Israel and "Palestine": What International Law Requires
by Louis René Beres • May 12, 2016 at 5:00 am
- Under relevant international law, a true state must always possess the following specific qualifications: (1) a permanent population; (2) a defined territory; (3) a government; and (4) the capacity to enter into relations with other states.
- While this contingent condition of prior demilitarization of a Palestinian state may at first sound reassuring, it represents little more than a impotent legal expectation.
- For one thing, no new state is ever under any obligation to remain "demilitarized," whatever else it may have actually agreed to during its particular pre-state incarnation.
- "The legality of the presence of Israel's communities the area (Judea and Samaria) stems from the historic, indigenous, and legal rights of the Jewish people to settle in the area, granted pursuant to valid and binding international legal instruments, recognized and accepted by the international community. These rights cannot be denied or placed in question." — Ambassador Alan Baker, Israeli legal expert.
Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, U.S. President Bill Clinton, and PLO chairman Yasser Arafat at the Oslo Accords signing ceremony on September 13, 1993. (Image source: Vince Musi / The White House)
International law has one overarching debility. No matter how complex the issues, virtually everyone able to read feels competent to offer an authoritative legal opinion. While, for example, no sane person would ever explain or perform cardio-thoracic surgery without first undergoing rigorous medical training, nearly everyone feels competent to interpret complex meanings of the law.
This debility needs to be countered, at least on a case by case basis. In the enduring controversy over Palestinian statehood, there are significant rules to be considered. For a start, on November 29, 2012, the General Assembly voted to upgrade the Palestinian Authority (PA) to the status of a "Nonmember Observer State."
Yazidi Girl Exposes ISIS Rape Hellhole
by Raymond Ibrahim • May 12, 2016 at 4:00 am
- Yazidi girls were "sold" in exchange for a few packs of cigarettes.
- "They would come and take any girl against her will; if she refused, they would kill her on the spot." — all quotes below from "Birvan," on "Shabaab [Youth] Talk," hosted by Ja'far Abdul, March 22, 2016.
- "Anyone who walked by our room and liked us would just say 'Let's go.'"
- "There were 48 ISIS members in that house, and we were two girls — two Yazidi girls."
- "What hospital?! They beat me even more!"
- "I didn't care if I got caught. Escape or death were both better than remaining there."
A new televised interview, conducted in Arabic with a Yazidi girl who endured sexual captivity at the hands of the Islamic State, was published on March 22, 2016. It appeared on "Shabaab [Youth] Talk," hosted by Ja'far Abdul.
The teenage girl, who went by the pseudonym of Birvan, was enslaved when she was 15 and endured months of captivity before she managed to escape. She is now 17. Based on the 40-minute interview, her story is as follows:
Yazidis were escaping from their war-torn village near Tel Affar, Iraq, when they were intercepted on the road by four ISIS operatives. The men swore that if the Yazidis would cooperate and answer some questions, no harm would befall them and they would be allowed to return home in peace. Asked how many Yazidis there were, Birvan says she recalls only 95 men and their families — "many, many women and children."
