Self-Determination

More settlements announced on the day after the UN vote to upgrade Palestine's status to state

On the day after the UN vote to upgrade the status of Palestine to state, the Israeli government responded by pulling out, from the drawer, plans to build thousands of more settlement units.

The most controversial is the announced plan to build in the E-1 area between Maale Adumin and Hizme.

Israeli police station in E-1 - Condoleezza Rice was told it would take a long time to build - photo via Ir Amim

Israeli-American lawyer and Jerusalem expert Daniel Seidemann has just called this, on Twitter, the “weaponization” of the “settlement offensive”.

@DanielSeidemann – E-1 will signal the end of 2-state solution. E-1 can’t be built today – it requires further statutory planning, which will take 6-9 months

@DanielSeidemann – The report today indicates intent to complete E-1 planning now, leading to construction in 6-9 months.

Reuters reported here that “The decision was made on Thursday when it became clear that the U.N. General Assembly was set to upgrade the Palestinians’ status in the world body, making them a ‘non-member state’, as opposed to an ‘entity’, boosting their diplomatic clout…An Israeli official had earlier conceded that this represented a ‘total failure of diplomacy’ and warned there would be consequences – which were swift in coming. Plans to put up thousands of new settler homes in the wake of the Palestinian upgrade were always likely, but the prospect of building in an area known as E-1, which lies near Jerusalem and bisects much of the West Bank, is seen by some as a potential game changer”.

@DanielSeidemann – We learned that source of Israeli press reports on 3000 new E Jersusalem & WB settlement units, E-1 is Mark Regev, PM’s office spokesperson

While this is a response came less than 24 hours after the Palestinian move at the UN General Assembly, it also comes about a week after internal elections within Netanyahu’s Likud Party now ruling in Israel, in which all the top spots went to settlers and their far-right supporters. A few weeks earlier, also in preparation for Israel’s general elections now set for January 22, Netanyahu forged an alliance to run on a joint list with Avigdor Lieberman of the Yisrael Beitenu party, currently Foreign Minister, who is now being treated as Netanyahu’s most essential partner and right-hand man.

UPDATE: UN Secretary-General BAN Ki-Moon issued a statement on 2 December [a Sunday, but still two full days after the Netanyahu cabinet decision in reaction to the UN General Assembly vote on the state status of Palestine] which is posted here and which said:

“It was with grave concern and disappointment that the Secretary-General learned of Israel’s announcement of 3,000 new settlement units in East Jerusalem and other parts of the West Bank. This would include reported planning in the so-called E-1 envelope, which risks completely cutting off East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank. Settlements are illegal under international law and, should the E-1 settlement be constructed, it would represent an almost fatal blow to remaining chances of securing a two-state solution…In the interests of peace, any plans for E-1 must be rescinded”.

In the statement, the UN Secretary-General also repeated [a ho-hum verb, less alarmist than the rest of the statement issued on Sunday] “his call on all concerned to resume negotiations and intensify efforts towards a comprehensive, just and lasting peace and urges the parties to refrain from provocative actions”.

Continue reading More settlements announced on the day after the UN vote to upgrade Palestine's status to state

PLO's Hanan Ashrawi: "we hope the international community will stand with us" at the UN tomorrow

The PLO Executive Committee’s Hanan Ashrawi told journalists in Ramallah today that “the last few days have been incredibly decisive for the Palestinian people”. She was speaking in a press conference called to discuss the Palestinian leadership’s 29 November move to go to the UN General Assembly to ask for a modest upgrade from observer “organization” to observer “state”.
Hanan Ashrawi at PLO press conference in Ramallah on 28 Nov 2012 - photo published by theaustralian.com.au

Hanan Ashrawi speaking at a PLO press conference in Ramallah on 28 November 2012 – photo by AFP published here

UPDATE: Amira Hass, who was one of those attending Ashrawi’s press conference, later wrote in Haaretz here, that “as the day of the vote neared, it seemed that the excitement of those behind the move was finally beginning to percolate downward. For a moment, it seemed as if the PLO had stopped thinking like a ruling organization bent on preserving the status quo and was once again thinking like a national liberation organization capable of imagining change and effecting it through the balance of international forces”.

Ashrawi told journalists that “There will be a vote in the UN General Assembly at the end of the debate on Thursday on the upgrade in status of Palestine to [non-member observer] state, Ashrawi said. She added that the draft resolution for Palestine’s status upgrade to state has been tabled, it will not be amended any further, and it has some 60 co-sponsors — as well as enough support to pass in the UN GA vote tomorrow.

“It is time for the Palestinians to gain their right to self-determination and independence”, Ashrawi said. “It is time the occupation is removed”.

In the June 1967 war, Israeli military forces occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza.

