Sunday, September 28, 2008

NO, MR. KOUCHNER, MIDEAST REALITY IS NOT WHAT YOU THINK.

 

by Salomon Benzimra

 

1st part of 2

During the visit of French President Nicolas Sarkozy to Israel last June, his Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Bernard Kouchner, was interviewed by Guysen News International, a francophone online network based in Jerusalem. On the issue of the Middle East peace process, Mr. Kouchner's observations can be summarized as follows:

Everyone knows that a viable Palestinian state must be created side by side with Israel, and it must be done urgently. To this effect, Israel must put an end to the colonization; remove a few tens of thousands of settlers; compensate them to return to Israel; and hand over their homes to the Palestinians, without destroying them, as was the case in Gaza. Of course, Hamas continues to fire rockets, but Israel must stop the confrontation that feeds extremism. Later, the return of the refugees and the issue of Jerusalem must also be discussed. (Note 1)


THIS HODGE-PODGE OF WORN OUT IDEAS, DOGMATIC PRONOUNCEMENTS AND MENDACIOUS TERMINOLOGY must first be confronted with factual truths.

First, the destruction of Jewish owned houses in Gaza was not only coordinated but encouraged at the highest levels of the Palestinian Authority (PA). On May 5, 2005, Mr. Saeb Erekat, chief Palestinian negotiator, declared in an interview to Voice of Peace: "I will tell the Israelis to demolish all [the houses] and even take all the rubble with you, because this is our firm position - to demolish these houses because we do not want to live in them." This decision was later confirmed on May 26, 2005, by Mr. Mohamed Shtayyeh, the Palestinian Minister of Public Works: "If Israel does not destroy the settlers' homes, we will destroy them" (Note 2). Destruction was not limited to buildings and housing units. Most greenhouses, highly efficient productive centers, were vandalized by the Palestinians in spite of a $14 million private fund raised by James Wolfensohn, the former president of the World Bank.

Second, Hamas is not the only group to fire rockets from the Gaza Strip. Ignoring the recent cease-fire agreement, the Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigade claimed responsibility for the latest round of rockets. Let us not forget that these Brigades are part of Fatah and under the authority of President Mahmoud Abbas with whom, according to Mr. Kouchner, negotiations are possible.

But beyond these "details", Mr. Kouchner's position must be challenged on more fundamental grounds. While everyone is entitled to his opinion on the "Palestinian cause", no one should be allowed to distort the facts. It is high time that this "urgent necessity to create a viable Palestinian state" (in Judea & Samaria, of all places, and after uprooting all its Jewish communities) be assessed rationally.
 

NEITHER INTERNATIONAL LAW, NOR HISTORICAL FACTS, NOR GEO-STRATEGIC CONSIDERATIONS COULD SUPPORT THE CREATION of a new Arab state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Even though Mr. Kouchner tells us that "everyone knows...", here is what everyone should really know.
 

On legal grounds:

The 1922 Mandate for Palestine (Note 3) recognized the region known as "Palestine" as the historic, national and exclusive heritage of the Jewish people. This key document of international law –– which has never been abrogated, and the spirit of which was entrenched in Article 80 of the Charter of the United Nations –– should be the basis of any resolution of the Israeli-Arab conflict. When this document was approved by the Council of the League of Nations in July 1922, Palestine had already been carved out of its eastern region (Transjordan [now called Jordan]), as shown in Article 25. This partition resulted in "postponing or withholding" all Jewish settlements east of the Jordan River and, to this day, there are no Jews living in that area.

How many times must Palestine be partitioned? Was it not a violation of the provisions of the Mandate (Article 5) to envisage a further partition of Palestine, as recommended by the Peel Commission in 1937 (Note 4) or by UN Resolution 181 in 1947 (Note 5)? Even though Israeli jurists Meir Shamgar and Theodor Meron, in the wake of the Six Day War of 1967, wrongly advised their government to view Judea & Samaria (the "West Bank") as "territories regulated by the Geneva Conventions", the validity of the provisions of the Mandate remains intact. So, how many more transgressions of international law are Mr. Kouchner and his western colleagues prepared to suggest, even to support, in order to appease the real transgressors whose final objective is the destruction of Israel?

The Mandate is also very clear with regard to the establishment of Jewish communities in Palestine. Article 6 encourages the development of these communities in all the lands located west of the Jordan River, which makes their status perfectly legal. When Mr. Kouchner refers to these communities as colonies and urges Israel to put an end to the colonization –– a most derogatory term –– he shows his ignorance of the facts. Dismantling these Jewish communities would be tantamount to condoning the ethnic cleansing that Arabs have practiced in the region up to 1967.

End part 1

Salomon Benzimra

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

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