Government Committee: says 'Israel not occupation force'

[Reffo]

I've found a freely available version of Dinstein's analysis (citing the older Israeli scholars like Rosenne) as to why the armistice lines constituted boundaries in their view. The point is made somewhat less forcefully that in some of the journal articles I saw, but it will do:

http://books.google.com.au/books?id=...page&q&f=false

Page 45 onward

This is a case in point why I have been requesting you to post links and quotes to back up your assertions. Because you tend to misunderstand and misenterpret things.

Your earlier claim was that the 1949 armistice lines define Israel's expected international borders.

I think the most plausible interpretation, which was put forward by Israeli academics in the 1950s and is still supported by Yoram Dinstein, is that the armistice agreements defined Israel's international boundaries. "Recognition" or "non-recognition" is completely irrelevant - to use the legal terminology, recognition is declaratory (i.e. it declares an existing state of affairs - which exists regardless of the recognition), not constitutive (i.e. recognition does not CONSTITUTE the legal reality)

To back that claim up, you posted your Dinstein reference. But as I proved to you in my earlier post, this backs my case up NOT yours. It quotes the same passage that I quoted:

The agreement with Jordan was signed on 3 April 1949.[3] The main points:
no provision of this Agreement shall in any way prejudice the rights, claims and positions of either Party hereto in the ultimate peaceful settlement of the Palestine question, the provisions of this Agreement being dictated exclusively by military considerations

Your own reference too mentions this quote and you don't seem to understand what it actually means. Read the item in bold. It says precisely the opposite of what you have been trying to assert.

[Reffo]

Then there are these two post of yours:

I don't think Israel is the only state that has claims to it - as I indicated I think Jordan and Egypt have better legal claims than Israel to the West Bank and Gaza respectively, which they have renounced in favour of Palestinian self-determination

After I asked you to clarify your reasons, you responded as follows:

I take as the starting point that the partition resolution had no binding legal force. When the mandate was abolished there was a vacuum of sovereignty which was filled by Israel, Egypt and Jordan in parts of Palestine, and they acquired sovereign rights over the territory in their possession. This is why the territories that Israel conquered which are outside of the partition boundaries are regarded as its sovereign territory. That's my view, in any case, and it has some support from Dinstein and probably others. It seems like the most coherent interpretation to me. Dinstein discusses this point in the journal article I posted a link to - but again you need a paid subscription to have full access unfortunately... I don't want to type out huge chunks of the article, but if there are any specific points I can search for 1 or 2 paragraphs to extract here

In one foul swoop those two posts of yours, back up my case and destroys your case. Let me demonstrate:

FIRST:
By demonstrating your inconsistency regarding the rule of international law. How? By equating Israel's war of self defence in 1948 with the aggressions of Egypt and Jordan who invaded Palestine with the express purpose of acquiring new lands. And you even go further. You assert that their act of aggression gave them a greater right to the land than Israel's acquisitiion of territories in 1948 and 1967 in DEFENSIVE wars. Even though the Jewish people were not outsiders in Palestine (unlike Jordan and Egypt who were external invaders). Frankly, such a position does not demonstrate a high regard for international law but that's only a minor point for starters. Let's move on ...

SECOND:
By mentioning the vacuum of sovereignity you confirm Israel's position that the non privately owned lands in the West Bank are disputed territories. And by doing that, you confirm that Israel has not broken the laws of the Geneva Convention in allowing Jews to settle in parts of the West Bank where they purchased lands because the lands (certainly the crown lands) are not occupied lands but disputed lands.

LAST BUT NOT LEAST:
I'll leave it at that for now. The only other thing that I'll mention is your seeming pre-disposition to be harder on Israel (in line with the positions of the "scholars" that you seem to favour). In your response to my thought experiment which I re-presented in my post #52, you obfuscate in favour of Jordan and the Palestinian Arabs even after I made it clear that the scenarios are virtually identical. Now let me make it 100% identical. What is your position if we are talking about Jordan transferring Palestinian Arabs who have Jordanian citizenship and who never lived in the West Bank or have any title deeds to any parts of the West Bank? Would you deem those Palestinian Arabs as illegal settlers?

