Information Dominance Cubed (ID3)

Free Gaza From Hamas

2010-05-24T05:46:00.002-04:00

Fifth Response to Talknic

2010-03-13T06:43:00.011-05:00

I wrote this down weeks ago, but never posted it. I spent 15 minutes reading it over and finishing up at the end, but to be honest I have lost my train of thought and do not know if it is complete. If you feel I did not answer ALL the questions point them out.

When two or more states are involved, it is not a Civil War, even though a Civil War might also be in progress...

So it can't be a civil war even when a civil war is in progress? Check... Are you related to Baghdad Bob by any chance? This sort of comedy just can't be made up.

As I explained, it was to show WHY the UNSC was involved. It’s irrelevant which period, because UNSC involvement was and still is governed by the UN Charter ALL THE TIME, regardless of what conflict.

After you claimed that the UN Security Council does not get involved in civil wars, I pointed to Security Council resolutions and the Congo crisis of the early 60s as an example to refute your statement, you have been in denial ever since. Obviously you misunderstood that MUNOC was the current UN intervention and knew nothing about ONUC or the history of the first intervention. You cut and pasted a link to the current mission statement of MUNOC, which has absolutely nothing to do with why the UN was there 40 years prior. A careless mistake, which my guess is because of relying on Wikipedia for your information (the same link to MUNOC is the only external link on the subject there...coincidentally). If you thought you had some supporting evidence to refute that the UN was involved in a civil war in the Congo conflict I was referring to, as you are (now) claiming, then why didn't you just use one of the many UN resolutions of the relevant time period? Obviously it is denial, and your antics to avoid admitting you were wrong have taken on comical proportions, Bob.

As to your new (pointless) claim that the UN has been governed by the charter all along, this reinforces the fact that you are being dishonest. Instead of using the MUNOC mission statement you could have used the very Charter to rely upon, which predated the MUNOC mission by some six decades or so, to use as a rebuttal source for your counter claim that the UN does not get involved in civil wars, (foolish as that claim would have been). I have never disputed what the UN says, any fool can view UN documents. What I have disputed is your interpretation of what the Charter says and whether the UN has followed the rules you think the Charter lays out. It has not. Israel for example, is the only nation that is unequal to all others in violation of the purposes and principles, as codified in Chapter 1, Article 2 (1) of the Charter, a situation the UN has deemed acceptable for 60 years without convening one of its many infamous one sided special sessions on Israel. But that aside, I want to be clear about what you are saying (this time), even though there are many relevant Security Council resolutions concerning the ACTUAL CRISIS in 1961 that I was referring to, and gave quotes from relevant Security Council resolutions from, you chose a mission statement that explains what the UN is doing in the Congo....four decades later...to prove that there was no civil war in the Congo in 1961, right?

On top of being humorous, your denial undergoes a transformation every time you post. It has gone from claiming that the Security Council does not get involved in civil wars to linking to an irrelevant mission statement you found on Wikipedia saying that the current conflict involves 5 regional states and so therefore according to you is not a civil war! then, apparently without having read the resolutions I quoted from, you tried to claim that the resolutions authorizing the use of force were mere "STATEMENTS" that "neither recommend or offer any active involvement by the UNSC" After I pointed out that they both authorize the use of force, you must have read them closer, because then your claim changed to really bizarre denial... "I did not say there was no civil war" Huh? You were just so sure it was a "stoush" between five regional states that you put an exclamation point behind the declaration that it was not a civil war! that the UN was in Congo to end. Then with a straight face, just a few days later on the 9th you suddenly claim that I did not say there was no civil war. I am running around the pitch trying to score a goal, but you keep moving the goal posts around. This is too funny to be made up, hence the apt picture in my mind's eye of Baghdad Bob using the Talknic alias and the classic, incessant denial you share with him. Of course, now that you have been exposed, you are trying to say that you only linked to MUNOC because you were simply giving the ACTUAL information from MONUC as to when and why the UNSC did become actively involved. But wait, Bob... Exactly what relevance is an event that takes place 40 years in the future? When trying to determine specifically how, why, and when Britain became involved in WWI, would you prattle on about how, why, or when Britain became involved with WWII just because some of the state actors are the same? Fascinating stuff....no really, Bob. I love history, but I just prefer it to be relevant to the time in history under discussion. Would you be angry if I just refer to you as Talknic Bob from now on? I can't shake the image now that you have proven to have such a comedic persona.

Civil Wars are the business and only the business of the State in which the civil war is taking place. Civil wars are wars contained within the jurisdiction of a state, no matter which Government is in power at the time.

The point you seem to be trying to make is that the UN does not get involved in civil war. Some people do not believe shit stinks until they have their noses rubbed in it, and you seem to be one, Bob. Considering potential refugees, arms smuggling, violations of treaties and human rights (genocide for example), instability, and other factors I do not feel like listing, you are wrong about civil wars being the sole business of the state in which the civil war is taking place in. Below I will quote the UN, the ICJ, and the ICRC to show that those organizations clearly feel that non-international conflict can be a threat to international peace exactly as I have maintained all along. According to the sources I have detailed below, civil wars are not necessarily "the business and only the business" of the state they are fought in as Talknic Bob asserts.

//UN Charter Chapter I : PURPOSES AND PRINCIPLES Article: 2 Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state or shall require the Members to submit such matters to settlement under the present Charter; but this principle shall not prejudice the application of enforcement measures under Chapter Vll.//

Thanks for highlighting the irrelevant portion of Article 2. The irony of that is that you vigorously demand that others read the fine print, yet seem unable to do so yourself since you cut and pasted the very caveat that disproves your ignorant assertion that the Security Council does not get involved in civil war. Maybe you just missed the caveat, Bob...this principle shall not prejudice the application of enforcement measures under Chapter Vll. Which means, for those of us who read the fine print, the UN (under Chapter VII) can, has, and likely will in the future become involved in CIVIL WARS, exactly as I have stated and exactly what you have tried to deny since pursuing this tangential denial (which highlights your general lack of accuracy on the entirety of your web site). As I have promised, below I will present some supporting evidence from the ICRC, the ICJ, the UN, and a few respected scholars that you can deny, Bob. I can always use a good laugh and I am sure anyone bothering to read along, not lost by your convoluted denial and illogic, can too.

Strange, authorization was to use FORCE against FOREIGN forces and military personnel and in protecting itself, (UN forces and personnel) against mercenaries. It was authorized to give ASSISTANCE in PREVENTING civil war. ASSISTANCE is in one section. FORCE in another. Read the resolutions CARE FULLY!

Why don't we read carefully as you demand, Talknic Bob. We have concluded you do not read the fine print.

The Security Council,

Having considered the situation in the Congo,

Having learnt with deep regret of the announcement of the killing of the Congolese leaders, Mr. Patrice Lumumba, Mr. Maurice Mpolo and Mr. Joseph Okito,

Deeply concerned at the grave repercussions of these crimes and the danger of widespread civil war and bloodshed in the Congo and the threat to international peace and security,

Noting the report of the Secretary-General's Special Representative, dated 12 February 1961,[1] bringing to light the development of a serious civil war situation and preparations therefor,

1. Urges that the United Nations take immediately all appropriate measures to prevent the occurrence of civil war in the Congo, including arrangements for cease-fires, the halting of all military operations, the prevention of clashes, and the use of force, if necessary, in the last resort;

2. Urges that measures be taken for the immediate withdrawal and evacuation from the Congo of all Belgian and other foreign military and paramilitary personnel and political advisers not under the United Nations Command, and mercenaries;

3. Calls upon all States to take immediate and energetic measures to prevent the departure of such personnel for the Congo from their territories, and for the denial of transit and other facilities to them;

4. Decides that an immediate and impartial investigation be held in order to ascertain the circumstances of the death of Mr. Lumumba and his colleagues and that the perpetrators of these crimes be punished;

5. Reaffirms Security Council resolutions 143 (1960) of 14 July 1960, 145 (1960) of 22 July 1960 and 146 (1960) of 9 August 1960 and General Assembly resolution 1474 (ES-IV) of 20 September 1960 and reminds all States of their obligations under these resolutions.
B

The Security Council,

Gravely concerned at the continuing deterioration of the situation in the Congo and at the prevalence of conditions which seriously imperil peace and order and the unity and territorial integrity of the Congo, and threaten international peace and security,

Noting with deep regret and concern the systematic violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms and the general absence of the rule of law in the Congo,

Recognizing the imperative necessity for the restoration of parliamentary institutions in the Congo in accordance with the fundamental law of the country, so that the will of the people should be reflected through the freely elected Parliament,

Convinced that the solution of the problem of the Congo lies in the hands of the Congolese people themselves without any interference from outside, and that there can be no solution without conciliation,

Convinced further that the imposition of any solution, including the formation of any government not based on genuine conciliation, would, far from settling any issues, greatly enhance the dangers of conflict within the Congo and the threat to international peace and security,

1. Urges the convening of the Parliament and the taking of necessary protective measures in that connexion;

2. Urges that Congolese armed units and personnel should be reorganized and brought under discipline and control, and arrangements made on impartial and equitable bases to that end and with a view to the elimination of any possibility of interference by such units and personnel in the political life of the Congo;

3. Calls upon all States to extend their full co-operation and assistance, and to take such measures as may be necessary on their part, for the implementation of the present resolution.

Adopted at the 942nd meeting
by 9 votes to none, with 2
abstentions (France, Union of
Soviet Socialist Republics).

[1] Official Records of the Security Council, Sixteenth Year, Supplement for January, February and March 1961, document S/4691.

After a careful reading, (which Talknic Bob demands others do, without bothering to do him/herself), the first thing I noticed from the resolution, (taken in context), is the preamble. Civil war is mentioned twice, foreigners are not mentioned at all, the threat to international peace and security is given lip service, but see below before you jump to a conclusion that civil war can not be considered as the source of this threat to international peace. It is, and the mercenaries involved were fighting for one side wishing to be free from the government that the UN chose to empower over another (taking sides in a civil war). The language later authorizing the use of force against mercenaries and foreign troops was put in place to authorize UNF to take offensive action against one side wishing to be free of the other in a civil war (the UN became a belligerent). UN involvement in the Congo (in 1961)...as you once told me to do, nail this (1961) to your head) was to maintain an unnatural, post colonialist boundary, by force, against peoples that did not desire that boundary or to be governed by the people the UN chose to side with.

Second thing I noticed is that the very first item dealt with in the operative portion of the resolution is, oh what?...civil war, something Talknic Bob claimed the UN does not get involved with...and oh look, what is authorized to prevent civil war? Force. Imagine that...the ever elusive fine print. Force and civil war are found in the same section proving once again Talknic Bob is great for comedic relief and little else.

Third thing I noticed is that article 2 calls on the withdrawal of Belgian and other foreign military and paramilitary personnel. What is not authorized is the use of force to make them withdraw. In the section dealing with foreigners, no force is mentioned in the operative portion of the resolution. Do you even know why Belgian forces were there? No. Never mind, do not answer, you do not know your history and would have to look it up (most likely on Wikipedia) to answer me. Don't even pretend. Belgian forces were there to protect Belgian citizens from an anti European blood bath. Belgian forces were there also at the request of the government in Katanga province, (the one the UN sided against) that did not want to be forced at the end of a UN bayonet to be a part of the old colonialist construct forced. Meddling leftist elitists always know better than dumb dark skinned peoples, huh, Bob? The same day that the government the UN chose to support asked for UN help, the government in Katanga asked for help from Belgium to stop the murdering, raping, and carnage that broke out with Belgian departure. When Belgian troops returned and took up defensive positions the areas of Congo outside of Belgian control were chaos until UN forces arrived.

The fourth thing I noticed is that in section B the first article deals with the "deterioration" of the Congo and conditions that "imperil" the "territorial integrity" of the Congo. The resolution is denying the people of Congo the right to decide their own territorial boundaries, which certainly means they were involved in matters that were "essentially within the domestic jurisdiction" of the state of Congo. Session is inherently an internal conflict that does not necessarily effect the international borders, nor was the province of Katanga in conflict with any sovereign state outside of the artificial colonial boundaries of Congo. What right did the UN have to impose its will on the people of Katanga? Obviously the double standard is something I am interested in as it pertains to Israel and your many spurious charges.

The fifth thing I noticed was that the UN called on the people of the Congo to handle the situation "without any interference from outside", which oddly enough is exactly what the UN was doing, and is exactly what the UN was later criticized for doing. Taking sides in a civil war. Read the article below. I am not the only one asserting that the UN took sides in a civil war.

Those nations that had supported the United Nations were also critical of some parts of what the United Nations did. The role of Dag Hammerskjöld was criticised as it was felt that he had over-reached his authority regarding what the United Nations could do and what it could not. Supporters were also wary of the fact that the United Nations had taken sides in an effort to bring peace to the Congo.

Lastly I noticed that the measures to be taken (ie assistance) seems to be a general call on all states to implement the resolution. No specific force was authorized at this time against foreigners, the force was authorized to prevent civil war and to intervene in a civil war to prevent the people of Katanga province from determining their own fate. In your desperation to avoid admitting you are wrong (DENIAL), you are making comments and observations about a subject which you obviously know NOTHING about. Mercenaries referred to in the later resolution 169 were hired to help keep order in Katanga province. No matter how you stack it, the demand for them to leave is evidence of the UN taking sides in a civil war. The bloody result of UNF taking sides was that hundreds of Congolese civilians wanting independence died at the hands of UN soldiers in bloody aggressive campaigns like operation Morthor. Regardless of what the Charter says, (which the UN has no problems violating in the case of Israel anyhow) the Security Council can and will get involved in civil wars, even outside of Chapter VII, which is the fine print right under your nose that you failed to understand. On this the historical record is clear as the below excerpt points out...

However, although the Peacekeeping Force remained true to its mandate,
by September 1961, it had ceased to function as a true peacekeeping force.
The U.N. had broken a cardinal rule of peacekeeping - it had not remained neutral in the conflict. When the United Nations planned and then executed "Rumpunch", it established the UNF as an instrument of the Central Government. Although U.N. officials rightfully claimed after each round of fighting that the UNF was only exercising its mandate, the fact remains that the mandate had expanded to permit the Peacekeeping Force to intervene on behalf of the Congolese Central Government. U.N. officials had made it clear that they opposed Tshombe's actions and that they wished to see Katanga reintegrated with the remainder of the Congo. It was no wonder that the Katangans opposed the Peacekeeping Force and that they viewed the UNF as an opposing army of occupation. The result of this view was that the Force could not accomplish its mission peacefully and it was forced to become a belligerent in the conflict.

The mission statement of ONUC that I linked to also said essentially the same thing. The mission expanded to involvement in a civil war.

The UN/UNSC can render military ASSISTANCE to a Government, so that the GOVERNMENT can control it’s civil factions in a Civil War. There is a difference between ASSISTANCE and FORCE. The two are dealt with SPECIFICALLY in different parts of the resolutions.

Now that we have seen the full resolution in the body of my post you can point to the portions you think are relevant to force and assistance and how they are dealt with SPECIFICALLY, as you are ranting? After that you can explain why you linked to the Second Congo war and claimed the UN was not there because of a civil war. You claimed it was an international conflict, and were so certain the UN was not there because of civil war you punctuated your statement with an exclamation point, not a civil war!...I didn’t deny there was a civil war...I am just denying it was a civil war...I deny that I am in denial too...I'm Talknic Bob...the UN only makes statements...yeah, yeah...just statements...I speak authoritatively...well...because I have this blog see...and Zios paint stuff on my walls see...and, and the time period doesn't matter because it was not a civil war!...that's all I have to say...come back when you stop denying that I am right...or I'll delete you...

Strange, I didn’t deny there was a civil war. I gave the reasons WHY the UNSC was involved, which are contained in the UNSC Resolutions and governed by the UN Charter. Read them CAREFULLY!

Before you understood that the UN had been in the Congo more than once, you did say that it was a "stoush" between five "regional states" and that it was not a civil war! Those are your exact words and I quoted you VERBATIM, as you demand, after reading them CAREFULLY! You were so giddy with excitement that your MUNOC link said that it was a war between five regional states that you cut and pasted without understanding the words trapped under your copy function. You were so certain that your Wikipedia research was correct that you put an exclamation point behind what you parroted to reinforce it. Try again, Talknic Bob. Resolution 161 authorizes force against a side in a civil matter. Resolution 169 authorizes force against foreigners who were there maintaining order at the request of the government of one of the sides in a civil matter. Ironic, foreigners were telling locals they could not have foreigners assisting them against other locals.

Nail this to your head. ASSISTANCE and FORCE are in different sections. FORCE was authorized against FOREIGN parties and to protect UN personnel and forces. (the UN forces being there, as authorized, against FOREIGN parties, to protect UN personnel and of course themselves if they were to be attacked)

Yeah, I got it. ASSISTANCE and FORCE are in different sections. But doesn't the fact that FORCE is authorized in the section dealing with CIVIL WAR against the local peoples wishing to secede from Congo in resolution 161 mean that you are a gibbering, slobbering, teeth gnashing, douche bag, Talknic Bob? What little sense you may have had before you became a poisonous piece of shit has leaked out and all that remains in the yawning gulf between your ears is a helium filled rubber glove with a smiley face painted on it kind of wafting around within the empty confines, (I know the glove is there...I checked). And doesn't the fact that the link I gave you to ONUC, which is contained on the very same website that the irrelevant link you gave to MONUC is, stating clearly that the role of the UN changed from peace keeping to preventing civil war tell you that you were also informed with logic, credible links, and irrefutable evidence that the Security Council DOES in fact get involved in civil wars...let alone the obvious caveat (in the fine print of what you quoted from more than once) that Chapter VII resolutions ignore the restriction on involvement in intrastate conflict? Obviously you crave a certain degree of humiliation, but I am embarrassed for you as an opponent. Don't you think the broken shards of your credibility has suffered enough, or must I smash you into smaller and smaller bits?

No my friend, THIS is what you challenged.//…why the UNSC was in in the Congo (a stoush between the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and five regional States), not a civil war!// I did not say there was no civil war.

First, I could never befriend someone that supports genocide with his or her efforts like you do. Second do not attribute words or thoughts to what I write unless they are there. Quote me VERBATIM as you demand others do. The original assertion I made was that the UN does get involved with civil war, it says nothing of the "why" of UN involvement in any particular intervention, nothing more, nothing less. It doesn't matter if the UN was sent in for one purpose and the mission changes, that would qualify as involvement. It also doesn't matter if the Security Council involvement is military or not, I made no differentiation, (bear in mind what started this tangent was that you point to a lack of UN condemnation of the Arab states' illegal aggression outside of their sovereign borders killing Jews after the British left in disgrace, leaving the Jewish community exposed and vulnerable to genocide...and my request that you produce a resolution authorizing the use of force). My original challenge had no qualifiers, no shifting meanings, no philosophical discussion of the word "why", nor was any other rubbish added with my simple statement that the UN does get involved with civil wars and your hysterical denial of the same. I do not know what else I can do to prove that the UN does get involved in civil wars, the Charter article you quoted has a caveat that allows the UN to get involved in civil wars under Chapter VII, I linked to UN resolutions authorizing force that you dismissed as mere statements, and I have suggested you read what other scholars have said on the subject, which you pretend to have read, but can't quote a single line from when challenged. Now that I have the ball and am ready to score you are running around the pitch (again) with the goal posts, adding qualifiers and extra baggage to my simple statement that aren't there. Is accepting that you are wrong with grace, so difficult? How much evidence is enough to convince you when you are?

See below for more details on the Security Council and civil war, but further, what you are quoting is also taken out of context. A lie by omission. You linked to MONUC when you made that statement. With the link it changes the meaning of what you said, without the link or a valid explanation of why you chose to reinforce some pointless assertion with an irrelevant link is classic evasion. Stop your foolish denial, Bob. You did your research on Wikipedia and got burned with the only external link they provided. You were so happy that the MUNOC link said it was a war with five regional states you wet yourself with excitement. You are sloppy and shit as a researcher. You linked to the Second Congo war, which has nothing to do with the Congo crisis of 1961 and reinforced the cut and paste with an exclamation point. Smug behavior shattered by reality is funny to me. It is clear to see what you meant. Had you wished to show "why" the UN was in the Congo you could have easily quoted relevant UN documents concerning Congo from the relevant time frame under discussion of 1961. You didn't though, until AFTER I showed you to be a buffoon. You are a LIAR and now there is no graceful way out of it for you. You have made too much effort now trying to deny that the UN gets involved with civil war when the historical record is unassailable and perfectly clear that it does. The reason I press forward now is that it highlights and strikes at the very heart of your ignorance and your lack of comprehension, not only on this trifling matter but on everything posted on your idiotic web pages.

The ignorance is yours. I base my assertions and opinions on what is contained, word for word, in the UN Charter and, word for word, in the UNSC resolutions.

When an ignorant person charges someone with ignorance it is a gaff, a funny, a comical situation, but with you it is a pattern, hence you are forever etched in my mind as a Baghdad Bob clone. To someone normal it would be insulting to say that you actually believe what you write. If you had read the resolution word for word you would have understood force was used to prevent a segment of Congo civil society from gaining independence from a people they neither trusted nor respected. If you had read the charter you would have understood the caveat of Chapter VII that allows the UN to intervene in civil affairs. If you had read a history of the conflict you would have understood the word for word resolutions in context. Below I am going to present some examples of how the UN gets involved with civil conflict from credible sources, if you disagree with them you can present other source material to support your side of the argument that I am wrong. First, I want to back track to one particularly ignorant statement, from among a multitude of ignorant ones you have made, though.

Civil Wars are the business and only the business of the State in which the civil war is taking place.

Argue that one with the ICRC emphasis is mine in the quotation below...

...Individuals accused of violating humanitarian law may also be tried by an international criminal court. The United Nations Security Council has established two such courts: the Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda. On 17 July 1998, a Diplomatic Conference convened by the United Nations in Rome adopted the Statute of the International Criminal Court. For the first time in history a permanent international court has jurisdiction over crimes committed not only in the course of international armed conflicts but also during non-international armed conflicts...

So the Security Council established a court to try crimes committed during non-international armed conflicts...ie civil wars. Go ahead and argue that non-international conflict does not mean civil war, or that a court that supersedes sovereignty is not Security Council involvement in matters which are "essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state". My original assertion is supported. The UN Security Council does get involved in civil matters. Without adding qualifiers to my original statement you have been proven to be wrong at every turn.

Let's take a look at one of these trials, the case of Dusko Tadic. The defense argued on grounds of "lack of jurisdiction" and that the Security Council's Tribunal had no authority to intervene in a civil matter that should have been tried in a Yugoslav national court. The defense also argued that the establishment of the International Tribunal did not promote international peace because the situation was a civil war. However, the prosecutor did not agree...which supports my original assertion once again...take note that the ICJ points to the very same conflict (Congo) that I did and states clearly that "...the Security Council is rich with cases of civil war or internal strife which it classified as a "threat to the peace"...". Will you agree that a "threat to the peace" is the business of the Security Council? if not, you can argue it with an ICJ prosecutor then...

30. It is not necessary for the purposes of the present decision to examine any further the question of the limits of the discretion of the Security Council in determining the existence of a "threat to the peace", for two reasons.

The first is that an armed conflict (or a series of armed conflicts) has been taking place in the territory of the former Yugoslavia since long before the decision of the Security Council to establish this International Tribunal. If it is considered an international armed conflict, there is no doubt that it falls within the literal sense of the words "breach of the peace" (between the parties or, at the very least, would be a as a "threat to the peace" of others).

But even if it were considered merely as an "internal armed conflict", it would still constitute a "threat to the peace" according to the settled practice of the Security Council and the common understanding of the United Nations membership in general. Indeed, the practice of the Security Council is rich with cases of civil war or internal strife which it classified as a "threat to the peace" and dealt with under Chapter VII, with the encouragement or even at the behest of the General Assembly, such as the Congo crisis at the beginning of the 1960s and, more recently, Liberia and Somalia. It can thus be said that there is a common understanding, manifested by the "subsequent practice" of the membership of the United Nations at large, that the "threat to the peace" of Article 39 may include, as one of its species, internal armed conflicts.

and here...

