As a rule we try to avoid BBC articles about Israeli construction in the West Bank because blood pressure medication is kind of expensive - so this new Google feature that delivers "Israel"-related news to our personal homepage has literally been taking years off our lives. This morning, BBC correspondent Raffi Berg
pontificates on Maale Adumim, a West Bank city larger than Tel Aviv:
On a hill east of Jerusalem stands the settlement of Maale Adumim, the fate of which is emerging as one of the thorniest and most critical issues dividing Israel and the Palestinians... But it is built on land claimed by the Palestinians for a future state and, like all settlements, is considered illegal under international law - although Israel disputes this.
It's considered illegal by whom? Israel disputes what exactly ("disputes this"? - we wouldn't let undergrads get away with such a vague, useless sentence).
What strange sentence construction you have, Mr. Berg.
The better to subtly mislead to you about the Israeli-Palestinian situation.
Reading this, one might conclude - as one is clearly intended to - that the illegality of Maale Adumim is settled international law, but that Israel - as a rogue country that rejects international law - "disputes this". That conclusion is false. How can you be so sure that the article is trying to mislead you? Because the BBC felt the need to include a side-bar "clarifying" the point, in a weasel-like attempt to preempt any accusations of bias:
Widely regarded by international community as illegal under international law according to Fourth Geneva Convention (article 49), which prohibits an occupying power transferring citizens from its own territory to occupied territory.
Israel argues international conventions relating to occupied land do not apply to West Bank because they were not under the legitimate sovereignty of any state in the first place.
"Considered illegal" becomes "widely regarded... as illegal", and "Israel disputes this" becomes a full-fledged and legally robust argument that West Bank construction is in no way illegal. Lots of issues related to Israel are "widely regarded... as illegal" - largely because most people realize that
international law is so politicized that Israel will lose any suits brought before international tribunals. Somehow,
insanely corrupted kleptocrats from countries which don't even have transparent or functioning legal systems (China, Jordan, Egypt, Russia, Brazil, etc) suddenly become indefatigable Hammurabis just by going to the Netherlands and putting on a robe. As if a so-called judge from Jordan or Egypt can be in Amman or Cairo on Monday and crassly say that Israel is an illegal entity against which
"all available means, including armed struggle" are legitimate, and on Wednesday can suddenly become a careful adjudicator of fact and law. It's an open secret that international law is a tool of war against Israel by other means - but Israel is still expected to play the game and pretend that those judges who openly say that they'll use any means to undermine Israel won't use the international legal system.
In any fair court, Israel's legal arguments would almost certainly carry the day: Israel is not in occupation of any state, quite simply because no state has ever been legally declared in the West Bank. As the British Mandate over the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea expired, the United Nations divided that land into disconnected pockets reserved for a Jewish state and an Arab state. On May 14th, 1948, the State of Israel was declared on the land reserved for the Jewish state. On May 15th, 1948, Israel was invaded by the armies of Lebanon, Syria, Transjordan, Iraq, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen. Israel pushed back against those armies, expanding the state to the 1967 Green Line. Meanwhile, Jordan occupied the West Bank and Egypt occupied the Gaza Strip. But - crucially - those occupations were illegal because that land was never reserved for Egypt or Jordan.
The Arab occupation of what was much, much later to become "Palestinian" land was not a problem politically - mostly because the Arab occupants of that land considered themselves
Jordanian or Egyptian, not Palestinian:
Way back on March 31, 1977, the Dutch newspaper Trouw published an interview with Palestine Liberation Organization executive committee member Zahir Muhsein. Here's what he said:
The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism.
For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.
So the Palestinian Liberation Organization was only pretending to represent an occupied people - they considered themselves Jordanian. So while Jordan was in possession of the West Bank, there was no reason to declare a state in the West Bank - and when Israel took the territory from Jordan, they didn't declare their own state because, at least 10 years later, they still considered themselves Jordanian and waited for Jordan to take the territory back. So since 1948, there's never been a state in the West Bank - which makes all the legal difference in the world. International law distinguishes between being "occupied territories" and "occupied disputed territories" - the former is the invasion of another soverign state and punishable through the coercive mechanisms available under international law, while the latter is far more complicated and does not readily lend itself to international punishment. As a result of the Palestinians thinking of themselves as Jordanian, and therefore never declaring a state in the West Bank, there has never been a state in that territory - it is not "occupied territory", but "occupied disputed territory" - a legal distinction which was created precisely to distinguish between what situations should be punished by things like sanctions and what situations should be worked out through negotiations. The persuasive case that Israel is not in illegal occupation of another state (because another state hasn't existed during modern times in the West Bank) is what causes more careful newspapers to use the phrase "land the Palestinians believe is reserved for a future state". But not the BBC - no, to the BBC Israeli occupation is "considered illegal under international law". Of course: "although Israel disputes this."
[Cross-posted at IsraPundit]
