The Left Should Take Pride In ‘Delegitimizing’ The Occupation

[Purveyor]

By Caroline Beck

Last week, a protest letter signed by 40 leaders of the American Jewish community and initiated by the Israel Policy Forum was sent to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, urging him not to adopt the recommendations in the Levy Committee’s report. In the letter, they said that the report’s recommendations, if adopted, would jeopardize Israel’s credentials as a democratic state, and harm the chances of achieving a two-state solution.

The Levy Committee’s main findings (page 83 of the report, in Hebrew) are that the laws of occupation do not apply to the West Bank, and that Israel has a right to settle all the land of Judea and Samaria. The report recommends, among other things, that the government of Israel remove administrative obstacles preventing the authorization of new construction in the West Bank, and that it refrain from demolishing unauthorized construction in the West Bank (despite a Supreme Court order), until such construction can be retroactively legalized. The report also recommends that land seized by military order should be utilized for settlement construction, and that the Israeli Civil Administration’s use of the ‘nuisance’ order, issued to halt and remove Israeli settlers who trespass onto private Palestinian agricultural land, be cancelled.

How surprising, then, that in a rebuttal letter to the Israel Policy Forum, Ambassador Alan Baker, a member of the Levy Committee (and former legal advisor to Israel’s Foreign Ministry), accused the letter’s esteemed signatories of adding “fuel to those who seek to delegitimize Israel’s right to exist,” by expressing their “incorrect and ill-advised assumptions about the report.”

The ludicrous conclusions of the Levy Committee’s report will no doubt do enough on their own to discredit its authors and propagators. But accusing people of delegitimization, as Baker accuses the 40 signatories of the IPF letter, will always be a trump card for the right in Israel (and the pro-Israel lobby abroad which supports it) as long as we, the left in Israel (and our liberal two-staters abroad who support us), continue to pretend that it is not our intention to delegitimize.

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http://972mag.com/the-left-should-take-back-delegitimization/51786/

[Scootaloo]

1. Seems to me that Israel's government is "delegitimizing" itself without any help

Whatever the hell that term means, anyway. I still haven't figured that one out. It's not like having your drivers license revoked, guys.

[JDPriestly]

2. Why not return both Israel and Palestine to the borders set up by the UN

as part of the establishment of peace after WWII. Seems to me that if the Palestinians agreed to those borders and to live in peace within those borders, Israel could move out of the settlements, and the two countries could get along.

The key is for the Palestinians to officially agree not to demand the "right of return." It is that demand that makes the Israelis feel insecure. It is that demand that does not comply with the law.

After all, the UN granting of a homeland to Jewish people in Israel was a part of the final agreement with regard to establishing the peace after WWII. Remember, after WWI, the governing authority in Palestine/Israel/Jordan was the British government.

The division of Palestine by the Allies through United Nations mandate was legitimate because the area was officially under British Protectorate and subject to British rule. Prior to that time, the area was part of the Ottoman Empire. It was not a country. Jewish, Arab and Christians lived in Palestine.

The Israelis have a right to rely on the promises made to them during that peace process. Think about the history of persecution against the Jews across Europe and other parts of the world throughout centuries and centuries of time. Any compassionate person will understand that to renege on the promises made to the Israelis after WWII would simply be a continuation of the Holocaust and genocide that Jews have survived generation after generation.

Palestinians have alternatives other than returning to Israeli land. Jews really have no alternative but living as a small minority in a foreign country or living in Israel. It does not surprise me at all that Israelis do not want to live in a country in which they are a tiny minority. They did that for centuries and the result was the Holocaust.

I think a lasting peace could be achieved if Palestinians give up their demand for the right of return and Israel gives up all settlements and land acquired since the Partition that are not deemed by an international group of mediators to be vital for its security. (The Golan Heights might stay with Israel, for example.)

[azurnoir]

3. If you're talking about the Green Line saying something like that is what

got Obama into trouble last year and he said it should be a starting point not the final outcome, Israel claims those borders are "indefensible" and if your talking about the original partition even I would say that's impossible at this point

[azurnoir]

4. at this point it would seem that thanks to the Levy Committee delgitimizing the occupation

has become almost the same as delegitimizing Israel itself as Likud Israel's leading and ruling party considers the Area C already part of Israel