Knesset plenum votes by 26 to 8 that `West Bank and Gaza are not occupied territories`

A decision that has much sense and sticks to the reality. They are not "occupied" but "disputed." The State Dept. thinks differently, however.

Agreed on all points.


50,000 people go to a baseball game, but the game was rained out. A refund is then due. The team is about to mail refunds when the Congressional Democrats stopps them and decrees that they send out refund amounts based on the Democrat National Committee's interpretation of fairness. After all,if the refunds are made based on the price each person paid for the tickets, most of the money would go to the wealthiest ticket holders. That would be unconscionable!
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votes by 26 to 8 that `West Bank and Gaza are not occupied territories

I had no idea that simply voting could resolve things so easily. Why bother with pithy things like United Nations Resolution 242 when all we have to do is vote?

What else can be voted on? I vote for no more war. Who votes against me? Great, now that the pesky problem of war has been solved what else can be settled by voting. I will volunteer to be a full time voter if that would help speed the solutions along.

OK, that one's done. Next!

This is pretty big news in Israel right now.

Now get those islamists out of there.

They are not "occupied" but "disputed." The State Dept. thinks differently, however.

International law agrees with the Kenneset, not the State Department. But then think is not part of the State Department vocabulary, feel, well, the State Department feels...

Well, anti-Israel people always mention the Geneva Convention about "occupied" territories and that Israel must follow it.

I am reading maariv right now and it states that Ariel Sharon's son, Omri, voted for this. I am going to translate the article soon and post it on FR.

Silly boy, the United Nations Resolution 242 itself states it is not occupied, but in dispute. Perhaps you should try reading it?!

To help you, here is some information by one of the men who helped write the darn thing.

By Eugene W. Rostow, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, (1966-1969) and
former Dean of the Yale Law School

(Consolidated Articles of April 23, 1990 and October 21, 1991 from The New Republic.) .

With varying degrees of seriousness, all American administrations since 1967 have objected to Israeli settlements in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) on the ground that it would make it more difficult to persuade the Arabs to make peace. President Carter decreed that the settlements were "illegal" as well as tactically unwise. President Reagan said the settlements were legal but that they made negotiations less likely. The strength of the argument is hardly self-evident. Jordan occupied the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) for nineteen years, allowed no Jewish settlements, and showed no signs of wanting to make peace.

(United Nations) Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338. Resolution 242, adopted after the Six-Day War in 1967, set out criteria for peace-making by the parties (to the conflict); Resolution 338, passed after the Yom Kippur War in 1973, makes resolution 242 legally binding and orders the parties to carry out its terms forthwith. Unfortunately, confusion reigns, even in high places, about what those resolutions require.

(Since 1967) Arab states have pretended that the two resolutions are "ambiguous" and can be interpreted to suit their desires. And some Europeans (Russian) and even American officials have cynically allowed Arab spokesman to delude themselves and their people to say nothing of Western public opinion about what the resolutions mean. It is common even for American journalists to write that Resolution 242 is "deliberately ambiguous," as if the parties are equally free to rely on their own reading of its key provisions.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Resolution 242, which as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs between 1966 and 1969, I helped produce, calls on the parties to make peace and allows Israel to administer the territories it occupied in 1967 until " a just and lasting peace in the Middle East" is achieved. When such a peace is made, Israel is required to withdraw its armed forces "from territories" it occupied during the Six-Day War not from "the" territories, nor from "all" the territories, but some of the territories, which included the Sinai Desert, the West Bank, the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.

Five-and-a-half months of vehement public diplomacy made it perfectly clear what the missing definite article in Resolution 242 means. Ingeniously drafted resolutions calling for withdrawals from "all" the territories were defeated in the Security Council and the General Assembly. Speaker after speaker made it explicit that Israel was not to be forced back to the "fragile" and "vulnerable" Armistice Demarcation Lines, but should retire once peace was made to what Resolution 242 called "secure and recognized" boundaries agreed to by the parties. In negotiating such agreement, the parties should take into account, among other factors, security considerations, access to the international waterways of the region, and, of course, their respective legal claims.

Resolution 242 built on the text of the Armistice Agreements of 1949, which provided (except in the case of Lebanon) that the Armistice Demarcation Lines separating the military forces were "not to be construed in any sense" as political or territorial boundaries, and that "no provision" of the Armistice Agreements "shall in any way prejudice the right, claims, and positions" of the parties "in the ultimate peaceful settlement of the Palestine problem." In making peace with Egypt in 1979, Israel withdraw from the entire Sinai, which had never been part of the British Mandate ….

