As a former professor of constitutional law, President Obama is undoubtedly familiar with the "fruit of the poisonous tree" doctrine, which posits that prosecutors cannot benefit from evidence obtained through an illegal search. Thus it is somewhat surprising that his administration appears to be advocating a "fruit of the poisonous tree" strategy to resolve the emerging impasse over Israel's continued settlement of Palestinian land, an issue threatening to stymie tenuous Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations launched amid much fanfare earlier this month.
On Sunday, Israel's self-declared 10-month "moratorium" on settlements is set to expire. Despite Secretary of State Hillary Clinton erroneously reasserting recently that the "moratorium" constituted an "unprecedented decision," Israel's colonization and ethnic cleansing of Palestinian land continued apace during the last 10 months. The so-called "moratorium" included only new construction starts in the occupied Palestinian West Bank , and did not apply to already-approved construction, infrastructure projects, or settlement expansion in occupied Palestinian East Jerusalem.
As limited as it is, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is refusing to extend the misnamed settlement "moratorium," while Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has threatened to walk away from the negotiating table if it is not continued. Whether the talks persist or break down, one thing is clear: Palestinians paradoxically will still be expected to negotiate statehood with Israel while Israel — with the full support of the United States in the form of $3 billion per year in military aid — continues to gobble up the territory designated for a Palestinian state.
A dangerous game
To forestall a breakdown of this charade, into which Obama, Clinton, and Special Envoy for Middle East Peace George Mitchell have already invested so much political capital, the Obama administration appears to be playing a dangerous game to massage these seemingly irreconcilable positions.
Although not yet an officially declared policy of the United States, its contours emerge from hints emanating from Clinton during the most recent round of negotiations. On her way to Egypt on Sept. 13, Clinton said, "We recognize that an agreement that could be forged between the Israelis and the Palestinians on actions that would be taken by both sides that would enable the negotiations to continue is in the best interests of both sides. This has to be understood as an effort by both the prime minister and the president to get over a hurdle posed by the expiration of the original moratorium in order to continue negotiations that hold out the promise of resolving all the core issues."
And how would she propose the parties jump this hurdle? "I think there's a lot of ways to get to the goal. Remember, the goal is to work toward agreement on core issues like borders and territories that would, if agreed upon, eliminate the debate about settlements, because some areas would be inside Israel and some areas would not be inside Israel. So I think that there are obligations on both sides to ensure that these negotiations continue."
In other words, the difference can be bridged by arm twisting the Palestinians to agree up front on the land that Israel will annex, permitting unfettered colonization, in exchange for the privilege of continuing negotiations in the ever-dimming hope that some crumbs will eventually get tossed their way in the undetermined future. Call this policy "Annexation First, Mini-Statehood Maybe Later."
Endorsing illegal actions
Not only is this policy grossly unfair to the Palestinians, who have watched as Israel has relentlessly colonized the West Bank and East Jerusalem for the past 43 years, it also contradicts more than 30 years of official U.S. policy and attempts to put a stamp of approval on Israel's patently illegal behavior.
A 1978 State Department legal memorandum — still official U.S. policy — concluded that "the establishment of the (Israeli) civilian settlements in those (Palestinian) territories is inconsistent with international law." The State Department's reasoning was based on Article 49 of the 4th Geneva Convention, which states quite explicitly that "The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies."
Pursuing a strategy whereby Israel reaps the fruit of its own poisonous tree at the outset of negotiations reveals just how evenhanded a broker the United States really is. If the United States is incapable of supporting an Israeli-Palestinian peace based on principles of human rights and international law, then it should recuse itself from the proceedings.
Josh Ruebner is the National Advocacy Director of the U..S Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation and a former analyst in Middle East affairs at Congressional Research Service.
Slain Bedouin girls' mother, a victim of Israeli-Palestinian bureaucracy
Date posted: May 27, 2013
By Amira Hass
Abir Dandis, the mother of the two girls who were murdered in the Negev town of Al-Fura’a last week, couldn't find a police officer to listen to her warnings, neither in Arad nor in Ma’ale Adumim. Both police stations operate in areas where Israel wants to gather the Bedouin into permanent communities, against their will, in order to clear more land for Jewish communities. The dismissive treatment Dandis received shows how the Bedouin are considered simply to be lawbreakers by their very nature. But as a resident of the West Bank asking for help for her daughters, whose father was Israeli, Dandis faced the legal-bureaucratic maze created by the Oslo Accords.
The Palestinian police is not allowed to arrest Israeli civilians. It must hand suspects over to the Israel Police. The Palestinian police complain that in cases of Israelis suspected of committing crimes against Palestinian residents, the Israel Police tend not to investigate or prosecute them.
