Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Human Rights Watch Watch, next Installment

Human Rights Watch Watch, next Installment

Jeffrey Goldberg from center left, and Noah Pollak from sort of right, both warmly recommend Benjamin Birnbaum's long piece in The New Republic about Human Rights Watch and Israel.

Someday perhaps a historian will set out to unravel the sorry tale of Human Rights Watch and Israel. He or she will gain access to the organization's archive and will peruse all the reports, but also the story behind them. Who was put on which stories and with which intentions. What was said at which meeting. Which funds were solicited, and with which strings attached (there are always strings attached, make no mistake). She'll figure out what external players were important, why, and she'll track their paper trail (well, digital paper trail). Her study will probably be mildly devastating, and thereafter it will be cited in the footnotes of three separate books on the history of antisemitism in the early 21st century. Then the matter will sink into the oblivion it probably deserves. Israeli high-school students of the mid-22nd century will not have heard of HRW.

Birnbaum's report isn't that research. He's a journalist, not a researcher. His effort, however, is available now, not in that distant then, and it's important reading if you're of the opinion that HRW is a significant actor in the war of words against the Jewish state.

A short synopsis, if you lack the time or inclination to read the report:
1. The HRW folks who focus on Israel really really don't like us.
2. They scrupulously refuse to deal with the context of Israel's actions. This means, they are structurally dishonest.
3. The HRW folks have extremely thin skins - they can't stand criticism - which they guard by doing their best to shut out anyone who might offer any criticism.

You'd think that last point would be odd coming from people who's entire undertaking is the dishing out of criticism - but only if you've not been paying attention to any of them. If you have been paying attention, it's a banal observation. Of course they've got thin skins. They are holier than the rest of us, and aspersions on holy people are heretic.

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Human Rights Watch Watch, next Installment

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Clash of Civilizations?

Clash of Civilizations?

This certainly looks like one.

I've too much on my plate today, and even on the blogging front there are too many things that need to be tended, for me to have time for this topic, so I'm simply linking for future use. Though you might be interested in this second, accompanying item, about the OIC: note especially the very last sentence. Somehow, the Jews and Jerusalem always end up somewhere near the middle of such things, even when there's no rational need for them to be there at all.

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Clash of Civilizations?

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Report from Gaza

Report from Gaza

Here's an interesting report in the Economist. I dare you to find anything - anything - in it which can remotely resemble an occupation in the common-sense meaning of the word. Not the contrived distortion of language which the lawfare brigades have invented to castigate Israel: regular language as the tool of describing reality and imparting information.

The follow-up question, of course, will be: if things in Gaza are getting remarkably better (compared to Gaza, mind you), shouldn't the imaginary Israeli "occupation" garner a bit of the credit?

Sorry. My mistake.

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Report from Gaza

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Collateral... What?

Collateral... What?

An organization called Wkilleaks.org has posted a 17-minute presentation about an incident in Baghdad in July 2007 in which 12 people were killed, including two Reuters staff, and two children were wounded.

The New York Times reports here, Wikileaks reports here (but with no specific link), and here's the video itself, which Wikileaks has titled "Collateral Murder":


It's a troubling story - on many levels.

First, the deaths. I don't see anyone arguing that the two Reuters staff, a reporter and a photographer, were engaged in anything illegal. Wikileaks says they were murdered, and that's not true, but they were killed while going about their daily business and were not engaged in warfare with anyone. Likewise the two wounded children.

It's a frustrating film, since contrary to its portrayal by Wikileaks, it's not clear what was going on. The context was the very successful Surge, in which American and Iraqi forces mostly halted an extremely vicious civil war, thereby saving countless lives. The film itself has two components: there's footage from an American helicopter circling over the scene before during and after the event, identifying a target, shooting, and directing American ground forces to the site. Interspersed into this raw footage are interpretive comments of Wikileaks, which are openly informed by a particular narrative. These comments tell us what we're seeing, not always convincingly, and also tell us what we're supposed to think about what we're seeing.

The military and political context, for example, is wholly absent in this framing. I don't mean this on a philosophical level, as in "the surge was a huge success and this is a regrettable incident in it". No, I mean we totally lack the framework in which the American forces were operating. What was the significance of spotting a group of men standing in the street in that part of Baghdad in July 2007, some of them armed. Was this typical? Unusual? Could it be ambiguous or was there only one plausible explanation? Was it likely that armed insurgents would mill around while an American helicopter hovered above? It seems a bit odd to me, but perhaps it wasn't odd at all. No-one's telling us about that part.

