Dr. Rima Khalaf asked me to speak about Trump’s DC and International Law. But the text deny from the beginning any reference to International Law, Trump’s Staff for the editing of this “Deal”, told us: “While we are respectful of the historic role of the United Nations in the peace process, this Vision is not a recitation of General Assembly, Security Council and other international resolutions on this topic because such resolutions have not and will not resolve the conflict” P.5 they added clearly that, “This Vision is security-focused”P.4. Israel Security is the only obsession of the authors. Justice, rights, UN resolutions or International Law are not their problem.

As Nizar Mohamad noted, Trumps’s DC treats the Palestinians “not as equal partners with legitimate national rights and aspirations, but as a defeated party accepting the terms of surrender in the aftermath of a gruelling conflict – unarmed, besieged, and left with the indignation of only having the option to accept whatever settlement is superimposed on them by the state of Israel”.

What is the difference between Trumps’s DC and the Israeli extreme right political project?

This plan cements Israel’s sovereignty over the West Bank and Gaza and eternalizes the occupation under the veneer of statehood, legitimizing Israel’s disregard for international law in an attempt to structurally shift the annexation from de facto to de jure, and thus complete the process of land theft that began decades ago.

In Trump’s DC, As Robert Fantina wrote,” the future of the Palestinian people is being decided without input from the Palestinian people. It may seem strange to the uninitiated that the millions of Palestinians in Palestine, and those in refugee camps and around the world, have no say in the future of their nation, at least as defined by Trump and Netanyahu. But when the goal is simply to give Israel everything it wants, this ‘oversight’ is easily understood”.

Nothing is further from a peace effort than the One-sided plan concocted, all the final and difficult status issues – border, security, status of Jerusalem, refugees, and international recognition takes in consideration the Israeli point of view as it is.

The deal contravenes Security Council resolutions 242, 338 and 193, which call for Israel to withdraw from the Palestinian and Arab lands occupied in 1967 as a way of enhancing the peace process between the two States. It strategizes definitive transfer the ownership of Jerusalem to Israel, gives more than 90 per cents of water and gas to Israelis, a chosen land of more than 40 per cents of West Bank with Jordan Valley and border control. Israel will maintain full control of nearly 1,400 kilometers borders, the registry, and essentially all the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Plus, denying the Palestinian refugees the right to self-determination as captured in UN resolutions.

That’s mean, a great concentration camp under Israel military domination.  A new model of Bantustans. This plan constitutes an affirmation of apartheid System in the historical Palestine.

The international community regards the policy of building settlements on the occupied territories as illegal. Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and the Golan, the areas formally annexed by Israel, are also considered illegal. The United Nations (UN) have on several occasions stated that Israel’s construction of Jewish settlements in the Palestinian areas constitute a violation of the 4 Geneva Convention. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has also labelled the settlements outside Israel as illegal.

After more than 50 million of victims in the 2WW, one of the most important successes of human being was to elaborate the so called international Law. All Human and People’s Rights for all. Trump’s administration considers itself Over the Law. That’s mean coming back to the Law of Jungle. This is the great challenge for All Human and Peoples Rights defenders and global civil society today:  Resistance must be our arm, defending Palestinian rights is our duty

Trump’s DC “institutionalize” the following crimes committed by Israel

• Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court

Article 7 Crimes against humanity:

(j) The crime of apartheid

“The crime of apartheid” means inhumane acts of a character similar to those referred to in paragraph 1, committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime;

Article 8 War crimes

(viii) The transfer, directly or indirectly, by the Occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies, or the deportation or transfer of all or parts of the population of the occupied territory within or outside this territory;

• List Security Council Resolutions with which Israel failed to comply or violated

• International humanitarian law

The ICRC states that international humanitarian law primarily stems from the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the Additional Protocols of 1977 relating to the protection of victims of armed conflicts.[1] The most serious violations of the GCIV are considered war crimes. In the case of the military occupation, the Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilians in Times of War (GC IV) is the most relevant and most referred to.

Israel refuses to acknowledge the applicability of the GC IV in the occupied Palestinian territory. This is despite the 18 Security Council Resolutions[2] that reaffirm such applicability and the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice in 2004[3].