In addition, the town of Al-Azaria, where Dandis lives, is in Area B, under Palestinian civilian authority and Israeli security authority. According to the testimony of Palestinian residents, neither the IDF nor the Israel Police has any interest in internal Palestinian crime even though they have both the authority and the obligation to act in Area B.
The Palestinian police are limited in what it can do in Area B. Bringing in reinforcements or carrying weapons in emergency situations requires coordination with, and obtaining permission from, the IDF. If Dandis fears that the man who murdered her daughters is going to attack her as well, she has plenty of reason to fear that she will not receive appropriate, immediate police protection from either the Israelis or the Palestinians.
Dandis told Jack Khoury of Haaretz that the Ma’ale Adumim police referred her to the Palestinian Civil Affairs Coordination and Liaison Committee. Theoretically, this committee (which is subordinate to the Civil Affairs Ministry) is the logical place to go for such matters. Its parallel agency in Israel is the Civilian Liaison Committee (which is part of the Coordination and Liaison Administration - a part of the Civil Administration under the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories).
In their meetings, they are supposed to discuss matters such as settlers’ complaints about the high volume of the loudspeakers at mosques or Palestinians’ complaints about attacks by settlers. But the Palestinians see the Liaison Committee as a place to submit requests for permission to travel to Israel, and get the impression that its clerks do not have much power when faced with their Israeli counterparts. In any case, the coordination process is cumbersome and long.
The Palestinian police has a family welfare unit, and activists in Palestinian women’s organizations say that in recent years, its performance has improved. But, as stated, it has no authority over Israeli civilians and residents. Several non-governmental women’s groups also operate in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem, and women in similar situations approach them for help. The manager of one such organization told Haaretz that Dandis also fell victim to this confusing duplication of procedures and laws. Had Dandis approached her, she said, she would have referred her to Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, which has expertise in navigating Israel’s laws and authorities.
John Kerry unveils plan to boost Palestinian economy
Date posted: May 27, 2013
By Phoebe Greenwood
John Kerry revealed his long-awaited plan for peace in the Middle East on Sunday, hinging on a $4bn (£2.6bn) investment in the Palestinian private sector.
The US secretary of state, speaking at the World Economic Forum on the Jordanian shores of the Dead Sea, told an audience including Israeli president Shimon Peres and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas that an independent Palestinian economy is essential to achieving a sustainable peace.
Speaking under the conference banner "Breaking the Impasse", Kerry announced a plan that he promised would be "bigger, bolder and more ambitious" than anything since the Oslo accords, more than 20 years ago.
Tony Blair is to lead a group of private sector leaders in devising a plan to release the Palestinian economy from its dependence on international donors. The initial findings of Blair's taskforce, Kerry boasted, were "stunning", predicting a 50% increase in Palestinian GDP over three years, a cut of two-thirds in unemployment rates and almost double the Palestinian median wage. Currently, 40% of the Palestinian economy is supplied by donor aid.
Kerry assured Abbas that the economic plan was not a substitute for a political solution, which remains the US's "top priority".
Peres, who had taken the stage just minutes before, also issued a personal plea to his Palestinian counterpart to return to the negotiations.
"Let me say to my dear friend President Abbas," Peres said, "Should we really dance around the table? Lets sit together. You'll be surprised how much can be achieved in open, direct and organised meetings."
Isolation Devastates East Jerusalem Economy
Date posted: May 27, 2013
By Jillian Kestler-D'Amours
Thick locks hug the front gates of shuttered shops, now covered in graffiti and dust from lack of use. Only a handful of customers pass along the dimly lit road, sometimes stopping to check the ripeness of fruits and vegetables, or ordering meat in near-empty butcher shops.
“All the shops are closed. I’m the only one open. This used to be the best place,” said 64-year-old Mustafa Sunocret, selling vegetables out of a small storefront in the marketplace near his family’s home in the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City.
Amidst the brightly coloured scarves, clothes and carpets, ceramic pottery and religious souvenirs filling the shops of Jerusalem’s historic Old City, Palestinian merchants are struggling to keep their businesses alive.
Faced with worsening health problems, Sunocret told IPS that he cannot work outside of the Old City, even as the cost of maintaining his shop, with high electricity, water and municipal tax bills to pay, weighs on him.
“I only have this shop,” he said. “There is no other work. I’m tired.”
Abed Ajloni, the owner of an antiques shop in the Old City, owes the Jerusalem municipality 250,000 Israeli shekels (68,300 U.S. dollars) in taxes. He told IPS that almost every day, the city’s tax collectors come into the Old City, accompanied by Israeli police and soldiers, to pressure people there to pay.
“It feels like they’re coming again to occupy the city, with the soldiers and police,” Ajloni, who has owned the same shop for 35 years, told IPS. “But where can I go? What can I do? All my life I was in this place.”
