It is time to re-include Judea and Samaria as part of Israel and adopt the Levy report. by YJ Draiman

It is time to re-include Judea and Samaria as part of Israel and adopt the Levy report.
It is time for Israel to take serious action against terror and violence and restore the safety and security of its people without fear of violence, riots, stone throwing and intentional vehicular usage to kill and injure Israelis.
Remind the Arabs that they expelled over a million Jews from their counties and confiscated all their assets including land 5-6 times the size of Israel. That the Arabs must balance the books and pay for the assets and the relocation of the Jews.
Israel needs to build 100,000 housing units per year in Judea and Samaria for the next 10 years, It also needs to build 3 superhighway connecting Judea and Samaria to Israel.
Construct military bases in Judea and Samaria to protect the people and the country.
Israel also needs to build 50,000 housing units per year in greater Jerusalem and build additional roads and highway in and from Jerusalem.
Israel must also build a minimum of 10,000 housing units in the Galil and 10,000 housing units in the Negev every year for the next ten years and expand the infrastructure, roads and highways. They have to expand industry and commerce to enhance the desire of people to live in the Galil and the Negev.
Construct military bases in Judea and Samaria to protect the people and the country.

The Audacity of the Arab countries in demanding territory from the Jewish people in Palestine after they persecuted and ejected over a million Jewish families and their children who have lived in Arab land for over 2,400 years and after they confiscated all their assets and Real estate 5-6 times the size of Israel (120,440 sq. km. - 75,000 sq. mi.), valued in the trillions of dollars.

Now the Arab nations are demanding more land and more compensation.

The Arab countries have chased the million Jewish families and their children and now they want to chase them away again, from their own historical land.

YJ Draiman

P.S.

The irrefutable facts presented in the Levy Report should now put an end to the terms 'settlers', 'settlements', 'occupation', and the misnomer 'Arab-Palestinians' when referring to the Arabs in the territory of Palestine.
In 1922, the land east of the Jordan River (known as Eastern Palestine) which had originally been part of the original promise of the Jewish homeland (1920), was lopped off by Churchill to create Trans-Jordan (now present day Jordan) for
Arabs only - an apartheid state. The remaining 23% - all of the territory known as 'Palestine' today- was to be the Jewish state (1922).
Two thousand years ago, the Roman conquerors renamed the Jewish state of Judea as 'Palestina' in an effort to cut the emotional ties of Jews to their land.
Thus, until 1948, Jews were known worldwide as Arab-Palestinians when they became Israelis. Even at that time the Arabs did not use the name 'Arab-Palestinians' but preferred being identified as members of the larger Arab peoples and the countries from which they had emigrated - such as 'southern Syrians'. Years after 1948 the Arabs decided to adopt the name 'Arab-Palestinians' for political expediency because the name matches that of the territory which they would like to falsely claim as their being the 'indigenous people'.
The Levy Report brings, without a shadow of a doubt, Israel's legal and historical rights to the land west of the Jordan River and disproves the 'occupation' that is claimed by the Arabs and others. The land referred to as 'the West Bank; (in contrast to the 'East Bank') is legitimately known as Judea and Samaria and should be called by its rightful name. Israel has the right to build its communities for its residents (out with 'settlers' and 'settlements'!) and to be respected as a sovereign nation -without the interference of outside meddlers.
The Arabs who live in Israel as law-abiding citizens share rights with others. Israel is the only country in the chaotic Mid-East that respects all religions and must be secure. The Levy Report should be accepted as the groundwork for that.

The Audacity of the Arab countries in demanding territory from the Jewish people in Palestine-Israel after they expelled over a million Jewish families and their children who have lived in Arab land for over 2,400 years and after they confiscated all their assets. businesses, homes and Real estate 5-6 times the size of Israel (120,440 sq. km. - 75,000 sq. mi.), valued in the trillions of dollars.

Now the Arab nations are demanding more land and more compensation.

The Arab countries have chased the million Jews and their children and now they want to chase them away again from their own ancestral and historical land.

The Levy Report: Reinvigorating the Discussion of Israel’s Rights in the West Bank by Avi Bell BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 176, July 31, 2012

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The Commission to Examine the Status of Building in Judea and Samaria (the “Levy report”) has drawn a flurry of overwrought criticism due to its inclusion of a section concerning the lawfulness of Israeli settlement activity. But the report’s argument is surprisingly modest in substance; it does little more than endorse the traditional official Israeli position that the Fourth Geneva Convention does not apply de jure to the West Bank, and in any event does not bar Israeli settlements. Some have argued that the Levy report is foolish politically, arguing that by asserting its legal rights, Israel will signal that it is unwilling to entertain “land for peace” compromises. This seems a doubtful thesis. Israel has asserted  its  legal  rights  to  Jerusalem  for  decades,  but  yet  repeatedly  offered compromises on its rights in the city. What the Levy report has done is to reinvigorate

the discussion of the legitimacy of Israel’s position under international law after

many years in which Israel has been silent about its legal rights. That is a welcome development.

Earlier this month, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was presented with the report of the Commission to Examine the Status of Building in Judea and Samaria, headed by former Supreme Court Justice Edmond Levy (the “Levy report”). The report has drawn a flurry of overwrought criticism due to its inclusion of a section concerning the lawfulness of Israeli settlement activity.

In contrast with the misinformed and sometimes outright disingenuous criticism, the report’s discussion of the lawfulness of settlements is surprisingly modest in substance.

The report does little more than endorse the traditional official Israeli position that the Fourth Geneva Convention does not apply de jure to the West Bank, and in any event does not bar Israeli settlements. While the report’s analysis is far from comprehensive, it is more detailed and more persuasive than that usually offered by anti-settlement activists.

The Levy report adduces one of two fairly compelling reasons for concluding that the laws of belligerent occupation do not apply de jure to Israel’s presence in the West Bank.

One of the sine quibus non of belligerent occupation, as reaffirmed recently in an expert conference organized by the International Committee of the Red Cross, is that the occupation take place on foreign territory. While recent years have seen some debate on the meaning of foreign territory, considerable state practice supports the traditional view that captured territory is “foreign” only when another state has sovereignty. The Levy Commission is on solid ground in observing that neither Jordan nor any other foreign state had territorial sovereignty over the West Bank in 1967 and that the territory cannot therefore be “foreign” for purposes of the law of belligerent occupation.

Indeed, had the Levy Commission chosen to so argue, it could have argued cogently that Israel itself was already the lawful sovereign over the West Bank in 1967.

Unmentioned by the report, Israel’s peace agreement with Jordan constitutes a second reason for questioning the de jure application of the laws of belligerent occupation to the West Bank. As Yoram Dinstein wrote some time ago, the rules of belligerent occupation cannot be applied to Israel’s presence in the West Bank “in light of the combined effect of ... the Jordanian-Israeli Treaty of Peace of 1994 and the series of agreements with the Arab-Palestinians. There is simply no room for belligerent occupation in the absence of belligerence, namely, war.” While Dinstein qualified his observation by holding several

idiosyncratic views regarding the definition of occupation and the status of the

Arab-Palestinians, as well as by joining a small group of legal scholars who believe in a “post-belligerent occupation” that shares many of the rules of belligerent occupation, the majority position is still clearly that the rules of belligerent occupation do not apply to an agreed-upon peacetime presence.

On settlements, the Levy report likewise adduces several strong arguments to the effect that even if the laws of belligerent occupation applied to Israel’s presence in the West Bank, the Fourth Geneva Convention poses no bar to the kinds of actions that are subsumed under the term “settlement activities.”

The  Fourth  Geneva  Convention  forbids “transfers”  and     “deportations”  by  the occupying state of parts of its population into occupied territory, but not “settlements.”

Officials of the state of Israel have provided services to settlers and sometimes encouraged them, but the state of Israel has not transferred any Israeli to the West Bank against his or her will. In fact, as even anti-settlement activists like Talia Sasson acknowledge, “there was never a considered, ordered decision by the state of Israel, by any Israeli government” on settlements. While some governments of Israel have favored the physical expansion of settlements or the increase of their population, settlement growth has been driven by the preferences of private citizens not by official Israeli population transfers. There is no precedent for any other state being adjudged to have violated the Fourth Geneva Convention simply on the basis of permitting or facilitating private preferences in the way Israel has done. Indeed, this is the reason that the Arab states sought to redefine the bar on “transfers” in international law by including a crime of “indirect” transfers in the Rome Statute creating the International Criminal Court. However, Israel is not a party to the Rome Statute and it is therefore not bound by the alternative, more restrictive standard.

