Today’s Top Stories
1. A draft Security Council resolution has now been submitted by Jordan on behalf of the Palestinians to the UNSC. The draft sets a one-year deadline for negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians and is aimed at the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Judea and Samaria. The Palestinians are not yet pushing for a vote, presumably in the hope of negotiating the text to make it more amenable to the Europeans and the U.S. It remains to be seen if the U.S. will exercise its Security Council veto.
The New York Times has helpfully provided the full text of the resolution in its coverage of the story.
2. Is Hamas gearing up for the next round of fighting? The terror organization has held its biggest military exercise since the end of the 50-day war in Gaza over the summer, according to Israeli media reports. Residents of southern Israeli communities on the border with northern Gaza reported hearing sounds of shooting and explosions overnight. Details in the JPost.
3. A Vice News correspondent gets exclusive access to an IDF special operation to treat wounded Syrian fighters, highlighting an unusual relationship they have with their neighbors across the border.
Israel and the Palestinians
• Is it a case of you reap what you sow? Palestinian incitement is now aimed at PA President Mahmoud Abbas.
Commentary/Analysis
• Emmanuel Navon suggests that Israel should submit its own resolution to the UN Security Council:
The Israeli proposal would thus send the following message to UNSC members: if you want to impose a settlement instead of encouraging a negotiated one, then it has to go both ways. You cannot just ignore one of the main sources of the ongoing stalemate and let the Palestinians get away with a fanciful demand that is incompatible with the two-state solution.
For what the Palestinians are trying to do is to undo UNSC Resolution 242 by getting rid of the parts they don’t like. Resolution 242 was adopted after the 1967 Six-Day war, and it is still in force. It is the relevant and binding UN decision that sets the principles for negotiated peace agreements between Israel and its neighbors. There is no reason to change it, but there is a reason the Palestinians want it repealed.
• Eugene Kontorovich asks questions in the Washington Post concerning the conference of State Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention, to discuss the law of occupation as it pertains to Israel:
Yet there is nothing wrong with an international conference to discuss the Fourth Geneva Convention, and to attempt to better understand its requirements as they apply in particular situations. Art. 49(6)’s prohibition of “deportation and transfer” into occupied territory could certainly do with elucidation. (The “deport or transfer” ban is commonly referred to as “settlement building.”)
Indeed, an examination of movement into occupied territory in Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Western Sahara, and Cyprus would be both timely and instructive. Needless to say, this is not what the state parties will be discussing. They are, sadly, not interested in the Geneva Conventions, but only their possible use against Israel.
• The Wall Street Journal (access via Google News) criticizes the European Court of Justice decision to remove Hamas from the EU’s terror list:
This judicial incursion into foreign policy is particularly troubling since courts should defer to law enforcers and political leaders when it comes to national security. By second-guessing European officials at a terror group’s behest, the ECJ has jeopardized the ability of those officials to set security policy. Don’t be surprised if other terror groups line up in Luxembourg to litigate their way out of asset freezes and other sanctions.
The ECJ’s decision came on the same day that the European Parliament voted to grant “in principle recognition of Palestinian statehood.” Leftist and center-left blocs wanted to endorse Palestinian statehood without condition, but ultimately language about the need for negotiations and a two-state solution was added to the motion at the behest of the center-right bloc. The move follows similar votes in national parliaments in Ireland, Britain and France. The Swedish government in October recognized the state of Palestine.
The votes are symbolic, but symbolism has its own power. Since Hamas continues to exercise effective control over Gaza (despite a fig-leaf agreement earlier this year that restored Ramallah’s de jure sovereignty), a vote for Palestinian statehood is tantamount to acceptance of Hamas as a legitimate political entity.
All this takes place in a week when jihadists left their deadly stamp in Sydney and Peshawar. European judges and parliamentarians may imagine that Hamas is somehow different from other terrorist groups. In reality Hamas is their model. Europe legitimizes these cold killers at its own peril.
Image: CC BY-NC-SA flickr/George
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