The March 9, 2022, Ottawa Forum on Israel Palestine webinar was aimed at helping Canadians better understand Hamas, which Canada describes as a ‘terrorist’ organization and refuses to recognize or deal with. We asked 3 Palestinians with different political perspectives and living in different parts of Palestine to help us understand Hamas.

While each had their own differences with Hamas, their shared view was that Hamas is a Palestinian political party with a broad base of support. Any possible solution to the Israel/Palestine issue will necessarily involve discussions with Hamas. Trying to avoid doing so only makes a solution more difficult.

Expert panel consisted of:

• Diana Buttu, a Palestinian Canadian lawyer based on Haifa, Israel
• Jonathan Kuttab, a Palestinian Jerusalemite, lawyer and founder of Al Haq (another organization Israel now calls “terrorist” as well.)
• Mosheer Amer, a Palestinian living in Gaza, Head of the English Department at the Islamic University in Gaza

Statement on Antisemitism and the Question of Palestine   November 30, 2020

How Do People in the Middle East View the US Presidential Election?  November 6, 2020

Abbas’s Declaration: The Oslo Accords are Now Dead and Buried   May 20, 2020

Evangelicals and the 2020 Elections   October 2019

Other

Trump Golan Heights Dangerous Precedent, Project Syndicate, May 2019

Pompeo in Israel: Three announcements that cement ‘apartheid’, November 20, 2020, Jonathan Kuttab quoted in Information Clearing House

Jonathan Kuttab

original article Arab Center Washington DC

The illegality of Israel’s civilian settlements in territories it occupied in 1967 is one of the few clearly settled issues in international law. The Geneva Conventions provisions on this issue are clear and explicit: civilian settlement activities are considered grievous breaches and war crimes. Furthermore, the issue was litigated and decided by the International Court of Justice in a rare, almost unanimous ruling of 15 judges in the case of Israel’s Separation Wall in 2004. The lone dissenting judge in that case wrote that even he agrees with the majority on the issue of the applicability of the Geneva Conventions.

So how does Israel justify such a clearly blatant violation? The answer lies in a number of arguments offered over the years, both in courts (primarily the Israeli High Court) and in legal publications and the press, as well as statements of Israeli officials. Following is a list of such arguments with a brief response, in bold italics, to each:

1. 1. Israel voluntarily applies the “humanitarian” but not the “political” provisions of the Geneva Conventions. Settlements are political issues and therefore are not to be governed by the Geneva Conventions.

No distinction like this has ever been known in international law, and Israel has not even tried to specify which provisions of the Geneva Conventions it considers to be “humanitarian.”

2. 2. While Israel signed the Geneva Conventions, its Knesset did not ratify them; therefore, they never became part of Israeli domestic law. The Israeli courts are therefore not free to apply them as Treaty law but must only apply the Hague Conventions, being part of traditional (conventional) international law, which is automatically part of Israel’s law—but not Treaty law, which needs to be specifically ratified and incorporated into Israeli law by the Knesset.

This argument explains how the Israeli High Court, as a domestic court, avoided the obligation to apply the Geneva Conventions, but it does not address Israel’s international obligation to follow the Geneva Conventions, which it signed.

3. 3. The movement of civilians into occupied territories, which is prohibited by the Geneva Conventions, only applies to forced marches and the imposed movement of civilians. It has no application where the movement of civilian Israeli settlers is a voluntary action by the settlers themselves.

The authoritative Pictet Commentary on the Geneva Convention, issued by the International Committee of the Red Cross, addresses this very argument and specifies that any movement of civilians into or out of the occupied territories is illegal. It does not accept this interpretation.