The  Levy  Commission  notes  that  even  if  facilitating  private  Jewish  residential preferences in the West Bank were otherwise suspect “transfers,” sui generis rules apply to the area. Article 6 of the Mandate of Palestine demands “encourage[ment], in cooperation with the Jewish Agency … [of] close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands...” As the late Eugene Rostow, one-time dean of Yale Law School, noted, this command is preserved by article 80 of the U.N. Charter, and, if the West Bank  (Judea and Samaria) is  under  belligerent  occupation,  by  article 43  of  the  Hague  Regulations.

Additionally, if, as Israel’s critics contend, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights applies to Israeli actions in the West Bank, articles 3, 12 and 26 of the Covenant lend urgency to Israeli efforts to protect Jewish housing rights in the West Bank in light of the Arab-Palestinian Authority death penalty for land sales to Jews coupled with senior Arab-Palestinian officials’ open call for a Jew-free state of Palestine.

Talia Sasson, author of her own controversial 2005 report on outposts, has criticized the Commission on the grounds that its conclusions are contradicted by Israeli Supreme Court rulings. But contrary to Sasson’s assertions, while the Supreme Court has adjudicated cases on the basis of Israel’s voluntary assumption of selected duties of a belligerent occupant, the Court has never ruled that the Fourth Geneva Convention applies de jure to the West Bank.

In opposing the Levy report, Aeyal Gross and David Kretzmer have claimed that if the laws of belligerent occupation do not apply de jure to the West Bank, Israel lacked the authority to empower a military commander to undertake actions such as seizing property in the territory. However, Gross and Kretzmer err. Israel’s administrative law determines the powers given to an Israeli military commander, not international law, and there is nothing to prevent Israel granting various powers to its commander in the West Bank, in the absence of a de jure belligerent occupation. History supplies more extreme  examples:  the  United  States  applied  full  military  regimes  to  defeated Confederate states after the civil war, and to Puerto Rico following a peace treaty with Spain, even though the states were American territory and there was clearly no de jure belligerent occupation.

Some have argued that the Levy report is foolish politically, arguing that by asserting its legal rights, Israel will signal that it is unwilling to entertain “land for peace” compromises. This seems a doubtful thesis. Israel has asserted its legal rights to Jerusalem for decades, but yet repeatedly offered compromises on its rights in the city.

Others  have  objected  that  the  Levy  report’s  conclusions  can  be  disputed  by international jurists, including by a controversial and non-binding advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice. It is true that like many legal controversies, the questions addressed by the Levy Commission are capable of being analyzed in a number of ways. The Levy Commission’s conclusions are logical applications of reasonable understandings of the rules in an area where no authoritative resolution of the dispute has yet been rendered.

The Levy report has reinvigorated the discussion of the legitimacy of Israel’s position under international law after many years in which Israel has been silent about its legal rights. That is a welcome development.

Avi Bell is a professor in the Rackman Faculty of Law at Bar-Ilan University and the University of San Diego School of Law.

BESA Perspectives is published through the generosity of the Greg Rosshandler Family

does not bar Israeli settlements. While the report’s analysis is far from comprehensive, it is more detailed and more persuasive than that usually offered by anti-settlement activists.

The Levy report adduces one of two fairly compelling reasons for concluding that the laws of belligerent occupation do not apply de jure to Israel’s presence in the West Bank.

One of the sine quibus non of belligerent occupation, as reaffirmed recently in an expert conference organized by the International Committee of the Red Cross, is that the occupation take place on foreign territory. While recent years have seen some debate on the meaning of foreign territory, considerable state practice supports the traditional view that captured territory is “foreign” only when another state has sovereignty. The Levy Commission is on solid ground in observing that neither Jordan nor any other foreign state had territorial sovereignty over the West Bank in 1967 and that the territory cannot therefore be “foreign” for purposes of the law of belligerent occupation.

Indeed, had the Levy Commission chosen to so argue, it could have argued cogently that Israel itself was already the lawful sovereign over the West Bank in 1967.

Unmentioned by the report, Israel’s peace agreement with Jordan constitutes a second reason for questioning the de jure application of the laws of belligerent occupation to the West Bank. As Yoram Dinstein wrote some time ago, the rules of belligerent occupation cannot be applied to Israel’s presence in the West Bank “in light of the combined effect of ... the Jordanian-Israeli Treaty of Peace of 1994 and the series of agreements with the Arab-Palestinians. There is simply no room for belligerent occupation in the absence of belligerence, namely, war.” While Dinstein qualified his observation by holding several

idiosyncratic views regarding the definition of occupation and the status of the

Arab-Palestinians, as well as by joining a small group of legal scholars who believe in a “post-belligerent occupation” that shares many of the rules of belligerent occupation, the majority position is still clearly that the rules of belligerent occupation do not apply to an agreed-upon peacetime presence.