He added, “Does Jerusalem belong to us, or to someone else? Who’s responsible for Jerusalem? Who?”
Illegal annexation
Israel occupied East Jerusalem, including the Old City, in 1967. In July 1980, it passed a law stating that “Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel”. But Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem and subsequent application of Israeli laws over the entire city remain unrecognised by the international community.
Under international law, East Jerusalem is considered occupied territory – along with the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Syrian Golan Heights – and Palestinian residents of the city are protected under the Fourth Geneva Convention.
Jerusalem has historically been the economic, political and cultural centre of life for the entire Palestinian population. But after decades languishing under destructive Israeli policies meant to isolate the city from the rest of the Occupied Territories and a lack of municipal services and investment, East Jerusalem has slipped into a state of poverty and neglect.
“After some 45 years of occupation, Arab Jerusalemites suffer from political and cultural schizophrenia, simultaneously connected with and isolated from their two hinterlands: Ramallah and the West Bank to their east, West Jerusalem and Israel to the west,” the International Crisis Group recently wrote.
Israeli restrictions on planning and building, home demolitions, lack of investment in education and jobs, construction of an eight-foot-high separation barrier between and around Palestinian neighbourhoods and the creation of a permit system to enter Jerusalem have all contributed to the city’s isolation.
Formal Palestinian political groups have also been banned from the city, and between 2001-2009, Israel closed an estimated 26 organisations, including the former Palestinian Liberation Organisation headquarters in Jerusalem, the Orient House and the Jerusalem Chamber of Commerce.
Extreme poverty
Israel’s policies have also led to higher prices for basic goods and services and forced many Palestinian business owners to close shop and move to Ramallah or other Palestinian neighbourhoods on the other side of the wall. Many Palestinian Jerusalemites also prefer to do their shopping in the West Bank, or in West Jerusalem, where prices are lower.
While Palestinians constitute 39 percent of the city’s population today, almost 80 percent of East Jerusalem residents, including 85 percent of children, live below the poverty line.
“How could you develop [an] economy if you don’t control your resources? How could you develop [an] economy if you don’t have any control of your borders?” said Zakaria Odeh, director of the Civic Coalition for Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem, of “this kind of fragmentation, checkpoints, closure”.
“Without freedom of movement of goods and human beings, how could you develop an economy?” he asked.
“You can’t talk about independent economy in Jerusalem or the West Bank or in all of Palestine without a political solution. We don’t have a Palestinian economy; we have economic activities. That’s all we have,” Odeh told IPS.
Israel’s separation barrier alone, according to a new report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTD), has caused a direct loss of over one billion dollars to Palestinians in Jerusalem, and continues to incur 200 million dollars per year in lost opportunities.
Israel’s severing and control over the Jerusalem-Jericho road – the historical trade route that connected Jerusalem to the rest of the West Bank and Middle East – has also contributed to the city’s economic downturn.
Separation of Jerusalem from West Bank
Before the First Intifada (Arabic for “uprising”) began in the late 1980s, East Jerusalem contributed approximately 14 to 15 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in the Occupied Palestinian territories (OPT). By 2000, that number had dropped to less than eight percent; in 2010, the East Jerusalem economy, compared to the rest of the OPT, was estimated at only seven percent.
“Economic separation resulted in the contraction in the relative size of the East Jerusalem economy, its detachment from the remaining OPT and the gradual redirection of East Jerusalem employment towards the Israeli labour market,” the U.N. report found.
Decades ago, Israel adopted a policy to maintain a so-called “demographic balance” in Jerusalem and attempt to limit Palestinian residents of the city to 26.5 percent or less of the total population.
To maintain this composition, Israel built numerous Jewish-Israeli settlements inside and in a ring around Jerusalem and changed the municipal boundaries to encompass Jewish neighbourhoods while excluding Palestinian ones.
It is now estimated that 90,000 Palestinians holding Jerusalem residency rights live on the other side of the separation barrier and must cross through Israeli checkpoints in order to reach Jerusalem for school, medical treatment, work, and other services.
“Israel is using all kinds of tools to push the Palestinians to leave; sometimes they are visible, and sometimes invisible tools,” explained Ziad al-Hammouri, director of the Jerusalem Centre for Social and Economic Rights (JCSER).
Al-Hammouri told IPS that at least 25 percent of the 1,000 Palestinian shops in the Old City were closed in recent years as a result of high municipal taxes and a lack of customers. “Taxation is an invisible tool…as dangerous as revoking ID cards and demolishing houses,” he said. “Israel will use this as pressure and as a tool in the future to confiscate these shops and properties.”