4. 4. The settlements are needed for security and are therefore legitimate, even though they are civilian complexes. As a “belligerent occupier,” the Israeli army has every right to set up security structures; Israeli settlements were initially started inside army compounds as part of the occupation and only later were turned over to civilian rule. Given Israel’s democratic and egalitarian nature, civilian settlements—and not just a professional full-time army—have always played a central role in the defense of the country. This argument was used by the Israeli High Court in its Elon Moreh decision, which did, in fact, hold that the status of the occupied territories is “belligerent occupation.” However, the court said it needs to examine in each case whether the security or ideological consideration were predominant in taking private Arab land for settlements. Where security considerations were predominant, or where the land in question was public and not private, the High Court will not intervene.

Whatever the merits of that argument under Israeli domestic law, it has no weight whatsoever in international law, which categorically prohibits the movement of civilians into the occupied territories. It is disconcerting that US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says that only Israeli courts can judge this issue of the illegality of settlements.

5. 5. The Geneva Conventions only apply to territories captured in a war of aggression, but not to territories that come under the control of a country in a defensive war where others are the aggressors.

The Geneva Conventions and international law do not make such a distinction. Apart from the difficulty of establishing which wars are “aggressive” and which are “defensive,” particularly when the army that starts hostilities claims it is acting in a “preemptively defensive” fashion, the Geneva Conventions were concerned with protecting civilians who fall under the rule of another army. They also addressed the disruptive effect on the international order of any acquisition of territories after a war, where moving civilian populations into or out of occupied territories would be a complicating factor.

6. 6. The Geneva Conventions only apply to territories taken from a recognized sovereign. Egypt was not, nor claimed to be, a sovereign in Gaza, and Jordan’s claim to sovereignty is weak and was only recognized by England and Pakistan. Therefore, there was no sovereign whose property and population comes under the purview of the Geneva Conventions.

This argument is very problematic. It does not address the question of the Golan Heights, which was clearly Syrian sovereign territory. In addition, Jordan’s claim over the West Bank was generally accepted internationally (as much as Israel’s claim to West Jerusalem). More importantly, the thrust of the Geneva Conventions was not to settle historic or national claims between countries but to provide protection for civilians and to prevent demographic changes from occurring as a result of armed conflict. The entire structure of the international order would be in great jeopardy if the 190+ countries of the world were to resort to war to acquire land, which they claim on a historic or ethnic basis, and then move their civilian populations into the lands they occupy by force.

7. 7. In the absence of a legitimate sovereign, the Jewish people are the “missing reversioners” and the true sovereign in the area in light of their genuine sovereignty over 2,000 years ago. That claim is greater than the claim of any other country, and in the absence of other legitimate claims, Israel itself is the sovereign and cannot be an “occupier” of what is its historic right.

This argument was first offered by Yehuda Blum, Israel’s representative at the United Nations, and has been quoted repeatedly by Israeli writers. It has never been used or accepted by any international authorities and is often referred to as “novel.”  Historically, the whole of Palestine lying at the intersection of three continents has seen many invaders and empires set up rule over it, and modern countries that claim descent from these historic invaders would include Syria, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, Greece, and Italy.

8. 8. If the settlements stay long enough, gradually the world will accept them and they will become part of the reality which must be dealt with. Even Palestinians have accepted, and will accept, the settlements, or at least the settlement blocs, and they will negotiate about the rest.

This seems to be the most powerful argument, and it is one that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been using frequently. He perhaps thinks that if international law prohibits this, then he can change international law. At its heart, this argument of establishing facts on the ground or “might makes right” is a thorough repudiation of international law and an invitation to international chaos and lawlessness. That is the danger in President Donald Trump’s positions, whether on the Golan, Jerusalem, or the issue of settlements.

Jonathan Kuttab is a Human Rights Lawyer and a Non-resident Fellow at Arab Center Washington DC

JONATHAN KUTTAB

April 27, 201922:55192

Read the Original at Arab News

One of the worst decisions for world peace made by the Trump administration has not received enough attention. Withdrawal from the Paris climate accords was bad, revoking the Iran deal sent a signal that international agreements signed by a US president may not be honored by subsequent administrations, and the successful intimidation of the International Criminal Court has caused dire consequences for the international order.

But the worst decision by the Trump administration is the cavalier reversal of a principle that has been the bedrock of international stability since the Second World War. In order to ensure that countries can longer benefit by invading and occupying weaker neighbors, the world unanimously agreed on the “inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war.” Attempts to violate this principle (Iraq in Kuwait, Russia in Ukraine, and Israel in Jerusalem and the Golan) were universally condemned and rejected. This principle was mentioned in the preamble of UNSC 242 and has been a fundamental principle of international law since the mid-1990s.

US officials, trying to justify the Trump administration’s sudden recognition of the illegal annexation by Israel of the Syrian Golan Heights, argued that the territory was acquired in a “defensive” war; and that in any case Syria is embroiled in a civil war and its current leader is not worthy of having his land back.

The defensive war justification does not hold water. Western governments, international human rights organizations and jurists, including some Israeli jurists, acknowledge that the prohibition against acquiring territory by war makes no reference to whether the war is defensive or offensive.  Israel claims that it started the June 1967 war because it feared an assault from Egypt. President Abdul Nasser had blocked the Straits of Tiran, and removed the UN peacekeeping forces established in Sinai following Israel’s invasion of Egypt in 1956.  Arabs dispute this and commonly refer to the 1967 war as an aggression against them. This only underlines the point that both sides in any war can claim to act “defensively,” which is why international law makes no distinction between a defensive or offensive war when it prohibits the “acquisition of territory” during war.  

The problem with Washington’s action is that it forms a dangerous precedent. No sooner had Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned from Washington after the Golan decision when he began talking about annexing portions of the West Bank, which would totally destroy the possibility of a peaceful resolution based on a two-state solution.

The effects of the reckless policy of President Trump will not be limited to the Middle East. Countries the world over that have an ambition to capture land they believe traditionally belongs to them will now have a strong precedent. “If the Americans and Israelis can do it,” they will say, “then so can we.”

Jonathan Kuttab

The consequences of Donald Trump’s recognition of the annexation of occupied Syrian territories extend far beyond the Middle East conflict, and sends a green light to every country in the world. If this principle is abandoned no one would be able to object to Russia claiming parts of Ukraine, or Saudi Arabia claiming parts of Yemen, Iraq demanding Kuwait be its 19th district, and so many other land disputes. Numerous countries in Africa, Asia and Europe have territorial disputes with neighboring countries, and may choose to resolve the issue by forcibly retaking territory to which they have some historic or tribal claim.

The Nazi war machine was so brutal, and its occupation of many countries in Europe so nasty, that the world community rose up and agreed on principles that were coded into international law. The Fourth Geneva Convention was written and approved in 1949 precisely to give protection to civilian populations falling under belligerent military occupation until peace is restored and their territories relinquished by the conquering armies. The occupier, in particular, is prohibited from moving its civilian population into the occupied territories (which is why all Israeli settlements are illegal under international law).  This was affirmed in the 2003 decision of the International Court of Justice in the case of Israel’s wall built deep in Palestinian occupied territory. Natural wealth, artifacts and resources in occupied areas cannot be legally taken by an occupying power. Annexing occupied areas is totally rejected.

For decades, successive US Democratic and Republican administrations, for all their support of Israel, have refused to recognize Israeli unilateral actions in East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. They also insisted that Geneva Convention rules must apply. But the Trump administration has recklessly thrown out this important principle, denied the existence of an occupation, moved an embassy into Jerusalem, recognized the illegal Israeli annexation of the Golan Heights and was not even willing to discuss Netanyahu’s plans to  annex any parts of the West Bank.

American officials claim they are about to reveal a peace plan. This may be the case, but such a plan can hardly be advanced by this recent action. The effects of the reckless policy of President Trump will not be limited to the Middle East. Countries the world over that have an ambition to capture land they believe traditionally belongs to them will now have a strong precedent. “If the Americans and Israelis can do it,” they will say, “then so can we.”

• Jonathan Kuttab is a jurist doctor in international law from the University of Virginia, and co-founder of Al Haq Human Rights organization in Ramallah.

Twitter: @jkuttabDisclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not necessarily reflect Arab News’ point-of-view     

ROSEMARY GANLEY: What is needed now is a commitment to human rights for all

OPINION Jan 23, 2019 by ROSEMARY GANLEY Special to The Examiner

Jonathan Kuttab with Just Peace Advocates coming to Peterborough.

I’m going to plunge into a topic that is fraught with division and deep trauma on all sides.

It is the situation in Israel, particularly the behaviour of the government of Israel, and what it has done and is doing in Gaza (population 1.8 million) and the West Bank (2.5 million), which are “occupied territories” holding Palestinians.

I listened to the testimony of a highly educated and compassionate spokesperson for the Palestinians this week at Sadleir House, Jonathan Kuttab. He is a lawyer, who recently was guest professor at the York University law school. He is a Christian Arab, born in East Jerusalem, now based in Jerusalem.

Critics of the policies of the Israeli government, and there are plenty in Canada and around the world, including the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, face the possibility, nay probability, that they will be labelled “anti-Semitic.” Or, if they are Jewish, they will be called “self-hating Jews.” But name-calling cannot become a reason for reticence when one looks at the massive, long-standing and ultimately cruel occupation, and denial of basic rights in the two shrunken areas.

The United Nations has been warned that Gaza, (40-by-six-kilometre) is expected to be “uninhabitable” by 2020. Electricity is on four hours a day. The barrier is a wire fence, backed up by armed Israeli soldiers. Food is very expensive. Water is often contaminated. A Gazan hospital was bombed in 2014. Unemployment is 40 per cent.

A Peterborough group headed by activist Margaret Slavin is in touch with a family in Gaza and knows the daily deprivation it suffers.

Kuttab offered his listeners slides, maps and some history. After the Second World War, in which Europe tore itself apart and then faced a dreadful acknowledgement of the Holocaust, during which six million Jewish citizens of several countries were killed in death camps, there was a global feeling of revulsion, guilt and shame.

So in 1948, the British government, which had been in charge of Palestine, decided to make the territory a homeland for the Jews. Except that it was already home to four million Palestinians who had no say in the matter. This was the Balfour Declaration.

Then came simmering resentment and some armed resistance. For 70 years, attempts at finding a solution failed. Twenty-five years ago in Oslo, Norway, leaders came up with the “two-state solution.” It might have worked, but separation was not so easy: Arabs were living among Jews everywhere. Progressive Israeli prime minister Yitzak Rabin was assassinated by a religious fanatic.

The pain in Kuttab’s presentation regarding the suffering of Palestinians was breathtaking, but equally so was the utter absence of vengefulness or hatred. He is convinced, as are many Israeli writers and citizens, that the imprisonment they are administering has the effect of imprisoning them also, and corrodes the long-admired Jewish conscience.

Israel is a nuclear power. We have seen pictures of boys with sticks and rocks being fired on by heavily armed soldiers. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a hawk, is further empowered now by Donald Trump. Illegal settlements in the West Bank now house 700,000 Israelis.

Many Israelis have a strong fear that Arabs will exact revenge. But Kuttab said, “We are all intermixed now. What is needed is a commitment to human rights for all; an end to the blockade and the provision of services to all. The international community must help.”

Israeli’s neighbours, Syria, Egypt and Jordan, must pledge to respect its right to exist in safety. Israel is a democracy with freedom of speech and of the press.

Small steps in regional co-operation are needed. So is a conviction among Israeli leaders that justice for its Palestinian minority is crucial. Many lives depend on it.

NOTE: Reframe Film Festival will show a documentary entitled “Naila and the Uprising,” set in Gaza, on Friday at 1 p.m. at Showplace. Visit www.reframefilmfestival.ca for details.

