Middle Eastern Who's Who, What's Where, What's What etc. PART 1
Maps, charts, terms & definitions to help orient journalists & news-watchers to ongoing realities in what we call 'the Middle East'
With a history going back to prehistoric times, with so many abbreviations, groups, parties and events, with so much retaliation back and forth over generations, it is easy to feel overwhelmed when looking at the historical & geopolitical context in the lands we know as ‘the Middle East’ but that others know as ‘Western Asia.’
At the same time, many news outlets have stated or unstated priorities, interpretations and reporting traditions, or political and ethnic affilations, and so their presentation of the same events may seem remarkably different one from another. Some may refer to peace demonstrators are ‘far left’. Others may call freedom fighters ‘far right’. Some may focus on Israel’s right to defend itself from terrorists over in the Palestinian Territories and in the surrounding countries. Others may see Israel’s actions as terrorism and in violation of international law.
So we at Canadian Shareable News have prepared these tools to assist us in following the depressing reporting out of this part of the world. Feel free to refer to the maps, charts and definitions in this post as you seek to understand what it is you are hearing and not hearing (seeing and not seeing, reading and not reading) in the news these days.
NOTE - We have decided to split this into TWO posts and have made a few adjustments & corrections since this first went up..
Readers who see errors or gaps and wish to connect, the comment option is one way to go, or email us at CanadianShareableNews@proton.me. :-)
RELIGIOUS CONTEXT
GEOGRAPHIC CONTEXT
ECONOMIC CONTEXT
UNDERWATER RICHES
GROUPS & ACCORDS
Responsibility as an OCCUPYING POWER, from an International Law Perspective
Israel’s ‘RIGHT TO EXIST’ from a Political Perspective
SEE PART 2 for the following sections:
Israel’s ‘RIGHT TO EXIST’ from a Scriptural Perspective
Tie-in with US CHRISTIAN ZIONISTS
OCTOBER 7, 2024
ACTIVIST VS TERRORIST
IRAN
Links to FURTHER ANALYSIS
~~~~~~~~
We will begin with the RELIGIOUS CONTEXT:
It all starts with God’s promise to (or covenant with) Father Abraham…
Image from a children’s video
Over time, the offspring of the Patriarch known as Abraham developed three different faith traditions, known as the Abrahamic religions - Islam, Judaism & Christianity. All 3 are monotheistic (believing in One God) and all claim the prophet/patriarch Abraham as a key forefather. https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Abrahamic_religions
ISLAM - a religious faith around the belief there is only one God (Allah) as revealed in the Qur’an. Believers are called to observe the laws as outlined in the Qur’an and to conform to the five ‘pillars’ of the faith: public witnessing of one’s faith, daily prayer, charity, fasting during the holy month of Ramadan, and making pilgrimage to Mecca. www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/interactives-extras/maps/red-lines-and-deadlines-map-sunni-and-shia-the-worlds-of-islam/2539/
Approximately 1400 years ago, due to various disagreements among adherents to the faith, a major schism occurred and two key sects emerged. One explanation of the division between Shia and Sunni Muslims is found on History.com - the website of Corus Media, which bills itself as “Canada’s leading specialty entertainment channel.” https://www.history.com/news/sunni-shia-divide-islam-muslim.
SUNNI MUSLIMS - the majority of the Muslim population - residing in the majority of Middle Eastern countries
SHIA MUSLIMS - approximately 15% of the Muslim population - only Iran and Iraq have a majority of Shia Muslims.
For specifics on which countries have a majority Sunni vs a majority Shia population, see this reference site, from which the above map was copied.
JUDAISM - according to the Merriam Webster dictionary, Judaism is “a religion developed among the ancient Hebrews and characterized by belief in one transcendent God who has revealed himself to Abraham, Moses, and the Hebrew prophets and by a religious life in accordance with Scriptures and rabbinic traditions”. Others have made note of TWO definitions - the Jewish religion and the Jewish civilization which is not tied to one race, ethnicity, culture or set of traditions. Rabbi Milton Steinberg describes many denominations of Judaism and explains that with the (repeated) destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, the focus of ‘Rabbinic Judaism’ became the Torah (the Scriptures) and the synagogues (the local houses of worship). (Source)
Of note is that Abraham initially had two sons, each by a different mother, with the descendants of the one developing into adherents of Islam and those of the other then becoming Jews.
CHRISTIANITY - again from Merriam Webster: “the religion derived from Jesus Christ, based on the Bible as sacred scripture, and professed by Eastern, Roman Catholic, and Protestant bodies.” (Source) Wikipedia provides more detail: Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, professing that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead and is the Son of God, whose coming as the Messiah was prophesied in the Hebrew Bible (called the Old Testament in Christianity) and chronicled in the New Testament.
