January, 2011
What Norman Finkelstein Doesn't Accept or Understand
No. 1 Palestinian Arabs in 1947, rightly or wrongly, engaged in a lawless war with the Palestinian Jews and lost. Losing the military option, the Palestinian Arabs suddenly turned to international law, an act which lacks credibility considering they only did so at the point of a gun; ignoring international law in the first place undercuts the Palestinian Arabs subsequent moral right to have the full weight of international law intercede in their favor. This is crucial to understanding why some outside forces including Israel have little enthusiasm for application of law in this instance; they are simply suspicious of Palestinian Arab motives for resorting to a newfound respect for international law. Israel and the West look with a weather eye at the Palestinian Arabs because no one believes you can engage in lawless war and then resort to the law; you cannot play at poker, lose, and then ask for your chips back; if you willingly engage in an activity like war as the result of your own decision whose only rule is the rule of the gun and then fail, this is its own solution and the rules properly observed, the rules of reality, the law of failure. Right or wrongly, it is deemed that the Palestinian Arabs by their 1947 decision made their bed and refuse to lie in it. When the P. Arabs had the chance to most show any respect they had for international law they did not do so and this decision and its attendant failure has haunted them for more than 6 decades and their inability to recognize this as a crucial topic in the West has hurt their cause even further. People who resort to lawless violence have no business resorting to the law when their own violence fails.
No. 2 The Palestinian Arabs refuse to surrender in any way, shape or form, thus unwittingly keeping the status of a lawless war intact for over 6 decades. Thus, rule of law dictated by who has the bigger gun is kept intact which hurts the Palestinian Arabs and works in Israel's favor. Once again, the Palestinian Arabs play into a situation that enables Israel to ignore law.
No. 3 Some new paradigm must be used by the Palestinian Arabs that at once rejects everything they have tried in the past and acknowledges the reality of the fate that has overtaken them. They have no bargaining position that Israel does not grant them and they must think outside the box; international law has not, can not and will not successfully intercede on their behalf. Only by resorting to the tactics of Gandhi or Martin Luther King can the Palestinian Arabs advance their own views of what is just; it is the only struggle they can hope to win with Israel. Failing this, they must accept the reality of their fate.
No. 4 The Palestinian Arabs can have morals and law on their side and it means nothing because they are still in a de facto state of war which itself is a lawless act; there is no law without peace as well as argreement as to what constitutes law by both the Palestinian Arabs and Israel. The supposition that international law applies in time of war is technically correct but without a means to enforce it it is nothing and nothing is what the Palestinian Arabs have to negotiate with. Simply being right means nothing in the light of reality on the ground. This entire situation is exacerbated by the fact that no Israeli judge is allowed to sit permanently as a member of the International Court of Justice at the Hague. One can only imagine that it would be in the P. Arabs best interest to petition to have this changed since it only ensures that its edicts will be ignored wholesale by Israel.
No. 5 Both sides are struggling over hegemony that was in fact decided in war in 1948 and made worse in 1967. The Palestinian Arabs lost. Their refusal to come to grips with this reality, no matter how wrong, unjust or immoral the outcome may seem to them, is at the heart of the problem. Israel need do nothing; they won and are reacting to continued hatred and violence just as they did in 1947. People will defend themselves in a conflict whether law or justice is on their side or not - thus, both sides use violence; Israel is there and in control and this is a reality that cannot be done away with by laws or morals. The Palestinian Arabs must adopt the adult pragmatism of Robert E. Lee and realize when a cause is lost. For the Palestinian Arabs to indulge in using violence which does nothing to further their cause and results in the deaths of women and children which they then parade in front of the media and on websites is arguably a war crime and the basis for my conclusion is the law of failure. It is unrealistic to think that events which began in lawlessness such as the British Mandate, which had no real legal basis, would emerge into a realm of law. War is a tornado which has its own laws and which are antithetical to jurisprudence.
No. 6 During the 20 years under Jordanian rule from 1948 to 1967, instead of accepting the status quo, the Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank engaged in violence with Israel with the military connivance and threats of Arab nations, eventually leading to war and Israeli occupation of the West Bank. The Palestinian Arabs and their allies must hold themselves accountable for this act. One again, war undid the Palestinian Arabs and they once again resorted to U.N. resolutions they had no previous respect for when there was a prospect of victory over Israel by Arab armies in 1967. It is obvious that such topics are implicit in the Israeli view of negotiations. Good faith negotiating on the part of the Palestinian Arabs in 1947 would have carried the weight of a respect for lawful outcome that failure at war does not convey now. Israel obviously has no confidence that the Palestinian Arabs in fact have a respect for international law that was not forced on them. The willingness to engage in war when they could on the part of the Palestinian Arabs is the source of Israeli disdain for U.N. resolutions.