Rosemary Ganley is a writer, teacher and activist. Reach her at rganley2016@gmail.com

Rosemary Ganley is a writer, teacher and activist. Reach her at rganley2016@gmail.com

Original appeared in Journey Magazine Peterborough on January 17, 2019

The 25-year-old Oslo Peace Accords are long dead.  A  two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is no longer viable. The Trump administration recently cut all US funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East and moved the US embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv. 

 Gaza is suffocating under an Israeli/Egyptian air, land and sea blockade since 2007, and, according to the United Nations, could become uninhabitable by 2020.   Palestinians stage weekly mass protests as part of the Great March of Return movement, with many deaths at the hands of Israeli soldiers. 

Is there hope for peace and a decent life for the Palestinian people? 

About 50 people recently listened to a Palestinian international human rights lawyer  in Nogojiwanong/Peterborough, Ontario as he told them, yes, there is hope.

It comes, not with violence, but with a commitment to human rights, equality and human dignity along with a call to action to the international community and citizens around the world,  “who have a passion, love, and respect for human beings regardless of their race, religion, ethnicity or other orientations,” said Jonathan Kuttab.

“But Palestinians, on their own, cannot do it.”

“The time has come to acknowledge that a two-state solution is not going to happen,” Kuttab said at the Jan. 9 event organized by four local social justice groups — Peterborough Peace Council, Peterborough and the Kawarthas Council of Canadians, Kawartha World Issues Centre, and OPIRG Peterborough. “Israel has triumphed completely in that there will not be a Palestinian-Arab state (as was once thought). In reality there is only one state called Israel,”  

“But we can, and do, and will live together. The short-term is very bad, but I think we will live together as equals. That is my hope. . . and all of us will, and should, be part of that change,” he said. “We must start working at peace instead of working at war.”

Kuttab, a Christian Palestinian, co-founded Al Haq in 1979, the first international human rights legal organization in Palestine, and is a founding director of Just Peace Advocates/Mouvement pour une Paix Juste, a Canadian based international law human rights not-for-profit. He practises law in East Jerusalem. (See full biography below.)

Jonathan Kuttab at Sadleir House in Peterborough, Jan. 9

After giving a synopsis of the history of Palestine and Israel to the audience, he shared his perspective on the situation now, noting “to this day, we are living” the results of the events of 1948 (the creation of Israel) and 1967 (the Six-Day War), and the start of Jewish settlements in the West Bank following that war.

After 50 years of occupation of Palestinians by Israel, the Jewish settlements in the West Bank have now become irreversible, with 700,000 settlers living in a permanent fixed manner throughout the occupied Palestinian territory, Kuttab said. 

“They live as lords and masters enjoying a system of roads that connect them to one anther and to Israel. They have their own education and health systems, laws, courts, police, and social security. They want and demand the right to live there, with all the advantages of Israelis.”

Gaza, with Israeli/Egyptian-controlled borders and limited fishing zone (wikipedia)

But of the three areas where Palestinians live — the West Bank, Gaza and Israel —  Gaza is worst, Kuttab said.

Gaza is a 140 square mile stretch of land located along the Mediterranean coast between Egypt and Israel. Blockaded by air, land and sea since 2007, the borders and its 2 million people are carefully controlled, the movement of goods and humans severely restricted, and the population faces food shortages and 40% unemployment — a collective punishment by Israel in reaction to Hamas gaining control of Gaza in 2007.  

Hospitals are forced to rely on generators for life-saving equipment, while supplies of life-saving medicines dwindle to dangerous levels. 98% of Gaza’s water is not fit for human consumption. As water treatment and desalination plants stop working, many fear the supply of drinking water will run out.

Palestinian women in Gaza protest (Anadolu Agency, Turkey)

Kuttab said nothing can go in or out — people, goods, fuel, food — without Israeli control. People are only allowed to fish three miles out, if at all; the Israeli army calculates the number of calories needed for a basic diet, and only allows food amounts into Gaza according to those numbers, he said.