In Part 2, we delve into these themes a bit deeper.
We will next examine the GEOGRAPHIC CONTEXT.
By comparing unfamiliar distances to measurements known to Canadians, news watchers in this country get a better appreciation for the events rolling out elsewhere.
Degrees of latitude and longitude help when it comes to comparing entire regions. Note that the part of Asia known as the ‘Middle East’ stretches east from 30 degrees to 75 degrees, a spread of 45 degrees.
Source: https://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/me.htm
While the degrees on this map are not as clear, note that the distance from Quebec City to Calgary appears to stretch over roughly 45 degrees. (The ZERO line, aka Prime Meridian, runs through the United Kingdom and degrees increase in both directions from that point.)
Image Source: https://www.mapsofworld.com/lat_long/canada-lat-long.html
Similarly, CIA staffers who regularly update the CIA World Factbook, use the sizes of American states to gain a sense of perspective when discussing other countries. This chart has been complied from https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/ using the most recently added data in each category. Here the countries are arranged by geographic size, with Ontario and Nova Scotia thrown in for comparison. Of note is the fact that Nova Scotia is almost 2.5x the size of Israel.
Some readers may wish to scroll past all four tables below to find the sections that follow.
Understanding how many people live in which size of country is also eye-opening. For example, Nova Scotia is roughly five times larger than the entire country of Lebanon, but it has less than 1/5 of the population that Lebanon does. At the time the data was last updated, it appears that MORE people lived in the smaller Palestine (aka Occupied Palestinian Territory) than in the entire country of Lebanon. Likewise, more people call Israel home than the entire population of Libya whose country is a LOT larger. (NOTE: Considering that the CIA World Factbook does not have an entry for Palestine, that population does not seem to be counted anywhere by the book’s authors. Wikipedia’s entry on Israel shows a population of 9,842,000 excluding Palestinians while its entry on Palestine shows an estimated 2023 population of 5,483,450.)
And now for some ECONOMIC CONTEXT
Next, we will compare the countries by REAL GDP per capita. While some have other means of comparing the living standards from country to country, the CIA World FactBook authors have chosen this metric:
GDP (purchasing power parity) compares the gross domestic product (GDP) or value of all final goods and services produced within a nation in a given year. A nation's GDP at purchasing power parity (PPP) exchange rates is the sum value of all goods and services produced in the country valued at prices prevailing in the United States.
Given the warmer Mediterranean climate, and the widespread availability of locally grown fresh food in the region, the cost of living of many of these countries is much lower than in Canada where heating and transport costs need to be factored in to a much greater extent. So keeping Canada’s Real GDP per capita in the chart is not that beneficial. And yet, it stands as a reminder to Canadians that many people in this part of the world make do on much less money per day than we do. Of note in these figures: the 7 x higher rate of GDP per person in Israel when compared with Palestine. So when Israel lays claim to lands in Palestine, is it eyeing territory in which people have only 1/7th of the income that Israelis have? Or is there something more?
Our final table includes the natural resources that the CIA World FactBook lists for each country. Colonial and neocolonial governments have always sought to ‘harvest the riches’ found throughout their empires. Today’s imperialists are the Military/Industrial/Financial/Pharmaceutical/Media/Tech/Censorship conglomerates - referred to as MICIMATT by members of the International Peace Coalition {MilitaryIndustrialCongressionalIntelligenceMediaAcademicThinkTank Complex}.
If only 3% of the money spent on the war in Afghanistan had been spent on development, that country would be flourishing now (as per a member of the International Peace Coalition on a recent Zoom Call. See here.) Like a see-saw going up and down, the choice to invest in MILITARY PRODUCTION of necessity destroys PHYSICAL CAPACITY - wreaking or directing funds away from a country’s infrastructure, schools, medical facilities, etc. You can’t have both. Money used to expand the military is of necessity being taken away from other budgets. Finding a point of balance appears nearly impossible.
Should it surprise anyone that areas targeted for wars are often those rich in minerals and especially the ‘rare earth elements’ upon which our modern technological devices depend? (Note, in the interest of space, some countries’ lists of resources were abbreviated here. To find each country’s full Fact Sheet with the complete lists, click here.)
For an illustration of the economic context, we are zooming in on Israel and Palestine.