58. The public revulsion against similar offences in the 1990s brought about a reaction on the part of the community of nations: hence, among other remedies, the establishment of an international judicial body by an organ of an organization representing the community of nations: the Security Council. This organ is empowered and mandated, by definition, to deal with trans-boundary matters or matters which, though domestic in nature, may affect "international peace and security" (United Nations Charter, art 2. (1), 2.(7), 24, & 37). It would be a travesty of law and a betrayal of the universal need for justice, should the concept of State sovereignty be allowed to be raised successfully against human rights.

and here...

59. The principle of primacy of this International Tribunal over national courts must be affirmed; the more so since it is confined within the strict limits of Articles 9 and 10 of the Statute and Rules 9 and 10 of the Rules of Procedure of the International Tribunal.

The Trial Chamber was fully justified in writing:

"Before leaving this question relating to the violation of the sovereignty of States, it should be noted that the crimes which the International Tribunal has been called upon to try are not crimes of a purely domestic nature. They are really crimes which are universal in nature, well recognised in international law as serious breaches of international humanitarian law, and transcending the interest of any one State. The Trial Chamber agrees that in such circumstances, the sovereign rights of States cannot and should not take precedence over the right of the international community to act appropriately as they affect the whole of mankind and shock the conscience of all nations of the world. There can therefore be no objection to an international tribunal properly constituted trying these crimes on behalf of the international community."(Decision at Trial, at para. 42.)

and here...

97. Since the 1930s, however, the aforementioned distinction has gradually become more and more blurred, and international legal rules have increasingly emerged or have been agreed upon to regulate internal armed conflict. There exist various reasons for this development. First, civil wars have become more frequent, not only because technological progress has made it easier for groups of individuals to have access to weaponry but also on account of increasing tension, whether ideological, inter-ethnic or economic; as a consequence the international community can no longer turn a blind eye to the legal regime of such wars. Secondly, internal armed conflicts have become more and more cruel and protracted, involving the whole population of the State where they occur: the all-out resort to armed violence has taken on such a magnitude that the difference with international wars has increasingly dwindled (suffice to think of the Spanish civil war, in 1936-39, of the civil war in the Congo, in 1960-1968, the Biafran conflict in Nigeria, 1967-70, the civil strife in Nicaragua, in 1981-1990 or El Salvador, 1980-1993). Thirdly, the large-scale nature of civil strife, coupled with the increasing interdependence of States in the world community, has made it more and more difficult for third States to remain aloof: the economic, political and ideological interests of third States have brought about direct or indirect involvement of third States in this category of conflict, thereby requiring that international law take greater account of their legal regime in order to prevent, as much as possible, adverse spill-over effects. Fourthly, the impetuous development and propagation in the international community of human rights doctrines, particularly after the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, has brought about significant changes in international law, notably in the approach to problems besetting the world community. A State-sovereignty-oriented approach has been gradually supplanted by a human-being-oriented approach. Gradually the maxim of Roman law hominum causa omne jus constitutum est (all law is created for the benefit of human beings) has gained a firm foothold in the international community as well. It follows that in the area of armed conflict the distinction between interstate wars and civil wars is losing its value as far as human beings are concerned. Why protect civilians from belligerent violence, or ban rape, torture or the wanton destruction of hospitals, churches, museums or private property, as well as proscribe weapons causing unnecessary suffering when two sovereign States are engaged in war, and yet refrain from enacting the same bans or providing the same protection when armed violence has erupted "only" within the territory of a sovereign State? If international law, while of course duly safeguarding the legitimate interests of States, must gradually turn to the protection of human beings, it is only natural that the aforementioned dichotomy should gradually lose its weight.

As to Lise Howard's book about UN involvement in civil wars. You claimed her book supports your position that the UN does not get involved in civil wars. I asked for a relevant quote from her work to support your empty assertion and you responded with the lie that It’s the whole work that supports your position. Obviously you have not read the book or probably anything she has written. You are a liar, Bob. Too bad for you though. Had you read it, instead of giving us your finest impression of a stool filled colostomy bag, you may have avoided destroying your own credibility through denial. Since nothing I tell you about her work will convince you that what she has to say supports what I am telling you, here is a brief peer review.

and some book reviews by other scholars...

"This is a terrific book: ambitious, important, theoretically sophisticated, meticulously researched and beautifully written. Examining ten cases of UN peacekeeping in civil wars, Howard identifies both the necessary and the sufficient conditions for success in these efforts. This book will have a long shelf-life."
George W. Breslauer, University of California at Berkeley

and...

"Because civil war persists in today’s troubled world, Lise Howard’s dissection of why and how UN peacekeeping missions have succeeded or failed in strengthening local and world peace is essential reading for practitioners and scholars. Her insights should inform the mandates given to future peacekeeping missions, and their composition."
Robert Rotberg, Harvard University

And since you challenged me to quote from her work to support my position, sans the extra baggage you added (you moving the goal posts)... You’re asking me to quote Howard’s paper to show an article exists in the UN Charter?...(tsk, tsk, yourself, Talknic) putting words in my mouth and not quoting me VERBATIM as you DEMAND others do? Why the deception? I asked you to quote from her book anything that supported your original position that "the UN does not get involved in civil wars", that is what I asked, nothing more, no qualifiers of military or non-military involvement, no qualifiers of why UNF are sent, no obfuscation, no dodging, just involvement. But since I would never ask you to do anything that I am not prepared to do myself I will quote the page and paragraph that supports what I have been saying all along in a nut shell...

In the post-Cold War history of UN peacekeeping, there have been thirty-five UN sponsored peacekeeping operations in civil wars. While each operation has unique traits, those that are the most multidimensional should be considered as a group because they all enjoy an underlying base of Security Council support in having the UN, as opposed to regional organizations, or single states, intervene to try to end the civil crisis.

page 4 of, UN peacekeeping in civil wars, by Lise Howard

Go ahead and pretend that you have read the book now and that the UN does not get involved in civil wars...don't forget the fine print in 2 (7) though, you linked to it, you quoted it, you tried to cherry pick it, and you were wrong...

Until such time as states were declared in Palestine, fighting between the civil factions in Palestine, constituted a Civil War. Now. Refer to the UN Charter as to why the UNSC did not become involved. It applied to the situation in Palestine, pre-Israel, just as it did to the Congo and anywhere else.

After referring to the Charter as you demand I found a caveat that states under Chapter VII the Security Council can and has become involved in civil war. But that is not what I asked, and from your non-response you understood that I was referring to a period AFTER the state of Israel declared itself a sovereign on land that British legal experts called, res nullius. Now you can answer my original question which was where is the UN authorization for the Arab states to use force outside of their sovereign territory against innocent Jews? Where is the UN resolution supporting the illegal Arab invasion and murder of Jews beyond their own sovereign borders? You point to a lack of condemnation as acquiescence I point to a lack of support as opposition. The difference is I have already justified my position, with supporting evidence contained at the Foreign Relations of the United States repository, for example, fear of Soviet penetration in the region if force were to be authorized to expel the illegal aggression and attempted genocide of invading Arab armies, for example.

______________________________________________________________

Afraid? No my little pet. I tired of the insane threats to my person, family, business and the ghastly graffiti on my walls from ugly bigots and criminals who support illegal acquisition, illegal annexation and illegal settlements. The information is more important than the identity of the person collecting it and my home & family’s well being takes precedence.

From a documented liar, I am laughing my ass off at this pathetic turnspeak. Are you sure you were not confusing the anti-Jewish graffiti you may have noticed appearing all over the world with something that happened to you? I live 10 minutes from the largest Arab Muslim community in America where tens of thousands of Arabs took to the streets to stand in solidarity with Hezbollah terrorists committing crimes against humanity. I have attended every local event I have time for and have challenged and ridiculed every speaker from Yossi Olmert to Afif Safia to Neve Gordon to Islamic sheiks and I am known and hated by the head of the Palestine Office and other groups that have made me the object of their rage locally. Just this past weekend I spent 7 hours at two mosques debating about Islam. The subject matter I brought up was slavery, honor killing, gender inequality, genocide, and the anti-Semitism in Islamic dogma. I have been cursed at, insulted, jostled, jeered at, and threatened by crowds very angry at what I have to say...yet somehow when the world is full of thousands of deadly terrorist attacks against non-Muslims, rioting over cartoons, death sentences over books, murdering film makers, bombings, torturing, kidnappings, spontaneous jihad, and more I find the courage to use my own name and the conviction to speak my mind at mosques and campuses alike. I do not allow ugly bigots and criminals that support crimes against humanity, terrorism, and genocide to deter me even though I have a young family at risk. You are a coward as well as a liar, Bob. Words matter and so does the identity of the speaker. Hiding behind an alias allows you to be reckless. It shows that propaganda is your goal and that you are ashamed to be known by your words. Perhaps you could at the minimum reveal your gender, age, and academic background? or would that give those out to get you too much of a clue of your real identity?

______________________________________

Speaking of UN 181, you refuse to accept that the document is irrelevant, though you leave far too many questions unanswered to be authoritative.

Now, again, why is such an important document not on the Israeli Government website? Unless of course, they don’t want it cited.

As I have answered, UN 181 has no value in determining the sovereign borders of Israel, it is meaningless. Why would an Israeli Ministry website have something meaningless on its site? They do not have Mein Kampf there either. Why is such an important book not on a Jewish website? Unless of course, they don't want it read.

A) You have yet to prove that a declaration of sovereignty is binding.

B) You have yet to prove that a unilateral declaration by a pre-state political organ is binding on a future state, ie the Declaration of Independence is not proof of Israel's sovereign borders.

C) You have yet to even prove (for argumentative purposes only) that the "intent' of the People's Council was to be bound to UN 181, ie referencing a UN suggestion does not bind a future state to the suggestion.

D) You have yet to prove how a single letter to a head of state written and received before sovereignty was established is a binding contract with the entire world, ie a contested border is not defined on a simple letter to a head of state, ie you have no proof that Israel's borders were defined.

E) If you disagree then point to a relevant body of international law that states clearly that declarations of sovereignty are binding as you claim, then point to a relevant body of international law that states clearly that a letter between heads of state is a binding contract when the borders are not defined in the letter (they are defined in a rejected document elsewhere and they are vague, at that).

F) If you still disagree after searching for proof that does not exist, then explain what all those talks about the "final status" negotiations are about.

AFTER Israeli Sovereignty was unilaterally declared, the Arab States attacked Jewish forces already outside of Israel’s newly declared Sovereignty at the time the Declaration was made.. The fact that Jewish Israeli forces were outside of Israel’s newly declared Sovereignty is why there is no UNSC resolution condemning the Arab States invasion of Palestine. (Israel was an Independent Sovereign State & no longer a part of Palestine on the 15th May 1948) All you’ll find are resolutions calling for both sides to stop fighting.

A) Can you link to any supporting evidence aside from your own moronic conclusions as to why there was no UNSC resolution condemning the illegal Arab states' invasion?

B) The Jews made the declaration BEFORE the Mandate ended.

"It was agreed to declare independence at 4 pm on Friday, eight hours before the Mandate was officially to end, so as not to conflict with the Sabbath."

"At exactly four pm, Ben-Gurion stood up and struck the table with his gavel. The gathering rose and began singing Hatikvah. Ben-Gurion then proceeded: "I shall now read to you the Scroll of the Establishment of the State which has passed its first reading by the National Council.""

It had taken a 32-minute ceremony to restore independence to a people who had remained stateless for 2,000 years.

The Mandate was ending at midnight, this was 8 hours BEFORE the Mandate ended.

Later that night, the United States accorded the new state de facto recognition and as dawn approached, Ben-Gurion addressed the people of the United States in a direct radio broadcast. While he was speaking, Egyptian planes swooped down on Tel Aviv and began bombing the city. Ben-Gurion finished his broadcast and rushed to the Sde Dov Airfield which had been hit.

Was Tel Aviv outside of Israel's "newly declared sovereignty" (whatever that means) as used in your sentence. You must have meant Israel's newly declared borders, which did not exist. Israel was to be anywhere in historical Israel the Jews could maintain control of. Absolutely no restrictions were placed on where Jewish forces could be inside of what had once been mislabeled the Mandate for Palestine. Borders are not required for de facto sovereignty and none were established.

Fourth Response to Talknic

2010-02-20T08:16:00.003-05:00

The claim that UN 181 defines Israel's borders:

The question is does UN 181 have any relevance to Israel's legal borders?

The "irrefutable" proof you have presented so far to make the case that it does lies in two main parts; a Declaration of Independence drafted by the People's Council before the expiration of the British Mandate for Palestine and a telegram sent to the President of the United States from an agent of the Provisional Council, both of which refer to UNGA 181.

The Declaration of Independence

1) A Declaration of Independence has nothing to do with a future state's borders, nor does it become binding law of any future state that may arise after the proclamation. It is not a legislative act. The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States says that the Declaration of Independence is not binding US law, the same applies to the Declaration of Independence for Israel. A unilateral declaration is NOT BINDING.

2) I conferred with a certain anti-Israel law professor at Wayne State University and according to him there is no legal mechanism that makes a declaration of sovereignty binding. In order to be valid and enforceable, a document must contain certain essential legal provisions, none of which can be left ambiguous, as the non-binding declaration of independence was.
a) The borders were not delineated in the declaration itself, which is not binding even had it spelled out explicitly the territory the future state would claim.
b) The letter referred to a document where the "general lines" of the proposed borders were left ambiguous due to Arab initiated violence that prevented a legally contracted survey team from precisely taking measures for the establishment of the frontiers of the Arab and Jewish States and the City of Jerusalem. Despite your petty protestation of the word count, one of the "major tasks" still on the agenda of the United Nations Palestine Commission at its first monthly progress report to the Security Council was delimitation of frontiers of the Arab and Jewish States and the City of Jerusalem. If the borders were as clear as you insist, maybe you can explain why it was a "major task" left to finish?
c) At the time the telegram was sent, the "general lines", even the very concept of Jewish independence, was being disputed by means of an invasion to annihilate the Jewish community and take by force the remaining 25% of the Jewish homeland not already stolen and occupied by Hashemite invaders.
3) The pages of your web site are so convoluted it is an impossible task to decipher them. Please present your evidence in your response to these points:
a) Source the legal mechanism that binds a "declaration of sovereignty" on the declaring party.
b) Source the legal mechanism that demands a border be clarified in order for de jure recognition of a state to be made.

4) You claim that "Israel" declared its independence and that a legal pillar of this declaration is UNGA 181. You have made many statements similar to this one, ”A declaration of Sovereignty IS binding. UNGA resolution 181 gave the conditions under which either party could, if they wished, declare sovereignty.” Under what authority did the UN General Assembly have to "give" any portion of the Mandate for Palestine territory away? What authority did the General Assembly have even to define the parameters of the choice?

5) Go back and reread the relevant portion of the declaration,

"On the 29th November, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution calling for the establishment of a Jewish State in Eretz-Israel; the General Assembly required the inhabitants of Eretz-Israel to take such steps as were necessary on their part for the implementation of that resolution. This recognition by the United Nations of the right of the Jewish people to establish their State is irrevocable."

The statement is not accepting the boundaries in UN 181, it is merely stating that a Jewish state was to be formed and the right to do so is "irrevocable". If the undefined border suggestions were to become the state of Israel those borders would have been included in the declaration. They were intentionally not included. The inclusion of the borders was suggested in deliberations, but was rejected in a vote by the People's Council, which proves the intent of the authors of the declaration was never to be confined to the borders. Obviously the actual authors of the declaration were well aware of what they were and were not saying. The wording "in Eretz Israel" is not stated in the voice of the council, it is merely repeating what the UN said on the issue, it has nothing to do with excluding Israel from any portion of the land, nor does it imply acceptance of what the UN offered.

6) Not only were recorded statements made before the Mandate terminated by drafters of the declaration stating that the borders were intentionally left undefined, but the council recorded a vote on whether to include the borders in the declaration, the results of which clearly rejected them. Further, the Supreme Court of Israel has made it clear concerning the declaration itself...

Some were inclined to view the Proclamation of Independence, and especially its declaratory section, as a constitution, but the Supreme Court stated, in a series of decisions, that the proclamation does not have constitutional validity, and that it is not a supreme law which may be used to invalidate laws and regulations that contradict it.

Clearly the declaration does not supersede any of Israel's laws, nor have you produced a reference to a legal framework where the concept of binding unilateral declarations can be found. The simple fact is, Israel is not legally obligated or confined to any suggestions made in UN 181 in any way. If you are a person of your word you will remove that from your web site unless you are able to produce the source and text of relevant law in response to my challenges.

7) I am including a statement by Jay Harris of Harvard University on the matter of UN 181 and the declaration of independence in The Journal for Textual Reasoning because I think it is relevant archived by The University of Virginia...

We come, finally, to the United Nations so-called Partition Plan. The declaration provides the Zionist understanding of that resolution, and, as such, is pretty straight forward. Interesting though is the final sentence, insisting that the recognition is irrevocable. Of course, the only reason for such a sentence is that, practically speaking, it was not true. Indeed, there were efforts in the spring of 1948 to get the UN to revoke that very recognition. But the declaration insists that rights are not something to be bartered and negotiated. The right of the Jewish people to a state of their own, once recognized, cannot be revoked. This is an important claim, in that it shows that the establishment of the state ultimately did not depend on the UN partition plan, since the document explicitly denies to the UN the autonomy to continue to act on Palestine, and implicitly denies to the UN the right to determine the borders of the Jewish state. Having gotten from the UN a plan whose main accomplishment was the end of the British Mandate, the UN was now removed from the decision making process.

By evicting the Ottomans and withdrawing the territory mislabeled Palestine from the sovereignty of the Ottoman Empire through the legal instrument of the Treaty of Lausanne, the belligerent occupants acquired the exclusive power to control and govern the land. This power, although perhaps acquired in the name of the Allied Powers, was lodged almost exclusively with Britain. The British Mandate Authority governed the territory of Palestine as a trustee free from interference by other powers, except to approve changes to the binding Mandate for Palestine treaty. The will of Britain was in fact the "supreme will" in the territory until it withdrew from the territory without fulfilling the legal obligations of the Mandate. Witness the British decision to pervert the intention of the Mandate by removing 75% of the Mandate from Jewish immigration. Britain's premature withdrawal without first establishing a functional state left a sovereignty vacuum, which despite the best efforts of the UN to circumvent its legal obligation to honor all League of Nations rulings, allowed the Jewish state to form. The territory of this state was not limited in any way by any resolution produced by a non-binding act of an organization with no authority to make changes to the terms of the Mandate for Palestine treaty. Jews had a legal right to immigrate to any portion of the Mandate territory. They were there legally and when the sovereignty vacuum was created they declared themselves the state of Israel. No legal mechanism bound them to any borders regardless of pre-state declarations and letters up to and including the entire Mandate (I argue this includes what became the illegal state of Jordan on the majority of the land promised to the Jews). Israel acquired, and still retains, what may be termed as a "de facto" sovereignty over all of the remaining territory of the Mandate (25% of what was rightfully theirs). Some of it was acquired in 1948 and some of it was acquired in 1967. All of it is legally held and does not need formal annexation to be considered part of the state of Israel.

Professor Julius Stone wrote:

“Nothing that Israel’s legal system says can change the facts that: (1) the legal binding document is the Mandate of the League of Nations and (2) the obligations of the Mandate are valid in perpetuity.”

Israel is the state in lawful possession of the disputed territory. No other state can lay a greater claim to title over this land than Israel and Israel is not required to make a formal annexation if they choose to extend civil law to any portion of it because they are the sole High Contracting Party contesting ownership of what is not occupied by the entity calling itself Jordan. Witness the peace treaties you love to reference, Egypt and Jordan have accepted Israeli ownership of all of the land in formal border recognition and have withdrawn all claims to land west of the Jordan river. Annexation also entails an element of previous ownership, which does not exist under the binding terms of the Treaties of Sevres and Lausanne whereupon the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire withdrew any claim of title over the territory mislabeled Palestine. The Mandate for Palestine, whose primary obligation was the establishment of a Jewish national home, is the last binding organ of international law governing the disposition of the land in dispute. That organ explicitly allows Jewish immigration and settlement on state owned land within the territory of Mandatory Palestine and calls for a Jewish government to be formed. The theft and creation of a Palestinian Arab state with colonialist Hashemite owners on 75% of Palestine was a perversion of the intent and letter of the treaty.

Most sovereign states are states de jure and de facto, but neither condition is exclusive of the other. Sometimes states exist only as de jure states over a territory over which they have no actual control. There were governments during the Second World War which continued to enjoy diplomatic relations with the Allies, even as their countries were occupied by Nazi Germany, for example. On the other hand, states may have enforceable sovereignty over a territory but are de facto states only because of lack of recognition. Taiwan is one of these states, as well as Somaliland.

Sovereignty requires not only the legal right to exercise power, but the actual exercise of such power. In other words, neither claiming nor being proclaimed sovereign, nor merely exercising the power of a sovereign is sufficient...sovereignty requires both elements. Recognition, on the other hand, is not exclusive of either. Each state is free to recognize or not recognize any other state, the consequences of which have no bearing on whether the state has a legal right to exist or not. Here is a list of unrecognized countries, (for the record, I do not accept Wikipedia as a source for a "contested" issue, but in this instance there is no dispute that some nations do not recognize others, the point being that recognition of Israel by the US was not predicated on a defined border nor was it even a mandatory obligation to recognize Israel at all, which would have had zero effect on whether Israel is a sovereign or not or on what territory it lays claim to). Borders are a separate issue. Many states have border disputes yet are recognized and have formal relations with the world community. No such definition of borders precludes sovereignty. Robert A. Lovett wrote,

"The ascertainment of boundaries of the state controlled by a new regime has never been regarded as determinative in according recognition de jure to the regime."

The argument that the US recognized the new state of Israel, so Israel had to have defined boundaries has no foundation in either law or historical precedent. The Hackworth, Digest of International Law confirms this when stating that in regards to the US recognizing the provisional government of Israel

"No legal requirements remain to be met, nor are there any legal reasons calling affirmatively for recognition de jure."

Obviously the back drop of the war of extermination the Arabs launched and the ambiguity of borders had no legal bearing on the reconstitution of the state of Israel. The cease fire agreements that came later left the final border status in limbo, where it remains to this day from craven cowardice on the part of Israeli leaders.

The telegram to the US.

A simple letter from a diplomat is not a binding document of intent to fulfill a self executing obligation, which since it refers to UNGA 181; your claim is that the letter is confirmation of the intent of the provisional state to confine itself to the ambiguous borders "suggested" in UNGA 181. You also claim that the US and other powers recognized Israel in this undefined border.

1) Can you source the thread bare assumption that a letter, even a letter of intent between heads of state with a self executing obligation, is a binding agreement in terms of an international legal obligation?
a) The borders were not delineated in the letter, only implied by referencing a non-binding suggestion, where in any case they were left incomplete and to be determined at a future date requiring the work of a contracted survey team.

2) What authority supports enforcement of an individual provision of a letter as a freestanding binding promise? Please source this, preferably outside of your ridiculous maze of inaccuracies and assumptions. Stating that "the answer is on these pages" does not cut it. If you are correct you will be able to direct me to relevant text of a body of law that reinforces what is clearly a false premise. If not, the honorable thing to do would be to remove the inaccurate statement from your site as your arrogant challenge promises.

3) Was the US even sure of who Eliahu Epstein was when it accepted his telegram on behalf of the provisional council? According to a memo from the Under Secretary of State, that fact had to be made clear as events were in motion, which is odd since you stated in this exchange that US recognition of Israel had to have borders when it recognized the letter, but were you correct and did this infamous letter have as great a legal ramification as you claim it did???...

"We have limited the reply to an acknowledgment of the letter and to a statement as to the time and substance of the President's announcement, because we do not consider it suitable to go any further in communicating with a person whose representational position has not as yet been clarified. We have not, for instance, indicated whether by granting de facto recognition to the provisional government of the state of Israel we recognize the boundaries of the new state to be identical with those set forith in Mr. Epstein's letter to the Secretary. At the appropriate time we might desire to indicate that our de facto recognition does not necessarily mean that we recognize that the frontiers of the new Jewish state are the same as those outlined in the recommendation of the General Assembly of November 29, 1947, that those boundaries had been determined upon with the understanding that there would be an economic union of all Palestine and a special international regime for Jerusalem."

