Friday 19 June 2009
Parshat Shelach: Tzitzit of Duality
At the end of this week’s parshah, we learn about the commandment to wear Tzizit (fringes) at the edges of our (four-cornered) garments. The paragraph that describes the commandment is the very same paragraph that we recite twice daily (morning and night) in our prayers in the section of the “Shema”. Wearing Tzitzit is a crucial and fundamental commandment to the Jewish people, and through this commandment we are meant to “remember all the commandments of Hashem (God) and perform them” (Numbers: 15: 39). In order to understand the commandment on a deeper level it will be necessary to see the paragraph in its entirety; the Torah writes:
“And Hashem (God) spoke unto Moses, saying: ‘Speak unto the children of Israel, and say to them that they are to make themselves Tzitzit on the corners of their garments, throughout their generations, and that they put with the Tzitzit of each corner a thread of tcheiles (a type of turquoise color). And it shall constitue Tzitzit for you, that you may see it, and remember all the commandments of Hashem, and perform them; and that you not explore after your heart and your eyes, after which you stray; So that you may remember and perform all My commandments, and be holy to your God. I am Hashem your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, to be your God; I am Hashem your God.’ “[Numbers: 15: 37 – 41 ]
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Parshat Shelach: Tzitzit of Duality
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Sefer Chabibi Deepest Torah: SHELACH: AGENTS OF THE EXILE; THE SECRETS OF THE TALLIT AND TEFILLIN
SHELACH: AGENTS OF THE EXILE; THE SECRETS OF THE TALLIT AND TEFILLIN
by Rabbi Baruch Binyamin Hakohen Melman
Exile can be a state of mind. But it can also be very real. The Nation of Israel was on track to be united with the Land of Israel, when the sin of the spies caused a deep rupture, thus delaying the reunion until the passing of the generation that was accustomed to a negative slave mindset. Thus the exile of the mind led to an exile of the body. Our thoughts determine who we are to become, what our destiny will be.
The Torah identifies two agents of the exile. One agent leading us to sin was the organ of vision, viz. the eyes. Whereas in Eden man saw himself as larger than G*d, and thus his eyes caused him to disobey, leading to the first exile, the exile from Eden, this new exile similarly was caused by the eyes. This time the sin was that man saw himself as being too small, just the opposite of Eden.
"..We were IN OUR EYES like tiny grasshoppers, that's all that we were IN THEIR EYES(vanhi v'eyneynu kachagavim v'chen hayinu b'eyneyhem - NUM 13:33).
The use of eyes attributed to both the Canaanites and Israel is possibly indicative that this smallness of vision was a universal pathology. The fixing or corrective for the sin of Eden was not that man should think of himself as being small, G*d forbid, but rather that he should see his own greatness and become a partner with G*d to fix the world. Obeying G*d is essentially forming a partnership with the Divine.
The corrective for the sin of the eyes are the phylacteries which are worn during morning prayers. As they are placed as "frontlets between the eyes," they have the power to lift us up to a higher vision of ourselves. ayin is the Hebrew word for eye, but it also means wellspring, as in maayan. Thus what we focus on becomes the source of our inspiration for achieving our own greatness. We should be blessed to focus only on the positive.
Exile can be a state of mind. But it can also be very real. The Nation of Israel was on track to be united with the Land of Israel, when the sin of the spies caused a deep rupture, thus delaying the reunion until the passing of the generation that was accustomed to a negative slave mindset. Thus the exile of the mind led to an exile of the body. Our thoughts determine who we are to become, what our destiny will be.
The Torah identifies two agents of the exile. One agent leading us to sin was the organ of vision, viz. the eyes. Whereas in Eden man saw himself as larger than G*d, and thus his eyes caused him to disobey, leading to the first exile, the exile from Eden, this new exile similarly was caused by the eyes. This time the sin was that man saw himself as being too small, just the opposite of Eden.
"..We were IN OUR EYES like tiny grasshoppers, that's all that we were IN THEIR EYES(vanhi v'eyneynu kachagavim v'chen hayinu b'eyneyhem - NUM 13:33).
The use of eyes attributed to both the Canaanites and Israel is possibly indicative that this smallness of vision was a universal pathology. The fixing or corrective for the sin of Eden was not that man should think of himself as being small, G*d forbid, but rather that he should see his own greatness and become a partner with G*d to fix the world. Obeying G*d is essentially forming a partnership with the Divine.
The corrective for the sin of the eyes are the phylacteries which are worn during morning prayers. As they are placed as "frontlets between the eyes," they have the power to lift us up to a higher vision of ourselves. ayin is the Hebrew word for eye, but it also means wellspring, as in maayan. Thus what we focus on becomes the source of our inspiration for achieving our own greatness. We should be blessed to focus only on the positive.
Continue the Reading at :
Sefer Chabibi Deepest Torah: SHELACH: AGENTS OF THE EXILE; THE SECRETS OF THE TALLIT AND TEFILLIN
JEWISH DEFENSE LEAGUE PROTEST
Jewish Defence League Protest
*JDL* PROTEST@
York U, Glendon Campus (Bayview and Lawrence)
Protest Against the Anti-Israel International Conference
Monday, June 22, 2009
3:00 – 9:00 pm
Map
*Parking is Unavailable. We recommend TTC*
Bus #124 to Glendon campus from Yonge/Lawrence Subway Station
This Anti-Israel International Conference supports the goal of Radical Iran. The Jewish Defence League is asking all concerned to join us in a protest against this Conference of Hate.
The JDL will also provide a Bus Service at the following two locations:
Toronto Zionist Centre, 788 Marlee Avenue @ 2:00 pm
Sobey’s Plaza, Clarke and Hilda @ 6:00 pm
A bus shuttle service to the Kehillat Shaarei Torah (York Mills & Bayview) for snacks & refreshments during the protest.
We will raise the flag of Israel and Canada
JOIN US.
For more information,
please call Jewish Defence League at 416-736-7000.
