Ethan Bronner has penned one of his typical “on the one hand-on the other hand” stories about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which make the conflict out to be a he said-she said dilemma. But there is one interesting passage in which he describes the reception of the Palestinian plans to bring statehood before the UN this month:
French diplomats are trying to help the Palestinians shape a United Nations resolution that describes statehood on the 1967 lines, along with agreed land swaps with Israel, but slows down bilateral recognition between a Palestinian state and other nations. This is partly aimed at luring the Germans, who are unenthusiastic. Europeans say they believe that their unity in this issue is important.
Israel is horrified. To abandon Oslo, its leaders say, is to destroy any hope of negotiations, because that will rip up the legal basis for talks. If a United Nations resolution defines Palestine as within the 1967 lines, that means 500,000 Israelis will be defined as occupiers in another country. To pre-empt that, there are suggestions here to annex certain areas first or withdraw travel privileges for Palestinian officials in the West Bank.
The horror! 500,000 Israelis become occupiers overnight! What does Israel think they were before that? Halutzim (“pioneers”)? As for annexing parts of the West Bank, that should go over well before an international community which already looks with deep disfavor on some of Israel’s more recent shenanigans on the world stage.
And can you imagine how well this argument from Dennis Ross and his Mini-Me, David McHale, went over with Mahmoud Abbas when they met with him last week:
Having the power to take Israeli officials to the International Criminal Court may sound appealing, they said, but it will not end the occupation and is likely to make it worse.
Someone will have to explain to me how enabling the Palestinians to take potential Israeli war criminals to court will make the Occupation worse? By forcing Israel to be even meaner and more brutal than it already is? And do the Americans think that this will scare the Palestinians? That there is anything more the Israelis can do to make their lives worse than they already are and that will also dissuade them from their course? Really, Ross. Who do you think you’re dealing with, here? A second rate U.S. protectorate (Israel of course, being a first rate U.S. protectorate)?
I think it may be the best situation for negotiations if the Palestinians have a some sort of recognized state and a set of domestically rooted claims against the settlers (as opposed to the ongoing “international law” fiction that gets them nowhere). What I mean by this is once statehood is declared, Palestinian courts should issue criminal indictments against all the settlers and declare their homes open for demolition. While it is largely symbolic, it will give something for Israel to trade for at in negotiations, as opposed to the status quo where their complete monopoly on power means they make peace “because they’re nice”.
Just a thought.
I prefer the international law, even if a “fiction”. what makes I/L a “fiction” is the resolute refusal of the USA to enforce it and the USA’s power (even if soon to diminish) over all the other countries.
With recognition, with Mavi Marmara and Gaza-Trashing and Lebanon (1978, 1982, 2006), there is a growing list of countries that might be ready to overcome their fear of USA to the point of voting for BDS resolutions in UNSC or UNGA as a lever to force Israel to conform to International Law at least to the point of removing settlers and, perhaps, also demolishing settlement buildings and the hated wall.
I/L, as lawyers say, is “what the judges will do”. Here, although there is an ICJ, the thumb on the scale of justice is the USA’s, and the “court” is world opinion, which may be changing.
Israel and USA ignored ICJ’s 2004 decision that the wall needed to be demolished. ICJ decisions are not enforceable unless and until there is sufficient international willpower to enforce them.
It is international willpower that we (pro-Palestine camp) must move, by BDS and other means.
Yes, and if Israel and the U.S. and the world continue to make a mockery of international law, we, the world, will be in deeper trouble in the future than it already is. IL is ultimately a sine qua non if the world is to be one worth living in.
ILEANA-ROS-LEHTINEN in the Miami Herald:
“I will soon introduce the United Nations Transparency, Accountability, and Reform Act, which will reflect the executive branch’s previous successful policies by cutting off U.S. contributions to any UN entity that grants membership or any other upgraded status to the Palestinian observer mission. This legislation will also leverage U.S. taxpayer dollars to make sure they do not fund biased or wasteful UN activities, and to achieve other much-needed reforms that will make the UN more transparent, accountable, objective, and effective.”
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/08/27/v-print/2377714/to-protect-israel-at-un-money.html#ixzz1XkhsEbf4
The author of this is an ideological pro-Batista type, a hard-right-winger who never pretends otherwise. Enough said.
In the “Certain Expenses” case the ICJ ruled that the General Assembly did not exceed its authority under the UN Charter when it authorized the deployment of the UNEF during the Suez Crisis. It was acting under the authority of a “Uniting for Peace” resolution. The Court also ruled that General Assembly assessments are not voluntary contributions.
Ilena-Ros-Lehtinen doesn’t seem to be aware of the fact that members loose their right to vote and participate in the business of the General Assembly when they fail to pay their assessments in accordance with Article 19 of the UN Charter.
and i will read Hamlet into the congressional record … !
The emptiest threat Israel and the US can make in all this is that things will become worse for the Palestinians if they go through with the vote. Money withdrawn, agreements torn up, and so on. In fact, as you have suggested, Israel has worked so hard for so many years to make things bad for the Palestinians, and the US has been so flinty with its share of assistance, that now that they want to wave this over the heads of Palestinians, their hands are virtually empty.
The agreements have all be violated continuously. The brutality, the humiliations, the dirty drinking water …
the Palestinians have nothing to lose. Maybe if they had grown fat on huge subsidies, like Pakistan and Egypt, somebody would be fighting to hold onto the money.