Straining Every Nerve Against UN Membership for Palestine
Date posted: August 11, 2011
By Josh Ruebner
The Roman philosopher and politician Cicero urged orators to 'Strain every nerve to gain your point.' The Obama Administration appears to have taken his advice to heart in its attempts to make the case that the United States should oppose Palestinian efforts to gain membership in the United Nations this fall.
However, its rhetoric has been so convoluted, its logic so flawed, and its reasoning so shoddy that its efforts have been desultory and unconvincing. Take, for example, the following quotes:
“No vote at the United Nations will ever create an independent Palestinian state. And the United States will stand up against efforts to single Israel out at the United Nations or in any international forum. (Applause.) Israel’s legitimacy is not a matter for debate.” -- President Barack Obama, Remarks at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Policy Conference, May 22, 2011
There are so many historical inaccuracies, deliberate obfuscations of political realities, and hyperbolic assumptions that it is difficult to know where to begin to unpack these three crucial sentences.
To assert, boldly, that no action will ever achieve its goal, then at the very least the President should have the historical record on his side. Despite the President’s bluster, he is powerless to stop the UN from voting to create an independent Palestinian state because it already did so—in 1947. UN General Assembly Resolution 181, which ironically never would have passed were it not for the intensive diplomatic arm-twisting of the United States, recommended partitioning Palestine into two states: a Jewish State comprising 55 percent of historic Palestine, and an Arab State totaling 45 percent, with Jerusalem as a corpus separatum, an open, international city administered by the UN. The UN voted to endorse this partition plan, which was never implemented, at a time when Palestinian Arabs owned approximately 93 percent of the land, and Jews owned 7 percent.
For these past 64 years, Israel’s actions to ethnically cleanse as much of historic Palestine of as many Palestinians as possible has been the primary obstacle to implementing the UN Partition Plan. Today, Israel relentlessly continues to colonize the 22 percent of historic Palestine (the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip) that has been envisioned as a Palestinian state in proposed two-state resolutions to the conflict since 1967, rendering even this bread crumb a remote likelihood.
Also, if the President is going to stake out such an unequivocal position on an issue, then at the very least he should state clearly the actual issue at hand. As the President knows, the UN may be asked to admit the State of Palestine as a member, not to vote on creating a Palestinian state. Since the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) declared independence in 1988, more than 120 countries have recognized and established some form of diplomatic relations with the State of Palestine. As the international lawyers of the State Department must surely know, the UN does not recognize states. Only states can recognize other states. The UN can only determine if that state is admitted as a member. By conflating these two issues, the President intentionally ups the ante of what is at stake as a pretext to justify his opposition to this Palestinian initiative.
Given the fact that the UN voted to partition Palestinians’ homeland and establish an independent Palestinian state within it, and that more than 120 countries have recognized this State of Palestine, one has to wonder why the President would present himself as Chicken Little and try to convince us that the sky is falling when, in actuality, the UN is only being asked belatedly to admit Palestine to its rightful place in the international community of nations. For Obama, the long-overdue act of admitting Palestine to the UN is part of a sinister plan “to single Israel out” in the UN and a devious ploy to undermine its “legitimacy.”
This is an intentional misreading of this Palestinian initiative to achieve even minimal steps towards freedom and self-determination by becoming a member of the UN. By the President declaring it being tantamount to isolating and de-legitimizing Israel, he speaks volumes about the fragility of Israel’s self-image and the nervousness about its staying power among its supporters in the United States. If any Palestinian effort to secure their long-denied human rights means that Israel’s legitimacy is called into question, then ipso facto Israel’s “legitimacy” can only be maintained by continuing to deny all Palestinian human rights, which ironically does de-legitimize Israel as an apartheid state.
Onward:
“As I’ve said many times, we believe the status quo is unsustainable. We have said that to the Israelis, we have said it to the Palestinians, and therefore a return to negotiations is the only path forward. Unilateral action at the United Nations will not create a state.” -- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Remarks with French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe after Their Meeting, June 6, 2011.
For Obama Administration officials it is exceedingly difficult to break free from the tautology of Clinton’s circular rationale. First, though, kudos goes to the Obama Administration for at least recognizing that “the status quo is unsustainable.” Admitting you have a problem is always the first step to recovery. By this, the Secretary means that ongoing Israeli occupation and colonization of the Palestinian West Bank and East Jerusalem is eroding the prospect of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted as much in his rejectionist speech to a joint meeting of Congress in May 2011, during which he revealed that 650,000 Israelis now live in illegal settlements on expropriated Palestinian land beyond Israel’s armistice lines. That’s a full 30 percent more settlers than all previous estimates. Given that these colonies are strategically located atop vital water resources, occupy primary agricultural land, and sit astride crucial transportation nexuses, it is increasingly difficult for even the United States to understand how a contiguous Palestinian state can emerge from the West Bank and East Jerusalem, in which an estimated 2.5 million Palestinians live. In Clinton’s estimation, it’s either now or never for the cherished two-state solution because the unspoken alternative if Israel continues to colonize these Palestinian territories is that an independent Palestinian state will become unworkable and—gasp—Israel will create the conditions whereby eventually Palestinians and Israeli Jews will live as equals within the same state structure.
