Letters to the Editor July 11, 2021: Thrilled to build – and int’l law

I was mystified to hear a State Department spokesperson (Jalina Porter) maintaining that young Jewish communities in Yehuda-Shomron are “illegal even under Israeli law.”

Jewish residence in Israel’s Judea-Samaria region is fully legal. Distinguished international law expert Prof. Eugene Rostow, dean of the USA’s leading law school, affirmed this decades ago, adding that it is “impossible to contend” that Israeli settlements are illegal. Moreover, US Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas and other top American legal minds explained that the international community specifically undertook to encourage “close settlement by Jews” in Yehuda-Shomron. Thus, not only are building and developing for Israelis and Jews in Yehuda-Shomron permissible, they are in fact “obligations arising from… international law” – which are, additionally, irrevocable. A fortiori, such building and developing are, of course, legal and desirable under our own Israeli law.

Regarding the lack of formal government approval for the new and desperately needed community of Evyatar – Jewish communities typically arise very informally in this country (and probably in many others), with approval given after the fact. 

Porter, an experienced communications professional, may have been led astray by a recent illegality allegation about Evyatar by a (non-attorney) Meretz minister. Israeli ministers, of all people, should not publicly hurl unfounded accusations against their own beleaguered country. 

Regarding “Unsettled Status of Settlements” (Letters, July 7), in these days before the 9th of Av, commemorating the destruction of the Temple, it is appropriate to respond to on Neville Berman’s attack on the settlements that “Resolution 2334 (is) part of what constitutes international law.” Whatever former US president Barack Obama’s view of Jewry was, his antagonism to Israel and former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was clear, and his failure to veto this resolution in his final days as a lame-duck president was the last gift of his anti-Israel sentiment. 

So does that resolution then constitute law? Regretfully, the resolution is yet another version of the blood-libel with which Jewry has been accused since at least the destruction of the Temple. International law as a concept depends upon its acceptance internationally, but that acceptance does not necessarily give it moral justification. Perhaps Berman should read the response of Josephus to Apion to see how little the world has changed during 2,000 years regarding antisemitism on a personal, political and now international level,

Neville Berman and many others need to be reminded that the United Nations Charter, an international treaty, supersedes any vote of the Security Council or the General Assembly. Article 80 of the United Nations Charter declares what today is Israel including Judea and Samaria to be the reconstituted homeland of the Jewish people and therefore sovereign Jewish territory. Resolution 2334 of the Security Council is just a recommendation; the controlling international law is Article 80 of the UN Charter.

I would refer Berman and those many others to the words of Eugene Rostow, dean of Yale Law School and US under secretary of state in a Democratic administration. He underscored in a famous letter published in The New York Times in 1983 Israel’s right to the settlements.

Here are brief excerpts:

“Israel has an unassailable legal right to establish settlements in the West Bank. The West Bank is part of the British Mandate in Palestine, which included Israel and Jordan. While Jewish settlement east of the Jordan River was suspended in 1922, such settlements remained legal in the West Bank.

“All rights vesting under mandates were preserved by Article 80 of the United Nations Charter. And they survived the end of British administration in Palestine as a ‘sacred trust’’ – exactly the legal posture for Namibia after South Africa ceased to be the mandatory power.” Israel is not “an occupying power, because the West Bank has never been widely recognized as Jordanian. Israel’s claims to the territory are at least as good as those of Jordan, since Jordan held the territory for 19 years after a war of aggression, whereas Israel took the area in the course of a war of self-defense.”

The entire text can be googled and is well worth reading.

Regarding “Israeli provocations could spark Palestinian violence, Canadian FM says” (July 6), Canadian Foreign Minister Marc Garneau visited Israel and told some Israelis things they wanted to hear, then trotted off to visit PA President Mahmoud Abbas and his team and seems to have listened to them telling him how dreadful and predatory and controlling and destructive Israel is – and apparently Garneau agrees with him.

Having made aliya recently after living more than 40 years in Canada, I can say that sadly Israel and Canada are not “strong allies.” Canada is not really a friend to Israel; at best it is not an enemy, although within the Canadian parliament there are enemies of Israel. Only during the period of Canada’s best-ever prime minister, Stephen Harper, can it be said that Canada was a true friend of Israel. 

