You are the racist, actually, not me | Rachel Moore | The Blogs | The Times of Israel
You are the racist, actually, not me DECEMBER 30, 2016, 12:13 AM 26
Email
Print
Share
BLOGGERRachel Moore
Rachel Moore
Rachel Moore is the Owner of Hub Etzion, the first coworking space in Judea and Samaria, and Moore Connected Communications, … [More]
Follow or contact:FacebookTwitterRSSWebsiteBLOGS EDITOR
EmailMORE IN THIS BLOG
Tichels and Tie Dye?The Day the Music DiedA Night at the OperaHow Hasbara Fellowships and “I Vote Israel” are getting it wrong.
I am an Orthodox Jewish settler raising seven children in the West Bank. I’m also an American citizen and I voted for Donald Trump. Yeah, I’m that lady. I opened a local business here, and I did so on purpose — to respond to BDS anti-settler activities by encouraging Jewish West Bank residents to work in the West Bank and keep their own businesses local in the West Bank. I believe in annexation and I do not support a two-state solution.
Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email
and never miss our top stories FREE SIGN UP!
And that makes me a peace-loving, Palestinian-respecting individual. I’m not the racist. You are.
You, my liberal, anti-settler, anti-Trump friends who hate my views — if not me (yet) — are the racists. I have spent a lot of time particularly in the past three months being told by US Democratic voters and UN supporters what a monstrous racist group of people we are, those people “like me.”
I’ve finally had enough. I’ve invited so many of you to engage and hear from real people instead of judging, and you show no interest. Apparently, it’s preferable to let television and the New York Times inform your views on my little corner of the world.
I want to start with the US elections. I have read post after blog after article telling me why Trump voters voted for him. What we think, how we feel, what matters to us (and what doesn’t, like women and/or minorities), and who we are. With some serious name calling. But you didn’t ask me. And you don’t actually know what I think or feel or want or why I voted. So you are pre-judging me. Based on a whole lot of stuff. But it’s prejudice, no matter how you slice it. And I have tolerated — just barely — eight years of a president who not only told me what to think and feel, but told the world assumptions about me as a white person who grew up with “privilege” that just aren’t true. I watched as my life choices and values as a person living in the West Bank of Israel were summarized, judged and assumed by the leader of the free world in a way that is just false, and offensive to my sense of fairness, justice and humanity. I have been misjudged and mischaracterized, in fact penalized, without a proper understanding of what reality looks like over here.
I have watched a president grab executive power while Congress screamed and the citizens ignored it. I watched a president on the political left, who was democratically elected and is entitled to his views, create a culture of demonization of the Right in a way that is unprecedented in my lifetime. I saw policies that moved the US towards socialism. And I voted against any more years of that. Not that you asked. But when you — or he, or Hilary — call me a misogynist or a racist or a pig or “deplorable” for voting the way I did, you are judging a whole band of “them” that isn’t you. And I know how much you hate it when other people do that.
As for being an Israeli settler? I live and work with and among Palestinians. They are my neighbors, my colleagues, my friends, and yes, my threat. They, their dignity, pain, reality and families are in my face and consciousness daily. I don’t presume to claim to know what all Palestinians as a group think or believe. What I do know is that there is a very wide spectrum and a whole lot of shades of gray without much black and white. Let me start by asking you: do YOU know that?
While the world watches Aleppo burn and Syrian children slaughtered in the thousands every year without so much as single protest or call to action, the same world is out to show that Israeli occupation of another people is the true evil in the world.
And that same prejudiced world has been living with democracy for so long that I think maybe you have all forgotten what it really means not to have it. Here is the problem I need you to grapple with for a moment: there is no Palestinian leadership option that will give people a voice, empower and educate women, create and build freedom for the individual. Palestinian citizens of Israel today (many of whom call themselves proudly Arab Israelis and not Palestinians, but not all, it’s part of the shades of gray and a different blog post) have access to subsidized education, universal health care, can open a business, sit on the Supreme Court, and be members of Israel’s Parliament. They can fight the system lawfully and from within and stand up in our parliament, the only democracy in the Middle East, and explain why Israelis need to improve the situation today for Palestinians.
Do you actually know what “racist” reality exists today? Israelis are bound by law, including in the “West Bank” to obey and uphold the laws. That makes us culpable legally and financially if we cause harm to anyone or anything. But a resident in a territory controlled by the Palestinian Authority, just a few miles from my home can smash into the side of my car, laugh and walk away. A Palestinian can buy land and build on it. A Jew cannot. In fact, a Jew cannot travel into Palestinian controlled areas at all, without fear of lynching, beatings and murder. Which will not only go unpunished, but when they happen are celebrated in the streets. That makes ME the victim of racism and apartheid over here in the West Bank. Arabs living in Israel have more freedom, more education, more democracy, more of a voice and more opportunity than in the thousands and thousands of miles of stretches of the many Arab countries in the Middle East. Jews no longer exist in those countries because of the racism/apartheid against them that is so rampant, so commonplace and yet, has not warranted a single speech in the UN or from the White House condemning it.
When I am castigated for supporting the annexation of land that some of you wrongfully identify as “occupied” (it’s disputed, not occupied, based on International Law; look it up.), you are telling me that Palestinians, whose current situation is far far less than ideal and is causing anger and sadness and needs improvement, all want to live under an oppressive, dictatorial, thug-like regime that embezzles, doesn’t provide girls with proper education, trains in hate, and has no democracy, because it is comprised of Palestinians. (Picking leaders by ethnicity? How racist of you!)
You are telling me that “they” desire this over living in 100% freedom and democracy in a “Jewish” state that has Arab/Muslim religious rights, education, healthcare, and the ability to make change legally and effectively through serving in the government. And if you aren’t telling me what they want, you are telling me that you know that this is what is best for them. That this is the best alternative of those that are out there waiting for them. It is most definitely the alternative that John Kerry just laid out.