Here, however, logic runs into a brick wall. If you recognize that the status quo is unsustainable, then you cannot continue to call for…well…the status quo. The status quo is the U.S.-dominated “peace process,” which, for more than twenty years of direct and indirect Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, has failed for the simple reason that the United States has functioned as “Israel’s lawyer,” in the words of former “peace process” negotiator Aaron David Miller.
Under the fig leaf of these U.S.-dominated talks, Israel has nearly doubled the length of time that it has illegally occupied Palestinian territories and more than doubled the number of settlers living in illegal colonies there. Not once has Israel made a good faith offer to uproot these illegal settlements as required by international law to pave the way for a genuine two-state solution. Instead, Israel has, with the full weight of the United States, pressured Palestinians to accept the annexation of most of these illegal colonies, leaving Palestinians with disconnected Bantustan “states” devoid of any actual sovereignty. For good reason, Palestinians have refused and will continue to refuse to sign on the dotted line of any agreement that relegates them to reservations. Thus, to state that the way to challenge the unsustainable status quo is to “return to negotiations” designed to reinforce the status quo is patently absurd and demonstrates more than anything else the paucity of the Obama Administration’s Israel/Palestine policy and the reason for its failure to achieve peace.
In life as in politics, there is rarely an “only way forward.” It is especially ridiculous to assert this when the “only way forward” has been demonstrated to reinforce the status quo that one believes to be “unsustainable.” As things stand, with Israel preferring to maintain and expand its settlement blocs rather than evacuate them, more negotiations are the “only way” to run to stand still. In fact, with small amounts of creativity, one can imagine dozens of alternatives to advance Israeli-Palestinian peace that stand a much greater chance of success than the rigged game of the “peace process.” Such alternative ways forward could include Palestine gaining full UN membership, the United States ending weapons transfers to Israel until it decides it wants to comply with international law, the UN slapping sanctions on Israel until it abides by UN resolutions, international civil society advancing campaigns of boycott, divestment, and sanctions to end Israeli apartheid, bringing Israeli political and military leaders to the dockets of the International Criminal Court for war crimes, and so much more. Once free of the “peace process” straightjacket, paths toward peace and justice become apparent.
Finally, there’s this:
“My government has been clear all along. The only place where permanent status issues can be resolved, including borders and territory, is in negotiations between the parties—not in international fora such as the United Nations…The United States will not support unilateral campaigns at the United Nations in September or any other time.” -- Ambassador Rosemary A. DiCarlo, Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Remarks at an Open Security Council Debate on the Situation in the Middle East, July 26, 2011.
Ah, pity the mid-level bureaucrat who is required to regurgitate the pabulum of the powers that be when she probably knows in her own conscience that it makes no sense. All of Clinton’s non-sequiturs about negotiations being the “only way forward” also apply to DiCarlo’s assertion that they are the “only place where permanent status issues can be resolved.” In fact, just the opposite is true. With the United States backing Israel’s claims that it should illegally annex Palestinian territory and that it should prohibit Palestinian refugees from being able to exercise their internationally-guaranteed right of return, U.S.-dominated “peace process” negotiations are an inconceivable venue for resolving permanent status issues on anything resembling a just and equitable basis. Instead, with its emphasis on human rights standards and international law, the UN would be a much more appropriate venue to resolve these issues.
Finally, eyebrows must be raised by the claim that the Palestinian initiative to attain UN membership is a “unilateral campaign” that the United States will not support “in September or any other time.” True, an application for membership in the UN can only be submitted “unilaterally” in the sense that only the applicant can submit it. An application for membership cannot by definition be submitted “multilaterally.” NATO, the EU, or any other multilateral organization cannot multilaterally submit an application for UN membership. Therefore, an application for membership in the UN must be a “unilateral campaign” in this narrow sense. However, the process to attain membership cannot be defined in this fashion, requiring the positive recommendation of the Security Council and a two-thirds vote of the General Assembly, making admission to the UN a quintessentially multilateral campaign. By arguing that the United States will not support a “unilateral campaign” for Palestinian UN membership now or in the future, the United States is committing itself never to support Palestinian membership in the UN.
Taken as a whole, Obama Administration statements justifying its position opposing Palestinian membership in the UN are so illogical that they can only be seen as pretexts for clinging to the crumbling façade of Israeli occupation and apartheid.
