- Dear Dr. John and Michael,
-
- Thank you for this piece. This idea needs wider circulation
and I am prepared to do my part to see that it gets just that.
-
- The glaring fact that Israel never had the consent of
the governed when it was created makes its existence illegal and immoral,
yet this "Anglo-American dispossession" is conveniently ignored
in all current media reports despite being the key issue in solving this
tragic crisis.
-
- Using the examples of reparations that Israel received
from Germany and others for their crimes against Jews strikingly validates
the idea that reparations for the Palestinians is the only legitimate "
and quite possibly the only workable " solution to the continuing
bloodbath in the Middle East.
-
- Best wishes, John Kaminski
-
-
- From RePorterNoteBook.com
-
- From Robert John NEW YORK, NY 10128-0010 212 410-6560
ichee@aol.com 4-5-2
-
- Peace for the Holy Land-Indemnity for Palestinians
-
- By Dr. Robert John
-
- Once there was peace in Palestine between Christians,
Jews, and Moslems. That was last in 1915, when Britain offered to support
Arab independence if they would revolt against the Turks.
-
- Two years later, Britain promised to support "the
establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people."
With another pledge: " it being clearly understood that nothing shall
be done which should prejudice the civil and religious rights of Christians
and all other non-Jewish communities in Palestine." The US Congress
also made these commitments.
-
- When the inhabitants were informed of this Anglo-American
dispossession of their country on September 11, 1922, there were demonstrations
of opposition by the Palestinians that continue to this day. With millions
of Jewish immigrants now in Palestine as a result of these pledges and
the 'Holocaust,' can there be peace again?
-
- "Since renewed Mideast violence erupted in September
2000, the United States has thwarted every effort by the Palestinians to
get the Security Council to adopt a resolution that would condemn Israeli
actions and create some kind of outside monitoring to help cool tensions."
E. M. Lederer UN -- Associated Press, 12 March 2002.
-
- On March 12 the United States endorsed a Palestinian
state in the Security Council, introducing a resolution that also called
for a cease-fire in the escalating Mideast conflict. Associated Press reported--"the
resolution, the first offered by the United States since the latest round
of fighting began in September 2000, was circulated hours after Syria introduced
a Palestinian-backed measure."
-
- This démarche was considered a positive diplomatic
gesture, although a check of U.N. resolutions will show the U.N. said the
same back in 1948 and reaffirmed it many times since. It came at a time
when Sharon's policy of attempting to crush Palestinian resistance by terrorizing
the population, was clearly resulting in more deaths and damage on both
sides.
-
- Israel's U.N. Ambassador Yehuda Lancry said it was "not
a new development," noting that Sharon has envisioned a Palestinian
state and Israel entered a process in 1993 to end its occupation. But he
stressed "we have to negotiate it."
-
- Also on the diplomatic table was the peace overture by
Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah. When Arab foreign ministers met in
Cairo to prepare for a March 27-28 Arab summit meeting in Beirut, where
the Abdullah initiative was to be considered, the Saudi foreign minister,
Saud al-Faisal, was asked about the Abdullah proposal. He said that in
return for Israel withdrawing to pre-1967 lines, and creating a Palestinian
state with Jerusalem as its shared capital, the Arab League would offer
Israel "full peace."
-
- In their interest, the Saudi rulers are under the pressure
of anger of their people, and Moslems everywhere, to show some independence
from the United States and its support for Israel. So Palestinians may
realize that their interests are beyond those of Saudi rulers. And there
is the context of Israel's occupation of Syria's Golan Heights to be considered,
among other Middle issues that affect all countries there. But what could
be an acceptable solution?
-
- The Mitchell plan is not a solution. It calls for a period
of calm, confidence-building measures and a return to negotiations whose
collapse in 2001 was followed by a return to fighting.