Before and after Harper, when the Liberal Party has been in government, they have either opposed many Israeli policies, or tried to remain “neutral,” frequently abstaining on or even voting in favor of virulently anti-Israel proposals at the United Nations.

The statements that Garneau allegedly made to Prime Minister Naftali Bennett are unhelpful and an indication of the long-standing tendency of the Canadian government to uncritically swallow Palestinian propaganda.

Some years ago while still in Canada, I was one of a number of community volunteers asked to lobby candidates before an election. With a colleague I visited a very fine person, a decent intelligent university professor, and at the end of our meeting he thanked us for making our case on behalf of Israel, adding, “You have to understand that my constituency is predominantly Muslim.”

Canada differs fundamentally from the US in having a much weaker sense of identity and core principles, and tends to be a follower rather than a leader. Not what one wants in a “strong ally.”

Canadian Ambassador to Israel Marc Garneau’s statement that Israel could reignite violence if it persists with settlement building and evictions of east Jerusalem Arabs is typical of the “politically correct” attitude that has become prevalent in the West – based on ignorance of the history of the Middle East and the present situation in Israel. 

Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. Its policy is the total elimination of Israel. Israel itself is considered a “settlement” and Israel’s very existence is considered a provocation that needs to be eradicated. Hamas is armed by Iran and is a pawn of Iranian proxy warfare. Settlement building is totally irrelevant to both Iran and Hamas. They both want to eradicate Israel with or without settlements. 

In 1948 the Transjordanian army known as the Arab Legion was under the command of a British officer named Glubb Pasha. The Arab Legion was armed by Britain and took part in the Arab invasion of Israel in 1948. It captured an area known as the West Bank and east Jerusalem and expelled the many Jews living in east Jerusalem. 

On July 31, 1988 Jordan formally renounced its claim to the West Bank. The recent potential eviction of Arabs in east Jerusalem is not a political maneuver. Certain Arab families in east Jerusalem have been living in properties that Jews have title to. The Arab inhabitants have not paid any rent and the owners of the properties are attempting to evict the tenants. The situation is a legal dispute of ownership that in the near future will be adjudicated based on the evidence before the courts. To claim that this will ignite violence is simply announcing to Israeli Arabs that Canada expects them to ignite violence if the courts rules in favor of the Jews. Shame on you for promoting violence against Jews.

Canada has often been a good friend of Israel, but Garneau’s advice harks back to the dark days of attempted Jewish immigration to Canada in order to flee Nazi Germany: “None is too many” was the notorious answer by the Canadian government. It is time for Canada to show some real understanding of the situation in Israel

“Politicized UN official abuses food mandate to target Israel” (July 11) regarding starvation in at least three highlighted countries was shocking in the first paragraph alone.

However, those above examples have been basically ignored by the UN Human Rights Council’s “right to food monitor,” Michael Fahkri, who has shown no interest in those countries’ woes. Instead, his focus is on “attacking Israel as an apartheid state and calling for it to be boycotted.” 

Seriously?

Not surprising that the so-called UN, well known for its anti-Israel bias, has appointed this flagrantly antisemitic Canadian-Lebanese law professor to a position on the right to food. Instead, he uses his position to a call to end sanctions on abusive regimes, co-signing a UN statement condemning Israel for “vast assymetry of power” during the latest war with Hamas, also accusing Israel of “crimes against humanity” and “apartheid.”

So, people will continue to starve under this “food monitor,” because he is obsessed with attacking Israel. 

His position title needs some tweaking!

In “Nordic fund KLP boycotts 16 companies over links with settlements,” (July 6), we read that Norway’s largest pension fund will pull funding from companies with links to Judea and Samaria.

How sad and prophetic. It’s one more step in Norway’s transformation from a Nordic Christian state to one where Sharia law will dominate.

Meanwhile, the loser will be the Norwegian investor. Israel is one of the top 10 investment countries in the world. Any shares Norway puts into the markets will be snapped up by others, happy to share in the miracle of the “start-up nation.”

Norway may want to punish Israel. If it succeeded in hurting these companies, which it won’t, it would also be denying well-paid jobs to local Arabs. Is that their intent?

Any country that wants to help the Arabs living under the Palestinian Authority and Hamas should not be castigating Israel, but should encourage the PA to accept that Israel is a permanent member of the Middle East and to engage with it to end the dispute peacefully. The social and economic benefits of peace will be huge. The Peace to Prosperity Plan is a starting point for negotiations.