Major principles that govern international humanitarian law during times of war (and occupation) and aim at protecting civilians include:

• The principle of distinction
• The principle of proportionality
• The principle of humane treatment
• The principle of non-discrimination
• Women and children [special protection of]

Israel as an occupying power has ignored and violated all the aforementioned principles through violating a large number of provisions of its international humanitarian law obligations as a State Party of the Fourth Geneva Convention since 1951. This includes but is not exclusive to the violation of articles:

• Article 27 by systematic and persistent inclination by the Israeli authorities to directly harm civilians not participating directly in the conduct of hostilities.
• Articles 16-21, Articles 23, 55, 56 and 59 through the regular denial of Israeli military of free passage to medical, humanitarian and relief convoys and not refraining from directly attacking medical and humanitarian facilities, vehicles and vessels, as did the attack on the Turkish Flotilla show in May 2010.
• Article 134 which states that “[t]he High Contracting Parties shall endeavor, upon the close of hostilities or occupation, to ensure the return of all internees to their last place of residence, or to facilitate their repatriation”, by denying the Palestine refugees their right to return to their lands.
• Articles 5, 27, 31, 32, 37, 70-73 and 76 by committing illegal acts of torture and inhuman treatment along with violating their basic judicial rights under the framework of administrative detention.
• Articles 23, 26, 33, 34, 49 and 53 by regular use of collective punishments by Israeli military through acts of harmful closure to the Palestinian population, destruction of their properties aiming at expelling many from their homes and lands, to make way for Jewish settlements, which fall under illegal forced displacements under GCIV.

Many of the violations of the GC IV constitute grave breaches may amount to war crimes for which Israeli authorities must be held accountable.[4]

The recurrent Israeli offensives on the Gaza Strip, the latest of which was the 2014 summer offensive that lead to unprecedented destruction and loss of life manifest Israel’s disregard for international humanitarian law. The offensive clearly entailed violations of international human rights law, including possible war crimes. This has prompted the Human Rights Council to establish and dispatch an independent, international commission of inquiry into these violations.[5] However, previous experiences have shown that Israel was not held accountable for such violations (e.g. the Goldstone report[6] and the Flotilla[7] report).

Given the failure of the Israeli judiciary to seriously prosecute those responsible of such acts as ordered by article 146 of GCIV[8], the international community should make way for specific mechanisms in order to seek restorative justice for the Palestinian victims of the occupying power’s illegal conduct.  While international instruments have been deployed to investigate war crimes and hold perpetrators accountable in other countries (Sierra Leone, former Yugoslavia etc.) no such measure has been taken in the case of Palestine in spite the fact that Israel’s documented violations date back at least to 1967 (see Security Council section above).

Along the same lines, the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (1973) defines “the crime of apartheid”, as “policies and practices of racial segregation and discrimination as practiced in southern Africa, shall apply to the following inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them” (Article 2).

In 2012, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination expressed it concerns and censured Israel a number of times under the rubric of Article 3 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. Article 3 refers to the prevention of apartheid and racial segregation.[9] (See section on non-discrimination above).

In his January 2014 report, former United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 Professor Richard Falk examined the policies and practices that constitute apartheid. He concluded that Israeli policies and practices in the context of its prolonged occupation “constitute racial segregation and apartheid”.[10]

His predecessor, John Dugard, had recommended in 2007, the referral of the question of whether “elements of the [Israeli] occupation constitute forms of colonialism and apartheid” to the International Court of Justice for an advisory opinion.^[11] However no related action was taken.

Given the amount of legal opinions and documentation on this issue, the fact that no international legal body has taken action to investigate the issue of apartheid in Palestine, serves to highlight the impunity that Israel has enjoyed in the realm of international justice.

1. Palestine refugees

Millions of Palestinians residing in de facto exile for decades have not relinquished their right to return. A large portion of them remain in refugee camps inside the occupied Palestinian territory and in neighboring countries. Two main Israeli policies and govern the issue of Palestine refugees. The first being the denial of their right to return to their land and country, while is the systematic confiscation of private property belonging to Palestine refugees. Both policies aim at maintaining demographic dominance of the Jewish population and control of the land and property.

The Israeli Law of Return (1950) clearly states that “Every Jew has the right to come to this county as an oleh” (Article 1). In a 1970 amendment, the law also granted the right to return to “a child and a grandchild of a Jew, the spouse of a Jew, the spouse of a child of a Jew and the spouse of a grandchild of a Jew…” (Article 4A(a)).[12]

Furthermore, successive Israeli prime ministers, including the incumbent, Benjamin Netanyahu, have consistently dismissed Palestinian refugees’ right to exercise their right to return. It is “not right, not justified, and not legitimate”, Netanyahu commented on the right of return, reiterating the long held Israeli position that Israel is not responsible for the fate of Palestine refugees.[13] The Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations went further and accused United Nations organizations, namely UNRWA, of “fueling false promises and gives grievance to dangerous myths” referring to the right of return.[14]

For one, all the above comes in spite of the fact that the right of individuals to return home is enshrined in international humanitarian law (see GCIV Article 143 in section II (3) above) and international human rights law.  For, Palestine refugees have the basic right to return to their home and country according the Universal declaration of Human Rights[15], and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.[16]

Furthermore, among the arguments used by Israelis and supporters of the concept of the “Jewish State”, is that allowing the right of return would flood the State with millions of non-Jewish refugees and hence yield the end of the State of Israel.[17] The conclusion of this argument is simply dismissing an inalienable right as impractical… for a regime that seeks ethnic/religious dominance of one group over another.

The main issue concerning the issue of refugees right of return is that of discrimination and racism. By using criteria such as religious affiliation and lineage to confirm or deny a person’s right to “Return” to Palestine/Israel, the existing Israeli regime has not only denied Palestine refugees from their right to return, but also from their right to non-discrimination and equality.

Another inequality that plagues Palestine refugees is the issue of dispossession by means of seizing private property utilizing a series of laws, at the foremost of which is the Absentee Property Law (1950).

This law transfers “every right” in any property of ‘absentees’ had in an official Israeli entity, “Custodianship Council for Absentees’ Property”[18]. The law defines absentees as property owners:

“i) was a national or citizen of the Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Trans-Jordan, Iraq or the Yemen, or

(ii) was in one of these countries or in any part of Palestine outside the area of Israel, or [between 29 November 1947 and 14 March 1950]

(iii) was a Palestinian citizen and left his ordinary place of residence in Palestine

(a) for a place outside Palestine before the 27th Av, 5708 (1st September, 1948); or

(b) for a place in Palestine held at the time by forces which sought to prevent the establishment of the State of Israel or which fought against it after its establishment;”[19]

Upon close examination of the definition above Absentees’ Property Law, similar to other laws, it becomes obvious that it is directed towards Palestine refugees’ property, or more precisely non-Jewish residents of mandate Palestine at the time when they fled, were forcefully displaced, or were residing in an Arab country or in parts of Palestine controlled by Arab armies at the time.

So coupled with other laws, Israel used the Absentees’ Property Law to claim and seize an estimated 4,200-5,800 km² of ‘abandoned’ lands. Furthermore, between 1948 and 1953 alone, 95 per cent (350 of 370) of settlements for Jewish Israelis and immigrants were created on lands confiscated under this law,[20] highlighting the nature of the displacement and dispossession that affected only non-Jewish residents of Palestine.

One further inequality in this regard was institutionalized by Israel through the Absentees’ Property (Compensation) Law (1973). The law limits the ability to clam compensation for lands seized under the Absentees’ Property Law to a person who “is an Israel resident on the date of the coming into force of this Law or who becomes an Israel resident thereafter […]”[21]. This limitation clearly excludes all Palestine refugees. Lastly, in 2009, Israel passed the Israel Land Administration Law which allows privatization of land owned by Palestine refugees.[22]

Thus, a non-Jewish Palestinian who became a refugee is not allowed to return to his country, his property is seized by Israeli authorities and has no mechanism to claim compensation or redress. At the same time, any person of Jewish ancestry can immigrate to the same land, may live and work in or on property of a Palestine refugee, and can claim compensation should the array of land and property laws deprive them of any property.

 References

Richard Falk, Virginia Tilley, Israeli Practices towards the Palestinian People and the question of Apartheid, 2017

Group of Intellectuals, Injustice in the Arab Region and the Road to Justice, 2017

Reports of Palestinians and Internationals NGOs

[1] https://www.icrc.org/eng/assets/files/other/what_is_ihl.pdf

[2] Resolutions 237 (1967), 271 (1969), 446 (1979), 465 (1980), 471 (1980), 476(1980), 484 (1980), 592 (1986), 605 (1987), 636 (1989), 641 (1989), 672 (1990), 673 (1990), 681 (1990), 726 (1992), 799 (1992), 1322 (2000), 1544 (2004)

[3] See Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, ICJ, 2004

[4] Article 147 identifies these grave breaches as “those involving any of the following acts, if committed against persons or property protected by the present Convention: willful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments, willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement of a protected person, compelling a protected person to serve in the forces of a hostile Power, or willfully depriving a protected person of the rights of fair and regular trial prescribed in the present Convention, taking of hostages and extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly”.

[5] See A/HRC/RES/S-21/1, para. 13.

[6] See Report of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, A/HRC/12/48

[7] See Report of the Secretary-General’s Panel of Inquiry on the 31 May 2010 Flotilla Incident, http://www.un.org/News/dh/infocus/middle_east/Gaza_Flotilla_Panel_Report.pdf

[8] Article 146 (1&2) : “The High Contracting Parties undertake to enact any legislation necessary to provide effective penal sanctions for persons committing, or ordering to be committed, any of the grave breaches of the present Convention defined in the following Article.

Each High Contracting Party shall be under the obligation to search for persons alleged to have committed, or to have ordered to be committed, such grave breaches, and shall bring such persons, regardless of their nationality, before its own courts. It may also, if it prefers, and in accordance with the provisions of its own legislation, hand such persons over for trial to another High Contracting Party concerned, provided such High Contracting Party has made out a prima facie case”.

[9] CERD/C/ISR/CO/14-16, paras. 11, 15, 24, 25, 26, 27.

[10] A/HRC/25/67, para. 78.

^[11] A/HRC/4/17, p. 3.

[12] http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/mfa-archive/1950-1959/pages/law%20of%20return%205710-1950.aspx; An oleh is someone who makes an Aliyah or immigration to Israel.

[13] Jerusalem Post, Netanyahu on Palestinian 'right of return': There is no room for maneuver, 16 January 2014

http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Netanyahu-on-Palestinian-right-of-return-There-is-no-room-for-maneuver-338329; also see New York Times, Olmert Rejects Right of Return for Palestinians, March 31, 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/31/world/middleeast/31mideast.html,; and Haaretz, Ariel Sharon to Haaretz: 'Iraq war created an opportunity with the Palestinians we can't miss, 13 April 2003, http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/ariel-sharon-to-haaretz-iraq-war-created-an-opportunity-with-the-palestinians-we-can-t-miss-1.13058

[14] See, http://embassies.gov.il/un/The_Ambassador/Appearances/Pages/Ambassador-Ron-Prosor-at-the-Jerusalem-Post-Conference.aspx

[15] Article 13 (2): Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.

[16] Article 12 (4): No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his own country.

[17] See http://embassies.gov.il/un/The_Ambassador/Appearances/Pages/Ambassador-Ron-Prosor-at-the-Jerusalem-Post-Conference.aspx

[18] Israeli ABSENTEES’ PROPERTY LAW, 5710-1950, Article 2-Article 3, http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/E0B719E95E3B494885256F9A005AB90A

[19] Israeli ABSENTEES’ PROPERTY LAW, 5710-1950, Article 1(b) http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/E0B719E95E3B494885256F9A005AB90A

[20] COHRE, BADIL, Ruling Palestine, A History of the Legally Sanctioned Jewish-Israeli Seizure of Land and Housing in Palestine, 2005, p. 55; http://www.badil.org/en/documents/category/35-publications?download=102%3Aruling-palestine

[21] Absentees’ Property (Compensation) Law, 5733-1973, Article 1, https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Peace/absentee.html

[22] Adalah, http://www.adalah.org/en/law/view/505

The International Institute for Peace, Justice and Human Rights (IIPJHR), the Global Organization against Racial Discrimination and Segregation) (AARDi) and the Scandinavian Institute for Human Rights/HMF

Deal of the Century:  A path to peace, or a roadmap to perpetual apartheid?

SIHR Geneva 16 March 2020