You are telling me what they want, what they prefer…. Or at least that you know, sitting over there in Massachusetts and California (and Herzliya) what they SHOULD want. What’s best for them. You are taking your Western ideals and assumptions and choices and imposing them on people here without a true understanding of peoplehood, of the history. You are swallowing political rhetoric about a group of people – about them, and about me. And that is your prejudice — your racism.
Annexation would end the dispute over disputed territories. It would give full rights to those living in the areas known as “post 1967” lines. It would allow Jews and Arabs to buy land and build where they live. And to argue and disagree and VOTE. And make the system better over time. With a real democracy. It would allow women to become doctors and lawyers and famous news anchors, just like the Arab female role models Israel already has! It would allow Israel to throw out and deport all terrorists. Freeing the Palestinian people of the terrorists in their midst just as much as it would free Jews. Equal opportunity banishing of bad guys. Because I believe that non-terrorist Palestinians don’t want to live among terrorists, or be ruled by terrorists, or have to shelter terrorists. Or be labeled by the world because of those terrorists. I think better of them than that. Do you?
Annexation would yes, “water down” my Jewish demographic. But that doesn’t bother me and it doesn’t scare me. You have just assumed that it would because of your racist prejudices against me. I would rather see people of all faiths live on the one island of democracy, freedom and hope that exists in the middle of an insanely mad world of violence, death, clitorectomies, child brides and much worse that is the Middle East today, than hand Palestinians over to the hands of thug leaders they don’t like or respect, they only fear and have to obey. Which is what those not blessed to be in Israel proper today have to suffer from.
The Palestinians living in Gaza are raised on hate. They have missiles in their kindergartens and children’s bedrooms. Girls and women can be beaten, as in most of the Middle East, because of prevailing culture and the leadership. While you seem quite ready to create an official state in a “Two State Solution,” where that is where the bar is set, I don’t have such little regard for Palestinian lives. For little Palestinian girls. I want better for them. Israel can give them better — because Israel already does, for many.
I think they deserve as rich and wonderful life as I am blessed to have. And Israel is the only place in the Middle East that can give it to them. You want to give them Gaza? How about Aleppo? Or Saudia Arabia, where women can’t drive and there are tutorials on televison on how to use makeup to cover up their beatings? That’s all you think that they are worth?
If you are fighting so hard for a reality where that is the best they can get, then take a look in the mirror because the racist sure isn’t me, it’s you.
December 30, 2016
December 13, 2016
 | ||
| ||
|
Security First
December 13, 2016 | Eli E. Hertz
In the aftermath of the 1967 Six-Day War, after three Arab armies converged on Israel's nightmarish borders, even the United Nations was forced to recognize that Israel's pre-1967 Six-Day War borders invited repeated aggression. Thus, UN Resolution 242 - which formed the conceptual foundation for a peace settlement - declares that all states in the region should be guaranteed "safe and secure borders."
Lt. General (ret.) Tom Kelly:
"I cannot defend this land (Israel) without that terrain (West Bank) ... The West Bank Mountains, and especially their five approaches, are the critical terrain. If an enemy secures those passes, Jerusalem and Israel become uncovered. Without the West Bank, Israel is only eight miles wide at its narrowest point. That makes it indefensible." [i]
The late Admiral James Wilson "Bud" Nance:
"No logical reason for Israel to give up one inch of the disputed areas. Quite to the contrary, I believe if Israel were to move out of the Golan Heights, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, it would increase instability and the possibility of war, increase the necessity for Israel to preempt in war and the possibility that nuclear weapons would be used to prevent an Israel loss, and increase the possibility that the U.S. would have to become involved in a war." [ii]
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Earl Wheeler:
"The minimum required for Israel's defense includes most of the West Bank and the whole of Gaza and the Golan Heights." [iii]
[i] Tom Kelly, chief of Operations during the Gulf War in 1991, Jerusalem Post, November 7, 1991.
[ii] Former Commander of USS Forrestal and former Chief of Staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Congressional Record, July 29, 1991.
[iii] A study done by the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff June 29, 1967 under Gen. Earl Wheeler points to the minimum territory Israel required "in order to permit defense against possible conventional Arab attack ..." The study content was considered so explosive and contrary to State Department policy, it was stamped 'Top Secret' until the Wall Street Journal revealed it in 1983.
US Military States Israel Must Keep their Indigenous Lands of Judea and Samaria
 | ||
| ||
|
Security First
December 13, 2016 | Eli E. Hertz
In the aftermath of the 1967 Six-Day War, after three Arab armies converged on Israel's nightmarish borders, even the United Nations was forced to recognize that Israel's pre-1967 Six-Day War borders invited repeated aggression. Thus, UN Resolution 242 - which formed the conceptual foundation for a peace settlement - declares that all states in the region should be guaranteed "safe and secure borders."
Lt. General (ret.) Tom Kelly:
"I cannot defend this land (Israel) without that terrain (West Bank) ... The West Bank Mountains, and especially their five approaches, are the critical terrain. If an enemy secures those passes, Jerusalem and Israel become uncovered. Without the West Bank, Israel is only eight miles wide at its narrowest point. That makes it indefensible." [i]
The late Admiral James Wilson "Bud" Nance:
"No logical reason for Israel to give up one inch of the disputed areas. Quite to the contrary, I believe if Israel were to move out of the Golan Heights, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, it would increase instability and the possibility of war, increase the necessity for Israel to preempt in war and the possibility that nuclear weapons would be used to prevent an Israel loss, and increase the possibility that the U.S. would have to become involved in a war." [ii]
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Earl Wheeler:
"The minimum required for Israel's defense includes most of the West Bank and the whole of Gaza and the Golan Heights." [iii]
[i] Tom Kelly, chief of Operations during the Gulf War in 1991, Jerusalem Post, November 7, 1991.
[ii] Former Commander of USS Forrestal and former Chief of Staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Congressional Record, July 29, 1991.
