The Rachel Corrie has now been illegally boarded by the Israeli military in international waters.
As usual the BBC’s immediate reaction is simply to retail Israeli propaganda. The Rachel Corrie has been boarded “with the full compliance of the crew”, BBC News tells us. That is almost certainly not true, unless you count without violent resistance as “full compliance”.
If that were true, you might wonder why Israel had jammed – again contrary to maritime law – all the Rachel Corrie’s communications with the outside world, and why they are still jammed. The BBC did not mention that.
The organisers have just posted this:
“For the second time in less then a week, Israeli naval commandos stormed an unarmed aid ship, brutally taking its passengers hostage and towing the ship toward Ashdod port in Southern Israel.”
But the BBC is much more concerned to help ensure that the Israeli version has unquestioned domination of the initial news.
“In what Irish Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness described as a “raid,” the Israeli Navy again commandeered an unarmed, peaceful ship in international waters, the Rachel Corrie, in a bid to prevent wheel chairs from reaching the blockaded people of Gaza, an Occupied Territory of which Israel controls the borders, air and sea.
The Irish government (the ship took off from Ireland) is furious, with the deputy first minister condemning the raid as a “completely unacceptable and unjustified use of force”.
He isn’t the Irish deputy first minister. He isn’t a member of the Irish government at all. He’s a former IRA terrorist who relied on Libyan supplies.
Lots of ad hominem attacks from the Zionists here, but nothing factual in terms of rebuttals.
Some interesting sophistry from Michael Petek, but it’s all been debunked in earlier posts, especially those by Craig.
Israel wants to paint the picture that it’s one-sided war is legal and moral, but of course it is neither.
That’s funny, Dave I though it was me who was debunking Craig!
By the way, how can a war by a state against a non-state belligerent be illegal, unless it’s a question of Islamic law or Borat’s law.
Dave says:
“The original sin, of course, was that of the Zionists. They bullied and bribed the Western powers to give them a large part of Palestine, via what was really a criminal act of the UN.”
Dave, you really do need to take a day off!
When Israel was created on 15 May 1948 it was restricted to the territory of Palestine, where at the time there was no state of any kind, any more than there is a state in Somalia other than the Republic of Somaliland.
The emergence of Israel was not at the expense of another state and not against international law.
However, it was – and is – against Islamic law. Political power and the bearing of arms are only for the Muslims. The Jews and the Christians can stay alive as long as they know and keep their place as dhimmis.
The fact that the Jews don’t is the reason why Hamas regard them as apes, pigs and kikes, not as Israelis.
Then there’s Borat’s law:
(1) A Jew, but not another, commits an offence if any part of his person comes into contact with an offensive weapon in use by that other.
(2) A Jew commits a war crime if he incurs a defence injury.
(3) Everyone has the fundamental human right to beat a Jew or to throw him down the well or, if a well is not available, overboard.
Michael,
I follow the logic of your argument. But in that case, what right does Israel have to continue to complain about rockets fired from Gaza into Israel, if it considers itself still in conflict with Gaza?
Secondly, a wide embargo aimed at the general population as collective punishment remains illegal, as this embargo – which includes shoes, coriander, cheese and cement – plainly does.
But frankly, your support for Israel because you believe their religion is superior tells me all I need to know about you and your arguments.
“I follow the logic of your argument. But in that case, what right does Israel have to continue to complain about rockets fired from Gaza into Israel, if it considers itself still in conflict with Gaza?” – Craig
What a bizarre question! A is at war with B so can’t complain about B’s actions? Are you for real?
Neil
I see. “I am at war with you so I can bomb you and kill over 2,000 civilians, but you are not allowed to fire back with your pitiful weapons”.
“Israel is in a state of war and so is allowed to blockade, but only Israel is allowed to fire in this war”.
Neil Barker you are shown up for the callous racist prat that you are.
Michael Petek–just because you say there was no state, and even if the UN said there was no state of Palestine, doesn’t make it true. The fact remains that a whole population of Palestinians was living there, and had been living there for centuries, most of whom owned deeded property. Now that deeded property is occupied by Israeli settlements etc. Have the Palestinians been paid for that land?
Nope.
Israelis have legally paid for 8% of the land they now occupy. The rest was stolen. Most of the Palestinians who lost their land don’t want compensation–they want their land back, and I don’t blame them.
So please drop the tired old propaganda line, that “Palestine was never a state.” That’s also been debunked over and over.
Explain instead what right the Israelis ever had to take over someone else’s land?
This article at the link below, reporting the Turkish forensic findings, states that five of the nine killed had wounds in the back of the head or back only.
I’m no forensic or fire-arms expert but that doesn’t sound like self-defense to me.
http://www.focus-fen.net/index.php?id=n221820
Actually, before anyone wastes too much time arguing with Michael Petek, I suggest they look at the nutter’s website
http://www.crownofdavid.com/
“Neil Barker you are shown up for the callous racist prat that you are.” – Craig.