The film is black and white, and rather grainy. The Americans, however, were seeing the scene in natural color. Did this make them more confident about what they were seeing, and is it conceivable this confidence was misplaced (Is it possible a black and white film projects reality more accurately than five or six pairs of human eyes trained to be observing carefully?)

The NYT report alludes to a nearby firefight. How does that fit into the picture, and more important, how did it fit in at the time?

How come none of the men on the ground relate directly to the helicopters in any way? That aspect is truly weird. It's as if they're living their lives, and some omnipotent force in the heavens is intruding in a way they cannot see, foresee, understand or influence. Until that part is explained, we cannot even begin to decipher the scene. Sorry, I insist on that.

The Americans have an elaborate set of orders dictating when they fire, for how long and at what. Listen to the transcription and you'll identify at least three levels of authorization, perhaps more. There's the man firing, the man authorizing it, and someone higher, who's not at the scene, giving initial authorization. Once the first burst of fire is over, the entire process has to be repeated before the second. There's lots of deliberation going on, and interestingly, there's lots of time, too. It's not decisions being taken in fractions of seconds, as would happen in a ground firefight.

There was clearly a logic to firing at the van that pulls up and its occupants start to remove one of the wounded. For all we know, given the way the war was being waged, this logic could be easily defended. The film gives no inkling: the American troops don't need to discuss such matters, and the interpretation takes for granted that it's simply evil. There's a dissonance on this matter between the voices on the tape and the interpretation of it which is so enourmous as to render discussion impossible. Perhaps the Americans are callous killers shooting innocents - though if so, they've got a rather restrictive set of rules limiting themselves from application of force. Perhaps they're decent men concentrating on an unpleasant task which is a tiny part of making the world a better place. This 17-minute presentation clearly offers both possibilities, while making considerable efforts not only to obfuscate the contradiction but to ensure only one narrative is accepted.

Can the military defend itself - assuming it feels it acted properly? Not really. In order to do so, it would have to divulge lots of very specific operational information which would be extremely valuable to future enemies. Imagine a military force which knows exactly what it's adversaries' limitations are, all the details of its rules of engagement, and the thought process of its adversaries. A military planner's dream. Yet absent all this information, we are left with the suspicion that the military acted wrongly in this case, and when it tells us it investigated and found no wrongdoing, some will surmise there's a cover-up going on.

Sadly, the needs of a democracy for transparency, and the needs for a military in obscureness, while both are legitimate, really do contradict each other sometimes. You'd think any reasonable person could appreciate the problem; alas, you'd obviously be wrong.

Also, interpreting human action is complicated. Whoever claims otherwise, be they journalists, politicians, human rights activists, bloggers: they're all quacks. Serious scholars who spend their lives on slow, well-informed attempts, often get it wrong. The immediate-truth-brigade doesn't really stand a chance.

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Collateral... What?

Love of the Land: No, Goldstone Is Not a Threat to the Democracies

No, Goldstone Is Not a Threat to the Democracies

Noah Pollak
Contentions/Commentary
11 February '10

Peter Berkowitz, a commentator I admire greatly, has a piece at NRO that criticizes the “astonishing attempt to shift power from sovereign states to international institutions” being undertaken by the NGO/international-law community. It’s an excellent analysis, and Berkowitz has been doing important work on the subject, but I have one quibble:

It would be a mistake to think that Israel’s lawyerly self-defense is of purely legal interest. This battle reflects a continuation of war and politics by other means. Indeed, the battle is fraught with weighty implications for all liberal democracies struggling against transnational terrorists.

This point has been made by many people, including the Israeli government itself, and it is a form of the old adage that “first they came for Israel, and I did not speak out because I am not an Israeli.” But I don’t think it’s true in this case. If “lawfare,” as it’s known, were truly a danger to powerful democratic nations, there would be more done to push back against it. Instead, what we see today is democratic nations that pay lip service to its tenets, safe in the knowledge that, while carrying few downsides, endorsing the abstract concepts of international law wins approval from the self-appointed arbiters of international virtue.

