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Showing posts with label international law. Show all posts
Showing posts with label international law. Show all posts

Friday, November 13, 2015

BDS Equals Anti-Semitism

Nadene Goldfoot                                      
Religion is behind the motivation of bringing on BDS against Israel by a handful of people in Portland, Oregon as well as the rest of the world.  It seems we're always facing some form or other.  It's an old story.

"In 2005, Palestinian civil society issued a call for a campaign of boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel until it complies with international law and Palestinian rights. A truly global movement against Israeli Apartheid is rapidly emerging in response to this call. " They call for ending Apartheid.  That's something that went on in Africa.  It's not the story of Israel at all.  The truth is it's the opposite of apartheid.  This accusation comes from the Palestinians'  warped view of reality and narrow mindedness.  They have found others gladly buy into such a ridiculous claim and it's working so they use it.  Facts go by the wayside.  

Coming right down to it, people working on BDS, such as Portlanders in our own City Council, feel they must cause Israel to bend to their wishes, which are nothing but wishes stemming from anti-Semitism.  There is no basis, no legitimate reasons for wanting to do the only Democratic country in the Middle East, harm.

They are people who are weak in their knowledge of what's going on on in the world.  The history of the Jews, why they returned to Israel, and the struggles they have had has gone over their heads.  All that motivates them is hearsay-gossip, innuendos, and anti-Semitism.

A people without a country of their own for 2,000 years is being shafted by a nomadic people of recent years who belong to a group that already has 49 countries of their own religion.  Israel is the only Jewish state in the world.  The original state of Judah was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE.  Surrounded by enemies from the Muslim world, Portland has added their barbs and missiles of BDS to the already suffering state.
                                                                     
Professor Kontorovich  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ub2x5UvjUs4  Speaking from the perspective of International Law
Top drawer international lawyers such as Prof. Kontorovich,  Eugene Rostow, a former Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, and  Stephen Schwebel, formerly President of the International Court of Justice,   have proved that BDS philosophy is wrong and an unjust persecution of the new state of Israel.  This is just a few of the international lawyers who defend Israel's right to exist and defend their actions to continue existing.  "Prof. Kontorovich has also written and lectured extensively about the legal aspects of the Israel-Arab conflict."  That's something that people backing BDS should take time to study.  
                                                                      
Nimoy actually showing the sign of the Cohens, seen on gravestones of Jews

For what they are trying to do to Israel backs no merit.  "It doesn't compute", as Leonard Nimoy used to say on Star Trek as Captain Kirk's side kick, Mr. Spock, the half Vulcan half human  .  Both Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner, who played Captain Kirk,  happen to be Jewish in real life.  "President Obama, who said he loved Spock, similarly described Nimoy's character as "cool, logical, big-eared and level-headed, the center of Star Trek's optimistic, inclusive vision of humanity's future."  ""His legacy as that character is key to the enjoyment of Star Trek. The way that Spock was used as a device for the writers to examine humanity and examine what it meant to be human, that's really what Star Trek was all about. And in finding Leonard Nimoy, they found the perfect person to portray that."  One problem of being human is that we don't use the logic and intelligence enough that we have, which the Vulcans had more of.  
                                                                    
William Shatner's Star Trek Captain Kirk, felt he had to keep quiet in his early years of his career about being Jewish.  Now, at 71, he's speaking out.  He had discovered that the word "G-d" is an anathema to Hollywood, where they fear people will "feel slighted if it is not their God.  One way or another, everyone is searching for G-d, whether God is money, philosophy, family or a variety of ways humans search for something beyond themselves,"  

William Shatner is also Jewish from Toronto, Canada.  "He wanted to start therapudic riding programs in Israel for all children.  "I had ambitions of taking children from Jordan, Egypt, even Gaza, and busing them to riding centers that would take young children who hadn't yet been inculcated into hate, and they would see the commonality of all humanity," says Shatner.  I think he would have a hard time finding such children today, sadly.  

Here, religion more often than not has erased logic, especially in the case of BDS which is religiously motivated.  Starting off with Africa's  religious leader, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who seems to have a grudge against Israel, this esteemed man, most human and not godly at all, sided with the Palestinians.  Perhaps he "sees" his own people in them by comparison, taken over by the ruling whites, which is not the same situation at all in Israel as what has happened in South Africa.  

Through his efforts, the Sabeel movement took off, and that includes BDS against Israel, another form of harm for the tiny state just like a missile attack.  
                                                             
BDS Caterpillar Tractor Co- from doing business in Israel

"Disinvestment from Israel is a campaign conducted by religious and political entities which aims to use disinvestment to pressure the government of Israel to put "an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories captured during the 1967 military campaign." The disinvestment campaign is related to other economic and political boycotts of Israel."  The Presbyterians and now Methodists are involved in backing the movement.  When you look at these 2 Protestant religions, they have already gone to the point of the "Replacement Theory" whereby Jews are replaced by them in being G-d's favorite.  So it must be easy for them to kick Israel in the shins and not back this tiny state in it's fantastic efforts to stay afloat and exist.  I sense a streak of jealousy here.  You know, it was Tevye, the milkman (Fiddler on the Roof) , who said, "Why us, G-d?  Couldn't you pick on somebody else?  We have a hard row to hoe.  We didn't ask for the position.  It's not something that makes us special, but a huge responsibility to have accepted.  One thing for sure, we have had the stiff neck to not go back on our promise.  We've lasted throughout the centuries from the time of Moses  who asked this of us in about 1300 BCE to today;  about 3,315 years.                                                                                  
Amin Husseini asking
Hitler to rid them of Jews in
1941