Let me try and predict your response: Your response will be no response ...

[Pleepleus]

I somehow missed the following gem until Reffo quoted it above.

...I don't think Israel is the only state that has claims to it - as I indicated I think Jordan and Egypt have better legal claims than Israel to the West Bank and Gaza respectively, which they have renounced in favour of Palestinian self-determination.

Egypt never annexed the Gaza Strip but kept it under military occupation and only Pakistan and Britain recognized Transjordan's occupation and annexation of the West Bank. Both were illegal occupiers and had zero right to confer those territories on the Palestinians nor anyone else.

[Reffo]

An interesting article which summarizes our debate on this forum more ably than we ever can ....

What is truly “unhelpful,” however, are the repeated references to the West Bank and Gaza, as well as East Jerusalem, as “Arab” land, the putative Palestinian state in waiting, encumbered only by Israeli oppression, the dreaded occupation, and those pesky settlers. This widely held notion that European Jews, with no connection to historic Palestine, colonized Arab land and displaced the indigenous Palestinian population, of course, is a key part of what Professor Richard Landes of Boston University defines as the “cognitive war” against Israel; it serves the perverse purpose of validating Arab territorial rights to the West Bank and Gaza, and, more importantly, casts Israelis as squatters who have unlawfully expropriated land that is not — and never was — theirs.

In fact, Professor Emeritus Jerold Auerbach of Wellesley College has written that, protests from the State Department and many in the West aside, “Israeli settlement throughout the West Bank is explicitly protected by international agreements dating from the World War I era, subsequently reaffirmed after World War II, and never revoked since . . . The [Mandate for Palestine] recognized ‘the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine’ and ‘the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country’ . . . This was not framed as a gift to the Jewish people; rather, based on recognition of historical rights reaching back into antiquity, it was their entitlement.”

But as Professor Julius Stone discussed in his book, Israel and Palestine, the fact that the West Bank and Gaza were acquired by Israel in a “sovereignty vacuum,” that is, that there was an absence of High Contracting Party with legal claim to the areas, means that, in this instance, the definition of a belligerent occupant in invalid. “There are solid grounds in international law for denying any sovereign title to Jordan in the West Bank,” Stone wrote, “and therefore any rights as reversioner state under the law of belligerent occupation.” So, significantly, the absence of any sovereignty on territories acquired in a defensive war—as was the case in the Six Day War of 1967—means the absence of what can legally be called an occupation by Israel of the West Bank, belligerent or otherwise. “Insofar as the West Bank at present held by Israel does not belong to any other State,” Stone concluded, “the Convention would not seem to apply to it at all. This is a technical, though rather decisive, legal point.”

According to Eugene V. Rostow, the late legal scholar and one of the authors of UN Security Council Resolution 242 written after the 1967 war to outline peace negotiations, “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,” something which Israel’s intransigent Arab neighbors have never seemed prepared to do.

Moreover, Rostow contended, “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,” and “the Jewish right of settlement in the area is equivalent in every way to the right of the existing Palestinian population to live there.”

When did the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem become Palestinian land? The answer is: never. In fact, when Israel acquired the West Bank and Gaza and other territory in the defensive war 1967 after being attacked by Egypt, Syria, and Jordan, the Jewish state gained legally-recognized title to those areas. In Israel’s 1948 war of independence, Egypt, it will be recalled, illegally annexed Gaza at the same time Jordan illegally annexed the West Bank—actions that were not recognized by most of the international community as legitimate in establishing their respective sovereignties. Israel’s recapture of those territories in 1967, noted Professor Stephen Schwebel, State Department legal advisor and later the President of the International Court of Justice in The Hague, made the Jewish state what is referred to as the High Contracting Party of those territories, both because they were acquired in a defensive, not aggressive, war, and because they were part of the original Mandate and not previously under the sovereignty of any other High Contracting Party. “Where the prior holder of territory had seized that territory unlawfully,” Schwebel wrote, referring to Jordan and Egypt, “the state which subsequently takes that territory in the lawful exercise of self-defense has, against that prior holder, better title.”