This is a war that probably will never spread to the great powers or even to the medium powers. For lawfare to work, several conditions have to be met. The target of lawfare must be: 1) a small and diplomatically weak nation; 2) a democracy whose citizens desire international acceptance; 3) a country surrounded by enemies that force it to fight frequent and indecisive wars, providing a constant supply of fresh “evidence” of criminality.

(Read full post)

Love of the Land: No, Goldstone Is Not a Threat to the Democracies

Love of the Land: A Moral Evaluation of the Gaza War - Operation Cast Lead

A Moral Evaluation of the Gaza War - Operation Cast Lead

Asa Kasher
Jewish Center for Public Affairs
04 February '10

(For anyone wanting a better understanding of the topic, this is worth the investment of time to read. Y.)

In Israel, a combatant is a citizen in uniform; quite often, he is a conscript or on reserve duty. His state ought to have a compelling reason for jeopardizing his life. The fact that persons involved in terrorism are depicted as non-combatants and that they reside and act in the vicinity of persons not involved in terrorism is not a reason for jeopardizing the combatant's life more than is required under combat conditions.

The ethical doctrine which follows from the IDF Ethics document mandates that, whenever possible, you must warn non-combatants that they are residents of a neighborhood where it is dangerous to stay. In Gaza, the IDF employed a variety of unprecedented efforts meant to minimize injury to non-combatants, including warning leaflets, phone calls, and non-lethal warning fire.

There is no army in the world that will endanger its soldiers in order to avoid hitting the warned neighbors of an enemy or terrorist. Israel should favor the lives of its own soldiers over the lives of the well-warned neighbors of a terrorist when it is operating in a territory that it does not effectively control, because in such territories it does not bear the moral responsibility for properly separating between dangerous individuals and harmless ones.

Proportionality is not a numerical comparison, but an assessment of existing threats and the measures that must be taken in order to avert them. Proportionality is justifiability of the collateral damage on grounds of the military advantage gained.

Compare the Gaza operation to the U.S. Marine operation in Fallujah, Iraq, in late 2004. During the operation, about 6,000 Iraqis including 1,200-2,000 insurgents were killed. Of the city's 50,000 buildings, some 10,000 were destroyed, including 60 mosques. Thus, the U.S. left a trail of destruction in Fallujah far greater than anything Israel inflicted on Gaza. Comparing IDF activities to those of military forces of Western democracies is an essential part of any present attempt to use international law.

We in Israel are in a key position in the development of customary international law in this field because we are on the front lines in the fight against terrorism. The more often Western states apply principles that originated in Israel to their own non-traditional conflicts in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, then the greater the chance these principles have of becoming a valuable part of international law.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: A Moral Evaluation of the Gaza War - Operation Cast Lead

Rights Against Safety

Rights Against Safety

My first post this morning favorably compared Jessica Montell of B'tselem with the rank antisemites who congregate at Mondoweiss, CiF and elsewhere. Well, here's some balance: a demonstration of the weakness in the thinking of Israel's radicals - in this case, Hamoked, Center for the Protection of the Individual.

Hamoked is not a very important organization, but it does have some presence. It's thesis is that Israel is unjust to Palestinian individuals and this must be corrected - so far, so reasonable. When you note that they have no problem criticizing the Supreme Court (High Court of Justice, HCJ, which I have recently mentioned as Bagatz) you begin to see that they're well off the mainstream. Israelis criticize the High Court sometimes, but carefully. The Left, rarely. The far Left, however, don't feel inhibited.

The reason I'm mentioning Hamoked is an e-mail they've sent out. It wasn't meant for me, but e-mails have the habit of washing up at strange shores. This one is an attempt to recruit a writer for their website. They've got eight lines of necessary qualifications, most of them just what you'd expect (English and Hebrew writing abilities, legal background, that sort of thing). Yet it's the first qualification which is telling:

מחויבות מוצקה לנושא זכויות אדם, לרבות במצבים של התנגשות בין זכויות אדם לצרכי ביטחון

High commitment to human rights, especially in cases of conflicts between human rights and security issues.

If you accept that the right to life is the highest right possible, that's a strange requirement. A higher commitment to human rights than to the defense of the top human right. Which isn't to say that there can never be a conflict between contradictory rights, and it's not even to say that there can never be cases where the security professionals fail to balance the varying considerations in a satisfactory way. There can be, which is why an organization such as Hamoked is legitimate, even necessary. Who watches the watchmen is always a legitimate issue.