The blue dotted line in the map on the left represents the current Occupied Palestinian Territories, tiny Gaza on the left along the Mediterranean Sea and the West Bank on the right, so named because it stretches down along the west bank of the Jordan River which is covered on both maps by a border line. It runs from Lake Tiberias (aka See of Galilee) to the Dead Sea. The country of Jordan lies on the other side of the river. The green lines represent changed borders when the area was under Roman occupation was referred by names such as Palaestina Prima, Palaestina Secunda and Palaestina Salutaris. After a lengthy period in which the area was occupied by the Ottoman Empire, the red lines indicate the 1920 borders of ‘Mandatory Palestine’ under British Control in 1920.
For a sense of scale when looking at the map on the right, note that Gaza is 41 km (25 miles) in length. The width of Central Israel at its skinniest point would be roughly half of that.
UNDERWATER RICHES
Most people discussing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict neglect to mention what the eye cannot see - but what has been known at least since 1999:
The U.S. Geological Survey estimated a mean of 1.7 billion barrels of recoverable oil and a mean of 122 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas in the Levant Basin Province using a geology based assessment methodology.
As part of a program aimed at estimating the recoverable oil and gas resources of priority basins around the world, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) estimated the undiscovered oil and gas resources of the Levant Basin Province. The Levant Basin Province encompasses approximately 83,000 square kilometers (km2) of the eastern Mediterranean area (fig. 1). …
This assessment was based on published geologic information and on commercial data from oil and gas wells, fields, and field production. The USGS approach is to define petroleum systems and geologic assessment units and to assess the potential
for undiscovered oil and gas resources in each of the three 29°N assessment units defined for this study… https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2010/3014/pdf/FS10-3014.pdf
Five weeks after the events of October 7, on November 14, 2023, Betsey Piette wrote and the International Action Center published the following:
Behind Israel’s ‘end game’ for Gaza: Theft of offshore gas reserves
In 1999, British Gas (BG) discovered the existence of natural gas in the Gaza Marine fields, 20 nautical miles off the coast of Gaza, at a depth of 610 meters below the surface. Further exploration by BG through two successful wells — Gaza Marine 1 and Gaza Marine 2 — determined the field could contain up to 1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. (EgyptOil-Gas.com, April 5, 2018)
The Palestinian Authority was “granted” the right to exercise sovereignty over its own maritime territory by the Oslo Accords in 1995. Four years later, following the findings of the offshore natural gas, the PA gave the international consortium BG a 25-year, 90% stake in a license to explore, develop any discovered fields, and install the required infrastructure. Since that time Israel has consistently blocked this development.
In 2002, the PA approved BG’s proposals to construct a pipeline to a processing facility in Gaza. However, the Israeli state delayed this development, arguing that the pipeline should run to an Israeli-controlled port, and that Palestinians would have to supply Gaza Marine surplus fuel to Israel at far below market price.
When Hamas won the Palestinian legislative elections in Gaza in 2007, Israel established a militarized naval blockade, prohibiting further offshore development. Around the same time, Yam Thetis, an Israeli gas consortium, challenged the awarding of the contract to BG, further delaying the process.
In December 2008, in total contravention of international laws, Israel declared sovereignty over the Gaza Marine area, and BG closed its offices in Tel Aviv. …
U.N. study sights Palestinian natural gas reserves
A 2019 study by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) identified existing and potential Palestinian oil and natural gas reserves in the West Bank and Gaza that could be developed for the benefit of the Palestinian people.
The report cited the Levant Basin Province, comprising 83,000 square kilometers of the eastern Mediterranean Sea, with 122 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, as one of the most important natural gas resources in the world. Despite the fact that this reserve lies under waters bordering occupied Palestine, Lebanon, and Egypt, Israel has claimed sole access and profits from this find. (tinyurl.com/2r2mh5ts)
The ENTIRE ARTICLE is recommended reading for anyone who made it to this point of the post: https://iacenter.org/2023/11/15/behind-israels-end-game-for-gaza-theft-of-offshore-gas-reserves/ For example, it includes this interesting development: Two months before Oct. 7, the Pentagon began building a $35.8 million troop facility in Israel’s Negev desert, 20 miles from Gaza, allegedly as a radar site to monitor for missile attacks on Israel. The base is part of a “secret” U.S. military presence in Israel. (The Intercept, Oct. 27)
GROUPS & ACCORDS
Newcomers to the news out of the Middle East might be confused by frequent references, not just to citizens of a country (like ‘Lebanese’ or ‘Palestinians’ or ‘Israelis’) but to names of various political parties, so-called terrorist groups, and the like in news coverage.
Keeping in mind that ‘one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist’ when looking over the CIA World Factbook’s list of Middle Eastern ‘Terrorist Organizations’, we are getting the American & Israeli perspective only. (Information gathered from other sources is in italics.) Information on Canada’s process to designate and review terrorist organizations is found here and here.
