#837 1/15/17 – World Debates “Israeli Settlement Activity in the Occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, 1967 Borders”

 

World Debates “Israeli Settlement Activity in the Occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, 1967 Borders”

Twenty-eight minutes ago, according to Google, the BBC’s latest article on the French “summit” attended by scores of nations on Arab-Israeli peace featured this:

“Palestinians fiercely object to Israeli settlement activity in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem …”

A Jerusalem Post article, just after that, directly quoted the French foreign minister:

“… it’s vital for us to recall the framework of negotiations.  That framework is the 1967 borders and the main resolutions of the United Nations.”

There’s tons more coming out, of course, but the two quoted passages above make abundantly clear the nature of the framework in which the media and international community approach the particular subject of Jews’ status in their historic homeland.

“Settlements”

Although it’s disheartening to see writers and spokespersons unequivocally on our side mouthing these sickening terms, appreciate that there are voices out there strongly rejecting them.  Just this week, the wonderful Arlene Kushner cited one with approval:

“Journalist Yisrael Medad proposed substituting ‘land redemption activity’ for ‘settlement activity’ wherever possible.  He’s on the right track; we must use terminology that reflects the reality, while rejecting those expressions – such as ‘occupation’ – that give credence to the Palestinian Arab narrative.  They have been very clever in insering these pejorative terms intothe dialogue, and it’s past due for us to undo this.  Not ‘settlements’ – which has a negative connotation – but ‘Jewish communities’ or ‘Jewish towns and cities.’  ‘Residents of the Jewish communities of Judea and Samaria,’ not ‘settlers.’”

Exactly.

“The 1967 Borders”

And that the French foreign minister, host of today’s confab of seventy nations’ diplomats, would refer to “the framework of negotiations,” including expressly “main” U.N. resolutions, as “the 1967 borders,” and not as the old “1949 Israel-Jordan ceasefire lines,” is not just a betrayal of one of those expressly-referenced U.N. resolutions, 242, which did not demand Israeli withdrawal to them, but a denial of documented history.  The document defining the 1949 “green line,” the Israel-Jordan Armistice Agreement, expressly defined that line as being a military ceasefire line exclusively, without prejudice to either side’s claims regarding political borders.  “Borders” have an international law gravitas that mere military ceasefire lines, not least those superseded by renewed fighting between the same sides, don’t.

So Whose Fault Is This, Anyway?

Ours.  Hillel taught us, in the first line of his immortal 3-line admonition, that if we don’t stand up for ourselves, no one else will stand up for us.

So ask yourself this:  Given the U.N., with American acquiescence, having just declared every inch over the 9-miles-wide-in-the-middle 1949 “Auschwitz” ceasefire lines – Old City, Temple Mount (well, until recently,”Temple Mount,”  now with al-Buraq Wall Plaza and all) – to be “occupied Palestinian territory”; the French today howling for “the 1967 borders,” and all: so if not now, when?