But that's not what the ad requires. It seeks only people who automatically assume that rights are distinct from, and more important than, considerations of security. This, in a country surrounded by enemies with a century-old track record of eagerness to harm civilians.

Odd, isn't it.

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Democracy, Power, War, Peace, Law etc. etc.

Democracy, Power, War, Peace, Law etc. etc.

I've been offline most of the day, and have time right now only for a quick roundup.

Meny Mazuz, Israel's Attorney General, has decided not to prosecute Israeli filmmaker Muhammed Bakri for his slanderous film "Jenin Jenin". The film contains outright lies about the actions of IDF troops during the battle of Jenin in 2002, when the whole world was convinced Israel had massacred large numbers of Palestinian civilians, until it turned out they weren't dead. A group of troops, mostly reservists, has been trying ever since to have Bakri punished for the lies he disseminated in his film.

The story is not unsimilar to the one I mentioned yesterday, where some creep in the UK wishes to defame dead soldiers as part of a political stunt. Except that in the British case, the national consensus from the Prime Minster down is that the defamation cannot be allowed; in Israel meanwhile, where 13 IDF troops died in Jenin precisely because Israel refused to fight the way her detractors accused her of fighting, the government isn't willing to block the defamer's right of free speech. The most the Attorney General is willing to do is support the reservists if they take their case to a civil court - a support which has no legal standing and hardly any moral significance. In essence what Mazuz is saying to the soldiers is "I agree with you but freedom of speech is more important, no matter how infuriating the lies it enables."

He's right, of course. Yet another case where Israeli democracy is at least as robust as that of our detractors.

In another corner of the internal Israeli discussion about legality at war (not to be mistaken for morality at war, of course), the previous head of the Supreme Court, Aharon Barak, insists Israel must fight its wars within the strictures of international law - nor does he think this should be particularly hard to do. As a matter of fact, he advocates Israel's joining the International Criminal Court. (The Chinese, Russians and Americans haven't, among others. Powerful nations don't, it seems). I don't know about joining the ICC, but General Ashkenazi, the top general of the army is moving towards an ever-greater integration of legal advisers into the units of the IDF.

Will such a measure help Israel in the future? Well, yes and no. On the purely legal level, yes: the more robust Israel's legal system is, the less case there is for action against it in the international legal venues (that's why Barak is sanguine: he sees the legal implications). On the level of international discourse, of course such a measure won't help. Israel isn't castigated for what it does; it's castigated for what it is. Shimon Stein explains how Europeans and Israelis live in different universes; the only way this can be resolved is for Israel to have European-style peace with its neighbors.

Most Israelis would love to have European-style peace with their neighbors. Who wouldn't? Well, the neighbors aren't interested, for starters. Aluf Benn, a lefty but well informed columnist at Haaretz, knows fully well that peace can't be had anytime soon; he agrees on this point with our outspoken foreign minster Avigdor Lieberman. Where he disagrees, however, is the implications. Benn thinks we need to do our best and always seek peace, and take care not to poke external observers in the eye all the time.

If peace can't be had, and the Europeans won't see things our way in any case, how bad is the situation? Perhaps not so bad. The British Attorney General, whose name - Baroness Scotland - is far more imposing than Meni Mazuz, explained yesterday in a public lecture in Jerusalem that

"The government is looking urgently at ways in which the UK system might be changed to avoid this situation arising again," Scotland said. "Israel's leaders should always be able to travel freely to the UK."

Here's a suggestion: arrest warrants might be decided upon by the public prosecution (i.e. the Attorney General's office), not by some judge in some obscure English town. That can't be construed as anti-democratic, I'd think.

Yet why is it so important for the British that Israeli officials be able to travel to London? There are all sorts of reasons, but they boil down to power and the wielding of it. The Europeans can protest otherwise as much as they will, the fact is that the world is, always has been, and will always continue to be run by people who wage situations and make decisions about them with the understanding that these decisions will inevitably have implications. The ability to make that kind of decision is called power; and the wielders of it bear the responsibility of using it to further the interests of a constituency. That's one of the differences between them and, say, university professors, activists, and bloggers. What does Baroness Scotland know that we don't?

Scotland's assurance comes as the Guardian learned that the Israeli military had cancelled a visit by a team of its officers to Britain after fears they risked arrest on possible war crimes charges.