Epstein wasn't even recognized as a legitimate representative of the provisional state of Israel until the 17th. This memo clearly reveals that the border suggestions of UN 181 had no bearing on the decision to recognize the state of Israel de facto. The Under Secretary of State says that the suggestions made by the UN carried certain assumptions for it to be a workable suggestion of borders. None of those assumptions came to pass as the Arabs chose war and murder over sharing with people that were less than human in their eyes.

Did the British think that the borders of UN 181 were legal? According to an urgent telegram sent by the Foreign Office on May 15th to the US Secretary of State...no.

"Foreign Office view is that it is not correct to consider that the 29 November resolution establishes a legal basis for crea~tion ofa Jewish state." and "With ithe end of the mandate ,and pending the emergence of one
or more states in Palestine to which international recognition can be accorded, Palestine will be res nullius (belonging to nobody-?).' Theoretically sovereignty will p-ob~ably lie in the people -of Palestine but it will be latentand there will 'be no, international entity recogizable 'as 'a sovereign state 'or 'states in or comprising Palestine."

The British took the position that the ancestral homeland of the Jews would not become the promised Jewish state it would become res nullius. Even as they quit their post they abandoned the defenseless Jews to the wolves. The first entity to claim the land became the titled owner according to the British and res nullius in international law.

RES NULLIUS. A thing which has no owner. A thing which has been abandoned by its owner is as much res nullius as if it had never belonged to any one.
2. The first possessor of such a thing becomes the owner, res nullius fit primi occupantis. Bowy. Com. 97.

You claim that UN 181 was a "response to the civil war already raging."

You seem to have a limited grasp of the actual historical time line of events. When it suits your cause, the time line seems to get a creative adjustment here and there. Would you like to recant this claim? The official start of the "civil war" is recognized by every legitimate scholar as being the day of the UN vote. There had been Arab banditry, terrorism, and violence before, but the actual open warfare broke out when the world suggested that the Arabs live in peace with the Jews in the Jewish homeland and the Arabs rejected the suggestion with knives, hand axes, pistols, and rifles. Over 60 Jews had been murdered within 24 hours of the audacious suggestion to share the land.

Muslim fanatics did declare war on the Jews the moment the voting on the partition plan was announced, yet according to you. "They didn’t. On May 15th 1948 Israel was no longer apart of Palestine. The Arab Declaration on the Invasion of Palestine was not condemned by the UNSC because the Arab States had every right to protect what was left of the non-state entity of Palestine after Israel’s declaration from Israeli aggression."

The statement is ridiculous on many levels. First, a race war had been raging since November of 1947 when Muslim fanatics attacked the Jews for daring to want a country of their own where they did not have to live as second class dhimmis subject to the whims of Muslim masters. The Arab jihadists did not discriminate on which Jews had lived in the region since before the waves of immigration had expanded the Jewish population; they attacked any Jews they could find simply because they were Jews. The Klu Klux Klan did the same thing to recently emancipated blacks in the American south. Second, Israel was not the aggressor on any level. If resolutions from the UNSC are your only benchmark, why did the UNSC not condemn what you label as Israeli aggression? Like one of Pavlov's dogs, I know you have been conditioned to expect the Jews will be censured at the least provocation in the UN, but if there was a dire need for military intervention to save the Arab people as you suggest, why did the UN not authorize the use of force against the Jews? May 15th was months after the Arabs had decided to attack and slaughter the defenseless Jewish community, how did the invading Arabs determine who to shoot at, btw? Hint...the targets were all Jews even though thousands of Arabs were also recent immigrants taking advantage of Jewish prosperity and industriousness. Witness the craven inclusion of a mere two years of residency required to become a so called Palestinian refugee. None of the tens of thousands of Arabs that had immigrated to take advantage of the higher standard of living the Jews had created were the targets of the war, because the root of the conflict was race and religion, something politically correct mutants can't seem to accept when the aggressors are not guilty Europeans. To the invading Arabs there was no state of Israel, there were only Lily white Jews to be killed and put back in their rightful place under the booted feet of Muslims. The UN did not condemn the invasion because it did not want to take responsibility for the outcome and a host of other reasons, none of which fit the spurious claim that the Arabs were there to defend against Israeli aggression.

Jordan was an Independent Sovereignty by 1946. No longer a part of what remained of the non-state entity of Palestine. From May 14th 1948 Israel was no longer a part of what was left of the non-state entity of Palestine. Which Sovereign Israeli territory did they invade? Why didn’t the UNSC condemn it?

There was no Jordan in 1946. There was a Transjordan that had no legal standing, regardless of how many nations recognized the Palestinian Arab entity of Transjordan. It became Jordan after it tried to annex the land it illegally captured west of the river Jordan. And again, your time line is off. May 14th was the last day of the Mandate, the provisional state of Israel came into existence on May 15th, not that you care about accuracy.

Further, you ask a critic of the UN why it did not act against Arab aggression? A better question is what were the armies of 7 Arab nations doing outside of their countries killing Jews? The UNSC didn't condemn the invasion for many reasons, a book could be written on the reasons why; fear of jihad, dependence on oil, appeasement of Arab bigotry and racism in light of the political needs we have,

"Faisal asked whether US believed that it was to its own interests to see Jewish state established in Palestine. I replied this would depend on character of political situation and characteristics of state. If it were clear that such a state would be at war permanently with Arab world or would serve 'as base-for hostile elements, US obviously would not consider it to her own interests to see such state established. Faisal said that Arab states could not ever accept Jewish state. It would be nan abcess to the political body of the Arabs"...FOREIGN RELATIONS, 1948, VOLUME V,

as a member of the big five the Soviets would have had a reason to penetrate with an armed presence had the SC authorized force under Chapter VII,

"Unless US, UK and France exert genuine and responsible leadership in this situation, it will not be possible to obtain the firm action by overwhelming majority of UN necessary to settle Palestine question without giving USSR opportunity for exploitation of Palestine situation"...FOREIGN RELATIONS, 1948, VOLUME V

, the fear that the Soviets would invoke article 51 and send forces to aid the Jewish state thereby establishing a foothold in the region, the cost to mobilize armed forces, British refusal to cooperate, a deterioration in Anglo-American relations over the British siding with the Arabs, British close relationship with Transjordan and its defense treaty with Jordan might have brought Britain into armed conflict with any nation siding with the Jewish state if the Arab Legion found itself fighting, fear the friction would destroy the UN itself, fear for the artificial Arab states themselves,

"A decision on the part of the United Nations that the Arab States, by invading Palestine, were guilty of aggression, and a consequent intervention of the United Nations for the purpose of halting the aggression. Such intervention might eventually lead to a breaking up of the present political structure of the Middle East. It would be impossible to prophesy what the Middle East would look like from a political, economic and social point of view after stabilization had again been effected. It is probable, however, that there would be no stabilization except under some kind of a powerful dictatorship"...FOREIGN RELATIONS, 1948, VOLUME V

, and much more.

"We must be realistic about what the SC is up against."

...Creech Jones, Arab governments attempting to restrain people in compliance with any UN order opposing war with the Jews would be swept aside...yes, the Arabs were allowed to go to war because the Arab masses demanded blood. Everyone recognized the Arab racism and religious bigotry, but political expediency would not allow taking a moral stance against it. No nation wished to be the object of Arab rage that the US has become by standing on principle and opposing these ugly traits. Lucky for the Jews they won without our help and in spite of the arms embargo we cravenly upheld. Legality had absolutely nothing to do with it as you now claim. In fact the legal issue had not been settled as late as May 4th...

USUN Files, Memorandum by Mr. Charles P. Noyes to the Deputy United States Representative on the Security Council SECRET [NEw YORK,] May 5, 1948/ "I agree with the conclusion in your memorandum of May 5 that it is important if not urgent for us to have a clear legal position as to the status of Palestine on May 15 under the various possible sets of circumstances which may exist. I also agree that the Department's legal memorandum solves few if any of these problems."

I said...“..they should have also been reported to the Security Council if the resolution was going to have any relevance. No such action was taken, because the resolution was inert and completely irrelevant to the world at the time..”

You responded with...Israel accepted it and declared Sovereignty based on it. A Declaration of Sovereignty is binding.

You can source this rule in international law then? A very biased professor at a top law department of the closest university to my home and much research on my part has failed to corroborate your assertion. It is not a coincidence that you are practically alone on the roof of the flimsy structure you have erected crowing this claim to the world. Apparently, shame is not a condition you are averse to.

Put it up… And why would they? It was a civil war. the UNSC cannot get involved in a civil war.

You just asked me why the SC didn't condemn the Arab invasion. Was that a civil matter too? And what do you mean the SC can't get involved in a civil war? Does the civil war in the Congo, UNSC involvement, Irish peace keepers ambushed, etc..mean anything to you? How about a tiny, tiny little civil dispute between the north and south of Korea? Did the UNSC get involved with that civil war or not? Accuracy does not hold much value to you does it?

The Jewish Peoples Council Declared them as Israel’s Sovereign boundaries.

Can you point to the defining language? Where in the declaration does it state in unambiguous terms exactly what the orders are? Pointing out that the UN authorized the establishment of a Jewish state (for whatever "authorization" from a defunct organization in violation of its own charter is worth)is not an explicit acceptance of the border suggestions, it is just a statement of acknowledgment that the UN suggested a state would be formed, nothing more, nothing less, else you will point to the EXACT language used to define the border in the declaration itself. The fact is they did not declare them as sovereign borders, nor was the People's Council a state department or judiciary body with the authority to create binding law on any citizens of a future state, nor did a state come into existence immediately after it was signed. A unilateral declaration by a pre-state entity, even a declaration of independence, as you have been told over and over is not a binding instrument. Put up or shut up the original body of law where this can be found yourself...and I am stupid, please highlight the relevant text of whatever legal document you may allude to if you are able.

The boundaries are described in detail. There was only one minor area in dispute..

Then you will have no problems giving citation to the completed survey that may have formed a legal basis for a binding agreement, had both parties agreed to the clarified border? And you will also highlight the explicit acceptance of the boundaries in light of the vote by the authors of the declaration not to include them in the declaration of independence you reference...yes, no?

It was a unilateral decision by either or both or neither of the parties. Had they both needed to co-sign it would have said so. The buyer does not negotiate with another buyer, they sign a contract with the vendor.

If you weren't such a malicious fool this would be funny. There is one piece of land, the odd man out of the equation is the UN, not the two "buyers" for the one piece of land. There certainly was to be an agreement. Absent that agreement, the document held no further value as an instrument of compromise. Get over it.

“Chapter VI resolutions are suggestions for two parties to use as a negotiating basis.”

There was no negotiation required between the two parties. Either they agreed with what was there or they didn’t. Israel agreed to accept the conditions under which it could delare Sovereignty. The Arab States didn’t. They weren’t obliged to. It was a non-binding resolution. However if either or both accepted the conditions, they became e binding through their Declarations of Sovereignty.

Israel did not agree to anything, a provisional council referenced a defunct document and nothing more. Nothing in the declaration binds the future state of Israel to the unsurveyed borders suggested in UN 181. There is no such concept in international law as a binding "Declarations of Sovereignty", if it exists you can end this conversation by pointing me to the exact and relevant text of law that codifies it. In fact, if you can produce just this one piece of law I will retreat from this argument and reconsider the legality of Israel's possession of land myself. If not, I expect you to take down the claim that Israel is bound by the UN 181 vague border suggestions.

Israel was recognized by the International Community of states by it’s Declaration, over riding the Arab States objections. Proof..ISRAEL EXISTS as a Sovereign State.

Israel is not recognized by all states and the declaration had nothing to do with all of those that do. Control over its land, acceptance by its citizenry, and other tangible factors gave it the right to be recognized de jure, but there is no democracy in recognizing nations and there is no over riding objections of states that refuse to recognize other states. That is another concept you are making u out of thin air as you are the concept of binding declarations of sovereignty. The fact is, there is no such concept as a binding declaration of sovereignty. A group of people can declare they are sovereign, but that declaration has no force, power, or authority and the declaration even if accepted by a majority may or may not be lawful, else the numerous totalitarian states could piecemeal any country they wished simply by uniting and recognizing any group with a grievance with a state. It just doesn't work the way you are claiming it does and I think if you gave it more thought you would not even want it to work the way you have fabricated. The ramifications for the integrity of the rest of the world would be thrown into chaos if this became a precedence even.

Strange. A declaration of Independence is the only manner in which an entity can declare independent statehood. Perhaps you know of another way?

Uuhhhh yeah, how about Australia and Canada, both of which achieved independence simply through negotiating with the UK? Come on Talknic, do we need to cover basic stuff like this?

Legislation comes AFTER a State is formed. You cannot have State Legislature before having a state.

Now you are catching on. Nothing a pre-state body of people do is binding on a state. A declaration of independence can not be used to overrule a future act of legislation, because a unilateral declaration by a pre-state organization is not binding. If it is as you suggest over and over you will kill the conversation by giving citation in a relevant body of law. Legislation and legitimacy are required for any document to become binding on a state. This concept seems to get lost in the fog of Israel hatred blanketing the Talknic thought process, what little thought there seems to be.

The letter advises the US of the Jewish Peoples Councils acceptance of the boundaries of res 181 and of it’s ‘Declaration’.

The letter does not state exactly what the borders are, nor is a letter binding on a state. It is irrelevant.

American organic law is not International Law and an entity cannot institute State law until it exists as a state, under a Declaration.

So you can learn? You are partly accurate here. A state is not bound by anything until it is actually a state, but a declaration of independence is not necessary. Will you be dropping the ridiculous claim that Israel is bound by a unilateral declaration by the Peoples Council any time soon now?

Correct a State’s laws come after the state is formed.

We seem to be in perfect agreement then. Laws that a state are bound by come AFTER a state is formed. A declaration of independence is not something that comes after a state is formed, it comes BEFORE. So you will show some integrity and drop the claim that the state of Israel is bound by anything drafted BEFORE the state of Israel was formed...yes, no?

“Israel was recognized de facto on May 15, 1948, but it wasn’t until January 31, 1949 until the US recognized Israel de jure, because Israel until then had been a PROVISIONAL STATE led by a Provisional State Council. The word “provisional” in matters of state mean subject to change..”

Only in that it’s Government had yet to be elected or decided upon. It’s boundaries were already accepted by the Declaring body. It’s only the Government that is provisional.

That is not true in the least bit, nor would it matter to a state what a pre-state body accepts or rejects. Beyond that fact though, not only did Ben Gurion state on the eve of independence that the borders had intentionally been left undefined, not only did the People's Council reject by a vote on whether to include the undefined border suggestions of UN 181 in the declaration or not, but recognizing nations did not accept UN 181 borders either....in a secret memo

867N.O1/5-2148 of conversation, by the Under Secretary of State dated May 21, 1948. Participants: Mr. Lovett, Sir John Balfour, British Charg d'Affaires, Mr. Henderson, NEA, Mr. Rusk, UNA, it was related to the Secretary that, "Bevin hopes that, even though the United States Government may have recognised the Jewish state, de facto, they will not commit themselves to any precise recognition of boundaries. It might well be that, if the two sides ever accept a compromise, it would be on the basis of boundaries differing from those recommended in the partition plan of the General Assembly."

Not only were the boundaries not clear by those recognizing Israel or considering recognizing Israel, but as I have already pointed out, the borders were left purposefully vague by the President of the Peoples Council that drafted the declaration in the first place, which was verified with a vote by the rest of the council to reject them. You are grasping at straws to claim the state of Israel is bound to UN 181. They are not and no competent legal body I am aware of supports the crack pot theory you are going on about.

They went to the defense of the territories that remained of the non-state entity of Palestine. Which was their right. Which is why there is no UNSC resolution condemning that action. It is on these pages.

You can point to the right of armed forces to be outside of their country of origin killing and massacring Jews with the goal of genocide then? You can point to what authority they had to be outside of their own countries when their own countries were not being threatened or attacked from the territory they invaded? Where is this "right" enshrined in international law? Where is the UNSC resolution authorizing the use of force to protect the Arabs murdering Jews?

Really? Show me the ‘ratification’ for the Sovereign state of Israel. East Timor, Iraq, Jordan, Lybia. ANY… There is only ‘Declaration’ and ‘recognition’ by a majority of the International Community of States.

Sure, here is the first bit of binding law that the actual state of Israel passed. No ratification is required for a unilateral declaration, because those are not binding. Declaration of a majority is not even necessary either, you are wrong even on that simple matter as well. A majority does not decide legal sovereignty. It just thankfully doesn't work that way.

Conventions are ‘ratified’. Ratification is by the Government of a state. If a ‘declaration’ has to be ratified before there can be a state, how can they form a government of a state that doesn’t yet exist in order to ratify a Declaration so they can exist?

The process is independent and not mutually exclusive. This may be hard for you to accept, but a state becomes a sovereign largely at the compliance of its population. A declaration of independence is not necessary, nor is recognition, not even by a single other country. Nothing that is drafted pre-state is binding on a state. The whole concept you are trying to push is simply humorous to me, but I lack the skills to make you understand your error. I accept my weakness, but in my defense your bias is deep and heavily clouds your logic. I hope that you will honestly attempt to find the relevant body of law to support your absurd claims though, so that you will discover on your own that you are wrong on this issue. Nobody will be able to teach it to you, you are so far lost in the fog. You also strike me as an arrogant person, so I doubt you will accept your many errors. Unfortunately, we can't continue on to so much more I want to get into until you clear this tiny obstacle. If you only answer one question in all of this it must be to show where declarations of sovereignty are binding in international law.

Well for a start, only the entity wishing to become an INDEPENDENT state can declare INDEPENDENCE. There’s a clue there…something to do with independence. If it isn’t unilateral, how can it be an independent declaration?

I didn't say it wasn't a unilateral declaration, I am simply asking you to point to relevant law that states that a declaration is binding on the future state. let alone that a vague border description in a defunct UN resolution is binding on just one party of what was supposed to be a land sharing agreement, and a border that was never clarified legally by surveyors. I am also asking you to show the relevant text in the declaration where the pre-state council defined the borders since they voted to reject the inclusion of the UN suggested border and used language that does not make it clear that UN 181 borders were the borders they were accepting.

“Ben Gurion drafted the Declaration of Independence. Recorded in the minutes of the People’s Council meeting on the eve of independence he stated:

“Regarding borders, we have decided to evade the issue…We neither reject nor accept the United Nations proposals. The issue has been left open for developments.”

It only shows him to be a liar because AFTER Declaration Israel informed the US that they HAD accepted the boundaries of UNGA Res 181.

Or it shows you to be ignorant, since the statement was made BEFORE the declaration of independence, which you wrongly claim was somehow understood to have created a border. Who should I believe, someone that had an actual hand in drafting the declaration and would know the "intent" of the declaration or a political blow hard that has a nasty chip on his/her shoulder against the state of Israel and a child's understanding of international law principles?

It also shows you to be once again inaccurate with your time line. Go back and reread the telegram. It clearly talks in the future tense about 1 minute after midnight when the Mandate will end. Obviously it was written BEFORE the Mandate ended. It was not written AFTER the state of Israel was formed, which is all that is relevant in this discussion.

The exact time the letter was written was before noon on the 14th, which was BEFORE the Mandate expired...

Even without a clear signal from Lovett and Marshall, I felt we had to set in motion the machinery for recognition, in the event a favorable decision was made. At 10 a.m., I made a different call, one that I would look back on later with great pleasure. "Mr. Epstein," I told the Jewish Agency representative, "we would like you to send an official letter to President Truman before twelve o'clock today formally requesting the United States to recognize the new Jewish state. I would also request that you send a copy of the letter directly to Secretary Marshall."

Further if you are calling the President of the Council a liar than you are calling the entire council liars. They voted to reject the inclusion of the UN border suggestions in the declaration, which would have clarified the foolish claim you are trying to make in regards to them had they included explicit borders in the text of the declaration. The council willfully rejected those borders, though, which for everyone else but Talknic and a tiny handful of Israel hating cranks, put the case to rest.

“Ben Gurion responded in regards to the Partition Plan:

“I told my colleagues that it was unnecessary to demarcate the borders. The state would not come into existence through power of the United Nations’ authority, and the Partition Plan would not decide our permanent borders.”

The Peoples Council accepted the boundaries of Res 181. You’re only showing the lies behind Israel’s Declaration.

Am I? And did they? Where is your evidence and what if they would have accepted them? None of them spoke for the state of Israel that formed later. Nothing a pre-state council does is binding on a future state. Your assertion is wrong, which is why no serious international jurist is willing to stick his neck out and play the role of fool. I am only trying to reason with you for the fun of it. I do not hold out that you are a person of his/her word who will take down anything proven to be wrong as you arrogantly claim, my amusement is in your struggle and the lengths you will go to to avoid honoring your own challenge.

I am not showing lies at all either. I am showing that the intent of the people involved was not to be bound by a worthless piece of paper as you want them to for your bizarre narrative. You call them liars because it destroys your elaborate house of cards to accept the words of the actual authors of the declaration. If this were a treaty we could turn to an instrument of clarification called the Vienna Convention on the Interpretation of Treaties. According to that body of law when the meaning of a treaty is vague or confusing the author of the treaty and the discussion during the drafting of the treaty can be referenced for "intent". Since the People's Council clearly discussed including the border suggestions and rejected it by a vote, they obviously did not "intend" to be bound by the undefined border suggestions of UN 181 as you assert. I let people decide for themselves who to believe. Considering your bias, and the many inaccuracies I have pointed out in just a few responses, I suggest they take what you have to say with a healthy dose of skepticism.

Like asking the Arabs to stay and be part of the state in the Declaration even as they were being cleansed under Plan Dalet.

What came first, slit Jewish throats, hacked to death old men, and grenade attacks on Jewish families eating dinner or Plan Dalet? And what is Plan Dalet? Is it cleansing like you charge? Not hardly. We can get into this and much more later after you have taken down the false statement that UN 181 defines Israel's legal border. It is my intention, if you are an honorable person of your word.

“Israel’s Declaration of Independence was made BEFORE the Mandate ended”

Weird. The declaration says “On May 14, 1948, on the day in which the British Mandate over a Palestine expired, the Jewish People’s Council gathered at the Tel Aviv Museum, and approved the following proclamation, declaring the establishment of the State of Israel. “

The Mandate expired at midnight on the 14th. The declaration was made during that day and speaks in future tense when the Mandate will expire. I suggest you read the documents you comment on. The reason it was drafted and read aloud BEFORE the Mandate ended was because the exact time of the Mandate expiration would have been in conflict with the Sabbath. Just as the telegram was written in advance and given to the President of the US on the 14th BEFORE the Mandate expired.

//The peace agreements and armistice agreements with Israel have all been with the Arab States and the state of Israel, not Israel and the Palestinians.//

“This confirms nicely that there was no political entity called “the Palestinians” recognized when the events were unfolding”

Er, no. It only confirms that the only UN Member States involved were Israel and the Arab States.

Which confirms nicely that there was no political entity called "the Palestinians" since they are central to the current revision of history granting them the status of a wronged people that lost a homeland and were usurped by invading colonialist Jews. It also confirms nicely that the Arabs were invaders since the battles were fought outside of the territory of the Arab states. If there would have been a people called the Palestinians they would have been mentioned by name in UN 242, for example. They were not, because they did not exist as a political entity.

“If such an entity existed it would have been represented in legal documents at the time”

Lebanese-Israeli General Armistice Agreement, March 23, 1949

“Article V 1. The Armistice Demarcation Line shall follow the international boundary between Lebanon and Palestine.“

This is not showing the existence of a political entity. This shows the territorial boundary of the Mandate. The fact is there was no peoples called the Palestinians or the legal documents of the time and resolutions would mention them. Your lame attempt to show a Palestinian people by showing where "Palestine" is referenced shows your desperation to fabricate and give substance to a group of Arabs that took the identity of "Palestinians" because they were not a unique people with a unique history or cohesion until Jews arrived in enough numbers to challenge the status quo of Muslim hegemony. The Klu Klux Klan rose in America because black Americans were emancipated, breaking the status quo of oppression in America. The parallel between the KKK and the Arabs is uncanny, and these racist Arabs are the people you champion. You must harbor some deep, deep hatred to side with racists.

