An article in the ‘Jerusalem Post’ last Sunday by Maurice Ostroff has made a claim that demonstrates the ridiculous extent to which the Zionist’s are prepared to go in order to justify the creation of a Greater Israel at the expense of the Palestinian people in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. He writes:
The Palestinians never had sovereignty over the West Bank nor East Jerusalem and Justice Schwebel concluded that since Jordan, the prior holder of these territories had seized that territory unlawfully in 1948, Israel which subsequently took that territory in the lawful exercise of self-defense in 1967, has better title to it. Jordan's illegal annexation of the West bank and east Jerusalem in 1948 was recognized only by Britain and Pakistan and Jordan now makes no claim to it.
In terms of international law, between 1948 and 1967 this territory was terra nullius, or "land belonging to no one" over which sovereignty may be acquired through occupation. The concept of terra nullius is well recognized in international law. For example it has been a major issue in Australian politics and Norway occupied parts of uninhabited Eastern Greenland in the 1920s on the grounds of terra nullius.
Ostroff actually wants the world to believe that when Jordan occupied this land it was illegal but when Israel does the same thing, the land was ‘terra nullius’ and sovereignty over it can therefore be acquired by virtue of occupation. If that’s the case, since the land was occupied by Palestinians, then it is they that would surely have sovereignty over it.
It is a mistake for Ostroff to have used the case of Australia and Norway’s claim to sovereignty over parts of uninhabited Greenland as examples of ‘terra nullius’ claims because in both cases these claims were found to be illegal.
But what is really disturbing is the fact that the neocons over at Commentary magazine have also picked up on Ostroff’s piece and used it themselves to justify the occupation of East Jerusalem and the construction of Israeli residences in Gilo. It is surprising that the usually astute neocon Zionists at Commentary magazine would see fit to use such a ridiculous argument as Ostroff’s patently transparent twaddle to reinforce their own argument about Israeli occupation in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
But the real nitty-gritty about all this isn’t so much about the stupidity and transparency of their arguments but, more importantly, the underlying unequivocal inference of permanency to the occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem as though the Zionists now have absolute sovereignty and the clear intention of never giving up that sovereignty to the Palestinians.
AUSTRALIANS AT WAR
THE NEW AMERICAN CENTURY is a compelling factual history of neoconservatism and its influence on US Foreign Policy in the Middle East during the first decade of the twenty-first century. Click on image above for details.
2 comments:
Sovereignty is a side issue. Ethnic cleansing is a crime against humanity, regardless of who has sovereignty, and ethnic cleansing is what the Zionists are doing in Jerusalem and the West Bank (not to mention the part of Palestine inside the 1967 cease-fire lines).
I tend to agree with traducteur. If Israel really believes it has sovereignty over Gaza and the West Bank, let them assert that claim then.
They would then have to grant equal citizenship rights to all residents of those territories, and the resultant population of this new Israel would be :
5,302,549 Arabs
5,649,000 Jews
I think immediately many Jews would leave, especially many of those who are not really Zionists, esp. recent Russian immigrants who'd rather live in Paris or Toronto or New York anyway. Then the IDF would also have to go to war with the Jews who refuse to accept the new set-up. Pretty soon, Arabs would be the majority.
In fact, if I were Palestine, I'd be demanding that Israel claim sovereignty over the Occupied Territories immediately. That would really freak the Israelis out.
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