What sort of implications might result by not having Israeli officials ever come to the UK? Well, here's a possible one. Apparently the Israelis are about to activate a new security system for airports; one even better, cheaper, and more efficient than the one they've already got, which is already the world's best. You need to read the item behind that link with care, however: the new system will not replace the human intervention which is the hallmark of the present system; it will merely pare off Israeli citizens (Jews and Arabs equally, of course), who clearly don't need to be interviewed; this will leave more time to focus on all the others.

Unfortunately, Israel is very good at such things as combating terrorists and protecting civilians. Or rather, it's not unfortunate at all; it's the need for the expertize that's unfortunate - but lately, the British have the same need. As do the Germans, French, Spaniards, and the American's have an urgent need for it. If you bore responsibility and power, would you want to be in a situation where you couldn't talk to some of the world's top experts, out of some sort of spite or other childish sentiment? No? Baroness Scotland neither, apparently.

Nor will you allow a boycott of those experts to go too far, either.

The Jews had millennia of powerlessness, and were not loved for it nor was it an especially pleasant exercise. Now they've got power, and they're intensely disliked for it by some. Given the alternative, it's better to have the power.

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

US Administration: Politics, not Lawfare

US Administration: Politics, not Lawfare

The Obama administration, just like the Bush administration before it, isn't interested in allowing a damages case against the Palestinian Authority for the murder of an American citizen, Esh Kodesh Gilmore, in 2000. Of course, the government shouldn't be the one to decide that sort of thing, you'd think, but the reality is that it does, even in the United States.

There's also the ironic twist, not mentioned in the news item, that Gilmore was murdered by Palestinians while guarding the East Jerusalem office of Bituach Leumi, the Israeli equivalent of Social Security - i.e, the place that pays large sums of money to Palestinians in East Jerusalem who aren't even Israeli citizens, as has been mentioned here in the past. Makes you wonder who the Palestinian murderer thought he was attacking.

Personally, I support the administration's position. Gilmore's murder was part of a political struggle, not a bank robbery, and the trial is intended to impinge upon a political process. The American government - a political entity through and through, by definition - wishes to keep the lawfare part out of the politics part. So long as they do so consistently, they're right. It would be pleasant for once to see our enemies squirming on the lawfare defendant's bench, but it wouldn't make the world a better place. Lawfare is a bad thing, no matter which side is doing it.

Originally poste by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Lawfare in the Other Direction

Lawfare in the Other Direction

A group of Israelis with Belgian citizenship are taking Hamas to court in Belgium.

This sort of thing will never bring peace. No matter which side initiates it. Yet if the anti-Israel lawfarers lose the comfort of owning the battlefield, maybe they'll use it less. That's certainly a reasonable target to aim at.

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

How to Derail International Diplomacy

How to Derail International Diplomacy

Silke sends me a link to this Times Online report about how easy it is for any two deranged activists in London to screw up the business of international relations.

Still, the UK, unlike the "International Community" has the tools to correct its loonier legislation once the damage is noticed. I expect cooler minds will make this go away - something that's almost impossible to do in the sovereign-less world of International Law.

If they don't make it go away, I expect a cell of excitable students from our side to get their act together and halt the travel of Saudis, Iraqis, Pakistanis, Palestinians, Syrians, and anyone else about whom anything can be alleged, to the UK. Keep in mind that the allegations don't need to be proved, they merely need to have some plausible-sounding background. I don't see why, for example, Bill Clinton couldn't be arrested next time he flies thru Heathrow. I've heard that Whitewater thing was never totally cleared. Mostly, mind you, but not totally.

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

The Dead End of Legalism

The Dead End of Legalism

This afternoon I participated in a small blogger meeting. One of the drawbacks of bashing the Left so often is that people forget that doesn't make me Right. This afternoon's event was the second or third such a get-together where I've found myself way off to the left of a roomful of true Right-wingers.

A central theme of the meeting was that International Law must be wrenched back into the service of the Right, by demonstrating that settlements are legal, the Palestinian's claim to the West Bank is, at best, less credible than Israel's, and so on. The funny thing is that these cases really can all be made using legal tools - which if you think about it isn't that surprising. The art of being a lawyer is that you build a legal case from the position you're handed, no matter what it is. In a nation-state there's a universally accepted judiciary which decides who's case is more convincing, there are layers of judicial appeals, and there's a legislature that can change things if the laws have become outdated or unacceptable by enough of the voters.