In 1949, former Senator John Sherman Cooper, serving as U.S. Representative to the UN General Assembly “recalled that his government had declared that it had no intention of preventing, by its vote, the admission to the United Nations of any applicant which received at least seven affirmative votes in the Security Council, which meant that the United States would not use its right of veto in the Security Council on any membership application.”
It remains to be seen whether Palestinians will force a showdown with the United States in the Security Council for full UN membership, opt to bypass it by turning to the General Assembly to have their status at the UN upgraded to a non-member state, or be co-opted or muscled into yet another round of “peace process” negotiations predestined to fail.
What is certain is that the Obama Administration, by staking out such an unprincipled and incoherent stance against Palestinian UN membership, has exposed the absurd lengths to which it will go in defense of Israeli occupation and apartheid and demonstrated how much claim to moral leadership it has ceded since Senator Cooper’s days at the UN.
Josh Ruebner is the Grassroots Advocacy Coordinator for the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation.
On Israeli 'Moratorium,' U.S. has Taken Sides
Date posted: September 25, 2010
By Josh Ruebner
As a former professor of constitutional law, President Obama is undoubtedly familiar with the "fruit of the poisonous tree" doctrine, which posits that prosecutors cannot benefit from evidence obtained through an illegal search. Thus it is somewhat surprising that his administration appears to be advocating a "fruit of the poisonous tree" strategy to resolve the emerging impasse over Israel's continued settlement of Palestinian land, an issue threatening to stymie tenuous Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations launched amid much fanfare earlier this month.
On Sunday, Israel's self-declared 10-month "moratorium" on settlements is set to expire. Despite Secretary of State Hillary Clinton erroneously reasserting recently that the "moratorium" constituted an "unprecedented decision," Israel's colonization and ethnic cleansing of Palestinian land continued apace during the last 10 months. The so-called "moratorium" included only new construction starts in the occupied Palestinian West Bank , and did not apply to already-approved construction, infrastructure projects, or settlement expansion in occupied Palestinian East Jerusalem.
As limited as it is, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is refusing to extend the misnamed settlement "moratorium," while Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has threatened to walk away from the negotiating table if it is not continued. Whether the talks persist or break down, one thing is clear: Palestinians paradoxically will still be expected to negotiate statehood with Israel while Israel — with the full support of the United States in the form of $3 billion per year in military aid — continues to gobble up the territory designated for a Palestinian state.
A dangerous game
To forestall a breakdown of this charade, into which Obama, Clinton, and Special Envoy for Middle East Peace George Mitchell have already invested so much political capital, the Obama administration appears to be playing a dangerous game to massage these seemingly irreconcilable positions.
Although not yet an officially declared policy of the United States, its contours emerge from hints emanating from Clinton during the most recent round of negotiations. On her way to Egypt on Sept. 13, Clinton said, "We recognize that an agreement that could be forged between the Israelis and the Palestinians on actions that would be taken by both sides that would enable the negotiations to continue is in the best interests of both sides. This has to be understood as an effort by both the prime minister and the president to get over a hurdle posed by the expiration of the original moratorium in order to continue negotiations that hold out the promise of resolving all the core issues."
And how would she propose the parties jump this hurdle? "I think there's a lot of ways to get to the goal. Remember, the goal is to work toward agreement on core issues like borders and territories that would, if agreed upon, eliminate the debate about settlements, because some areas would be inside Israel and some areas would not be inside Israel. So I think that there are obligations on both sides to ensure that these negotiations continue."
In other words, the difference can be bridged by arm twisting the Palestinians to agree up front on the land that Israel will annex, permitting unfettered colonization, in exchange for the privilege of continuing negotiations in the ever-dimming hope that some crumbs will eventually get tossed their way in the undetermined future. Call this policy "Annexation First, Mini-Statehood Maybe Later."
Endorsing illegal actions
Not only is this policy grossly unfair to the Palestinians, who have watched as Israel has relentlessly colonized the West Bank and East Jerusalem for the past 43 years, it also contradicts more than 30 years of official U.S. policy and attempts to put a stamp of approval on Israel's patently illegal behavior.
A 1978 State Department legal memorandum — still official U.S. policy — concluded that "the establishment of the (Israeli) civilian settlements in those (Palestinian) territories is inconsistent with international law." The State Department's reasoning was based on Article 49 of the 4th Geneva Convention, which states quite explicitly that "The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies."
Pursuing a strategy whereby Israel reaps the fruit of its own poisonous tree at the outset of negotiations reveals just how evenhanded a broker the United States really is. If the United States is incapable of supporting an Israeli-Palestinian peace based on principles of human rights and international law, then it should recuse itself from the proceedings.
Josh Ruebner is the National Advocacy Director of the U..S Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation and a former analyst in Middle East affairs at Congressional Research Service.