With Love of Israel,
Meir Weinstein, National Director
Jewish Defence League of Canada
A Deceptive Campaign of Misinformation is Being Used to Destroy the State of Israel.
A campaign of hate has permeated our campuses and one by one, they are being taken over.
The upcoming conference (to be held at York University, Glendon Campus), calls for a “One State Solution” – a euphemism for the destruction of the State of Israel - a trope of the most extreme rejectionist elements within the Palestinian movement and their allies in Syria and Iran. Terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah want to create an Islamic Republic in place of Israel.
Alan Dershowitz adds:
“The one-state solution proposal now being made by Palestinian lawyers and some anti-Israel academics is nothing more than a ploy. It is designed to destroy the Jewish state of Israel and to substitute another Islamic Arab state. “
Why we oppose this Conference…
“Israel/Palestine: Mapping Models of Statehood and Paths to Peace”
Conference co-sponsored by York University and Queen’s University
June 22-24, 2009 – Glendon Campus
Under the seemingly innocuous title of this Conference, and the soothing reference to "peace", many speakers at this event will be promoting the "one-state solution" as the best option to end the Arab-Israeli conflict by eliminating the State of Israel.
- It denies the Jewish people – and the Jewish people alone – their national rights in their ancestral land (Zionism), as they were recognized in international law 89 years ago (San Remo Conference)
- It promotes anti-Zionism while pretending that this debate is not anti-Semitic. But what could be more anti-Semitic than selectively denying to the Jews rights that all other peoples enjoy in their land?
- It deliberately ignores the most egregious crimes committed by the Palestinian Arabs against the Jews since the 1920s in their ceaseless pursuit of violence, ethnic cleansing, indoctrination in schools, and incitement to murder and genocide while promoting a utopian, blissful cohabitation in a single bi-national state.
- It uses the "Nakba" (flight of the Palestinian refugees in 1948) to justify the "right of return" of millions of Palestinians, and blames Israel for a situation largely encouraged by their own Arab leaders.
“Exactly where do Jews and Christians live in the Islamic World today side-by-side with equality? -- “Palestinian” columnist Ray Hanania
Statement from the Hon. Gary Goodyear
OTTAWA, June 5, 2009 – The following is a statement from the Hon. Gary Goodyear, Minister of State for Science and Technology, on the conference at York University entitled, “Israel/Palestine: mapping models of statehood and prospects for peace”.
“Our government is committed to the principle of academic independence and the independent, arms-length, peer review process for assessing applications for research grants.
“It has come to my attention that following a recommendation of a peer review board earlier this year, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council provided $19,750 under its Aid to Research Workshops and Conferences Program to a conference at York University entitled “Israel/Palestine: mapping models of statehood and prospects for peace”.
“Approval of this funding was based on an initial proposal that did not include detailed information on the speakers at the conference. Since funding was provided, the organizers of the conference have added a number of speakers to their agenda.
“Several individuals and organizations have expressed their grave concerns that some of the speakers have, in the past, made comments that have been seen to be anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic. Some have also expressed concerns that the event is no longer an academic research-focussed event.
“Therefore, I have spoken to the president of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council to bring these concerns to his immediate attention and asked that Council give them full consideration. In particular, I asked that the Council, once they have seen this information, to consider conducting a second peer review of the application to determine whether or not the conference still meets SSHRC’s criteria for funding of an academic conference.”
For further information:
Christine Albee
Press Secretary
Office of the Hon. Gary Goodyear
613-762-7891
CIJA Urges Protest – Canadian Jewish News, May 21, 2009
TORONTO — “The Canadian Council for Israel and Jewish Advocacy (CIJA) is urging Canadian Jews to protest a conference at York University that CIJA says will “explore a one-state, bi-national solution to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians… which would spell the end of Israel as a Jewish state.”
It has come to the attention of the JDL that a Federal Government Department has contributed to this York/Queen’s sponsored Conference.
http://www.yorku.ca/ipconf/
Please sign and forward this petition that calls upon the Government of Canada to withdraw sponsorship of York University's anti Israel Conference.
http://www.petitiononline.com/
taken from : B'NAI ELIM (http://bnaielim.blogspot.com/)
WER ISRAELI SETTLEMENTS A VIOLATION OF INTERNATIONAL LAW ?
Were Israeli settlements a violation of international law?
On Israeli Settlements
June 17, 2009 5:30 AM
by Dore Gold
President, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
http://www.jcpa.org
The Obama administration's tough, confrontational rhetoric on Israeli settlements raises a number of specific questions: Were Israeli settlements a violation of international law? Were Israeli settlements a violation of agreements and an obstacle to further progress in any future peace talks? Did the administration envision Israel withdrawing completely to the 1967 lines or did it accept the idea that Israel would retain part of the territories for defensible borders?
Many observers are surprised to learn that settlement activity was not defined as a violation of the 1993 Oslo Accords or their subsequent implementation agreements. If the U.S. is now seeking to constrain Israeli settlement activity, it is essentially trying to obtain additional Israeli concessions that were not formally required according to Israel's legal obligations under the Oslo Accords.
President Bush's deputy national security advisor, Elliot Abrams, wrote in the Washington Post on April 8, 2009, that the U.S. and Israel negotiated specific guidelines for settlement activity, whereby "settlement activity is not diminishing the territory of a future Palestinian entity." If the U.S. is concerned that Israel might diminish the territory that the Palestinians will receive in the future, then the Obama team could continue with the quiet guidelines followed by the Bush administration and the Sharon government.
Given the fact that the amount of territory taken up by the built-up areas of all the settlements in the West Bank is estimated to be 1.7 percent of the territory, the marginal increase in territory that might be affected by natural growth is infinitesimal. Moreover, since Israel unilaterally withdrew 9,000 Israeli settlers from the Gaza Strip in 2005, the argument that a settler presence will undermine a future territorial compromise has lost much of its previous force.