(See also The Gift of Hope: Helping One Family Survive the Occupation https://journeymagazineptbo.com/2016/08/04/1580/)

But Israel has not won, altogether, said the lawyer.

“It has failed largely because it it an anachronism, living in the wrong century.” 

He explained that centuries ago it might have been considered a progressive experiment in human life, but that was during a time when systems like apartheid, a caste structure, slavery, and colonization were all acceptable. 

Not now. 

Today, especially after WWII, said Kuttab, there is an international recognition of sovereign boundaries and “a concept called human rights, which means if you belong to the human race it gives you certain rights, whether you are rich or poor, black or white, male or female. Just the fact that you are human beings means there is something divine in you, a part of God is in you, that other countries have to respect, not because they are nice people, but because it is your right.”

“Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said, ‘if you are powerful you can do what you want’,” Kuttab said. “I think people know that is not true. Eventually God, history, and reality catches up with you. Will the world accept a state that fundamentally and openly and through its constitution says we are only for Jews?”

There are not many in the rest of the world who accept the idea that Jews have any rights to the settlements in the West Bank, said Kuttab, and they agree the illegal settlements are an obstacle to peace and have made it hard to create a two-state solution.

And, while Israel managed to successfully evict two thirds of the Arab population, there are still six million Palestinians remaining in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel, he added, and history shows you cannot have a state with a large portion of your population disenfranchised. Eventually you have to accept them and give them rights, he said.

“It will be traumatic for both Palestinians and Zionists.”

Kuttab is adamant that violence is not the answer. For one thing, Palestine could never out-power the Israeli military, backed by the United States.

The solution must be economic, non-violent, and cultural, using diplomatic pressure, international law, and the global boycott, divest and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel, he continued. It is a tiny country with few natural resources and it depends on the rest of the world, he said.

Kuttab mentioned two campaigns (other than BDS) in which Canadians can take part. One is Gaza 20/20, which is internationally focused on bringing awareness to the situation and calling on governments to hold Israel accountable, and lift the siege of Gaza, using both domestic and international law. Over 100 organizations have signed on.  

The second campaign is No Way To Treat a Child, which says each year the Israeli military detains and prosecutes around 700 Palestinian children as young as 12. The campaign calls for the Canadian government to “use all available means to pressure Israel to end the detention and abuse of Palestinian children”. It says 23 federal Members of Parliament have supported the campaign.

By Melodie McCullough

Jonathan Kuttab Bio (From http://www.justpeaceadvocates.ca)

Jonathan Kuttab is a leading human rights lawyer. After a graduating with his Doctor of Jurisprudence (JD) from Virginia Law School, and practising a couple years on Wall Street, Jonathan returned home to Palestine.

In 1979, Jonathan co-founded Al Haq, the first international human rights legal organization in Palestine. Later he co-founded the Palestinian Center for the Study of Non-Violence (now Non-Violence International) and also founded the Mandela Institute for Prisoners.

Jonathan is a Palestinian Christian, who is past chair of the Bethlehem Bible College serves on the board of the Sabeel Ecumenical Theology Center in Jerusalem and is a leader in the establishment of Christ at the Checkpoint conference. Jonathan was part of the 1994 legal team for the Cairo agreement that resulted in the Oslo II Accord.

Jonathan was visiting scholar at Osgoode Law School at York University in Toronto in the Fall of 2017, and is a founding director of Just Peace Advocates/Mouvement pour une Paix Juste, a Canadian based international law human rights not-for-profit.

Jonathan is a resident of East Jerusalem, and is a partner of Kuttab, Khoury and Hanna Law Firm in East Jerusalem.

“Kuttab supports a solution that would bring Israelis and Palestinians together as equal citizens, and a state government would meet the needs of both those who want a Jewish state and a place of safety and security, as well as the Palestinian Arabs who want a place where they can live in security and dignity.”  https://themennonite.org/feature/jonathan-kuttab-peacemaking-way-life/