Craig, not everyone who disagrees with you is racist, Zionist, etc. Your question remains bizarre. Of course one side can legitimately complain about the actions of the other, during a war. You won’t find any racist element in any of my comments. You can’t argue properly so you resort to abuse. Does this have anything to do with my pointing out that you are a rich, privileged man?
Craig, I didn’t say that Israel’s religion is superior. That is irrelevant, because Israel’s claim of jus ad bellum is based on secular and political grounds and has no religious basis.
Hamas has stated its war aims not in terms of restoring international peace and security (which might include regime change in Israel). It aims to destroy Israel politically on the grounds that Allah has reserved political power and the bearing of arms to the Muslims.
That is why the truth claims of Islam are a matter of public interest, and as a Christian I say they are false.
Last year Shaul Mofaz MK presented a plan to hold talks with Hamas and establish a Palestinian state in 60 percent of the West Bank within one year.
In its official response, Hamas called Mofaz’s offer “Zionist vulgarity” and said it would never recognize Israel or give legitimacy to the occupation.
The correct response to such a rebuff would be to serve Hamas an ultimatum to change its religion or find another country to live in.
The fact that Israel is at war with Gaza is not a matter of international law. Gaza’s belligerency is against Israeli law and falls within Israel’s jurisdiction according to the protective principle.
When rockets are fired by Hamas into Israel and kill Israelis, this is an act of genocide, because the facts disclose concurrent intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the Israeli national group, or the Jewish ethnic or religious group, as such.
“The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him! This will not apply to the Gharqad, which is a Jewish tree (cited by Bukhari and Muslim). (Article 7, Hamas Charter).
It is prescribed in Islamic law that, when dhimmis rebel against the Muslims, jihad is to be resumed against them, and their men are to be killed and their women and children enslaved.
So far as collective punishment of a civilian population is concerned, it seems it is lawful unless it is lethal in the ordinary course of events.
The population of Gaza is increasing by the year. The majority of the Ottoman Armenians were wiped out within eight years.
“Actually, before anyone wastes too much time arguing with Michael Petek, I suggest they look at the nutter’s website
http://www.crownofdavid.com/” – Craig
Ah, here we go again. His argument is coherent and civil, but he doesn’t agree with you so he’s a nutter whose argument shouldn’t be entertained. Ever thought of addressing the arguments instead of abusing those who offer them?
Larry
why don’t you lay down and keep taking those pills!
“So how do the Zionists pull off being able to control a state broadcaster of a major nation?”
Easy, by shouting antisemitism until they are given full control.
@ Michael Petek
You state:-
“The state of belligerency between Gaza and Israel is not subject to evaluation according to international law, because they are not both states. Save that, in so far as Hamas is in common plan or conspiracy with one or more states to wage war aimed at the political destruction of the State of Israel, its members are indictable as conspirators in a species of aggression – the supreme international crime – so extreme that not even the Security Council could authorise it.”
A response to Michael
But let’s put events in chronological sequence:-
1. During and subsequent to 1948 some 700,000 Palestinians were forcibly expelled from what is today Israel. Viewed through the eyes of the law, one may consider this fact conjunctively with fact 2 below.
2. Subsequent to the recognition of the 1967 borders as Israel’s territorial area, Israel has continued with a policy of settling on lands outside that territorial area.
The law might be considered in light of the factual situation at 1 and 2 above:-
The Geneva Convention on the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, known as the Fourth Geneva Convention: –
Article 49: Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive. … The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.
The United Nations Charter, Article 51 reads:-
Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defence shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.
Comment
If one were to put the matter in basic human terms, forgetting the legality for a moment, maybe in the most humane way I might ask:-
If you lived on a stretch of land for some ten generations, or more, and inherited your family home there, I assume that you would have some sense of belonging and ownership in respect of the home and the land upon which your home is built.
If someone forcibly expelled you, then in self-defence you would, I assume, retaliate.
The sense of displacement, might, I also assume, lead to a sense of grievance, which if not fairly addressed would extend to violent acts at some stage.
Some personal reflections
As a student at London University, I saw posted one day, a discussion between a Palestinian Professor and a Jewish Professor. Young man that I was then, with dreams of one day being a lawyer, I learned a lesson about civil debate. Both men impressed me with the degree of civility and intellectual clarity with which they addressed the question of the Palestinian/ Israeli conflict. In summary, both articulated two narratives of the histories of both people and their placement in Palestine/Israel.
I listened keenly, made notes, and reflected deeply on what both men said. At a later stage I read a book written by Abba Eban, and again, the clarity of thought and articulate expressions were impressive.