Resolution 242 leaves the issue of dividing the occupied areas between Israel and its neighbors entirely to the agreement of the parties in accordance with the principles it sets out. It was, however, negotiated with full realization that the problem of establishing "a secure and recognized" boundary between Israel and Jordan would be the thorniest issue of the peace making process.

The heated question of Israel settlements in the West Bank during the occupation period should be viewed in this perspective. The British Mandate recognized the right of the Jewish People to "close settlement" in the whole of the Mandated territory. It was provided that local conditions might require Great Britain to "postpone" or "withhold" Jewish settlement in what is now Jordan. This was done in 1922. But the Jewish right of settlement in Palestine, west of the Jordan River, that is in Israel, the West Bank, Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, was made unassailable. That right has never been terminated, and cannot be terminated except by a recognized peace between Israel and its neighbors. And perhaps not even then, in view of Article 80 of the UN Charter, "the Palestine Article," which provides that nothing in the Charter shall be construed… to alter in any manner the rights whatsoever of any states or any peoples or the terms of existing international instruments…"

Some governments have taken the view that under the Geneva Convention of 1949, which deals with the rights of civilians under military occupation, Jewish settlements in the West Bank are illegal, on the ground that the Convention prohibits an occupying power from flooding the occupied territory with its own citizens. President Carter supported this view, but President Reagan reversed him, specifically saying that the settlements are legal but that further settlements should be deferred since they pose an obstacle to the peace process.

This reading of Resolution 242 has always been the keystone of American policy. In launching a major peace initiative on September 1, 1982, President Reagan said, "I have personally followed and supported Israel's heroic struggle for survival since the founding of the state of Israel thirty-four years ago: in the pre-1957 borders, Israel was barely 10 miles wide at its narrowest point. The bulk of Israel's population lived within artillery range of hostile Arab armies. I am not about to ask Israel to live that way again."

Yet some Bush (Sr.) administration statements and actions on the Arab-Israeli question, and especially Secretary of State James Baker's disastrous speech of May 22, 1989 betray(ed) a strong impulse to escape from the Resolutions as they were negotiated, debated, and adopted, an award to the Arabs all the territories between the 1967 lines and the Jordan River, including East Jerusalem. The Bush (Sr.) administration seem(ed) to consider the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to be "foreign" territory to which Israel has no claim. Yet the Jews have the same right to settle there as they have to settle in Haifa. The West Bank and the Gaza Strip were never parts of Jordan, and Jordan's attempt to annex the West Bank was not generally recognized and has now been abandoned. The two parcels of land are parts of the Mandate that have not yet been allocated to Jordan, to Israel, or to any other state, and are a legitimate subject for discussion….

The Jewish right of settlement in the West Bank is conferred by the same provisions of the Mandate under which Jews settled in Haifa, Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem before the State of Israel was created. The Mandate for Palestine differs in one important respect from the other League of Nations mandates, which were trusts for the benefit of the indigenous population. The Palestine Mandate, recognizing "the historical connection of the Jewish People with Palestine, and the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country, " is dedicate to "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."

The Mandate qualifies the Jewish right of settlement and political development in Palestine in only one respect. Article 25 gave Great Britain and the League Council discretion to "postpone" or "withhold" the Jewish People's right of settlement in the Trans-Jordanian province of Palestine now the Kingdom of Jordan if they decided that local conditions made such action desirable. With the divided support of the council, the British took that step in 1922.

The Mandate does not, however, permit even a temporary suspension of the Jewish right of settlement in the parts of the Mandate west of the Jordan River. The Armistice Lines of 1949, which are part of the West Bank boundary, represent nothing but the position of the contending armies when the final cease-fire was achieved in the War of Independence. And the Armistice Agreements specifically provide, except in the case of Lebanon, that the demarcation lines can be changed by agreement when the parties move from Armistice to peace. Resolution 242 is based on that provision of the Armistice Agreements and states certain criteria that would justify changes in the demarcation lines when the parties make peace.

