Avi — Applying the Geneva Convention
Topic(s): Palestine / Israel | Comments Off on Avi — Applying the Geneva ConventionApplying the Geneva Convention
By Meron Benvenisti
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/objects/pages/PrintArticleEn.jhtml?itemNo=469413
The veteran guardians of the wall, who are called at all times to rally round the hasbara flag when the enemy once again brings up the anti-Israel canard regarding the application of the Fourth Geneva Convention on the occupied territories, could not believe their eyes. One of them, who had made a glorious career rebutting the legal propaganda of Israel-haters, said frankly on the radio, “I was sure I had misunderstood what was written in the newspaper.”
Good Lord! The attorney general has proposed to the cabinet an “in-depth examination” on the application of the convention to the territories. A major explosion threatens to bring down a giant, complex and twisted legal construct, which for more than 40 years was put together carefully and creatively, deceitfully, and through a Byzantine conspiracy of silence and intentional ambiguity, casuistry and winks all around.
Suddenly, the Israel government’s top legal advisor admits that the Israel-haters may have been right – the legislative and legal system that determined, and determines, the lives and fates of millions, and which provided the legal underpinnings for the de-facto annexation of the territories and the establishment of the settlements and the fence, is illegal in terms of international law.
The international community, except for a negligible minority, rejected Israel’s position that the Geneva Convention does not apply to the territories because they were not conquered from a sovereign country. The international community has not even allowed Israel to hide behind the legal fiction that it recognizes the de facto, but not the de jure application of the convention.
The government of Israel and the High Court of Justice have reached a silent agreement. The government will not argue the non-application of the convention, and the court will not rule. A herd of elephants has thundered through this needle’s eye, in the form of thousands of orders that have determined the fate of two generations of Palestinians and changed the face of the West Bank and Gaza.
Now, when they “examine in depth” the application of the Fourth Geneva Convention, they will suddenly discover how Israel has systematically broken international law, humanitarian international law, international law on human rights, and international treaties based on laws of occupation. Suddenly, forgiveness will have to be asked from those who were called “traitors,” who “snitched” on Israel, revealing its blatant violations of the Geneva Convention to organizations whose agreed-upon task it is to monitor compliance with it.
What happened all of a sudden? Only a few months ago, the government was denying the viability of the Fourth Geneva Convention with scornful arrogance, during deliberations over its applicability to the separation fence in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague. Suddenly, Israeli jurists realized that the ICJ’s clear ruling that the convention applies de jure forced the Israeli High Court to cease its evasive tactics. As jurists, they could not deny the reasoning put forward by the ICJ.
However, more than legal casuistry, the attorney general’s jurists are frightened by the danger of sanctions inherent in the ICJ’s “advisory opinion.” The ICJ provided a wide basis for sanctions against Israel if it does not dismantle the fence. In fact, initiatives toward such sanctions are already in the works.
We used to think that the Western world, obsessed with guilt over the Holocaust, would never dare treat Israel like the whites of South Africa. We believed that Israel, as the classic victim, could always demand special treatment and its own set of norms and moral behavior. It turns out that this immunity has evaporated. The international community is tired of being preached to, of the outcry of the victim, and charges of anti-Semitism. And the first to notice the sanctions coming at us are the jurists, who will have to fight them if they are imposed in international tribunals.
Mazuz’s jurists do not intend to bring down the entire legal construct in the territories, but only to minimize the gross deviations and arbitrary acts carried out in the name of “the law.” These are many and deep, because the government, in its thoughtlessness or stupidity, has given over the governing of the territories to three irresponsible groups: low-level planners of the fence and of settlements who are motivated by the impulse to control and their hatred of the Palestinians; low-level legal officers who have been given the power to rule over the lives of millions of Palestinians without balance or restraint; and settlers, who have already transformed the government system – under the guise of “military rule under the de facto application of the Geneva Convention” – into a state within a state. Perhaps if these groups had not been given control of the territories, and reasonable standards had been applied, the threat of sanctions would not become a reality.
What a shame that the “in-depth examination” comes too late. When the occupation has become permanent, there is no significance to the application of the Geneva Convention. Such a declaration will only encourage the illusion that the Israeli government in the territories is “temporary,” and therefore does not require immediate decisions. The Palestinians will continue to be a helpless “protected population,” and the settlers will continue to expand through the fiction of “military governor’s orders,” which give them complete freedom of action.
It is not the Fourth Geneva Convention – which is irrelevant – which should be the focus, but international humanitarian law, human rights, and the right to self-determination. As for the awakening of the Mazuz jurists, it can be said: it’s about time.