It is also “unhelpful,” not to mention morally repellent, for those arguing on the Palestinian side, that the West Bank, like Gaza, eventually be made Judenrein, totally absent of Jews, that, as Mahmoud Abbas has loudly announced on more than one occasion, the future Palestinian state would not have one Jew living within its borders. Putting aside the fact that it is Israel that is continually derided for being racist and exclusionary (despite having 1 million Arab citizens), only in a world turned upside down would diplomats uphold a principle that Jews—and only Jews—not be allowed to live in certain territories, and particularly those areas to which they have irrevocable and inalterable biblical, historic, and legal claims.

The use of the this particular Geneva convention seems particularly grotesque in the case of Israel, since it was crafted after World War II specifically to prevent a repetition of the actions of the Nazis in cleansing Germany of its own Jewish citizens and deporting them to Nazi-occupied countries for slave labor or extermination. Clearly, the intent of the Convention was to prevent belligerents from forcibly moving their citizens to other territories, for malignant purposes—something completely different than the Israel government allowing its citizens to willingly relocate and settle in territories without any current sovereignty, to which Jews have long-standing legal claim, and, whether or not the area may become a future Palestinian state, should certainly be a place where a person could live, even if he or she is a Jew.

In fact, Professor Stone observed that those enemies of Israel who point to the Fourth Geneva Convention as evidence of Israel’s abuse of international law and wish to use it to end the settlements are not only legally incorrect, but morally incoherent and racist. Stone suggested that in order to recognize the validity of using the Fourth Convention against Israel, one “would have to say that the effect of Article . . . is to impose an obligation on the state of Israel to ensure (by force if necessary) that these areas, despite their millennial association with Jewish life, shall be forever judenrein. Irony would thus be pushed to the absurdity of claiming that [the Fourth Convention], designed to prevent repetition of Nazi-type genocidal policies of rendering Nazi metropolitan territories judenrein, has now come to mean that Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) must be made judenrein and must be so maintained, if necessary by the use of force by the government of Israel against its own inhabitants.”

The Cognitive War Against Israel in the Settlement Debate

[Reffo]

Just a further brief comment regarding my post #76:

Anyone who cares to read curlyg's own reference would quickly understand that the 1949 armistice lines were designed to discourage further armed conflict by stating that the boundaries cannot be changed by resorting to hostile acts. However, it clearly states that the boundaries CAN be changed by negotiations and only by negotiations. Hence the proviso that I quoted which clearly state that the armistice agreement will not prejudice any possible adjustments in the future.

So did the Arab countries adhere to those agreements? Of course not. They continued their terrorism against Israel, they triggered the 1967 war. Egypt did so by it's blockade of the straits of Tiran, Jordan actually fired the first shots at Israel. Yet they and curlyg's "scholars" expect only Israel to adhere to a paper that the Arabs routinely ignored. The funny thing is that Israel did adhere to it and still does. The "settlements" do not constitute a breach of the armistice agreements. Theoretically at least, there is no reason why the "settlements" could not end up being part of a future Palestinian Arab state. Practically of course there are plenty of reasons why that will never happen. The only practical outcome will be a negotiated agreement to incorporate the "settlements" into Israel. Either way, there was no breach by Israel.

[Reffo]

... curlyg's "scholar", Dinsein, tries to dismiss the 'no prejudice' formula in the 1949 armistice agreement, with a cute little trick or should I use curlyg's favourite word, a bizarre trick? He claims that no country's borders are permanent and all borders are negotiable. But really, I am not aware of any country who declares it's borders with the proviso that it is declared without prejudice and the borders are negotiable, as was done with the boundaries (not borders) of the 1949 armistice line. Moreover, it was done at the insistence of the Arab countries NOT Israel because they didn't want to be seen as recognizing Israel even by implication.

