 | THE FAILURE OF CAMP DAVID II :
That then brings us to this Summer -- the so-called Camp David
Negotiations. This was not the idea of the Palestinian leadership; rather it
was the idea of Prime Minister Barak with the support of President Clinton.
Basically, Clinton pressured the leadership of the Palestinian People into
accepting a permanent Bantustan arrangement for the West Bank and Gaza
Strip. And of course, for that reason, it failed. The negotiations at Camp
David failed. Now, at that point, President Clinton proceeded to blame the
leadership of the Palestinian People for rejecting a Bantustan and then
proceeded to illegally threaten the movement of the United States Embassy
from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem if President Arafat did not accept the Bantustan
Proposal permanently, which he refused to do and to his credit.
That being said, on September 28, former General Ariel Sharon, the Butcher
of Sabra and Shatilla, the man responsible for the massacre of 2,000
innocent Palestinians at the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatilla, the
architect of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, that killed 20,000 people in
Lebanon, a man cashiered by his own government, at that time appeared at
Haram al Sharif in Jerusalem -- the big plateau -- the third holiest site in
Islam -- where it's the Al Aqsa Mosque on the one hand and the Dome of the
Rock on the other, where Mohammed ascended to Heaven -- surrounded by about
1,000 troops undoubtedly with the approval of Prime Minister Barak. They
knew exactly what they were doing. They knew exactly what the reaction of
the Palestinian People would be to this provocation and desecration. And if
there was any doubt about it, the Israeli Army returned the next day and
shot dead several Palestinians on Haram al Sharif, thus setting off what has
come to be known as the Al Aqsa Infada, in support of the Al Aqsa Mosque.
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| U.N. SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTION 1332
Now on 7 October 2000, the United
Nations Security Council adopted a resolution that is extremely important. The
vote was fourteen to zero -- the United States
government abstained. It did not go for; it did not go against; it
abstained. The United States Government could have vetoed this resolution,
but it did not. And so it is a matter of binding international law. I won't
go through the entire resolution, but I do want to spend a few moments
commenting on its most important provisions.
Paragraph 1: The Security Council "deplores the provocation carried out
at Al-Haram Al-Sharif in Jerusalem on 28 September 2000 and the subsequent
violence there...." Notice, the Security Council by a vote of 14 to 0
made it very clear that it was Sharon's desecration of the Haram al-Sharif
with the support of Prime Minister Barak that is responsible for the start
of the current round of bloodshed and warfare in occupied Palestinian Lands
today. Nothing could be further from dispute than this point adopted 14 to 0
by the Security Council. Even the United States did not go against that
determination.
Notice in paragraph 3, again the Security Council 14 to 0, "Calls upon
Israel, the occupying Power...." Occupying power has a definite meaning
in international law. Israel occupies the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the
entire City of Jerusalem. Israel is what we lawyers call a belligerent
occupant. Israel has no sovereignty over the West Bank and Gaza Strip, or
the entire City of Jerusalem. Israel is not the sovereign. It occupies these
Palestinian Lands. And so what we see here is a struggle between the
belligerent occupant Israel against the Palestinian People living on their
own lands.
Belligerent occupation is governed by The Hague Regulations of 1907, as well
as the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949. So Israel has no sovereignty over
the West Bank and Gaza Strip and Jerusalem. This is not their land as far as
the Security Council is concerned, as far as international law is concerned,
as far as the entire international community is concerned, even as far as
the United States of America is concerned. This is not Israeli land. The
West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the entire City of Jerusalem -- this is
occupied Land. And all of these areas are subject to The Hague Regulations
of 1907, the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, and the Customary Laws of
Belligerent Occupation. Israel is not the sovereign. And when you read in
the newspapers Israel saying, well this is our land, it isn't. Again, the
Security Council determined 14 to 0, it is not their land.
And that has been the case for the West Bank and Gaza Strip since the war of
1967. That has been the case for East Jerusalem since the war of 1967. As
for West Jerusalem, the world has never recognized Israel's annexation of
West Jerusalem either. That is why the United States Embassy and the
Embassies of almost every country in the world that has diplomatic relations
with Israel, except for a few banana republics that have been bought and
paid for, have their embassies in Tel Aviv and not Jerusalem.
Second, paragraph 3 "Calls upon Israel, the occupying Power, to abide
scrupulously by its legal obligations and its responsibilities under the
Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in a
Time of War of 12 August 1949...." Again, the vote 14 to 0. The Fourth
Geneva Convention applies to the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the entire
City of Jerusalem, in order to protect Palestinians. The Palestinian People
living in these Lands are "protected persons" within the meaning
of the Fourth Geneva Convention. All of their rights are sacred under
international law. Under international law the Palestinian People have more
rights than you or I or anyone else sitting in this hall today. There are
over 147 articles of the Fourth Geneva Convention that protect the rights of
every one of these Palestinians. And as we are seeing today, the Israeli
Government is violating and has in the past been violating, the rights of
the Palestinian People under the Fourth Geneva Convention. Indeed,
violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention are war crimes. So this is not a
symmetrical situation. The Israeli army, occupying army here; Palestinian
civilians over there -- and their rights are protected by those over 147
articles. That is very clear -- nothing could be clearer. And as a matter of
fact, the gross violation of Palestinian rights by the Israeli army in
occupied Palestinian Lands constitutes war crimes.
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| "CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY"
Indeed, it's far more serious than that. The
United Nations Human Rights Commission sent a Special Rapporteur to occupied
Palestinian Lands to investigate the situation that has occurred as a result of the
Al Aqsa Intifada. And the U.N. Human Rights Commission then adopted a
resolution condemning Israel for violating the Fourth Geneva Convention, its
rights as a belligerent occupant, and stating that Israeli policies
constitutes "a war crime and a crime against humanity." Let me
repeat that: "a war crime and a crime against humanity." I think
we all have a general idea of what a war crime is and I'm not going to
lecture on that here. There are different varieties of war crimes. There are
the more serious "grave breaches" of the Fourth Geneva Convention,
and we see that every day -- willful killing of Palestinian civilians by the
Israeli army is a grave breach mandating universal prosecution for these war
crimes.
But I want to focus for a moment on "a crime against humanity" --
as determined by the U.N. Human Rights Commission set up pursuant to the
United Nations Charter. What is a crime against humanity? This goes back to
the Nuremberg Charter of 1945. And in the Nuremberg Charter of 1945 drafted
by the United States Government there was created and inserted a new type of
international crime specifically intended to deal with the Nazi persecution
of the Jewish People. The paradigmatic example of a crime against humanity
is what Hitler and the Nazis did to the Jewish People. This is where the
concept of crime against humanity was formulated and came from. And this is
what the U.N. Human Rights Commission is now saying that Israel is doing to
the Palestinian People. A crime against humanity.
Moreover, a crime against humanity is the direct precursor to the
international crime of genocide recognized by the 1948 Genocide Convention.
Again, the theory here was that what Hitler and the Nazis did to the Jewish
People required a special international treaty that would codify the concept
of a crime against humanity. And that treaty ultimately became the 1948
Genocide Convention. You will note the U.N. Human Rights Commission does not
go so far as to condemn Israel for committing genocide against the
Palestinian People. But it has condemned them for committing a crime against
humanity, which is the precursor to genocide. And I submit that if something
is not done quite soon by the American People and the United States
Government to stop Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity against
the Palestinian People, it could very well degenerate into genocide, if it
is not there already.
Now, that is, I think, a fair and accurate legal characterization of the
situation and you will note even the United States Government did not veto
the Security Council Resolution although it did oppose the U.N. Human Rights
Commission Resolution which is not unexpected.
Now today we've heard a proposal from Prime Minister Barak to accelerate
negotiations with the Palestinian People. All I've read are the press
accounts and his descriptions of it. It does appear to me that he continues
to intend to impose his Bantustan model upon the Palestinian People.
Personally I have always been of the opinion along with my client and my
friend Dr. Haidar Abdul Shaffi that the Bantustan model will never work.
That if the United States and Israel attempt to continue imposing the
Bantustan model, or even somehow bully, threaten, intimidate and coerce
President Arafat into signing a Bantustan agreement, it will never work, and
we will continue to see violence and bloodshed in these occupied Palestinian
Lands.
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| PEACE IS STILL POSSIBLE
That all being said, I still believe that peace is
possible. Indeed, it was my job as Legal Adviser to the Palestinian
Delegation to the Middle East Peace Negotiations to figure this out on paper
on instructions of Dr. Haidar Abdul Shaffi himself. On November 15, 1988,
the Palestine National Council proclaimed an Independent Palestinian State
in Algiers and also in front of Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Again, notice
the importance and the significance Al Aqsa to the Palestinian People. This
created a remarkable opportunity for peace if Israel really wants peace. The
Declaration of Independence accepted the U.N. General Assembly Partition
Resolution 181 of 1947 calling for the creation of a Jewish State and an
Arab State in the former mandate for Palestine together with an
international trusteeship for the City of Jerusalem. In my opinion, this is
the only solution to the problem: A Palestinian State -- a genuine free,
independent Palestinian State on the West Bank and Gaza and shared
sovereignty over the City of Jerusalem, sovereignty shared between Israel
and Palestine, Jerusalem as the joint capital of both states. In my opinion,
this arrangement can produce peace between Israel and Palestine. The current
Bantustan Proposal offered by Barak with the support of President Clinton
would only produce more war.
Indeed, it should be emphasized that Israel officially accepted the U.N.
Partition Resolution in its own Declaration of Independence and as a
condition for its admission to membership in the United Nations
Organization. So there is no dispute here as to the legality of the
two-state proposal and some type of shared arrangement for Jerusalem.
Moreover, as another express condition for its admission to the United
Nations Organization, Israel officially endorsed and agreed to carry out
U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194 of 1948 which determined that the
Palestinian refugees have a right to return to their homes, or that
compensation should be paid to those who choose not to return. Prime
Minister Barak has rejected Resolution 194 despite the fact that Israel
accepted it as a condition for its membership in the United Nations
Organization. Indeed, this same right is recognized in article 13, paragraph
2 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights -- and here, we are
commemorating the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
and we are also commemorating the anniversary of the Partition Resolution.
And that article 13(2) says quite clearly, "Everyone has the right ...
to return to his country." It's a basic human right of the Palestinian
People. This is customary international law. There will be no peace until
the Government of Israel is prepared to live up to the promise it gave to
implement Resolution 194. As you know, Israel accepted one million people
from the former Soviet Union and moved many of them on to occupied
Palestinian Lands in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Well they
could have easily accepted a million Palestinians instead and have gone a
long way towards solving this problem. But again, the potential is still
there for a peace settlement if we see good faith on the part of Israel and
the United States Government. I regret to report that so far we have not.
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| DISMANTLING ISRAEL'S APARTHEID
SYSTEM.
I really do not know what will happen. As you know
the Clinton administration will be going out of power. We don't know who the
next President will be. Prime Minister Barak has called for new elections.
There is enormous turmoil in the situation. Palestinians are being killed
every day as we speak courtesy of the United States Government. And I submit
that it is up to you students to do something about this situation. I
remember when I first came to the University of Illinois in 1978. The
anti-apartheid movement that was started in this country by students and
student organizations protesting, demonstrating, organizing leaflets,
demanding divestment, disinvestment, organizing on a national and
international basis. And eventually it culminated in the adoption of the
Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986 which was the death blow to the
racist Afrikaaner Apartheid Regime in South Africa. When that was adopted
and the United States was completely cut off from any cooperation with South
Africa, it was very clear to the Afrikaaner Apartheid Regime that apartheid
had to be dismantled. Soon thereafter, Nelson Mandela was released from
prison. Negotiations began. Democratic elections occurred in South Africa
and now the African National Congress governs South Africa. De jure
apartheid has been dismantled in South Africa. Nelson Mandela became the
President of the Republic of South Africa. The same situation can happen
here.
You students can go out, research what the anti-apartheid movement did in
this country, and your predecessors starting twenty years ago, and do the
exact same thing here. You have to. If you want to see peace in the Middle
East, you're going to have to go out and do something because so far the
United States Government is not an honest broker. They never have been. I
have been at these negotiations. I can tell you that the United States fully
supports whatever Israel wants.
So I leave here with an injunction that you students go out and study the
situation. Study the techniques of your predecessors in the anti-apartheid
movement. Proceed to organize and try to promote peace in the Middle East.
Peace between the Israeli People and the Palestinian People that can last. I
believe this is possible. But you cannot rely on the government, on the
politicians in Washington to do it. You're going to have to do it
yourselves. Thank you.
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|
QUESTION AND ANSWER
SESSION
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Crimes against
humanity:
Question: "Mr. Boyle, we all know that, as mentioned before
crimes against peace, crimes against humanity and war crimes constitute
violation of human rights under universal jurisdiction. My question is
since we had the tribunal for Yugoslavia and Rwanda, how come we don't
have an ad hoc tribunal for Israel. Thank you."
Boyle: Yes, we could and I've made this proposal. The tribunals
for Yugoslavia and Rwanda have been established by the United Nations
Security Council. The United States would clearly veto any attempt to
establish such a tribunal by the Security Council. But the United
Nations General Assembly has the authority to establish an international
criminal tribunal for Palestine by a majority vote of the General
Assembly pursuant to article 22 of the United Nations Charter. Article
22 allows the General Assembly to establish subsidiary bodies. And so
the General Assembly could if it wanted to set up an international
criminal tribunal for Israel and adopt the statute for the International
Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Rwanda would not be
appropriate because that's an internal armed conflict. The Yugoslav
tribunal is an international armed conflict. So it can be done, but what
will be needed is a majority vote in the General Assembly to do this.