None of this exists between states, so ultimately, the entire international law aspect of the conflict (and most other conflicts, too) is at best an attempt by one side or the other to bludgeon their adversary into accepting a position they aren't willing to accept.

None of the discussants at the meeting ever broached the subject of what the Palestinians are supposed to do with the positions being mooted. Nor did they need to. A legal confrontation isn't about finding common ground; it's about using the law to achieve your desired outcome.

I need to describe how the Israelis and Palestinians might find that common ground. Or not find it.

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Human Rights Against International Law

Human Rights Against International Law

Still mulling over that B'tselem tour to Hebron.

Oren, the B'tselem guide, was very careful to talk about human rights, not politics. At one point he even refused to respond to a question about how the situation in Hebron might be resolved: that's politics, he said. As I wrote already, this wasn't very convincing since he seemed unfazed by the limitations on Israelis in the Palestinian part of Hebron. Yet upon reflection, the problem is deeper.

International law is an expression of the wish to have all nations operate within common limitations. Thus it deals with what countries are allowed to do and what not. Some will tell you they aren't allowed to transfer citizens into occupied territories, since in WWII the Nazis deported people in all sorts of directions so the international community recognized this as an evil to be prevented. You might ask how that is relevant to Israeli citizens moving of their free volition to places they recognize from their daily readings of the Bible or Talmud, or in the case of Hebron, to a town that had a Jewish community until as recently at 39 years earlier, and the response you'd get might not satisfy you. But that's not the bone I want to gnaw on right now.

International law may have something to say about settlers living in Hebron. It has nothing to say about the rights of individuals visiting there to worship, studying there, or even living there. As the champions of human rights will tell you incessantly, human rights are inherent. They don't stem from this political situation, those conditions, or that ethnic identity of victims. The right of a child to life is greater than the politics of who the child is, where she lives, or what the adults around her are doing. That's the whole point of human rights. It's why the ghastly Goldstone Report could overlook almost the entire context of its investigation and focus on the slivers of reality it was interested in: the human rights of the civilians of Gaza. It's why Oren of B'tselem could overlook the entire context of what he showed us in Hebron, and say that how the situation came to be isn't his business, he's interested in the rights of the (Palestinian) townsfolk.

OK. For the sake of the argument, let's take the human rights perspective. Back in 2000-2004 people were getting killed in Hebron. People on both sides, including civilians on both sides. In order to put a stop to that most extreme of all violations of human rights, the IDF put in place a regime that violates minor human rights, yet preserves major ones. It creates inconveniences and saves lives. Without those measures the lives of the settlers were endangered, and their inherent rights were being severely violated.

Whether the settlers are permitted to be there or not under international law is immaterial to the matter of their inherent human rights.

Somehow I don't think most human rights activists see it that way. What does that tell us about them?

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Love of the Land: What About the Occupation of the Western Wall?

What About the Occupation of the Western Wall?

Noah Pollak
Contentions/Commentary
24 November 09

I’m having a hard time understanding the thinking behind the Obama administration’s decision to criticize construction in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo. The administration seems to have decided that Gilo is a settlement, and the international press is of course helping the cause by falsely reporting that Gilo is in (Arab) East Jerusalem. As Maurice Ostroff points out in a must-read Jerusalem Post piece:

The reality is that Gilo is very different than the outposts in the West Bank. It is not in east Jerusalem as widely reported. It is a Jerusalem neighborhood with a population of around 40,000. The ground was bought by Jews before WWII and settled in 1971 in south west Jerusalem opposite Mount Gilo within the municipal borders. There is no inference whatsoever that it rests on Arab land.

Gilo is one of several neighborhoods that sit on land occupied by Jordan from 1948-1967, after the withdrawal of the British Mandate. This border is called the Green Line, and it

refers only to the 1949 Armistice lines established after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. … Nor is it fixed, as explained by Justice Stephen M. Schwebel, who spent 19 years as a judge of the International Court of Justice at The Hague, including three years as President. He wrote “…modifications of the 1949 armistice lines among those States within former Palestinian territory are lawful (if not necessarily desirable), whether those modifications are, in Secretary Rogers’s words, “insubstantial alterations required for mutual security” or more substantial alterations — such as recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the whole of Jerusalem.” …

The Palestinians never had sovereignty over the West Bank nor east Jerusalem and Justice Schwebel concluded that since Jordan, the prior holder of these territories had seized that territory unlawfully in 1948, Israel which subsequently took that territory in the lawful exercise of self-defense in 1967, has better title to it. Jordan’s illegal annexation of the West Bank and east Jerusalem in 1948 was recognized only by Britain and Pakistan and Jordan now makes no claim to it.