The U.S. and Israel need to reach a new understanding on the settlements question. Legally and diplomatically, settlements do not represent a problem that can possibly justify putting at risk the U.S.-Israel relationship. It might be that the present tension in U.S.-Israeli relations is not over settlements, but rather over the extent of an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank that the Obama administration envisions.
Disturbingly, on June 1, 2009, the State Department spokesman, Robert Wood, refused to answer repeated questions about whether the Obama administration viewed itself as legally bound by the April 2004 Bush letter to Sharon on defensible borders and settlement blocs. It would be better to obtain earlier clarification of that point, rather than having both countries expend their energies over an issue that may not be the real underlying source of their dispute.
In his June 4, 2009, Cairo speech, President Barack Obama continued to focus U.S. policy on Israel's construction practices in the West Bank, which he forcefully criticized: "The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop." His secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, was no less forceful when speaking on May 27, 2009, about Obama's stand on this issue: "He wants to see a stop to settlements - not some settlements, not outposts, not ‘natural growth' exceptions."
The Obama administration's tough, confrontational rhetoric on Israeli settlements raises the question of whether it represents a sharp break from the policies of past administrations. Moreover, Obama's assertion that current Israeli construction represents a violation of past agreements raises the question of which agreement he had in mind.
Israeli settlements in the territories captured in the 1967 Six-Day War date back more than forty years. They began as military and agricultural outposts that were located for the most part in strategically significant areas of the West Bank which Israel planned to eventually claim. These settlements were also situated in areas from which Jews had been evicted during the 1948 War. While the U.S. did not support the settlement enterprise, its response to the settlements has varied in intensity, depending on the overall relationship between the two countries.
For example, the Carter administration abstained in the UN Security Council repeatedly in 1979 when draft resolutions came up for a vote that condemned Israeli settlement activity. Yet suddenly in March 1980, the administration initially decided to support Resolution 465 that called for "dismantling" all settlements, although later it reversed its position.
This varying response to the settlement issue also stemmed from U.S. policy on a number of specific questions raised by the establishment of Israeli settlements:
Were Israeli settlements a violation of international law?
Were Israeli settlements a violation of specific bilateral agreements between Israel and its Arab neighbors and an obstacle to further progress in any future peace talks?
To what extent did the administration envision Israel withdrawing completely to the 1967 lines or did it accept the idea that Israel would retain part of the territories for defensible borders and its security needs?
There were also two other conflicting considerations. For years Washington opposed settlements because it was felt that they were unilateral actions that pre-judged the outcome of future negotiations. But at the same time there was the view that constrained U.S. statements or activities against the settlements: while all administrations opposed settlement activity on policy grounds, the U.S. felt that using the UN to press Israel was inappropriate, since it was argued that Arab-Israeli differences of this nature should be resolved bilaterally between the parties themselves.
The Settlements and International Law
Before turning to the specific issue of the settlements, it is instructive to recall that Israel's entry into the West Bank, in particular, created a number of legal dilemmas that would ultimately impinge on how the legal question of settlements was examined. Israel entered the West Bank in a war of self-defense, so that the UN Security Council did not call on Israel to withdraw from all the territory that it captured, when it adopted UN Security Council Resolution 242 in November 1967. The previous occupant in the West Bank from 1949 to 1967 had been the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, whose sovereignty in the territory the entire international community refused to recognize - except for Britain and Pakistan. Prior to 1949, the governing document for legal rights in the West Bank was the 1922 Palestine Mandate, which gave international recognition to Jewish legal rights.
U.S. officials were cognizant of these considerations. Eugene Rostow, a former dean of Yale Law School who was also Undersecretary of State in the Johnson years, would write years later that "Israel has an unassailable legal right to establish settlements in the West Bank." He argued that Israel's claims to the territory were "at least as good as those of Jordan." Prof. Stephen Schwebel, who would become the State Department legal advisor and subsequently the President of the International Court of Justice in The Hague, went a step further when he wrote in 1970 that "Israel has better title in the territory of what was Palestine, including the whole of Jerusalem, than do Jordan and Egypt." On July 29, 1977, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance stated that "it is an open question as to who has legal right to the West Bank."
In the late 1960s, the Johnson administration was critical of Israeli settlement activity, but did not characterize the settlements as illegal. It was not until the Carter administration that the State Department Legal Advisor, Herbert Hansell, expressed the view that the settlements violated international law. The Carter policy was reversed by all of his sucssessors. Thus, President Ronald Reagan declared on February 2, 1981, that the settlements were "not illegal." He criticized them on policy grounds, calling them "ill-advised" and "proactive."
The question about the legality of settlements came from how various legal authorities interpret the applicability of the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention relative to civilian persons in times of war. Article 49 of the convention clearly prohibits "mass forcible transfers" of protected persons from occupied territories. Later in the article, it states that "the occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies." American interpretations of this article maintained that it referred to forcible deportations that were practiced by the Nazis and not to Israeli settlement activity. During the Bush (41) administration, the U.S. ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Morris Abram, explained that he had been on the U.S. staff during the Nuremberg trials and was hence familiar with the "legislative intent" behind the Fourth Geneva Convention. He stated on February 1, 1990, that it applied to forcible transfers and not to the case of Israeli settlements.
It should be added that in the Israeli legal community, charging that settlement activity could be comparable to the forcible evictions by the Nazis during the Second World War was regarded as extremely offensive. When Israel had to vote on whether it accepted the Rome Statute creating the International Criminal Court, the head of its delegation, Judge Eli Natan, explained that while it gave him great pain to vote against the creation of the court, Israel could not vote for a politicized statute that defined settlement activity among the "most heinous and serious war crimes." For Natan, who was himself a Holocaust survivor, as well as for his team, this was a vulgar charge. The U.S. stood with Israel against these abuses in the founding document of the International Criminal Court, which implied that the State of Israel, a country made up partly by survivors of the Holocaust, was guilty of crimes on the same order of magnitude as what its perpetrators had committed.