Having said all that, myself a lawyer, these many years later, with a multitude of cases behind me, I ask a fundamental question, noting both the
Israeli ?” Yom Ha’atzmaut (Independence Day)
And
The Palestinain – Nakba Day ( “day of the catastrophe”)
I ask the question ?” what does constitute justice for the Palestinian people if not the right of a homeland which they had before 1948?
The Palestinian intellectual, Edward Said, on a PBS interview in the US, made the observation that the only solution was a one state solution. He raised the issue of the demographics of the region. It seems that the state of Israel, based as it is on an assumption of conferred rights derived from ethnicity, must also transfer that de facto assumption into a de jure format, for the continued functioning of the Jewish state. How does one then give equal rights under the law to non-Jews, and over time maintain Jewish statehood if one does not discriminate as regards the electoral rights of those who are non-Jews in the Jewish state, if it is to be a Jewish majority that is to determine the character and nature of “the Jewish state”?
The action of extending occupation beyond the 1967 borders does not find support under international law.
So, Michael, when you say:-
“The state of belligerency between Gaza and Israel is not subject to evaluation according to international law, because they are not both states.”
you are in point of fact and in law, quite incorrect.
So far as the future of any likely negotiated settlement on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is concerned, the fact of the US giving blind partisan support to all Israeli actions, does not proffer well for any honest brokerage or for any just peace anytime soon. The recent official US response to the boarding by the IDF of the ships carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza, is sufficiently indicative of why the problem’s intractability is made all the more intractable.
Aluta continua.
“For the past week, a person named Neil Barker, in a fit of petty and vicious vengeance, established accounts not only in his name, my MY real name, Frank Dalrymple, as well.
Posing as me, Neil Barker has posted my resume, photo, and other personal information ?” as well as bogus statements/posts, using my real name, completely against my will.
The other ESL websites, Dave’s ESL Cafe.com and ESL Teachers Board.com took swift action. They terminated Neil Barker and “Frank Dalrymple” membership and took down his various posts and threads.”
http://www.eltworld.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2524
Dave, since the 16th century there never was a state in Palestine except for the Ottoman Empire, followed by the British Mandate.
From November 1947 to May 1948 there was a breakdown of state authority in the context of intercommunal violence escalating into war. The establishment of a state was imperative for the sake of peace. The Jews were quicker off the mark than the Arabs, but if the Arabs had got in first they would have had as good a claim to political sovereignty as anyone else.
Now what about whose land it is by way of private property?
Dhimmis were allowed to own land in consequence of the Tanzimat reforms progressively implemented by the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century. Under strict Islamic law, ownership of land is reserved to the Muslims.
Now, the Muslims came by the land by conquest and apartheid, and in any event they only ever owned the usufruct, as Palestine was an Islamic waqf in trust for all Muslims.
Michael Petek’s website:
“3. The supreme civil authorities in Israel or any other State within the allegiance to the Sovereign Throne of David are Regencies of the Throne and must be acknowledged and dealt with as such in both the internal and the external relations of the State.”
http://www.crownofdavid.com/english/hldec.htm
Michael, your arguments seem to quantify Palestinians as Muslims at the expense of their rights as human beings.
Courtenay Barnett, your long posting deserves an answer.
Half of the 700,000 Arabs who were displaced from their homes either by evacuation, flight or direct expulsion were displaced before the establishment of the State of Israel, when there was no state authority capable of keeping the public peace.
Therefore, it was imperative to establish a state of one kind or another, whether Arab, Jewish or Balto-Peruvian, simply to stop the killing and destruction.
Anyone who, thereafter, resisted the establishment or consolidation of the state – or who refused to bear allegiance to it while present within it – was a traitor and had no place in it.
In the event, some Arabs stayed amd were allowed to keep their possessions and have political rights in Israel.
I wonder what would have happened to the Jews if the Arabs had been the ones to establish a state, with Haj Amin al-Husseini at its head.
In a way Neil Barker and Michael Petek are fairly predictable. The depraved arguments are taken out, given another coat of paint, another shot of volts across the temples, then set loose to shamble out onto the blogs of the world. “Poor Israel, surrounded by demented enemies, saddled with these primitive, ungrateful Palestinians who were never a state when we arrived so hey, finders keepers!”
Poor Israel is armed to the teeth, and possessed of the 4th most powerful military on the face of the planet. And is closely allied to the global superpower currently spending over half a trillion on weapons. In the name of the wee man, no one – NO ONE – in this day and age would be stupid enough to make a wrong move in Israel’s direction. So spare me the oooh, all the howwid howwid moozlums say such tewwible things about us. In fact just spare us all the endless, grating whining about how bad everyone else is, how no-one understands Israel. We see the suffering and the deprivation, the dispossession and the theft of land and lives and potential and we KNOW where the blame lies.
