Posted on 05/02/2004 12:36:18 PM PDT by yonif
The main subject of today's Likud referendum - the expulsion of Jews from their homes - is completely illegal, and in violation of Israeli and international law according to the Dean of the Shaarei Mishpat Law College, Professor Emeritus Eliav Schochetman.
Professor Schochetman said in a lecture on Friday that any Israeli government decision to expel people from their homes, even in the context of a diplomatic move, would represent a wanton violation of basic human rights and civil liberties protected under Israeli and international human rights law.
The lecture, reported on by journalist David Bedein, focused on the legality of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to expel Israelis from their homes in Gush Katif.
Prof. Schochetman noted that the 1921 San Remo legislation of the League of Nations, reaffirmed by the United Nations in 1945, affirmed the right of Jews to purchase land anywhere west of the Jordan River including the Gaza coast region. The professor further added that the legal briefs of Dr. Eugene Rostow, the author of UN Resolution #242, confirm that no peace arrangement based on law curtails the right of Jews to settle anywhere in the borders controlled by the state of Israel.
Therefore, regardless of what happens in the Likud referendum, Prof. Shochetman stated that no expulsion of landowners in Gush Katif or Samaria could take place without a decision of Israel's Knesset. Such a decision, furthermore, would have to conform with international human rights law and Israel civil liberties statutes. However, a unilateral decision to expel Jews - and only Jews - from Gaza, the professor said, would violate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that it is illegal for sovereign governments to expel their own citizens from their homes, their private properties or from their farms.
Prof. Shochetman delivered the lecture at the Beit Agron International Press Center in Jerusalem; it was sponsored by the Center for Near East Policy in Wellesley, Massachusetts.
Israel's move is a strategic military move which is being made for a strategic military reason, namely, to consolidate Israli defenses instead of wasting $125 million per year defending Isralis that want to live right in the middle of over one million fanatics who want to kill them.
However, this professor chooses to couch it in terms of the evil Israeli Government violating "human rights".
Maybe the good professor would prefer that, after the IDF consilidates it's defenses behind it Wall, that the settlers be given full freedom to stay in Gaza and be given full freedom to mount their own defense without demanding that the IDF come to their rescue when the Palestinians come to kill every last one of them.
Maybe the good professor would like to assume the responsibility for defending these settlers himself.
I guess Israel's 5M Jewish citizens should go back to Europe, because it is a waste of money and defenses to defend these people while they are surrounded by 600Million Arabs who want to kill them.
Serious issues are rarely resolved by discussing them in terms of emotional strawmen arguments, yonif.
As I said, this was a strategic military decision arrived at by Ariel Sharon, a man of extensive IDF military expperience, who shoulders, as the Israeli Commander-in-Chief, the responsibility to manage his limited defense assets in such a way as to defend all of Israel in the best way possible.
The cost of defending Gaza is not merely $125 million per year (which Israel may or may to be able acquire as mana floating down from Heaven every year). The cost is also in tying up equipment, personnel and other defense assets which may be put to better use elsewhere.
Unless you have unlimited military assets, choices are always being made in war. MacArthur, for example, complained bitterly about being shortchanged in men and war materiel all throughout World War II and he was correct that he was being shortchanged. The reason he was shortchanged was that even a country with the wealth of America had a limit to it's military reasources and it was determined by his Commander-in-Chief that the European Theater had priority over the Pacific Theater.
I will trust the military judgement of Israel's Commander-in-Chief over the grandstanding of a civilian college professor.
"He who attempts to defend everything defends nothing". -- Frederick the Great
Yizhak Rabin launched the Oslo Accords which among other things, gave weapons and other guns to the PLO in order for them (terrorists) to go after the terrorists. He fitted this description as well. And we all saw where that led.
As I said, this was a strategic military decision arrived at by Ariel Sharon, a man of extensive IDF military expperience, who shoulders, as the Israeli Commander-in-Chief,
The pre-Geneva-Conventions-of-1949 world was a very different one from the one we are living now.
It is true that Generals can make foolish military decisions. Military history is full of examples. However, on the average, Generals do better in military decisions than college professors whining about "Human Rights" to the news media.
In Rabin's case, his decision vis a vis the PLO had no basis in military history and his decision could be considered quite foolish.
In Sharon's Gaza decision, consolidating an exposed and vulnerable salient (in Gaza actually dozens of salients) is something that is stardard military doctrine.
I trust Sharon's military judgement not merely because he is the CiC but because his judgement happens to coincide with Frederick the Great's famous military maxim and also coincides with my military judgement formed after 20 years of U.S. military service and 30 years of studying military history.
I am judging this from a military perspective which the good professor totally ignores.
In Sharon's Gaza decision, consolidating an exposed and vulnerable salient (in Gaza actually dozens of salients) is something that is stardard military doctrine.
