bitterlemons-international.org
Middle East Roundtable /
Edition 4 Volume 1
Fourth Geneva Convention:
The real issue is settlers and Jerusalem
by Yossi Alpher
The recommendations regarding Israel's security fence
issued by the International Court of Justice in The Hague in July 2004 have
focused Israeli attention on the relevancy and applicability of the Fourth
Geneva Convention to the occupied West Bank and Gaza. The ICJ based its
deliberations on the assumption that the convention applies. Israel has long
insisted that it does not, because these territories were not conquered from
a sovereign state and did not constitute such a state prior to their
occupation.
The ICJ ruling appears to be but one aspect of a new
dynamic. Israel's prolonged occupation, coupled with the absence of a peace
process and the humanitarian hardship inflicted on the Palestinians by four
years of war, are generating increasing threats of international sanctions
on the part of the UN General Assembly and the Non-Aligned Movement, based
on the ICJ interpretation of international law. There is even discussion of
possible sanctions by the European Union. In response, both High Court Chief
Justice Aharon Barak and Attorney General Menachem Mazuz have recently
alluded to the need for Israel's institutions of government to address or
reexamine the applicability of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
Israel claims to be applying the convention de facto but
not de jure. It claims to be upholding the humanitarian provisions of the
convention, and probably is doing so no better and no worse than most
occupiers--the problem, after all, is the political occupation and not the
military occupation; if that were the whole story, the convention would not
be an issue. But Israel has also settled large parts of the occupied
territories and even annexed east Jerusalem, which is part of the West Bank.
And it is this seeming permanency and the implication of eventual Israeli
sovereignty in some of the territories that appear to place Israel in total
conflict with the convention. Israel argues that the settlement movement
does not violate Article 49 of the Convention, which prohibits the transfer
of the occupiers' population to occupied territory, and that the application
of Israeli law to greater Jerusalem does not violate Article 47, which
prohibits annexation of occupied territory. It seems to be saying that even
though it applies the convention, the convention does not really apply.
Israel also denies that its settlement activities violate Article 55 of the
1907 Hague Regulations regarding the use of occupied state lands. Nobody
else in the world seems to agree to these interpretations.
Yet the issue is not really the Fourth Geneva Convention.
Let us assume for a moment that the entire world concurs
with us that the convention does not apply due to the technical reason that
the West Bank and Gaza Strip were not some other state's recognized
sovereign territory when we occupied them in 1967. Does that make the
settlements and what they today represent--the drive of a messianic minority
of Israelis to annex the territories and disenfranchise the Palestinians on
their own land, thereby turning Israel into an apartheid state--any more
legitimate, or even sensible? Does it enhance the twisted logic of annexing,
by law and by fence/wall, 225,000 Palestinians to Israeli Jerusalem, thereby
ensuring that the Israeli capital will eventually be a non-Zionist city of
Arabs and ultra-orthodox Jews?
Perhaps in the eyes of the international community, the
problem, or one aspect of it, is the Fourth Geneva Convention. For the
majority of Israelis, who want their country to remain Jewish and
democratic, the real problem today is not international law but our own
folly: how do we deal with an aggressive, energetic and messianic minority
that refuses to accept the writ of the government of Israel and begin
vacating their settlements.- Published 20/9/2004 (c) bitterlemons.org
Bitterlemons-international.org is
an internet forum for an array of world perspectives on the Middle East and
its specific concerns. It aspires to engender greater understanding about
the Middle East region and open a new common space for world thinkers and
political leaders to present their viewpoints and initiatives on the region.
Editors Ghassan Khatib and Yossi Alpher can be reached at
ghassan@bitterlemons-international.org and
yossi@bitterlemons-international.org, respectively.
hagalil.com 22-09-2004 |