Opinions of Peter Belmont
Speaking Truth to Power
| A New Paradigm For Israel/Palestine Progress |
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by Peter A. Belmont / 2014-11-01
I am ever hopeful for a “just and lasting” resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict, but hopeless about progress toward this goal for so long as those working for such an outcome concentrate solely on “peace”. ”Netanyahu has given a final goodbye to the Bar Ilan Speech,” wrote commentator Shalom Yerushalmi. “The same Prime Minister who once promised the Palestinians a state, had last Monday informed them on the Knesset floor that there would be no 1967 lines, nor any other borders marked on the map, and no division of Jerusalem, and no Jordan Valley, and no independent forces in the Palestinian state, and in fact there would be no negotiations. And to all these categorical rejections was attached a firm Netanyahu demand that Abbas recognize the Jewish state.” The concentration on “peace”—and on such questions as “What do you want, one state or two?”—has reached a dead end. And, after so many years in the limelight, this question must be seen as no more than a distraction from useful work which can be done. What is needed is a new paradigm. Instead of concentrating on the ultimate question of peace, we now need to turn to a problem that must, in any case, be answered as a preliminary to peace, namely, what will be the engine for transformation? What will be the mechanism of change? In this essay I encourage thinkers to make a paradigm shift. I ask people to forget (for the moment) about the precise nature of an eventual peace and think instead of a way of getting there—wherever “there” may ultimately turn out to be. The Paradigm Shift I ask all concerned folks to think about a different future, not a far distant future at peace, but a closer future in which Israel, as an occupying power—and for so long as it chooses to remain an occupying power—is effectively compelled by the gradually increasing sanctioning behavior of a gradually increasing number of the nations of the world to comply with the standard of behavior which the world has set for occupying powers—the standard set forth in international law and international agreements. What brings me to this view-point? Let us examine the current state of play. What are the most significant facts about the awful situation we find ourselves in today? First, Israel shows no signs of willingly ending its occupations of the Golan Heights and of the West Bank and Gaza. If Israel is to make any sort of peace, it will have to be coerced. The long history since 1967 and the vastly expensive Israeli settlements (expensive both in money and in human and political commitment) are persuasive that Israel means to continue these occupations indefinitely. Second, Israel totally ignores many of the requirements of international law and of such agreements as the Fourth Geneva Convention of which Israel and most nations are signatories. More about this below. Third, the USA—largely by use of its UNSC veto but also through use of its enormous economic and military power— has claimed the right to manage the conflict and has chosen to manage it in a manner which so far has defeated international law and indefinitely prolonged the occupations. Nothing suggests that the USA is interested (except rhetorically) in ending the Israeli/Palestinian conflict by bringing about the “just and lasting peace” imagined by UNSC 242 (1967). And nothing suggests that the USA will anytime soon break free of the trammels of AIPAC and the rest of the big-money constellation[1] which I call BIG-ZION. There Will Be No Progress Until The Nations Overcome Their Lethargy And Impose Their Will On Israel From these considerations it becomes clear that there can be no progress toward any reformative change in Israel/Palestine relations unless and until a sufficiently weighty part of the international community overcomes its own lethargy and its own subservience to the USA (or to AIPAC and BIG-ZION, if you prefer) and, instead, acts to coerce/compel Israel toward some ameliorative change. We see some signs these days that the nations may be casting off their unwillingness to play a helpful role. Nations have begun to “recognize Palestine as a state”. Products made or grown in occupied territories are being required to be so labeled. We may hope that they will soon be denied entry (for sale) entirely, however labeled. Some of the impetus for these changes has been the civil society efforts of the BDS campaign. And much of the impetus has been the direct humane reaction of ordinary people to news stories—where such news stories are allowed to be broadcast—about Israeli atrocities. The people of the world are far ahead of their governments in the matter of concern for the human and national rights of the Palestinian people. But the governments are beginning to catch up. Toward What End Should Collective Pressure Be Directed? But a central question remains: if the nations ever