So says Boston University Law Professor Susan M. Akram at the One-State Conference held at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University last weekend.
There is no legal basis for a Jewish state, let alone the right of the Jewish nation to self-determination.
Take a listen:
Here are the words in black and white:
Israel’s claim of a state, on the basis of exclusive and discriminatory rights to Jews [sic], has never been juridically recognized. In other words, the concept of the Jewish people as a national entity with extraterritorial claims has never been recognized under international law.
But Professor, Israel's claim of a state is not exclusionary or discriminatory, but the opposite.
Court recognition is not necessary under international law. Sovereignty is what matters, either a state’s assertion of its sovereignty within the territory it exclusively controls or when when it is recognized as such by other states in a legal sense. Israel meets both international tests, among other indications. It has been recognized by the vast majority of states, the UN, the International Court of Justice, and scores of other intergovernmental and international organizations.
Recognition is not a matter for the court to determine anyway. It is not "justiciable," meaning capable of being decided by legal principles or by a court of justice.
As for the recognition under international law of the Jewish people "as a national entity with extraterritorial claims" the Professor could not be more wrong.
The Jewish people have legal rights going back to the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine of 1922. It took responsibility placing Palestine "under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment of the Jewish national home." It recognized "the historical connexion of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country."
Not to mention the findings of the Peel Commission of 1936 and UN Resolution 181 in 1947 that both recommended a Partition that would include a Jewish state.
I suspect that Professor Akram would say that the 2004 advisory opinion of the ICJ in Wall Case was terrific. If so, even though I dispute its findings, I would suggest that it recognizes Israel is sovereign and that Jews have self-determination.
One must therefore ask why Professor Akram would promote what is completely wrong and misleading?
Which gets to the Conference itself. Harvard really dropped the ball. I agree with Harvard Hillel president Sara Kantor that:
Harvard’s name has a certain power and it seemed to be presented as a Harvard one-state conference. It lends a certain legitimacy that this conference didn’t necessarily have.
This was not a "Harvard" conference at all, but one organized by anti-Israel students and supporters, created to:
Educate ourselves and others about the possible contours of a one-state solution and the challenges that stand in the way of its realization.
The Conference was sponsored by several student groups - namely, Justice for Palestine (HLS), the Palestine Caucus (HKS), the Arab Caucus (HKS), the Progressive Caucus (HKS), and the Association for Justice in the Middle East (GSAS).
Shmuel Rosner, senior political editor for The Jewish Journal said in the International Herald Tribune:
The event was less an academic forum than an activists’ party ... The program included just one speaker with first-hand familiarity with the peace negotiations.
The one speaker referred to was Diana Buttu, former legal advisor to the PLO and also an organizer of the event. Buttu is vehemently anti-Israel, and is not above giving false information in pursuit of the cause. (See video here and here).
As such, the reader may decide for him or her self about the Conference and Harvard's role. A CAMERA article offers more information about the main participants and responsibility of the university.
I would ask many of those who proudly call themselves Progressives AND Zionists, why is the Progressive Caucus part of this scene, so eager to hear and promote the likes of Ms. Buttu and other speakers at the Conference like Ilan Pappe and Stephen Walt, all avowed anti-Zionists? Where is the opposition to these people and what they stand for and are trying to do?
And to go further, is all this REALLY so small a part of the Democratic Party that all Democrats should see it as the work of a fringe? If so, how can one explain the Gaza 54, all Democrats, and the 91 Democrats that did not sign the Hoyer-Cantor letter?
It is not as if the matter is pervasive, but is it prudent or wise to look away or treat as pariahs and deranged the people that identify what is actually taking place, such as what is shown above?
(Cross-posted at oldschooltwentysix)
(Cross-posted at oldschooltwentysix)
The truth of the matter, of course, is that Israel has more legitimacy as a country than virtually any other country on the planet.
ReplyDeleteFrom a moral perspective, from a political perspective, and from a legal perspective this is just undeniable.
In fact, I am horrified and disgusted that this conversation is even taking place.
2,000 years we got our asses kicked.
2,000 years and these insidious swine want to rob us of the means of self-defense. This is not just a few bloggers on Daily Kos.
This is Harvard University.
This is Yale from last year terminating YIISA, the Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism.
And, yet, our brothers and sisters in the fight want to go after Republicans and Christians.
I am telling you guys, the American Jewish community needs to wake up to where the fight really is. It's not against the John Hagees of the world.
Our fight, sadly enough, is a fight within the very political movement that we did so much to build.