I have made this suggestion to Arab and Muslim states. So far they
haven't done anything with it. I think you must understand that so many
of these Arab states and leaders -- not the people but the leaders --
really could not care less about the Palestinians. They are on their own
as they always have been. And so for many of these Arab leaders the
Palestinian People are just a domestic public relations problem. All
they need to do is try to convince their own people that they're really
doing something when they're not doing something. So they'll issue
declarations, proclamations. The League of Arab States will have a
meeting in Cairo that means absolutely nothing. All the diplomats know
it. But it's a total PR job for these leaders to convince their people
that they really care about the Palestinians. Their people care, but the
leaders don't.
So, for that reason, again, it's very important for America's students
to do something. Understand, we give five billion dollars a year to
Israel to kill, oppress, and destroy the Palestinian People. All the
weapons you're seeing here are either provided directly by the United
States or are paid for or parts or components are provided by the United
States. None of this could be happening without the consent and approval
of the United States Government. So we have enormous power and leverage
here in the United States to stop this and to produce a just, lasting,
comprehensive peace between Israel and the Palestinians. But in turn
that will again depend I think on student organizations working at the
grass roots level to do something about the problem. And we can succeed.
We succeeded with the anti-apartheid movement. It's a similar situation
here.
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|
One State for
Israelis and Palestinians.
Well, let me say this. At one point the Palestinian People called for
the creation of one, secular democratic state for the entire mandate of
Palestine. Israel accused them of then calling for the destruction of
the State of Israel. So in order to respond to this point, they then
adopted the Declaration of Independence that said to Israel, well
alright, if you do not want one, democratic secular state for the entire
mandate of Palestine, you can have your state and we want our state. So
that's the current situation. Under these circumstances, that seems to
be the alternative preferred by both Israel and Palestine. Out of
respect for the Palestinian People, until they change their position I
think this is what we have to support. You know, Edward Said is a friend
of mine -- I have great respect and admiration for him and perhaps at
some point in the future, when you have a period of time that the
Palestinian State can establish itself and its freedom and independence
and self-identity, then you might be able to talk about two separate
sovereign states coming together freely and voluntarily but not because
of duress, force and coercion, but freely and voluntarily coming
together to establish one state. That could be possible. But right now,
in answer to the question, I think we certainly have to respect the
wishes of the Palestinian People. The Declaration of Independence was
adopted by the Palestine National Council itself back in the days back
when they had a real Palestine National Council. And in those days, the
Council represented all elements of the Palestinian People -- not only
those living in occupied Palestine, but also those living in The
Diaspora. So this is the reality that we are currently dealing with. And
I think we have to deal with the situation as it currently exists.
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|
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Preserving the Unity of
Jerusalem:
I agree with everything you said. As a matter of fact, I drafted a
proposal on how to accomplish this, which I submitted to the PLO and they
did approve it. So that is acceptable to the Palestinian leadership. The
problem is that Israel is insisting on a slice of the cake. And so it
becomes very difficult for the Palestinian People to propose any type of
shared arrangement, trusteeship, or any joint sovereignty, or whatever,
when Israel is insisting on it's half of the pie with the full backing of
the United States Government. But they have consented to this type of
trusteeship arrangement. I drafted this proposal. You can read it if you
want. I'm happy to send it to you. And that was my proposal -- that it
could be done this way. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like that's going
to work out in the negotiations. The Palestinians have proposed it, Israel
rejected it and Israel says we will give the Palestinians
"autonomy." Actually it's like Solomon in reverse, right. Israel
wants a cut of the baby.
The Palestinians offered a shared arrangement and it was rejected. And
then the Israelis returned by saying, we're going to give you autonomy
(which means nothing) and we're going to keep sovereignty in all
Jerusalem. Of course President Arafat rejected that. That's where we stand
right now. But certainly in a return to negotiations, if they were in good
faith by Israel and the United States, well I believe the Palestinian
leadership would accept such a shared arrangement. But I can't speak for
them. All I know, I drafted a proposal and they accepted it. Israel
rejected it and the Palestinians got no support by the United States
Government. So it's very difficult for the Palestinians to make an offer
that's very reasonable, that meets the legitimate needs on the other side
and to have the Israelis say, we reject it and the Americans to say, we
agree with the Israelis. What could they do? I don't know.