Top 10 Reasons for Skepticism on Israeli-Palestinian Talks
Date posted: August 28, 2010
By Josh Ruebner
On August 20, the Obama Administration announced that it will reconvene under its auspices direct Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations beginning on September 2.
While a just and lasting Israeli-Palestinian peace is in everyone's interest, there are profound reasons to be skeptical about the likelihood of success for the following reasons (not necessarily listed in order of importance):
1. No more photo-ops, please. There is a desperate need for a just, comprehensive and lasting peace in the Middle East. Negotiations can be a key to that. But the last thing Palestinians and Israelis need are phony negotiations. They only breed disillusionment, resentment, and cynicism about the possibility of Israeli-Palestinian peace based on human rights and justice. So rather than enter into negotiations for the sake of negotiations, the Obama Administration should exert real political pressure on Israel by cutting off military aid to once and for all get it to commit to dismantling its regime of occupation and apartheid against Palestinians, and make clear that the framework for all negotiations will be based on international law, human rights, and UN resolutions. As long as it fails to do so, U.S. civil society must keep up the pressure through campaigns of boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) to change these dynamics and by joining up with the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation.
2. The United States is not evenhanded. For decades, the United States has arrogated the role of convening Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. To convince the world that it is suitable to play this role, the United States declares that it is evenhanded, when it in fact arms Israel to the teeth and is aware that Israel will employ these U.S. weapons to conduct its human rights abuses of and apartheid policies toward Palestinians. Under international law, an outside party that provides weapons to a party in an armed conflict violates laws of neutrality. The United States is scheduled to provide Israel with $30 billion in weapons from 2009-2018 (part and parcel of a broader strategy to further militarize the region with an additional $60 billion in weapons sales to Gulf States). The United States cannot credibly broker Israeli-Palestinian peace while bankrolling Israel's military machine and simultaneously ignoring Israel's human rights violations.
3. Israeli colonization of Palestinian land continues. In one of its most abject policy failures, the Obama Administration has contented itself with resuming direct negotiations without securing an Israeli freeze on the colonization of Palestinian land, despite spending an initial nine months trying to do so. Israeli colonization of Palestinian land, including the expansion of settlements, the eviction of Palestinians from their homes, the building of the Apartheid Wall, continues apace. Previous failed rounds of negotiations have demonstrated that Israel utilizes negotiations as a fig leaf to actually increase its pace of colonization of Palestinian land, and there is every reason to believe that it will continue to do so. Meanwhile, Israel's ongoing colonization of Palestinian land creates difficult-to-reverse "facts on the ground" that only make a two-state solution--purportedly the end game of the negotiations--less achievable.
4. Negotiations supersede accountability. The Obama Administration, building on decades of previous U.S. efforts to shield Israel from accountability, has worked actively to scuttle international attempts to hold Israel accountable for its previous violations of international law and human rights, and its commission of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity. Both after the Goldstone Report and Israel's attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, the United States used its leverage at the United Nations to prevent Israel from being held accountable, arguing that accountability undermines prospects for peace negotiations. On the contrary, for peace negotiations to be successful, Israel must be held accountable for its actions and shown that it will pay a price for its illegal policies. Otherwise, it has no reason to alter its behavior.
5. No terms of reference. In his August 20 press briefing, Special Envoy for Middle East Peace George Mitchell confirmed that the United States is not insisting on any guiding principles for the negotiations, or "terms of references" in diplomatic parlance, and that these terms will be worked out by the parties themselves. In other words, Israel will be free to marshal its overwhelming power to refuse to negotiate on the basis of human rights, international law, and UN resolutions, the only viable basis for a just and lasting Israeli-Palestinian peace. Instead, Israel--backed by the United States--will negotiate based on its own exclusive terms of reference, namely what is in Israel's "security interests." As in previous failed rounds of negotiations, Palestinian rights will not enter into the conversation.
6. No timeline. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton believes that negotiations "could" be concluded within a year. Of course, successful Israeli-Palestinian negotiations could be wrapped up within in a year. In contrast to "peace process industry" pundits, there is nothing intrinsically complex or complicated about resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict if Israel were to negotiate in good faith by declaring an end to its policies of occupation and apartheid against Palestinians. After all, South Africa concluded negotiations to end apartheid within a few months once the decision had been made to transition to democracy. However, Israel has given no indication whatsoever that it is prepared to alter its policies toward Palestinians, setting the stage for prolonged and fruitless negotiations.
7. Can a leopard change its spots? A recently-leaked video from 2001 shows current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrogantly bragging that "I actually stopped the Oslo Accord [shorthand for the failed 1993-2000 Israeli-Palestinian "peace process']." (The Institute for Middle East Understanding has provided a useful translation and transcript of the video here.) His current Foreign Minister, Avigdor Leiberman, lives in an illegal Israeli colony built on stolen Palestinian land and has openly declared his support for ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. With this negotiating team in place, how can Palestinians expect even a bare modicum of fairness and justice to emerge from these negotiations?