And that's not just my assertion, here is a link and a quote that verifies it ...

Cease Fire Versus Permanent Border

The armistice agreements were clear (at Arab insistence) that they were not creating permanent borders. The Egyptian-Israeli agreement stated "The Armistice Demarcation Line is not to be construed in any sense as a political or territorial boundary, and is delineated without prejudice to rights, claims and positions of either Party to the Armistice as regards ultimate settlement of the Palestine question."[1]

[curlyg]

Only privately owned Arab land is occupied territory. Crown lands and lands which have Jewish title holders (privately owned Jewish lands) in the West Bank, are not occupied lands. It is more accurate to say that crown lands are disputed lands.

That makes no sense whatsoever. Not trying to be rude, but there's only so far you can argue without understanding the basic legal principles involved. When we talk about occupation, we're talking about territory or population which has come under the effective control of a foreign power in the course of an armed conflict. This is a legal status governed by public international law. Land classifications such as 'Crown lands' or 'private land' are governed by domestic property law. The two are completely separate bodies of law. If territory is occupied under international law, it is occupied regardless of its status under the domestic legal system.

No. And that's why I said above, several times, that any Jewish settlements on privately owned Arab lands ARE illegal.

See above - the distinction between private/public land is a domestic law distinction, it does not affect the status of territory under public international law.

I don't dispute it in general. However I do dispute that it applies to ALL of the West Bank and I stated my reasons above

Again, above.

I most certainly DO dispute that. Unless security matters are involved.

So, to be clear, you are disputing that "you can't rely on a rule of domestic law to justify violation of a rule of international law", as I said in my original post. That helps to clarify your position, but that is a very weak argument. As I've said repeatedly, this is a very well established principle of international law that long predates the Arab-Israeli conflict. Some sources to back me up:

In the 1932 decision of the Permanent Court of International Justice (the predecessor to the ICJ), in the Treatment of Polish Nationals case, the court said that "a State cannot adduce as against another State its own Constitution with a view to evading obligations incumbent upon it under international law or treaties in force".

In the 1930 Greco-Bulgarian Communities case, it stated "it is a generally accepted principle of international law that in the relations between Powers who are contracting Parties to a treaty, the provisions of municipal law cannot prevail over those of the treaty."

Likewise, Article 27 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties states: "A party may not invoke the provisions of its internal law as justification for its failure to perform a treaty."

Article 3 of the International Law Commission's Articles on State Responsibility states: "The characterization of an act of a State as internationally wrongful is governed by international law. Such characterization is not affected by the characterization of the same act as lawful by internal law."


So, though you may dispute it, you have no basis at all for doing so. This is a pretty huge hole in Rostow's reasoning, as far as I can tell...

Yes, you keep on repeating that as a mantra. But I told you several times that the LAWS of the mandate have not lapsed. Don't you know that laws can last beyond administrations? As long as someone else is there to administer them. There are plenty of examples of this elsewhere in the world.

You haven't shown me a law, you've posted a link to the mandate instrument... Unless you are claiming that the mandate instrument was incorporated into Palestinian domestic law by statute (this is what is needed to make an international instrument into binding domestic law), in which case I want to see the specific legislation incorporating the mandate instrument, and evidence that the statute is still in force.

What do you mean by "Palestinian domestic law"? There has never been a legal sovereign entity called Palestine other than during the British mandate.

So show me legislation from the mandate period stating that the terms of the mandate instrument are incorporated into Palestine's domestic laws. Otherwise, the legal force of the mandate instrument itself lapsed when it expired. This is because of the separation I was alluding to above, between international law and domestic law. The two are actually separate legal systems. Something can be "law" under international law, but not law under domestic law. The mandate instrument is clearly no longer law under international law. If it is to be regarded as law under the domestic legal system in force in the territories, it must have been incorporated by statute into the domestic legal system. You haven't shown that. Even if you had, it would be irrelevant because - as I demonstrate above - you can't rely on domestic law to justify a violation of international law.

[curlyg]

This is a case in point why I have been requesting you to post links and quotes to back up your assertions. Because you tend to misunderstand and misenterpret things.

Your earlier claim was that the 1949 armistice lines define Israel's expected international borders.

To back that claim up, you posted your Dinstein reference. But as I proved to you in my earlier post, this backs my case up NOT yours. It quotes the same passage that I quoted:

Your own reference too mentions this quote and you don't seem to understand what it actually means. Read the item in bold. It says precisely the opposite of what you have been trying to assert.

Erm... I haven't misinterpreted Dinstein. Apparently you have. Go read it again. He regards the armistice lines as an international boundary. He says so quite explicitly in the first article I quoted him on, in the first list of quotes I posted. I also note that your accusation is, to my great surprise (given your stringent insistence on citing sources when it comes to my arguments...) entirely unsubstantiated. You haven't cited a single part of Dinstein's writing to show where I supposedly misinterpreted it. Personal attacks, though you seem to be fond of them, are not a valid method of debate.

[curlyg]

The situation is not necessarily different. Under the scenario that I painted, the Jordanians would transfer Palestinian Arabs who never lived in the West Bank and who have no title deeds to any parts of the West Bank. And many Jews too who now live in the West Bank were originally citizens of other countries or dual citizens. Not all but many.

So stop obfuscating and tell us why Israel's right should be lesser than Jordanian rights in the scenario that I gave you.

PS
Your answer in bold is the only consistent bit in your answer. The rest is obfuscation. Given your position about what Israel could or could not do. However, I actually disagree with you. IMHO (and it's not just mine), Israel's settlements are not illegal (except the ones, if any, that have been built on privately owned Arab lands). And by the same token, Jordan would be within it's right to establish Arab settlements, populated by Palestinian Arabs, in the West Bank in the scenario that I painted.

There's no "obfuscation"... As far as I can tell I've been perfectly clear. If there's something in my posts you're not able to follow, tell me specifically what it is. Just quoting whole chunks of writing and waving them aside by labelling them "obfuscation" is just plain irritating. Like you, I don't particularly enjoy repeating myself.

I noticed you came back to this issue in a later post where you asked a specific question, I will try answer that...

[curlyg]

FIRST:
By demonstrating your inconsistency regarding the rule of international law. How? By equating Israel's war of self defence in 1948 with the aggressions of Egypt and Jordan who invaded Palestine with the express purpose of acquiring new lands. And you even go further. You assert that their act of aggression gave them a greater right to the land than Israel's acquisitiion of territories in 1948 and 1967 in DEFENSIVE wars. Even though the Jewish people were not outsiders in Palestine (unlike Jordan and Egypt who were external invaders). Frankly, such a position does not demonstrate a high regard for international law but that's only a minor point for starters. Let's move on ...

Like I said, the situation between 48 and 67 was legally ambiguous. The most coherent legal interpretation of the status of the territories in that period, in my opinion, is the one suggested by Dinstein. This does not mean that I consider the war fought by Israel to be morally comparable to the wars fought by Jordan and Egypt, your own "obfuscation" notwithstanding. The fact that something is moral doesn't make it legal, nor does something being immoral make it illegal. We're not discussing the merits of the War of Independence now - we're discussing the legal status of the territory of Palestine in the aftermath of that war.

SECOND:
By mentioning the vacuum of sovereignity you confirm Israel's position that the non privately owned lands in the West Bank are disputed territories. And by doing that, you confirm that Israel has not broken the laws of the Geneva Convention in allowing Jews to settle in parts of the West Bank where they purchased lands because the lands (certainly the crown lands) are not occupied lands but disputed lands.

To quote you, this is not logical argument. You just stated your opinion without any kind of substantiation. I've already explained why this distinction you're trying to draw between private land and Crown land makes no sense under international law.