do get to a point of applying coordinated, coercive pressure upon Israel, toward what end should that pressure be applied? And how would the several nations coordinate their coercive efforts? It is unlikely that such pressure could be useful unless its goals and its application were both coordinated. I can imagine the nations thinking about several possibilities. First, the nations could seek to define a peace agreement satisfactory to themselves and attempt to coerce Israel (and Palestine!) to sign on to it. Second, they could define an end of occupation (at least a withdrawal of Israeli citizens and armed forces from all or from some occupied territories) and attempt to coerce Israel to make such a withdrawal. This is not quite “peace” but close to it. Third, they could define a satisfactorily law-abiding method of occupation and demand that Israel comply with it. They could attempt to enforce the “rule of law” to a greater or lesser extent upon Israel’s occupations (the occupations of Syria’s Golan Heights and of Palestine’s Gaza and West Bank). I think there are problems with the first two choices. Here’s my thinking on the first choice, defining peace. How are the nations to decide among themselves the terms of a satisfactory peace agreement and how are they to coerce both Israel and Palestine to “get on board” this draft treaty? The last time the nations tried to define a “peace” was UNGA-181 (1947) and what came from that was the war of 1948. It is hard for the nations to get such things right. And it is hard to draft long and complicated documents (such as peace treaties) and get them both “right” and agreeable to all the nations doing the agreeing—much less to the nations, Israel and Palestine, which are supposed to sign the treaties! The second choice—total Israeli withdrawal without a peace treaty, especially if it be total withdrawal to the pre-1967 borders, at least has the advantage of clarity. The nations could easily agree to total withdrawal as a goal of their coercion. But even if Israel withdrew, under international compulsion, there’d be no peace treaty. And, in any case, there is no need to adopt this goal when there is a better goal (described next below) that can be adopted first and which might allow Israel and Palestine to find their own peace treaty, one to suit their own needs and possibly quite different from any which the other nations might dream up on their own. Some readers may not see much to choose between my second and third option. And, indeed, they are not so different after all. Over many years we’ve seen that “getting to peace” takes forever if one party is not interested in peace. But even if both parties are interested, it is still a difficult and time-consuming task, not something to be rushed (as Oslo almost surely was). The third choice is the one that I see as most promising: the choice to compel Israel to comply with the international law of occupation for so long as the occupation continues. For I believe that the nations could relatively easily define the Israeli behaviors which would satisfy them as to compliance and which would allow them, upon full compliance by Israel, to end their program of coercion. I discuss the international law considerations below. A Modest Proposal: Rules for a Law-Compliant Occupation I believe that the nations could agree to a rather simply stated demand for international legitimacy of the continuing occupations: [1] that Israel permanently and quickly (say, within one year) remove all the Israeli settlers; [2] that Israel permanently and quickly (say, within one year) remove/demolish/dismantle the “separation wall” and make reparations as set forth in the July 2004 advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ); [3] that Israel permanently and almost quickly (say, within two years) remove/demolish/dismantle all settlement buildings—residences, businesses, universities, communal and cultural and religious buildings—built in any occupied territory by or for Israel or by or for Israelis since 1967; and [4] that Israel immediately and permanently end its blockade of Gaza and allow the unimpeded transportation into and out of Gaza of all goods other than military weapons. Why These Demands Would Be Enough Even if the international community found that Israel’s violations of international law went beyond these four items, nevertheless these four demands would be enough to start with. After all, if Israel refused to comply with these simply stated requirements, what would be the use of piling on more demands? Or, contrariwise, the nations could always change their goal to total Israeli removal from all occupied territories. Whatever the goals of the international coercion, the emphasis in case of Israeli reluctance would be on increasing the compulsion (“sanctions” on diplomacy, sport, culture, travel, weapons traffic, general trade, etc.) rather than on increasing the number of demands. And if Israel complied with these demands but otherwise continued to violate international norms, the