Archive | 2014/12/02

The Levy Report on Legality of Building in Judea & Samaria

Dec2
The Levy Report on Legality of Building in Judea & Samaria

Hana Levi Julian

Former Justice Edmond Levy's committee report declares Israel's legal right to own Judea and Samaria.

Former Justice Edmond Levy’s committee report declares Israel’s legal right to own Judea and Samaria. Photo Credit: Photo by Kobi Gideon / Flash90

The Levy Commission Report, which examined the legality of Israeli construction in Judea and Samaria, has now been translated in its entirety into the English language.

Although the translation and contents are the product of the Regavim group, the section of ‘Conclusions and Recommendations’ is from the original Israeli Government translation.

The Levy Commission Report was assigned on 13 February 2012 by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and then-Justice
Minister Yaakov Ne’eman. The three-member panel that examined the issue of building in the so-called “post-1967″ territories included retired Supreme Court Justice E.E. Levy, chairman; retired District Court Judge Tehiya Shapira; and Ambassador Alan Baker.

International law is not as simple as it first appears with regard to the status of Judea and Samaria, according to the Levy Commission.

If viewed from the eyes of the Palestinian Authority leadership, Israel’s status is that of a “military occupier” and the settlement endeavor is that of an entirely illegal phenomenon, the Commission states in the report. “This approach denies any Israeli or Jewish right to these territories… they claim that the territories of Judea and Samaria are “occupied territory” as defined by international law in that they were captured from the Kingdom of Jordan in 1967.

“Consequently, according to this approach, the provisions of international law regarding the matter of occupation apply to Israel as a military occupier, i.e. Regulations concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land. The Hague, 18 Octover 1907, which govern the relationship between the occupier the occupied territory, and the Fourth Geneva Cnvention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. Geneva, 12 August 1949.”

However, noted the Commission, there exists another legal position as well, “inter alia by the Regavim movement” and by the Binyamin Regional Council.

“They are of the view that Israel is not an “Occupying Power” as determined by international law inter alia because the territories of Judea and Samaria were never a legitimate part of any Arab state, including the kingdom of Jordan. Consequently, those conventions dealing with the administration of occupied territory and an occupied population are not applicable to Israel’s presence in Judea and Samaria.

“According to this approach, even if the Geneva Convention applied, Article 49 was never intended to apply to the circumstances of Israel’s settlements. Article 49 was drafted by the Allies after World War II to prevent the forcible transfer of an occupied population, as was carried out by Nazi Germany, which forcibly transferred people from Germany to Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia with the aim of changing the demographic and cultural makeup of the population.

“These circumstances do not exist in the case of Israel’s settlement. Other than the fundamental commitment that applies
universally by virtue of international humanitarian norms to respect individual personal property rights and uphold the law that applied in the territory prior to the IDF entering it, there is no fundamental restriction to Israel’s right to utilize the land and allow its citizens to settle there, as long as the property rights of the local inhabitants are not harmed and as long as no decision to the contrary is made by the government of Israel in the context of regional peace negotiations.”

It was the opinion of the Levy Commission that Israel’s status was not that of a “military occupier” with all that the term
implies, in accordance with international law.


About the Author: Hana Levi Julian is a Middle East news analyst with a degree in Mass Communication and Journalism from Southern Connecticut State University. A past columnist with The Jewish Press and senior editor at Arutz 7, Ms. Julian has written for Babble.com, Chabad.org and other media outlets, in addition to her years working in broadcast journalism.

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Why British Royals Refuse to Visit Israel

Dec2
Former U.S. National Security Advisor Asks Why British Royals Refuse to Visit Israel

The British royal family on the balcony of Buckingham Palace, June 2013. Photo: Carfax2 via Wikimedia Commons.

A senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), in an article published Thursday, asked why Britain’s Royal Family refuses to visit Israel when they make frequent stops throughout the Arab world.

“In just the month of November 2014 we found Prince Andrew and Prince Harry at what the Foreign Office must have considered a diplomatic necessity: the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix,” wrote Elliott Abrams, who worked in both the administrations of George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan. “Prince Andrew also visited Saudi Arabia (at the request of the Foreign Office, it was announced). And Prince Harry also visited Oman.” Abrams then pointed out that the Queen has never set foot in Israel and Prince Charles visited the Jewish state only once: for Yitzhak Rabin’s funeral.

According to Abrams, there are only three “logical explanations” for the gross omission. One, he said, is that the Royal Family only likes to visit other royals and tries to stay away from republics. However, Abrams said Prince Charles visited Egypt more than once, “so there goes that theory.”

A second possible explanation is that the Royal Family fears a visit to Israel may harm the United Kingdom and its business with Arab dictators. But such reasoning is absurd, Abrams explained. “Given the current tacit alliance of Israel and the Gulf monarchies against Iran and ISIS, the likelihood that such visits would have harmed the UK is impossibly small.”

Abrams’ final suggestion is that the Royal Family won’t visit Israel because either they or the Foreign Office “harbor deep and undying enmity toward the Jewish state.”

The Council on Foreign Relations is an independent, nonpartisan membership organization, think tank and publisher. Other CFR members include Brian Williams, Angelina Jolie and Chuck Hagel.

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A Long-Sought Fugitive Died Four Years Ago in Syria, Nazi Hunter Says

Dec2
A Long-Sought Fugitive Died Four Years Ago in Syria, Nazi Hunter Says

By JODI RUDORENDEC

Alois Brunner, a top lieutenant to Adolf Eichmann, in an undated photograph. He sent 128,500 Jews to death camps. Credit Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

JERUSALEM — A leading Nazi hunter said on Monday that Adolf Eichmann’s top lieutenant, long one of the world’s most wanted fugitives, died at least four years ago in Syria, where he had escaped justice and may have advised the government.

Efraim Zuroff, director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Israel office, said the lieutenant, Alois Brunner, was responsible for the deportation of 128,500 Jews to death camps, and described him as Eichmann’s “right-hand man.” Eichmann, one of the chief architects of the Holocaust, was apprehended, tried and executed by Israel in 1962.

Mr. Brunner was tried in absentia and sentenced to death by France in 1954, and he had been the subject of at least two assassination attempts attributed to the Mossad, the Israeli secret service.

“He was a notorious anti-Semite, sadist, fanatic Nazi,” Mr. Zuroff said in a telephone interview on Monday, after the British newspaper The Sunday Express reported his confirmation of Mr. Brunner’s death. “The only known interview we have with him was to a German newsmagazine in 1985, in which he was asked if he had any regrets, and he said, ‘My only regret is I didn’t murder more Jews.’ ”

Mr. Zuroff said a German intelligence official with extensive experience in the Middle East — “a reliable source in our eyes” — had informed the Wiesenthal Center about four years ago that Mr. Brunner had died of natural causes, but that because of the Syrian civil war “we were never able to confirm it forensically.” Given that Mr. Brunner would be 102 today, Mr. Zuroff added, “I took his name off the list” of wanted Nazis.

The Wiesenthal Center did not announce Mr. Brunner’s death when the German operative reported it in 2010, or this year, when it published its annual list of fugitives without him on it. Mr. Zuroff said it came up now only because of an inquiry by The Sunday Express.

Born in Austria, Mr. Brunner joined the Nazi Party in 1931 and the SS in 1938, and he led the Vienna-based Central Office for Jewish Emigration from 1939 to 1943, according to the research center at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum and memorial in Jerusalem.

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