The UNGA vote is scheduled for 29 November — the date of the anniversary of the UN General Assembly’s adoption in 1947, following the Second World War, of Resolution 181, recommending a partition of Palestine, under British Mandate from the end of the First World War, into two states — on Jewish and one Arab. The State of Israel was proclaimed from Tel Aviv six months later. The Declaration of Independence of the State of Palestine was adopted by the PLO’s Palestine National Council meeting in Algiers in November 1988.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry “now estimates that at least 150 UN member states will support the Palestinians” upgrade to observer state, according to a report in Haaretz, posted here. The same article reported that as the Israeli leadership realized over the last two days that its position was eroding, the decision was to “lower the profile” and make no more threats, at least for now. “Whatever we do will hurt Israel at least as much as it will hurt the Palestinians”, one Foreign Ministry official was quoted as saying.

By the time the vote takes place on Thursday, it may be almost midnight in Ramallah and Jerusalem and Gaza, she noted.

Ashrawi told journalists: “This constitutes a historical turning point and opportunity for the world to rectify a grave historical injustice that the Palestinians have undergone since the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, and their statements that it was a land without people…”

Continue reading PLO's Hanan Ashrawi: "we hope the international community will stand with us" at the UN tomorrow

John Quigley, international law professor, on Palestine — in Palestine

John Quigley, renowned legal scholar and professor of international law who has written several books on the Question of Palestine — and who believes that the state of Palestine already exists, based in the Palestine Liberation Organization’s 1988 Declaration of Independence — is in Ramallah for a few days.

He will be speaking at a conference at Bir Zeit University this [Tuesday] morning [co-sponsored by the Bir Zeit University Institute of Law + the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung] on “The Quest for Palestine Statehood: Legal, Political and Economic Implications”.

At an appearance at the [Quaker] Friends Meeting House in Ramallah [arranged by the independent Palestinian human rights organization Al-Haq] on Monday night, Quigley said that the Palestinian right to statehood existed before or prior to — and without reference to — the UN General Assembly’s Resolution 181 [adopted 29 November 1947], but he noted that the PLO relied upon Resolution 181 as the basis for their claim to statehood in 1988.

Asked [by Sam Bahour, who was in the audience] if UNGA Resolution 181 is legal, if it had a legal foundation, Quigley replied that it was adopted as a recommendation, as a suggestion to 2 parties, as a proposal to the two parities, to deal with the situation by partition, with economic union and respect for the rights of everyone. [The situation = Britain announced after the Second World War that it wanted to get out of its responsibility for the Mandate of Palestine that it acquired from the League of Nations after the First World War].

So, Quigley continued, this UNGA Resolution 181 was viewed very clearly as a recommendation, but because it was rejected by Arab countries, the major powers a few months later put it aside.

Quigley then suggested that what gave UNGA Resolution 181 legality, or legitimacy [he avoided specifying the term] was the PLO’s acceptance of it, over 40 years later, as the basis for the Palestinian Declaration of Independence in 1988.

In terms of the unfulfilled Palestinian right of Self-Determination, Quigley said that it would have been better supported if the PLO had not, in 1988, confined its territorial claim to the West Bank and Gaza — it could have, at that time, called for Self-Determination in much larger territory.

However, he said, having made the determination in 1988 that they would establish their independent state within the borders / armistice lines that existed before the June 1967 war, it would be very difficult [if not impossible] for the Palestinians to go back on this now.

He did note that Israel became UN member in 1949 without specific mention of territory [or borders]; Israel’s subsequent occupation of territory in 1948 [after the departure of British forces] beyond the delimitation proposed in the UNGA resolution’s 1947 partition plan, has “never been dealt with in any way”.

It is very hard to argue that Jewish settlers in the West Bank have a right or claim to territory there on the basis of Self-Determination — especially, he said, since the International Criminal Court has now solidified the position of the Geneva Conventions, and also of customary international law [including the Hague Convention of 1907, which Israel does accept], that establishing settlements under a military occupation is a war crime.

The real problem, Quigley added, is that it will be very difficult for the Palestinians to gain jurisdiction over Israel in in international fora, because Israel opts out from the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice in every international human rights treaty except the Genocide Convention.

In contrast to the positions held by some in the audience in Ramllah, Quigley said that the PLO’s “UN bid” — its filing of an application for full membership on 23 September — will enhance its ability to represent Palestinian interests.

If anything, Quigley said, Palestinian statehood enhances representation for the Palestinian diaspora. He argued that some Palestinian complaints [including the fears of diaspora about their lack of representation] with regard to the recently-submitted “UN bid” are “internal questions”.

Just because there hasn’t been a very effective effort made in the past to implement the rights of those outside, doesn’t mean that they still won’t be in the future, Quigley noted. “All I’m saying is that Palestine as a state will be in a stronger [and better] position to do so”, though it remains to be seen what will happen.

He also noted that there doesn’t seem to be any indication of an attempt to abandon the Palestinian right of “repatriation”.

And, he said, Palestinian complaints that there should have been greater consultation before making the UN bid is also an internal Palestinian matter, while “at an international level, a state representing a population that acquiesces in its control — even if it doesn’t like what that state does — is capable of taking such actions”.

Continue reading John Quigley, international law professor, on Palestine — in Palestine