         
Ayatollah Khamenei from Iran (ancient Persia) 
                                                                             
Forcing conversions, 1492
Slaughtering Jews
in Crusades

Then, as if this isn't enough, we have the Catholics who have had a history of persecution against Judaism from the days of the Crusaders during the 1,000s  and then the Spanish Inquisition in 1492 and onwards.  Christianity has only let up with their slings and arrows in about the 1960s, actually, considering all the anti-Semitic goings on.  Now it's coming back big-time, showing some acts similar to what happened in Germany in the 20s and 30s against Jews. It doesn't stop there.  Now we have Iran's religious leader, the Ayatollah, saying Israel will be destroyed by them.   This is an updated version being we have had our own state of Israel for the past 67 years.  
                                                                                                       
Druze  Israeli
Ethiopian Israeli

                                                                          
Benjamin Netanyahu

 Trying to destroy Israel by cutting off it's economic life-blood for existence is what they are doing.  At the same time, though they are too hot-blooded to think about it, Israel is made up of inside it's borders, 1.7 million Arabs, some of them Christians.  In Judea and Samaria, so close that they are simply like a neighborhood of Israel, are Arabs who were depending on some of the industries for jobs.  Boycotting, the B in BDS of Boycotting, Divesting and Sanctions, is their way of trying to stop Israel in the financial areas.  And why are they attacking Israel?  It has been the Palestinian Arabs who have been attacking Israel physically!  However, the religious groups in South Africa and those few religious in the rest of the world have taken the old steps of being against the Jewish people.  Why?  For their refusal of accepting their religion.  So you see, it isn't enough that Jews are getting the same raw deal from the Muslims of not accepting their form of worship.  Jews are the meat in the sandwich, getting crushed from both sides.

How can intelligent people think for a minute that Jews would cause harm, harm that they have suffered from for the past 2,000 years, on people they share their land with?  It's not a part of our religion to do such things.  We live by the Golden Rule; Don't do to others what you would not want done to you.  This is why it's so asinine.  Only minds wanting to believe such filth can do it.  

It's not enough that Israel is one of the leading countries in being a start-up nation in business, and for a country made up of only 6 million Jews and 1.7 million Arabs, that is remarkable in that they are being compared with all countries of much larger sizes, 

 "The Council on Foreign Relations states in its publisher's blurb for the book that Start-up Nation addresses the question: "How is it that Israel—a country of 7.1 million people, only sixty years old, surrounded by enemies, in a constant state of war since its founding, with no natural resources—produces more start-up companies than large, peaceful, and stable nations like Japan, China, India, Korea, Canada, and the United Kingdom?

All the attacks on Israel have not prevented their innate talents to produce and to live.  Other countries would find it very hard to do so.  Israelis have creative minds and continue to create.  Any group deciding foolishly to use BDS to harm Israel will not be an intelligent group, that is for sure, only a hateful one, and they never last.  Israel continues to produce, especially in the medical field which they share with the world.  All people can or are benefitting from achievements by Israel and by the Jewish people.  It sounds like I'm bragging, but I am proud of the achievements they have made.  
                                                                                    
By the same token, the religion of Judaism was first to establish humane rules for living among others.  Our history is that it was designed by G-d as G-d spoke to Moses, so let it be.  Jews are only trying to be fair with the Palestinians as much as they are not being fair with the Jewish people.  Israel has designed plans and have tried to carry them out that benefit the Palestinians, only their Arab leaders have managed to curtail many of  the good acts and persuade Arabs to attack the Jews anyway!  A good example is that after 67 years, Arabs have been rioting in Jerusalem, trying to take the capital being their motivation.   

I watched CNN's program last night with Anthony Bourdain, the chef, who happens to have Jewish roots, travel the world to Turkey, what remains of the Ottoman Empire.  He interviewed several people, the last being a businessman who said money was what made the world go around.  It was money that was important to him; not the freedom of speech, not any democratic values that Israel and the USA share.  Just money.  It didn't matter to him that he lacked these things that we have.  He's happy in a beautiful home being able to show it to Bourdain.  What's happening to Turkey is that President Erdogan has been their leader for some time, first as PM and since 2014 as President, and has become very religious, imposing his Islamic ideas on all.  But, this man didn't mind at all.  As long as he's not affected, he doesn't care what is happening.  Of course this religious bent is causing him to be difficult with Israel.  
I'm afraid many people share his lack of having values in his life.  The heck with what is going on, but isn't it fun to get on the band wagon and persecute someone?  And that someone is Israel.   Just don't confuse these people with the facts.  

Resource:  http://www.law.northwestern.edu/faculty/profiles/eugenekontorovich/
http://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2012/01/how-sabeel-movement-is-harming-israel.html
http://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2012/01/attacks-on-israel-with-and-without.html
http://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2012/07/presbyterian-friendship-with-israel.html
http://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2012/02/kairos-palestine-against-israels.html
http://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2013/12/mandelas-view-of-israel.html
http://www.biography.com/people/desmond-tutu-9512516
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/south-african-church-leaders-endorse-israeli-apartheid-week
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disinvestment_from_Israel
http://www.bdsmovement.net/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Start-up_Nation
http://www.cnn.com/shows/anthony-bourdain-parts-unknown
http://mondoweiss.net/2015/06/endorses-divestment-unconscionable
http://www.bdsmovement.net/tag/desmond-tutu
Jewish Life magazine November 2015, pgs 15-19 on William Shatner


Saturday, June 7, 2014

Netanyahu's Next Move To Protect Israel

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                      


                            Palestinians  of Fatah-Hamas Government: Ismail Haniyah of Hamas in front 
                            Hamas is a terrorist organization..  Palestine is to have no Jews in it, just like Saudi Arabia.
Area C and Ariel 

Evidently the USA in no longer regarding the Oslo Accords as having any merit, for they are allowing the Palestinians, in planning their Palestine, to have a terrorist led government.  Area A was to be exclusively Arab, no Jews.  Area B was to be all Arab.  Area C was to have "full Israeli civil and security control" and the plan was for Israel to withdraw from 13% of it, but they only were able to withdraw from 2% and the actions of the Arabs caused them to perform Operation Defensive Shield, meaning the Arabs had attacked more than could be tolerated which showed no peaceful intent.  Hamas really brought this on themselves.  Israel retains 61% of Judea-Samaria.  The Palestinians also have Gaza as part of their state which has 141 square miles.  