And while I’m handing out revelations for free, here’s another for you. No-one – and I really mean no-one with a modicum of sanity – gives a rats ass what the Torah says or the Koran says or the Bible says about land or history or what one bunch of human beings says about another bunch. We don’t need a holy man on hand to figure out what is unjust. The Israeli government and its sympathisers, on the other hand, very much care what is said, especially by the designated enemies. How could it be otherwise? Netanyahu and the IDF know in detail the military capabilities of the Palestinians (comparable to a gnats bite) and likewise know that Iran has no bomb. But words…ah, words are almost like bombs and bullets. History has been swerved by words, the world has been changed by them, which is why hasbara exists, and people like Petek and Barker have come to give us something to struggle against.
Perhaps we should actually thank them for taking the trouble to post here at Craig’s blog. Debating with them will help us to sharpen our wits and our arguments and help us to further our cause. So thank you Neil and Michael – keep up the good work.
Michael Petek–I must admit you take sophistry to the extreme. I’ve never seen such arcane references used in this sort of argument before.
Of course, you’re hiding from my question, namely what to tell the Palestinians who still hold, in their hands, the deeds and keys to their properties, now occupied by Israelis.
The Throne of David doesn’t carry much weight with them. Or with me.
So why not just do the honorable thing, and admit Israel stole most of it’s current land in Palestine?
@mike cobley
+100
Matt Keefe, the Palestinians have rights and obligations like everyone else. The contrast is between al-Fatah who do not allow Islam to intrude much into political life, and Hamas who insist on implementing Islamic law, which is irreconcilable with any true conception of human rights.
They took a wrong turning by harnessing their political cause to the religion of Islam, for by doing so they render the truth claims of Islam to be a matter of civil interest.
And Craig, I’m glad you’ve taken a look at my website. Imagine the idea of the Davidic Monarchy – a ‘kingless crown’ – as the principle of unity of the State of Israel, the State of Palestine, and as a link between them, not unlike the link between Austria and Hungary under the Habsburgs.
Now there’s an offer the Israelis couldn’t refuse
Dave at 8:55. You’re confusing the sovereign rights of states over territory with the private property of persons in an estate.
Israel succeeds, according to state succession, to the British Mandate, which in turn succeeded the Ottoman Empire.
What to tell the Palestinians who still hold the deeds to the land? That has to be sorted out according to Israeli law in the Israeli courts.
The Throne of David doesn’t cut much ice with them? I’m not surprised. They have problems with my religous beliefs, and I have problems with theirs.
Michael
Well, at least we agree on a one state solution!
Actually I wish the Gazans hadn’t voted for Hamas. But they did. No reason to impound them all in a worsening ghetto and kill them.
Don’t romaniticse al-Fatah either. It became horribly corrupt and compromised.
Israel’s behaviour to the Plaestinians is unconscionable. Within Israel itself the arabs are subject to layers of racist legislation. Settlemets encroach more and more outside Israel on occupied land. The “two state” solution is just the same as the apartheid bantustans.
But the Palestinians – like all arab nations – have also suffered from their own corrupt, incompetent and venal leaderships whose agendas are personal gain rather than the good of their people.
I once decided to ‘debate’ with a posse of Zionist trolls. It was similar to a kind of joust, except the odds were different. I was more or less alone and they came in droves.
The first ones were merely run-of-the-mill foot-soldiers, not really in my league; but then, gradually, new opponents appeared who were far more fomidable, or so it seemed.
I thought I was cutting through layers of bullshit and getting closer to the source as time went on; the guys who actually compose the crib-sheets the lower orders learn to spout by rote.
Then when their arguments didn’t work, I suddenly became ‘anti-semetic’ which is absurd and ironic given my family background. I could be a Jew, in the eyes of a Nazi. I was then ‘a self-hating Jew’ which I found offensive.
Anyway, this ‘debate’ went on for days. I simply didn’t want to give ground and accept that these Zionist fanatics had a patent on ‘truth’ and what being Jewish means, or what Israel was/is supposed to be. Like Nazis didn’t have a devine right to tell everyone what being a ‘true’ German was.
I must admit that I did feel a slight sense of triumph when they eventually gave up on me. I think I just wanted to show them that they weren’t as invincible as they thought, and in my opinion they weren’t guided and protected by some non-existant, mythical diety, who reminds me of a psychopath, but the force leading them was closer to Satan.
@michael petek
all very fascinating but I’m having a little trouble connecting this with Israelis hijacking ships on the high seas and shooting people in the face
you wouldn’t happen to have any idea what your version Jesus would say about that would you?
Michael Petek–your response posted at 9:06 is precious. Keep ’em coming. We couldn’t embarrass you any more than you are doing yourself.
So the victims of a theft should petition the thief himself for return of their property? Hey now! That’s one for the books.
If that’s how justice works under the Throne of David, let me send you the list of American prisons. You can get a few hundred thousand converts at one shot.