http://www3.haaretz.co.il/eng/scripts/article.asp?mador=4&datee=3/27/01&id=114806
The right to resist
By Baruch Kimmerling, Ha'aretz,
Tuesday, March 27, 2001
As difficult as it may be for us, it's important to make clear the
political, legal and moral reality in its historical context: Since
1967, millions of Palestinians have been under a military occupation,
without any civil rights with, and most lacking even the most basic
human rights. The continuing circumstances of occupation and
repression give them, by any measure, the right to resist that
occupation with any means at their disposal and to rise up in violence
against that occupation. This is a moral right inherent to natural law
and international law.The problem is worsened by physical proximity,
in which the two populations live next door to one another, and how
that imposes itself on the form of fighting. Indiscriminate
Palestinian terrorism against civilian populations in the heart of
Israel is immoral, and has a boomerang effect. It increases anger and
hatred in the Jewish community and blocks the possibility that an
empathetic, rational view can be taken of rightful Palestinian
demands. The terrorism also serves as a political tool, consciously
used by cynical politicians on the right, and lately by some leading
army commanders, to torpedo any possibility of agreements between
Israel and the Palestinians.
Furthermore, steps initiated by the army and the settlers often result
in the indiscriminate killing of Palestinians, which is equally
unacceptable by any human measure. Hundreds of Palestinians have been
killed and thousands wounded since the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa
Intifada in late September. Israel now turns frequently to collective
punishments - sieges and carving up of Palestinian territory - that
are expressedly forbidden by international law and convention. And
Israel uses personal terrorism against those it defines as field
commanders of the Palestinian uprising.
The Palestinian right to resist the occupation is strengthened by the
Fourth Geneva Convention's ban on creating irreversible facts on the
ground in occupied territories, and especially the ban on transferring
populations from the occupying state to the territories it has
conquered. Israel's claim that it is not an occupier - because there
was no sovereignty over those lands since the British left in 1948,
and the Palestinians rejected the 1948 partition plan - is at best,
dodgy.
According to the High Court of Justice, which is well aware of the
Fourth Geneva Convention, all the settlements over the Green Line were
built for "security" reasons, which is the loophole Israel found in
international law to justify their construction. The second "legal"
loophole used by Israel is that it does not expropriate private
property, only establishing settlements on "state lands."
Since 1967, more than 60 percent of the West Bank has been defined as
"state lands," which in effect has meant selective, de facto
annexation of the territories. This "legal" step was made possible
because most of the land was not properly listed in the books -
whether Ottoman, British or Jordanian. But all those governments
recognized the traditional ownership of the territory's farmers.
Israel made an unprecedented land grab in the 1980s, when it surveyed
the entire territory, compared its findings to the tabu (land
registration documents), and declared everything unlisted as state
property - without allowing local inhabitants prove their ownership
and record their holdings. Thus, the legality and morality of all the
Jewish settlements and holdings in the territories is highly doubtful.
Several phenomena have dulled Israel's political and more senses.
Until the end of 1987, Palestinian resistance to the occupation was
only a minor discord. Israeli society enjoyed the fruits of the
"permanent temporary" occupation without paying any significant and
immediate price for it. Under such circumstances it was easy to
combine nationalist-religious messianism, Likud-style secular
chauvinism, and the security-above-all ideology of Mapai and Ahdut
Avoda to conquer Israel's political culture.
Even today, most of the public simply does not know that every violent
step taken against the Palestinians - let alone the aggregate of those
steps - borders on war crimes, and cannot see the black flag of
illegality flying over each of those steps. A state that regards
itself as enlightened cannot behave like a terror-state, even if it
suffers from terrorism. Statesmen, generals and simple citizens must
see that black flag before it's too late and we are all stained with
the blackest of the black