Area C in Judea-Samaria, scene of Israel's ancient history of Israel and Judah found in the Bible ,  is now threatened by the USA being first to recognize an unsettled Palestine with a Fatah-Hamas government patterned after Lebanon's that will not have any Jews living in it.  Area C was allowed to have Jews in the Oslo Accords.  It amounts to 375,000 Jews who live there as of  2013, probably a few more today.  The city of Ariel is the capital of  this Judea-Samaria district. The 3 other cities are Betar Illit, Ma'ale Adumim and Modi'in Illit that house Jews.   When the Assyrians attacked Israel in 720 BCE, the northern Kingdom fell and was renamed Shomron (Samaria).  Judah was created after King Solomon had died in 920 BCE and his son, Rehoboam,  became king.  At the time of 722 BCE, Ahaz was king.  The area of the Judea and Samaria district covers only 2,270 square miles which is but a portion of the ancient lands of Judah and Samaria. 
                                                                            

                                               Ariel
"In July 2012, a government-commissioned report by the Levy committee asserted, based on a number of reasons, that there is no legal basis under international law to refer to Judea and Samaria as "occupied territory". Article 43 of the Fourth Hague Convention of 1907 is the basis of the Levy Committee's opinion. Its opinion may be found on the Internet with an English translation"  "The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law,"  They call them "occupied territories."  Israel calls them "disputed territories."  

Obama  just settled the dispute by recognizing them as  Palestine, state for the "Palestinian" Arabs, recent immigrants who left their homes at the creation of Israel and instead of returning when the fighting was over, remained in refugee camps where most remain today, taken care of by the UN.  

Israel was willing to go along with a 2-state solution, not wanting to change the nature of Israel as a Zionist state, refuge for Jews who were suffering from anti-Semitism, but can't accept a terrorist state bent on their destruction.  Kerry didn't manage to change their minds about that, which was understood being they refuse to change their charter of Hamas nor their goal to destroy Israel lying in their hearts.

There must be an international law that a state cannot be created that has a terrorist government intent on destroying its neighbor.  This is what the UN was created for, to keep such things from happening.  The UN is not living up to its original charter.  It's not all over yet.  So far the USA was the first to recognize this state and we haven't heard from the Western states as yet.  

First off, the PA violated the Oslo Accords by taking unilateral action and applying for membership in 15 different international organization for statehood.  This went against the peace process and caused the halt to it, yet Kerry blames Israel.   To top that off, the USA has hurried to be the first country to recognize a state of Palestine, a Palestine that will have a ruling government of Hamas terrorists just like Lebanon's Hezbollah government plan.  

Israeli MK Bennett came up with an idea that Israel should have sovereignty over Area C of Judea and Samaria back in 2010, but the USA crushed that idea quickly.  Now, with the threat of having an honest to goodness terrorist state in their back yard, Netanyahu has to come up with a plan B as to what to do.  He threw out the idea of the need to separate from the Palestinians, which is going to be some trick being they are so close.  They did this once in Gaza and it was a complete mistake.  A poll was taken and 60% of Jews opposed a unilateral withdrawal from the area.  20% of Israel's citizens are Arabs and 2/3 of them support withdrawal.  

What is the USA suggesting now that they have  started the wartime atmosphere, something not expected in a peace process?  They have the wait and see attitude like they had with Syria and Ukraine.  Before recognizing Palestine they failed to get any written guarantees about peaceful behaviors from the Palestinians who are still dropping rockets on southern Israel.  In fact it just happened today again and a rocket was shot into southern Israel, the 108th since the first of 2014.  .  Now, Israel can expect more terrorism to come from Judea and Samaria on the east side as well and continued shelling from the west from Gaza.  Well, they said that they'll be watching all of that very carefully to ensure that that doesn't happen.  Watching doesn't stop anything.  It's been going on since 2001 from Gaza already and I haven't seen anyone try to stop the terrorists except Israel.  So now they'll do the same thing and watch some more.  USA is not about to get involved.  They'll following the adage, "We don't mix in."  

 Isn't this all prophesied in the Bible?  Some great big blowout is expected to happen against Israel.  I think John Kerry and Obama are not wasting any time getting the bombfire lit.  
Update: 6/12/14 at 10:51am from Breaking Israel News:  

Congress Questions Obama, Kerry Violating Law by Supporting Hamas Government

Hamas: Bullets and Bombs Are Music to Our Ears

Hamas Interior Minister Fathi Hammad urged members of Fatah to join jihad and told them that “this is no time to back down” from destroying Israel.



Resource: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Bank_Areas_in_the_Oslo_II_Accord
http://www.timesofisrael.com/sirens-wail-in-south-as-rocket-fired-from-gaza/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
http://unitedwithisrael.org/the-jewish-connection-to-judea-samaria/
http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/06/06/israeli-official-netanyahu-seeking-unilateral-move-to-separate-from-palestinians/
http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=2676
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/181451#.U5OYYNJdU8o
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariel_(city)

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Arabs' Attempt in Reviving the Dead 181 Partition Resolution

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                         

World War I was fought from 1914 to 1917 with the Ottoman Empire losing and the West winning which resulted in Palestine being taken over by the Western Powers in which Britain held the mandate from 1917 to May 14, 1948  to create a Jewish Homeland.  This was decided through the Balfour Declaration and the League of Nations.  The League of Nations died because they were breaking their own rules. It was started January 1918 by the USA and ended 12 April 1946.  It wasn't able to prevent WWII.   It changed over to become the United Nations on June 26, 1945 and in 1947 Britain put the matter of Palestine into their hands.  The UN Commission RECOMMENDED partitioning what was left out of the original Mandate into 2 new states; one Jewish and one Arab with Jerusalem to be an international zone belonging to neither.
                                                                       
David Lloyd George, British Prime Minister, said that the Balfour Declaration implied that the whole of Palestine, including Transjordan, should become a Jewish state, but in 1922 it had been taken illegally by the Hashemite ruler, Abdullah which was later called Jordan.  During all the attack on Israel after declaring itself a state, Jordan had invaded and annexed it illegally.  The UN did not call them on it.  That was one state created out of the Jewish Homeland already.   Abdullah had taken 77% -80% of the landmass of the original Mandate for the Jews.  He set up an Arab Kingdom.

 There are already 57 Muslim majority countries in the world and 22 of them are right in the Middle East: Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkey, Sudan, Algeria, Morocco, Yemen, Libya, Kuwait, Oman,  Bahrain, Qatar, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates.  Now Arabs living in the land and others who came in looking for work are calling themselves Palestinian Arabs.  Jews who lived there were called Palestinian Jews.  The Arabs want to create a state and call it Palestine but they have been refusing every offer made since 1947.

17,000,000 Arabs live on 1,290,000 square miles while Palestine, after losing the 76% of land to Transjordan has been decimated to having only 8,000 square miles.  In 1967 Israel picked up what Jordan had taken of Samaria, Judah, East Jerusalem and Golan through winning against a gigantic Arab attack.  The proposals would have taken the 10,000 square miles they had and reduced it by 1/2 for Palestine to be carved out of it.  UNSCOP wanted to eliminate the Western Galilee from the Jewish state which would have meant taking Safed, my city which had been Jewish since time memorial.  It was the center of Kabballah.

In 1947 talk was If another state is to taken out of the remainder of the Jewish state, the Jews would be getting only 1/8th of their original promised Homeland.  Originally, their Israel and Judah had covered more space than this original allotted Jewish Homeland  including Trans Jordan was to be, but the Jews accepted the deal  called Resolution 181 or the Partition Plan and the Arabs refused.  this was a non-binding RECOMMENDATION  WHOSE IMPLEMENTATION HUNG ON ACCEPTANCE BY BOTH PARTIES.  Not only did the Arabs refuse but they threatened bloodshed if the UN adopted the Resolution.  This scared Britain since the Arabs proposed to attack and impede its work in every possible way.    This means that Resolution 181 was rejected by the Arab world.   Not only that, but it was the last straw.

Before that were many other recommendations from the Mandate people and other international commissions.
1. 1922:  Great Britain partitioned Palestine; Arabs wanted the whole country to be Arab.
2. 1937  Peel Commission
3. 1938 Woodhead Commission
4. 1946  Two proposals championed a bi-national state,
            a. Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, April- single state with equal powers
            b. Morrison-Grady Plan, July - federal state with 2 provinces

The Arabs rejected them all.

Now they want to divide and conquer.  They won't recognize Israel as the Jewish state and their charters all call to destroy Israel.  when Resolution 181 was read in the General Assembly of the UN, each Arab country spoke from the dais to sound off their rejections.  Iraq's Mr. Jamali said the decision was anti-democratic, illegal, impractical and contrary to the Charter (?) and Iraq doesn't recognize the validity of this decision and those who pass it are responsible for the consequences.  Syria's Amir. Arslan  said that the charter was murdered and his country would never recognize the partition, and the consequences were on the heads of others, not theirs.  Yemen's Prince Abdullah said that the partition plan is contrary to justice and to the UN Charter (?).  They did not feel bound by such a decision and would reserve its freedom of action towards it.  All the others were of the same mind.

 Israel was created May 14, 1948 through a UN vote  and within seconds was attacked by all the Arabs in a bloody war..  3 days later, the Palestine Commission adjourned sine die without picking a date after the General Assembly appointed a UN Mediator in Palestine, which relieves the UN Palestine Commission from the further exercise of its responsibilities.  181 then became a moot issue.  The establishment of an armistice-line (the "Green Line") was just a temporary ceasefire line expected to be followed by peace treaties.  No peace treaties were signed.  Since Israel was later attacked in 1956, 1967, 1973, etc. to this day, one wonders about peace treaties since states change hands, thus politics.  Egypt had a peace treaty signed by Sadat in 1979 after the 1973 war.  It's still in effect.  Jordan has a peace treaty signed October 26, 1994, still in effect.

By July 30, 1949 it was seen that the Arabs rejected the scheme entirely.  Armistice agreements were reached after much fighting between Israel and Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Trans-Jordan with the help of UN Mediator, Dr. Ralph Bunche.  By now the UN had abandoned the recommendations of Resolution 181 and its ideas "were drained of all relevance by subsequent events."  The Arabs continued to reject 181 after the war.  This was possibly because they controlled Judea and Samaria (West Bank) from 1948 to 1967 when they, including  Jordan,  again attacked Israel.

Now, the Arabs are trying to revive Resolution 181.  For over 60 years they have rejected it and are now trying to bring it to life to use as a leverage to  make Israel withdraw from Western Palestine so they can attack the rest of Israel easier because  it would have no defensive borders.

Professor Sir Elihu Lauterpacht of Cambridge, Judge ad hoc of the International Court of Justice and renowned expert on international law said that from a legal standpoint, the Resolution 181 had no legislative character to give territorial rights to either Jews or Arabs.  Any binding force would have had to come from the principle pacta sunt servanda, or treaties must be honored.  This would be from agreement of the parties at variance to the proposed plan.  The right of a State to exist come from its factual existence.  When that existence is prolonged it shows every sign of continuance and is recognized by the generality of nations.

Professor Julius Stone, authority on the law of Nations, " one of the world’s best-known authorities in both Jurisprudence and International Law. His publications his activities and the many honours conferred on him are eloquent evidence of his high standing in these two fields.said that Israel's "legitimacy" or "legal foundation" for its birth does not reside with the UN Partition Plan, which as a consequence of Arab actions became a dead issue."

  He then said that its validity rests on assertion of independence by its people and government, on the vindication of that independence by arms against assault by other states, and on the establishment of orderly government within territory under its stable control.

He just described Israel.  This is a legal state, not matter how you look at it.  For a variety of reasons, it again lives.

Resource:  UN Resolution 181-The Partition Plan of November 29, 1947 by Eli E. Hertz http://www.mythsandfacts.org/article_view.asp?articleID=135
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Muslim-majority_countries
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egypt%E2%80%93Israel_Peace_Treaty
http://www.kinghussein.gov.jo/peacetreaty.html
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/leagueofnations.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_Nations
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-united-nations-is-born
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel
Update: 12/7/13 videohttp://unitedwithisrael.org/the-video-that-is-driving-the-palestinians-crazy/ *****

Sunday, March 17, 2013

The UN with Ban Ki-moon and It's Israel Hate Day

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                   
"Unlike a treaty agreement, customary international law is usually not written."  So Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General of the United Nations,  is siding with those that say that Israel is not following international law about East Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria.   He, a north Korean, who attended U. of Washington and has a Doctor of Law from there and from Harvard, doesn't exhibit any knowledge about the problems between Israel and the surrounding Arab states who have kept attacking since 1948.  He started serving in the UN in this capacity in 2007 and will remain until 2016. Ban Ki-moon has a Masters in public administration from Harvard, but I don't see anything about him being an international lawyer anywhere.

There are plenty of actual international lawyers who side with Israel in that they have the right to live and build in Judea and Samaria and to include East Jerusalem as part and parcel of all of Jerusalem, their capital today and past capital in their ancient history.

The Washington Times lists some excellent reasons why Israel is not acting illegally according to international law.
The San Remo Treaty of 1920, in which the victorious World War I allies dealt with the remnants of the defeated Ottoman Turkish Empire, created an entity called Palestine along both sides of the Jordan River. The powers intended it as the land on which Great Britain would turn its 1917 Balfour Declaration from aspiration to reality, assisting the Zionist movement in re-establishing the Jewish national home.

The Franco-British Boundary Convention of 1920 demarcated the French mandate for what would become Syria and Lebanon from that of the British in Palestine. This was in part to prepare for the Jewish state.

Article 6 of the League of Nations’ 1922 Palestine Mandate encouraged “close Jewish settlement” on the land west of the Jordan River. The mandate encouraged settlement only west of the river because Great Britain in the same year unilaterally severed Transjordan (today’s Jordan) from Palestine, creating a new Arab country. 
The Anglo-American Convention of 1924 saw the United States endorse British administration of the remaining Palestine Mandate lands, so long as London helped bring a Jewish state into being.

The 1945 U.N. Charter, Chapter XII, Article 80, continues Jewish rights recognized under the Mandate. It protects “the rights whatsoever of any states or any peoples or the terms of existing international instruments” and is sometimes known as “the Palestine article.”

Israel has followed the rules established by Emir Feisal and Chaim Weizmann and the mandate.  It was not Israel who turned against the Arabs but the Arabs who attacked the new state of Israel.  

Monday is "Hate Israel Day" at the United Nations. This is despicable. 
 "Israel will be absent, as it has been for the past year. The creation of the settlements probe -- the seventh one-sided inquiry on Israel since the council's supposed reform in 2006, during which time it generated but five probes on the rest of the world combined, and none ever on Iran, China, or Sri Lanka -- was the last straw for then foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman, who decided Israel would no longer participate in, or with, the council."

"Headlining the program this time will be the presentation of a report by a "Fact Finding Mission" on how Israeli settlements are the direct cause of all Palestinian ills.  The probe was a sham, its verdict having been declared in advance. 

"Also on the program will be three additional UN reports condemning Israel, including one that devotes several pages to accusations by Cuba and Syria that Israel is grossly violating human rights in the Golan Heights. The world's worst abusers will then take the floor and emit vitriol."  The Golan Heights a part of Israel.  Syria is accusing Israel of abusing children.  Nobody is saying a thing about Syria killing off 70,000 of its own people, of course, including Ban Ki-moon.  Of all the nations in the world, Israel is the last to abuse its own children.  

Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/mar/9/rozenman-ban-ki-moon-wrong-about-israeli-settlemen/#ixzz2Np5gDDDK
Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter
Resource:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_law_and_the_Arab%E2%80%93Israeli_conflict
http://www.un.org/sg/biography.shtml on Ban Ki-moon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ban_Ki-moon
UN Watch www.unwatch.org


Saturday, March 9, 2013

International Law Favors Israel With Balfour Declaration

Nadene Goldfoot
Throughout the centuries, Jews returned to the Land to join the ones who never had left between 70 CE and 135 CE.  They came in groups and individually.  In the Diaspora, philanthropic assistance for the Jewish community became a tradition.  There were emissaries who went back and forth between the Land and the communities in Europe and elsewhere.  Jews prayed for 2,000 years to not to forget Jerusalem.

WWI had just come to an end.(July  28, 1914-November 11, 1918)  The Allies won and Germany, Austria/Hungary, Bulgaria  and the Ottoman Empire lost. Italy had been siding with the Axis but in 1915 joined up with the Allies, instead.   The League of Nations had given a mandate to Britain to carry out the creation of the Jewish National Home.  The mandate for Palestine was written up on July 24, 1922.  There were 28 Articles for Britain to carry out.

The mandates for Palestine and Syria came into force together on September 29, 1922.  Here the League of Nations recognized the "historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine" and the "grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country."  

Britain was responsible for putting this into effect the declaration made on November 2, 1917 in the Balfour Declaration by the Government of His Brittannic Majesty and adopted by the said Powers, in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing should be done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country;

and....Now this part was a joke.  Jews everywhere, and especially in Europe, were not only suffering from anti-Semitism, shown to the Jewish leaders plainly in the Dreyfus Affair in France, but also in the multitude of pogroms going on in the Pale of Settlement, where Jews were kept to live, not being desirous enough to walk on Russian soil.  This was the whole reason why our Jewish leadership felt the need finally, of getting back our own country, and here was the opportunity.  Our old stomping grounds was desolate and virtually empty after 2,000 years of negligence by other ruling powers.  Nobody wanted our ancient land.  Nobody, but us, that is.

Our leadership had no intention of harming any of the but few Arabs that lived on our ancient land. They planned for a Utopia where all would live in peace and comfort.   Most were very poor people as the Arab landowners lived on other continents, usually Paris, France. Theodore Herzl wrote the pamphlet, Der Judenstaat in 1896 of just such a Utopia.  In 1902, he published a Utopian novel about the Jewish state, Altneuland (old-new land) a vision complete with monorails and modern industry. The novel concludes, "If you will, it is no legend."  "The Old New Land is the classic Utopian novel published by Theodor Herzl, who is in effect the father of Israel. A very well-written work of fiction, it also outlines Herzl’s progressive vision for a Jewish state in the Land of Israel."

Under the 400 years of Ottoman rule, and especially in the 17th and 18th centuries, conditions of insecurity and oppression prevailed in the Land.  Marauding Bedouin tribes made incursions.  There was internal strife between rival local alliances of Arabs.  The number of villages was reduced by about one half between the 16th and early 19 century.  The population of the Land dwindled and at the beginning of the 19th century did not exceed 250,000.  In the 2nd half of the 19th century, both Arabs and Jews began to grow.  by 1914, the population of the Land (west of the Jordan) was estimated at 680,000 of whom 85,000 were Jews.  That means that there were 595,000 Arabs in Palestine at that time.

An agreement was reached with King Husseins' son, Emir Feisal, chief Arab delegate at the Paris Peace conference, and Dr. Chaim Weizmann. King Hussein was of the Hejaz, and they were also negotiating with Britain for the recognition of Arab national rights in the territories of the Ottoman empire throughout the Middle east.   Feisal endorsed the Balfour Declaration and Palestine was recognized as a separate Jewish entity, with which the then imminent Arab State would maintain diplomatic relations, on condition that Britain and France met Arab demands in other territories.  This Mandate extended over both sides of the river Jordan, but in 1922, Britain divided the mandated territory in half and established Transjordan, depriving the Jews any rights to the Land east of the river which was not in the agreement.  Now Jews faced a ruling that they could not purchase land or settle there.

The Brits interpreted the Articles of the agreement to fit their national desires.  It wound up that at certain times, Jewish immigration to the land was allowed but at other times, it was severely restricted and land purchase was prevented.   On the other hand, they allowed Arabs to enter illegally and didn't even bother to include them in the count.  They were truly showing their bias from long ago when Jews were kept out of England for over 200 years.  At the start of WWII, Jews were prevented from entering Palestine, and instead had to return to their host country and face death in the Holocaust.  My thought is that Britain purposely was trying to sabotage the Balfour Doctrine so that they could take over the whole land themselves, hoping for oil to be found.  It's weird, but of all the places of the Middle East, oil has not been found in what is today's Israel.

Between the Sherif of Jerusalem, who was the opposite of Feisal, and the Brits, Arabs were goaded into attacking Jews living in Palestine by this time, and they were easily roused.  All the good plans of Chaim Weizmann to live in a peaceful land together had to be laid aside in order to survive at this point.  Jews were attacked, whole Jewish communities were rubbed out.  The Jews did everything in their power to carry out the legalities of the Balfour Doctrine and tried to establish a Jewish state that would be fair to the Arabs there as well.  They did not count on them attacking for no reason.

By 1881 Jewish immigrants made aliyah to Israel and created communities and did farming.  They came mostly from Russia's Pale of Settlement, where life was absolutely intolerable.  They were Socialists who knew what it was like to live under a yoke of submission.  By 1897, Theodor Herzl formed the World Zionist Organization and the age-old yearning of the Jewish people to return to its land was the topic.  It became our national liberation movement of the Jewish people and they had 2 goals:
1. To carry out the return of the Jews to the Land and the revival in it of Jewish national life, socially, culturally, economically and politically.
2. To get a publicly recognized, legally secured home for the Jews where they would be free of persecution and free to evolve their own life and identity.