8. Increased U.S. military aid to and cooperation with Israel make it less likely to negotiate in good faith. In July, Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs Andrew Shapiro told the Brookings Institution that "I'm proud to say that as a result of this commitment [to Israel's security], our security relationship with Israel is broader, deeper, and more intense than ever before." Indeed, it is. President Obama has requested record-breaking levels of military aid to Israel, and stepped up joint U.S.-Israeli military projects, such as the missile defense system "Iron Dome." This increased level of military aid only makes Israel more reliant on military might in its attempt to subdue Palestinians into submission, and less likely to negotiate with them fairly as equals.
9. All the parties are not at the negotiating table. Special Envoy for Middle East Peace George Mitchell, who previously brokered a peace agreement in Northern Ireland, when discussing its success often referred to the necessity of having all the parties to the conflict around the negotiating table. What held true though for negotiations in Northern Ireland, apparently doesn't apply to Israel/Palestine since Hamas, which currently governs the Israeli-occupied and -besieged Gaza Strip and legitimately won the 2006 legislative elections held at the behest of the United States, was not invited to participate in the negotiations. If, by some long-shot, an agreement were to emerge from these negotiations, it is difficult to see how it would be implemented without having Hamas as part of the discussions.
10. Negotiations help Israel mitigate its growing international isolation. Last, but certainly not least, images of Israeli and Palestinian political leaders negotiating presents the world with a false sense of normalcy and allows Israel the opportunity to state that it is making a legitimate effort to achieve peace. With Israel as the party pressing for direct negotiations, it is quite transparent that its desire for these talks has more to do with easing its growing international isolation and defusing the energy from the international movement for boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS), rather than with genuinely negotiating a just and lasting peace. This point brings the analysis full circle: advocates for changing U.S. policy toward Israel/Palestine to support human rights, international law, and equality should not be lulled into complacency by the resumption of negotiations, but need to keep up the pressure with campaigns of BDS to change the dynamics that will eventually lead to the possibility of a just and lasting peace.
Rethinking the Costs of Peace
Date posted: May 25, 2009
By Josh Ruebner
In pledging to trim ineffective spending, President Obama declared that “there will be no sacred cows and no pet projects. All across America, families are making hard choices, and it's time their government did the same."
By asking earlier this month for $2.775 billion in military aid to Israel in his FY2010 budget request, it would seem that on this important policy issue President Obama’s commitment is more rhetorical than substantive. Since 1949, according to the Congressional Research Service, the United States has provided to Israel more than $100 billion in military and economic assistance. In 2007, the United States and Israel signed an agreement for $30 billion in additional military aid through FY2018.
Yet the provision of U.S. weapons to Israel at taxpayer expense has done nothing to bring Israelis and Palestinians closer to achieving a just and lasting peace. Rather, these weapons have had the exact opposite effect, as documented recently by Amnesty International, which pointed to U.S. weapons as a prime factor “fueling” the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
According to the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, during the Bush Administration, Israel killed more than 3,000 innocent Palestinian civilians, including more than 1,000 children. During its December 2008-January 2009 war on the occupied Gaza Strip alone, Israel killed nearly 1,200 non-combatants.
On average, for each day that President Bush sat in the Oval Office, Israel killed one Palestinian civilian, often with U.S. weapons. Before Congress appropriates any additional military aid to Israel, it should insist upon President Obama providing a comprehensive and transparent review of the effects U.S. weapons transfers to Israel have on Palestinian civilians. The Arms Export Control Act limits the use of U.S. weapons given to a foreign country to “internal security” and “legitimate self-defense.”
If, after reviewing the impact of Israel’s misuse of U.S. weapons, the President and Congress cannot find the political will to sanction Israel for its violations of the Arms Export Control Act and prohibit future arms transfers as is required by law, then there are still steps that the U.S. government should take to ensure that any future transfers are not used to commit human rights abuses but instead to promote U.S. policy goals. For example, previous U.S. loan guarantees to Israel have stipulated that funds cannot be used to support Israeli activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Conditioning U.S. military aid to Israel in the same way would prevent these weapons from being used to kill innocent Palestinian civilians.
As President Obama has stated, “We can't sustain a system that bleeds billions of taxpayer dollars, on programs that have outlived their usefulness or exist solely because of the power of politicians, lobbyists or interest groups. We simply can't afford it.” In regard to U.S. aid to Israel, this is true as much from a budgetary standpoint as it is from a moral one.
Josh Ruebner is the National Advocacy Director of the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation.
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