LAST BUT NOT LEAST:
I'll leave it at that for now. The only other thing that I'll mention is your seeming pre-disposition to be harder on Israel (in line with the positions of the "scholars" that you seem to favour). In your response to my thought experiment which I re-presented in my post #52, you obfuscate in favour of Jordan and the Palestinian Arabs even after I made it clear that the scenarios are virtually identical. Now let me make it 100% identical. What is your position if we are talking about Jordan transferring Palestinian Arabs who have Jordanian citizenship and who never lived in the West Bank or have any title deeds to any parts of the West Bank? Would you deem those Palestinian Arabs as illegal settlers?

Let me try and predict your response: Your response will be no response ...

As a general rule, I would regard them as illegal settlers. Yes.

The reason I've "obfuscated" (why is it that any line of thought that can't be summarised in two clear-cut sentences is obfuscation? Do you think everything has a completely straightforward and obvious legal answer?) is because the situations are not identical. Even in the scenario you've just presented, the situations are not identical. The problem is that as the situation presently stands, the right of the Jewish people to self-determination has been satisfied through the establishment of the State of Israel. The right of the Palestinian people to self-determination remains unfulfilled. As a result you have a situation where you might have a Palestinian refugee in Jordan since the 1948 war who has nowhere to go - in Jordan he is in a refugee camp, but he is not from the West Bank. However he can't return to his original home because it is in Israel. In a situation like this, would Jordan allowing this refugee to move to the West Bank constitute an illegal act? It's not clear to me. If you say 'yes', this effectively leaves that Palestinian in a legal vacuum so that he and his descendants are trapped in a refugee camp in Jordan, which is clearly not their country. I'm not saying it would be legal, but I'm not entirely certain it would be illegal either. Self-determination is a relevant factor here, but unfortunately it's also very legally ambiguous. Do you at least see why I consider these two situations different? It's not because I like to be harder on Israel, it's because the Palestinians are in a fundamentally different position as far as the realisation of their collective right to self-determination goes.

[curlyg]

I'll reply to the rest when I get a chance.

Reffo, if you can, can you please consolidate your response into a single post? This is getting extremely messy with 20 parallel discussions going on...

[Reffo]

Reffo, if you can, can you please consolidate your response into a single post? This is getting extremely messy with 20 parallel discussions going on...

See my post #79.

But let me try and summarize our differences:

You and your scholars seem to pretend that the West bank is holy Arab land under Israeli occupation. It isn't! It is a land that has been earmarked for both Jews and Arabs as was the whole of Palestine. When I say, "earmarked" I mean a division of the land, via negotiated solution, into two states, one Jewish one Arab, was recommended. However, as we both agreed, UN resolution 181 was non binding.

Since the beginning of this conflict, Israel was ready to negotiate a solution to divide the land on a mutually agreeable basis. Even though a Jewish state now exists in part of historic Palestine, for whatever reason, the way I see it due to Arab intransigence, you probably don't agree, but let's agree to disagree, for whatever reason, the status of the land has not been finalized. Till relatively recently, even the status of Israel has not been finalized according to the Arabs. Many Arabs still don't accept the right of Israel to exist. So we have two groups of people, the Palestinian Jews and the Palestinian Arabs still vying for the same piece of land or at least parts of it. Both groups belong on this disputed land so neither can be deemed as occupiers.

But you and your scholars put the cart before the horse and claim that since Jewish self determination has been achieved, now it is the turn of the Palestinian Arabs to get self determination. While I won't argue for or against that, let me remind you that such an argument is not necessarily part of the legal framework. The reality is that legally speaking, they don't necessarily have to end up having self determination. As Dayag said, there are many people on this earth who don't have self determination. I'll say it again, I am not arguing AGAINST their self determination (or for it), it's just that legally speaking it isn't imperative. You yourself admitted that the UN resolution 181 was non binding.

So where does that leave us? It leaves us with Israel administering the West Bank, not as an occupier, as your so called scholars claim and with whom my scholars vehemently disagree, but as the representative of one of the entities, the Jews, who have the right to be there. As for the settlements, they don't take up the whole of the West Bank, not by a long shot. So they don't even prejudice the possibility of a Palestinian Arab state.

There it is in a nutshell. But I can't leave your response on my thought experiment unanswered. So I will answer it on a separate post.

[Reffo]

But before I go on with the thought experiment, I can't let this response of yours unanswered ...

Yes, you keep on repeating that as a mantra. But I told you several times that the LAWS of the mandate have not lapsed. Don't you know that laws can last beyond administrations? As long as someone else is there to administer them. There are plenty of examples of this elsewhere in the world.

You haven't shown me a law, you've posted a link to the mandate instrument... Unless you are claiming that the mandate instrument was incorporated into Palestinian domestic law by statute (this is what is needed to make an international instrument into binding domestic law), in which case I want to see the specific legislation incorporating the mandate instrument, and evidence that the statute is still in force

And that document of the League of Nations is not legal enough for your liking? Ok then, two can play that game. Show me a legal document that gives the West Bank to Arabs and Arabs only. And I don't mean a recently fabricated one by a politicized UN instrumentality. I mean a historical document going back as far as the League of nations. At least as far back as the documents that I presented to you which affirmed the rights of Jews in Palestine.

[Reffo]

As a general rule, I would regard them as illegal settlers. Yes.

So according to you, a situation could conceivably arise, at least theoretically, whereby everybody, Jew or Arab could end up being classified as illegal settlers. Think about it ...

The reason I've "obfuscated" (why is it that any line of thought that can't be summarised in two clear-cut sentences is obfuscation? Do you think everything has a completely straightforward and obvious legal answer?) is because the situations are not identical

I think that from a legal point of view, they ARE entirely identical.

Even in the scenario you've just presented, the situations are not identical. The problem is that as the situation presently stands, the right of the Jewish people to self-determination has been satisfied through the establishment of the State of Israel. The right of the Palestinian people to self-determination remains unfulfilled.

This is entirely irrelevant from a legal point of view. Unless you think that ALL claims of self determination give the claimants special privileges.

As a result you have a situation where you might have a Palestinian refugee in Jordan since the 1948 war who has nowhere to go - in Jordan he is in a refugee camp, but he is not from the West Bank. However he can't return to his original home because it is in Israel

The scenario that I gave you said that we are talking about Palestinians who became Jordanian citizens, remember?

In a situation like this, would Jordan allowing this refugee to move to the West Bank constitute an illegal act?

It seems that according to you, the answer has to be a YES. I disagreed, remember? I ( not just I but many scholars too) disagree for the same reason why I disagree with the idea that Jews are illegal settlers in the West Bank.

It's not clear to me. If you say 'yes', this effectively leaves that Palestinian in a legal vacuum so that he and his descendants are trapped in a refugee camp in Jordan, which is clearly not their country

What can I say? I gave you a scenario in which I said that we are talking of Jordan settling Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank who have no title deeds to lands in the West Bank but who were granted Jordanian citizenship. But you proceed to give me an analysis not related to that. Oh well ...

I'm not saying it would be legal, but I'm not entirely certain it would be illegal either

Yet you seem to be certain about the case of the Jews. The least you could be is consistent. And before you launch into your "stateless people" mantra again, remember, the scenario that I painted for you involved Palestinian Arabs who HAVE Jordanian citizenship.

Self-determination is a relevant factor here, but unfortunately it's also very legally ambiguous.

Sure is. I am glad you admit it.

Do you at least see why I consider these two situations different?

No I don't. I gave you a scenario and you came back with your own straw man scenario.

It's not because I like to be harder on Israel, it's because the Palestinians are in a fundamentally different position as far as the realisation of their collective right to self-determination goes

What can I say other than repeat myself? I won't repeat myself but I will say that you seem to be habitually harder on the Jews and Israel than on the Arabs. There are many like you. I don't know why. Only you know why. Maybe you are just a devil's advocate? I'd like to think so.

[Pleepleus]

The Palestinians are not yet a sovereign nation. They do not have a legal right to control immigration. And the idea that Jews do not have a right to live in Judea and Samaria is RACIST! The idea that you cannot have Jews in a Palestinian state is APARTHEID and RACIST as well.