//The Arab States have been the High Contracting Power in the wars with Israel, which is why the UNSC deems the Occupied Territories OCCUPIED and the the Geneva Conventions applicable//

It is ridiculous to suggest that the surrounding states are the High Contracting Party over land "outside" of their own territory. Perhaps you can explain how that works? In order for an agreement regarding international disputes to apply, the land in question must belong to a High Contracting Party. What High Contracting Party owns the disputed land? The UNSC deems the disputed portions of the Jewish homeland to be occupied because of political expediency and nothing else. I have listed some of the reasons in this response, but a full accounting is beyond the scope of a simple rebuttal. You are stating a pretty foolish lie here, since the first determination that Israel was violating the Geneva Conventions wasn't until July 15, 1999 when a closed door meeting, lasting a whole 45 minutes, decided in one fell swoop that Israel was an occupier in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. But even more ridiculous is the simple fact that the Geneva Convention wasn't drafted until 1949, long AFTER the state of Israel had fought off the Arab invaders. So much for your ridiculous claim that the Arab states were the High Contracting Party in 1948 and that the UNSC deemed the land occupied and that the Geneva Conventions were applicable! Your ignorance of the time line once again places your foot in your mouth when making ignorant assumptions. I almost feel sorry for you. Almost.

“The Geneva Conventions do not apply because there is no High Contracting Party, who’s sovereignty has been violated”

Oh? So Israel didn’t fight a war with the Arab states? Which is it to be? The armistice agreements and Peace agreements were between Israel and…? No one?

You do not have a high comprehension of the written word do you? Whether Israel fought a war of survival against 7 of its neighbors or not is irrelevant. The land that Israel is in possession of is not the property of another sovereign for the Geneva Conventions to apply today. So I ask again, which of the Arabs states that invaded had their sovereignty violated? The Geneva Conventions apply to international matters involving High Contracting Parties. The Arabs claiming to be Palestinians are not a High Contracting Party. This has NOTHING to do with whether the actual High Contracting Parties invaded and became belligerents or not in a war outside of their territory. That is a separate issue in the realm of illegal aggression. The full weight of the Geneva Conventions apply to international disputes where sovereign territory has been violated and becomes occupied. This is not the situation in the Jewish Homeland. Israel is in legal possession of all land it currently controls and no High Contracting Party has a legitimate claim to any amount of it.

“The UN mislabels it an “occupation” for political purposes only”

Strange, The resolution was debated in the UN and the UNSC. Israel is a part of the UN. Israel demanded the words ‘the’ and ‘all’ be omitted. They OK’d “..’territories occupied’ in the recent conflict”

You are jumping ahead to UN 242 now. Fine. We can get to that issue in detail later, but Israel had little influence in the drafting of or insisting on language of UN 242. They are the only country that is discriminated against, in violation of the UN Charter, that is not allowed to sit on the Security Council. Israel did not "OK" anything. They were not in a position to OK any Security Council resolution, nor under the unfair situation as it stands will they ever be able to OK anything the Security Council does. The resolution was drafted by the British ambassador, Lord Caradon and it is nothing more than another worthless "suggestion" that is not binding in any way on Israel. It is a Chapter VI resolution and does not carry the weight of international law. Any questions? I hope we can get to that and other issues after you remove the fallacious assertion that Israel is bound by UN 181.

“the same as it defines so called “Palestinian” refugees differently than all other refugees ever formed in history”

No it doesn’t. A refugee is defined by the UNHCR statute. Palestine refugee has exactly the same rights as any other refugee. Only their form of assistance is different.

You are a veritable cornucopia of inaccuracy. Here is a news flash. The Arabs calling themselves Palestinians have a unique definition of "refugee status" that is one of a kind in human history. The UNHCR defines a refugee as someone who

"owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country."

Tens of millions of refugees have been defined by that simple criteria...not the Arabs calling themselves Palestinians though...they have a unique definition, a definition so laced with politics and insanity that they are the only increasing population of refugees in human history as well. The very definition of what a so called Palestinian refugee is increases the problem instead of alleviating it. A self perpetuating problem. Owing to the fact that tens of thousands of Arabs were recent immigrants leeching off of Jewish industriousness when the Jews threw the yoke of second class status off in 1948, UNRWA decided to define a Palestinian refugee as

"persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948, and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict. Palestine Refugees, and descendants of Palestine refugee males, including legally adopted children, are eligible to register for UNRWA services."

Just two years of residency is all it took and you get a life time of squeezing the Western world for money and sympathy, which is an inheritance of course, forget suffrage though, it must be inherited from the male side. Classic UN anti-Israel bias in action. The burden on the rest of us grows and grows. They currently account for about 95% of the persons classified as refugees, they just do not deserve to be called refugees or to receive any more hand outs from us. The perpetual war with the Jews would end if they had to focus on feeding their families instead of killing Jews.

“…the reasons of which can be listed, but are beyond the scope of this current response.”

Quite easy actually. The UN set up a unique organization to ‘assist’ them only while they are refugees for three very simple reasons 1) They are the only completely stateless group of refugees in the world. 2) Israel refuses to recognize RoR 3) The nature of their predicament because of Israel’s refusal and the protracted nature of the conflict.

1) Stateless from their own actions. But they are not the only stateless peoples. Non-Chinese in Hong Kong are stateless now that the Communists have taken over. The Hmong fought for their own state. The Kurds fought for a state. The Sahrawi fought for a state. The free Chinese are fighting for a state, so are the Karen, the Shan and many others, yet somehow we do not allow other people to soak the world for perpetual entitlement. Not even the Tibetans or the Sudanese victims of Arab genocide. And the Arabs calling themselves Palestinians were content to be known as Jordanians for two decades. Why should Israel make them citizens now? They could have shifted with the borders of the state they were happy with in 1967. 2) There is no such thing as a "right of return" for Israel to recognize. There is a demand and nothing more. Israel is not bound by any baseless demand. 3) The nature of their predicament? The Arab genocide in Sudan has claimed over a million civilian deaths and it is arguably the longest running civil war currently being fought, four million real refugees have been formed there and you have the audacity to claim that the Arabs calling themselves Palestinians are in such dire circumstances that they need a special definition of refugee status? All they have to do is cross the Jordan to be in an Arab speaking society, with absolutely zero cultural difference, that will grant them automatic citizenship to escape their so called "predicament", and even better, they will not have to live amongst those hated Jews there, because there are none in Jordan except a few tourists now and then.

“Claiming the Arab states are the High Contracting Party is like claiming Britain, Canada, and the US are the High Contracting Parties representing France after WWII."

Uh uh. If you say so…. but then you say…

“It just doesn’t work that way. France is its own High Contracting Party because it is a state with territorial continuity,..etc etc etc etc “

Leave your straw men at home… They were all states and UN Members. Only UN members can be High Contracting Powers or parties to UN Conventions. The Arab States were representing the non-state entity of Palestine. Clue ‘New Arab State’

They were not UN members in WWII. The UN did not exist. Yet again you seem to be plagued with the virus of inaccuracy and ignorance. The UN was formed AFTER WWII ended. In addition to that, High Contracting Parties do not have to be UN members. A High Contracting Party is someone authorized to sign a treaty for a nation, a concept that had been around, well, for just a few years before the UN was formed, but to our discussion all that is relevant is that the Geneva Conventions apply to

"all cases of declared war or of any other armed conflict which may arise between two or more of the High Contracting Parties."

The Arabs calling themselves Palestinians are not a High Contracting Party regardless of the presence of armed forces of other nations waging war against Israel. Neither Koreas were members of the UN, but they were High Contracting Parties in 1953, for example. As to referencing "new Arab state", I do not follow your logic or understand what you are stating...my weakness.

“the Arabs suddenly calling themselves Palestinians..”

Strange citizens of Palestine have been called Palestinians since Palestine had been called Palestine. At least from the fall of the Ottoman empire. Even Jewish folk were Palestinians

Can you site original source that refers to the Arabs as Palestinians? Plenty of BS has been written long after the fact by Khalidi and other propagandists, but that is not source material. Original source. The first genuine article I can find is a New York Times editorial from 1963 that calls the Arabs "Palestinians". To me, that is sort of sudden when you are talking about almost 4 thousand years of Jewish history. I don't have your extensive knowledge though...but do you have original source to back your claim? During the Mandate period when the name Palestine was dredged up from Roman ethnic cleansing a "Palestinian" in normal conversation was considered to be a Jew. The Arabs were just Arabs or Syrians. They did not adopt the Roman term until they needed anything at all to give them some sort of catchy fig leaf of legitimacy to sell to the West.

//The Convention on the Laws of War existed before Israel Declared//

“Which is far different from saying …. etc etc etc…. but they did have a right to defend themselves under the rules of war, including the right to seize and destroy materials and property that could be used against them.”

Yes. However, territory taken for strategic advantage during war is to be withdrawn from after hostilities. Witnessed by Israel’s withdrawal from Egyptian and Jordanian territories. Read their armistice and peace agreements. Why? Because it is illegal to acquire territory by war!

It may be illegal to acquire land from another nation unless they are the loser in a war of aggression, but it is not illegal to acquire land by war in all cases. Borders change with peace treaties. Territory taken from illegal occupiers does not have to be returned. Witness the withdrawal of Jordanian forces from the land they had captured illegally.

//Jordan’s borders were defined BEFORE Israel Declared, BEFORE their Peace agreement//

“since TransJordan invaded the remaining 25% of the Jewish homeland AFTER it had been established on 75% of the Jewish homeland you agree with me that TransJordan occupied land west of its “defined” border illegally “

Jordan was an independent state in 1946. It was no longer a part of the non-state entity of Palestine in 1948. The Jewish homeland has been the Sovereign state of Israel and no longer a part of the non-state entity of Palestine from 14th May 1948. Jordan occupied the West Bank by agreement WITH ISRAEL. Read the armistice agreement.

I read the armistice agreements and they say nothing of the kind. An armistice is not a power sharing contract. It is an agreement to a cease fire and nothing else. Not surprised that you misconstrue them as an agreement to share the Jewish Homeland though. Any straw floating by probably looks good to someone drowning.

Treaty of Peace Between the State of Israel and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan

“I read the armistice and it says that the armistice line will not prejudice future border negotiations, that hardly accounts for “agreement” “

Strange that you read an AGREEMENT where they agree. Then you say it wasn’t an agreement. Then you alter what it said. Tch tch tch.

I haven't altered what it said. You claim it says that Israel and Jordan "agreed" to share the Jewish Homeland. That is a crock of shit.

"The Armistice Demarcation Lines defined in articles V and VI of this Agreement are agreed upon by the Parties without prejudice to future territorial settlements or boundary lines or to claims of either Party relating thereto."

Note what I said above and what the agreement says. The resemblance is uncanny.

See above and “It is inadmissible to acquire territory by war” (UNSC numerous resolutions) Why did Israel have to withdraw from Egyptian and Jordanian territory? Mmmm?

The UN does not create international law and Israel did not have to withdraw from any Jordanian land. Israel gave back the Sinai hoping for peace after it developed oil wells that generated about 2 billion a year in revenues, even 3 billion if you agree with Dr. Irving Kett's research., but Israel did not withdraw from any Jordanian territory, it was the other way around.

“You will note that the center of the Jordan river is the accepted border between the two nations confirming that the right for Jews to live in the remaining 25% of their historic homeland is acceptable to the belligerent”

The civilian population of the Occupying Power has no right to settle in ‘Territories Occupied’ in the ‘recent conflict’ or any conflict for that matter.

That would only apply if the territory was that of a High Contracting Party. The disputed territory we are discussing was not and currently is not belonging to a High Contracting Party. Jews have every legal right to settle anywhere they wish in their Homeland. Nothing has taken that right from them even though the Mandate for Palestine has expired.

“that had illegally occupied the land for 19 years”

Israel agreed to allow Jordan occupy the West Bank. Read the armistice AGREEMENT.

Because two warring parties agree to a cease fire does not mean they agree to occupation, that is a bizarre stretch of the imagination. Quite consistent with most of what you assert though.

“I could devote thousands of words to challenging this one paragraph but I will be brief and simply ask you to further document with minutes of official meetings, formal letters, unilateral declarations, legislation, anything besides empty assertions by Talknic that; 1) Jordan’s annexation was “legal“. 2) Jordan’s annexation was consensual “

I don’t make empty assertions. The answers you seek are already on these pages, well sourced. You’ve not read what you’re arguing against?

Your web site is a mess and full of empty assertions, several of which I have destroyed in this response. Claiming you do not make empty assertions is yet another empty assertion. Prove those two assertions you have made in unambiguous terms if you can.

“by an established representative of the people. (More than just saying, ‘no intifada followed’. Something a bit more formal that can be read and archived for the record will do nicely.)”

Strange isn’t it that I’ve never said anything of that nature and the information you ask for is already on these pages.

You are lying through your teeth when you say that, "Jordan’s occupation of the West Bank was in AGREEMENT with Israel. (read the armistice) Jordan’s legal annexation was not unilateral, but on the request of the Palestinians, as a temporary trustee, according to the UN’s notions of protecting a non-state entity. (The sources are on these pages)" I have read the cease fire agreement, but I do not see any evidence that Jordan's attempted annexation of more of the Jewish Homeland was legal. I am asking for proof of that. I don't see the information I have asked for on your pages. Perhaps you can spell it out for me here. I am also requesting you show me a document where a legitimate representative of the Arabs calling themselves Palestinians requested Jordan act as a temporary trustee. Just because there was no intifada against Arab Muslim invaders does not mean they requested Jordanian governance. Where is the formal agreement to do so?

“3) Show me something in 1949 where a group calling themselves Palestinians even existed”

Already on these pages and sourced.

I missed it, can you post it here for proof.

//It was impossible for Israel to have Declared before the British Mandate ended. In order to Declare Sovereignty an entity must have full control over the territories they intend to claim. Same for East Timor, Indonesia had to end it’s occupation.//

Yes it was impossible, because the declaration was made by a non-state council. The state is not bound by anything the council declared. But you are absolutely wrong that a country has to have defined borders and absolute control over territory it lays claim to, to become a sovereign. Many countries have border disputes, but are recognized a sovereigns oddly enough.

“There was no Israel to be bound by the declaration, yet the declaration was in fact made BEFORE the Mandate ended.”

Dis-proven by the actual Declaration of a Jewish State.

Go back and read the declaration and the date. The Mandate expired at the end of the day on the 14th. The declaration was on the 14th and spoke in future tense of the Mandate expiring. Your assertion is disproved, yet again. Israel is not bound by anything written or declared before the state was formed. There is no such thing as a binding declaration of sovereignty either.

“So where does that leave the cornerstone of your straw house argument? Are you beating yourself in your own rebuttal, or just confused? .”

Another one for the tricycle lessons….at this rate your teacher might even allow you to take the trainer wheels off..

“Can you show me the hard and fast rules of declaring sovereignty? No?”

Why yes. Try the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States

Very good. Now that you have shown you have a sense of humor, try showing me the hard and fast rules of actually declaring sovereignty. Show me where declarations are binding on the future state. Specifically show me where Israel is bound by the UN border suggestion the council refused to include in the declaration of independence on the eve of the expiration of the Mandate. The Montevideo Convention is only binding on a handful of nations, even if it is based on international law. That said, the Jewish people were not bound by it at all as The Montevideo Convention states clearly that,

"The present Convention shall not affect obligations previously entered into by the High Contracting Parties by virtue of international agreements."

The establishment of a Jewish Homeland in the territory mislabeled Palestine was an obligation previously entered into.

“There are rules in recognizing sovereignty though, which include provisions for de facto recognitions oddly enough, just as I have been saying, but there are none in making unilateral declarations binding. For your own integrity, I suggest you take a step back and make sure you understand the time line of the events and the definitions of law better.”

I suggest, that you suggest who, other than an entity wishing to be recognized as a Sovereign state, can make a Declaration of INDEPENDENCE!! Again, there’s a clue there… I N D E P E N D E N C E

A pre-state peoples make those declarations. So what? That does not bind the state on anything not produced by the state. Get over it and get a clue.

**The transfer of authority over the Mandate went to Israel a few hours before it ended with a declaration of independence.**

//Impossible. Israel didn’t exist until it Declared//

“I misspoke. I write fast because I never have time for this sort of thing. I drafted my response and posted it without proof reading it. Once it was posted I read it over and caught the mistake but did not feel like changing it.”

Another one for tricycle class…you might even get a pat on the head…

Unlike you, I accept that I am sometimes wrong and quickly correct my errors as well as accept responsibility for making them. What is your excuse for insisting that Israel is bound by UN 181 even in the face of irrefutable proof that it is not?

“I appreciate you actually reading what I write. This adds weight, though to my growing suspicion that you are avoiding tough questions to preserve your own ego, which is uncool, since I am willing to change any portion of my own assumptions in favor of facts and I never avoid ANY question, because to do so is cowardly and dishonest. At any rate, I am lazy and I am not a lucid writer. I offer no apologies for that which I freely and upfront admit. What I meant to say..”

Fourteen ‘I’s in a convoluted and pathetic excuse? And you talk about ego?

Sure, let's talk about ego and making challenges to the world that you do not intend to honor. The world is not flat, Talknic. If you refuse to accept that it is round you will be a lonely fool, but you will still have your inflated ego that seems to encompass your entire perspective for company I suppose.

“…to say was that a few hours before the Mandate ended the authorities accepted without complaint that the long suppressed state of Israel was going to be reborn at one minute past midnight and that a provisional government would form. This was common knowledge BEFORE the Mandate ended and the majority of the free world (the only part of the world that counts) accepted it.”

Has NOTHING to to with your assertion. The Mandate over palestine had ENDED before the modern state of Israel existed. The Mandate could not possibly have been handed over to Israel.

Which has nothing to do with your assertion that a declaration of independence written before the end of the Mandate is binding on a state that came after the Mandate ended.

//The letter to the US signaled that Israel had Declared, accepting the territories recommended by UNGS res 181, no more, no less. The US responded with recognition.//

“No. You need to back up to your own statement. “Israel” had not declared anything. There was no Israel at the time of the declaration.”

The letter was sent AFTER Declaration.

Being ignorant is a hobby for you I see. The telegram was delivered before the Mandate expired and a big deal was made of the time zone difference when the President recognized the state of Israel on the 14th. Read the letter again. Read the link to the eye witness accounts I gave. The letter was written in the morning on the day the Mandate expired, not the day after. Another empty assertion to add to the growing list.

“These are your own words even as you insist Israel be bound by vague statements by a non-state council”

The words of the Jewish Peoples Council

Which rejected the borders in a vote on whether to include the defunct UN suggestion in the declaration of independence.

“Your hate ..”

Another one for the tricycle class. Asking that the state founded in our names as our homeland to be law abiding, is not hate. We were given more than enough territory to accommodate the entire Jewish population of the world. Taking more through deceit and violence is completely against the basic tenets of our faith. Rationality and documented evidence in the hope that it might educate people so they understand the ghastly hole Israel has dug or itself over 61 years, is not hate. You and your kind are only digging it deeper.

It only makes sense that you are a self hating Jew. A Jew in name only, no doubt. A Jew that uses his/her identity as a weapon as if rational people give a rat's ass what you claim to be. I give you no more credence than I give to an Arab Muslim, in fact, I give more credence to a jihadist because at least he is honest in his hatred. You have even fooled yourself into thinking the version of history you dwell on is the truth. It is not. It is void of truth. Israel is law abiding or I would not support them. The territory the Jewish people need is not for you to determine. The amount of land that the Jewish state needed for economic survival was debated and determined to be what was mislabeled as Palestine, all of Palestine including the 75% of Palestine the British stole from the Jewish people to appease racist bigoted Arabs with. You do not educate anyone. You are a liar and a distorter of history. It is me and my kind that work tirelessly to prevent useful idiots such as yourself from legitimizing the next Holocaust the Jewish people will probably suffer. Demonisation is a proven precursor to genocide, but Talknic has no problems legitimizing anti-Semites, neo-Nazis, and jihadist fundamentalist Muslims that look for fig leaves to mask their hate behind. After all, if Israel is as evil as Talknic claims then what is the next logical step but to destroy the menace? You are a coward and an intellectual pervert that fuels genocidal rage with your half baked distortions that you wave around like some divine incorruptible creedo. You should be ashamed of yourself. You and your ilk are spreading propaganda that is encouraging more war, more death, more violence. Why do you do it? It is wrong, yes even evil and I do not understand what you get out of it. As if there isn't enough hatred of Israel and Jews going around.

//The UN/UNSC say the settlements are illegal, because unilateral annexation is illegal and it is also illegal to acquire territory by war//

A few crack pot statements above you just said that Jordan's annexation was legal, which is it? It is not illegal to acquire territory by war unless you are the aggressor. The 7 Arab states that invaded the Jewish Homeland have some answering to do for their Jew killing adventurism, but you have some answering to do as to why it is only illegal in your eyes when Jews acquire more of the Jewish homeland. There is no annexation btw, none is necessary.

“The UNSC is irrelevant, there was no unilateral annexation, and it is legal to acquire land through war, especially in a defensive war”

It is inadmissible to acquire territory by war (UNSC) No exceptions.

The UNSC does not create international law and it is legal to acquire land through war in certain cases, defensive war, absolutely.

“Tibet anyone?”

Two wrongs make a right?

So you accept injustice everywhere, but demand the Jews adhere to an impossible standard. Check...

“Besides, practically every border on earth was formed through war,”

Which is why there are now laws forbidding it. Care to name a few borders that have been formed by war in the last 65 years…

Kosovo, Bosnia, Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia, Eritrea, Namibia, China, Korea, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, East Timor, South Ossetia, Georgia, and I am sure I missed others, all had border changes due to war in the last 65 years. Any more questions?

“peace treaties after wars decide borders.”

So where’s the peace treaty deciding Israel’s new borders?

Sure...

“Whether they are recognized by the international community or not is irrelevant. No nation must recognize the boundaries of another, but lack of recognition has no bearing on legality, likewise recognition has no bearing on legality either”

A Declaration of Sovereignty is binding.

You should have no problems finding the relevant body of law to support this empty assertion then. Put up, or shut up...

// the British Mandate wasn’t a treaty, it was formulated on the UN premise of trusteeship over a non-state entity (benevolent occupation). It ended 1948//

“Who was the treaty with? The former High Contracting Party, the Ottomans.”

The Ottoman Empire was a Member of the League of Nations?? WOW!! I wonder if anyone but you knows.

“The Mandates were derived from the signed Treaty of Sevres, ratified at Lausanne. The authority of the Mandate system was codified in the Treaty of Versailles, article 22. “

However, the Ottoman Empire had ceased to exist.

You are a genius at making understatements. The Ottoman empire ceased to exist as of the Treaty of Sevres. The fact is the Mandate for Palestine is a binding treaty and according to the Vienna Convention, once a right is established through a treaty the right can not be taken away upon the expiration of the treaty that established it. The legal right for Jews to immigrate and settle in any portion of territory mislabeled Palestine is still in effect. That is the bottom line legally.

British Mandate for Palestine

The three principles of the British Balfour Declaration regarding Palestine were adopted in the Treaty of Sèvres:

ARTICLE 95.

The High Contracting Parties agree to entrust, by application of the provisions of Article 22, the administration of Palestine, within such boundaries as may be determined by the Principal Allied Powers, to a Mandatory to be selected by the said Powers.

Yes, the boundary was determined to include land on both sides of the Jordan river exactly as Emir Faisel had agreed would become the Jewish Homeland. The British later stole the majority of the land and gave it to an invading bandit, while enacting bigoted laws that forbade Jews from owning property in the East Bank.

“You do understand that to single the Jews out for a set of standards no other peoples on earth are subject to is clearly Antisemitism?”

Yes. Where have I?

The proof is on your pages.