-
- A 'solution' cannot restore to Palestinian Arabs what
they lost when the British offered a national home for Jews in Palestine,
and the US congress passed a similar declaration, at Palestinian expense,
in 1922. Palestinians revolted many times during the British occupation
of their country, attempting to stop the alien immigration and colonization
that Britain and the United States promoted. It was so oppressive before
World War II that German chancellor Hitler declared, "Victory by the
Axis Powers will liberate the lands of the Middle East from the British
yoke and give them the right of self-determination."
-
- Only a small minority in Arab countries recognized the
opportunity offered by that struggle between great powers to free themselves.
But in the tradition of Making Facts --as they call it, Jewish organizations
in Palestine used the war period for skirmishes against the British, to
prepare to expel them. Now, as then, when the US needs their support or
acquiescence, there is an opportunity for Arab states to demand a timetable
for British and American withdrawal from their region, and commitment for
reparations.
-
- After the Second World War, members of the UN critical
of a partition of Palestine and the admission of Israel as a member, were
pressured by the American administration to change their vote to support
it. Alfred Lillienthal, a German-American Jew who had worked in the State
Department, documents this in his book What Price Israel? As a paperback,
this could once be bought from bookstalls in New York for example, until
pro-Israel pressures banned it.
-
- Britain and the United States are responsible for the
losses that the Palestinians have sustained, and for Zionist Jews gaining
territory, homes and property of the Palestinians who became refugees.
Both countries pledged in the Balfour Declaration, and the Mandate proclaimed
on September 11, 1922, "it being clearly understood that nothing shall
be done which should prejudice the civil and religious rights of Christians
and all other non-Jewish communities in Palestine, and the holy places
and religious buildings and sites in Palestine shall be adequately protected."
-
- Britain and the United States carried out their pledge
to the Jews, but failed to perform or honor their pledge to "Christians
and all other non-Jewish communities in Palestine." They are liable
and have resulting obligations as have the named beneficiaries, "the
Jewish people."
-
- How can damages be assessed for losses sustained in breaches
of an international obligation, treaty, or contract? How can payment be
assured?
-
- While the loss of life, and the loss of Arab land in
the area of Palestine allotted to Israel in the UN partition, cannot be
restored, some financial compensation is appropriate and much needed by
Palestinians. The World Jewish Congress has established precedents, with
enforcement backed by the might of the United States that can be followed.
-
- In 1952 the Luxembourg Agreement between Israel and the
German Federal Republic bound the Republic to pay the Jewish people in
money and kind as collective reparation. In legal terms, the treaty was
res nova, a precedent in international law for a claim by one state (Israel)
on behalf of individuals (European Jews dispossessed or dead) who had not
necessarily been members of its own citizenry. Ultimately, West Germany's
debt and Israel's claim could only be based on some idea of international
morality. But it was a good German investment, allowing Volkswagens and
Mercedes to drive the roads of America without a Jewish boycott. Since
then, the World Jewish Congress, backed by supporters in United States
Government, has exacted payments from other governments, and corporations.
-
- To assess reasonable payments from Britain and the United
States, and from Israel -- the beneficiary of Palestinian dispossession
and destruction of thousands of Arab homes and hundreds of Arab villages
for example, one might consider the $200 billion that Israel has received
in different forms from the USA, since its founding. A good basis could
be $200 billion each from Britain, America, and Israel, payable over ten
years. This would go with Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders, rather
than those of the original U.N. partition plan. Enforcement could be assured
by the possibility of boycotts by the international community of UK, US,
and Israel, with the p recedent of the Jewish boycott of Germany from March
1933.
-
- This should be in a content of a return of the Golan
Heights to Syria, and normalization of relations with Iraq, and recognition
of its rights of sovereignty and possession of weapons for self-defense.
-
- Details of Palestinian rights to be included in final
peace agreements were set down by a committee of 20 countries. The UN Secretary-General
presented the Report, "On the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of
the Palestinian People," to the Council. The Report was considered
in the course of eight meetings of the Security Council in June 1976. It
would have passed, but there was one veto -- the USA. The Secretary-General
was Kurt Walheim.
