost committee” – a government-appointed advisory body – submitted some clear-cut conclusions.
For instance, the trio – former Supreme Court justice Edmond Levy, former Foreign Ministry legal adviser Alan Baker and former deputy president of the Tel Aviv District Court Tehiya Shapira – found that the hundreds of thousands of patriotic, productive Israeli citizens living in Judea, Samaria and the Golan Heights are not criminals, as many of Israel’s adversaries – and allies – would argue.
They also found that the 45-year-old settlement project, which has reunited the Jewish people to land resonating with Jewish history dating back thousands of years, cannot in any way be construed as an international crime.
The trio's argument, backed up by their intimate knowledge of international law, is based on a few simple facts.
First, the British Mandate, which came into effect in September 1922 after being ratified by the League of Nations, called for the creation of “a national home for the Jewish people” in the territory west of the Jordan River, including Judea and Samaria.
Second, the 1947 UN Partition Plan for Palestine never replaced the British Mandate as intended. It was accepted by the Jewish community in Palestine represented by the Jewish Agency, but was rejected by both the Palestinian Arab Higher Committee and by the states belonging to the Arab League.
Third, in the wake of Israel’s War of Independence, when first local Palestinian militias and later the combined armies of Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon tried but failed to snuff out the Jewish state. Jordan seized control of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and parts of Jerusalem, but its sovereignty over these areas was never recognized by the international community.
Fourth, after the Six Day War, when once again the combined armies of Egypt, Syria and Jordan, with the help of numerous other countries and organizations – including the PLO – tried and failed to wipe Israel off the map, Israel found itself in control of Judea, Samaria and Gaza, along with the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights.
In 1988, Jordan ceded its claims to the West Bank to the PLO. But these so-called claims were less substantial than Israel’s for a number of reasons. First, the British Mandate never recognized Jordan’s right to the land west of the Jordan River.
Also, Jordan seized the territory in an aggressive offensive against the fledgling Jewish state. And the newly created Jordanian state – essentially a British construction – had absolutely no historical ties to Judea and Samaria, while for Jews, it is the cradle of Jewish civilization and statehood from the biblical era.
Far from “occupied,” the status of Judea and Samaria – if one is being generous with regard to Palestinian demands – can at best be described as sui generis.
The territory enjoys a unique status in international law as land that has never been unequivocally set aside for a specific people by the international community.
Even UN Resolution 242, which introduced the “land-for-peace” formula, calls on Israel to withdraw from “territories” in exchange for peace with its neighbors, but not all territories.
It was clear to the international community immediately after the Six Day War that Israel would retain an undetermined portion of Judea, Samaria and Gaza. (Israel has since magnanimously ceded the Gaza Strip to the Palestinians.) Unfortunately, the outpost committee’s conclusions are not so obvious to everyone. Just three months ago, for instance, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in response to moves by Israel to legalize outposts, declared that all settlement activity was “illegal.” Ban’s position reflected the general perception of most of the international community and certain segments of the Israeli Left.
Unsurprisingly, Levy, Baker and Shapira might not succeed in convincing Israel’s detractors that settlements are legal and the men, women and children who populate them are law-abiding citizens by any criterion.
But at least the plain truth has now been reiterated – for the record. And it should be officially recognized as such by the government.
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Source: American Thinker
Submitted by Dan Friedman, NYC
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently appointed an advisory commission of jurists to explore the legality of Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
The panel, headed by former Supreme Court justice Edmund Levy, concluded that the West Bank -- biblical Judea and Samaria -- cannot be construed as "occupied" territory under international conventions, because the world never recognized Jordan's illegal occupation before 1967, when Israel captured the area in the Six-Day War.
Ergo, there are no legal impediments to Jewish settlements, given also a long history of Jewish ties to this land. Consequently, "according to international law, Israelis have the legal right to settle in Judea and Samaria," the jurists concluded. However, they also urged the government to establish clearer guidelines and demarcations for authorized settlements.
Basically, there is little news in any of this. Dispassionate journalistic observers - and their ranks sadly are dwindling - long have labeled the West Bank as "disputed" -- not "occupied" -- territory. Israeli governments - in 2000 and 2008 - have offered to vacate 95 percent of it for creation of a Palestinian state. Yassir Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas rejected the offers, aiming to grab all of it, including all of East Jerusalem. In the meantime, Netanyahu is ready to put the entire issue of settlements on the agenda for resumption of peace talks, if only Abbas were willing to negotiate. But Abbas has no appetite for negotiations - or compromise.
Given this context, how does the New York Times report the findings and conclusions of the advisory commission? In short, it goes apoplectic. The Times, having already decreed that Jews have no business in Judea and Samaria, slams the legal brief with a barrage of furious strokes.
Here's Jerusalem correspondent Isabel Kershner's lead in the July 10 edition:
"Flouting international opinion, an Israeli government-appointed commission of jurists said Monday that Israel's presence in the West Bank was not occupation and recommended that the state grant approval for scores of unauthorized Jewish outposts there." ("Validate Settlements, Israeli Panel Suggests) page A4).
Taking her cue from some amorphous sort of "international opinion" is just for starters. In the second paragraph, Kershner sternly warns that "such a move would inevitably stir international outrage and deal a significant blow to prospects for an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement." Funny, but the Times never seems to view Abbas's refusal to negotiate or his glorification of terrorist killers as a "blow to prospects for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal."
Still, Kershner isn't done. In case you haven't gotten her drift, she substitutes her legal prowess to that of the jurists on the advisory panel: "Most of the world views the areas that Israel conquered from Jordan in the 1967 war, and where the Palestinians want to establish a future state, as occupied territory, and all Israeli construction there as a violation of international law," she writes.
For good measure, Kershner also relies on the views of a couple of leftist, self-proclaimed human rights groups that -- surprise, surprise -- agree with her.
After her lengthy trashing of the panel's conclusions -- the article jumps from page A4 to page A7 -- Kershner ends thusly: "In another development, gunmen from Gaza opened fire on Monday evening into southern Israel, hitting a civilian car that was empty at the time, according to the Israeli military. The military published photographs of the car, which contained a baby seat, punctured by bullets. There were no injuries."
A single, lonely paragraph at the very end of her piece about another terrorist attack that somehow does not qualify as a blow to the peace process or to flouting international law and opinion, as far as Kershner and the New York Times are concerned.
A dispute about land, and the Times goes bananas. Not so, however, when Israeli civilians come under terrorist attacks. A telling contrast about the paper's journalistic and moral priorities.
Leo Rennert is a former White House correspondent and Washington bureau chief of McClatchy Newspapers