On settlements, the Levy report likewise adduces several strong arguments to the effect that even if the laws of belligerent occupation applied to Israel’s presence in the West Bank, the Fourth Geneva Convention poses no bar to the kinds of actions that are subsumed under the term “settlement activities.”

The  Fourth  Geneva  Convention  forbids “transfers” and “deportations” by  the occupying state of parts of its population into occupied territory, but not “settlements.”

Officials of the state of Israel have provided services to settlers and sometimes encouraged them, but the state of Israel has not transferred any Israeli to the West Bank against his or her will. In fact, as even anti-settlement activists like Talia Sasson acknowledge, “there was never a considered, ordered decision by the state of Israel, by any Israeli government” on settlements. While some governments of Israel have favored the physical expansion of settlements or the increase of their population, settlement growth has been driven by the preferences of private citizens not by official Israeli population transfers. There is no precedent for any other state being adjudged to have violated the Fourth Geneva Convention simply on the basis of permitting or facilitating private preferences in the way Israel has done. Indeed, this is the reason that the Arab states sought to redefine the bar on “transfers” in international law by including a crime of “indirect” transfers in the Rome Statute creating the International Criminal Court. However, Israel is not a party to the Rome Statute and it is therefore not bound by the alternative, more restrictive standard.

The  Levy  Commission  notes  that  even  if  facilitating  private  Jewish  residential preferences in the West Bank were otherwise suspect “transfers,” sui generis rules apply to the area. Article 6 of the Mandate of Palestine demands “encourage[ment], in cooperation with the Jewish Agency … [of] close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands...” As the late Eugene Rostow, one-time dean of Yale Law School, noted, this command is preserved by article 80 of the U.N. Charter, and, if the West Bank  (Judea and Samaria) is  under  belligerent  occupation,  by  article 43  of  the  Hague  Regulations.

Additionally, if, as Israel’s critics contend, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights applies to Israeli actions in the West Bank, articles 3, 12 and 26 of the Covenant lend urgency to Israeli efforts to protect Jewish housing rights in the West Bank in light of the Arab-Palestinian Authority death penalty for land sales to Jews coupled with senior Arab-Palestinian officials’ open call for a Jew-free state of Palestine.

Talia Sasson, author of her own controversial 2005 report on outposts, has criticized the Commission on the grounds that its conclusions are contradicted by Israeli Supreme Court rulings. But contrary to Sasson’s assertions, while the Supreme Court has adjudicated cases on the basis of Israel’s voluntary assumption of selected duties of a belligerent occupant, the Court has never ruled that the Fourth Geneva Convention applies de jure to the West Bank.

In opposing the Levy report, Aeyal Gross and David Kretzmer have claimed that if the laws of belligerent occupation do not apply de jure to the West Bank, Israel lacked the authority to empower a military commander to undertake actions such as seizing property in the territory. However, Gross and Kretzmer err. Israel’s administrative law determines the powers given to an Israeli military commander, not international law, and there is nothing to prevent Israel granting various powers to its commander in the West Bank, in the absence of a de jure belligerent occupation. History supplies more extreme  examples:  the  United  States  applied  full  military  regimes  to  defeated

Confederate states after the civil war, and to Puerto Rico following a peace treaty with Spain, even though the states were American territory and there was clearly no de jure belligerent occupation.

Some have argued that the Levy report is foolish politically, arguing that by asserting its legal rights, Israel will signal that it is unwilling to entertain “land for peace” compromises. This seems a doubtful thesis. Israel has asserted its legal rights to Jerusalem for decades, but yet repeatedly offered compromises on its rights in the city.

Others  have  objected  that  the  Levy  report’s  conclusions  can  be  disputed  by international jurists, including by a controversial and non-binding advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice. It is true that like many legal controversies, the questions addressed by the Levy Commission are capable of being analyzed in a number of ways. The Levy Commission’s conclusions are logical applications of reasonable understandings of the rules in an area where no authoritative resolution of the dispute has yet been rendered.

The Levy report has reinvigorated the discussion of the legitimacy of Israel’s position under international law after many years in which Israel has been silent about its legal rights. That is a welcome development.

Avi Bell is a professor in the Rackman Faculty of Law at Bar-Ilan University and the University of San Diego School of Law.

BESA Perspectives is published through the generosity of the Greg Rosshandler Family