But that never happened.
One more thing:
New public opinion poll of German citizens. Strongly in support of Palestinian statehood. No surprise there. The government for several years has tried to cozy up to the US and to Israel. Every few months the well fed prime minister steals a few billion more from the German treasury and sneaks another nuclear submarine under the table to the Israelis–much to the horror of her people.
Yes German people should be listened to. How did Tom Lehrer put it? “they bothered us once in 1914 and they haven’t bothered us much since then”
sadly public opinion polls and reason of state are not the same.
I’m afraid the German government will be one of the view countries that bolt the founding of a Palestinian State. No matter what public opinion is. The lame duck Westerwelle (Secretary of State) made that clear.
Sad.
Obviously you can’t run state affairs by public opinion. If you did you would probably abolish taxes, parking offenses, and cut the pension age to 55.
The expression goes ” no authority without responsibility”, I haven’t yet met the people I would trust to make critical complex decisions.
What tangible benefit will the statehood bid bring to the average Palestinian?
The same “tangible” benefit I suppose that gave and still giving the “average” Jew from the world over a place to call home.
The Palestinians, being the indigenous population there desire no less.
Not to mention the ability to bring settlers before the ICC for thefts of Palestinian land & other criminal acts which Israeli courts refuse to adjudicate. Or Israeli generals and policitians for prosecuting wars killing women & children. Plus it will upgrade Palestine’s diplomatic status throughout the world & bring it one step closer to true independence & statehood. It’s just a matter of time. And Barack Obama will go down ignominiously as the American president who said No, when he was asked to answer the call of history. Shameful.
Okay, so the Palestinian with enough money will have the ability to send Israelis to the ICC.
Well connected Palestinians will get high paying jobs in missions and embassies across the world. And Israeli and American leadership will have failed.
Again… How will this help the daily life of a Palestinian who is not well connected, could not care about Obama and is already fed up with the broken promises of peace, Israel the PA and Hamas?
Okay, so the Palestinian with enough money will have the ability to send Israelis to the ICC.
Duh! Israel will no longer have the ability to kill Palestinians with absolute impunity. It has nothing to do with income level.
There are 116 ICC member states that can also arrest and prosecute Israeli government officials; WZO Settlement Division officials, and JNF officials for their illegal activities. If you don’t know how that will benefit the average Palestinian, just ask one.
Thanks for the Advice Haver,
Having to travel via Modiin on a regular basis I made a stop at the checkpoint on 443 and asked some of the Palestinians what they thought about taking Israel to the ICC. Without exception, not one of them knew what the hell I was talking about.
Considering how well the 116 member states and the rest of the world have responded to Omar al-Bashir’s indictment, I don’t think Israelis have much to worry about and the lives of the Palestinian s will go on for better or worse, price tags, settlements and everything else.
Wow, you, an Israeli, asked Palestinians who didn’t know you from Adam and who you met at a checkpoint what they thought about the ICC, & you were met with blank stares. And from this you adduce that no Palestinian will bring a court case against Israel to the ICC and that Palestinians would not support such action. I’ve gotta hand it to ya. That’s absolutely brilliant reasoning, & a perfect example of why Israelis are in the deep doo-doo they are.
Of course officials in Israeli and the US have been aware of the ICC and the threat it poses to the settlement enterprise ever since day one. They have a false talking point which claims that a Palestinian state can only be established through negotiations.
It doesn’t matter whether ordinary Palestinians know about the ICC or not. The members of the Yesha Council do and they are government officials that can be investigated for their role in the illegal settlements and widespread and systematic “price tag” attacks directed against the occupied civilian population. See for example the opinion of Israeli Supreme Court Justice Elyakim Rubinstein (then Attorney General) in A-G: New Hague court may indict settlers for war crimes.
Judge Richard Goldstone said prosecutors should not tailor what they are doing to reports of what’s happening on the ground in negotiations. They should indict the responsible individuals if that is where the evidence leads. He related that the political assessment of UN Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali over the timing of the indictment of Radovan Karadzic had been incorrect. Had he not been indicted, the Dayton Accords would not have been brokered. Simon Wiesenthal stressed that if Karadzic were ever indicted he should know that if he didn’t immediately face trial, he would be hunted for the rest of his days. Wiesenthal felt that was the only way to deter other would-be-criminals. Like Bashir, Karadzic managed to avoid arrest and trial for a time. See You Tube, “Conversations with History – Richard J. Goldstone” , and Richard Goldstone “For Humanity: Reflections of a War Crimes Investigator”, Yale University Press (August 11, 2000), ISBN 9780300082050, pp 93-103
You are mistaken if you think that Bashir is safe from arrest and trial by members of the iCC. The Jordanian government reiterated that it will fulfill its obligations under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Tunisia has joined the Court since then and it has adopted a similar position.
Bronner appears to think there can be an occupation without occupiers. Perhaps it is a grammatical issue in his mind. “The West Bank is occupied” is standard NYT English, but “The settlers are occupying the West Bank” isn’t.
It would be fabulous to see Abbas play hardball with the U.S.:
“Countries that threaten us only guarantee that they themselves will be brought to justice at the ICC. You are strongly urged to support our bid for statehood if you would like to avoid this outcome.”