//From the fall of the Ottoman Empire there was a non-state entity of Palestine. It was administered under the British Mandate over Palestine. When TransJordan was carved off, what remained of the non-state entity of Palestine under the British Mandate over Palestine, was Palestine. After Israel was carved off, what remained was a non-state entity of Palestine. What remains today is called Palestine. The name has never been changed. It’s people are Palestinians.//

The problem with this fantasy is that Israel was not carved off. Israel formed despite the best efforts of Britain and the UN to suppress the Jewish state from forming. Nothing was left that was up for grabs. Jews have a legal right to live in all parts of the Mandate. There is no such thing as Palestinians. Arabs took on that name for no other reason than the fact that there has never been an independent political entity in the region other than the Jews of Israel, so they needed some fig leaf of legitimacy to hide behind.

“First, history does not start “from the fall of the Ottoman Empire”
there has been a Jewish entity there for 4 thousand years and since the Roman genocide, longing for freedom and autonomy, separate, unique, and defined in all respects by characteristics that set a people apart amongst the multitudes of peoples inhabiting the earth. The unique Jewish character of the land is confined to a small place that was mislabeled Palestine”

There were a few Jews there for a couple of thousand years. A heck of a lot more other folk though. Never the less it’s strange that at the fall of the Ottoman Empire the region was called PALESTINE and everyone who lived in it were all Palestinians. Get over it.

The people were not Palestinians just because the land suddenly received a new label. There has never been a people called Palestinians in recorded history until now. There were Israelites and there has been and is a Judea and a Samaria, though. The land has been known by those names for thousands of years. The Romans tried to cleanse the Jewish connection to the land 2 thousand years ago. It didn't work. Sorry, Talknic you and your racist friends trying to cleanse the Jewish character from the land won't succeed this time either. As my 12 year old pointed out, if the Iranians nuke Jerusalem there will be nothing to prevent surviving Jews from rebuilding the Temple there. Like the Romans, you and your racist friends underestimate the Jewish people and the bond they have to the land, the real Jews that is.

“There has never been a people called Palestinians until a tool to maintain the war against the Jews was needed, most of the propaganda you have swallowed hook, line, and sinker was driven and funded by anti-Americanism Marxists”

Strange…At the fall of the Ottoman Empire the region was called PALESTINE. It’s citizens were called Palestinians. Even Jewish folk. Sorry to repeat myself, but you keep coming up with Hasbara shite that just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

Sorry to repeat myself too, but you can't get past a fucking moron of a Brit, for political purposes, misnaming a land that had been called Judea or Israel for thousands of years. There is no such thing as a Palestinian, because Palestine has never been a country or a culturally unique people and all the sophistry Talknic and friends can muster won't change a lump of shit into a people with a real history and a real culture. I know what an Irishman is and what sets him apart from a Brit, the same can not be said of an Arab calling himself a Palestinian because they do not have a unique culture.

“I have asked hundreds of Arabs calling themselves Palestinians to name just one single unique characteristic that sets them apart and have been universally met with blank stares or easily destroyed sophistry”

Strange. When you’re a citizen of the USA you say you’re American. The Palestinians I have met are all from Palestine. Something unique about where you’re from.

Name a single characteristic of a so called Palestinian that sets them apart from any other Arab. A label applied to a land by some British Jew hater is not enough. At the very least I would accept them as a people if they had a country called Palestine. They don't and won't if there is any justice in the world.

“The only identifying aspect of the modern usage of the term “Palestinian” is opposition to where the Jews are.”

Uh huh…Since the fall of the Ottoman Empire the region was called Palestine. What is left of that region after Jordan and Israel have been carved out, is still called Palestine. It’s civilians are called, oddly enough, Palestinians. Once Jews in the region were Palestinians too.

Israel has not been carved out and Israel's borders are not yet defined. Jordon is part of Palestine though, that is an undeniable fact.

“In 1964 the Palestinians did not want any land other Arabs occupied, illegally or not, they were after the land Jews held”

At least the 50% of the territory slated for the new Arab State. Territory Israel agreed in it’s Declaration was NOT Israeli but which Israel had acquired, illegally, by war, by 1949.

No, read the PLO Charter of 1964, they did not lay claim to any land Arab Muslims held. Israel did not declare anything. There was no Israel to declare what you claim. Further the Council voted against including UN 181 border suggestions in the declaration. You are a liar and have been proven wrong by any objective standard. All that is left is a test of your honor. My bet is against you having any.

“in 1967 Jews held more land and Palestinian desires shifted to accommodate this”

No doubt.

“Oddly the world accepts this blatant bigotry, racism, and aggression”

Er…it has been Israel illegally taking territory by war. There is nothing bigoted or racist (not that we are a race) or agressive in asking Israel to uphold the law and the UN Charter and asking for one’s rights.

If the PLO were legitimate, with legitimate claims, the claims they make would not change with Israel's control over territory. When Arabs controlled Judea and Samaria the so called Palestinians did not want the land. It is racist and bigoted to desire only what Jews have and then add to the claims when Jews gain more. Or you can explain why for 19 years there was no liberation movement to claim the land the Arabs are today murdering Jews over? And why they accepted the Hashemites, for that matter?

**The Israeli Declaration of Independence explicitly mentions the entirety of Eretz Yisrael as the Homeland of the Jewish people.**

//It does not say that. It says “IN Eretz Israel“. Furthermore, it accepts and enshrines UNGA res 181, which did not give Israel the right to Declare Sovereignty over the entirety of Eretz Israel//

It says Eretz Israel and says nothing about UN181 except to say that UN recognition of the Jewish people's right to a state of their own is irrevocable. As the lawyer from Harvard explains it is a rejection of the UN's authority, because the UN had no authority to "give" shit to the Jews of Israel. It may sound good for fabricating a bullshit case against Israel, but it has nothing to do with reality or law.

“Have you any sense of shame at all? Here is a perfect example of your shoddy research, inattention to details, and misunderstanding. I suggest you go back and either in Hebrew or in English show me where you read “in Eretz Israel”. It says nothing of the sort. Nor does it enshrine UN 181 or its undefined border suggestions, it refers to it as support for the concept of the future state and nothing else.”

Here you go m’dear. READ IT!!! http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Peace+Process/Guide+to+the+Peace+Process/Declaration+of+Establishment+of+State+of+Israel.htm

I read it, have you? UN 181 is not enshrined anywhere in it. Eretz Israel is the land of the Jewish people and if you can't understand that then show me what portion is excluded when the document says "in Eretz Israel"?

//The UNSC resolutions condemning Israel’s illegal annexation are all POST 1967! I believe post 1967 is AFTER 1920//

“Nothing gets by you, huh? The Franco-British Boundary Convention of December 23, 1920 defined the potential Jewish state”

It says NOTHING about a Jewish State. http://www.therightroadtopeace.com/infocenter/Heb/FrancoBritishConv.html

What do you suppose this statement on the link you gave means then?

"What was later to become Transjordan (today called the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan) was, at that time, an integral part of the Land of Israel intended for inclusion in the Jewish National Home in accordance with the terms of the Draft Mandate submitted by the British Government to the Council of the League of Nations on December 6, 1920 for its confirmation."

Jewish Home and Jewish state are the same, but notice the link you gave also says Land of Israel, Eretz Israel. Thank you for clearing it up.

” Your original lie was that the world recognized the provisional state of Israel’s borders”

Provisional refers only to Government. Not borders. Israel was recognized as it declared. Accepting the boundaries of res 181. No more. No less.

Israel did not declare any borders. The Peoples Council rejected the inclusion of borders. What part of this do you not understand? Israel did not exist at the moment the declaration was written and the council voted NOT to include borders. Face it, you are wrong and look like a fool to push the issue further.

//Israel is a Sovereignty. It was recognized as such, by the borders of Res 181, by the majority of the International Community of States, over riding the Arab States objections.//

“That is not true. The US did not recognize Israel de jure for almost a year. Provisional statehood is simply a temporary recognition… etc etc”

Of the provisional GOVERNMENT.

Fixed borders are not necessary or else many countries would not be recognized, the US and Britain for two examples. The US and Canada are disputing Machias Seal Island and the Strait of Juan de Fuca. I think Britain and Argentina are disputing the Falklands? I suggest you look up the facts. UN 181 is not the border of Israel, legally, or even implied.

//A Declaration of Sovereignty is unilateral. Not dependent on anyone else. Read UNGA res 181. If it was a contract with the Arab States, they’d’ve had to have signed or Declared simultaneously. There is no such requirement//

“I have read UNGA 181, what I question is, have you? You don’t seem to grasp all of its details such as the fact that the border is not clarified in 181?

Only 2,300 words or so not clarifying anything. AMAZING!!!

Word count does not mean the survey was completed that might have given the suggestion some legitimacy.

“and that the mechanism to clarify them was never implemented,”

The Jewish Peoples Council accepted them. Verified in the letter NOTIFYING the US of the fact.

The Peoples Council voted to NOT include the borders in the declaration, but even if they had, nothing a pre-state council does is binding on a future state. And the President's advisor told the drafter of the letter what to write, which he then wrote without any consultation with the People's Council. Of course you make this claim so often you will be trying to direct me to the body of law you make your false assumption on, right? You wouldn't be foolish enough to just assume how precepts of law work without verification, right?

“Can you point to any other authoritative organ that agrees with you on this anyway? Didn’t think so”

The Jewish Peoples Council. BTW do you always answer your own questions before you’ve even posted them?

Now point me to an authoritative organ that agrees with you. the People's Council rejected the inclusion of borders. I didn't think you could produce a single legitimate jurist or legal body that agrees with you. Most folks care about their integrity and how foolish they look to others, so none take your view point that I am aware of. In light of what you now have been told, the only thing that remains is a test of your integrity.

“As to my insults, I disburse them where I feel they are owed. The further I see a departure from honesty the more I feel that ridicule is all I have left to offer”

Uh huh. When you can honestly point out some dishonesty on my part…..

To use the imagery you understand best, that is as simple as riding a tricycle...

Third response to Talknic

2009-12-02T11:42:00.007-05:00

Just when you were giving up on a response...

LOL. It’s a representation of the situation.

What do you suppose someone visiting your site for the first time will think your photo represents? To me, the scream captured in the photo says you harbor a deep and disturbing hatred, a negative emotion that drives humans to kill and destroy each other. The photo tells me there is no room for reason, no pretense of fairness, and no sense of compassion for the subject of your rage. Your overwhelming hatred for Israel is captured in the image and it prefaces the sophistry that follows.

Anyway, I am disappointed at the lack of response. I had many questions you left unanswered, which is exactly as I expected. I have been quite nomadic in my search for someone...anyone at all, to defend their assertions with a grain of honesty, and I feel let down, considering the bold challenge on your website claiming you will change anything proven to be false. Proven by what standard is the issue now. Your responses so far have turned out to be a weak attempt at ego preservation instead of reaction to the truth. I claim responsibility for some of that though, I am a weak writer and have failed in my effort to elucidate the points.

Perhaps the problem is that I am being too promiscuous with your time? I think I will attempt to focus on just one issue. On your site you begin with some propaganda about, what you feel is the "biggest lie" of all. In your response you claim that all the evidence for your assertions are there and that your evidence is "irrefutable." Lets examine that....

Your first claim is that UN 181 has relevance and according to you defines Israel's borders. This is what I would like to focus on since this is the beginning of your propaganda. Lets call it a test to see if you are susceptible to reason. From the photo and what you have written so far, I am not hopeful, but I will not give up on you for my part just yet.

What is the UN 181 resolution? It is a non-binding Chapter VI resolution that resolved,

"The Security Council 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;"

In layman's terms, if the document had value, any entity initiating "force" to change the suggested terms of the resolution was supposed to be referred to the Security Council as a threat to peace. Before the ink had even dried on the document, Arabs launched a race war to exterminate the Jews, leaving 7 dead and dozens wounded the day after the results of the vote were made public, shooting, stoning, rioting, attacking the Polish and Swedish consulates, bombing cafes, throwing Molotov cocktails at shops, and setting synagogues on fire. The Security Council should have been notified, but it wasn't. Why? Did the Jews being murdered and attacked have no advocate? The British refused to impliment the resolution because it was REJECTED by Muslim Arabs that refused to share power with dhimmi peoples. The Grand Mufti had called for jihad and the Arabs responded, on December 3, a large mob heeded the call and ransacked the new Jewish commercial center in Jerusalem, they looted and burned Jewish shops and stabbed and stoned any Jew too feeble to run away, some of the victims recent Holocaust survivors. The next day, an armed mob attempted to storm Kibbutz Efal, the first large scale attempt to overrun an entire Jewish community since the massacre at Hebron years earlier. At this point in the conflict NO Arab village had been depopulated and no Jewish defenders had gone on the offensive to protect the defenseless Jewish community from Arab deprivations. The only village depopulated at this point was Hebron, depopulated of its JEWS from previous Arab rioting, which every Jew in the region was keenly aware of.

The Arab upper class had been leaving for months anticipating a potential impending conflict, but when the Muslim fanatics declared war on the Jews, they hastened their departure. The escalating violence was the start of the Arab flight of the middle class and the Fellahin as well. This chaos was the start of the Arab refugee problem caused by ARAB INITIATED VIOLENCE, which should have been reported to the security Council. When the Arab states and the non-State entity of East Palestine called transJordan later invaded, they should have also been reported to the Security Council if the resolution was going to have any relevance. No such action was taken, because the resolution was inert and completely irrelevant to the world at the time. This attitude is confirmed by a secret memo sent to the US Secretary of State declaring that the Security Council refused to pass a resolution which would have accepted the partition plan as a basis for Security Council action. Since none of this transpired, the resolution could have been burned or used for toilet tissue, it had no value regardless of who referred to it further.

With British refusal to maintain order, and sometimes British instigation, the Arabs had decided to settle the matter with blood, but what about the "suggested" boundary itself? Were the border delineations written in the resolution itself set in stone and clear enough to stand a challenge in a court of law? Were they clear and unambiguous enough to define a State solely on what was presented? No, if you take the time to actually read the resolution you will find that it states that the actual border would first be clarified in legal terms AFTER a survey,

On its arrival in Palestine the Commission shall proceed to carry out measures for the establishment of the frontiers of the Arab and Jewish States and the City of Jerusalem in accordance with the general lines of the recommendations of the General Assembly on the partition of Palestine. Nevertheless, the boundaries as described in Part II of this Plan are to be modified in such a way that village areas as a rule will not be divided by state boundaries unless pressing reasons make that necessary.

Did the commission complete its survey of the "suggested" borders, were the borders defined clearly enough to hold up in a court of law, and did any pressing reasons arise to change them before they were surveyed and precisely defined? The Arabs initiated a race war against the Jewish community the day the vote was announced, rejecting the very premise of the division, but not only did this prevent the final and official lines of the "frontier" between the two illegally proposed states from being finalized, this also left the final proposed border undetermined, even if we were suspend all logic and assume that any party would have been bound to them even had the survey been completed. The Power legally responsible for maintaining order (Britain) stood by and did next to nothing about Arab atrocities making the survey impossible to complete on the grounds of security and a lack of consensus over the acceptability of the resolution itself. Not only were there no survey teams to define in legal terms the proposed border, the entire demography changed from the consequences of Arab initiated violence from the moment the plan was voted on. Further, the language used in the resolution is that the borders are "general guidelines" with a clear mechanism of maintaining community cohesion. Even if we erroneously accept that the non-state, Jewish Agency had any legal authority or the power to bind the potential future state of Israel to its unilateral declarations prior to the reconstitution of the state of Israel, the resolution itself allows for border changes if pressing needs arose, making any assertion of maximal demands by Talknic or any other anti-Israeli partisan pure hateful fantasy. No reasonable and competent court on earth has or can adjudicate to the contrary.

Are states bound by UN resolutions and did the Arabs accept the UN 181 suggestion? No. Chapter VI resolutions are suggestions for two parties to use as a negotiating basis. No Arab statesman accepted Jewish self determination so there was no partner to even begin negotiations with. The Muslim Jewish relationship had long been that of master and oppressed, and as long as this dichotomy was maintained there was something that looked like peace...abject humiliation on the part of the oppressed Jew sometimes earned lack of violence on the part of the Muslim. Islam teaches supremacism. Muslims are unwilling to accept a Jew as an equal, let alone as a potential ruler, because the Muslim faith demands that Muslims rule over waqf lands. There was no negotiations based on pluralism, nor can there ever be, there were only Arab demands based on traditional intolerance, and nothing will ever change that because the conflict has nothing to do with land. The conflict has always been about Muslim dominance and power over dhimmi people and the free world has gone along with this because of our dependence on the oil these bigots have. The land issue is secondary. What the issue of a woman born in freedom and living in a country where the rights of minorities and women were preserved by the blood sacrifice of predominantly Christian soldiers is...is a mystery.

Is a unilateral declaration by a non-state actor, ie.. a declaration of independence, binding on the future state? Is a declaration of independence even required to form a nation? No to both. A declaration is just that, it is a public proclamation and not an authentic legislative act that represents organic law. It is incredible that your "irrefutable" evidence is a simple letter and a non-binding proclamation, and that you also presume to know more than The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States, which I have already pointed out clearly states,

lawyers generally and the Supreme Court in particular, have been reluctant to treat the Declaration as part of American Organic Law, or even to accord it the restricted status of the Preamble to the constitution.

American law derives its authority from the Constitution and ratified legislative acts, not the Declaration of Independence. In order for an act of legislation to be binding it must have power, authority, and force. Israel was recognized de facto on May 15, 1948, but it wasn't until January 31, 1949 until the US recognized Israel de jure, because Israel until then had been a PROVISIONAL STATE led by a Provisional State Council. The word "provisional" in matters of state mean subject to change. Further, even with de jure recognition, borders can and are disputed. Israel's frontiers are just one of many borders not recognized. For reasons of Antisemitism and aggressive propaganda Israel is just the subject of scrutiny far above what it is deserving.

Not only did you avoid questions, you avoided some critical ones that must be answered... 1) If the undefined border of UN 181 is somehow binding on the state of Israel, what would have been the consequence had the Arabs won? Unilateral declarations are non-binding without consent and ratification. So what power does a non-state unilateral declaration have? 2) Had the Arabs been able to massacre the Jews as they had intended what would have been the punishment for violating the undefined border suggestion of UN 181 and under what authority would the non-state declaration by the Jewish Agency have been enforced? Please note and address the fact that even in a legal declaration, if you write in a provision describing a self executing obligation, it is fine, but it is not binding as part of the international legal obligation, so what consequence could there have been on the Arabs for violating a Jewish non-state unilateral declaration? 3) Most importantly we can put the whole matter to rest if you can show any body of law that defines the principle of "binding unilateral declarations"? The request is straight forward, Talknic should be able to produce at least one international or even national document where this principle is legally supported. Should Talknic be unable to produce such evidence, then Talknic should have the integrity to take down the ridiculous claim that UN 181 has any relevance. None will be forth coming though, because none exists in any relevant body of public law. In order to be bound by statute there must be an enforcement mechanism and an authority that specifically enabled the declaration. Representatives of a future state that may or may not have come into existence do not provide that authority and if we are to argue that the authority came from the will of the people, then the will of the people was to claim more of their homeland as allocated in the binding contract of the Mandate for Palestine. Bear in mind the declaration was made BEFORE the end of the Mandate and that the resultant entity was PROVISIONAL, or de facto, not de jure. If you understood the difference you would understand that your assertion has no validity based on recognition of Israel by other nations.

Was the intent of the Provisional State Council that drafted the declaration to either imply or incorporate the undefined UN 181 border suggestions in the declaration? No. We can turn to statements by the author of the declaration to see plainly that the border was not being defined in the declaration, nor was it defined in precise legal terms. Everyone but Talknic seems to understand this implicitly. Ben Gurion drafted the Declaration of Independence. Recorded in the minutes of the People's Council meeting on the eve of independence he stated:

"Regarding borders, we have decided to evade the issue...We neither reject nor accept the United Nations proposals. The issue has been left open for developments."

After the Arabs lost their struggle to annhilate the Jewish community with violence and later turned to embarrassing, attempts (after the fact) to revive the rejected resolution for political reasons only, much as Talknic does, Ben Gurion responded in regards to the Partition Plan:

"I told my colleagues that it was unnecessary to demarcate the borders. The state would not come into existence through power of the United Nations' authority, and the Partition Plan would not decide our permanent borders."

It seems your key mistake, among many, on this issue is that you fail to understand that a non-state or even pre-state unilateral declaration is not binding on anyone. Israel's Declaration of Independence was made BEFORE the Mandate ended, is not a legislative act in and of itself, nor did the People's Council that drafted it have the legal authority to delineate borders of a nonexistent, future state, nor did the authors of the declaration explicitly accept or define future borders in the text itself when it referred to the non-defined border suggestions of UN 181. You also fail to understand that a de facto recognition of a Provisional Government is not the same as recognizing a state de jure or that even de jure recognition might preclude border disputes. It doesn't. Borders are disputed all over the world between recognized states. Provisional is a temporary situation subject to change, subject to legislation and ratification, which in Israel's case came after it survived an attempt to commit genocide by the Arab Muslims surrounding the tiny Jewish community. Your bizarre sophistry about annexation and UN 181 is amusing, but it is not based on the facts or on accepted law. If you dug a little deeper into how law actually works you would understand this yourself. As of now though you are simply embarrassing yourself by tilting at windmills with the full fury of your inner convictions.

As to some of the other amusing vignettes:

The peace agreements and armistice agreements with Israel have all been with the Arab States and the state of Israel, not Israel and the Palestinians.

This confirms nicely that there was no political entity called "the Palestinians" recognized when the events were unfolding. If such an entity existed it would have been represented in legal documents at the time. Every time you mention the fact that the Arab nations were in the Jewish homeland as belligerent aggressors you reaffirm the fact that there were no people calling themselves Palestinians until AFTER all means of violence were utilized and lost. They are a political entity that were created out of thin air to oppose Jews coming to power of Muslims and nothing else. Land has little to do with it.

The Arab States have been the High Contracting Power in the wars with Israel, which is why the UNSC deems the Occupied Territories OCCUPIED and the the Geneva Conventions applicable.

The Geneva Conventions do not apply because there is no High Contracting Party, who's sovereignty has been violated. The UN mislabels it an "occupation" for political purposes only, the same as it defines so called "Palestinian" refugees differently than all other refugees ever formed in history, the reasons of which can be listed, but are beyond the scope of this current response. Claiming the Arab states are the High Contracting Party is like claiming Britain, Canada, and the US are the High Contracting Parties representing France after WWII. It just doesn't work that way. France is its own High Contracting Party because it is a state with territorial continuity, whether portions of the state are disputed or not is irrelevant, the critical factor being that France had de jure and de facto recognition before the provisions of the Geneva Convention needed to be applied (Geneva 4 came after WWII, but the point is an example), the Arabs suddenly calling themselves Palestinians did not, nor have they ever had a recognized status until now, for political reasons only.

The Convention on the Laws of War existed before Israel Declared.

Which is far different from saying a beleaguered minority group under the direct authority of the British government, who were refused protection by the British authorities, are bound by state conventions they have not ratified as a nation, nor have the authority to enforce, don't you agree? Did the Jews of Mandatory Palestine have the right to take and hold prisoners of war, for example? No. When some Arab villages were destroyed to prevent the imminent arrival of fully trained and outfitted armed forces of Arab state actors from having a place to resupply and stage attacks from there was no place to keep prisoners, but they did have a right to defend themselves under the rules of war, including the right to seize and destroy materials and property that could be used against them.

Jordan’s borders were defined BEFORE Israel Declared, BEFORE their Peace agreement.

Very good, since TransJordan invaded the remaining 25% of the Jewish homeland AFTER it had been established on 75% of the Jewish homeland you agree with me that TransJordan occupied land west of its "defined" border illegally and that it is not the High Contracting party responsible for jurisdiction or of representation in any way of people living west of said border.

Jordan’s occupation of the West Bank was in AGREEMENT with Israel. (read the armistice) Jordan’s legal annexation was not unilateral, but on the request of the Palestinians, as a temporary trustee, according to the UN’s notions of protecting a non-state entity. (The sources are on these pages)

I read the armistice and it says that the armistice line will not prejudice future border negotiations, that hardly accounts for "agreement". The war the Jews just fought for their very lives was what, Talknic's version of a consensus? Now refer to the peace treaty...which is where the acquisition of land through war is LEGAL. You will note that the center of the Jordan river is the accepted border between the two nations confirming that the right for Jews to live in the remaining 25% of their historic homeland is acceptable to the belligerent that had illegally occupied the land for 19 years. The land is now contested only because a terrorist organization, the PLO, had come into existence 3 years before it was liberated in a war of self defense. Read the PLO Charter, article 25, where the PLO did not recognize authority over the disputed land. As an aside, I am left baffled today how the West accepted the sudden twist in the narrative, the PLO rewrote it's Charter and suddenly discovered its long lost homeland on previously unwanted land. The clearest case of blatant racism and bigotry in modern history has been accepted by much of the world, for political purposes only, much of it Cold War politics, much of it dependence on oil, all of it outside the scope of this response, and all of it confusing to someone that demands legitimacy before supporting a cause.

I could devote thousands of words to challenging this one paragraph, but I will be brief and simply ask you to further document with minutes of official meetings, formal letters, unilateral declarations, legislation, anything besides empty assertions by Talknic that; 1) Jordan's annexation was "legal". 2) Jordan's annexation was consensual by an established representative of the people. (More than just saying, 'no intifada followed'. Something a bit more formal that can be read and archived for the record will do nicely.) 3) Show me something in 1949 where a group calling themselves Palestinians even existed, please be precise, hundreds of very, very vague references to "Palestinians" have been written, none of them distinguish the Jews from the Arabs that have suddenly adopted the term for political purposes only though. I am asking for something very defined and official that shows legitimacy beyond question. UN 242, for example never mentions Palestinians, the Mandate for Palestine never mentions Palestinians, the White Papers do not mention Palestinians. The lack of legitimacy is conspicuous to someone seeking a sign that there is more to the Arab war than Jew hatred and Arab racism. 4) Document the "request" that Jordan annex the land. From who? On what authority? Where is the formal request archived now? All Jewish Agency official documents are stored, this should be a simple task to prove you are not just making things up in desperation. 5) And be very, very clear in showing that it was going to be a "temporary trustee" as you claim. Your sources are not on your pages, your wrong assumptions are all over your pages though, and little else.

It was impossible for Israel to have Declared before the British Mandate ended. In order to Declare Sovereignty an entity must have full control over the territories they intend to claim. Same for East Timor, Indonesia had to end it’s occupation.

Now you are catching on. There was no Israel to be bound by the declaration, yet the declaration was in fact made BEFORE the Mandate ended. So where does that leave the cornerstone of your straw house argument? Are you beating yourself in your own rebuttal, or just confused? Can you show me the hard and fast rules of declaring sovereignty? No? There are rules in recognizing sovereignty though, which include provisions for de facto recognitions oddly enough, just as I have been saying, but there are none in making unilateral declarations binding. For your own integrity, I suggest you take a step back and make sure you understand the time line of the events and the definitions of law better.

“The transfer of authority over the Mandate went to Israel a few hours before it ended with a declaration of independence.”

Impossible. Israel didn’t exist until it Declared.

I misspoke. I write fast because I never have time for this sort of thing. I drafted my response and posted it without proof reading it. Once it was posted I read it over and caught the mistake but did not feel like changing it. I appreciate you actually reading what I write. This adds weight, though to my growing suspicion that you are avoiding tough questions to preserve your own ego, which is uncool, since I am willing to change any portion of my own assumptions in favor of facts and I never avoid ANY question, because to do so is cowardly and dishonest. At any rate, I am lazy and I am not a lucid writer. I offer no apologies for that which I freely and upfront admit. What I meant to say was that a few hours before the Mandate ended the authorities accepted without complaint that the long suppressed state of Israel was going to be reborn at one minute past midnight and that a provisional government would form. This was common knowledge BEFORE the Mandate ended and the majority of the free world (the only part of the world that counts) accepted it. The authority was in the will of the Jewish people, many of which were Holocaust survivors and refugees from Arab pogroms in need of a sanctuary to escape from worldwide hatred and envy from, something Talknic represents in her photo that for me casts a malevolent shadow over her blog.

“A letter is not a binding contract or an authentic legislative act”

The letter to the US signaled that Israel had Declared, accepting the territories recommended by UNGS res 181, no more, no less. The US responded with recognition.

No. You need to back up to your own statement. "Israel" had not declared anything. There was no Israel at the time of the declaration. These are your own words even as you insist Israel be bound by vague statements by a non-state council. Your hate is getting in the way of reason and you are attempting to bring the cart before the horse when it looks better for your fragile case. You can't have it both ways.

The UN/UNSC say the settlements are illegal, because unilateral annexation is illegal and it is also illegal to acquire territory by war.

The UNSC is irrelevant, there was no unilateral annexation, and it is legal to acquire land through war, especially in a defensive war, or there would be no risk to waging war after war by states that do not care about international laws until the objective is met. Tibet anyone? Besides, practically every border on earth was formed through war, peace treaties after wars decide borders. Whether they are recognized by the international community or not is irrelevant. No nation must recognize the boundaries of another, but lack of recognition has no bearing on legality, likewise recognition has no bearing on legality either.

A) Who was the treaty with? Fact is, the British Mandate wasn’t a treaty, it was formulated on the UN premise of trusteeship over a non-state entity (benevolent occupation). It ended 1948.

Who was the treaty with? The former High Contracting Party, the Ottomans. The Mandates were derived from the signed Treaty of Sevres, ratified at Lausanne. The authority of the Mandate system was codified in the Treaty of Versailles, article 22. Are you challenging every border in the ME and some in Africa, since you claim the Mandates were not treaties? You do understand that to single the Jews out for a set of standards no other peoples on earth are subject to is clearly Antisemitism?

B) From the fall of the Ottoman Empire there was a non-state entity of Palestine. It was administered under the British Mandate over Palestine. When TransJordan was carved off, what remained of the non-state entity of Palestine under the British Mandate over Palestine, was Palestine. After Israel was carved off, what remained was a non-state entity of Palestine. What remains today is called Palestine. The name has never been changed. It’s people are Palestinians.

First, history does not start "from the fall of the Ottoman Empire", there has been a Jewish entity there for 4 thousand years and since the Roman genocide, longing for freedom and autonomy, separate, unique, and defined in all respects by characteristics that set a people apart amongst the multitudes of peoples inhabiting the earth. The unique Jewish character of the land is confined to a small place that was mislabeled Palestine, it does not stretch from India to West Africa and it never had any cultural significance to the Arabs. No Arab entity existed, a small and forgotten portion of a larger Arab entity did, but that portion of a larger Arab entity never adopted characteristics of a separate people until hatred of the Jews united the portion of the group, (which for reasons of racism and religious bigotry had the backing and support of the larger group, even transcending borders and minor schisms between the whole). There has never been a people called Palestinians until a tool to maintain the war against the Jews was needed, most of the propaganda you have swallowed hook, line, and sinker was driven and funded by anti-Americanism Marxists. Without Soviet propaganda and the Cold War, there likely never would have been a Palestinian people that we recognize today. I have asked hundreds of Arabs calling themselves Palestinians to name just one single unique characteristic that sets them apart and have been universally met with blank stares or easily destroyed sophistry. The only identifying aspect of the modern usage of the term "Palestinian" is opposition to where the Jews are. In 1964 the Palestinians did not want any land other Arabs occupied, illegally or not, they were after the land Jews held, in 1967 Jews held more land and Palestinian desires shifted to accommodate this. Oddly the world accepts this blatant bigotry, racism, and aggression.

“The Israeli Declaration of Independence explicitly mentions the entirety of Eretz Yisrael as the Homeland of the Jewish people. “

It does not say that. It says “IN Eretz Israel”. Furthermore, it accepts and enshrines UNGA res 181, which did not give Israel the right to Declare Sovereignty over the entirety of Eretz Israel.

Have you any sense of shame at all? Here is a perfect example of your shoddy research, inattention to details, and misunderstanding. I suggest you go back and either in Hebrew or in English show me where you read "in Eretz Israel". It says nothing of the sort. Nor does it enshrine UN 181 or its undefined border suggestions, it refers to it as support for the concept of the future state and nothing else.

“And as to your spurious charge of annexation, it is redundant. The Franco-British Boundary Convention of December 23, 1920……”

The UNSC resolutions condemning Israel’s illegal annexation are all POST 1967! I believe post 1967 is AFTER 1920.

Nothing gets by you, huh? The Franco-British Boundary Convention of December 23, 1920 defined the potential Jewish state and the areas Jews were allowed to immigrate to. This was set in stone before an irrelevant politicized body came into being. You are giving my argument reinforcement by pointing out that the binding and defined borders were there first, the non-binding suggestions of the UN came later and those drafting non-binding suggestions ignored international law when making them.

“Recognition of borders. Your original lie was that the world recognized the provisional state of Israel’s borders. “

‘provisional’ statehood is for non-sovereign states. Israel is a Sovereignty. It was recognized as such, by the borders of Res 181, by the majority of the International Community of States, over riding the Arab States objections.

That is not true. The US did not recognize Israel de jure for almost a year. Provisional statehood is simply a temporary recognition subject to legislative acts, ratification, and include border clarifications oddly enough. Check your sources, better yet, ask a real lawyer instead of gleaning your suppositions from frustrated Jew haters and Marxist generated propaganda.

A Declaration of Sovereignty is unilateral. Not dependent on anyone else. Read UNGA res 181. If it was a contract with the Arab States, they’d've had to have signed or Declared simultaneously. There is no such requirement.

I have read UNGA 181, what I question is, have you? You don't seem to grasp all of its details such as the fact that the border is not clarified in 181 and that the mechanism to clarify them was never implemented, leaving them open to interpretation even if anyone were to accept even the least bit of relevance to them. Can you point to any other authoritative organ that agrees with you on this anyway? Didn't think so.

As to my insults, I disburse them where I feel they are owed. The further I see a departure from honesty the more I feel that ridicule is all I have left to offer.

second response

2009-11-08T13:29:00.003-05:00

Sorry for the delay, I do not live in the electronic world. Life imposes and anyone reading will have to take it as is. Here is a late response...

"I don’t get angry. It is a waste of energy."

You have your readers fooled with the rather angry looking photo of yourself, or perhaps the moon was full when that one was taken?

"Geneva conventions - The Arab States, representing the remainder of the non-state entity of Palestine (after Jordan and Israel declared Sovereignty over parts of it), the other Contracting Power, attested to by the ceasefire agreements, armistice agreements and Peace Treaties."

The Arab signatories of the armistice agreements were inside the borders of the Jewish National Home as belligerent aggressors, not as legitimate representatives of the local Arab people. None of the Arab states had legal jurisdiction over any portion of the territory of Palestine nor can they represent the people living there now. A High Contracting Party is defined as The representatives of states who have signed or ratified a treaty. Palestine is not a state, nor has it ever been a state. In situations where a State entity does not exist, a territory cannot legitimately be represented by a foreign or outer intervention, without a legal contract such as the Mandate for Palestine. Can you point to any contract to support your claim? Yes no? Further, can you cite case history where two or more High Contracting Parties share responsibility for the actions of individuals residing in an single amorphous territorial area? Can the hostile belligerents Egypt, Iraq, or Syria, for example, be held jointly libel for war crimes committed by the Arabs formerly residing in the territory mislabeled Palestine? Yes no? If not, and as you claim they are the High Contracting Party, aside from fanciful and confused imagination, why not?

"You cite a mandate that ended May 14th 1948."

You cite a Convention that did not exist on May 14th, 1948. I have stated that the rights established in the Mandate do not expire upon termination of the Mandate, perhaps you can explain what legal mechanism existed to show how the Convention you cling to is retroactive?

The transfer of authority over the Mandate went to Israel a few hours before it ended with a declaration of independence. It came into effect exactly at the moment the Mandate ended, one minute after midnight. The Mandatory authority accepted it without contest. Israel was born with a provisional government and provisional borders. The Arabs immediately launched an attempted genocide. The cease fire agreements from that genocide attempt ended with the illegal theft of a portion of the Jewish state. None of the Arab states objected to this situation for 19 years. Can you speculate as to why Arab Muslims had no problems with the land being held by Arab Muslims, but changed their tune when Jews properly liberated the occupied land in 1967 and gave those same oppressed Muslims freedoms they had never experienced in their lives such as a vote in municipal elections for women? If you think hard enough even you can recognize that the people you have deemed the victims are guilty of bigotry...hardly a cause rational people should reward.

"Letter From the Agent of the Provisional Government of Israel to the President of the United States, May 15, 1948"

A letter is not a binding contract or an authentic legislative act. It is a letter and nothing more. The letter only refers to UN 181, it does not claim UN 181 is the sole basis for the declaration, nor was the provisional state bound by a contract that was voided by the Arab belligerents. Is this clear? Even if we suspend belief for a moment and pretend it was a legitimate contract, it would have still been made null and void the moment when the Arabs refused to sign on. You dragging it up now is laughable and pathetic. I almost feel sorry for you clinging to this straw as your fragile argument is swept out to sea.

"On September 21 2006, the Israeli Ministry of Housing and Construction issued tenders to construct 164 new housing units in 3 Israeli settlements in the West Bank? Yes? No?"

A tender is a permit and a bid for work. Private contractors built the units with the approval of the Ministry of Housing. This is different from a government housing project built by the government. But the argument has no merit, because Jews have the legal right to settle there without prejudice.

"If it has no ’sovereign’. Then it is NOT Israeli either, because Israel is a SOVEREIGN state."

Not quite, the Mandate for Palestine established the legal right for Jews to settle in the land that was mislabeled Palestine. Attorney Howard Grief explains:

"Under the principle of acquired legal rights, though the international instrument upon which those rights were founded did indeed expire, the rights themselves conferred on the Jewish People remained in force. This principle of international law is now codified in Article 70(1)(b) of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties"

Article 70
Consequences of the termination of a treaty

1. Unless the treaty otherwise provides or the parties otherwise agree, the
termination of a treaty under its provisions or in accordance with the
present Convention:

(a) releases the parties from any obligation further to perform the
treaty;
(b) does not affect any right, obligation or legal situation of the
parties created through the execution of the treaty prior to its
termination.

"Apart from illegal outposts, the issue is ISRAELI citizens, in territory which has not been legally annexed to Israel, in illegal settlements constructed under contracts issued by the Israeli Government which has illegally instituted it’s own Civil Law in a territory it has never legally annexed."

The Israeli Declaration of Independence explicitly mentions the entirety of Eretz Yisrael as the Homeland of the Jewish people. Eretz Israel means 'land' of Israel as determined by the Franco-British Convention on Certain Points Connected with the Mandates for Syria and the Lebanon, Palestine and Mesopotamia, not Medinat or 'state' of Israel. This fact is confirmed in the Law of Return, where the word Palestine is replaced with the word Israel, where Palestine appears in the language of the Mandate.

And as to your spurious charge of annexation, it is redundant. The Franco-British Boundary Convention of December 23, 1920 defined the Jewish homeland. The legal boundary was accepted and confirmed into law with the binding obligation of the Mandate for Palestine on July 24, 1922. The General Assembly of the United Nations had no authority to alter the terms of the treaty and no 'suggestion' it made can be misconstrued as being binding or legal. Under Article 80 of the UN Charter and the doctrine of estoppal, the UN was bound to uphold the terms of the Mandate, the UN had no authority to change the terms or steal the rights of Jews to immigrate to their homeland.

"...nothing in this Chapter shall be construed in or of itself to alter in any manner the rights whatsoever of any states or any peoples or the terms of existing international instruments to which Members of the United Nations may respectively be parties."

In other words, member states were bound to respect the terms of the Mandate of Palestine, and upon its termination the right of Jews to immigrate until another binding agreement removes that right.

D)The territory of a non-sovereign and/or non-state entity, belongs to the entity.

Unless a state has a better claim and no functioning government exists in the territory. Can you show where jurisdictional ownership of a territory is defaulted to an ambiguous group of people based on race? And can you reference any legal process to redraw state boundaries according to the will of peoples based on race, this foundational document, for example, mentions the "Arab" race over 30 times. Does it upset you that your efforts are aimed at supporting racists? Didn't think so.

E) Geneva Conventions. The non-state entity of Palestine, is represented by the Arab states who are the other Contracting Power, attested to by the ceasefire agreements, armistice agreements and Peace Treaties.

Which you can show in unambiguous legal terms, yes no? Jordan and Israel set the international border between the two countries as the center of the Jordan river, is Jordan a High Contracting Party as you claim or not? What vehicle exists for the other Parties to agree on jurisdictional matters of a single territory? Do these multiple Parties have a council? Meetings? What foolishness, and you claim I am ignorant?

Japanese companies own land in Australia, they hold title to it. However, it is NOT Sovereign Japanese territory, it belongs equally (under Sovereignty) to every citizen of Australia, even if they are a homeless bum living under a bridge.

Thank you for reinforcing my point. Arabs may own some small amount of private property in Judea and Samaria, but it is NOT Sovereign Palestine territory. Did you give this much thought before you shot yourself in the foot?

The ‘title’ to territory of a Sovereign state is it’s Declaration of Sovereignty.

It is not that simple. I can get a hundred of my biker friends and declare sovereignty over the club house, but how far do you think that will go for us in court when we decide to legalize pot there? Northern Ireland still belongs to Britain regardless of the identity or sentiments of the majority of locals. Unlike the Arabs calling themselves Palestinians, the Kurds are even a unique people with a cultural identity that is tied to a geographic area, but they do not have a right to declare that parts of four countries be turned into a new sovereign nation.

As for possession, it is ILLEGAL to acquire territory by war/force. The only way a state may acquire more territory is by LEGAL annexation.

That is incorrect, but once again thank you for strengthening my case. A state may acquire more land as the result of a peace treaty. The propaganda mantra you are parroting is taken from UN 242, which inserted there to make it clear that Jordan held land west of the Jordan river illegally, not Israel. Nor are any fictitious peoples calling themselves Palestinians mentioned in the resolution, I would like to point out. However, you may be surprised to note that Jordan and Israel have concluded a peace treaty. The center of the Jordan river is the international border between the two states. Egypt and Israel have also concluded a peace treaty and the border is clear also, it lies south of Gaza. These are your High Contracting Parties legally representing the territory, no yes? You can explain the rejection of sovereignty by the PLO and the peace treaties establishing the international border betwen the two High Contracting Parties. Yes no?

The Arab States are (collectively) the other Contracting Party, attested to by the ceasefire agreements, armistice agreements and Peace Treaties. As a UN Member State, Israel is automatically obliged to the UN Charter & Laws of War (Both mandatory & without exception). The Geneva Conventions are extensions to the Laws of War.

Of course, you will be providing clear legal precedent establishing "collective" representation over a single territory that has an existing solid claim on it, in light of clear PLO rejection of sovereignty.

Israel is also obliged to the Geneva Conventions it ratified as a UN Member state, thereby obliging it to uphold those conventions from the moment it ratified them, “in all circumstances”.

And so it has as of 1951, long after the so called refugees were formed...

Art. 2. ….
Although one of the Powers in conflict may not be a party to the present Convention, the Powers who are parties thereto shall remain bound by it in their mutual relations. They shall furthermore be bound by the Convention in relation to the said Power, if the latter accepts and applies the provisions thereof.

The relevant portion you seem to have forgotten to share from Article 2 is this...

"the present Convention shall apply to all cases of declared war or of any other armed conflict which may arise between two or more of the High Contracting Parties, even if the state of war is not recognized by one of them."

You will be pointing out the other High Contracting Party since it clearly requires two or more of them for this Convention to apply to, yes no? Or will you be fabricating another elaborate case built of straw that the Arabs calling themselves Palestinians were somehow recognized as a unique people in 1948, or as a State there after, or even as a political entity in 1967 after the Geneva Conventions applied?

The Arab states representing the non-state entity of Palestine were the other High Contracting Parties, attested to by the ceasefire agreements, armistice agreements and Peace Treaties.

And you will be forthwith on clarifying the issues I have mentioned above, yes no? How many times have you mentioned this fallacy now? We can boil the majority of your argument down to just a few false assumptions I think.

A declaration of Sovereignty IS binding and READ what ISRAEL SAID

I hereby declare sovereignty over the club house. I base this on Talknic's interpretation of the way things work.

Everything you have written about the British Mandate over Palestine is irrelevant. I shan’t address any more of your ‘Mandate’ assertions other than to say the Mandate ENDED BEFORE Israel Declared Sovereignty.

Shan't you? You apparently do not wish to be taken seriously then. You have your facts wrong even on a minor detail above though. Israel declared independence BEFORE the Mandate ended. WE DECLARE that, with effect from the moment of the termination of the Mandate being tonight, the eve of Sabbath, the 6th Iyar, 5708 (15th May, 1948)

Their ’stated goal’ is in the Arab League Declaration on the Invasion of Palestine May 15, 1948.

Of course. The Arab League declaration of war. Lip service so as not to provoke the world into trying to prevent the genocide that was intended. No doubt a Brit had a heavy hand in the drafting as a Brit was leading the Arab army on a "war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades."

A) Israel had the Mediterranean.

Yes, they could have been thrown into the sea. This genocidal sentiment you share with your support of racist bigots that have created a society of Jew murderers not seen since the 1930s is exactly why Jews need a sanctuary called Israel today more than ever. And it is exactly why I am here ridiculing your pathetic propaganda that only gives comfort to genocidal criminals needing a smoke screen to hide their true desires. You should be ashamed of yourself instead of being irrationally angry at the Jews.

B)The Mandate ENDED BEFORE Israel Declared Sovereignty.

Check your sources.

The Arab States representing the Palestinians are the other High Contracting Parties.

Another reference to multiple representation, hmmm. Because you say it is so? How does multiple jurisdiction work any way? How often do they convene to hash out their internal differences?

They are an obligation voluntarily accepted by the ratifier/signatory. They’re not signed between countries. If they were signed between countries, they’d have to be signed simultaneously and contain the other country/ies names and signatures. They don’t.

True, but non signatories and illegal militiamen are not afforded full protections. There are basic human rights for terrorists, but no more. Nor has Israel ratified the additional protocols that give terrorists an advantage and politicize some mythical "right of return".

The Palestinians are represented by the Arab STATES. This is attested to by ALL the ceasefire, armistice agreements and Peace Treaties.

You sound like a broken record stuck on something inaudible. This seems to be the bed rock (straw) of much of your argument. I am giddy with excitement hoping you will attempt to define this representation in legal terms.

In one part it says only area. In the other part it differentiates, they cannot be permanently displaced outside the territory.

If the Convention applied they could be displaced until they cease their aggression. The Convention does not apply though. That is clear.

“Further, upon the breach of contract that terminated the Mandate, the Geneva Convention of 1949 was not in effect and can not be applied retroactively.”
A) The Laws of War were in effect, applicable un-conditionally to ALL states, without exception.

Israel was a provisional state with provisional borders. What body of law prevented the Jews from defending themselves from being murdered by your Arab friends, though? The point of applying the Geneva Convention is to somehow discriminate against Jews by criminalizing the act of living in their own homeland. If you say they violated a law, point to it. The Geneva Convention was not applicable in 1948. You will have to do much better than waving your hand and pretending to know something you are actually quite ignorant of. Nor has Israel even ratified the Hague Resolutions, so please point to what Law of War the State of Israel violated, let alone the pre-state of Israel under British authority? The territory passed from Britain to Israel when Britain failed in its duty to create a functioning Jewish state.

B) Furthermore Israel agreed to the Geneva Conventions Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949. Israel Signature 08.12.1949

Great, but it wasn't ratified until 1951, what is your point? There is no right of return that applies to the hostile Arabs of 1948, most of which left of their own free will and have no right of invading the state of Israel. There is a demand to do so, now that they have failed in massacring the Jews there, and nothing more. Nor were the Arabs citizens of a State of their own to be returned to. Choosing violence has consequences. How many refugees would have been formed if the Arabs had chosen peace? If you think about it hard enough, even you might see that the number would have been much smaller, say around...zero. So who is responsible for their predicament?

“The last binding document before the Mandate was the San Remo Resolution, which established that all of Palestine territory was to become a Jewish National home.”
A) Where does it say “all of Palestine territory was to become a Jewish National home” You CAN quote it? Yes?

The High Contracting Parties agree to entrust, by application of the provisions of Article 22, the administration of Palestine, within such boundaries as may be determined by the Principal Allied Powers, to a Mandatory, to be selected by the said Powers. The Mandatory will be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 8, 1917, by the British Government, and adopted by the other Allied Powers, in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

You CAN quote the area excluded to Jews? Yes? If not, then it means ALL of Palestine, including Arab Palestine east of the Jordan.

A) It is not necessary for states to recognize annexation, because it is between two parties, the annexing party and the annexed party. Only they need agree. This is usually done via a treaty or agreement. It is illegal to unilaterally annex territory.

Then you will quote the treaty between either Britain or Israel and Jordan that allowed the unilateral annexation of this portion of the Jewish homeland?

B) Show me the UNSC resolution calling Jordan’s annexation, as a trustee per the UN Charter, at the request of the Palestinians, illegal.

The UNSC has no authority to create international law nor to make any resolution binding on any nation. All participation at the UN and its decisions is voluntary. If you are wishing to claim Jordan has legal title over any land west of the Jordan river then I would like to point your attention to the treaty that established the international border between Israel and Jordan as the center of the river. Jordan did not annex the land as a trustee either. It annexed the land unilaterally, which coincidentally you just mentioned is illegal.

C) The annexation of East Jerusalem was declared illegal by UNSC Resolution 252 (1968) of 21 May 1968 UNSC Resolution 267 (1969) of 3 July 1969 UNSC Resolution 271 (1969) of 15 September 1969, UNSC Resolution 298 (1971) of 25 September 1971, UNSC Resolution 465 (1980) of 1 March 1980, UNSC Resolution 476 (1980) of 30 June 1980

A UN resolution does not make it legal or not, nor was it even a formal annexation. None is needed. Civil law was extended there only. Nothing else.

D) Israel’s ILLEGAL annexation is not even recognized by two countries.

What annexation? And what happened to your grand statement that "It is not necessary for states to recognize annexation," even if it were? Would you agree with me that Jew hatred warps a person's mind? Applying a double standard is a clear sign of bigotry, not that I am surprised since you champion bigots, mind you.

A) Not ISRAELI settlement.

See Vienna Convention on Treaties

B) the Mandate ENDED BEFORE Israel Declared Sovereignty.

Check your sources, the declaration clearly refers to the ending of the Mandate, which confirms you are a liar or ignorant even on small details, as usual. Since you are being shown to be categorically wrong I have to assume the former.

C) Israeli Sovereignty is per the borders of UNGA res 181 which it accepted when it Declared Sovereignty and anything it might have LEGALLY annexed. Israel has never legally annexed ANY territory.

No annexation is necessary and UN 181 is a non-binding irrelevance.

They’re YOUR words. Their words are a statement in which they recognize the fact: that the Organization does not exercise any territorial sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, on the Gaza Strip or in the Himmah Area.

Then we agree that the Arabs calling themselves Palestinians have no vested interest in trying to create a state there now. Or was it OK when Arab Muslims held the land, but somehow different now that Jews are there? We call that bigotry and racism where I come from, and sane people do not reward bigots or racists by bending rules, fabricating histories, entertaining nonsensical fantasy, and creating straw arguments to support their racist views. Are you denying that the PLO, which has been recognized as the representative of the Arabs suddenly calling themselves Palestinians, clearly states they do not recognize "territorial sovereignty" over the land you (years later) claim is occupied? Doesn't this strike directly at the heart of your argument? The Arab locals, in their own words do not claim the territory, and the annexation by Jordan was illegal. Meanwhile, Israel's claim to the land has remained unchanged. A rational observer, which you are obviously not, demands consistency and legitimacy. I publicly challenged one of the best Arab spokesmen, Afif Safieh, on this very issue and all he could stammer on about was that "aspirations change, politics are fluid"...sure, Safieh, and reasonable men understand that killing over a border should have legitimacy that transcends race and religion. Obviously in the case of the Arabs calling themselves Palestinians this simple test of legitimacy has been failed and discarded by the pseudo-intelligentsia in favor of political expediency.

They’re not the borders between Israel and the non-state entity of Palestine. It’s the border between Israel and Jordan, which of course followed Jordan’s pre-Israel border. The peace agreement is between Jordan and Israel. Not Israel and the non-state Palestinian entity.

Either Jordan is the High Contracting Party or not. You seem confused. And what about the thousands of Arabs that were born between 1948 and 1967 with Jordanian birth certificates? If the borders of a country shift shouldn't the citizens of that country shift with them?

The UNSC says otherwise. It is illegal to acquire territory by war/force. Unilateral annexation is illegal.

The UN does not create international law. And the resolution you are referring to is UN 242, which states that land can not be acquired by force. This is a caution to Jordan and Egypt that invaded the Jewish homeland and took part of it by force then unilaterally annexed it, as you point out is illegal, (can you cite relevant law for this statement anyway, the UNSC is not good enough?).

“In order to define an occupation you must be able to define where it starts and stops.”
At actual Sovereign borders. In Israel’s case, the borders it accepted when it declared Sovereignty! READ what ISRAEL SAID

I did, and it said nothing of where its provisional borders were other than to reference a non-binding agreement in the vaguest of terms. Obviously your murderous Arab friends did not agree to ANY Jews living on Muslim claimed land so the contract was voided to all except you and whatever ridiculous Arab propaganda you have been parroting.

A) I didn’t say a political entity. The Ottomans called it Palestine. The British Mandate over Palestine contains the name PALESTINE.

Can you reference an "official" Ottoman map calling it Palestine? They held it for 400 years. Didn't think so.

B) Whether it was a political entity or not is irrelevant. No political entity called Israel existed before May 14th 1948.

Really? Jerusalem has been a Jewish capital for 3,300 years. What were the Israelites, Judea, the kingdom of Israel and all the thousands of years old connection stuff? Is it a myth designed to just steal some random plot of land that the oh so unfortunate Arabs happen to be the victim of? You make it sound as if a cabal of Jews threw a dart at a world map and decided to steal wherever the dart struck home. The Jewish people confine their homeland to one very small place on earth, they have thousands of years of customs, culture, and a unique language that is tied directly to their homeland. The Arabs are invaders from Arabia and the center of their religion is Mecca. Jews looked to their homeland and prayed every day for two thousand years of exile because people like you deny them their rights as a people.

It was renamed Palestina by the Romans in an attempt…etc etc etc..blah blah blah…..”
That was not the question. Try answering the question.

Blah, blah, blah? That just about sums up your intellectual capacity. First of all the syntax of your question leads me to believe a 10 year old wrote it. You may rephrase it or try understanding the answer, even someone as confused and full of hate like yourself can see what happened in history and the relevance to today. Blah, blah blah is aptly applied to the Talknic web site along with a heavy dose of ha ha ha.

Even as late as the UN 242 language there is no mention of the so called “Palestinians”.”
Why would it. UNSC resolution was between the Arab STATES and the STATE of Israel.

UN 242 was a suggestion on what to do with the land. It stands to reason that if the Arabs calling themselves Palestinians were a legitimate political entity at the time they would have been mentioned. Very pointedly they are not. Unbiased, rational people question this ommission in light of the Arabs that are murdering Jews supposedly over land. If this mythical people existed as a political entity or had a legitimate legal claim they would have been mentioned as they suddenly are now for political purposes only. It is very clear that the Arabs have murdered, hijacked, bombed, and destroyed their way into the spot light. Without Munich, the Achille Lauro, the Dolphinarium, and places like the Sabarro Pizzeria they would not have any recognition. Obviously their legal claim was not enough to stand on its own and it is relevant in light of the foundational document of the PLO denying territorial jurisdiction over the current disputed land and the back drop of head line grabbing terror. Stooges such as yourself are a relatively new phenomenon born of desperation, ignorance, and Jew hatred.

From the fall of the Ottoman Empire it has been known as Palestine. The British Mandate over PALESTINE seems to have PALESTINE in the name of the Mandate over Palestine (can you spot it?)

Calling Judea or Israel 'Palestine' was a political move designed to appease racist Arabs. The name hadn't been used since the fall of the Roman empire. Christian crusaders and others used the Anglican version of the Latin Palestina informally, but the land was not known as Palestine in any official capacity until a Brit revived it for political purposes.

As to your maps, what are you showing? A few dots to represent where the Jews owned private property..etc etc etc etc…”
Private, corporate and institutionally owned land is NOT Sovereignty.

Correct, so the 6% of the land privately owned by the Arabs is what? I don't see the dot map for their sparse homes. Was that intentional lying? Wouldn't it be accurate to show a dot map with the 6% of the territory owned by the Arabs alongside the one showing the 8% owned by Jews? tsk, tsk, tsk. And actually, who is concerned about a racial majority except for racists?

“Perhaps you can tell me where Israel’s declared and internationally recognized sovereignty legally exists. Yes?”
The fact is you spout nonsense. READ what ISRAEL SAID

That was not what I asked. Try answering the question.

A declaration of Sovereignty IS binding.

Can you point to the exact border clarification in the declaration? A vague reference to a non-binding, worthless suggestion does not cut it, unless you can present precedence or case history to support your idiotic claim?

I didn’t say “give”, save your bullshite for somewhere else. Israel accepted the conditions and declared Sovereignty under the conditions, therefore the conditions are bound by Israel’s Declaration of Sovereignty.

You can cite exactly what these conditions were with boundary references in the document itself then? Yes no? The declaration itself was not a legislative act. It was also drafted BEFORE the state of Israel was formed. How can a country be bound by something created before the country was constituted? It was an announcement to the world by the Jewish people listing reasons for renouncing its ties to the Mandatory Power, nothing else and no force of law can be enacted on its text. It should be viewed as a preamble to a body of laws, which were drafted later under the PROVISIONAL government, but understand that a preamble has no power, no authority, and no force. For example, what would have been the consequence had the Arabs won? What would have been their punishment and under what authority?

The US Declaration of Independence is not a body of law either. It is a statement of the will of the people before a functioning government or legislative body was created.

"lawyers generally and the Supreme Court in particular, have been reluctant to treat the Declaration as part of American Organic Law, or even to accord it the restricted status of the Preamble to the constitution."

SOURCE: The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States, Kermit Hall, editor (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 223.

A) Only if an entity was a state at the time of the League of Nations. Israel wasn’t.

You are obviously way over your head. The resolution was in 1947, Israel was reconstituted in 1948, but the Mandate for Palestine was binding in 1947. The UN had no legal authority to change its terms. The defunct suggestion had no weight of law behind it whatsoever. Forget the resolution, it is of no bearing legally on anything. You are clinging to it because if you let go your entire argument crumbles like a house of cards, and you realize this. That makes you a liar and a desperate one at that.

UNGA adopted to put forward a set of recommendations, Res 181, which, if accepted by either party, bound them to their Declaration of Sovereignty, IF they chose to make one. Their Declaration, if they made one, is the contract.

That is bullshit. It would not hold up in any court. There are three parts of a contract: offer, acceptance and consideration. Think hard and let me know if the Arabs got past the second part. If they did not there was no contract and you can not return 60 years later after you have gone to war and lost saying, oh yeah, we want to agree with the terms since you were willing to agree to them before we tried to annihilate you. All the referencing in the world to 181 well not make it enforceable or binding under any legal system I have ever studied. Unless you can cite litigation I can review? Yes no? Further, the UN had no authority to alter the Mandate for Palestine or to stand in as a party to a contract between either the Arabs or the Jews. Capiche? The UN is not a party to what would have been the contract.

A) You’ve not refute one part of my alleged ‘fragile narrative’. All you have done is repeat the common fallacies and propaganda, providing no substantiation.

I await the proofs I have requested then. I am laughing and giddy with excitement as I type.

B) It is not my cornerstone. It is actually the cornerstone of ISRAEL’s Declaration of Sovereignty. Which is why there are so many UNSC resolutions against Israel.

That is more bullshit. The many UN reolutions against the Jews are because there are 55 members of the OIC, they dominate 2 of the 5 regional groups, and they have most of the oil. Any more questions on the number of hostile resolutions against the only Jewish state in the world, a state with zero natural resources to offer?

C) READ! and save your stupid accusations.

I would like to READ you explaining your stupid assumptions, but I won't hold my breath.

It isn’t disputed. It’s supported by both British White papers, the League of Nations Charter and the United Nations Charter.

When I quote someone I am prepared to authenticate the words. Can you authenticate the words you claim Balfour wrote? It would be hard to dispute something nonexistent, yes no? For example, see above where I quote source, book, and page number, common practice.

All citizens of British Mandate Palestine were Palestinian. ALL their papers were stamped PALESTINE!

Does that mean the Arabs were a unique people with unique customs, language, and history? In the early Mandate period a Palestinian was understood to be a Jew in discussion. The Arabs did not wish to be known as Palestinian until they adopted the name as a fig leaf to hide their naked hatred and aggression against the Jews with.

“The White Paper you site also contains language that offers the Arabs a state of their own”
Put it up. Should be easy to QUOTE.

"This reservation has always been regarded by His Majesty's Government as covering the vilayet of Beirut and the independent Sanjak of Jerusalem. The whole of Palestine west of the Jordan was thus excluded from Sir Henry McMahon's pledge."

IE., the whole of Palestine east of the Jordan will be an Arab state and we will steal this portion from the Jews whether they like it or not, which is exactly what the British did within a few weeks when 2000 armed Arabs invaded and took over (The British had about 50 police officers to oppose this). Arab Palestine was created and Jews were barred from purchasing land, even in existing Jewish communities east of the Jordan.

Tch tch tch. There is no need to LIE here. This is what you said, verbatim…..” The Arab side rejected the document and chose war over a peaceful resolution. So there was no “international recognition” as you claim.”

Recognition of borders. Your original lie was that the world recognized the provisional state of Israel's borders. I realize you have low comprehension, but I said clearly..."I am not referring to the Arab rejection of Israel. I am referring to your false claim that the world recognized a border". A fixed border bound to the voided suggestion, UN 181.

” Maybe you think you are clever or have an iron clad argument. Yes? Something tells me you are in for frustration in the coming days.”
See all of the above.

Yes, see all of the above, must of the above you wrote is a pile of shit. Multiple Powers representing a single territory, pre-state declarations being binding law, being held to unsigned contracts years later, UN having jurisdictional authority as if we live in the new world order, misunderstanding basic principles of law, etc..

Most likely they walk away shaking their head in dis-appointment that a grown man’s thinking has been permeated with a whole mess of hogwash. Your parrot like propaganda, foolish lies and false accusations, just doen’t cut the mustard. They only show folk how stubborn you are.

Since you have yet to prove a single word I have written is a lie, you sound pretty bitter mumbling under your breath while wearing egg on your face.

How sad that you can waste so much effort promoting propaganda and never learning anything. Even more of a pity, that like so many whose whole premise is based on propaganda and fallacies, it would ALL crumble if you were to admit to anything.

It is cheap to charge that I am basing on propaganda when you know so little of law and history.

Even more of a pity, that your stubborn refusal to accept facts only makes the problem even more irretractable.

The shame is that stooges such as yourself support racism, bigotry, and blind ignorance instead of standing on principles of decency and justice.

a rebutal that would not post

2009-10-18T19:22:00.008-04:00

Note to self: I am tempted to retreive the entire debate. I found a really neat bit of sophistry at talknic, but I will wait and see if she wishes to move the discussion here or fix the problem there. I tried 5 times to make my post smaller and smaller on her site to no avail. Had the same trouble to the point of critical melt down at Realistic Dove, there was no response at my offer to move the debate off site...I am not passing judgment, the person I was debating is not someone I feel deserves the full weight of ridicule like the dim bulbs groveling at the feet of Phillip Weiss over at Mondweiss, for example. Of course I should actually be happy when someone at least responds to me without throwing me off the site like IndyMedia, Tayyar, ScottishFriendsofPalestine, and dozens of Islamic sites have. Such as it is, here is my quick response without breaking out the books to her.

Thank you for responding, most run from me, I have a feeling I will enjoy this...

"The Israeli Government is building the settlements, yes?"

No. Individual Jews are building on land that has no sovereign, because they have the right to do so. Further they are not building on "occupied land", the Geneva Convention does not apply, every legal settlement was established with proximity to existing Arab communities taken into effect. Since the land has no title, the empty places are not considered as being occupied under precise and accepted terms. An entity can not claim a portion of land based on a desire for it only, there are acceptable criteria for recognizing de jure or de facto control over an area and the Arabs calling themselves Palestinians have not done so. For political purposes only, you and others have filled in the blanks and awarded the Arabs all land in between the places they reside as having some de jure legal status, this recognition is unfounded in international law and flies in the face of the fact that the border has not been fixed. I can claim the moon, but if I do not live on the moon and can not exert political authority over the moon my claim has no relevance to anyone else's claim to the moon. Further, even proximity to the moon, say I was orbiting in a space ship and had been doing so for a century before anyone else arrived would not strengthen my claim on the moon.

As I tried to explain above, the termination of a treaty does not terminate a right granted by a treaty upon its closure. Another binding treaty or document must remove the acquired right and it must survive the test of legality and of a day in court. None has.

Further, though you point out that the Mandate for Palestine ended 14th May 1948, property has two characteristics, possession and title, the lands that the Jewish communities were built on had neither where the Arabs are concerned. In addition, where the Mandate ended on the 14th, Israeli law as the only High Contracting Party began on the 15th. Jurisdiction was not confined to the defunct boundaries as outlined in the non binding resolution 181, jurisdiction was applied anywhere within the boundary of the Mandate, including property illegally stripped from the Jewish people and given to the Arabs east of the Jordan against the dictates of the Mandate...."No Palestine territory shall be ceded or leased to, or in any way placed
under the control of, the Government of any foreign Power,"... Further the termination was in breach of the treaty in as much as..."The Mandatory shall be responsible for placing the country under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment of the Jewish national home"... A Jewish National Home was to be established. The chaos and war, the impending doom of well armed Arab armies on the march with genocide as their stated goal, and the abandonment and naval blockade of the Jewish people on the 14th was a clear breach of treaty obligation in establishing a Jewish National Home.

Further, you site the Geneva Conventions as proof that the settlements are illegal. This is problematic on several levels. First the Geneva Conventions apply to "High Contracting Parties", which the Arabs calling themselves Palestinians are not. The Geneva Conventions are an agreement between countries, not between a country and an illegal militia. In fact, in as much as the Geneva Convention applies to non state actors..."Nationals of a State which is not bound by the Convention are not protected by it."

Article 4 describes non state actors as...."4.1.2 Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, provided that they fulfill all of the following conditions:

* that of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;
* that of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance (there are limited exceptions to this among countries who observe the 1977 Protocol I);
* that of carrying arms openly;
* that of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war."

On all accounts the Arabs fail even if we pervert the meaning of the Convention and apply it to them.

Also, if we were to apply Article 49 you site, you left out a relevant portion of it that would allow Israel to depopulate the entire region..."Nevertheless, the Occupying Power may undertake total or partial evacuation of a given area if the security of the population or imperative military reasons so demand. Such evacuations may not involve the displacement of protected persons outside the bounds of the occupied territory except when for material reasons it is impossible to avoid such displacement. Persons thus evacuated shall be transferred back to their homes as soon as hostilities in the area in question have ceased." I would say with the genocidal rhetoric used in schools, mosques, and in legal documents Israel is more than justified in removing all of the Arab population for its own security. However, the Convention does not apply, so I am not supporting this action.

Further, upon the breach of contract that terminated the Mandate, the Geneva Convention of 1949 was not in effect and can not be applied retroactively. The last binding document before the Mandate was the San Remo Resolution, which established that all of Palestine territory was to become a Jewish National home.

Further, the residents of Judea and Samaria that remained after the total ethnic cleansing of all Jews after 1948 accepted de facto that they were a part of Transjordan, which became simply the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan hence. Though Arab Palestine (Jordan) annexed the land, it was not accepted by the world community. The land was legally in dispute and technically available for Jewish settlement. So complete was the take over I would like to draw your attention to the PLO Observer to the UN website where the Palestine National Charter is kept as a founding document of the Arabs suddenly calling themselves Palestinians..."Article 24: This Organization does not exercise any territorial sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, on the Gaza Strip or in the Himmah Area."... In their own words they did not want Judea and Samaria.

Further if you accept as the Arabs calling themselves Palestinians did that Jordan was the legal sovereign over the disputed land, Jordan has signed a peace treaty with Israel and the legal border between the two High Contracting Parties is set to the center of the Jordan River. Peace Treaties are an accepted and long recognized way of establishing borders. In the case of Jordan and Israel establishing a border, it is only complicated by Arab intransigence and the question of Jordan's previous 19 year occupation. The political wiggling now, long after the fact, has no merit or place in fair conduct and initial PLO declarations are substantive to the final disposition of the land in future negotiations.

As to occupation, there are multiple complications there as well. According to Hersch Lauterpacht, Oppenheim's International Law (7th Ed. 1952) Vol.2 §263, pp.598-599..."The majority of writers correctly maintain that the status which exists at the time of cessation of hostilities becomes the basis of the future relations of the parties. This question is one of the greatest importance, regarding enemy territory militarily occupied by a belligerent at the time hostilities cease. According to the correct opinion it can be annexed by the occupier, on the ground that his adversary, through the cessation of hostilities, has abandoned all rights he possessed over it."... I would like to reaffirm that Jordan and Israel signed a peace treaty establishing the recognized border between the two countries as being the center of the Jordan, the PLO stated that they had no claim to the land in 1964, the Arab people accepted Jordanian rule de jure and de facto for the 19 years Arab Palestine occupied the land, and the right to settle anywhere in the previous territory of Palestine did not cease between the brief time of the end of the Mandate and the establishment of the state of Israel with its unsettled borders.

In order to define an occupation you must be able to define where it starts and stops. Since the the demarcation line is not a legal border and the resolution 181 you continually site is not a legal document or the basis for anything to do with the conflict it is not possible to claim with certainty where an alleged occupation exists outside of the fanciful imagination of Jew hating bigots.

As to Ottomans calling the Sanjuk of Jerusalem "Palestine", can you source this? I couldn't find it in the Cambridge Palestine Boundaries 1833–1947, instead it said..."In Ottoman times, no political entity called Palestine existed."

"Who prior to the Ottomans, who had legal right to name it?"

It was renamed Palestina by the Romans in an attempt to destroy the Jewish connection to the land (ethnic cleansing). Obviously Hadrian failed. It was called the Kingdom of Jerusalem at one point as well. It has not been called Palestine in centuries, so a Brit had to chose what to label it. he resurrected the ethnic cleansing term of 'Palestine' instead of correctly labeling it Israel or Judea. This ambiguity allowed the Arabs to hijack a name they couldn't even pronounce. Even so, no Arab used the term until propagandists adopted it. A Palestinian in 1930 was assumed to be Jewish. Even as late as the UN 242 language there is no mention of the so called "Palestinians". A search was done a number of years ago and it was discovered that the first public usage of the term "Palestinian" as we know it today was in a New York Times article in 1963. Hardly a term that trumps almost four thousand years of the use of Eretz Israel, yes?

As to your maps, what are you showing? A few dots to represent where the Jews owned private property? Are you aware that the vast majority of Arabs lived as tenants on miri (state owned) land? Would it be more accurate to show that Arabs owned precious little mulk (private) land? Wouldn't it tell the whole story if you represent this sparse land ownership instead of deceiving your readers with sophistry over what land Jews owned? You don't fill in the dots between all Arab land and make a nebulous claim that Jews stole it from them. And who is concerned about a racial make up except racists anyway? Several American states are being changed demographically with the influx of illegal Mexican immigration. If the millions were arriving legally as the Jews did would you point to this as something sinister? Further, I am part Kiowa, if my people were banned from the US and had a chance to return to our homeland after a long absence would you oppose our return if we built our homes on empty state lands or bought them from Americans willing to sell them to us? Say not on the entirety of America but on just a small defined portion of Western Texas? (This is all hypothetical, of course, we ranged from Montana to Mexico and in our case land tenure would be a bit problematic, unlike in the case of the Jews who are not asking for vast swathes of Arab land, are not asking to usurp the whole of an existing unique people, and who have a very narrowly defined geographic location with an ancient Jewish character fixed to it).