 Palestinian Arab murdered over 1,000 Jews between 1920 and 1967, and they ethnically cleansed all Jewish communities from the areas they captured during the 1948 war, including the West Bank, Gaza and eastern Jerusalem, and that's why they had fallen into Arab hands.  The pattern of terrorism simply continued after Israel's victory in its 1967 defensive war.  Yasser Arafat organized 61 Fatah   military operations from the West Bank in the few months after the war, and 162 Israelis were killed by terrorists between 1968 and 1970.

Whether is has been in Gaza or Judea-Samaria or East Jerusalem, since 1967, when they regained these places, Israel has set out all kinds of helps for the Arabs.  They have returned the kindness with bombs, mortars, missiles and suicide bombers.

Israel is now made up of 6 million Jews and 1.4 million Arabs.  In 1973 Israel said she will continue to seek peace within secure boundaries between itself and its Arab neighbors.  Until a negotiated peace becomes possible, Israel will continue to pursue the policy of peaceful co-existence with the Arabs in the administered areas. That was declared 40 years ago.  Israel is still waiting for a negotiated peace treaty which must recognize Israel right to exist and to be there.  International Law says that Israel has the right to be in the land and to rule over Judea, Samaria, and east Jerusalem.  It came to them legally by the Arab nations attacking and losing.  Let that be a lesson to them.  Might does not make right.  

Reference: http://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2012/12/legally-are-new-apartments-fatal-blows.html with internatonal lawyers Eugene Rostow, Julius Store, David Phillips and Alan Dershowits
http://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2013/01/international-law-professor-eugene.html with Eugene Kontorovich
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Peace+Process/Guide+to+the+Peace+Process/The+Mandate+for+Palestine.htm
http://www.aish.com/jw/me/The-Dishonesty-of-The-Gatekeepers.html telling about Palestinians treatment of Jews.
http://www.amazon.com/Old-Land-Altneuland-Theodor-Herzl/dp/1463587333/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1362872202&sr=1-1&keywords=Altneuland+by+Theodore+Herzl
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1920_Nebi_Musa_riots

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Palestinian Thinking: Holocaust a Myth

Nadene Goldfoot
How nice to think of a state next to Israel that teaches their children that the Holocaust was just a myth that Jews tell.  Something sure should change before this happens.  It goes along with the Palestinians not recognizing Israel. This follows the Muslim Brotherhood Charter of which Egypt is ruled.  John  Kerry is sure going to have his hands full as Secretary of State.  You can lead a horse to water, Kerry, but you can't make him drink. However, Thomas Friedman is dictating  from his desk that you should "blow the charade wide open  by trying to publicly show Iranian, Israelis and Palestinians that they really do have options that their leaders don't want them to see."  See?  It's going to be easy.  Does Friedman really have such chutzpa to think that all Israelis don't want peace?

I remember when a Prime Minister of Israel offered the Palestinians so much land that it had all of Israel gasping in shock and awe, and yet they refused the offer.  The problem is much deeper than Thomas Friedman understands.

Right now the Palestinian Human Rights Foundation's Dr. Mustafa Ahmed Abul Khair is saying that the Holocaust was just a myth.  He wants Israel to pay Egypt $500 million dollars for damages.  His reasoning is because Israel has been paid by Germany a financial compensation.  He is an Egyptian professor of international law.  Now, if he believes that the Holocaust was a myth, he must have some pretty wild opinions of international law.

What damages is Khair referring to?  1973's war when Egypt attacked Israel along with every Arab they could pull into the fight on Yom Kippur when all Jews were praying in synagogues?   It must have been our 400 year stay in Egypt when my ancestors slaved for the Pharaoh that we learned the term, Chutzpah, for I say that Khair has chutzpah to think the way he does.  .

Resource: http://www.algemeiner.com/2013/01/23/palestinian-human-rights-foundation-calls-holocaust-a-myth/
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2013/01/palestinian-human-rights-foundation.html
Oregonian newspaper 1/24/13  page B13 Commentary:  Break all the rules-Crating change in the real world
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/History/Modern+History/Israel+wars/

Sunday, January 6, 2013

INTERNATIONAL LAW: On West Bank-Professor Eugene Kontorovich on The Legal Case for Israel

Nadene Goldfoot
I just listened to a fantastic lecturer on youtube (below) The Legal Case For Israel through international law.  People throw this law around like peanuts, but it has specific parameters.

Professor Eugene Kontorovich  teaches at Northwestern University, School of Law, and specializes in constitutional and international law.  He is one man that knows the history of Israel and how it was dealt with through the League of Nations to start its history.

He  " is an internationally sought-after lecturer, and speaks frequently about the legal and historical aspects of the Israeli-Arab conflict at synagogues, Chabad houses, and student groups at dozens of universities across the country, such as Columbia, NYU, Berkley, Chicago, Georgetown, Michigan, and dozens of others, as well as the Israeli Military Advocate General’s International Law Department, CAMERA, the AJC, Decalogue Society."

"He attended the University of Chicago for college and law school, and ultimately taught there. After law school, he clerked for Judge Richard Posner on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. In a previous career, he was a newspaperman at Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, and for many years at the Forward, where he reported from New York, Washington, Israel and Lebanon."

You will hear him explain that "The 1949 Armistice Lines (mistakenly called the "1967 borders") are emphatically not national boundaries."  The video below is about an hour and well worth the time spent listening.  It's like attending a fantastic class with points well explained with some dry humor added.    Did you know that "War" is illegal?  Self defense is legal.  Aggressive conquest is illegal according to international law.  There are laws that do make sense, only it seems that many disregard them.  Please listen if you care about what the international law really is saying.