In terms of international law, between 1948 and 1967 this territory was terra nullius, or “land belonging to no one” over which sovereignty may be acquired through occupation. The concept of terra nullius is well recognized in international law.

Getting back to the Obama administration: what is the principle behind the critique of construction in Gilo? There are many parts of Jerusalem that share its standing. Those places include the Jewish Quarter of the Old City and the Western Wall, both of which, like Gilo, were controlled by Jordan during the twenty years between the founding of the state and the Six Day War.

Is the Jewish Quarter a settlement? Is the Western Wall occupied? Is Israeli construction in them inimical to the peace process? Someone should ask these questions of Robert Gibbs at the next press conference. By the administration’s Gilo logic, the answer to all three would have to be yes.

Love of the Land: What About the Occupation of the Western Wall?

Love of the Land: Gilo--History and International Law Back Israel

Gilo--History and International Law Back Israel

Daled Amos
23 November 09

In an article in the Jerusalem Post, Maurice Ostroff writes about the status of Gilo--where plans to build 900 houses have caused a new uproar and claims that Israel is once again expanding settlements.

However, as Ostroff points out, the emotional reaction ignores the facts--both historical and legal.

Historically:

THE REALITY is that Gilo is very different than the outposts in the West Bank. It is not in east Jerusalem as widely reported. It is a Jerusalem neighborhood with a population of around 40,000. The ground was bought by Jews before WWII and settled in 1971 in south west Jerusalem opposite Mount Gilo within the municipal borders. There is no inference whatsoever that it rests on Arab land.

The current building approval was not a deliberately provocative political decision by Binyamin Netanyahu as reported in some media. The plan was initiated a long time ago by the Israel Land Administration. Since Gilo is an integral part of the city, the approval was given by Jerusalem's Construction and Planning Committee and, as Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat said in a statement released by his office, "Israeli law does not discriminate between Arabs and Jews, or between east and west of the city. The demand to cease construction just for Jews is illegal, as in the US and any other enlightened place in the world. The Jerusalem Municipality will continue to enable construction in every part of the city for Jews and Arabs alike."

...In his video message to the November 8 Rabin Rally in Tel Aviv, US President Barack Obama urged Israel to pursue Rabin's legacy. It is therefore relevant to recall that Rabin had no intention of returning to the 1967 lines. In his last speech [view here] to the Knesset on October 5, 1995, Rabin said "The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six Day War. We will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines....First and foremost, united Jerusalem - which will include both Ma'aleh Adumim and Givat Ze'ev - as the capital of Israel, under Israeli sovereignty, while preserving the rights of the members of the other faiths, Christianity and Islam, to freedom of access and freedom of worship in their holy places, according to the customs of their faiths...."

No less supportive of Israel's right to build the houses is International Law, which is often misquoted in an effort to condemn Israel:

(Continue article)

Love of the Land: Gilo--History and International Law Back Israel

Analyzing Warstuff

Analyzing Warstuff

Where do you go if you're an American general, say, or a British one, and your troops in Iraq or Afghanistan are encountering a new type of homemade but lethal weapon, and you need some advice on what it's made from so as the better to defend yourself?

To Israel, of course. The Israelis have this unit, run by a mad scientist, who collects bit of ordinance, learns everything possible about it, and makes useful recommendations.

Recently, the American military began studying the IDF experience. "They never imagined IEDs like that. They're still back in the 1980s, fighting the Soviets. They're making this huge review and came to us to learn everything about the materials and how to take the things apart," says Tuval.

Delegates from other armies fighting in Afghanistan, including the British, Italians and Germans, have also visited the lab to study the threats ahead. British experts, this time from Scotland Yard, also visited the lab in 2005 to learn the types of explosives used in the 2005 London bombings, which were different from bombs they knew from the IRA.

So far, so not surprising. The part I found of special interest, however,was this one:

In other cases, the lab is requested to produce results in real time. During Operation Cast Lead the lab deduced from shrapnel embedded in a paratroop officer's helmet that he was not injured by an IED but by a sniper's bullet, thus making the army aware a sniper was operating in that area.