I am surprised that the Defense Minister Benny Gantz has now, probably without cabinet approval, taken on the role of Minister for International Aid (“Gantz: Israel ready to provide assistance to Lebanon amid economic crisis,” July 6) by offering financial aid to Lebanon. The crisis in Lebanon has been addressed by the President of France as well as the World Bank and international aid agencies, all willing to provide assistance on the condition Lebanon meets their stipulated terms. Oddly, no wealthy Arab country, drowning in their oil/gas wealth, has provided or even offered financial aid to their brother Arabs – let alone wealthy Lebanese bankers living in exile.

Gantz is opening up his heart to Lebanon to provide financial assistance, yet no Arab country has compensated the Jews who they deliberately forced out penniless and their assets sequestrated. Assets seized are estimated to have been between $150 billion to $250 billion – in 2019 terms, an approximate valuation of $1.5 trillion, or about half the GDP of the entire Middle East.

It is time we stopped making foolish magnanimous gestures like this, while the rest of the world castigates the Jewish state and world Jewry.

Who made up the rule that “when a neighbor needs help – even if it’s an enemy state – it is incumbent to provide assistance?” Lebanon and Hezbollah are intricately intertwined. Providing help to one is providing help to the other. Do we really want to donate to those who count down the days to our destruction? Saad Harari is clearly pro-Hezbollah. Where do you think our goods and services will really go? How did helping Hamas arise from the ashes work for Israel? Everything we gave them – that everyone gave them – was used to perpetuate the mantra they live by: Kill the Jews.

Alan Shatter’s “How Ireland can contribute to conflict resolution” (July 6) was a step in the right direction after Ambassador O’Sullivan’s disgraceful article on June 24, an article Shatter quoted Ireland’s Foreign Minister, Simon Coveney, as calling a “balanced piece.”

What Shatter failed to mention was that he himself is Jewish; it takes a Jew from the miniscule Jewish minority to pen an article showing Ireland as more moderate than it really is.

He mentions the Palestinians’ continued vehemently anti-Israeli indoctrination of their children and failure to change their charter calling for the destruction of Israel, two undertakings in the Oslo agreement that still remain unfulfilled. But, like O’Sullivan, he conveniently forgot to mention the calls in the Irish parliament for the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador – hardly “balanced” behavior.

Further, he did not mention the rampant antisemitism that pervades Ireland and its government. Perhaps he is unaware of the rapprochement between Jews and Catholics and the prayer Pope John Paul II placed between the stones of the Western Wall of the Temple in Jerusalem: “God of our fathers, You chose Abraham and his descendants to bring your Name to the nations. We are deeply saddened by the behavior of those who in the course of history have caused these children of yours to suffer, and asking your forgiveness. We wish to commit ourselves to genuine brotherhood.” 

It is time for the Irish people to discard the teachings of Roman Catholic Church of a century ago, and recognize the Nostra Aetate document of Pope Paul VI, which exonerated the Jewish people of the collective blame of Jesus’s death

Had this article been written by an Irish non-Jew, it may have had merit, but from the pen of a Jew, it is meaningless.

“After failure to renew law, thousands of Palestinians start applying for citizenship” (July 9) highlights the supreme irony. If Israel is such a terrible place – a racist apartheid genocidal state of “occupiers” – why is it that so many from the PA want to become Israeli citizens? If the Family Unification Law is about marital harmony, then surely the arrangements would be reciprocal. Why are there no requests for PA residency out of the thousands of couples involved? What is BDS’s response to this?

The hypocrisy of the United States embassy in condemning Israel for destroying the homes of terrorists (“Bennett pushes back at US over razing of terrorist’s home,” July 9)! 

This comes from a country that routinely forfeits homes, cars and other property belonging to families of criminals just because the criminal was hiding drugs on the property. This often leaves family members impoverished and homeless. Of course, these are not cases of premeditated murder for compensation, such as Palestinian terrorism, which would be a capital crime under federal law.

The comment by the Biden administration is even more galling because of the widespread gun violence and antisemitism going on in America this year. The Israeli government should express concern for the US government’s failure to protect its Jewish citizens from gun violence and antisemitic attacks – plus the failure of the administration to condemn antisemitism expressed by members of its own party in Congress.