Reference: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ub2x5UvjUs4
http://www.law.northwestern.edu/faculty/profiles/EugeneKontorovich/
http://www.torahcafe.com/scholar/professor-eugene-kontorovich_0000000742.html
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2012/01/eugene-kontorovichs-talk-at-nyu-on.html

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Part II On International Law Concerning Jerusalem

Nadene Goldfoot                                                      

7/5/12 FLASH: Supreme Court Judge Edmond Levy has ruled that Israel is not breaking international law.  See last reference below .  
Eugene Rostow, international lawyer, felt that Israel has the right to Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem as well. He was the Dean of Yale Law School and was also the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs under Lyndon B. Johnson.  He died in 2002.

According to some in talking about international law, they say that under UN Resolution 242, East Jerusalem is considered "occupied territory."  They also say that Israel's annexation of Jerusalem therefore violates the UN resolution.

A drafter of this resolution was then Arthur Goldberg, who sat on the Supreme Court of the USA and in 1965 left it to become the US Ambassador to the UN.  He says that it in no way refers to Jerusalem.  This was a deliberate omission.  Jerusalem was a discrete matter and not to be linked with the West Bank (Judea and Samaria.).  He has repeated several times that the 1948 armistice lines were temporary and particularly true of Jerusalem.  He never called or inferred that East Jerusalem was "occupied territory."  he died January 19, 1990 and was born on August 8, 1908, the same year my father was born.  

After 1948 the UN General Assembly voted on 3 resolution calling for the internationalization of Jerusalem but Jordan and Arabs refused whereas Israel said okay.  Then the 1967 war with 5 nations pouncing on Israel and Israel managing to win anyway happened like a miracle.  Here Jordan had occupied East Jerusalem illegally from 1948 to 1967 and Israel gained it in a defensive war but that hasn't stopped the Arab critics to come down on Israel for altering the status of Jerusalem.  .

Alan Dershowitz, great defender of Israel, Harvard criminal appellate lawyer and professor at the Harvard Law school,  in his book 2003 "The Case for Israel" notes on page 69 that the land allocated to the Jews didn't include Western Jerusalem which had a Jewish majority, or Hebron, two of Judaism's holiest and most historic cities.  Jerusalem had a population of 100,000 and was to be internationalized but was cut off from the Jewish areas.    Hebron was  in the Arab sector. and with no Jewish presence even though Jews had lived there for thousands of years until the Palestinian massacres of Jewish women, children and old men in 1929 and 1936 drove them out.  It was a bad deal all around for the Jews, especially to defend, with Arabs turning the deal down,  but the Jews  accepted quickly this UN partition and then declared statehood in 1948.

He noted in his 2008 "The Case Against Israel's Enemies"   on page26 how Jordan destroyed synagogues including the Jewish equivalent of the Dome of the rock and other Jewish institutions as soon as it conquered the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem in 1948.  To me it's terrible that they were able to continue until 1967 to hold it.  In 2005 Dershowitz wrote "The Case For Peace" where he suggests a happy peaceful solution where Palestinians were peaceful so that they would be in a compromising mode and would then have a condition where Israel would govern Jewish areas in the city while Palestine would govern Muslim and Arab areas.  The Mount would be divided or shared.  The Old City would be divided because it already is in quarters. and each under its own people.  I'm afraid that reality of 2006-2012 hadn't occurred then.  He may have changed his mind by now.

It was enough to keep the USA from never having their embassy in Jerusalem because of the American policy being that the final status of the city is a matter for negotiation.  They have a consulate in East Jerusalem to handle matters relating to Palestinians living in the territories.

1990 finally saw the American Congress passing a resolution saying that Jerusalem is and should remain the capital of the state of Israel and must remain an undivided city where the rights of every ethnic and religious group are protected.  They disapproved of the status before 1967 anyway and are not about to return to it now.  So said President George Bush.  Secretary of State James Baker also realized the significance of Jerusalem and to people of all religions as well.  He said that Jews and others could live where they wanted, east or west and that the city should remain undivided.

Jordan had desecrated Jewish holy places.  King Hussein allowed construction of a road to the Intercontinental Hotel across the Mount of Olives cemetery instead of other accessible places.  Hundreds of Jewish graves were destroyed.  Then they used the gravestones as pavement and latrines in army camps.  You can see the inscriptions on stones there on the walls, pavements and latrine floors there in 1967.

The ancient Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem  was destroyed along with 58 Jerusalem synagogues, some being centuries old.  The Western Wall was covered by slum dwellings.  Other synagogues still standing were turned into stables and chicken coops.

Israel found in 1967 that hundreds of squatters had some type of shack in the Old City and Israeli civil engineers cleared the ruins to rebuild the quarter.  they first offered compensations or alternate housing to the squatters.  Jordan had neglected the Old City and East Jerusalem  didn't even have the most basic services like a steady water supply, plumbing or electricity.  Reunification meant that these services were now given to East Jerusalem as well.

Resource: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_V._Rostow
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justice_Goldberg-covers Resolution 242 and Goldfberg's statement
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Dershowitz
http://www.dafka.org/news/index.php?pid=4&id=649
Myths and Facts:  a concise record of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, Mitchell G. Bard, Joel Himelfarb
http://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2011/08/israels-claim-on-judea-samaria-and-east.html
http://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2012/04/un-violations-of-international-law-opts.html
http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2141940009976831016#editor/target=post;postID=4710203977283863337;onPublishedMenu=overview;onClosedMenu=overview;postNum=605
http://israel-nadene.blogspot.com/2012/07/justice-edmond-levy-rules-israel-has.html