"Perhaps you can tell me where Israel's declared and internationally recognized sovereignty legally exists. Yes?"

The fact is there is no internationally accepted border, so the question is invalid sophistry. Israel does not have to annex its own land, so until those borders are set no such annexation is possible. The extension of the administrative boundary of Jerusalem is another matter. In my opinion it was redundant, premature, and predicated on the false logic that Israel has a defined border to start with or that it needs to do anything at all from this point forward. None in the international community have recognized it anyway.

"A declaration of Sovereignty IS binding. UNGA resolution 181 gave the conditions under which either party could, if they wished, declare sovereignty."

Your point? A non binding agreement is just that. Resolution 181 has no legal standing in any court in the world. It did not "give" any condition to anyone, it had no legal authority to do so. Contrary it violated the Charter of the UN under the doctrine of estoppal, which stated clearly that all states were bound by treaties under the League of Nations. The General Assembly had legal right to change the Mandate for Palestine, nor is there any mechanism to enforce the application of only a portion of UN 181 even if this were not true. Nor would it be admissible to bind Israel to UN 181 since it was adopted before Israel even became a nation. Your reliance on it as a cornerstone to your fragile narrative may support your anti-Israel biased stance, but it is nothing more than a grasp for straws.

As to your quoting of Balfour, I presume it is valid? You are reinforcing my argument and undermining your own. A Palestinian was a Jew back then. There was no Arab nationalist movement to refer to. Anti Jewish violence manifested from cultural bigotry and Arab racism. There was no people to compete with at the time, because they did not exist until the arrival of Jews. Hardly a legitimate cause to support. Any division of the territory was in breach of the terms of the treaty, just as termination of it before a functioning Jewish government was a violation.

The White Paper you site also contains language that offers the Arabs a state of their own, but they rejected that as well. It also offers a mechanism to deport all the Arabs to the east bank, but the Jews rejected that.

"The Arab States did not make up the majority of the International Community of States at the time. Their objections were over ridden. If as you claim, there was no International recognition, what did the US do? the USSR? The UK? Australia? Even Iran! If there was no International recognition, how was Israel accepted into the UN?"

I am not referring to the Arab rejection of Israel. I am referring to your false claim that the world recognized a border, let alone one based on the toilet tissue of the defunct UN 181. Much of the fallacy of what you present is predicated on this nonsense, which is why we need to start here to knock your house of cards down. That said, you may have a case of the legality of recognizing a nation without borders, but that is not what you chose to present and the fact remains that the recognition of Israel was de jure and is today awaiting Arab intransigence to finalize.

Maybe you think you are clever or have an iron clad argument. Yes? Something tells me you are in for frustration in the coming days.

"Gone" Barack Obama

2009-08-19T16:32:00.001-04:00

Barack Obama Countdown widget brought
to you by www.obamacountdownwidget.com

Boycott Israel

2009-05-19T08:20:00.005-04:00

Some of the statements in this video are inaccurate (there is no Palestinian 'state' for example), but it is amusing none the less.

A 7th grader's assignment

2009-01-16T14:05:00.004-05:00

The following was a term project for my 12 year old daughter. She spent a lot of hours putting this effort together and I am quite proud of how it turned out. I helped her with the bare bones framework and final proof reading. Enjoy.

My letter is R for religion and my country is Israel. In five minutes, I have no way of covering this complex issue, so I have decided to focus on the religious history, the conflict, and some unique problems Israelis face as the only Jewish country on earth.

Why is the land of Israel important to the Jews?

Jews have had an unbroken connection with the land of Israel and their Holy Temple in Jerusalem for thousands of years. It has been the core of Jewish identity since the time of Solomon, when the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem was built. This Temple had been the center of Jewish worship for a thousand years until 70 AD when the Roman emperor Caligula tried to force the Jews to accept the Roman gods. Rather than abandon their religion the Jews revolted against the Romans. Infuriated, Emperor Caligula ordered the Roman army to crush the Jewish people and erase any Jewish connection to the land. According to the eyewitness historian Josephus in his book, "The Jewish War", the Romans burned and destroyed the Jewish Temple, killed over a million Jews, enslaved most of the survivors, scattered the rest into hiding, renamed the country to Palestine, and outlawed all things Jewish. Some Jews that had escaped the destruction of Jerusalem fled to a fortress called Masada, where they held out for three years. But when Rome's 10th Legion finally broke the walls down, they were horrified to learn that the Jews inside had all killed themselves. According to Josephus, two women and five children managed to hide and tell what had happened. Since it's against Jewish custom to commit suicide, the men killed their own families, then each other, until the last few alive drew straws to decide who would be the only one to kill himself. Nine hundred and sixty Jews chose to die in Israel instead of being taken away in chains to Rome. Just before they killed themselves, the Jewish leader, Elazar ben Yair, gave a powerful final speech, listen closely to his words..."Since we long ago resolved never to be servants to the Romans, nor to any other than to God Himself, Who alone is the true and just Lord of mankind, the time is now come that obliges us to make that resolution true in practice...We were the very first that revolted, and we are the last to fight against them; and I cannot but esteem it as a favor that God has granted us, that it is still in our power to die bravely, and in a state of freedom." What makes Jewish history intresting is that even though they were exiled from their own land and kept away for two thousand years they did not disappear. Caligula attempted to erase Judaism from the world and break the Jewish bond to the land of Israel, but he failed.

Now that the Jews have returned to their homeland why can't they rebuild their Holy Temple?

After the destruction of the Jewish Temple and the exile of the Jews, the region was ruled by the Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Egyptians, the Crusaders, Mamelukes, the Turks, the British and then once again by the Jews in 1948. None of these invaders bothered to make a Nation of their own in the land of Israel, EXCEPT the Jews. However, it has been a common Islamic custom to build mosques on the sites of other peoples holy places, and today, the ruined site of the Jewish Temple is occupied by a Muslim shrine called the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque. All Muslims believe that Muhammad flew to heaven on the back of a winged horse one night at a place they call the "far mosque", or "Al-Aqsa". This creates a problem for Jews since some Muslims believe this far mosque is the one built on top of the ruins of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. Oddly the idea seems to only become popular with Muslims when non-Muslims control the land, like it did when the Christian Crusaders captured the Holy Land. Many scholars point out that Jerusalem is not mentioned even once in the Quran and the Al-Aqsa mosque was not built until decades after Muhammad died. If it was that important to Muslims it is reasonable to expect to see it mentioned in their Holy book. Jerusalem is mentioned hundreds of times in the Torah, for example. Today, for political reasons, the site is once again the center of an Islamic call to wage jihad. This time against Jews returning to their homeland. Many Jews believe that a third temple will be rebuilt there someday, but since any attempt to replace these structures would lead to an all out Muslim holy war the Temple cannot be rebuilt in the foreseeable future. Oddly enough, if the Iranians are successful in destroying Israel with nuclear weapons, there might not be anything to prevent surviving Jews from returning and rebuilding the Temple on the ashes of destruction. Like the Romans, the Mullahs in Iran seem to underestimate the bond between the Jews and the land of Israel.

Why do Muslim nations hate Israel?

Many people think that the conflict in Israel between the Jews and the Arabs calling themselves Palestinians is about land, but that is not true. The Middle East has plenty of land, miles and miles of it. It is a religious conflict with a tiny Jewish country facing hatred from the entire Muslim world. One huge religious challenge Israel faces is the fact that there are 57 members of the Organization of Islamic Conference. These Muslim nations routinely condemn, boycott, and attack everything that Israel does. Many of them don't even think Israel has a right to exist and refuse to have diplomatic relations with Israel. Over 25% of the UN are Muslim countries and only one is Jewish. This means it is usually 56 against 1, which is bad enough, but unfortunately for Israel, the Muslim countries were also blessed with a resource that would cripple the modern world if it were cut off, oil. Knowing that your economy could be devastated, it would take a powerful country to stand up to the threats of the oil lobby, a country that puts principle above convenience, a country that champions the rights of free people everywhere, and a country that won't let a friend fall. That country has always been America, and this is why we are hated. Ask any Muslim leader why his people hate America and he will likely say it is our support for the Israel. Much of the world would prefer that Israel would just quietly disappear and they are angry with America for supporting and helping the Jews.

Does Israel allow other religions freedom?

Israel is a land of tolerance surrounded by intolerance. In Israel, Most of the people are Jews, but Muslims, Christians, Druse, Bahai, Buddhists, Hindus, and all other religions are able to worship in complete freedom. The same can not be said of Israels enemies. Even in America we have some people that hate Jews, like the skin heads, neo-Nazis, and many others, but these people are usually looked down on here as being ignorant or hateful. But in places like Jordan, there are laws against Jews becoming citizens. In Saudi Arabia and other places, Jews aren't even allowed in the country, even if it is just for a visit. A passport stamped by Israel is enough to bar you entry to many Muslim countries. There are no Jews in Gaza either and if one were to be found hiding there, the Muslim Arabs would most likely kill him on the spot with no consequences at all. In fact, they'd probably be celebrated as heroes if they did. Sadly, Israel exists in a part of the world where graffiti covers every wall glorifying the names of Jew hating terrorists, and where parks, hospitals, schools, sports teams, and even city streets are named after suicide bombers and cold blooded murderers. What's worse is that many Israeli Arabs openly identify themselves as allies to these people.

Why should we support the Jewish people?

Israelis are just like Americans, many people in both countries are obsessed with trying not to offend anyone or their religious beliefs. These are American and Israeli values. But it's hard to face the ugly reality of religious intolerance with this limitation. Nobody wants to insult a religion or someones beliefs, but it is both accurate and fair to point out that Muslims have divided the world into what they call "Dar al-Islam" and "Dar al-Harb". In Arabic this means the house of submission or the house of peace, and the house of war. If you are not a Muslim, you have been labeled as being at war with Islam and this can only end when Islam has absolute control over the world. Muslims themselves created this division, and no matter how tolerant we and our Jewish friends in Israel are, there is nothing a non-Muslim can do to change the situation. Since Muslims once held control over the land of Israel they believe that a Jewish state there is an abomination. According to the Muslim clerics, from Tehran to Mecca, it is a religious obligation to wage war against and oppose the Jews of Israel. How can the Jews ever have peace when war is mandated as being something Holy? One of the most respected voices in the Islamic world, Yusuf al-Qaradhawi, author of the "Lawful and the Prohibited in Islam", states that "The most honorable form of jihad nowadays is fighting for the liberation of Muslim land from the domination of unbelievers", this is why Israel is the main focus of religious hatred. Muslims feel that the Jews have no rights over land that has previously been conquered by Islam and no amount of land the Jews can offer to them will be enough to make them happy. Until our leaders face this truth and reject intolerance the Jews of Israel will be in danger of being wiped off the map and thrown into the sea. Hitler massacred six million of them in the Holocaust. Shouldn't "never again" really mean never again?

"Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it." these are the words spoken by Imam Hassan el-Banna, founder of the so called moderate Muslim Brotherhood, and it is written into the Charter of Hamas, a people bent on the destruction of the nation of Israel.

Felicia LeFavour

ashamed to be an American

2008-11-18T21:37:00.005-05:00

For the first time in my adult life I am NOT proud to be an American. A coalition of anti-war Utopians, racists, Marxists, selfish hedonists, and anti-Americans elected an unqualified candidate because of the color of his skin.

Shelby Steele, a conservative black intellectual, argues that race, is the only thing that separates Obama from hordes of party-line liberal Democrats. “If he were not black, I don’t know if we’d know his name,” Steele said at a lecture back in January.

Steele said that many white voters chose Obama as a way to “finally document for the world that they are not racist,” an impulse that blinds them to Obama’s weaknesses.

2008-11-01T22:19:00.000-04:00

This is the event that inspired me to become a Zionist....

2008-11-01T22:04:00.000-04:00

2008-11-01T19:27:00.001-04:00

Israel vs Arabs: Who owned the land?

2008-10-04T15:26:00.004-04:00

As the rest of the world piles on little Israel, falsely labeling that country a racist state, a violator of human rights, and a foreign occupier, the debate over the underlying cause of the conflict rages on. With over a billion and a half Muslims and only fifteen million or so Jews in the world, voices in support of Israel are often drowned out by several orders of magnitude. Witness the shameful hijacking of the Human Rights Council (HRC) at the United Nations by members of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) and others under the sway of this cartel that would be economically devastated if the oil the OIC controls suddenly stopped flowing. Although the mission of the HRC is to protect humanity from rights violations, institutionalized discrimination against the single Jewish state, Israel, has been established and endorsed as a permanent part of the framework for all future meetings in its chambers.

Central to the problem is the fact that the figurehead the Muslim world reveres as the paragon of human behavior, Muhammad, deceived, fought, and massacred the Jews of his time. For example, when the entire Jewish tribe of the Banu Quraiza had surrendered to Muhammad he offered them a chance to desert their religion and accept him as the final prophet. When they refused, the Banu Quraiza men were brought to Muhammad in batches, beheaded, and thrown into trenches. The Banu Quraiza women and children were then enslaved and divided amongst Muhammad and his men as war booty. Today, we label this behavior as genocide, but ask any Muslim scholar about the incident and you will be told that the Banu Quraiza deserved their fate. It should come as no surprise then when modern Muslims clash with today's Jews in the land of Israel. Islam's modern faithful have struggled to follow the intolerant mandates codified on the pages of the Quran just like millions of their brethren have done for fourteen bloody centuries. Which leaves the problem of how peaceful co-existence can be resolved between Israel's Jews and it's intractable Muslim foes who are entrenched with an ideology of intolerance? The answer to this question has become the Holy Grail of conflict resolution, the object of intense international study, and political effort.

After four years of focused research trying to get to the heart of a complicated issue and hundreds of hours spent in the "trenches" debating a polemic that has turned the media into an ideological battle ground, this writer has concluded that, religion aside, the fundamental point of view dividing the two sides over Israel is simply whether the land really belonged to the Arabs or not at the moment that the Jewish state was reconstituted.

My grandmother was born on a reservation in Oklahoma. She was Kiowa, a Native American you might say. This begs a question concerning land tenure, though. Can we honestly label every piece of land the nomadic Kiowa ever drifted across as Indian land? And further, can we fill in all the empty space between the lands the Huron lived on, the Apache lived on, and the Seminole lived on and call it all stolen Indian land? An argument might be made that the Black Hills has religious value to the Sioux, but was America founded illegally on "stolen" land? The Kiowa roamed across the plains from Montana to Texas, fighting and marauding against other Indians and European "settlers". In fact, my ancestors hold the dubious title as the fiercest of the natives, because they killed more whites than any other tribe. Men, women, and children. Was it wrong to put an end to their deprivations by confining them to a reservation? As part native, I argue not. Kiowa territory was not clearly defined let alone claimed and utilized by private land owners.

In the case of the territory mislabeled Palestine, there has been an unbroken Jewish presence there since Biblical times and before. The struggling Jewish community clinging to the Holy Places at the turn of the twentieth century was the quintessential long suffering native peoples of the region surviving from antiquity without the benefit of self rule despite immense pressures placed upon each succeeding generation for two millennia to assimilate and vanish. When the League of Nations decision was made to recognize the right and the need for diaspora Jews to be allowed to legally immigrate to their ancient homeland the fact that largely nomadic Arabs also lived in the region with the existing Jewish natives did not make it wrong or immoral in any way for the scattered, oppressed, and harassed Jews living abroad to seek refuge there. The often heard canard is that Jews were a small minority and the Arabs did not want more Jews to immigrate there. Aside from this being a racist point of view, the land is the cradle and world wide focal point of Jewish culture and religion. One can only wonder if those Arabs opposed to Jewish immigration to the land of Israel would be so adamant if Mecca were the the destination of a long lost Muslim diaspora. The right of the Jew to return to his native land was not given by any document, it was earned by two thousand years of residency and tenacity, at best it was only affirmed in the legal framework of the day. Conversely, while a general feeling of empowerment, largely delivered on the backs of Christian warriors, was meandering through the wider Arab community, lacking any cultural or religious defining connection to the land themselves, the Arabs living in the boundary of the Mandate were not known as Palestinians then, they were known as South Syrians or simply Arabs. The term "Palestinian" was only applied to the native Jews, the state-builders, draining the swamps, clearing the rocky hills, and greening the desert. It was not until 1964 that the PLO, later led by (Egyptian-born) Arafat, hijacked the term "Palestinian" in an attempt to deny the legitimate existence of Israel and the Jewish people in ithe heart of their historic homeland, where their roots are so deep and continuous, that almost no nation on earth can match the historical, religious, and cultural attachment of the Jewish people to their ancestral lands.

Another often used canard is that immigrating Jews displaced the Arabs from their homes. Aside from the fact that the majority of the Arabs at the time resided wherever they camped, the rights of individual Arabs that lived there were not infringed upon by immigrating Jews. Today one in five of Israel's citizens are Arabs with the exact same rights as non-Arab Israelis. Considering the lamentations of Israel's critics, it is a great irony that in the Middle East, only under Israeli jurisdiction do Arab women have full equality to Arab men. When Israel liberated land held by Arabs in the Six Day War, for example, Arab women and the landless were given their first ever opportunity to cast a vote in municipal elections. In fact, Israel's Arab citizens have extra rights that transcend duty to the state: the Israeli leadership is so sensitive to Arab wants Israeli Arabs are excused from mandatory military service. This is true in spite of the fact that tiny Israel is under such an enormous threat of genocide from its neighbors that - with few exceptions - every able bodied man and woman must serve in the armed forces simply for the sake of survival. And to be clear, Israelis did not ask for this burden, nor is militarization part of Jewish character. It is a necessary reaction to conditions imposed upon them by their Muslim neighbors. The resulting image of the gun toting Jew is a sad paradox that self righteous, finger-pointing, "peace activists" sneer at and masked Islamic fanatics use to vilify and as an excuse to justify indiscriminate attacks on their Israeli victims.

It is the incessant and largely oil-fueled propaganda, that perpetuates the myth that Jews resettled Israel through the "theft" of "Palestinian" lands or from displacing Arabs. Immigrating Jews arrived unarmed and settled on state-owned lands, the vast majority of which were wasteland like the Negev desert that no "native" Arab had the technology to utilize, or they purchased land legally, sometimes helped by charitable funds, and often at inflated prices once locals realized how desperate Jews were to escape persecutions and how much they revered the land of their ancestors. When the Jewish immigrants began to produce food and jobs on land that had previously been barren wastes, the British turned a blind eye as thousands of Arabs illegally immigrated to the Jewish homeland for no other reason than to take advantage of the higher standard of living and economic opportunity provided by Jewish industry. In recognition of this Arab immigration the money devouring behemoth that deals exclusively with Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, defines a Palestinian refugee as anyone living in the region for as little as two years before Israel declared it's independence.

The very idea that the Jews "stole" anything became turn speak for the anti-Israel crowd long after the fact of what really happened had passed. Before the decision was made at the end of WWI to create a binding treaty that allowed Jews to immigrate to and form a nation on both sides of the Jordan river there is not a shred of evidence that shows a nationalist movement among the fractured Arabs to form a nation called "Palestine" except as a counter to Jewish aspirations. The Ottomans did not refer to the region as Palestine. There was no Arab nationalist struggle for liberation there. The region was not semi-autonomous. Nor did it have a unique cultural or religious identity...except as defined by the Jewish community that had weathered one storm after another for thousands of years without changing a single aspect of it's nature. Modern Arab Palestinian nationalism is not defined on it's own merit, it is defined by the presence of Jews and nothing more. Objectively analyzed this leaves the inescapable conclusion that the twin roots of the conflict are Muslim bigotry and to a lesser extent Arab racism.

The point is illustrated by the existence of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, which in reality is the Arab half of any logical two state solution, which has also coincidentally become the 100% Judenrein utopia Hitler dreamed of: The Arab spokesman at the time, Emir Faisel of Mecca, had agreed that the original boundary proposal for the future Jewish state by the Zionist Organization (on both sides of the Jordan) was regarded as "moderate and proper". Based on the minimum territorial needs for creating a viable nation, and agreements with the parties concerned, the original boundary of the Mandate for Palestine was then drafted to include all of what later became the Judenrein Kingdom of Jordan. At the expense of the Jews, Britain, the mandatory power responsible for assisting in the creation of a functioning state, chose appeasement of the oil-supplying, arms-buying, Arab world over it's legal and moral responsibility to the Jewish people. In fact, it was the British that encouraged an armed invader from Arabia that had crossed into the territory with a small army on it's way to Damascus to stay on as "governor" of 78% of the land set aside for the Jewish people. No independent Arab nationalism had formed there previously, no movement to form a country, no unique history, culture, or ethnic grouping such as exists in Kurdish areas of Iraq, Iran, and Turkey today for example, nor was it ever semi-autonomous during the Ottoman rule. Jordan was simply formed when non-native Hashemites set themselves up as the lords and masters of the region which, lacking any historical name to call it, was labeled "trans-Jordan". Where is the outrage leveled at these invading, colonizing, foreigners? Where are the charges of occupation? Where is the intifada? The emergency meetings of the Security Council? The minions of indignation demanding concessions and appeasement? In fact, where are the crocodile tears lamenting the loss of human rights and the cries of outrage about what racial or ethnic group has a majority over the other? Native Palestinians outnumber non-native Hashemites and they had no democracy or human rights in trans-Jordan when the Hashemites took power, yet there was a collective yawn followed by deafening silence from the world when it happened. Apparently, the propagandists bent on perpetuating the politics of victimization want us to believe that we must reserve our pity for the poor natives only when it is deemed that the invaders, colonists, or immigrants are too European or too technologically advanced. But if it is not Arab racism and Muslim bigotry, what explains this silence and acceptance by the Arab Muslims of Arab Palestine (Jordan), contrasted with the gruesome spectacle of suicide bombings and mass murder when the Jews are involved? Of course, the answer is written on the side of an elephant that keeps shuffling across the path of those trying to search for feel good excuses.

Further, when the Arabs launched an all-out attack on the then defenseless Jewish community in 1948 to "throw them into the sea," ie an attempt at genocide, the British-trained and British-led Hashemite army, along with soldiers from six other Arab countries involved in the fighting, crossed the Jordan and seized a portion of the land of Judea and Samaria. (We know it today in ethnic cleansing terms as the "West Bank.") Though outnumbered and out gunned, the Jews managed to run a British blockade, circumvent a global arms embargo on them, arm themselves during a lull in the fighting, and survive the baptism by fire. What arose out of the ashes like a Phoenix was the modern state of Israel. When an armistice was signed, forming the so called "green line", Israel's falsely labeled "1967 border", the Hashemites had control of land on both sides of the Jordan...hence, "transJordan" was dropped and The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan was created out of thin air, the result of an illegal invasion and conquest, sitting in the heart of the Jewish homeland. If it is not Arab racism and Muslim bigotry, why was there no attempt to form a country called Palestine then? Why, for the nineteen years until 1967 (when five Arab countries again tried unsuccessfully to destroy Israel in the 6-Day War), at a time when people living there held Jordanian citizenship, with nowhere near the freedom and rights they have under Israeli control, did no separate Palestinian state emerge, seeking to confer such rights and establish independence? And why did the faux liberation movement, the PLO, formed in 1964, state in its initial Charter (Al-Mithaq Al-Kawmee Al-Philisteeni), Article 24: "This Organization does not exercise any territorial sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, on the Gaza Strip or in the Himmah Area?" When Muslim Arabs held the land the world saw no intifada, heard no charges of "occupation," experienced no complaints of "apartheid" and witnessed no motions on the floor of the UN to condemn Jordan's aggression. Only when Jews dare to hold positions of authority over Muslims, do Islamic bigots have an issue. Draw your own conclusions from this, but if you think about it hard enough you will see a connection to cynical Arab intransigence based solely on the fact that Jews, traditionally regarded as second-class "dhimmis" had the audacity to rise and take a stand to defend and rebuild their ancient homeland and practice their own faith without feeling public humiliation or fear.

The Islamic world is united under a single banner that proclaims that a Jewish state is an abhorrence to Islam that must be annihilated. But bigotry and racism are evils that all citizens with moral clarity and good conscience should reject. Is it not about time that all of us stand with Israel and reject the narrative of intolerance coming from the Muslim world?