The Settlements and Past International Agreements
Many observers are surprised to learn that settlement activity was not defined as a violation of the 1993 Oslo Accords or their subsequent implementation agreements. During the secret negotiations leading up to the signing of Oslo, Yasser Arafat instructed his negotiators to seek a "settlement freeze," but Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres refused to agree to Arafat's demand. Nonetheless, Arafat agreed to the Oslo Accords despite the lack of a settlement freeze. The Oslo Accords were essentially an interim arrangement; they stipulated that the issue of settlements would be addressed in permanent status negotiations. If the U.S. is subsequently seeking to constrain Israeli settlement activity, it is essentially trying to obtain additional Israeli concessions that were not formally required according to Israel's legal obligations under the Oslo Accords.
Settlements became a far more salient issue with the release on May 4, 2001, of the report of a commission headed by Senator George Mitchell that sought to address the outbreak of the Second Intifada in 2000 and to propose a return to negotiations. The Mitchell Report recommended that as a part of confidence-building measures between the parties, "Israel should freeze all settlement activity, including the 'natural growth' of existing settlements." The Bush (43) administration adopted the Mitchell Report, putting the settlement issue right in the center of U.S.-Israeli discussions.
It appeared at the time that the U.S. felt itself to be in an awkward position as an honest broker in peacemaking if Israel were to expropriate more land for settlement growth during the course of future negotiations. To address this concern, the Sharon government proposed a formula whereby Israel could continue to build within existing settlements, but only from the outer ring of construction inward in each settlement. That way, Israel could address the need for natural growth without taking more land for Israelis living in the settlements. These idea came up in discussions between Secretary of State Colin Powell and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres.
As the Bush administration drafted its 2003 Roadmap for Peace, it decided to include the Mitchell Report's settlement freeze - that included natural growth. Dov Weisglass, who headed Sharon's negotiating team on the settlement issue, has explained that Sharon had serious reservations about the proposed freeze. According to Weisglass' account in Yediot Ahronot on June 2, 2009, in order to facilitate the Israeli government's acceptance of the Roadmap, Israel reached an understanding with the U.S. about what exactly a settlement freeze entailed. The two sides concluded:
June 17, 2009 5:30 AM
by Dore Gold
President, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
http://www.jcpa.org
The Obama administration's tough, confrontational rhetoric on Israeli settlements raises a number of specific questions: Were Israeli settlements a violation of international law? Were Israeli settlements a violation of agreements and an obstacle to further progress in any future peace talks? Did the administration envision Israel withdrawing completely to the 1967 lines or did it accept the idea that Israel would retain part of the territories for defensible borders?
Many observers are surprised to learn that settlement activity was not defined as a violation of the 1993 Oslo Accords or their subsequent implementation agreements. If the U.S. is now seeking to constrain Israeli settlement activity, it is essentially trying to obtain additional Israeli concessions that were not formally required according to Israel's legal obligations under the Oslo Accords.
President Bush's deputy national security advisor, Elliot Abrams, wrote in the Washington Post on April 8, 2009, that the U.S. and Israel negotiated specific guidelines for settlement activity, whereby "settlement activity is not diminishing the territory of a future Palestinian entity." If the U.S. is concerned that Israel might diminish the territory that the Palestinians will receive in the future, then the Obama team could continue with the quiet guidelines followed by the Bush administration and the Sharon government.
Given the fact that the amount of territory taken up by the built-up areas of all the settlements in the West Bank is estimated to be 1.7 percent of the territory, the marginal increase in territory that might be affected by natural growth is infinitesimal. Moreover, since Israel unilaterally withdrew 9,000 Israeli settlers from the Gaza Strip in 2005, the argument that a settler presence will undermine a future territorial compromise has lost much of its previous force.
The U.S. and Israel need to reach a new understanding on the settlements question. Legally and diplomatically, settlements do not represent a problem that can possibly justify putting at risk the U.S.-Israel relationship. It might be that the present tension in U.S.-Israeli relations is not over settlements, but rather over the extent of an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank that the Obama administration envisions.
Disturbingly, on June 1, 2009, the State Department spokesman, Robert Wood, refused to answer repeated questions about whether the Obama administration viewed itself as legally bound by the April 2004 Bush letter to Sharon on defensible borders and settlement blocs. It would be better to obtain earlier clarification of that point, rather than having both countries expend their energies over an issue that may not be the real underlying source of their dispute.
In his June 4, 2009, Cairo speech, President Barack Obama continued to focus U.S. policy on Israel's construction practices in the West Bank, which he forcefully criticized: "The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop." His secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, was no less forceful when speaking on May 27, 2009, about Obama's stand on this issue: "He wants to see a stop to settlements - not some settlements, not outposts, not ‘natural growth' exceptions."
The Obama administration's tough, confrontational rhetoric on Israeli settlements raises the question of whether it represents a sharp break from the policies of past administrations. Moreover, Obama's assertion that current Israeli construction represents a violation of past agreements raises the question of which agreement he had in mind.
Israeli settlements in the territories captured in the 1967 Six-Day War date back more than forty years. They began as military and agricultural outposts that were located for the most part in strategically significant areas of the West Bank which Israel planned to eventually claim. These settlements were also situated in areas from which Jews had been evicted during the 1948 War. While the U.S. did not support the settlement enterprise, its response to the settlements has varied in intensity, depending on the overall relationship between the two countries.
For example, the Carter administration abstained in the UN Security Council repeatedly in 1979 when draft resolutions came up for a vote that condemned Israeli settlement activity. Yet suddenly in March 1980, the administration initially decided to support Resolution 465 that called for "dismantling" all settlements, although later it reversed its position.
This varying response to the settlement issue also stemmed from U.S. policy on a number of specific questions raised by the establishment of Israeli settlements:
Were Israeli settlements a violation of international law?
Were Israeli settlements a violation of specific bilateral agreements between Israel and its Arab neighbors and an obstacle to further progress in any future peace talks?
To what extent did the administration envision Israel withdrawing completely to the 1967 lines or did it accept the idea that Israel would retain part of the territories for defensible borders and its security needs?
There were also two other conflicting considerations. For years Washington opposed settlements because it was felt that they were unilateral actions that pre-judged the outcome of future negotiations. But at the same time there was the view that constrained U.S. statements or activities against the settlements: while all administrations opposed settlement activity on policy grounds, the U.S. felt that using the UN to press Israel was inappropriate, since it was argued that Arab-Israeli differences of this nature should be resolved bilaterally between the parties themselves.
The Settlements and International Law
Before turning to the specific issue of the settlements, it is instructive to recall that Israel's entry into the West Bank, in particular, created a number of legal dilemmas that would ultimately impinge on how the legal question of settlements was examined. Israel entered the West Bank in a war of self-defense, so that the UN Security Council did not call on Israel to withdraw from all the territory that it captured, when it adopted UN Security Council Resolution 242 in November 1967. The previous occupant in the West Bank from 1949 to 1967 had been the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, whose sovereignty in the territory the entire international community refused to recognize - except for Britain and Pakistan. Prior to 1949, the governing document for legal rights in the West Bank was the 1922 Palestine Mandate, which gave international recognition to Jewish legal rights.
U.S. officials were cognizant of these considerations. Eugene Rostow, a former dean of Yale Law School who was also Undersecretary of State in the Johnson years, would write years later that "Israel has an unassailable legal right to establish settlements in the West Bank." He argued that Israel's claims to the territory were "at least as good as those of Jordan." Prof. Stephen Schwebel, who would become the State Department legal advisor and subsequently the President of the International Court of Justice in The Hague, went a step further when he wrote in 1970 that "Israel has better title in the territory of what was Palestine, including the whole of Jerusalem, than do Jordan and Egypt." On July 29, 1977, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance stated that "it is an open question as to who has legal right to the West Bank."
In the late 1960s, the Johnson administration was critical of Israeli settlement activity, but did not characterize the settlements as illegal. It was not until the Carter administration that the State Department Legal Advisor, Herbert Hansell, expressed the view that the settlements violated international law. The Carter policy was reversed by all of his sucssessors. Thus, President Ronald Reagan declared on February 2, 1981, that the settlements were "not illegal." He criticized them on policy grounds, calling them "ill-advised" and "proactive."
The question about the legality of settlements came from how various legal authorities interpret the applicability of the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention relative to civilian persons in times of war. Article 49 of the convention clearly prohibits "mass forcible transfers" of protected persons from occupied territories. Later in the article, it states that "the occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies." American interpretations of this article maintained that it referred to forcible deportations that were practiced by the Nazis and not to Israeli settlement activity. During the Bush (41) administration, the U.S. ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Morris Abram, explained that he had been on the U.S. staff during the Nuremberg trials and was hence familiar with the "legislative intent" behind the Fourth Geneva Convention. He stated on February 1, 1990, that it applied to forcible transfers and not to the case of Israeli settlements.
It should be added that in the Israeli legal community, charging that settlement activity could be comparable to the forcible evictions by the Nazis during the Second World War was regarded as extremely offensive. When Israel had to vote on whether it accepted the Rome Statute creating the International Criminal Court, the head of its delegation, Judge Eli Natan, explained that while it gave him great pain to vote against the creation of the court, Israel could not vote for a politicized statute that defined settlement activity among the "most heinous and serious war crimes." For Natan, who was himself a Holocaust survivor, as well as for his team, this was a vulgar charge. The U.S. stood with Israel against these abuses in the founding document of the International Criminal Court, which implied that the State of Israel, a country made up partly by survivors of the Holocaust, was guilty of crimes on the same order of magnitude as what its perpetrators had committed.
The Settlements and Past International Agreements
Many observers are surprised to learn that settlement activity was not defined as a violation of the 1993 Oslo Accords or their subsequent implementation agreements. During the secret negotiations leading up to the signing of Oslo, Yasser Arafat instructed his negotiators to seek a "settlement freeze," but Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres refused to agree to Arafat's demand. Nonetheless, Arafat agreed to the Oslo Accords despite the lack of a settlement freeze. The Oslo Accords were essentially an interim arrangement; they stipulated that the issue of settlements would be addressed in permanent status negotiations. If the U.S. is subsequently seeking to constrain Israeli settlement activity, it is essentially trying to obtain additional Israeli concessions that were not formally required according to Israel's legal obligations under the Oslo Accords.
Settlements became a far more salient issue with the release on May 4, 2001, of the report of a commission headed by Senator George Mitchell that sought to address the outbreak of the Second Intifada in 2000 and to propose a return to negotiations. The Mitchell Report recommended that as a part of confidence-building measures between the parties, "Israel should freeze all settlement activity, including the 'natural growth' of existing settlements." The Bush (43) administration adopted the Mitchell Report, putting the settlement issue right in the center of U.S.-Israeli discussions.
It appeared at the time that the U.S. felt itself to be in an awkward position as an honest broker in peacemaking if Israel were to expropriate more land for settlement growth during the course of future negotiations. To address this concern, the Sharon government proposed a formula whereby Israel could continue to build within existing settlements, but only from the outer ring of construction inward in each settlement. That way, Israel could address the need for natural growth without taking more land for Israelis living in the settlements. These idea came up in discussions between Secretary of State Colin Powell and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres.
As the Bush administration drafted its 2003 Roadmap for Peace, it decided to include the Mitchell Report's settlement freeze - that included natural growth. Dov Weisglass, who headed Sharon's negotiating team on the settlement issue, has explained that Sharon had serious reservations about the proposed freeze. According to Weisglass' account in Yediot Ahronot on June 2, 2009, in order to facilitate the Israeli government's acceptance of the Roadmap, Israel reached an understanding with the U.S. about what exactly a settlement freeze entailed. The two sides concluded:
No new settlements would be built.
No Palestinian land would be expropriated or otherwise seized for the purpose of settlement.
Construction within the settlements would be confined to "the existing line of construction."
Public funds would not be earmarked for encouraging settlements.
Weisglass wrote a letter to U.S. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice on April 18, 2004, in which he reconfirmed what he described as the "agreed principles of settlement activity," indicating that it was his understanding at the time that such an understanding indeed existed. He also wrote that his government undertook to remove what were known as "unauthorized outposts" - small settlement extensions that were constructed at local initiative without formal Israeli government approval.
However, the Bush administration and the Sharon government never put these understandings in writing, which has allowed the Obama administration to question their existence and validity, even if such commitments were made. Thus, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told George Stephanopoulos on June 7, 2009, during a broadcast of ABC's This Week: "Well, that was an understanding that was entered into, so far as we are told, orally. That was never made a part of the official record of the negotiations as it was passed on to our administration. No one in the Bush administration said to anyone that we can find in our administration...."
President Bush's deputy national security advisor, Elliot Abrams, has been partially supportive of Weisglass' claim. He wrote in the Washington Post on April 8, 2009, that the U.S. and Israel negotiated specific guidelines for settlement activity, but they were never "formally adopted." On its part, Israel nonetheless felt that it had committed itself, despite the lack of any signed agreement, so that it largely adhered to those guidelines for over five years. According to Abrams, the formula succeeded in creating a situation whereby "settlement activity is not diminishing the territory of a future Palestinian entity."
The Settlements and Israel's Ultimate Borders
Prior to 1977, U.S. criticism of Israeli settlement activity was largely muted. During that period, much of this activity seemed to be confined to areas like the Jordan Valley, where there were compelling strategic arguments for Israel to retain them. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had been sympathetic with Israel's claim for defensible borders during the first Rabin government.
The escalation in strong U.S. statements against Israeli settlements after 1977 was not only due to the Carter administration's determination that settlements were illegal, but also due to its demand that there be a full Israeli withdrawal from the territories it captured in the Six-Day War. At the same time, as Israeli settlement activity moved beyond the initial parameters that existed prior to 1977, U.S.-Israeli disagreements over this issue intensified.
When the U.S. again became more flexible over Israel's eventual retention of certain West Bank territories, settlement activity did not prove to be a major cause for bilateral tensions. Thus, when President George W. Bush sent Prime Minister Ariel Sharon a letter on April 14, 2004, acknowledging that, at the end of the day, Israel would obtain defensible borders as well as the large West Bank settlement blocs, Washington and Jerusalem were able to conduct a quiet but useful dialogue, as noted earlier, over the parameters Israel should follow in any settlement activity it undertakes.
The Obama administration's current focus on Israeli settlement activity - including natural growth - raises a number of questions. If the U.S. is concerned that Israel might diminish the territory that the Palestinians will receive in the future, then the Obama team could continue with the quiet guidelines followed by the Bush administration and the Sharon government.
Given the fact that the amount of territory taken up by the built-up areas of all the settlements in the West Bank is estimated to be 1.7 percent of the territory, the marginal increase in territory that might be affected by natural growth is infinitesimal. Moreover, since Israel unilaterally withdrew 9,000 Israeli settlers from the Gaza Strip in 2005, the argument that a settler presence will undermine a future territorial compromise has lost much of its previous force.
The U.S. and Israel need to reach a new understanding on the settlements question. It is clearly an overstated issue in the peace process. Legally and diplomatically, settlements do not represent a problem that can possibly justify putting at risk the U.S.-Israel relationship. It might be that the present tension in U.S.-Israeli relations is not over settlements, but rather over the extent of an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank that the Obama administration envisions.
For example, it still needs to be clarified whether the Obama administration feels bound by the April 14, 2004, Bush letter to Sharon on defensible borders and settlement blocs, which was subsequently ratified by large bipartisan majorities in both the U.S. Senate (95-3) and the House of Representatives (407-9) on June 23-24, 2004. Disturbingly, on June 1, 2009, the State Department spokesman, Robert Wood, refused to answer repeated questions about whether the Obama administration viewed itself as legally bound by the Bush letter. It would be better to obtain earlier clarification of that point, rather than having both countries expend their energies over an issue that may not be the real underlying source of their dispute.
Dr. Dore Gold, Israel's ambassador to the UN in 1997-99, is President of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and author of Hatred's Kingdom: How Saudi Arabia Supports the New Global Terrorism (Regnery, 2003), The Fight for Jerusalem: Radical Islam, the West, and the Future of the Holy City (Regnery, 2007), and The Rise of Nuclear Iran: How Tehran Defies the West (Regnery, forthcoming fall 2009).
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taken from : B'NAI ELIM (http://bnaielim.blogspot.com/)
EL BARADEI, SYRIA: ISRAEL AT FAULT FOR DESTROYING REACTOR
El Baradei, Syria: Israel at Fault for Destroying Reactor
Here's a story that's too funny to be true, or too sad to be invented. Mohamad ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) castigating Israel because by destroying Syria's atomic reactor in 2007 it made it hard to investigate whether it really was a reactor. Meanwhile, Syria says that the uranium traces the IAEA found at the site came from the weapons Israel used.
Did you follow that? The IAEA never had a clue the Syrians were building a reactor until after Israel destroyed it, which Israel shouldn't have done because that made it hard to find; and the Syrians explain that any incriminating evidence was put there by the Israelis.
Sometimes I tell myself being a news-and-politics junkie and blogger is a total waste of time. The world is so completely idiotic it's useless even to try and fix it; better to deal with other matters.
Did you follow that? The IAEA never had a clue the Syrians were building a reactor until after Israel destroyed it, which Israel shouldn't have done because that made it hard to find; and the Syrians explain that any incriminating evidence was put there by the Israelis.
Sometimes I tell myself being a news-and-politics junkie and blogger is a total waste of time. The world is so completely idiotic it's useless even to try and fix it; better to deal with other matters.
taken from :Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations
JERUSALEM STONE
Jerusalem Stone
We're having the annual "Week of the Hebrew Book" this week: a fine gimmick to encourage the sales of books. One evening I just happened to pass by the fairgrounds, totally coincidentially, mind you, and with no prior intention whatsoever I found myself wandering between the booths looking at books. Unfortunately I had my credit card on me, and I felt bad about the poor salespeople standing there with all those books to sell...
Anyway, one of the titles I rescued was a book of Yehuda Amichai's poetry on Jerusalem. Only after I got home did I notice that it's a bilingual edition, the original Hebrew, and an English translation.
So here's a poem, which is even vaguely contemporary:
Anyway, one of the titles I rescued was a book of Yehuda Amichai's poetry on Jerusalem. Only after I got home did I notice that it's a bilingual edition, the original Hebrew, and an English translation.
So here's a poem, which is even vaguely contemporary:
האבן הירושלמית היא האבן היחידה
שכואבת. יש בה רשת עצבים.
מזמן לזמן מתגודדת ירושלים
להמון מחאה כמו מגדל בבל.
אך במקלות גדולים מכה אלוהים-המשטרה
לתוכה: בתים נחרבים, חומות נפרצות
ואחר-כך תתפזר שוב העיר, תוך מלמולי
תפילות תלונה וצעקות-פה-ושם מכנסיות
ומבתי כנסת וצריחים ממסגד.
כל אחד למקומו
Jerusalem stone is the only stone that can
feel pain. It has a network of nerves.
From time to time Jerusalem crowds into
mass protests like the tower of Babel.
But with hugh clubs God-the-Police beats her
down: houses are razed, walls flattened,
and afterwards the city disperses, muttering
prayers of complaint and sporadic screams from churches
and synagogues and loud-moaning mosques.
Each to his own place.
taken from :Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations
"FOG OVER CHANNEL, CONTINENT CUT OFF"
"Fog Over Channel, Continent Cut Off"
That was a famous headline in the London Times many years ago, when the sun never set on the Empire, but couldn't work its way through to London, either.
I continue not to know what to say about the turmoil in Iran. Which is too bad, since cyberspace is chock-full of all sorts of commentary from folks who are quite certain about it all. Well, I'm not. I know who the Bad Guys, are, for example, but not who the Good Guys are. I think I know what the one side wishes to achieve, have however not the slightest idea what the other camp wants. Nor am I convinced there are two camps: perhaps there are five? I could easily write a long post about all the things I don't understand, before explaining how I'd just love the events to vindicate whatever set of political beliefs and especially pet animosites that I harbor. Alas, none of that would make me any better informed.
Also, since we don't know how this chapter of the story is going to end, there's always the danger that if I pretend to know what I'm talking about three days will suffice to prove me wrong - and that would be embarassing. Most pundits normally have at least ten days between pontificating and being proven wrong, by which time no-one remembers any longer.
So I feel for President Obama, who is coming under growing criticism for not knowing what to say. I mean, the man has unbeatable resources and tools at his fingertips, from the CIA and the NSA all the way over to Rahm Emanuel, and still he's at a loss for words. (Obama!)
Searching for a way out of my perdicament, I stumbled across a book review describing a similarly confusing set of events in a faraway land and a very faraway time (2002. A totally different era which no-one living today can be expected to remember). It tells of the coup-that-wasn't-quite in Venezuela, and the reason I'm linking to it is that apparently it took seven years and lots of hard work to unravel the lies of the participants and the obfuscations of the pundits and begin to piece together a reasonable picture of what really went on there.
The Silence and the Scorpion: The Coup Against Chavez and the Making of Modern Venezuela
I continue not to know what to say about the turmoil in Iran. Which is too bad, since cyberspace is chock-full of all sorts of commentary from folks who are quite certain about it all. Well, I'm not. I know who the Bad Guys, are, for example, but not who the Good Guys are. I think I know what the one side wishes to achieve, have however not the slightest idea what the other camp wants. Nor am I convinced there are two camps: perhaps there are five? I could easily write a long post about all the things I don't understand, before explaining how I'd just love the events to vindicate whatever set of political beliefs and especially pet animosites that I harbor. Alas, none of that would make me any better informed.
Also, since we don't know how this chapter of the story is going to end, there's always the danger that if I pretend to know what I'm talking about three days will suffice to prove me wrong - and that would be embarassing. Most pundits normally have at least ten days between pontificating and being proven wrong, by which time no-one remembers any longer.
So I feel for President Obama, who is coming under growing criticism for not knowing what to say. I mean, the man has unbeatable resources and tools at his fingertips, from the CIA and the NSA all the way over to Rahm Emanuel, and still he's at a loss for words. (Obama!)
Searching for a way out of my perdicament, I stumbled across a book review describing a similarly confusing set of events in a faraway land and a very faraway time (2002. A totally different era which no-one living today can be expected to remember). It tells of the coup-that-wasn't-quite in Venezuela, and the reason I'm linking to it is that apparently it took seven years and lots of hard work to unravel the lies of the participants and the obfuscations of the pundits and begin to piece together a reasonable picture of what really went on there.
The Silence and the Scorpion: The Coup Against Chavez and the Making of Modern Venezuela
taken from :Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations
Israel Matzav: Obama helping to prevent Gilad Shalit's release
Obama helping to prevent Gilad Shalit's release
Next Thursday it will be three years since IDF Corporal Gilad Shalit was kidnapped from his post at the Kerem Shalom crossing point on the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip. In three years, his family has had one tape recording from him and a letter or two. Shalit has had no visitors - not even from the Red Cross, which only now has finally asked to see him.Read All at :
Israel Matzav: Obama helping to prevent Gilad Shalit's release
Israel Matzav: Multi-Culti madness at Haifa U.
Multi-Culti madness at Haifa U.