-
- Israel's allies in the State Department got busy. Unsubstantiated
charges were made against Waldheim (although former British servicemen
testified that he had saved their lives), and he was put on the 'Watch
List,' banned from entering the United States.
-
- American presidents and most politicians represent special
interests--not justice, in Middle East policy. President Bush frequently
talks of "bringing terrorists to justice." With many vetoes in
the Security Council, the United States has obstructed justice for the
Palestinians. LET US DEMAND OUR REPRESENTATIVES RESTORE HONOR TO OUR COUNTRY
AND JUSTICE FOR PALESTINIANS.// © 2002 ================ Dr. John is
the author, with Sami Hadawi, of The Palestine Diary: British, American
and United Nations Intervention 1914-1948. He is a member of England's
Middle Temple, Inns of Court, where five signers of the Declaration of
Independence also studied law.
-
- Dr. John is a leading foreign affairs expert, and diplomatic
historian. In his foreword to The Palestine Diary, Arnold Toynbee, the
outstanding historian of the 20th century, wrote, "I hope this book
will be widely read in the United States, and this by Jewish and non-Jewish
Americans. If the American Government were constrained by American public
opinion to take a non-partisan line in Palestine, the situation in Palestine
might quickly change for the better." John K. Cooley, Middle East
Bureau, The Christian Science Monitor, wrote, "It is a most illuminating
and useful book. It should be in universities and libraries, and especially
in the hands of historians, throughout the world.
-
- After lecturing to serving, reserve, and retired officers
at the Army and Navy Club in Washington D.C., The Military Order of the
World Wars presented Dr. John with a citation "For his courage and
dedication to Truth in giving the American public a scholarly analysis
of the complex problems confronting our nation in its political relations
with the nations of the Middle East."
-
- [ In World War II, Dr. John's brother volunteered for
the B.E F. in France in 1939, volunteered to command in Waziristan, N.W.
Frontier, India, was wounded twice in action against the Afrika Corps.
in North Africa and the 1st German Parachute Div. at Monte Cassino. His
cousin Alain John volunteered for the Royal Air Force from King's Cambridge
and was killed-in-action at age 23, but a sculpture that he made at age
17 is in Coventry Cathedral as a war memorial to members of the R.A.F
In WW I, his uncle, Lt. Col. J.C. John, fought on the Western Front and
volunteered for Dunster Force that freed Mesopotamia from Turkish rule;
in WW II he was Acting Major General commanding in Behar and Orissa, India.]
=========
-
-
- From RePortersNoteBook.com Bulletin Board
-
- http://reportersnotebook.com/newforum/indexforum.html
-
- Confessions of an Actress:
-
- "It is no longer my country"
-
- "For me, this business called the state of Israel
is finished...I can't bear to see it anymore, the injustice that is done
to the Arabs, to the Beduins. All kinds of scum coming from America and
as soon as they get off the plane taking over lands in the territories
and claiming it for their own...I can't do anything to change it. I can
only go away and let the whole lot go to hell without me." Israeli
actress (and household name) Rivka Mitchell, quoted in Israeli peace movement
periodical, "The Other Israel", August 1998.
-
-
- 'Geraldo' says Israel is "inflicting, not fighting,
terrorism"
-
- "I have been a Zionist my entire life. I would die
for Israel. But watching the suffering of the Palestinian people, I'm also
becoming a Palestinian-ist." -Geraldo
-
- "You can't round up Palestinian young men and put
numbers on their arms to make it easier to identify them," he said.
"That reminds the world, that reminds Jews, of what Hitler and the
Nazi pigs inflicted on the Jewish race during the Second World War."
-Geraldo
-
- Confessions:
-
- The new Israeli tourism minister not only admits that
Israel ethnically cleansed the Palestinians in 1948, but wants Israel to
do it all over again.
-
- The old one the late-Israeli Tourist Minister, Rechavam
Zeevi, said: "The Jewish teachings are racist, and that is a good
thing."
|