Many believe that the Palestine Mandate was somehow terminated in 1947, when the British Government resigned as the mandatory power. This is incorrect. A trust never terminates when a trustee dies, resigns, embezzles the trust property, or is dismissed. The authority responsible for the trust appoints a new trustee, or otherwise arranges for the fulfillment of its purpose. Thus in the case of the Mandate for German South West Africa, the International Court of Justice found the South African government to be derelict in its duty as the Mandatory power and it was deemed to have resigned. Decades of struggle and diplomacy then resulted in the creation of the new state of Namibia which has just come into being. In Palestine the British Mandate ceased to be operative as to the territories of Israel and Jordan when those states were created and recognized by the international community. But its rules apply still to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which have not yet been allocated either to Israel or to Jordan or become an independent state. Jordan attempted to annex the West Bank in 1951 but that annexation was never generally recognized, even by the Arab states, and now Jordan has abandoned all its claims to the territory.

The State Department has never denied that under the Mandate "the Jewish people" have the right to settle in the area. Instead, it said that Jewish settlements in the West Bank violate Article 49 of the 4th Geneva Convention of 1949, which deals with the protection of civilians in wartime. Where the territory of one contracting party is occupied by another contracting party, the convention prohibits many of the inhumane practices of the Nazis and the Soviets before and during the Second World War the mass transfer of people into or out of occupied territories for purposes of extermination, slave labor or colonization, for example.

Article 49 provides that the occupying power "shall not deport or transfer part of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies." But the Jewish settlers in the West Bank are volunteers. They have not been "deported" or "transferred" by the government of Israel, and their movement involves none of the atrocious purposes or harmful effects on the existing population the Geneva Convention was designed to prevent. Furthermore, the Convention applies only to "acts by one signatory carried out on the territory of another." The West Bank is not the territory of a signatory power, but an unallocated part of the British Mandate. It is hard, therefore, to see how even the most literal minded reading of the Convention could make it apply to Jewish settlement in territories of the British Mandate west of the Jordan River. Even if the Convention could be construed to prevent settlements during the period of occupation, it could do no more than suspend, not terminate, the rights conferred by the Mandate. Those rights can be ended only by the establishment and recognition of a new state or the incorporation of the territories into an old one.

As claimants to the territory the Israelis have denied that they are required to comply with the Geneva Convention but announced that they will do so as a matter of grace. The Israeli courts apply the Convention routinely, sometimes deciding against the Israeli Government. Assuming for the moment the general applicability of the Convention, it could well be considered a violation if the Israelis deported convicts to the area, or encouraged the settlement of people who had no right to live there (Americans for example). But how can the convention be deemed to apply to Jews who have a right to settle in the territories under international law: a legal right assured by treaty and specifically protected by Article 80 of the UN Charter, which provides that nothing in the Charter shall be construed "to alter in any manner rights conferred by existing international instruments." The Jewish right of settlement in the area is equivalent in every way to the right of the existing Palestinian population to live there.

Another principle of international law may affect the problem of the Jewish settlements. Under international law an occupying power is supposed to apply the prevailing law of the occupied territory at the municipal level unless it interferes with the necessities of security or administration or is "repugnant to elementary conceptions of justice." From 1949 to 1967 when Jordan was the military occupant of the West Bank it applied its own laws to prevent any Jews from living in the territory. To suggest that Israel as occupant is required to enforce such Jordanian laws a necessary implication of applying the Convention is simply absurd. When the Allies occupied Germany after the Second World War, the abrogation of the Nuremberg Laws was among their first acts.

My bet is you are not even reading this as you only post to slander and actually do not give a rip about the law, or facts, but only see an oportunity to vent your bigotry. Post to me to show me you bothered to educate yourself ok?

The general expectation of international law is that military occupations last a short time, and are succeeded by a state of peace established by treaty or otherwise. In the case of the West Bank the territory was occupied by Jordan between 1949 and 1967 and has been occupied by Israel since 1967. Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 ruled that the Arab states and Israel must make peace, and that when " a just and lasting peace is reached in the Middle East, Israel should withdraw from some but not all of the territory it occupied in the course of the 1967 war. The Resolutions leave it to the parties to agree on the terms of peace.

The controversy about Jewish settlements is not, therefore, about legal rights but about the political will to override legal rights. Is the United States prepared to use all its influence in Israel to award the whole of the West Bank to Jordan or to a new Arab state, and force Israel back to its 1967 borders? Throughout Israel's occupation, the Arab countries helped by the United States, have pushed to keep Jews out of the territories so that at a convenient moment, or in a peace negotiation, the claim that the West Bank is "Arab" territory could be made more plausible. Some in Israel favor the settlements for the obverse reason: to reinforce Israel's claim for the fulfillment of the Mandate and of Resolution 242 in a peace treaty that would at least divide the territory.