QUARTET - The Quartet on the Middle East is made up of United Nations, the United States, the European Union, and Russia and was set up in 2002. Its purpose is to “help mediate Middle East peace negotiations and to support Palestinian economic development and institution-building in preparation for eventual statehood”. unsco.unmissions.org/mideast-quartet
HAMAS - Islamic Resistance Movement established in 1987 at the onset of the first Palestinian uprising, or Intifada, as an outgrowth of the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Placed on the US Department of State's list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations on 8 October 1997. Used a network of social services that included charities, schools, clinics, youth camps, fundraising, and political activities to help build grassroots support amongst Palestinians in Gaza; won the Palestinian Legislative Council elections in 2006, giving it control of significant Palestinian Authority (PA) ministries in Gaza. The CIA estimated that prior to October 2023 Hamas had from 20,000 to 40,000 armed combatants. (Veteran intelligence analysts and local commentators have explained that because Hamas members do not wear military insignia, Israel army personnel consider any Gazan male to be a Hamas armed combatant, and thereby a target. PUBLIC SAFETY CANADA states the group's political leadership resides in Damascus.)
In 2007, Israel began taking control of sea, land and air routes to Gaza, and it eventually blockaded it, in conjunction with Egypt, which also borders a smaller section of the strip, saying it was necessary to prevent Hamas attacks on Israelis. The United Nations and human rights groups have condemned the blockade, which is entering its 17th year, and critics say it has allowed Hamas to fill a power vacuum there.
The U.S., the U.K., the European Union, Canada and many other countries have designated Hamas as a terrorist organization because of its attacks on Israel, which include kidnapping civilians, conducting suicide bombings and firing rocket salvos into Israeli cities. (Context provided in an NBC News report from October 2023.)
Hamas was designated a terrorist group by Canada on Nov. 27, 2002. This was last reviewed on June 4, 2021.
HEZBOLLAH/HIZBOLLAH - formed in 1982 following the Israeli invasion of Lebanon as a Shia militant group that generally follows the religious guidance of the Iranian Supreme Leader; closely allied with Iran and the two often work together on shared initiatives, although Hizbollah also acts independently in some cases; shares a close relationship with the Syrian regime of President al-Assad and has provided assistance – including thousands of fighters – to regime forces in the Syrian civil war (against Western supported Al Queda and ISIS elements); since the early 1990s, has evolved into a business and political enterprise with strong influence in Lebanon’s Shia community; actively participates in Lebanon’s political system and runs social programs, such as hospitals and schools; has seats in Lebanon's parliament and has had members appointed to the Lebanese Government's ministries; has the characteristics of both a paramilitary and a conventional military force; since October 2023 and subsequent Israeli invasion of Gaza, Hizballah has sought to demonstrate solidarity with Hamas by launching barrages of missiles, rockets, and armed drones into northern Israel; these attacks continued into 2024 and have been countered by strikes from Israel on Hizballah targets in Lebanon. (Following the recent news of the exploding pager attacks, Lebanese journalist and academic Marwa Osman explained that Hizballah has a military arm and a much larger civilian arm. It was the civilian arm that was impacted by Israel’s exploding pagers - people working in post offices, health care clinics, pretty much anything that government employees in other countries would be involved with.) In 2024 the CIA World Factbook claimed Hizbollah has up to 50,000 armed combatants, divided between full-time and reserve personnel; it was placed on the US Department of State's list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations on 8 October 1997. (It was placed on Canada’s list of terrorist groups on December 10, 2002. This designation was reviewed on June 4, 2022.)
IRANIAN ISLAMIC REVOLUTIONARY GUARD CORPS (IRGC) - formed in 1979 by followers of Ayatollah Ruhollah KHOMEINI to ‘protect the Islamic revolution’. During the Iran-Iraq War (1980–88) it transformed into “more of a conventional fighting force with its own ground, air, naval, and special forces, plus control over Iran’s strategic missile and rocket forces”; the IRGC is known as “a parallel military force to Iran’s regular armed forces (Artesh); is heavily involved in internal security and have significant influence in the political and economic spheres of Iranian society, as well as Iran’s foreign policy” Its goals are to “provide internal security, including border control, law enforcement, and suppressing domestic opposition; influence Iran’s politics, economy, and foreign policy” It partners up with Hizballah, Shia militias in Iraq, and the Houthis in Yemen; It was estimated in 2023 to have up to 190,000 personnel. Because it has targeted targets US, Israeli, Saudi, and UAE interests, as well as Iranian dissident groups and it has has the capability to fight conventionally and to conduct a wide-range of terrorist-type attacks it was listed by the USA as a terrorist group in April 2019. Canada gave it this designation only recently (June 2024). Families of Canadian victims of the downing of Ukraine’s International Airlines Flight 752 have been laying the blame on the IRGC even though at the time, there was a lot of confusion in regional airspace (with heightened tensions between the US and Iran and Iraq) along with a designated no-fly zone. Shortly after take-off, when the plane unexpectedly made a turn and headed too close to a military zone, it was interpreted to be a cruise missile and was shot down. As reported by the BBC: On Thursday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said evidence suggested an Iranian missile brought down the aircraft by accident. "We have intelligence from multiple sources, including our allies and our own intelligence," Mr Trudeau told a news conference in Ottawa. "The evidence indicates that the plane was shot down by an Iranian surface-to-air missile. This may well have been unintentional."
SAMIDOUN - this group had been organizing pro-Palestinian/anti-Zionist protests in many countries including Canada for a decade, but ramping up its activity following October 7, 2023. On October 17, 2024, a National Post article announced that Samidoun had been designated as a terrorist group in Canada and the USA. As of Oct. 27, it is not yet listed in the list maintained by the CIA World Factbook but is does appear on Canada’s list of terrorist organizations. A search of the minutes of Canada’s Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs (FAAE) meeting notes from September 26 to October 27 reveals no entries in which Samidoun is mentioned. It is unclear who in Canada made the decision to add this group to the terrorist list. We will pick up this mystery in Part 2, moving now first to into earlier history - that of the accords and details of territorial occupation dating back to 1967.
ACCORDS
Thirty years ago, the Oslo Accord promised to bring lasting peace to Israeli/Palistinian relations. News coverage at the time stated:
SEPT. 13, 1993 The historic Oslo Accord is signed at the White House. Palestinians and Israelis agree to recognize the other’s right to exist: “It is time to put an end to decades of confrontation and conflict” and “strive to live in peaceful coexistence and mutual dignity and security and achieve a just, lasting, and comprehensive peace.” Soon Israel begins its promised withdrawal from lands occupied since the 1967 war; Jericho and Gaza are transferred to the Palestinians. Yasser Arafat — Israel’s implacable enemy for 30 years — returns from exile to establish the Palestinian Authority. The parties agree that the most sensitive “final status” issues — permanent borders, Jewish settlements, Palestinian refugees, and Jerusalem — will be addressed later.
As the authors of this PBS piece painstakingly outline, those sensitive ‘final status’ issues proved to be more of a sticking point than people wished to acknowledge back in the 1990s.
We are skipping ahead to the Abraham Accords and their implications for the Palestinians. Implications that led to the desperate actions of October 7, a year ago. Implications that should have been predicted and that are being completely ignored in mainstream coverage of Oct 7. Mediated by the US in 2020, the Abraham Accords were a series of bilateral agreements between Israel and certain other Middle Eastern countries. The aim of each was to ‘NORMALIZE RELATIONS’ between Israel and each of the countries.
In 2002, there had been a proposal in which the Arab League endorsed a Saudi proposal (known as the Arab Peace Initiative) for its member states to establish normal relations with Israel in exchange for an independent Palestinian state. Negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority soon dissipated, however, while the proliferation of Israeli settlements compounded the challenges of creating a viable state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. (Britannia)
As the various countries signing the Abraham Accords (Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan) each agreed to ‘normalize relations’ with Israel, Palestinians were giving up hope that their Arab/Muslim allies would seek some kind of leverage with Israel to push for a resolution to the Israeli land-grabs of Palestinian soil. It seemed the opposite was happening as the US sweetened the deal in some cases committing to more trade and tourism with some of these nations. Hamas and other Palestinian groups were seeing, as more Arab/Muslim nations agreed to have ‘normalized’ relations with Israel, the closing of a potential window for an escape from the ‘Open Air Prison’ into which Palestinians had been relegated for years already under current Israeli policies. Thus the actions on October 7 - more on this event follows below after we spend some time “setting the stage”.
Canada’s Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development (FAAE) last reiterated its support of the “Two State Solution” on October 3, 2024.
Two-state solution, proposed framework for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by establishing two states for two peoples: Israel for the Jewish people and Palestine for the Palestinian people. In 1993 the Israeli government and the Palestine Liberation Organization(PLO) agreed on a plan to implement a two-state solution as part of the Oslo Accords, leading to the establishment of the Palestinian Authority (PA). As the only framework with bilateral and formal agreement, the two-state solution remains the consensus of the international community, although proposals for a one-state framework are often floated as an alternative. (Source)
Responsibility as an OCCUPYING POWER, from an International Law Perspective
Israel is considered an occupier of the following territories:
East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip are within the borders of Israel, whereas Golan (aka Golan Heights) is a plateau at the southwest corner of Syria. Two thirds of the area has been occupied by Israel following the 1967 Six-Day War and then effectively annexed in 1981 – an action unrecognized by the international community, which continues to consider it Israeli-occupied Syrian territory.
Outside of Israel’s role as a occupier, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Morocco, Turkey, Russia, Ukraine, and the United States are also currently listed here as occupying nations of territories not considered to be their own. Twice, conferences in the Hague (1897 & 1907) were convened to establish dispute international dispute mechanisms. More recently, scholars such as Eyal Benvenisti, the author of the 2012 The International Law of Occupation wrote about the class between POWER and the LAW, alluding to many more complexities than those addressed at the Hague at the start of the 20th century.
The law of belligerent occupation is currently at the forefront of the challenges the entire system of international law is experiencing both in terms of its normativity and its implementation. In various crisis situations such as Iraq and Palestine, the issues have arisen as to whether and to what extent occupation law applies and, if so, then whether it applies alone or together with other sets of rules such as human rights law. (Source)
On June 5, 1967, Israel invaded and occupied Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem during a war with Arab countries who were trying to dislodge it from the Palestinian land it occupied during the Nakba in 1948.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/9/16/ten-maps-to-understand-the-occupied-west-bank
“Despite Gaza and the West Bank being just 33km (21 miles) apart at their closest points, Israeli restrictions have long prevented travel and interaction between the two Palestinian territories, even before the recent conflict.”
Israel has been ‘occupying’ the Palestinian Territories (Gaza, East Jerusalem & the West Bank) from 1967 onward. And yet, many have determined that Israel’s continued efforts to demolish homes and villages within the occupied Palestinian Territories are a clear violation of international law.
Military occupation…mainly arises during military actions when, as a result of offensives and other aggressive operations, a portion of the territory of the attacked state comes under the actual control of its enemy…Article 42 of the Fourth Hague Convention on the laws and customs of land warfare states: “Territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army.” … Article 43 obliges the occupier to “restore and ensure, as far as possible, public order and life.” Article 55…designates the occupying state as the “administrator and usufructuary of public buildings, immovable property, forests, and agricultural estates in the occupied country that belong to the enemy state.” In this case, the Convention refers to properties in a state of public ownership, as Article 46 protects the private property of the citizens. The act also defines as private property (Article 56) the properties of municipalities, as well as properties of religious, charitable, educational, artistic, and scientific institutions.”
So if I were to militarily occupy enemy territory, legally, I could make use of PUBLIC LANDS - like a nation’s airports, or National Parks or National Forest Reserves. But I would NOT have the legal authority to take over PRIVATE LANDS. I couldn’t tear down people’s homes or blow up their civic buildings. Occupation is not ownership. It comes with certain obligations.
Readers are invited to scroll through this interactive tool in order to learn more about the ways in which Israeli ‘occupation’ affects the everyday lives of citizens in the region. https://interactive.aljazeera.com/aje/2024/israel-occupation-illustrated-guide/
Israel’s ‘RIGHT TO EXIST’ from a Political Perspective
In 1917 via the Balfour Declaration Britain promised its support for the establishment of a Jewish "national home" in Palestine. Mandatory Palestine was then established in 1920, and the British obtained a Mandate for Palestine from the League of Nations in 1922. During the Mandate, the area saw successive waves of Jewish immigration and the rise of nationalist movements in both the Jewish and Arab communities. Competing interests of the two populations led to the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine and the 1944–1948 Jewish insurgency in Mandatory Palestine. The United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine to divide the territory into two states, one Arab and one Jewish, was passed in November 1947. The 1948 Palestine war ended with the territory of Mandatory Palestine divided among the State of Israel, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, which annexed territory on the West Bank of the Jordan River, and the Kingdom of Egypt, which established the "All-Palestine Protectorate" in the Gaza Strip. (Wikipedia)
During this time, Jews from throughout the diaspora migrated to Palestine, excited about efforts to create a new state of Israel. Many of these were descendants of converts to Judaism and not ethnically the original Semitic peoples from Israel of yore. The United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) was created on 15 May 1947 in response to a United Kingdom government request concerning the future government of Palestine". (Source)
The discussion around the failed plan to divide Palestine in 1947 will stand in for the arguments on both sides in all of the intervening years.
NOTE: what this map shows in theory was NOT carried out in reality.
The Plan sought to address the conflicting objectives and claims of two competing movements: Palestinian nationalism and Jewish nationalism in the form of Zionism. Jewish organizations collaborated with UNSCOP during the deliberations, while Palestinian Arab leadership boycotted it. The Plan's detractors considered the proposal to be pro-Zionist, as it allocated most land to the Jewish state despite Palestinian Arabs numbering twice the Jewish population. The Plan was celebrated by most Jews in Palestine and reluctantly accepted by the Jewish Agency for Palestine with misgivings. Zionist leaders, in particular David Ben-Gurion, viewed the acceptance of the plan as a tactical step and a steppingstone to future territorial expansion over all of Palestine.
The Arab Higher Committee, the Arab League and other Arab leaders and governments rejected the Plan, as aside from Arabs forming a two-thirds majority, they owned most of the territory. They also indicated an unwillingness to accept any form of territorial division, arguing that it violated the principles of national self-determination in the UN Charter that granted people the right to decide their own destiny. They announced their intention to take all necessary measures to prevent the implementation of the resolution. A civil war broke out in Palestine, and the plan was not implemented. In 1948, 85% of the Palestinians living in the areas that became the state of Israel became refugees. (Wikipedia)
INSTEAD of the Jewish people being grateful in the Post-Holocaust era to be granted ANY LAND AT ALL in what had been the home of other people since the year 69 (20 years short of 2000 years) we read this:
The 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine was the first phase of the 1947–1949 Palestine war. It broke out after the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a resolution on 29 November 1947 recommending the adoption of the Partition Plan for Palestine.
During the civil war, the Jewish and Arab communities of Palestine clashed (the latter supported by the Arab Liberation Army) while the British, who had the obligation to maintain order, organized their withdrawal and intervened only on an occasional basis. At the end of the civil war phase of the war, from April 1948 to mid-May, Zionist forces embarked on an offensive (Plan Dalet) that involved conquering cities and territories in Palestine allocated to a future Jewish state, as well as those allocated to the corpus separatum of Jerusalem and a future Arab state according to the 1947 Partition plan for Palestine. During the offensive, approximately half of Palestine's predominantly Arab population, or around 750,000 people, were expelled from their homes or made to flee through various violent means. (Wikipedia)
Jumping ahead to 2017, as outlined by the Wilson Centre, the leadership of the Palestinian Political and Military organization Hamas, chose to revise its earlier manifesto in which it had outlined its position on Israel. In 2017 Hamas committed to achieving a fully independent and sovereign state within the 1967 borders. In other words, it is no longer threatening the existence of Israel, simply of Israel’s “racist, aggressive, colonial and expansionist” Zionist project.
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/doctrine-hamas
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/hamas-2017-document-full
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Hamas_charter
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/a4/3d/90/a43d906d2dab6a425e8192e34b4ddb2e.jpg
On page 5 of Issue 27 of Canadian Shareable News we link to comments made by Bob Rae, Canada’s Ambassador to the UN, re: Canada’s Middle East policy.
Rae stated that Canada’s approach to Israel is grounded in three principles: Israel has the right to exist and to defend itself in accordance with international law; the Palestinians have a right to self determination; and the protection of civilians in all conflicts everywhere is paramount under international humanitarian law.
It appears that Ambassador Rae is one of those people who claim that Israel constantly needs to defend itself against those who deny its right to exist. What is underreported, is that THIRTY YEARS AGO, leading up to the Oslo Accords in 1993, Israel’s RIGHT TO EXIST was agreed upon as was the INTENTION to commence comprehensive negotiations for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
The Letters of Mutual Recognition were exchanged between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization on 9 September 1993. In their correspondence, Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian political leader Yasser Arafat agreed to begin cooperating towards a peaceful solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The PLO recognized Israel's right to exist in peace, renounced Palestinian militancy and terrorism, and accepted UNSC Resolution 242 and UNSC Resolution 338. Israel recognized the PLO as a legitimate authority representing the Palestinian people and agreed to commence comprehensive negotiations for the Israeli–Palestinian peace process. These initial agreements between Rabin and Arafat laid the groundwork for the Oslo I Accord on 13 September 1993, effectively serving as its preamble.
And that much more recently, Hamas revised its earlier position on Israel as seen above.
As well, this article published in March 2024 by the Electronic Intifada points out:
The current demand by the Quartet, US, Russia, UN and the European Union, is that Hamas recognise Israel’s ‘right to exist’. But even if the Quartet were to more properly insist on recognition of Israel’s ‘right to existence’, Hamas is a political party and not a State and thus in no position to exercise any kind of legal recognition at all. Assuming, therefore, that the demand is instead being made for political reasons, we must question why it is made without any reciprocal demands by Israel.
Such a reciprocal demand might be, for example, that Israel acknowledge the right of return of Palestinian refugees in accordance with international law and that the West Bank, Gaza and Golan are occupied territories, neither of which Israel has done. Further, Israel might be asked to acknowledge the validity of the 2004 Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which provides a basis for resolving the conflict in accordance with international law, and also places explicit obligations on other States (including the members of the Quartet) and the UN itself.
Arafat long ago acknowledged, as head of the PLO, the ‘right of the State of Israel to exist in peace and security’.
So what does the current demand from Israel and the EU actually mean? Is it a real issue?
All, including the Canadian ambassador, who focus on getting one-sided recognition of Israel’s right to exist, should take note: What is not guaranteed would be the RIGHT OF THE CURRENT GOVERNMENT TO EXIST, but the right of the Israeli population to live within the agreed upon borders of their state. When those countries who joined together to sanction South Africa’s apartheid government for its unjust treatment of its Black citizens, no one was denying the NATION of South Africa the RIGHT TO EXIST. They simply wanted it clear that the GOVERNMENT at that time had lost all rights to remain as the government of the day.
What is seldom mentioned, is that members of the current government of Israel, appear to deny the right of Palestine to exist. In 2023 Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich was reported as saying that claims by Palestinians that they are a a people and a with a history in the region are false despite “historical and archeological evidence proving ancient Palestinian roots in their land.” https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-734835
Smotrich, who also serves as the head of the Religious Zionism party, made these statements while in the French capital, standing in front of a map of“Greater Israel,” which includes not only Palestine but also Jordan and parts of Lebanon and Syria. This prompted a protest from Jordan, leading to the summoning of the Israeli ambassador. Currently, as the occupying state seeks to displace over two million residents of Gaza, it appears that“Israel” has initiated its expansionist agenda. This notion was affirmed by Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen, who stated that“the size of Gaza after the war will not return to what it was before.”
This plan [Greater Israel] was outlined early on, beginning with the statements made by the founder of global Zionism, Theodor Herzl, in 1904, when he explicitly declared that the borders of the State of Israel would extend“from the Nile to the Euphrates.” This assertion was echoed by Rabbi Fishman in 1947 during his testimony to the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine. The situation remained consistent until 2014, when Israeli activists circulated a map on the social media platform Facebook, referring to it as the“Greater Israel” or“Kingdom of David,” which included territories of Egypt, Palestine, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and parts of Saudi Arabia and Iraq. https://menafn.com/1108781559/Netanyahu-Revives-The-Greater-Israel-Plan
It appears that many looking in from the outside, like Ambassador Rae, may not have noticed that the current issue is no longer the question of whether one needs to support Israel against all those who believe that IT SHOULD HAVE THE RIGHT TO EXIST, but rather it would be to call Israel to account for overruling the PALESTINIANS RIGHT TO EXIST right next door. Either Israel can agree to remain within its 1967 borders or it is unwilling to do so. People are asking questions like these: Do people in any nation have the right to push back against those who took territory away in the past and try to claim it back? What about nearly 2000 years later? If the Papaschase First Nation is not able to regain control of the land south of Edmonton’s Whitemud Freeway, their land in the 1870s, the question arises how/why should land that has clearly been occupied since the last exile nearly 2000 years ago, be relenquished to a peoples, the majority of whom descended from people who simply chose to convert to the Jewish faith?
For Israel, retreating back to its own 1967 borders would mean recalling all the setters it has somehow allowed/encouraged to stop over that border - who for 50+ years have set up shop in territory that was intended for Palestinians.
Are these “settlers” little more than “squatters”? No. Because squatters set themselves down in “abandoned” spaces. Bulldozing existing homes and villages in order to set up your own does not give anyone squatters’ rights.
Squatting is the action of occupying an abandoned or unoccupied area of land or a building, usually residential, that the squatter does not own, rent or otherwise have lawful permission to use. (Source)
It is not ISRAEL that people in the region and their supporters want to put an end to, but rather the END of the ZIONIST/JEWISH NATIONALIST PROJECT of the current government in ISRAEL (a project that continues to result in displacement of Palestinians OUTSIDE OF ISRAEL’s 1967 borders). That is different than supporting a plan to detonate all of the buildings of Israel, to commit genocide on the people and to put one’s own population in the territory currently inside Israel. But those are the actions of the government of Benjamin Netanyahu in the Palestinian Territories these days. To continually claim to “stand with Israel” and to defend “its right to exist” is simply to amplify outdated claims and arguments on ONE side of the issue and to essentially retreat from the space normally taken by the international community when injustice is being perpetuated.
By the same token, anyone who holds the view that a government can do whatever it wants, should then NOT have supported all of the REGIME CHANGE OPERATIONS carried out by the the USA for example.
See the next post for these topics: