Sunday 21 June 2009
Israel Matzav: On the legality of Israeli 'settlements'
On the legality of Israeli 'settlements'
On Thursday, I linked a Washington Post article that unearthed a 30-year old 'legal opinion' from the Carter administration's State Department Legal Adviser that claimed that Israeli 'settlements' are 'illegal' under the Geneva Convention. It seems that opinion was based on the writings of a legal scholar who vehemently argued that 'Israeli settlements' are completely legal (Hat Tip: Daled Amos).
Israel Matzav: On the legality of Israeli 'settlements'Those who maintain that the settlements are illegal rely on Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, August 12, 1949, which states:
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…are prohibited…
and in the sixth paragraph:
The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.
They interpret this as applicable to Israel’s settlement of the West Bank and Gaza, understanding Israel to have become a "belligerent occupant" of this territory through entry by its armed forces. They also argue that settlement policy leads to the violation of Palestinian rights under international humanitarian law–specifically, their right to self-determination, equality, property, freedom of movement, an adequate standard of living, and freedom of movement.Those who maintain that settlements are legal interpret Article 49 (6) of the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention as inapplicable to Israel’s settlements.
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Israel Matzav: Glick: Why Israel should support the Iranian revolution
Glick: Why Israel should support the Iranian revolution
The argument that has been used in much of the West for the past week for sitting and watching the Iranian revolution on television without taking action is that Mir Hossein Mousavi, the 'reformist' candidate, is no better than Ahmadinejad. While the pictures from Iran have been hard to watch, I made the same argument regarding Mousavi here.In Friday's JPost, Caroline Glick makes a fair argument that Israel ought to take the lead in supporting the Iranian revolution. She argues that Mousavi is no longer relevant, and to the extent that he is, he is moving far away from Islamic revolutionary doctrine.
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Israel Matzav: Glick: Why Israel should support the Iranian revolution
Israel Matzav: Yaalon on Iran: 'This regime will fall'
Yaalon on Iran: 'This regime will fall'
In a lecture in Modiin on Saturday, Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Boogie Yaalon said that he expects the Islamic regime in Iran to fall, but he does not expect its replacement to have any effect on Iran's nuclear program. "Since I was head of Military Intelligence, I have said, and I say it again now, that some 70 percent of Iranians are opposed to the ayatollah regime," Ya'alon said at a 'Shabbatarbut' event in Modi'in on Saturday. "[Opposition leader Mir Hossein] Mousavi and his wife have brought a new spirit of openness, and so I repeat - there will be a revolution in Iran."
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Israel Matzav: Yaalon on Iran: 'This regime will fall'
Israel Matzav: Reid distancing himself from Obama on Israel?
Reid distancing himself from Obama on Israel?
Shavua tov - a good week to everyone.The news is overwhelmingly about Iran this evening and with good reason. I am following events there closely.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) released a public letter to President Obama on Monday in which he attempted to focus on the 'Palestinians' for Middle East peace, and not on Israel's responsibility. Here's part of that letter:
Israel Matzav: Reid distancing himself from Obama on Israel?I am writing in support of your decision to make the Middle East a priority for your administration. I also applaud you for reiterating during your recent speech in Cairo the importance of America’s “unbreakable” bond with Israel.
Like you, I am deeply committed to bringing peace to this critical, but troubled, region. I believe negotiations will be successful only with a renewed commitment from the Palestinians to be a true partner in peace. Arab states in the region must also act to support the peace process. All parties must recognize Israel’s right to exist, end terrorism, and respect previous agreements made with Israel.Read All at :
Israel Matzav: More to the 'settlement blocs' than 'natural growth'
More to the 'settlement blocs' than 'natural growth'
Rick Richman reminds us that there's something much more important about the 'settlement blocs' than how many babies are born there every year.
Israel Matzav: More to the 'settlement blocs' than 'natural growth'The more important point, however, is that the major settlement blocs are located on strategic high ground, or in other militarily significant locations, which are undoubtedly part of the “defensible borders” promised to Israel in the 2004 Bush Letter — as part of an agreement relating to the Gaza disengagement that should be deemed “enforceable.” There is no definition of “defensible borders” in the letter, but the one thing everyone knows it does not mean is the 1967 borders.
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Israel Matzav: Being honest with ourselves
Being honest with ourselves
This JPost article by Daniel Gordis should provide you all with some food for thought.
Israel Matzav: Being honest with ourselvesSo let's be honest: What would we do?
Are we willing to leave the West Bank, land that is no less ancestrally Jewish and religiously significant than any other part of Israel? If we are committed to staying there permanently, for historical, theological or even security reasons, isn't it time just to say that? Or to annex it and stop pretending we haven't made that decision?
When some of us speak about not making any change until the Palestinians have built a genuinely democratic infrastructure (bottom-up, we call it), are we serious? Or do we simply assume that they'll never accomplish that under present circumstances, so what we're effectively doing is announcing, though not with the "honesty" that Obama is rightly calling for, that we plan to stay, no matter what?Read All at :
Israel Matzav: Obama's goal is forcing Israel to concede; stopping Iran's nukes is the way to get there
Obama's goal is forcing Israel to concede; stopping Iran's nukes is the way to get there
Interesting thought from Jonah Goldberg in the Corner.
Remember, the president wants Israel to cave to all sorts of demands as part of a grand quid-pro-quo whereby the US gets to work on forcing Iran to drop nukes in exchange for huge concessions by Israel. Well, what if getting Iran to drop its nukes is incidental and Israeli concessions fundamental. In other words, the prize of Obama's foreign policy agenda isn't getting Iran to drop its nukes, but to force Israel to do what he thinks it must to make peace with the Palestinians and the Arab world.
I think Goldberg is onto something here.
On the other hand, I think his next paragraph is wrong. Obama does have an anti-Israel bias.
On the other hand, I think his next paragraph is wrong. Obama does have an anti-Israel bias.
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Israel Matzav: Oh joy! Look who wants to come back to Gaza
Oh joy! Look who wants to come back to Gaza
The so-called 'Free Gaza' movement has given notice that it plans to try to run the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip three times over the course of the coming summer. The first attempt will start on this coming Thursday, June 25 (the third anniversary of Gilad Shalit's kidnapping), and will include 15 tons of cement, a material that Israel has prohibited from reaching Gaza because it is used to make weapons. The group's web site (which I refuse to link) reports that the other two trips will be on July 14 and August 22.Read All at :
Israel Matzav: Oh joy! Look who wants to come back to Gaza
Israel Matzav: Trader Joe's reminder
Trader Joe's reminder
I wanted to remind you all that Trader Joe's across the United States are due to be raided on Saturday by supporters of the 'Palestinians' who are seeking to prevent Israeli products from being sold by removing them from the shelves.Read All at :
Israel Matzav: Trader Joe's reminder
Israel Matzav: JPost reporter who reported from Tehran now out
JPost reporter who reported from Tehran now out
Sabina Amidi, who wrote for the JPost from Tehran, has now left the Iranian capital. She writes briefly of her experiences here. Israel Matzav: JPost reporter who reported from Tehran now outI debated whether I should get out of the country right away, even though I had not participated in the "riots." I had actually witnessed a plainclothes official slap down a young woman who was standing a meter in front of me. All I could do was watch; I have never felt so helpless. The woman's screams will stay with me.
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Israel Matzav: Israeli UAV's the stars of the Paris air show
Israeli UAV's the stars of the Paris air show
There's a big air show taking place in Paris this week, and new small UAV's (unmanned aerial vehicles, also referred to as drones) made by Israel are the stars of the show.
Aeronautics will also be showing several versions of the Orbiter, an electrically powered Orbiter MUAV measures about one meter in length and sustains an operational endurance of up to 4.5 hours, utilizing enhanced wing extensions. A larger configuration currently in development will have mission endurance of 7 hours, carrying the new T-STAMP multi-sensor payload developed by Controp. The Orbiter is designed for operating at altitudes up to 18,000 feet. The company has recently announced a teaming agreement with US based AAI Corporation, (an operating unit of Textron Systems), to market the Orbiter Mini-UAV (unmanned air vehicle) system jointly to U.S. and select international customers, including Israel, under foreign military sales. Among the smallest Israeli micro UAVs making their debut at the Paris Air Show is the Micro-Falcon I, designed for carrying and operation by a single operator. Weighing 6 kg, MicroFalcon on display here carries the MicroBat 275 electro-optical payload developed by Bental Industries.
Smart Jews. Heh.
Taken from :
Israel Matzav: Israeli UAV's the stars of the Paris air show
IGNOREMUSI PONTIFICATING
Ignoramusi Pontificating
Regular readers will know my opinion that The Economist is at the pinnacle of the journalist world. Sadly, this doesn't mean much. Even the folks at The Economist can't remember things that were quite obvious only a few years ago.
Today's Leader (British for Editorial) analyses Netanyahu's speech, under the subtitle Binyamin Netanyahu has taken one essential step. Now he must take a whole lot more. Set aside the silly proposition that the Israelis must move so that there will be peace, while the demands on the Palestinians are perfunctory and shallow. They're Brits, are the editors of The Economist. What's so completely outlandish about the article is the assumption that Netanyahu has inserted new conditions into the process that will foil the process.
The Germans have a fine word for this, which needs no translation: Quatsch.
Rather than write a long rebuttal, I've done something easier. I've gone back to the book I wrote in 2003, Right to Exist, and have simply lifted its tenth chapter, the one which described what would need to happen for there ever to be peace. Admittedly, I have no official standing, and represent only myself, but the chapter contains descriptions of what everyone was talking about in early 2003. Since the topics were exacly the same then and now, and the positions also (though the Palestinian positions got worse when they elected a Hamas majority in January 2006), well, the Economist contention must be wrong.
Wrong. Not interpreted in a way that aggravates me. Factually wrong. What the Economist has to say is demonstrably false. Not true.
Here's a snippet of the chapter, relating head on to the Economist's untrue description:
Today's Leader (British for Editorial) analyses Netanyahu's speech, under the subtitle Binyamin Netanyahu has taken one essential step. Now he must take a whole lot more. Set aside the silly proposition that the Israelis must move so that there will be peace, while the demands on the Palestinians are perfunctory and shallow. They're Brits, are the editors of The Economist. What's so completely outlandish about the article is the assumption that Netanyahu has inserted new conditions into the process that will foil the process.
The Germans have a fine word for this, which needs no translation: Quatsch.
Rather than write a long rebuttal, I've done something easier. I've gone back to the book I wrote in 2003, Right to Exist, and have simply lifted its tenth chapter, the one which described what would need to happen for there ever to be peace. Admittedly, I have no official standing, and represent only myself, but the chapter contains descriptions of what everyone was talking about in early 2003. Since the topics were exacly the same then and now, and the positions also (though the Palestinian positions got worse when they elected a Hamas majority in January 2006), well, the Economist contention must be wrong.
Wrong. Not interpreted in a way that aggravates me. Factually wrong. What the Economist has to say is demonstrably false. Not true.
Here's a snippet of the chapter, relating head on to the Economist's untrue description:
In July 2001, 9 months into the Jerusalem Intifada and four months into the Government of Ariel Sharon, a group of some two dozen intellectuals from both
sides convened to build a bridge over the ruins of peace. These were all old friends who have been meeting for many years in hope of finding enough common ground to enable the politicians to pick up the torch. Back when they started, they were unpopular pariahs in their respective communities for daring to reach out to the enemy; but over years of perseverance they had managed to pull ever larger segments of their people behind them, and from eccentrics they had become mainstream. Between them there must have been many thousands of hours of dialogue. Intelligent, educated individuals, rational realists, there was not a hard-line militant among them.Their idea was simple: to agree on a joint declaration calling on the warring factions to desist from their insanity and return to negotiations. The peaceniks would join hands, and with their moral authority embarrass the politicians back to sanity. The Palestinians were willing to join in stating that there should be two independent states alongside one another, but the Israelis, alerted by the fiascos of Camp David and Taba to a nuance they had previously overlooked, demanded that the statement clearly say that Israel would be a Jewish State and Palestine an Arab one. The Palestinians refused. Jews, they said, are a religion, not a nationality, and neither need nor deserve their own state. They were welcome to live in Israel, but the Palestinian refugees would come back, and perhaps she would cease to be a Jewish State.
taken from :Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations
TALKING TROUGH THEIR HATS
Talking Through their Hats
Whether you like him and his opinons or not, you've got to admit that over the past week Andrew Sullivan has made himself into one of the single most important sources for news coming out of Iran. He's doing a fine job.
None of which makes his information any more reliable. Consider the two posts he put up right before Khamenei's speech in Teheran this morning. Ian Black at The Guardian telling that since we haven't seen much of Ahmedinejad this week, his position may well be weakening. And Charles Recknagl sifting the evidence to bolster the proposition that Khamenei is wavering. Both articles appeared mere hours before Khamenei's scheduled speech, in which he proved the opposite of what these folks had been speculating.
Why don't these people and their legions of colleagues go find a real job, say, baking bread or paving roads or laying bricks? At least then they'd have the satisfaction they'd created some sort of value in life.
None of which makes his information any more reliable. Consider the two posts he put up right before Khamenei's speech in Teheran this morning. Ian Black at The Guardian telling that since we haven't seen much of Ahmedinejad this week, his position may well be weakening. And Charles Recknagl sifting the evidence to bolster the proposition that Khamenei is wavering. Both articles appeared mere hours before Khamenei's scheduled speech, in which he proved the opposite of what these folks had been speculating.
Why don't these people and their legions of colleagues go find a real job, say, baking bread or paving roads or laying bricks? At least then they'd have the satisfaction they'd created some sort of value in life.
taken from :Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations