Alan Dershowitz
Alan Dershowitz is a Left-Winger. Or at least I’ve always
believed so. BUT his recent support of Constitutional law that benefits
President Trump rather than fellow Leftist Dems has led to place Dershowitz as
more Center-Left than Left-Wing. AND NOW I just finished reading an article
that fully supports Israel sovereignty over religious sites that have a Judaic
history over pseudo-Palestinians who desire to usurp that Israeli sovereignty.
JRH 5/14/19
Your generosity is always appreciated:
***********************
War Crime!: Placing a Note in the Western Wall
May 14, 2019 at 5:00 am
·
I urge
all visitors to join me in a conspiracy to violate the UN Security Council
Resolution...Obama, himself, engineered the Resolution. He pushed it through
the Security Council despite some reservations by other members, including
Egypt, which believed that the Resolution itself could become a barrier to a
negotiated two-state solution. After all, if Israel's control over Judaism's
holiest site is deemed illegal, then Israel would have to negotiate its
legality with the Palestinians.
·
These
Jewish areas were illegally occupied by Jordan between 1948 and 1967 and
lawfully recaptured by Israel in a defensive war, started by Jordan when it
fired mortars at civilian targets inside pre-1967 Israel.... Yet there were no
United Nations Resolutions, campus protests or other organized shows of
opposition by the international community. Only after Israel liberated these
historically Jewish areas, did the world, and Obama, decide -- in violation of
international law -- that they were illegally occupied.
·
Declaring
the Western Wall to be illegally occupied territory is akin to declaring the
Vatican, Mecca or other religious, holy sites to be occupied by those who pray
at them. The Western Wall is lawfully part of the nation state of the Jewish
people. It will remain so as long as Israel exists. If there is to be any hope
of peace between Israel and the Palestinians, the world must recognize that
historic, moral and legal reality.
Pictured: Notes
placed by visitors in the cracks of the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Israel.
(Photo by Uriel Sinai/Getty Images)
Last week, in Israel, I committed a flagrant violation of
international law. This "war crime" consisted of placing a note
asking for "peace, salaam, shalom" in the Western Wall, Judaism's
holiest site. The reason the note requesting peace constituted "a flagrant
violation of international law" and a "war crime" is that the
United Nations Security Council, in a Resolution adopted in December 2016, declared that all
areas captured by Israel during the 1967 War are illegally occupied
territories. That includes the Western Wall, the Jewish Quarter of the Old City
of Jerusalem and the access roads on Mount Scopus to the Hebrew University and
Hadassah Hospital.
Former US President Barack Obama demanded that his permanent
representative to the United Nations not veto this one-sided, wrong-headed,
ahistorical, bigoted, and anti-peace Resolution. Obama changed American policy
by allowing such a resolution to be enacted by the Security Council as revenge
on Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who, quite correctly, opposed
the very bad deal Obama made with Iran enabling it to develop nuclear weapons.
Although Obama himself had once stood in front of the
Western Wall and placed a note in it, he now apparently regards Judaism's
holiest place as territory illegally occupied by Israel. He is dead wrong, but
that does not change the Security Council Resolution.
So now I, and doubtless many others, have not only willfully
and deliberately committed a violation of international law, we are also guilty
of a war crime, because building or using civilian structures on illegally
occupied territory is a war crime; and Israel built, and I used, the promenade
in front of the Western Wall after Israel recaptured it during a defensive war.
Let me be clear: I intend to commit this crime during every
visit to Israel. Call it an act of civil disobedience, or call it an act which
simply recognizes the absurdity and illegality of the Security Council
Resolution, despite its passage and lack of veto by the United States, which
abstained.
The United States abstention was designed to give the Obama
administration political cover at home. It could claim that it did not vote for
the Resolution. But it did much more than vote for the Resolution. Obama,
himself, engineered the Resolution. He pushed it through the Security Council
despite some reservations by other members, including Egypt, which believed
that the Resolution itself could become a barrier to a negotiated two-state
solution. After all, if Israel's control over Judaism's holiest site is deemed
illegal, then Israel would have to negotiate its legality with the
Palestinians. This would give the Palestinians an incomparable bargaining chip.
As a former Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority once rhetorically asked
me, "How much would Israel be willing to give up to get back its most
important religious shrine?"
Israel will never accept the Security Council Resolution.
Nor should any decent person. I certainly do not, and will continue to violate
it during every visit to Israel, by putting notes in the Western Wall, eating
kosher falafel in the Jewish Quarter and driving on the access road to Hebrew
University, and if I need to, Hadassah Hospital. I urge all visitors to join me
in a conspiracy to violate the Security Council Resolution.
These Jewish areas were illegally occupied by Jordan between
1948 and 1967 and lawfully recaptured by Israel in a defensive war, started by
Jordan when it fired mortars at civilian targets inside pre-1967 Israel. During
the Jordanian occupation, King Hussein engaged in war crimes by ordering the
destruction of ancient synagogues, burial places and other historical sites and
by "ethnically cleansing" this historically Jewish area of all Jews.
Yet there were no United Nations Resolutions, campus protests or other
organized shows of opposition by the international community. Only after Israel
liberated these historically Jewish areas, did the world, and Obama, decide --
in violation of international law -- that they were illegally occupied.
Declaring the Western Wall to be illegally occupied
territory is akin to declaring the Vatican, Mecca or other religious, holy
sites to be occupied by those who pray at them. The Western Wall is lawfully
part of the nation state of the Jewish people. It will remain so as long as
Israel exists. If there is to be any hope of peace between Israel and the
Palestinians, the world must recognize that historic, moral and legal reality.
Alan M. Dershowitz is the Felix
Frankfurter Professor of Law Emeritus at Harvard Law School and author of The Case Against the Democrats Impeaching
Trump, Skyhorse Publishing, 2018. He is a Distinguished
Senior Fellow at Gatestone Institute.
_______________________
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Gatestone Institute. [Blog Editor: I did
not seek permission to re-post; ergo if requested, the post will be removed.]
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