Reader Hutzpan asked me to comment regarding this story about the appearance of the Islamic Movement, Northern Front leader Sheikh Raed Sallah at Haifa University on Wednesday. Allowing Sallah to appear was - as I noted in the title - multi-culti madness, but I am somewhat surprised and encouraged by the reaction of the 150 Jewish students mentioned in the article. Outraged over both Salah's words and the fact that Jewish students were barred from entering the auditorium as he spoke, some 150 protesters gathered outside the auditorium waving Israeli flags and yelling "This is not Teheran."
Israel Matzav: Multi-Culti madness at Haifa U.
Israel Matzav: Biden squirms
Biden squirms
This is from an interview by David Gregory on NBC's Meet the Press this past Sunday with America's gaffetastic Vice President Joseph Biden. This is the part where they discuss Israel. Watch how uncomfortable Biden gets when Gregory nails him on the fact that the US is only making specific demands from Israel and not from the 'Palestinians.'
See Video and Read All at :
Israel Matzav: Biden squirms
Israel Matzav: Lieberman v. Clinton on 'settlements'
Lieberman v. Clinton on 'settlements'
Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had a real knockdown dragout on Wednesday afternoon over Israeli 'settlement' building.
Let's go to the videotape and I'll have more below. The 'fun' starts with the very first question at the 4:10 mark and it runs until about the 10:30 mark when they move on to Iran.
Let's go to the videotape and I'll have more below. The 'fun' starts with the very first question at the 4:10 mark and it runs until about the 10:30 mark when they move on to Iran.
See Video and Read All at :
Israel Matzav: Lieberman v. Clinton on 'settlements'
Israel Matzav: Carter trying to force Obama to embrace Hamas
Carter trying to force Obama to embrace Hamas
Arutz Sheva (Israel National News) reports that the Obama administration is not thrilled with former President Jimmy Carter's attempts to get Obama to join him in embracing Hamas. Israel Matzav: Carter trying to force Obama to embrace HamasThe White House is livid with Carter, according to an experienced Middle East expert who was quoted on the website of the widely respected Foreign Policy magazine. “They are very pissed,” he said. "Just like with President Clinton, Carter is becoming a huge problem and a growing concern for Obama.”
Read All at :
Israel Matzav: A choice between fantasy and statehood?
A choice between fantasy and statehood?
A Wall Street Journal editorial sums up the 'Palestinian' reaction to Prime Minister Netanyahu's Sunday night speech in this manner:
As for the Palestinians, for too long they have practiced a kind of fantasy politics, in which all right was on their side, concession was dishonor, and mistakes never had consequences. It hasn't earned them much. Mr. Netanyahu's speech now offers them the choice between fantasy and statehood. Judging from early reactions, they're choosing wrongly again.
What the 'Palestinians' are choosing is to continue with what the Journal calls their 'fantasy politics.' And they are doing so with the encouragement of the Obama administration.
Read All at :
Israel Matzav: A choice between fantasy and statehood?
Israel Matzav: Keith Dayton's police farce in action
Keith Dayton's police farce in action
We keep hearing how Keith Dayton's (pictured) 'Palestinian police' force farce is going to be able to keep the peace if the IDF evacuates Judea and Samaria. Even if that force doesn't eventually attack Israel, it doesn't look likely that it can keep the peace.
On May 31, a 'Palestinian Authority' strike force led by the 'Palestinian police' attacked a Hamas safe house in Kalkilya. What we were told was that six 'Palestinians' were killed: Two Hamas terrorists, the owner of the house, and three 'Palestinian police officers.' For those who have forgotten, go here, and watch the al-Jazzeera report on the incident.
What we weren't told is that the 'Palestinian police' totally botched the raid, and that the Hamas terrorists and the owner of the house were killed by a non-Arabic-speaking strike force, probably made up of Americans.
On May 31, a 'Palestinian Authority' strike force led by the 'Palestinian police' attacked a Hamas safe house in Kalkilya. What we were told was that six 'Palestinians' were killed: Two Hamas terrorists, the owner of the house, and three 'Palestinian police officers.' For those who have forgotten, go here, and watch the al-Jazzeera report on the incident.
What we weren't told is that the 'Palestinian police' totally botched the raid, and that the Hamas terrorists and the owner of the house were killed by a non-Arabic-speaking strike force, probably made up of Americans.
Read All at :
Israel Matzav: A religious conflict?
A religious conflict?
I have made the point many times that I believe that our conflict with our neighbors is a religious conflict - that the Muslim world will not stand for the Jewish 'interlopers' on what they regard as 'Muslim land.' On the other hand, Michael Totten points out - correctly - that Israel has and had relations with some Muslim countries (Hat Tip: DannyA). (It should probably be pointed out that relations with Turkey aren't what they used to be).While it's true that Israel has relations with some Muslim countries who do not share borders with us, there are other non-Arab Muslim countries that do not share borders with us that still hate us. For example, while Indonesia was happy to accept aid from Israel when the tsunami hit there in December 2004, it does not maintain diplomatic relations with us, it condemns us regularly in all kinds of world forums, and it never deviates from the Muslim block party line. Indonesia also tried hard to keep it secret that it had accepted aid from Israel, and Israelis have not been allowed to travel to Indonesia since then.
Curiously, I have several regular readers of this blog from Malaysia (in case you thought I didn't notice...), another country which at least officially hates Israel. I recall in the early '90's having a client that was selling equipment to Malaysia that needed to do so secretly because the government would not deviate from the OIC (Organization of Islamic Countries) party line. Officially, Malaysia, a non-Arab Muslim country that does not share a border with us, hates us.
Totten quotes a lengthy passage from Amir Taheri's The Persian Night in which Taheri discusses how the Khomeni regime in Iran and his successors have 'Arabized' Persia to bring it into conflict with Israel. I urge you to read it. While Taheri's characterization of what the Islamists have done as 'Arabizing' the conflict is correct, I also believe it's an oversimplification. What distinguishes Iran from Indonesia, Malaysia and other non-Arab Muslim countries is that Iran before Khomeni had warm relations with Israel and had a secular culture that did not hate Israel or Jews. Totten alludes to this:
Read All at :
Israel Matzav: A religious conflict?