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Human Rights and International Law

The Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center (RMPJC) views the ongoing crisis in Israel and the Occupied Territories of Palestine as, primarily, a human rights issue. We are working for a nonviolent resolution to this conflict that is based on compliance with U.S. and international law. Three international agreements and one U.S. law of particular relevance to this crisis are:

•    The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html, lists the basic human rights. The U.S. played a leading role in drafting this Declaration and was one of the nations voting for its ratification during the UN General Assembly on Dec. 10,1948. This Declaration is recognized as customary international law. The Peace Center supports human rights for both Israelis and Palestinians. However, upon examining the rights specified in this Declaration, it is clear that the Palestinians living under Israeli occupation are denied most of these basic rights.

•    Another important document regarding the rights of people living under occupation is the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention, http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/FULL/380?OpenDocument. Articles 47 through 78 refer to the responsibilities of the occupying power. Although Israel has signed and ratified this Convention, Israel has failed to honor most of these articles as applied to the Palestinians living under occupation. One crucial point in Article 49 is: “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” This means that all Israeli settlers in the Occupied Territories (includes East Jerusalem) are there illegally. The U.S. has also signed and ratified this Convention. Article 1 of the Convention states: “The High Contracting Parties undertake to respect and to ensure respect for the present Convention in all circumstances.” Instead of honoring its word, the U.S. has time and time again through its numerous vetoes in the UN Security Council thwarted the international community’s efforts to see that Israel respects the Convention.

•    A third resolution of great interest is United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194 (http://www.state.gov/p/nea/rls/22566.htm) that addresses the Palestinian refugees right of return to their homes. This resolution was passed on December 11, 1948. The key article re the right of return is the following:

“Resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible;”

During 1948 about 750,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes or fled in terror after several Jewish massacres of Palestinians. Deir Yassin was the most publicized of these horrific acts. This resolution was intended to help these victims of the war.

•    A crucial and most relevant U.S. law is the Arms Export Control Act (Public Law 90-829) that limits the use of U.S. weapons given or sold to a foreign country to “internal security” and “legitimate self-defense”. U.S. weapons may not be used against civilians. Israel has time and time again violated this act. The latest egregious and blatant examples occurred July/August 2006 in Lebanon and since late June 2006 in Gaza where civilians have been the primary victims of the use of American-made weapons. It is past time for Congress to live up to its responsibilities and enforce this U.S. law.

Israeli Occupation’s Impact on Palestinians

RMPJC believes that Israel’s 40-year long occupation of Palestinian lands is the main reason the conflict continues to this day. The Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands has led and continues to lead to the daily denial of human rights, to violent acts against Palestinians, and to blatant violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention. To give some idea of what occurs under the Israeli occupation, we are providing the following partial listing of Israeli actions against the defenseless Palestinian population. Israel often imposes 24-hours-a-day curfews for days on end that prevent people from going to their jobs and earning the money they need to support their families. These curfews also prevent children from going to school, people from getting medical care, visiting family and friends and having any kind of semblance of normal daily lives. In addition, Israel has systematically destroyed wells, pulled up olive groves, and destroyed the homes of Palestinian families. Furthermore, Israel regularly shells Palestinian villages, raids and detains people under administrative detention without trials, and kills and maims innocent women, children and men.

Providing the above listing in no way justifies Palestinian violence against Israeli civilians. The Peace Center abhors all Israeli and Palestinian violence. The listing is meant to provide a fuller picture than that usually provided by the U.S. media.

Need for International Intervention

There is a big lie that the Arabs/Palestinians never miss an opportunity to reach peace with Israel. In reality, Israel has eluded several opportunities. In chapter 3 of the “The Fateful Triangle”, Noam Chomsky details numerous Arab peace overtures/offers and U.S. plans that Israel ignored or rejected. Chomsky wrote that Israeli writer Amos Elon reported about the “panic and unease among our political leadership” caused by Arab peace proposals during the 1970s and early 1980s. According to Chomsky, Israeli doves recognized peace was achievable but was rejected in hopes of greater territorial gain. Perhaps the Israeli attitude is best captured by Israeli Prime Minister Shamir who announced after he left office that his strategy was to drag out the Washington-sponsored Madrid peace negotiations for ten years, by which time the annexation of the West Bank would be an accomplished fact (http://www.merip.org/palestine-israel_primer/madrid-conf-pal-isr-primer....). In addition, after the negotiations at Taba, Egypt came close to an agreement in January 2001, new Israeli Prime Minister Sharon refused to restart the negotiations although the Palestinians wanted to continue them. Israeli rejectionism continues with its outright rejection of the Arab proposal in 2002 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1844214.stm).

The idea that the Israelis and the Palestinians can achieve a peaceful resolution by themselves has been discredited since the flawed Oslo negotiations that, in effect, accomplished much of what Shamir desired. When one side is far stronger, it is reluctant to make the compromises necessary for a just peace. It is up to the U.S., the U.N. and other nations to end the unnecessary and horrific sufferings by both Palestinians and Israelis.

Support Human Rights and International/U.S. Laws

The U.S. has clearly failed to uphold its own laws as well as international conventions and laws in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Therefore the RMPJC requests that members of our Congressional delegation take a strong position in support of Palestinian human rights and also support U.S. compliance with international and U.S. law in all legislation and resolutions re Israel/Palestine as well as all other international conflicts. In particular, given the blatant violations of Palestinian human rights, we call on the U.S. to pressure Israel to end its occupations. Unless the U.S. ends the hypocrisy in its positions on this conflict, the Middle East will remain a powder keg and U.S. interests will continue to suffer.