[iii] A study done by the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff June 29, 1967 under Gen. Earl Wheeler points to the minimum territory Israel required "in order to permit defense against possible conventional Arab attack ..." The study content was considered so explosive and contrary to State Department policy, it was stamped 'Top Secret' until the Wall Street Journal revealed it in 1983.
December 06, 2016
Recalling the San Remo Conference
Recalling the San Remo Conference
Granting the right under international law for Jews to settle anywhere in western Palestine - the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea
Granting the right under international law for Jews to settle anywhere in western Palestine - the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea
Eli E. Hertz
 | ||
Villa Devanche, San Remo, Italy
April 25, 1920 |
Villa Devanche, San Remo, Italy
Picture taken April 25, 2010 | |
On the 24-25 of April 2010, the European Coalition for Israel conducted a number of educational seminars delivered by Eli Hertz from the United States and Solomon Benzimra (zl) from Canada. It was followed by a ceremony held in San Remo at the same house (Villa Devanche) where the signing of the San Remo declaration took place in 1920.
The event attracted politicians as well as grassroots activists from around Europe, the U.S., and Canada. Member of Knesset and Deputy Speaker Danny Danon also attended and delivered greetings from Jerusalem.
At the conclusion of the commemoration, the following statement was released:
"Reaffirming the importance of the San Remo Resolution of April 25, 1920 - which included the Balfour Declaration in shaping the map of the modern Middle East, as agreed upon by the Supreme Council of the Principal Allied Powers (Britain, France, Italy, Japan, and the United States acting as an observer), and later approved unanimously by the League of Nations; the Resolution remains irrevocable, legally binding and valid to this day."Emphasizing that the San Remo Resolution of 1920 recognized the exclusive national Jewish rights to the Land of Israel under international law, on the strength of the historical connection of the Jewish people to the territory previously known as Palestine."Recalling that such a seminal event as the San Remo Conference of 1920 has been forgotten or ignored by the community of nations, and that the rights it conferred upon the Jewish people have been unlawfully dismissed, curtailed and denied."Asserting that a just and lasting peace, leading to the acceptance of secure and recognized borders between all States in the region, can only be achieved by recognizing the long established rights of the Jewish people under international law."
The outcome of the declaration gave birth to the "Mandate for Palestine," an historical League of Nations document that laid down the Jewish legal right to settle anywhere in western Palestine, a 10,000 square-miles the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
Fifty-one member countries - the entire League of Nations - unanimously declared on July 24, 1922:
"Whereas recognition has been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country."
Jews are in the Land of Israel as of right and not on sufferance.
It is important to point out that political rights to self-determination as a polity for Arabs were guaranteed by the same League of Nations in four other mandates - in Lebanon and Syria [The French Mandate], Iraq, and later Trans-Jordan [The British Mandate].
Any attempt to negate the Jewish people's right to Palestine-Eretz-Israel, and to deny them access and control over the area designated for the Jewish people by the League of Nations is an actionable infringement of international law.
November 30, 2016
UN Resolution 181 - The Partition Plan November 29, 1947 Eli E. Hertz
UN Resolution 181 - The Partition PlanNovember 29, 1947
Eli E. Hertz
In 1947 the British put the future of western Palestine into the hands of the United Nations, the successor organization to the League of Nations which had established the "Mandate for Palestine." A UN Commission recommendedpartitioning what was left of the original Mandate - western Palestine - into two new states, one Jewish and one Arab. Jerusalem and its surrounding villages were to be temporarily classified as an international zone belonging to neither polity.
What resulted was Resolution 181 [known also as the 1947 Partition Plan], a nonbinding recommendation to partition Palestine, whose implementation hinged on acceptance by both parties - Arabs and Jews. The resolution was adopted on November 29, 1947 in the General Assembly by a vote of 33-12, with 10 abstentions. Among the supporters were the United States and the Soviet Union, as well as other nations including France and Australia. The Arab nations, including Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia denounced the plan on the General Assembly floor and voted as a bloc against Resolution 181 promising to defy its implementation by force.
The resolution recognized the need for immediate Jewish statehood [and a parallel Arab state], but the blueprint for peace became a moot issue when the Arabs refused to accept it. Subsequently, realities on the ground in the wake of Arab aggression [and Israel's survival] became the basis for UN efforts to bring peace.
Aware of Arab's past aggression, Resolution 181, in paragraph C, calls on the Security Council to:
"Determine as a threat to the peace, breach of the peace or act of aggression, in accordance with Article 39 of the Charter, any attempt to alter by force the settlement envisaged by this resolution." [Italics by author]
The ones who sought to alter the settlement envisioned in Resolution 181 by force, were the Arabs who threatened bloodshed if the United Nations was to adopt the Resolution:
"The [British] Government of Palestine fear that strife in Palestine will be greatly intensified when the Mandate is terminated, and that the international status of the United Nations Commission will mean little or nothing to the Arabs in Palestine, to whom the killing of Jews now transcends all other considerations. Thus, the Commission will be faced with the problem of how to avert certain bloodshed on a very much wider scale than prevails at present. ... The Arabs have made it quite clear and have told the Palestine government that they do not propose to co-operate or to assist the Commission, and that, far from it, they propose to attack and impede its work in every possible way. We have no reason to suppose that they do not mean what they say." [Italics by author]
Arab's intentions and deeds did not fare better after Resolution 181 was adopted:
"Taking into consideration that the Provisional Government of Israel has indicated its acceptance in principle of a prolongation of the truce in Palestine; that the States members of the Arab League have rejected successive appeals of the United Nations Mediator, and of the Security Council in its resolution 53 (1948) of 7 July 1948, for the prolongation of the truce in Palestine; and that there has consequently developed a renewal of hostilities in Palestine."
The conclusion:
"Having constituted a Special Committee and instructed it to investigate all questions and issues relevant to the problem of Palestine, and to prepare proposals for the solution of the problem, and having received and examined the report of the Special Committee (document A/364). ... Recommends to the United Kingdom, as the mandatory Power for Palestine, and to all other Members of the United Nations the adoption and implementation, with regard to the future Government of Palestine, of the Plan of Partition with Economic Union set out below;" [Italics by author].
In the late 1990s, more than 50 years after Resolution 181 was rejected by the Arab world, Arab leaders suddenly recommended to the General Assembly that UN Resolution 181 be resurrected as the basis for a peace agreement. There is no foundation for such a notion.
Resolution 181 was the last of a series of recommendations that had been drawn up over the years by the Mandatory and by international commissions, plans designed to reach an historic compromise between Arabs and Jews in western Palestine. The first was in 1922 when Great Britain unilaterally partitioned Palestine, which did not satisfy the Arabs who wanted the entire country to be Arab. Resolution 181 followed such proposals as the Peel Commission (1937); the Woodhead Commission (1938); two 1946 proposals that championed a binational state; one proposed by the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry in April 1946 based on a single state with equal powers for Jews and Arabs; and the Morrison-Grady Plan raised in July 1946 which recommended a federal state with two provinces - one Jewish, one Arab. Every scheme since 1922 was rejected by the Arab side, including decidedly pro-Arab ones merely because these plans recognized Jews as a nation a nd gave Jewish citizens of Mandate Palestine political representation. Arabs rejected the "unbalanced" Partition Plan. The UN International Court of Justice (ICJ) uses the term "unbalanced" in describing the reason for Arab rejectionism of Resolution 181, which does not exactly fit reality. Seventy-seven percent of the landmass of the original Mandate for the Jews was excised in 1922 to create a fourth Arab state - Trans-Jordan (today Jordan).
In a statement by Dr. Abba Hillel Silver, the representative of the Jewish Agency for Palestine to the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP), he had that to say about fairness, balance, and justice: "According to David Lloyd George, then British Prime Minister, the Balfour Declaration implied that the whole of Palestine, including Transjordan, should ultimately become a Jewish state. Transjordan had, nevertheless, been severed from Palestine in 1922 and had subsequently been set up as an Arab kingdom. Now a second Arab state was to be carved out of the remainder of Palestine, with the result that the Jewish National Home would represent less than one eighth of the territory originally set aside for it. Such a sacrifice should not be asked of the Jewish people." Referring to the Arab States established as independent countries since the First World War, he said:
"17,000,000 Arabs now occupied an area of 1,290,000 square miles, including all the principal Arab and Moslem centers, while Palestine, after the loss of Transjordan, was only 10,000 square miles; yet the majority plan proposed to reduce it by one half. UNSCOP proposed to eliminate Western Galilee from the Jewish State; that was an injustice and a grievous handicap to the development of the Jewish State." [Italics by author].
Following passage of Resolution 181 by the General Assembly, Arab countries took the dais to reiterate their absolute rejection of the recommendation and intention to render implementation of Resolution 181 a moot question by the use of force. These examples from the transcript of the General Assembly plenary meeting on November 29, 1947 speak for themselves:
"Mr. JAMALI (Iraq): ... We believe that the decision which we have now taken ... undermines peace, justice and democracy. In the name of my Government, I wish to state that it feels that this decision is antidemocratic, illegal, impractical and contrary to the Charter ... Therefore, in the name of my Government, I wish to put on record that Iraq does not recognize the validity of this decision, will reserve freedom of action towards its implementation, and holds those who were influential in passing it against the free conscience of mankind responsible for the consequences."
"Amir. ARSLAN [Syria]: ... Gentlemen, the Charter is dead. But it did not die a natural death; it was murdered, and you all know who is guilty. My country will never recognize such a decision [Partition]. It will never agree to be responsible for it. Let the consequences be on the heads of others, not on ours."
"H. R. H. Prince Seif El ISLAM ABDULLAH (Yemen): The Yemen delegation has stated previously that the partition plan is contrary to justice and to the Charter of the United Nations. Therefore, the Government of Yemen does not consider itself bound by such a decision ... and will reserve its freedom of action towards the implementation of this decision."
The Partition Plan was met not only by verbal rejection on the Arab side but also by concrete, bellicose steps to block its implementation and destroy the Jewish polity by force of arms, a goal the Arabs publicly declared even before Resolution 181 was brought to a vote.
Arabs not only rejected the compromise and took action to prevent establishment of a Jewish state but also blocked establishment of an Arab state under the partition plan not just before the Israel War of Independence, but also after the war when they themselves controlled the West Bank (1948-1967).
The UN itself recognized that Resolution 181 had not been accepted by the Arab side, rendering it a dead issue: On January 29, 1948, the First Monthly Progress Report of the UN-appointed Palestine Commission charged with helping put Resolution 181 into effect was submitted to the Security Council (A/AC.21/7). Implementation of Resolution 181 hinged not only on the five member states appointed to represent the UN [Bolivia, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Panama, Philippines and Great Britain], but first and foremost on the participation of the two sides who were invited to appoint representatives.
The UN Palestine Commission's February 16, 1948 report (A/AC.21/9) to the Security Council noted that Arab-led hostilities were an effort
"To prevent the implementation of the [General] Assembly plan of partition, and to thwart its objectives by threats and acts of violence, including armed incursions into Palestinian territory."
On May 17, 1948 - after the invasion began, the Palestine Commission designed to implement 181 adjourned sine die [Latin: without determining a date] after the General Assembly appointed a United Nations Mediator in Palestine, which relieves the United Nations Palestine Commission from the further exercise of its responsibilities.
Some thought the Partition Plan could be revived, but by the end of the war, Resolution 181 had become a moot issue as realities on the ground made the establishment of an armistice-line [the "Green Line"] - a temporary ceasefire line expected to be followed by peace treaties - the most constructive path to solving the conflict.
A July 30, 1949 working paper of the UN Secretariat entitled The Future of Arab Palestine and the Question of Partition noted further that:
"The Arabs rejected the United Nations Partition Plan so that any comment of theirs did not specifically concern the status of the Arab section of Palestine under partition but rather rejected the scheme in its entirety."
By the time armistice agreements were reached in 1949 between Israel and its immediate Arab neighbors (Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Trans-Jordan) with the assistance of UN Mediator Dr. Ralph Bunche, Resolution 181 had become irrelevant, and the armistice agreements addressed new realities created by the war. Over subsequent years, the UN simply abandoned the recommendations of Resolution 181, as its ideas were drained of all relevance by subsequent events. Moreover, the Arabs continued to reject 181 after the war when they themselves controlled the West Bank (1948-1967) which Jordan invaded in the course of the war and annexed illegally.
Attempts by Palestinians to roll back the clock and resuscitate Resolution 181 more than six decades after they rejected it as if nothing had happened are a baseless ploy designed to use Resolution 181 as leverage to bring about a greater Israeli withdrawal from parts of western Palestine and to gain a broader base from which to continue to attack an Israel with even less defendable borders. Both Palestinians and their Arab brethren in neighboring countries rendered the plan null and void by their own subsequent aggressive actions.
Professor Stone, a distinguished authority on the Law of Nations, wrote about this novelty of resurrection in 1981 when he analyzed a similar attempt by pro-Palestinian experts at the UN to rewrite the history of the conflict (their writings were termed "studies"). Stone called it "revival of the dead."
"To attempt to show ... that Resolution 181 'remains' in force in 1981 is thus an undertaking even more miraculous than would be the revival of the dead. It is an attempt to give life to an entity that the Arab states had themselves aborted before it came to maturity and birth. To propose that Resolution 181 can be treated as if it has binding force in 1981, for the benefit of the same Arab states, who by their aggression destroyed it ab initio, [In Latin: From the beginning] also violates "general principles of law," such as those requiring claimants to equity to come "with clean hands," and forbidding a party who has unlawfully repudiated a transaction from holding the other party to terms that suit the later expediencies of the repudiating party." [Italics by author].
Resolution 181 had been tossed into the waste bin of history, along with the Partition Plans that preceded it.
Israel's independence is not a result of a partial implementation of the Partition Plan. Resolution 181 has no legal ramifications - that is, it recognized the Jewish right to statehood, but its validity as a potentially legal and binding document was never consummated. Like the proposals that preceded it, Resolution 181's validity hinged on acceptance by both parties of the General Assembly's recommendation.
Cambridge Professor, Sir Elihu Lauterpacht, Judge ad hoc of the International Court of Justice, a renowned expert on international law, clarified that from a legal standpoint, the 1947 UN Partition Resolution had no legislative character to vest territorial rights in either Jews or Arabs. In a monograph relating to one of the most complex aspects of the territorial issue, the status of Jerusalem, Judge, Sir Lauterpacht wrote that any binding force the Partition Plan would have had to arise from the principle pacta sunt servanda , [In Latin: treaties must be honored - the first principle of international law] that is, from agreement of the parties at variance to the proposed plan. In the case of Israel, Judge, Sir Lauterpacht explains:
"The coming into existence of Israel does not depend legally upon the Resolution. The right of a State to exist flows from its factual existence-especially when that existence is prolonged shows every sign of continuance and is recognized by the generality of nations."
Reviewing Lauterpacht arguments, Professor Stone added that Israel's "legitimacy" or the "legal foundation" for its birth does not reside with the United Nations' Partition Plan, which as a consequence of Arab actions became a dead issue. Professor Stone concluded:
"The State of Israel is thus not legally derived from the partition plan, but rests (as do most other states in the world) 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."
November 24, 2016
November 13, 2016
November 11, 2016
November 03, 2016
October 30, 2016
October 19, 2016
September 27, 2016
September 20, 2016
4_point_plan.pdf
4_point_plan.pdf
THE FEIGLIN SOLUTION
Principle 1
Immediate nullification of the Oslo Accords, application of full Israeli
sovereignty in all parts of the Land of Israel, no Palestinian control
over any territory.
Principle 2
Arab residents of Judea and Samaria will have three options:
Voluntary emigration, permanent residency status or citizenship for
those who will tie their fate with the State of Israel, as exemplified by
the Druze population.
Principle 3
The Moslem wakf will be expelled from the Temple Mount and the
site will be recognized as a Jewish holy site.
Principle 4
Withstanding the international pressure that will be exerted on Israel.
It will eventually pass.
These key principles are discussed in the following interview.
The Feiglin Solution - By Sarah Haetzni Cohen 3
How do you define the problem? What is your goal?
My goal is to create a political infrastructure to actualize the Jewish identity of the State of Israel. Let me
explain. In the first stage of Oslo they claimed that the goal was peace. But if peace was really the goal, then
the moment that the Accords caused violence and exploding buses, the Left should have said, ‘We’re sorry, we
were mistaken’. Clearly, Oslo did not bring peace. So why does the two-state solution retain its star status?
It’s because the goal of Oslo was not peace. Rather it was the eradication of the Jewish identity of the State
of Israel and its replacement with the new Israeli-ness. Ron Pundak, one of the architects of Oslo, said that in
a January 2014 interview: ‘I want peace so that there will be Israeli-ness. Israelization of society instead of its
Judaization.’
“One of the ideas at the foundation of Zionism is normalcy, to be a nation like all other nations. The Left began
to understand that we did not achieve normalcy by force, in this Texas ranch that we established in the heart of
the Middle East. They understood that we would not achieve normalcy by preferring territory over peace, so
they changed direction: Instead of striving to achieve normalcy by means of the Land of Israel, they are now
attempting to achieve normalcy by giving up the Land of Israel. Judea and Samaria are the parts of the Land
that connect us most to our Jewish identity. The Left wants to be rid of its Jewish identity both physically and
as a society. They want to be rid of the people who live in Judea and Samaria – those people who they say are
trying to drag us two thousand years back in time.”
The Immigration Experiment Succeeded
Before Feiglin presents his plan, he emphasizes that it is not simply an attempt to control the damage done by
the Left or to find ‘practical’ steps, rather it is based on the understanding of ‘what we want’. He is talking about
the actualization of a worldview predicated on two basic principles. The first is “One nation, one land, one G-d”
and absolute refusal to make Israel a state of all its citizens. The second principle is the safeguarding of human
rights. “I am proposing the application of complete sovereignty in the entire Land of Israel. The border is the
Jordan River and all the Oslo terminology is null and void. There is no such thing as Areas A, B and C. Israel has
every reason to immediately nullify the Oslo Accords.”
If you were to become the Prime Minister tomorrow, what steps would you take?
End the Occupation and end the terror. I propose to end the insane amount of money that we spend until
today on the two-state illusion. Until today, Oslo has cost us more than one trillion shekels. All of these goals
will be accomplished while fully safeguarding the human rights of the Arabs. In the next Operation Defensive
Shield, which is just a matter of time, we will begin to apply sovereignty, and of course, remove the Separation
Fence. The next military operation, which is a necessary part of reality, will be carried out with a strategy, with
the vision of the Right and not the dream of the Left. Not like Operation Protective Edge, the main guiding
factor of which was not to conquer Gaza. Practically speaking, at the moment that we make a military incursion
into a certain area, we will clean it of any hint of foreign sovereignty and of every hostile bearer of weapons. In
Ramallah, Shechem and Jericho there will be a police force with an Israeli flag, just like there was before Oslo.
Whoever fights against us will be eliminated or banished from Israel. Armed terrorists will not remain in Israel.
Either you are a citizen and will be prosecuted in a criminal court, or you are an enemy against whom we wage
war.
What will be done with the territory in which you applied sovereignty?
There will be a tactical stage, in which it will be necessary to control the territory until the justice system can be
changed. We will give the Arab population in those territories three options:
4 The Feiglin Solution - By Sarah Haetzni Cohen
• Voluntary emigration with the aid of a generous emigration grant.
• Permanent residency, similar to the “Green Card” status in the US – not like what is currently the practice in
East Jerusalem. This status will be offered to those Arabs who publicly declare their loyalty to the State of
Israel as the state of the Jewish Nation. We will safeguard their human rights and will not do anything like
we did to ourselves in Gush Katif.
• The third option will be reserved for relatively few Arabs, and only in accordance with Israeli interests.
Those who tie their fate to the fate of the Jewish Nation, like the Druze, can enter a long-term process of
attaining citizenship.
I ask Feiglin to give me details on the ‘voluntary emigration’ that he wants to advance; the EvacuationCompensation
of Gush Katif applied to the Arabs. He describes a small experiment, in which a manpower
company advertised on Arab websites to have thirty thousand open jobs with an offer to immigrate and work
in Germany. After four hours, they were forced to remove the ads from the websites due to the vast number of
inquiries that they generated.
Feiglin’s assessment is that the numbers support the success of the plan: The need exists for the Arabs and the
will exists for Israel. As far as countries willing to absorb these immigrants, he cites research that he did as a
Knesset Members. Countries like Canada told him that “We will roll out the red carpet for someone who arrives
with fifty thousand dollars in his pocket.”
“You have to understand that our world is desperate for skilled labor,” says Feiglin. The West suffers from a
negative demographic growth and their workforce is shrinking. Now the question is who will they accept: The
Sudanese immigrant who has built mud huts or the immigrant from Ramallah, who has built skyscrapers and
who will arrive with tens of thousands of dollars in his pocket.”
The generous emigration package that Feiglin is proposing is not based on the state budget. Instead, it will
come from resources dedicated today to actualization of the two-state concept. “Before Oslo, there were no
security guard at the entrance to every café, there was not an entire terror-victim department in Social Security
and I used to repair my car in the heart of Gaza. True, we still had our justified fears, but there is no comparison
to the situation today.
The emigration package will include the purchase of the emigrant’s real estate for a respectable sum. Those
who leave will have a sum of money that will help them build their lives in a better place. Israel will also provide
assistance in the search for a host country.
There are 1.4 million Arab residents of Judea and Samaria, according to research provided by Yoram Ettinger
and his staff of demographers. The Jewish birthrate is on the rise, the Arab birthrate is rapidly sinking. Even if
we were to offer citizenship to all the Arabs of Judea and Samaria – and that is not what I propose – we would
still outnumber them. According to polls, more than 60% would like to emigrate. Last year alone, approximately
fifteen thousand Arabs left Judea and Samaria.
And what about the rest of the Arabs? Would you provide them with education
and health care?
I do not advocate the government providing education and health care for the residents of Tel Aviv, and not
for the Arab residents, either. We need as little government as possible. When the State will remove its long
arm from where it does not have to be and focus on what it should be doing, which is providing security and a
justice system – life here will be much easier. The Arabs of Judea and Samaria will pay taxes like everyone else.
And if they resort to terror – they will be punished.
The Feiglin Solution - By Sarah Haetzni Cohen 5
A Painful, Yet Necessary – Rectification
Feiglin easily refutes the Left’s claim that application of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria without affording full
citizenship to the Arabs living there is problematic. “The Left likes to say that sovereignty and citizenship must
go together, but that is a lie. The US acquired the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, for example, and did not grant
citizenship to the local residents. Israel was established for the express purpose of providing a state in the Land of
Israel for the Jewish Nation. It is perfectly fine for it to create a separate civil status while safeguarding the human
rights of the non-Jews
Our opposition to automatically granting voting rights to non-Jews as soon as sovereignty is declared is based on
principle. The State of Israel was established to be the state of the Jewish Nation. Israel must express this principle
and defend it.”
What is your view on the Gaza Strip?
Gaza is complicated, but ultimately, there will be no choice and the same solution will apply there, as well. During
the Protective Edge campaign, I opposed the IDF entry into Gaza if the purpose of the incursion was to leave yet
another time.
So it’s all or nothing?
In this case, yes. Justice cannot be cut in half. Oslo is also all or nothing. It implied that nothing belongs to us – not
Sderot and not Tel Aviv. That is why it is now being attacked. Oslo was the beginning of the final deterioration of
Israel’s international integrity. The Balfour Declaration became the original sin and Israel became an error.
And what about Jerusalem?
Jerusalem is the biggest lie of all. It is always on the negotiating table. ‘He who rules the Mount rules the entire
Land’. Everything begins with the Temple Mount. If we leave the Moslem wakf there, Jerusalem will burn. If we do
not remove the decaying tooth, the inflammation will spread. The wakf must be removed from the Temple Mount
and the site must be recognized by Israel as a Jewish holy place. We must see ourselves as the rightful owners of
the Mount, not as guests.
How will the world react to this plan?
When Israel tells the truth and expresses its moral foundations, the world accepts its approach. When Israel
surrenders – the very opposite occurs. After the Six Day War, when we forcibly captured Judea, Samaria and Gaza,
our international standing vastly improved. On the other hand, when Israel implemented the Disengagement from
Gaza – which on the surface, was what the world wanted – we uprooted all the Jews and left every last grain of sand
– our international standing worsened.
There will be international pressure during the first stages and we will have to withstand it. But the world supports
us when we are right and actively opposes us when our actions prove that we are not just. The main point is justice
and resilience.
Close to the end of the interview, Feiglin wishes to clarify a point. “In Oslo, we lost the sense of the justice of our
cause. Until we restore that, we will not be able to solve anything. Today we say that this is not our land and the
world demands that we leave it. Justifiably so. The world mirrors our own approach. ‘You are sitting on Palestinian
land,’ they say, ‘and you even complain when they oppose you and stab you. If it is not yours, leave.’
6 The Feiglin Solution - By Sarah
THE FEIGLIN SOLUTION
Principle 1
Immediate nullification of the Oslo Accords, application of full Israeli
sovereignty in all parts of the Land of Israel, no Palestinian control
over any territory.
Principle 2
Arab residents of Judea and Samaria will have three options:
Voluntary emigration, permanent residency status or citizenship for
those who will tie their fate with the State of Israel, as exemplified by
the Druze population.
Principle 3
The Moslem wakf will be expelled from the Temple Mount and the
site will be recognized as a Jewish holy site.
Principle 4
Withstanding the international pressure that will be exerted on Israel.
It will eventually pass.
These key principles are discussed in the following interview.
The Feiglin Solution - By Sarah Haetzni Cohen 3
How do you define the problem? What is your goal?
My goal is to create a political infrastructure to actualize the Jewish identity of the State of Israel. Let me
explain. In the first stage of Oslo they claimed that the goal was peace. But if peace was really the goal, then
the moment that the Accords caused violence and exploding buses, the Left should have said, ‘We’re sorry, we
were mistaken’. Clearly, Oslo did not bring peace. So why does the two-state solution retain its star status?
It’s because the goal of Oslo was not peace. Rather it was the eradication of the Jewish identity of the State
of Israel and its replacement with the new Israeli-ness. Ron Pundak, one of the architects of Oslo, said that in
a January 2014 interview: ‘I want peace so that there will be Israeli-ness. Israelization of society instead of its
Judaization.’
“One of the ideas at the foundation of Zionism is normalcy, to be a nation like all other nations. The Left began
to understand that we did not achieve normalcy by force, in this Texas ranch that we established in the heart of
the Middle East. They understood that we would not achieve normalcy by preferring territory over peace, so
they changed direction: Instead of striving to achieve normalcy by means of the Land of Israel, they are now
attempting to achieve normalcy by giving up the Land of Israel. Judea and Samaria are the parts of the Land
that connect us most to our Jewish identity. The Left wants to be rid of its Jewish identity both physically and
as a society. They want to be rid of the people who live in Judea and Samaria – those people who they say are
trying to drag us two thousand years back in time.”
The Immigration Experiment Succeeded
Before Feiglin presents his plan, he emphasizes that it is not simply an attempt to control the damage done by
the Left or to find ‘practical’ steps, rather it is based on the understanding of ‘what we want’. He is talking about
the actualization of a worldview predicated on two basic principles. The first is “One nation, one land, one G-d”
and absolute refusal to make Israel a state of all its citizens. The second principle is the safeguarding of human
rights. “I am proposing the application of complete sovereignty in the entire Land of Israel. The border is the
Jordan River and all the Oslo terminology is null and void. There is no such thing as Areas A, B and C. Israel has
every reason to immediately nullify the Oslo Accords.”
If you were to become the Prime Minister tomorrow, what steps would you take?
End the Occupation and end the terror. I propose to end the insane amount of money that we spend until
today on the two-state illusion. Until today, Oslo has cost us more than one trillion shekels. All of these goals
will be accomplished while fully safeguarding the human rights of the Arabs. In the next Operation Defensive
Shield, which is just a matter of time, we will begin to apply sovereignty, and of course, remove the Separation
Fence. The next military operation, which is a necessary part of reality, will be carried out with a strategy, with
the vision of the Right and not the dream of the Left. Not like Operation Protective Edge, the main guiding
factor of which was not to conquer Gaza. Practically speaking, at the moment that we make a military incursion
into a certain area, we will clean it of any hint of foreign sovereignty and of every hostile bearer of weapons. In
Ramallah, Shechem and Jericho there will be a police force with an Israeli flag, just like there was before Oslo.
Whoever fights against us will be eliminated or banished from Israel. Armed terrorists will not remain in Israel.
Either you are a citizen and will be prosecuted in a criminal court, or you are an enemy against whom we wage
war.
What will be done with the territory in which you applied sovereignty?
There will be a tactical stage, in which it will be necessary to control the territory until the justice system can be
changed. We will give the Arab population in those territories three options:
4 The Feiglin Solution - By Sarah Haetzni Cohen
• Voluntary emigration with the aid of a generous emigration grant.
• Permanent residency, similar to the “Green Card” status in the US – not like what is currently the practice in
East Jerusalem. This status will be offered to those Arabs who publicly declare their loyalty to the State of
Israel as the state of the Jewish Nation. We will safeguard their human rights and will not do anything like
we did to ourselves in Gush Katif.
• The third option will be reserved for relatively few Arabs, and only in accordance with Israeli interests.
Those who tie their fate to the fate of the Jewish Nation, like the Druze, can enter a long-term process of
attaining citizenship.
I ask Feiglin to give me details on the ‘voluntary emigration’ that he wants to advance; the EvacuationCompensation
of Gush Katif applied to the Arabs. He describes a small experiment, in which a manpower
company advertised on Arab websites to have thirty thousand open jobs with an offer to immigrate and work
in Germany. After four hours, they were forced to remove the ads from the websites due to the vast number of
inquiries that they generated.
Feiglin’s assessment is that the numbers support the success of the plan: The need exists for the Arabs and the
will exists for Israel. As far as countries willing to absorb these immigrants, he cites research that he did as a
Knesset Members. Countries like Canada told him that “We will roll out the red carpet for someone who arrives
with fifty thousand dollars in his pocket.”
“You have to understand that our world is desperate for skilled labor,” says Feiglin. The West suffers from a
negative demographic growth and their workforce is shrinking. Now the question is who will they accept: The
Sudanese immigrant who has built mud huts or the immigrant from Ramallah, who has built skyscrapers and
who will arrive with tens of thousands of dollars in his pocket.”
The generous emigration package that Feiglin is proposing is not based on the state budget. Instead, it will
come from resources dedicated today to actualization of the two-state concept. “Before Oslo, there were no
security guard at the entrance to every café, there was not an entire terror-victim department in Social Security
and I used to repair my car in the heart of Gaza. True, we still had our justified fears, but there is no comparison
to the situation today.
The emigration package will include the purchase of the emigrant’s real estate for a respectable sum. Those
who leave will have a sum of money that will help them build their lives in a better place. Israel will also provide
assistance in the search for a host country.
There are 1.4 million Arab residents of Judea and Samaria, according to research provided by Yoram Ettinger
and his staff of demographers. The Jewish birthrate is on the rise, the Arab birthrate is rapidly sinking. Even if
we were to offer citizenship to all the Arabs of Judea and Samaria – and that is not what I propose – we would
still outnumber them. According to polls, more than 60% would like to emigrate. Last year alone, approximately
fifteen thousand Arabs left Judea and Samaria.
And what about the rest of the Arabs? Would you provide them with education
and health care?
I do not advocate the government providing education and health care for the residents of Tel Aviv, and not
for the Arab residents, either. We need as little government as possible. When the State will remove its long
arm from where it does not have to be and focus on what it should be doing, which is providing security and a
justice system – life here will be much easier. The Arabs of Judea and Samaria will pay taxes like everyone else.
And if they resort to terror – they will be punished.
The Feiglin Solution - By Sarah Haetzni Cohen 5
A Painful, Yet Necessary – Rectification
Feiglin easily refutes the Left’s claim that application of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria without affording full
citizenship to the Arabs living there is problematic. “The Left likes to say that sovereignty and citizenship must
go together, but that is a lie. The US acquired the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, for example, and did not grant
citizenship to the local residents. Israel was established for the express purpose of providing a state in the Land of
Israel for the Jewish Nation. It is perfectly fine for it to create a separate civil status while safeguarding the human
rights of the non-Jews
Our opposition to automatically granting voting rights to non-Jews as soon as sovereignty is declared is based on
principle. The State of Israel was established to be the state of the Jewish Nation. Israel must express this principle
and defend it.”
What is your view on the Gaza Strip?
Gaza is complicated, but ultimately, there will be no choice and the same solution will apply there, as well. During
the Protective Edge campaign, I opposed the IDF entry into Gaza if the purpose of the incursion was to leave yet
another time.
So it’s all or nothing?
In this case, yes. Justice cannot be cut in half. Oslo is also all or nothing. It implied that nothing belongs to us – not
Sderot and not Tel Aviv. That is why it is now being attacked. Oslo was the beginning of the final deterioration of
Israel’s international integrity. The Balfour Declaration became the original sin and Israel became an error.
And what about Jerusalem?
Jerusalem is the biggest lie of all. It is always on the negotiating table. ‘He who rules the Mount rules the entire
Land’. Everything begins with the Temple Mount. If we leave the Moslem wakf there, Jerusalem will burn. If we do
not remove the decaying tooth, the inflammation will spread. The wakf must be removed from the Temple Mount
and the site must be recognized by Israel as a Jewish holy place. We must see ourselves as the rightful owners of
the Mount, not as guests.
How will the world react to this plan?
When Israel tells the truth and expresses its moral foundations, the world accepts its approach. When Israel
surrenders – the very opposite occurs. After the Six Day War, when we forcibly captured Judea, Samaria and Gaza,
our international standing vastly improved. On the other hand, when Israel implemented the Disengagement from
Gaza – which on the surface, was what the world wanted – we uprooted all the Jews and left every last grain of sand
– our international standing worsened.
There will be international pressure during the first stages and we will have to withstand it. But the world supports
us when we are right and actively opposes us when our actions prove that we are not just. The main point is justice
and resilience.
Close to the end of the interview, Feiglin wishes to clarify a point. “In Oslo, we lost the sense of the justice of our
cause. Until we restore that, we will not be able to solve anything. Today we say that this is not our land and the
world demands that we leave it. Justifiably so. The world mirrors our own approach. ‘You are sitting on Palestinian
land,’ they say, ‘and you even complain when they oppose you and stab you. If it is not yours, leave.’
6 The Feiglin Solution - By Sarah
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)