This is the flaw of the matter. Israel is not in Gaza as it is. 98% of Gaza is under the Palestinian Authority. Israel will not be "leaving" Gaza and it isn't there in the first place. And Sharon's plan also has Israel leaving northern "West Bank." In effect, land is being ceded to terrorists.
I trust Sharon's military judgement not merely because he is the CiC but because his judgement happens to coincide with Frederick the Great's famous military maxim and also coincides with my military judgement formed after 20 years of U.S. military service and 30 years of studying military history.
How does leaving Gaza improve Israel's security? In effect, not only is it a victory to terror, and Israel's security apparatus agrees, it also increases the border area Israel will have to defend, and increases the range of rockets and other Qassams terrorists fire.
I am judging this from a military perspective which the good professor totally ignores.
Again, this professor is just talking about one aspect, which isn't at all the main reasoning behind not leaving Gaza as the opposition brings foward in their campaign. Their arguments are that it is a victory to terror, a security risk, and Israel get's nothing in return as it is still responsible for the Arabs in Gaza.
By allowing Israel to consolidate it's defenses behind it's Wall instead forcing Israel to dilute it's defenses by having to protect numerous isolated and vulnerable civilins enclaves.
I adressed this topic with you on a prior thread on this post: Polybius to yonif: Post 11 posted on 04/27/2004 1:11:32 AM PDT
It boils down to the rights of Israelis to live wherever they please versus the military wisdom of forcing Israel to deploy limited military assests to protect Israelis living in communities outside the boundaries of Israel thereby diverting Israeli resources that might otherwise be used to better military advantage securing Israel's borders.
That is indeed a fatal flaw and I addressed it in my first post on the other thread:
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7 posted on 04/26/2004 11:34:02 PM PDT by Polybius
Frankly, the only solution I see to the Palestinian problem is to withdraw all Israeli settlements from Palestinian areas, build the Wall, keep every last Palestinian on the non-Israeli side of the Wall and let them do as they please.
If the Palestinians descend into total anarchy, that is not Israel's or America's problem.
If the Palestenian economy crashes and burns, let Egypt worry about that.
If Israel needs workers to do the jobs that Israelis won't do, give worker's visas to Mexicans and have El-Al flying back and forth between Tel-Aviv and Mexico City.
If the independent Palestinian State allows rocket attacks over The Wall (an act of war), strike back with airstrikes against Gaza's infrastructure (an act of war).
As long as Israel has a border that Palestinians can cross, the terror will continue.
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As long as Israelis are in Gaza settlements, they will be living inside prison camps of their own building.
As long as Israel allows itself to be dependent on the labor of Palestinian guest workers, every bus ride, every restaurant visit, every shopping trip, every wedding and every Bar Mitzvah celebration will be a courting of death.
That's no way to live.
Israel needs to annex whatever teritory it feels is vital to a defensible border, build it's Wall, get it's loyal citizens (including loyal Arab Israeli citizens) on it's own side of the Wall, put the Palestinians on the other side of the Wall and keep them there.
Attacks on Israel after that need to be met by massive retalition by air power.
Today's bombing of the Hamas radio station by a few missiles after the murder of that Israeli family is not adequate retaliation. At the minimum, that 12 story building needed to have been totally flattened.
In regards to Israel's leaky fence, see my Guantanamo comments on my Post 11 of the other thread:
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Doing this will allow them a free reign to committ terror. They will continue to dig tunnels, sneak in through Egypt, etc.
If Israel needs lessons on how to protect a Fenceline, they can visit U.S. Naval Base, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba where I was stationed for a year. The "Fenceline" was merely a flimsy chain-link fence that came up to my waist. Beyond our side of the Fenceline was a one mile-wide mine field no-man's land that a deer could not cross without getting blown to bits. Beyond that, were the Marines. If the Palestinians can dig a mile long tunnel without being detected, the Cuban Army would like to hire them.
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Well, mine field maintanence is rather difficult when you put your mines on the other guy's side so some concessions have to be made.
At Guantanamo, as I noted, the "Fence" is only a flimsy chain-link fence as you would find between your house and your neighbor's house. The real defense starts with the U.S. mine field on our side as well the Cuban mine field on the Cuban side. Apart from the mine fields, U.S. Marines are stationed in bunkers throughout the area. You don't depend on mines alone.
A mile-wide buffer strip of land is a cheap price to pay for a secure, impassable border.
The thing is, Israel leaving Gaza all together (which this Sharon plan doesn't) will increase the size of Israel's border to defend against the Arab enemy. If Israel has full soverignty over Gaza, it has the sea on the west, Israel on the east and on the north, and it simply has to defend a small border at the south. If it gives it back, it has a much larger border to defend.
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