Simple question:

Who owned Gaza and the West Bank prior to Israel?
Answer:

Gaza - Egypt
West Bank - Jordon

According to Internation law, the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt would settle the ownership of Gaza. Likewise, Jordon to settle the West Bank. In either case, there is NO SUCH THING AS PALISTINE.

I normally support Bush but his road map for the middle east is flawed and leads in the wrong direction.

The fact is Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and Gaza do not belong to anyone anymore. Jordan gave up claims to the West Bank and Egypt as well to Gaza (refusing to take it in Israel's "peace" treaty with her that gave it the Sinai back).

The Arabs in those areas now are just being used to create a "Palestine" which already exists (which Jordan). This is a plan for Israel to go back to 1967 suicidal territories, and therefore help to destroy Israel.

Just to tell you about those lines, if Israel didn't have Gaza and the West Bank in the 1973 sneak attack by Syria and Egypt, Israel would probably have lost the war, as the Arabs would already be in the heart of Israel's population when they first attacked.

There must never be a state there.

And the vote was 34 to 0 that there were no settlements in the West Bank and Gaza (security outposts, you know).

The vote was 34 to 0 that there weren't 350,000 "settlers" in the West Bank and Gaza (they're called permanent tourists, I think), who have absolutely zero, zilch, nada intention of moving.

Your words - the United Nations Resolution 242 itself states it is not occupied

You added - To help you, here is some information by one of the men who helped write the darn thing.

I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to become better informed so I read the information you were kind enough to provide.

I found much in the information offered that validated my observation that Israel occupies territory in the Middle East.

From the information offered I found:

make peace and allows Israel to administer the territories it occupied in 1967

Israel is required to withdraw its armed forces "from territories" it occupied during the Six-Day War not from "the" territories, nor from "all" the territories, but some of the territories, which included the Sinai Desert, the West Bank, the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.

Resolution 242 leaves the issue of dividing the occupied areas between Israel and its neighbors

Israel settlements in the West Bank during the occupation

the Geneva Convention of 1949, which deals with the rights of civilians under military occupation, Jewish settlements in the West Bank are illegal on the ground that the Convention prohibits an occupying power from flooding the occupied territory with its own citizens.

Article 49 provides that the occupying power

an occupying power is supposed to apply the prevailing law of the occupied territory

An added comment which also makes an unfounded assertion that I am a bigot.

My bet is you are not even reading this as you only post to slander and actually do not give a rip about the law, or facts, but only see an oportunity to vent your bigotry. Post to me to show me you bothered to educate yourself ok?

okay?

The general expectation of international law is that military occupations last a short time In the case of the West Bank the territory was occupied by Jordan between 1949 and 1967 and has been occupied by Israel since 1967.

Israel should withdraw from some but not all of the territory it occupied in the course of the 1967 war.

To the above provided information I added information from an official government web site containing this notation:

Disputes - international:
West Bank and Gaza Strip are Israeli-occupied with current status subject to the Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement; permanent status to be determined through further negotiation;
Golan Heights is Israeli-occupied (Lebanon claims the Shab'a Farms area of Golan Heights)

I realize that we may agree to disagree but I trust this supports my reasons for making the comment I made. Please do not go off on some tangent about why it is okay to occupy or some other related but irrelevant direction.

make peace and allows Israel to administer the territories it occupied in 1967

Look at the difference as the difference between a verb and a noun. You occupy the bathroom, but does that make you an oppressor. The point of the speaker, one of the men who helped draft 242 was that Israel was not in "occupied" land, but in "disputed territories". A big legal difference that you seem to have missed.

the Geneva Convention of 1949, which deals with the rights of civilians under military occupation, Jewish settlements in the West Bank are illegal on the ground that the Convention prohibits an occupying power from flooding the occupied territory with its own citizens.

For example this paragraph, which you quoted points out the difference very clearly. Israel did not and has not flooded the land to force the Arabs out, in fact less Jews have moved back in to the land that they were forced out of by the occupation of Jordan than were there before. Israel has build whole new towns on areas that were never built on before. This is not occupation, this is inhabitation. The "Occupation" that is illegal is when you move your people in to displace the existing inhabitants.

Now if the Arab population is growing faster than the Jewish one, just who is the occupiers? Think of it, there are NO Jews in Bethlehem now, NO Jews in Ramallah, NO jews in Jenin...

Clearly you are focusing on the word occupation, and not even getting the drift of the point.

Are you a liberal? They seem to go for the form over substance, what the meaning of the word "is", is stuff. Choose between bigot, because you hate so much you are blind, or liberal. I figure either or both fit at this point. Hey, it is a free world, you can be what you want. There may be Hell to pay later, but that is life.

Israel should withdraw from some but not all of the territory it occupied in the course of the 1967 war.

Israel has withdrawn from over 90% of the territory, just how much should the losers withdraw from? Or is only withdrawal a Jewish thing, all Moslems only invade, and all us dhimmi must kiss up or die?

Lets see some balance, I think all the land offered up in good faith in the Oslo accords should be returned as the land was taken in bad faith. I also think the Palestinians should immediately surrender and either apply for citizenship in Israel, or go to Jordan, a land created for them the time before this.

If they refuse to do so, Israel should declare war and throw them out. If they come back over the border Israel should take Jordan back too.

But that is just the way the law reads, and is righteous. Buying something and not paying for it tends to get it repossessed by the rightful owners...

Disputes - international: West Bank and Gaza Strip are Israeli-occupied with current status subject to the Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement; permanent status to be determined through further negotiation;

Well negotiation got nothing in return because the other guy broke his promises. So screw further negotiation until they keep their promises seems the only logical thing to do at this point.

Golan Heights is Israeli-occupied

Are you aware that the Jews have deeds to most of the Golan Heights, the Jews from there were thrown out by Syria in 1948. Seems they just asserted their right of return under the very same laws that resoulution 242 were based on. Is not what is good for the goose good for the gander, or does law only apply to Jews, the Arabs get to keep anything they can steal?

(Lebanon claims the Shab'a Farms area of Golan Heights)

Well if you want to get technical Syria claims all of Israel too... Want and Law are two very different things. Are you aware that Lebanon shells Israel over the border about once or twice a week? Israel by law has the right to go stop them, and if the border moves in the war, that is just tough luck for Lebanon. Such is the way it is with law, law rarely checks for political correctness before it applies itself.

If the Arabs were held to the law a fraction of what they want to try to hold Israel to it, Israel would grow quite nicely. As it is Jordan gave the land to Israel legally and so did Egypt in the treaties. It is only the Jews desire to find a home for the Arabs that keeps this going, every other nation on the face of the earth would wipe out the remaining belligerents with "police actions" and be completely justified.

I realize that we may agree to disagree but I trust this supports my reasons for making the comment I made. Please do not go off on some tangent about why it is okay to occupy or some other related but irrelevant direction.

I am simply speaking law, you are simply sticking your fingers in your ears and saying do not justify occupation. Tell me, why is it ok for Syria to occupy Lebanon? Or the Arabs to occupy Bethlehem? It was 80% Christian 10 years ago when it was given to the Islamics in the Oslo treaty. They drove the Christians out and confiscated the land, JUST LIKE THEY DID IN THE ENTIRE MIDDLE EAST to the Jews.

Bigotry is best demonstrated by a double standard based on race or creed. So, tell me, why is it ok for Arabs to clearly drive the people out and so bad for the Jews, when they so clearly ARE NOT doing so.

I am not trying to insult you, I am trying to accurately describe your position in hopes you will rethink things a bit.

Blessings...

From this:

votes by 26 to 8 that `West Bank and Gaza are not occupied territories

I had no idea that simply voting could resolve things so easily. Why bother with pithy things like United Nations Resolution 242 when all we have to do is vote?

You managed to arrive at this:

Choose between bigot, because you hate so much you are blind, or liberal. I figure either or both fit at this point.

I had asked:

Please do not go off on some tangent about why it is okay to occupy or some other related but irrelevant direction.

You thought it better to ignore my request but you were kind enough to add:

I am not trying to insult you

I am not insulted because I rarely attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity. I will terminate this discourse with the following thought for you to consider.

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. – Aristotle

The function of the brain is to lubricate the nose - Aristotle

It is not intelegent discorse when you allow me to say anything that agrees with you but not to say what disagrees. Your bias is shown in your thread clearly when you accuse the Jews of what they have not done, and ignore the Arabs when they have done it.

Simply put, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon are all Jew free, and in Israel, downtown Jerusalem you can see Arabs wearing chekered Palesinian and Jordanian headdress every day walking down the street.

You do not see Kippas in Bethlehem now.

So just who is breaking international law and who is not? Look with your eyes man, not with you mouth.