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|
Palestinian Economy:
As for your first point about the economy of Palestine. Right. The current
arrangements, again it's a Bantustan. There will be no independent
Palestinian economy at all. It will just be an appendage of Israel. The
Palestinians will be, you know, serfs. But in a genuine independent state,
free, democratic, secular, with human rights, one could see the
development of a viable Palestinian economy. As we know, the Palestinians
are the most highly educated people in the entire Middle East,
hard-working, industrious. Natural gas has just been found off of Gaza.
Palestine would be no more and no less viable than Israel. I mean, how
viable is Israel? Without the five billion dollars a year given by the
United States, the entire economy would collapse. So I agree with you. But
under the current circumstances, the current Bantustan arrangement, no
way. I don't see how the Palestinians can do it unless they get a genuine
independent state where they can go out and develop their people -- highly
trained, highly educated, highly motivated -- and accomplish those
objectives. So again we get back to the need for them to have a state of
their own first because again, with all due respect to Edward Said, my
friend and colleague, under the current circumstances you just see total
absorption of the Palestinians. So they will need time to do this and you
know if the United States is prepared to give them five billion dollars a
year, I'm sure they'd be very able to have a full, free developed economy.
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|
Power of the Israel Lobby:
Well I personally don't think we are in the pocket of Israel. I mean, they
will pretty much do what we want them to do. This is a tribute as it were
to the phenomenal organizing power of the Jewish People. But I'm
Irish-American. We run this country. And we did that by a lot of hard work
and organizing. And we have a lot more power than the Jewish People. I
think that Arab-Americans, Muslim-Americans, Islam is the fastest-growing
religion in the United States today. Six million people and their
supporters are going to have to organize and go out there and do just what
the Irish and the Jews did. But the bottom line is, and here I do agree
with Noam Chomsky's analysis. And again I think you know it's remarkable
to see agreement between Professor Noam Chomsky, a friend of mine, a very
courageous and distinguished Jewish American and Edward Said, a very
courageous distinguished Palestinian American, that Israel is over there
to do our dirty work for us. They are our aircraft carrier over there, our
jumping-off point, to keep the region under control, to keep the oil
resources close, our mercenaries. And if some day they don't do what
they're told to do, there could be problems for them. So I don't think
that we are in Israel's pocket. They're in our pocket. We have the power
to tell them what to do but people are going to have to start to get
organized, to exercise that power to produce peace.
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|
President Arafat Being
Subservient to the United States:
Well, President Arafat did not choose the United States. The United States
under President Bush basically ordered President Arafat and Prime Minister
Shamir to go to Madrid and to have peace negotiations. It was just
ordered. The President of the United States is pretty much the emperor of
the world, right now. As all of our Presidents have been proud to say
since the end of the Cold War, "We're the most powerful country in
the world." "We're the only Super Power in the world." As
former President Bush put it, "What we say goes." So when Bush
ordered Shamir go to Madrid, there was a lot of hemming and hawing, and
kicking and screaming, but he went to Madrid. It was the same way with
President Arafat and he had a lot less power. The Palestinians understand
this full well. They know that the United States is working hand in glove
with Israel. The United States will just want them to sign this Bantustan
arrangement and put it aside and get rid of it just like they wanted to do
with Bosnia -- carve it up and get it out of the way and move on to the
next item on the agenda. It's only the heroic resistance of the
Palestinian People living in occupied Palestine in the first Intifada
starting in 1987, and now the current Intifada, that is forcing the United
States Government to do anything. And so we'll see what the United States
Government does. I really don't know.
As for President Arafat, yesterday, Dr. Haidar Abdul Shaffi called for the
establishment of a government of national unity for the Palestinian
People. I think this is an excellent idea. Technically, as a matter of
law, the Palestinian Authority as it is is not the legitimate government
of the Palestinian People. Under the Declaration of Independence, the
Provisional Government of the State of Palestine is the Executive
Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization. The PA does nothing
more than control some ground over there. So Dr. Abdul Shaffi is perfectly
correct -- you need a government of national unity at this time of crisis
to represent all elements of the Palestinian People -- not only those
living in occupied Palestine, but also those living in the Diaspora. I do
not know if President Arafat will respond to this plea. This is a problem
of Palestinian democracy. Thank you very much.
Copyright © 2000 by Francis A.
Boyle. All rights reserved.
Prof. Francis A. Boyle
Law Building
504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.
Champaign, IL 61820 USA
fboyle@law.uiuc.edu
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