Israel And A Palestinian State: A Look Behind The News (Second of Two Parts)
Latest update: January 10th, 2013
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In the strict Islamic view, not merely in the more narrowly Jihadi or Islamist perspectives, Israel must be seen as the individual Jew in macrocosm. The Jewish state must be despised on account of this relationship – that is, because of the allegedly “innate evil” of each individual Jew.
This insidious understanding is a far cry from the widely fashionable idea that Israel is despised in the region only because it is an “occupier.” Generally, the Israeli is despised in the Islamic world because he or she is a Jew, a condition of presumed infirmity, and one that can never be “remedied.”
A current Egyptian textbook of Arab Islamic history, used widely in teacher training colleges, expresses these sentiments:
“The Jews are always the same, every time and everywhere. They will not live save in darkness. They contrive their evils clandestinely. They fight only when they are hidden; because they are cowards…. The Prophet enlightened us about the right way to treat them, and succeeded finally in crushing the plots they had planned. We today must follow this way, and purify Palestine from their filth.”
In an earlier article in Al-Ahram, by Dr. Lufti Abd al-Azim, the famous commentator urges, with complete seriousness:
“The first thing that we have to make clear is that no distinction must be made between the Jew and the Israeli…. The Jew is a Jew, through the millennia…. in spurning all moral values, devouring the living, and drinking his blood for the sake of a few coins. The Jew, the Merchant of Venice, does not differ from the killer of Deir Yasin or the killer of the camps. They are equal examples of human degradation. Let us therefore put aside such distinctions, and talk only about Jews.”
Writing also on the “Zionist Problem,” Dr. Yaha al-Rakhawi remarked openly in Al-Ahram:
“We are all once again face to face with the Jewish Problem, not just the Zionist Problem; and we must reassess all those studies which make a distinction between “The Jew” and “The Israeli.” And we must redefine the meaning of the word “Jew” so that we do not imagine that we are speaking of a divinely revealed religion, or a minority persecuted by mankind…. we cannot help but see before us the figure of the great man Hitler, may God have mercy on him, who was the wisest of those who confronted this problem…. and who out of compassion for humanity tried to exterminate every Jew, but despaired of curing this cancerous growth on the body of mankind.”
Finally, we may consider what Israel’s first Oslo “peace partner,” Yasir Arafat, had to say on January 30, 1996, while addressing forty Arab diplomats at the Grand Hotel in Stockholm. Speaking with the title “The Impending Total Collapse of Israel,” Arafat remarked, without hesitation:
“We Palestinians will take over everything; including all of Jerusalem…. All the rich Jews who will get compensation will travel to America…. We of the PLO will now concentrate all our efforts on splitting Israel psychologically into two camps. Within five years, we will have six to seven million Arabs living in the West Bank, and in Jerusalem…. You understand that we plan to eliminate the State of Israel, and establish a purely Palestinian state…. I have no use for Jews; they are and remain, Jews.”
Despite these plainly intolerant and potentially genocidal Arab views of Israel’s physical existence, international law still need not expect Palestinian compliance with any pre-state agreements concerning armed force. This is true even if these agreements were to include certain explicit U.S. security guarantees to Israel. Also, because authentic treaties can be binding only upon states, a non-treaty agreement between the Palestinians and Israel could quickly prove to be of little or no real authority, or effectiveness. This is to say nothing of the still critical connections between Fatah, Hamas, al Qaeda, Hizbullah, the Islamic Resistance Movement and the (Egyptian) Muslim Brotherhood.
What if the government of a new Palestinian state were somehow willing to consider itself bound by the pre-state, non-treaty agreement? Even in these very improbable circumstances, the new Arab government could still have ample pretext, and opportunity, to identify fully usable grounds for lawful treaty termination.
Palestine could withdraw from the “treaty” because of what it would regard as a “material breach,” a purported violation by Israel that had allegedly undermined the “object or purpose” of the agreement. It could also point toward what international law calls Rebus sic stantibus. In English, this doctrine is known formally as a “fundamental change of circumstances.” Here, if Palestine should decide to declare itself vulnerable to previously unforeseen dangers, perhaps even from the interventionary or prospectively occupying forces of other Arab armies, it could lawfully end its previous commitment to remain demilitarized.
There is another factor that explains why Prime Minister Netanyahu’s hope for Palestinian demilitarization remains misconceived. After declaring independence, a new Palestinian government, one likely displaying openly genocidal sentiments, could point to particular pre-independence errors of fact, or duress, as appropriate grounds for agreement termination. Significantly, the usual grounds that may be invoked under domestic law to invalidate contracts can apply equally under international law, both to actual treaties, and to treaty-like agreements.
tell a friendAbout the Author: Louis René Beres, strategic and military affairs columnist for The Jewish Press, is professor of Political Science at Purdue University. Educated at Princeton (Ph.D., 1971), he lectures and publishes widely on international relations and international law and is the author of ten major books in the field. In Israel, Professor Beres was chair of Project Daniel.
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