nations could always establish new goals and reactivate their sanctions. I believe that this coercive process would play out in the following manner. Initially, Israel would refuse to comply and would thus put the nations to the test. If the nations did not “fold”, they’d begin to apply against Israel a program of sanctions, probably of graduated severity, and continue to make them more severe as time passed and Israel showed no intention of complying. Also, once the program of sanctions got “off the ground”, the number of nations participating in sanctions would increase. After the seriousness of the nations had been tested, and Israel was persuaded that their program of compulsion was not “mere words” (note that Israel views all UNSC and UNGA resolutions and the 2004 ICJ opinion as “mere words” to be ignored), Israel would begin to comply. It would begin to remove its settlers and to dismantle the wall and the settlements. It would lift the blockade on Gaza. But long before it completed all those works (and recall that the building of all those settlement buildings was enormously expensive and the building of residence within pre-1967 Israeli territory for the soon-to-be-returning settlers, who amount to about 10% of Israel’s Jewish population, would also be an enormous expense), Israel would begin to negotiate seriously with Palestine about a peace which would allow some settlement buildings and some settlers to remain. It seems likely that Israel would prefer either a single non-discriminatory democratic state (or two states or something else) to a continuing occupation with its entire 47-year settlement program scattered to the winds. However, if even under the necessity to remove all settlers, the wall and settlements, and the blockade, Israel still refused to make peace, then at least the nations would have flexed their muscles and taken a principled stand for the rule of law, something which has greatly needed doing these 47 years. And the so-called “facts on the ground” would have been shown to be less factual than nowadays often supposed. Under the circumstances of this coercive process-in-progress, the Palestinians would have significant bargaining power, for Israel would wish to retain as many settlements as possible. So a real negotiation leading to a real peace would become—for the first time since 1947—a lively possibility. OK, that’s my dream. Let us now examine why the nations would accept these four points as a satisfactory Israeli compliance with international law. What International Law Demands International law sees settlements as illegal for two different reasons. First, the seizure (confiscation) of land from the people living under occupation is generally illegal. It is allowed where needed by the occupying power (here Israel) for a reason of military necessity, but no military necessity has led to the confiscation of the lands upon which all the settlement buildings—residential housing, factories, a university, etc.—have been built. And therefore all those buildings should be removed/demolished/dismantled. Indeed, UNSC-465 (1980) calls for exactly that. Secondly, the Fourth Geneva Convention makes settling an occupier’s citizens in occupied territory a crime, and the statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) makes settlement a war crime. The International Court of Justice in its July 2004 advisory opinion regarding Israel’s separation wall, showed how the wall violates international law and agreements. Lastly, the blockade of Gaza is a form of “collective punishment” of protected persons living under belligerent occupation and is forbidden by the Fourth Geneva Convention. (Most of the destruction caused by the Israeli devastations of Gaza such as the recent 2014 devastation are also examples of collective punishment as well as, in many cases, war crimes.) Thus, although there might be disagreement among the nations about which Israeli actions in its occupations violated international law, there can be little disagreement that the settlements, settlers, wall, and blockade of Gaza are violations and must be ended. For this reason, agreement among the nations on a goal for a regime of sanctions should be easy to be achieved if that goal is the 4-point program set forth above. This is not to suggest that getting the nations to agree to take forceful steps will be easy. No indeed. They have been so slow for so many years that inactivity has become a more important principle to most states than the enforcement of international law. But there is no international law that requires states (such as Israel and Palestine) to make peace treaties when they are not ready to do so. So, if international law is to play a role, a legally compliant occupation seems the way to go. ----------- [1] America seems to me, as to many others, to be run for most purposes by an oligarchy which I call the “BIGs”—BIG-DEFENSE, BIG-BANKS, BIG-OIL, BIG-AGRI, BIG-PHARMA, and BIG-ZION prominent among them. |
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