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"Rebuilding Jewish Life in Judea, Israel"
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JUDEA ELECTRONIC MAGAZINE Vol.11, No.3 Iyar/Sivan 5763/May-June 2003
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Website: http://www.womeningreen.org/judea OUR 11TH YEAR!
Contents:
* The Race to Settle the Land of Israel
* Ma'aleh Rehavam: A Hilltop to Call Your Own
* We Won't Leave the House of God
* The Right Road to Peace: A Peace Plan - Benny Elon
* Americans Oppose Road Map's Freeze on Jewish Construction
* A Vote Against Evil - House Majority Leader Tom DeLay
* Are the Settlements Legal? - Eugene W. Rostow
* Middle East History for Dummies - Shmuel Katz
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THE RACE TO SETTLE THE LAND OF ISRAEL
Some 400 rabbis from all over the country gathered at the
Renaissance Hotel in Jerusalem on June 23, 2003, under the auspices of
the Ichud HaRabbanim (Rabbis Union), led by former Chief Rabbi Avraham
Shapira, to protest against the plan to give up parts of the Land of
Israel to foreign rule. Ze'ev Chever (Zambish), director of the Yesha
settlement organization Amanah, said that the Arabs continue to build
without permits wherever they feel like it, that the IDF and Civil
Administration ignore this, "and the empty areas are slowly filling up
with Arabs, including alongside the new bypass roads designed to protect
the Jews....It's a competition between us to see who will settle the
land."
(Arutz Sheva News Service, 24 June 03,
http://www.IsraelNationalNews.com)
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MA'ALEH REHAVAM: A HILLTOP TO CALL YOUR OWN
Daniel Ben Simon
No one is even thinking of leaving Ma'aleh Rehavam, an outpost in
the shadow of Herodion National Monument in northern Judea. It's the
same at larger settlements nearby, such as El-David (Nokdim) or Kfar
Eldad.
According to Shaul Goldstein, chairman of the Gush Etzion Regional
Council, the only way to block the constant infiltration of Palestinians
and Bedouin onto empty land "was to establish outposts adjacent to our
settlements." "The outposts both served our natural growth and blocked
the expansion of the Palestinians into land that is not theirs."
After Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze'evi was shot by Palestinians at
the Hyatt Hotel in Jerusalem, the outpost residents decided that the new
hill would bear his name.
Ma'aleh Rehavam, which began as a dilapidated caravan (trailer), a
water tank, and two youngsters burning with the pioneer spirit, expanded
and absorbed more young people. Today there are some 15 caravans on the
hilltop, home to two families alongside 11 young singles.
Galia Dahan seems to have found the tranquility she so longed for.
She always wanted to get away from the madding crowd of the city, from
working in an office, from the dizzying pace that modern life dictates.
Dahan, 22, a native of the southern development town of Sderot, fell in
love with the hill and set about finding a corner on it where she could
create her new life. She made her home on a patch of land from which the
desert is visible in all its primeval wildness. Within a few months she
met Hanoch Carlebach, 25, and they were married.
"This is a unique place," said Havi Weinberger, 32, a dietician from
Jerusalem, barely able to conceal her excitement. It was love at first
sight when she saw the outpost. She has been living in one of the
caravans here for the past year and a half, and feels that she has come
to one of the most terrific places on the planet. "We came here because
we wanted to settle the Land of Israel," she said. "Do you know a bigger
challenge?"
Not far away is an educational farm, Sadeh Bar, established by Yossi
Sadeh. Children who do not have a home or any other social framework
live at the farm.
(_Haaretz_, 5 June 03;
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=300631&contrassID=
2&subContrassID=15&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y
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WE WON'T LEAVE THE HOUSE OF GOD
Robert Tait
A vast library of Jewish holy books in Sheri Lerner's living room
serves to remind her why she must never leave her home. As a resident of
Beit El, north of Jerusalem, she inhabits one of the most biblically
symbolic and religiously committed Jewish towns in the West Bank.
A town of 8,000 residents, Beit El means "House of God" in Hebrew,
and was built close to the spot where Jews say God promised them the
Land of Israel, citing Genesis 28.
"This is our state," Mrs. Lerner, 42, who moved to Israel from
Canada in 1978, said. "If the Palestinians want to live here in peace,
let them, but if they want a Palestinian state, let them go to Jordan."
(_London Times_, 4 June 03)
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THE RIGHT ROAD TO PEACE: A PEACE PLAN
Binyamin (Benny) Elon
Why the Road Map Won't Work
The establishment of a Palestinian state in Judea, Samaria and Gaza
(the West Bank) as proposed in the Road Map will only prolong the Arab-
Israeli conflict and exact a heavy toll in human life. As in previous
failed agreements, this current one also defers the solution of the real
problems that perpetuate the conflict:
* The Palestinian demand for the right of return of refugees to areas
within the State of Israel.
* The rehabilitation of Palestinian refugees.
* The status of Jerusalem.
* The nature of the Palestinian state and its borders.
Within a short time, these unresolved problems will resurface and draw
the region into yet another war.
The proposed Road Map is not a "two-state solution" at all.
Palestinian Arabs can only be offered a state-like entity, unable to
sign international agreements, without an army, and made up of a number
of small and overcrowded fragments of territory. This quasi-state would
not have natural borders. Rather, population centers on both sides will
straddle the border, perpetuating continued friction between Israelis
and Palestinians. The Palestinian entity's economy will be permanently
dependent on Israel. The refugee problem will not be solved through this
entity and Palestinian Arab demands for the right of return will
continue to threaten Israel's existence. The motivation for terror will
remain high.
What is needed is a paradigm shift. Only with the application of a
regional solution based on geopolitical and economic logic can the peace
process be delivered from its impasse. With the American and British
victory in Iraq, this is an historic opportunity to enable the Arab
nations to be part of the solution to the Palestinian problem.
The Elon Peace Plan expands the solution to include both sides of
the Jordan River - the original British Mandate - to create a new
reality in which:
* Israelis and Palestinian Arabs can exist alongside one another in two
genuine, sovereign states.
* A well-defined natural border would be established, far from
population centers.
* Both states would have strategic depth and ample land reserves.
The plan offers:
* An immediate permanent-status settlement to end the conflict.
* Full and comprehensive rehabilitation of Palestinian refugees.
* The granting of national expression and full rights for all
Palestinian Arabs.
* Removal of the threat to Israel's existence as a Jewish state.
Key Principles
1. Immediate dissolution of the Palestinian Authority, a non-viable
entity with no future whose existence precludes the termination of the
conflict.
2. Israel will uproot the Palestinian terror infrastructure. All
arms will be collected, incitement will be stopped and all the refugee
camps, which serve as incubators for terror, will be dismantled.
Terrorists and their direct collaborators will be deported.
3. Israel, the United States, and the international community will
recognize the Kingdom of Jordan as the only legitimate representative of
the Palestinians. Jordan will once again recognize itself as the
Palestinian nation-state. In the context of a regional economic
development program, Israel, the United States, and the international
community will put forth a concerted effort for the long-term
development of Jordan, to rehabilitate its economy and enable it to
absorb a limited number of Palestinian refugees within its borders.
4. Israeli sovereignty will be asserted over Judea, Samaria, and
Gaza (the West Bank). The Arab residents of these areas will become
citizens of the Palestinian state in Jordan. The status of these
citizens, their connection to the two states, and the manner of
administration of their communal lives will be decided in an agreement
between the governments of Israel and Jordan (Palestine). When the two
parties to discussions are sovereign nations, both of whom are
interested in stability and peace, it is possible to reach a real
solution. The border between Palestine and Israel must be drawn at the
Jordan River.
5. Israel, the United States, and the international community will
allocate resources for the completion of the exchange of populations
that began in 1948 and the full rehabilitation of the refugees and their
absorption and naturalization in various countries.
6. After implementation of the above stages, Israel and Jordan-
Palestine will declare the conflict terminated. Both sides will work to
normalize peaceful relations between all parties in the region.
(http://www.therightroadtopeace.com, June 2003)
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AMERICANS OPPOSE ROAD MAP'S FREEZE ON JEWISH CONSTRUCTION
By a margin of nearly five to one, Americans oppose the Road Map's
prohibition against further Jewish construction in Judea-Samaria (the
West Bank) and Gaza, according to a national poll by John McLaughlin &
Associates carried out on May 21, 2003.
"The Bush administration's Road Map plan, which calls for freezing
Jewish construction and later expelling Jewish residents from the
territories, is clearly at odds with the views of most Americans. The
vast majority of Americans understand that preventing Jews from building
or living in those areas, while permitting Arabs to build and live
there, is ethnic discrimination. And that is morally outrageous and un-
American," said Morton A. Klein, National President of the Zionist
Organization of America (ZOA).
Asked if both Jews and Arabs should be allowed to build in the
territories, as they do now, or if Jews should be prevented from
building there, 61.5% said both Jews and Arabs should be allowed to
build; 13.5% said that only Arabs should be allowed.
Asked if both Jews and Arabs should be allowed to live in the
territories, as they do now, or if only Arabs should be allowed to live
there, 63.3% said both Jews and Arabs should be allowed; 9% said that
only Arabs should be allowed.
Asked what is the "main obstacle to peace between Israel and the
Palestinian Arabs" and given four choices - the ongoing Arab violence;
Palestinian Arab non-recognition of Israel; Israel's anti-terror
tactics; and the existence of Jewish communities in the territories -
only 10% blamed the Jewish communities as the main obstacle to peace.
Asked if Jewish residents of the territories should be expelled,
64.1% said they "disagree" or "strongly disagree" with expulsion; 16.5%
"somewhat agree" or "strongly agree" with the idea of expelling them.
Asked whether the Jews or the Arabs have "the strongest historical
claim" to Judea-Samaria and Gaza, 31.1% said the Jews; 18.8% said the
Arabs.
(Zionist Organization of America, 28 May 03)
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A VOTE AGAINST EVIL
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay
Mr. Speaker, today, Israelis will wake up and go to work. They may
drive their children to day care or have lunch with their friends.
Israeli children will go to school and play with their classmates. We
don't know which ones, and we don't know where, but soon, some of them
will probably die. A bright light will flash. A terrifying concussion
will boom through the air, and in an instant: fear, blood, panic, pain,
and death. And somewhere in Gaza, violent men will laugh. If this is not
evil, nothing is.
Those who say Israel's self-defense is an impediment to progress
miss the point. The destruction of Palestinian terrorism is not an
impediment to progress – it is the definition of progress. The point of
the war on terror is not just to defeat terror, but to destroy
terrorists. Murderers who take three-month vacations are still
murderers. They are still enemies of the civilized world and must still
be hunted and targeted as such.
Israel's fight is our fight. Israel's liberation from Palestinian
terrorism is an essential component of the global war against terror.
And in that war, there is no moral equivalence between aggrieved parties
engaging in a so-called "cycle of violence."
This resolution affirms American solidarity with the people of
Israel and their war against terror. It makes clear the American people
acknowledge Israel's fundamental right to defend herself. There is a war
on, and the terrorists are going to lose it. Israel and the United
States must adopt a policy of "trust but verify." And the only way to
verify the destruction of Palestinian terrorism is the end of
Palestinian terrorism, period.
When the violence stops, the peace process can move forward. Until
it does, Israel must defend herself. And either way, she will not stand
alone because the people of the United States will never abandon their
brothers and sisters in Israel.
This resolution reaffirms the House's commitment to Israel, and to
the moral clarity of our war on terror. I urge all members to join
Israel's heroic stand against evil.
(House of Representatives, Debate on H.R. 294, 25 June 03)
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ARE THE SETTLEMENTS LEGAL?
"The Jewish right of settlement in the area is equivalent in
every way to the right of the existing Palestinian population."
Eugene W. Rostow
With varying degrees of seriousness, all American administrations
since 1967 have objected to Israeli settlements in the West Bank (Judea
and Samaria) on the ground that it would make it more difficult to
persuade the Arabs to make peace. President Carter decreed that the
settlements were "illegal" as well as tactically unwise. President
Reagan said the settlements were legal but that they made negotiations
less likely. The strength of the argument is hardly self-evident. Jordan
occupied the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) for nineteen years, allowed
no Jewish settlements, and showed no signs of wanting to make peace.
UN Resolutions 242 and 338
UN Resolution 242, adopted after the Six-Day War in 1967, set out
criteria for peace-making by the parties; Resolution 338, passed after
the Yom Kippur War in 1973, makes Resolution 242 legally binding and
orders the parties to carry out its terms forthwith. Unfortunately,
confusion reigns, even in high places, about what those resolutions
require.
Arab states have pretended that the two resolutions are "ambiguous"
and can be interpreted to suit their desires. And some Europeans
(Russian) and even American officials have cynically allowed Arab
spokesman to delude themselves and their people - to say nothing of
Western public opinion - about what the resolutions mean. It is common
even for American journalists to write that Resolution 242 is
"deliberately ambiguous," as if the parties are equally free to rely on
their own reading of its key provisions.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Resolution 242, which as
Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs between 1966 and 1969, I
helped produce, calls on the parties to make peace and allows Israel to
administer the territories it occupied in 1967 until "a just and lasting
peace in the Middle East" is achieved. When such a peace is made, Israel
is required to withdraw its armed forces "from territories" it occupied
during the Six-Day War - not from "the" territories, nor from "all" the
territories, but some of the territories, which included the Sinai
Desert, the West Bank, the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza
Strip.
Five-and-a-half months of vehement public diplomacy made it
perfectly clear what the missing definite article in Resolution 242
means. Ingeniously drafted resolutions calling for withdrawals from
"all" the territories were defeated in the Security Council and the
General Assembly. Speaker after speaker made it explicit that Israel was
not to be forced back to the "fragile" and "vulnerable" Armistice
Demarcation Lines, but should retire once peace was made to what
Resolution 242 called "secure and recognized" boundaries agreed to by
the parties. In negotiating such agreement, the parties should take
into account, among other factors, security considerations, access to
the international waterways of the region, and, of course, their
respective legal claims. Resolution 242 leaves the issue of dividing the
occupied areas between Israel and its neighbors entirely to the
agreement of the parties in accordance with the principles it sets out.
The British Mandate Recognizes Jewish Settlement Rights
The British Mandate recognized the right of the Jewish People to
"close settlement" in the whole of the Mandated territory. It was
provided that local conditions might require Great Britain to "postpone"
or "withhold" Jewish settlement in what is now Jordan. This was done in
1922. But the Jewish right of settlement in Palestine, west of the
Jordan River, that is in Israel, the West Bank, Jerusalem, and the Gaza
Strip, was made unassailable. That right has never been terminated, and
cannot be terminated except by a recognized peace between Israel and its
neighbors. And perhaps not even then, in view of Article 80 of the UN
Charter, "the Palestine Article," which provides that nothing in the
Charter shall be construed...to alter in any manner the rights
whatsoever of any states or any peoples or the terms of existing
international instruments."
The West Bank and the Gaza Strip were never parts of Jordan, and
Jordan's attempt to annex the West Bank was not generally recognized and
has now been abandoned. The two parcels of land are parts of the Mandate
that have not yet been allocated to Jordan, to Israel, or to any other
state, and are a legitimate subject for discussion.
The Jewish right of settlement in the West Bank is conferred by the
same provisions of the Mandate under which Jews settled in Haifa, Tel
Aviv, and Jerusalem before the State of Israel was created. The
Palestine Mandate, recognizing "the historical connection of the Jewish
People with Palestine, and the grounds for reconstituting their national
home in that country," was dedicated to "the establishment in Palestine
of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood
that nothing should be done which might prejudice the civil and
religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the
rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."
Many believe that the Palestine Mandate was somehow terminated in
1947, when the British Government resigned as the mandatory power. This
is incorrect. In Palestine the British Mandate ceased to be operative as
to the territories of Israel and Jordan when those states were created
and recognized by the international community. But its rules apply still
to the West Bank and Gaza, which have not yet been allocated either to
Israel or to Jordan or become an independent state.
The Geneva Convention
Article 49 of the 4th Geneva Convention of 1949, which deals with
the protection of civilians in wartime, provides that the occupying
power "shall not deport or transfer part of its own civilian population
into the territory it occupies." But the Jewish settlers in the West
Bank are volunteers. They have not been "deported" or "transferred" by
the government of Israel, and their movement involves none of the
atrocious purposes or harmful effects on the existing population the
Geneva Convention was designed to prevent. Furthermore, the Convention
applies only to "acts by one signatory carried out on the territory of
another." The West Bank is not the territory of a signatory power, but
an unallocated part of the British Mandate. The right to Jewish
settlement in territories of the British Mandate west of the Jordan
River can be ended only by the establishment and recognition of a new
state or the incorporation of the territories into an old one.
How can the Geneva Convention be deemed to apply to Jews who have a
right to settle in the territories under international law: a legal
right assured by treaty and specifically protected by Article 80 of the
UN Charter? The Jewish right of settlement in the area is equivalent in
every way to the right of the existing Palestinian population to live
there. The controversy about Jewish settlements is not, therefore, about
legal rights, but about the political will to override legal rights.
(The author is former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, (1966-1969)
and former Dean of the Yale Law School.)
(_New Republic_, 23 Apr 1990 and 21 Oct 1991)
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MIDDLE EAST HISTORY FOR DUMMIES
Shmuel Katz
When the Ottoman Empire collapsed in 1918, Britain was granted a
Mandate by the League of Nations in 1922 as a trustee for the
reconstitution of the Jewish National Home. This was the modern charter
for the development of sovereignty for the Jewish people in its ancient
homeland.
When, in 1947, the UN (successor to the League of Nations)
recommended the partition of Palestine into two states - one Jewish, one
Arab - thereby gifting the Arabs with a part of the Jewish heritage, the
Jews consented, but the League of Arab States declared that it would not
"allow the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine." In May 1948, the
Arab states launched their war for the annihilation of the infant Jewish
state. They did not achieve the destruction of Israel, but Transjordan
succeeded in capturing Judea, Samaria, and the Jordan Valley, while
Egypt captured the Gaza Strip. Transjordan went on to "annex" the
captured territories and was henceforth renamed "Jordan."
Jordan's rule lasted 19 years. Never during these years did the
Arabs living in the annexed areas protest against the occupation, let
alone rise up, declare themselves a separate nation, or demand the
territories for themselves. They peacefully accepted Jordanian
citizenship.
The PLO was established in 1964 and carried out a number of
terrorist acts not against Jordan and its occupation but against Israel
inside the narrow waist of the armistice lines of 1949.
The leaders of the Arab League decided in 1967 to try again. On May
25, Cairo radio announced to the world: "The Arab people is firmly
resolved to wipe Israel off the map." And on May 30, Nasser declared:
"The armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon are stationed on the
borders of Israel. Behind them stand the armies of Iraq, Algeria,
Kuwait, Sudan, and the whole of the Arab nation." Abba Eban, Israel's
foreign minister, described the international armament ready to attack
Israel on three fronts as: "The greatest force ever assembled in that
peninsula in all its history."
Then, in six days, the Israeli forces won a great victory. In part
of that victory, Judea and Samaria, the Jordan Valley, and Gaza were
liberated from their Jordanian and Egyptian occupation. Israel offered
to hand back the liberated territories to the Arabs in return for peace.
The Arabs refused categorically. From a conference at Khartoum, they
announced that there would be no peace, no negotiations, and no
recognition of Israel.
It was then, in the early 1970s, that Jews came to live and build
their homes in the wide acres of Judea, Samaria, Gaza, and the Golan
Heights. They are the "settlers" who have written a new and heroic
chapter in the Zionist imperative of building the land; and their living
where they are living is legal and natural.
The current "dispute" between Israel and the Arabs began with
murderous Arab terror in the 1920s and 1930s, deliberate Arab military
aggression in 1948, and continued Arab terror during the decades that
followed.
When the Six-Day War of 1967 - which the Arabs pretend did not
happen - was launched, there were no "settlers." The worldwide tumult
about settlers being responsible for the conflict is simply a reflection
of the grand hopes of the Arabs to evade responsibility for their lethal
designs on Israel.
The Arabs have demonstrated, admit - even boast and teach their
children - that they mean to get rid of Israel and that killing Jews is
a virtue, a mitzva.
The state the Arabs are now demanding is a state they could have had
in 1947 and in 1967. Their contemptuous rejection of the offer was an
open declaration that peace with Israel was not their objective.
In the mosques, on the streets, and in the schoolrooms they do not
call for a state on the "West Bank," they call for a Palestinian state
"from the [Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] sea." Why do they prefer
to fight and kill (and die) in order to gain sovereign possession of
this sliver of Jewish territory? The answer seems to be that they cannot
tolerate the idea that the Jews who lived in Muslim lands as third-class
citizens are now treated as equals in human society.
(The writer, a co-founder with Menachem Begin of the Herut Party and
member of the First Knesset, is a biographer and essayist.)
(_Jerusalem Post_, 10 June 03;
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/A/JPArticle/ShowFu
ll&cid=1055211705431)
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