And, no, I do not like it any more than you guys do.
I hope to hear some answers to the questions I asked.
DeleteTo see the problem as Mormons and fundamentalist Christian Republicans, which they seem to obsessively do, is to see the matter in a religious light only.
It neglects the secular, political dimension that denies Israel and the Jewish people, and offers much more concern, here in the US and internationally.
I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for "progressive Zionists" to answer for the fact that the Progressive Caucus was involved.
DeleteThey're too busy screaming at "Republicans"... which apparently now means anyone who disagrees with them... for the last 4 decades to bother looking to themselves.
They're ideological cowards.
Well, I just believe they do not have their eyes on the fastball that is heading directly at them, but would rather hit it off of a tee.
DeleteStop playing defense.
ReplyDeleteIt's come to the point where Jewish people (who are those who haven't gone completely mad and who haven't swallowed absurd insane imbecilic racist genocidal anti-Jewish lies and who haven't outright joined a racist genocidal anti-Jewish movement) are even arguing with Ivy League academic genocidal anti-Jewish racists about whether the liberal democratic tiny sole nation of the Jewish people, Israel, has a "Right" to exist?
Are Jewish people insane?
What the hell is wrong with Jewish people?
SIMPLY TELL THE HISTORICAL FACTS OF THE RACIST INTENDEDLY GENOCIDAL WAR BEING WAGED AGAINST THE NATION OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE!
O The British Mandate of Palestine included what is now Jordan.
O There were more Jewish refugees from Muslim states than there were Arab refugees from Israel.
O All of those refugees - Jewish and Arab - were caused by a self-declared "Jihadi" intendedly genocidal attack on Israel by Muslim Arab states in 1948.
O Jordan occupied Yehouda and Shomron from 1949 to 1967, and Jordan renamed Yehouda and Shomron to the name "The West Bank" - referring to Yehouda and Shomron as "the west bank" of the Jordan river.
O Egypt occupied what is now called "The Gaza Strip" from 1949 until 1967.
O Between the years 1949 and 1967, the leaders of Muslim Arab states, and the leaders of what, in the 1960's, came to be called the 'Palestinian movement', had no intention of establishing any so-called 'Palestinian' Arab state in what Jordan renamed to the name "The West Bank" and in what is now called "The Gaza Strip", and made no effort to establish any so-called 'Palestinian' Arab state in what Jordan renamed to the name "The West Bank" and in what is now called "The Gaza Strip".
O The Jewish refugees from Muslim states in the Middle East found refuge in Israel and in other countries. The Jewish refugees from Muslim states in the Middle East who found refuge in Israel became citizens of Israel, and the still living members of, and the descendants of, those Jewish refugees from Muslim states are citizens of Israel and constitute approximately 50 percent of the Jewish population of Israel, and refer to themselves as Mizrahi, which means "Eastern" in Hebrew.
O The Arab refugees from the 1948 Muslim Arab attack on Israel, and the descendants of the Arab refugees from the Muslim Arab attack on Israel, began to be called the 'Palestinian' Arab refugees in the 1960's, and still living members of, and the currently several million descendants of, those Arab refugees from the 1948 Muslim Arab attack on Israel have come to now even be called 'the Palestinians', and do not live in Israel, and are not citizens of Israel, and live in what is now called "The West Bank", which is governed by Fatah-PLO-PalestinianAuthority, and in what is now called "The Gaza Strip", which is governed by Hamas, and in refugee camps in Muslim Arab states.
O There have been tens of millions of refugees since the end of World War II, almost all of whom have been relocated to, and absorbed into, the countries to which they fled or were expelled - such as several million ethnically German people who lived in the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia (Sudeten Germans) who, immediately after World War II, were expelled from the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia, and who were, subsequently, relocated to, and absorbed into, Germany.
O British officials created the Arab state of Transjordan in The British Mandate of Palestine between 1922 and 1924.
ReplyDeleteO In 1946, Britain granted autonomy to Transjordan, and Transjordan was renamed Jordan.
O Jewish leaders in the British Mandate of Palestine accepted the 1947 partition plan and every other earlier similar proposition for the creation of one Arab state in, and one Jewish state in, the part of the British Mandate of Palestine which did not become Jordan. The Arab leaders in the Middle East refused the 1947 partition plan and every other earlier similar proposition for the creation of one Arab state in, and one Jewish state in, the part of the British Mandate of Palestine which did not become Jordan.
O The still living members of, and the descendants of, the Arab people who did not flee from Israel immediately before, nor during, 1948 Muslim Arab attack on Israel, and who were not among the few Arab people who were expelled from Israel during the 1948 Muslim Arab attack on Israel, live in Israel, and are citizens of Israel, and constitute approximately 20 percent of the population of Israel.
O All citizens of Israel have equal civil rights by the law in Israel, and are granted equal protection under the law in Israel.
O Anyone who is deemed to be Jewish (by ethnicity, or by religion) by the government of Israel can be automatically granted citizenship of Israel. This automatic granting of citizenship, by Israel, to people who are Jewish is similar to the automatic granting of citizenship, by other democratic countries, such as Japan, and some European countries, to people whose ethnicities, or whose parents' nationalities, are those of the nationalities of those democratic countries.
O Anyone, whether or not they are Jewish, can apply for, and be granted, citizenship of Israel, in the same way that anyone can apply for, and be granted, citizenship of other democratic countries.
O Israel is the nation of the Jewish people. Just like Ireland is the nation of the Irish people. And just like Japan is the nation of the Japanese people. And just like Italy is the nation of the Italian people. And just like Thailand is the nation of the Thai people. Israel is, therein, the Jewish state. Just like Ireland is the Irish state. And just like Japan is the Japanese state. And just like Italy is the Italian state. And just like Thailand is the Thai state.
O The founder of the 'Palestinian movement', Haj Amin al-Husseini, was a member of the Arab aristocratic Husseini family, and organized Arab anti-Jewish massacres in the British Mandate of Palestine from 1920 to the late 1930's, and was appointed, by British officials, to the position of Grand Mufti of Jerusalem in 1921.
ReplyDeleteO Haj Amin al-Husseini joined the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928, and was an early leader of the Muslim Brotherhood.
O Haj Amin al-Husseini was the most prominent, and most influential, Muslim leader in the Muslim world during the 1930's and 1940's.
O Haj Amin al-Husseini resided in Germany from 1941 to 1945, and was an adjoined official of the Nazi regime of Germany, and, with his colleague Adolf Eichmann, was a co-architect of the Nazi 'Final Solution' - the mass-murder of approximately six million Jewish people by the Nazi regime of Germany.
O Haj Amin al-Husseini, as the head of the Arab Higher Committee, was the coordinator of the 1948 Muslim Arab attack on Israel by the armies of several Arab states.
O Haj Amin al-Husseini was the mentor of, and an uncle of, Egyptian-born Yasser Arafat (Mohammed Yasser Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini), and provided Nazi training, from German former Nazi officials, to Yasser Arafat and other Muslim Arab "Arab Nationalist" (Muslim Arab officially Nazi-affiliated) militia terrorist commandos.
O In 1958, Yasser Arafat and Khalil al-Wazir ("Abu Jihad") and other Muslim Arab "Arab Nationalists" (Muslim Arab Nazis), including Mahmoud Abbas, founded Fatah, under the guidance of Haj Amin al-Husseini.
O In 1964, in Egypt, the "Arab Nationalist" then-President of then-Soviet-supported Egypt, Gamal Abdel Nasser, and members of the Soviet KGB, founded the PLO (the Palestinian Liberation Organization).
O During the 1960's, Yasser Arafat was trained in the Balashikha KGB special-ops school in Russia, and was groomed to become the head of the PLO, and, between the years 1969 and 1970, Yasser Arafat, as the head of Fatah, took the position of head of the PLO.
O Fatah-PLO-PalestinianAuthority is, in fact, literally, a Nazi organization.
O The 'Palestinian movement' is, in fact, literally, a Nazi movement, and was created to annihilate the nation of the Jewish people.
I apologize for the harshness of my writing in the beginning of the first of my previous comments.
ReplyDeleteDan,
Deleteyou are among the least harsh people ever to participate here.
No worries, please.
Thank you, Michael.
DeleteMichael,
ReplyDeleteI linked your blog (and oldschooltwentysix) in an article I wrote for an Australian left wing, anti-Israel blog where I have been commenting under my own name for years. Webdiary. They refused to publish it. In fact they are refusing to put up anything more to do with "Israel" as a matter of policy.
I regard this as a good sign.
You can see the piece I wrote here.
http://avatarbriefs.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/wednesday-wisdom_29.html
Thanks geoffff,
DeleteI'll be sure to check it out.
Michael,
DeleteBecause of this I have finally opened my own blog. Something I have resisted doing for over ten years.
Geoffff's Joint, Bar and Grill.
Open for business.
http://geofffff.blogspot.com.au/