Interesting, isn't it? The troops in the field and their commanders weren't sure what was going on, so the forensic fellows back near Tel Aviv figured out there must be a Palestinian sniper hidden nearby. Just the kind of thing the foreign observers and bearers of human rights in vain always know better about than the professionals who are there at the time.

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Hamas: No Return to Warfare, Please

Hamas: No Return to Warfare, Please

One of the small military factions even more extreme than Hamas shot a rocket into Israel yesterday. The Hamas rulers of Gaza hurriedly read them the riot act: no one shoots at Israel. We don't want any re-run of last January. Maybe some day, but not this year.

It has been about eight months now since the rocket attacks on southern Israel have dwindled to a drizzle, and apparently even that has Hamas nervous. This inevitably won't last forever, but for the time being, it seems our operation was proportional: there was a problem, we took action, and the problem was resolved.

Rather straightforward, don't you think?

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

UN: No Evidence

UN: No Evidence

This really is a bit funny.

Two days before Israel's capture of a ship that was apparently ferrying arms to Hezbollah, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon released a report to the UN Security Council in which he said the United Nations took the Israeli allegations about weapons smuggling to Hezbollah seriously, but lacked the ability to independently verify the information.

So here's the proof, courtesy of Israel's Navy (and Mossad, but we won't mention them).

Israeli commandos seized a ship Wednesday that defense officials said was carrying hundreds of tons of weapons from Iran bound for Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas - the largest arms shipment Israel has ever commandeered.

The Israeli military said an Iranian document was found on board, showing that the arms shipment, disguised as civilian cargo, originated from Iran, although the paper was not shown to reporters. Rear Admiral Rani Ben-Yehuda, the deputy Israeli navy commander, said that despite its size, the shipment of weapons was a drop in the ocean of arms being shipped to Hezbollah.

Try to imagine what the world would be like if anyone trusted the important things to the United Nations.

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

War is Always Wrong

War is Always Wrong

The United States is being critcized somewhat similarly to Israel, for having the temrity to wage war in a manner the UN doesn't like. A certain Philip Alston, who has been appointed by - you guessed - the United Nations Human Rights Council, thinks that killing Taliban from the air may be illegal.

As regular readers know, I actually think the American public should be watching the drone war and asking questions - but they need not be answering to the UN, nor should the matter be one of international law.

My inclination is to see this newest development as positive. Remember, the drone war is the Biden method, the alternative being touted by the camp that wants less American involvement; it's the doves who want it, not the hawks. The longer this goes on, the greater the probability that normal, sensible people will recongnize the international-law-pacifists for what they are.

In which context, what do you make of para. 1313 in the Goldstone Report:

The Government of Israel seems to see the hardship and suffering of
Palestinians as an inevitable consequence of a situation of war. The
Government’s statement that “civilian populations inevitably and tragically
suffer during a time of armed combat, particularly where the combat operations
take place in densely populated urban areas” may be correct, but this does not
relieve Israel from its obligations under international humanitarian law

In other words, even when Israel may be right, it's certainly wrong. The whole Goldstone Report is an example of a legal system gone haywire. Fortunately, the system is now aiming also at the big guys.

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Human Rights Watch Watch: Bernstein Stands Firm

Human Rights Watch Watch: Bernstein Stands Firm

Last Week Richard Bernstein, founder of HRW, blasted them in an op-ed at the New York Times. The current heads of HRW responded as we knew they would. Not by setting up, say, an investigating group that would look into the allegations, but rather by immediately shooting back. "Of course we're right. Always".

Bernstein has now responded to his responders. It's no longer in the New York Times, but his response has been posted at the Contentions blog of Commentary Magazine. He's not blinking, and not backing down.

I believe that Israel should be judged by the highest possible standard and I have never argued anything else. What is more important than what I believe, or what Human Rights Watch believes, is that Israelis themselves believe they should be held to the highest standard.
That is why they have 80 Human Rights organizations challenging their government daily. Does any other country in the Middle East have anything remotely near that? That is why they have a vibrant free press. Does any other country in the Middle East have anything remotely near that? That is why they have a democratically elected government. That is why they have a judiciary that frequently rules against the government, a politically active academia, multiple political societies, etc etc etc.

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations