70 comments

1. This is yet another shocking storey of brutality, theft and displacement of Palestinians equivalent to the treatment of Jews by the Nazis in the 1930’s. Yes Jewish property should be returned and this is widely acknowledged. Yes, Palestinian property should be returned, something the Israeli state with the support of most of its Jewish citizens is a long way from acknowledging while most of the world turns a blind eye. Another compelling reason for supporting BDS.

   1. There is absolutely no equivalency and you should be ashamed of suggesting such.

      1. You are absolutely correct, Jack…and there was utterly no excuse for the western powers not to have done an intervention on the brutal designs of the Nazi State toward Jews. We know quite well that the Nazi regime used the boycott German Goods campaign that was organized by the Jewish Committee of New York – we know that this was used in the Nazi propaganda making it look like Jews were waging war on Germany.

         It would have made a lot of difference if FDR and other leaders could have worked with the German legations and the whole diplomatic corps to put some blunt questions to the Ambassadors of Germany – to account for the irrational aspects of the anti-Jewish campaigns. While I see how the Nazi propagandists were able to capitalize on the New York-based boycott, I think that things were allowed to get out of hand due to the western world having a shortage of backbone in getting Germany to fail to examine its underlying misconceptions.

         The Abboud family’s injustice is best addressed if the Palestinian groups are able to help create a grounding for on-the-level discussions with Israel – that respect the role of Zionism as a force for a multi-ethnic society, rather than a Islam dominated society – that has no capacity to provide sovereign autonomy to the smaller groups.

2. Whenever I have discussed the problem of forced absentees with Israelis, they have assured me of two things (a) that Palestinians were assured that they did not have to leave and would be safe, (b) that those who left did so in support of the “invading” Arab armies and were enemies of Israel. I don’t argue with them but change the topic to my father’s departure from Austria after Hitler took over.

   My father had obtained permission to visit Belgium (then unoccupied) with the intent of never returning. His passport was examined by an Austrian Civil Servant who surmised that he was fleeing. That guard assured him that he did not have to leave and was welcome in Austria. When my father responded by repeating what Hitler and other Nazis had said and what was happening to Jews in Austria, the official assured him that “they don’t mean people like you”.

   I ask the Israelis if they think my father should have left and they all agree that he was right to doubt the Austrian official and leave. They all, without exception, say that he would have been killed if he had stayed. When I ask them why an Arab in the same position should believe the Israeli fighters promises, they have no satisfactory answer. They simply assert that we cannot compare Jews to Nazis and that Jews can be trusted. I ask them how someone fleeing the violence would know that, and they have no answer.

   When I point out that Jews were eventually able to return to Germany and Austria and many were compensated for lost property, they cannot explain why the same should not be done for Arabs who fled Israel. They are sure that those who fled were enemies and should never be allowed to return. Their mind is closed.

   If there is ever going to be peace in Israel, people whose property has been taken must be allowed to return and either receive their property or just compensation. We have to open some minds.

   1. Dr. David Lorge Panas

      “Whenever I have discussed the problem of forced absentees with Israelis, they have assured me of two things (a) that Palestinians were assured that they did not have to leave and would be safe, (b) that those who left did so in support of the ‘invading’ Arab armies and were enemies of Israel.”

      Reality:

      Shortly after Britain’s announcement that it intended to withdraw from Palestine beginning 15 May 1948, Ben-Gurion directed the Irgunists, Sternists and Palmach to increase the ferocity of their strikes against Palestinian Arabs. He ordered that “in each attack, a decisive blow should be struck, resulting in the destruction of homes and the expulsion of the population.” (Ben-Gurion’s Diary-in Hebrew, vol. 1, 19 December 1947) The Zionists were implementing what they called Plans A, B and C or Tochnit May (Plan May), more commonly known as Plan Gimmel. Its objectives were to buy time for the mobilization of Jewish forces by seizing strategic points the British vacated and to terrorize the Palestinian population into submission. (Harvard Professor Walid Khalidi, Haven to Conquest, p.lxxix)

      “On 30 December [1947], a British intelligence observer reported that the Haganah was moving fast to exploit Palestinian weaknesses and disorganization, especially in Haifa and Jaffa, and to render them ‘completely powerless’ so as to force them into flight.” (A report by G.J. Jenkins, 30 Dec.,1947, British Embassy, Cairo, PRO,FO 371/68366,E458)

      Ben-Gurion knew what had to be done to drive out Palestine’s Arabs. At the beginning of 1948, he wrote in his diary: “During the assault we must be ready to strike a decisive blow; that is, either destroy the town or expel its inhabitants so our people can replace them.” (Yoram Nimrod, Meetings at the Crossroads: Jews and Arabs in Palestine During Recent Generations, in Hebrew, Haifa: University of Haifa, 1984)

      Ben-Gurion’s response to the 1937 Peel Report proved beyond any doubt that he was also a strong advocate of “transfer” and/or expulsion (without compensation). During the summer of 1937, he ordered Elimelech Slikowitz (aka “Avnir”), the Haganah commander of Tel Aviv, to come up with a strategy for the military takeover of all of Palestine. What is known as the “Avnir plan” was the model for Plan Dalet, which became the master plan for the eventual dispossession and expulsion of Palestinians. It was implemented in early April, 1948.

      On 6 February 1948, while addressing a meeting of the Mapai Party Council Ben-Gurion stressed the necessity of establishing Jewish settlements in the mountains around Jerusalem and the hills surrounding the coastal plains. When a member of the audience pointed out that the Partition Plan had not given those areas to the proposed Jewish state, he responded: “The war will give us the land. The concepts of ‘ours’ and ‘not ours’ are peace concepts, only, and in war they lose their whole meaning.” (Ben-Gurion, War Diary, Vol. l, entry dated 6 February 1948, pp. 210-11)

      Speaking to the same group the next day, Ben-Gurion expressed his pleasure at the fact the western parts of Jerusalem (Lifta and Romema) had been emptied of Arabs and replaced by Jews. He then speculated that “[w]hat had happened in Jerusalem…is likely to happen in many parts of the country…in the six, eight or ten months of the campaign there will certainly be great changes in the composition of the population in the country.” (Ben-Gurion, War Diary, Vol. l, entry dated 7 February 1948, pp. 210-11)

      The repeated assertion by Israel’s leaders and other Zionists that Palestinians fled their homes and properties in 1948 because they were told to do so by Arab leaders to make way for incoming Arab armies has long-since been debunked. To quote John H. Davis, who served as Commission-General of UNRWA at the time: “An exhaustive examination of the minutes, resolutions, and press releases of the Arab League, of the files of leading Arabic newspapers, of day-to-day monitoring of broadcasts from Arab capitals and secret Arab radio stations, failed to reveal a single reference, direct or indirect, to an order given to the Arabs of Palestine to leave. All the evidence is to the contrary; that the Arab authorities continuously exhorted the Palestinian Arabs not to leave the country…. Panic and bewilderment played decisive parts in the flight. But the extent to which the refugees were savagely driven out by the Israelis as part of a deliberate master-plan has been insufficiently recognized.” (John H. Davis, The Evasive Peace, London: Murray, 1968)

      Mr. Davis’s observations are confirmed by the IDF Intelligence Branch Report dated 30 June 1948, entitled “The Arab Exodus from Palestine in the Period 1 December 1947 to 1 June 1948.” After studying the document, Israeli Jewish historian Benny Morris stated that “the Intelligence Branch report…goes out of its way to stress that the [Palestinian] exodus was contrary to the political-strategic desires of both the Arab Higher Committee and the governments of the neighboring Arab states. These, according to the report, struggled against the exodus – threatening, cajoling, and imposing punishments, all to no avail.” (Benny Morris, “The Causes and Character of the Arab Exodus from Palestine: The Israel Defense Force Intelligence Board Analysis of June 1948: Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. XXII, no. 1, January 1986)

3. Thanks for the thoughtful question. We first have to understand that the leaders of the PA are still acting as though Israel is not something that should be accepted and it is still failing to give any cues of understanding the role of Zionism in defending a pluralist society since before independence. We have to achieve a basic level of empathy from Palestinians as to why Zionism and Israel became an option for Jews. Understanding really why. Once the sides have some basis for accepting each other even marginally, then it is possible to look at creating a formula for good faith redress of harms experienced during a period of combat between warring sides.

   I hope that Canadians will make use of the opportunities to help create the foundations for a viable negotiating climate. Two I can name are the recently completed Peace Week of the YMCA Nov 18-25. The other is the potential of a nascent “Populist Revolution of Empathy” that was advocated by the 2017 Massey Lecturer Payam Akhavan, law professor and prosecutor of war criminals.

   Anyone who is interested, I have correspondence on each of these approaches and would be eager to share with those who want foundations for acceptance to be reached by Israelis and Palestinians.

   1. Alan Banes

      “We first have to understand that the leaders of the PA are still acting as though Israel is not something that should be accepted and it is still failing to give any cues of understanding the role of Zionism in defending a pluralist society since before independence.”

      Nonsense!!

      Reality:

      In 1988, the PLO recognized Israel as a sovereign state within the borders of the 1947 recommendatory only UNGA Partition Plan, Res. 181, which violated the terms of the British Class A Mandate for Palestine and the Atlantic Charter, was never adopted by the UNSC and was grossly unfair to the indigenous Palestinian Arab inhabitants.

      By signing the 1993 Oslo Accords, the PLO accepted UNSC Res. 242 and thereby agreed to recognize a sovereign Israel within the 1949 armistice lines, i.e., as of 4 June 1967 – 78% of mandate Palestine.

      The PLO also agreed to the US/EU/UN supported 2002 Arab League Beirut Summit Peace Initiative, which offers Israel full recognition as a sovereign state (per UNSC Res. 242, i.e., within its June 4/67 boundaries with possible minor, equal and mutually agreed land swaps), exchange of ambassadors, trade, tourism, etc., if Israel complies with international law (e.g., the UN Charter, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Fourth Geneva Convention and the Rome Statute.) Fully aware of Israel’s demographic concerns, the Beirut initiative does not demand the return of all Palestinian refugees. In accordance with Israel’s pledge given to the UNGA in 1949 and by signing the 1949 Lausanne Peace Conference Protocol to abide by UNGA Res. 194 regarding the then 800,000 Palestinian refugees as a precondition for admittance to the UN (after being rejected twice), the Arab League’s Initiative “calls upon Israel to affirm” that it agrees to help pursue the “achievement of a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem…”

      Along with all Arab states and the PLO, Hezbollah and Iran have also accepted the Arab League’s 2002 Beirut Summit Peace Initiative. (In its revised Charter, April, 2017, Hamas agreed to a Palestinian state based on the 4 June 1967 borders. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, Israel promptly rejected the Hamas overture instead of using it to open a dialogue.)
      Regrettably, then Israeli PM Ariel Sharon summarily dismissed the Arab League’s peace overture, as did Israel in 2008 and thereafter.

      For the record, other peace initiatives that Israeli governments have rebuffed include: U.S. Secretary of State William Rogers’ The Rogers Plan (1969); The Scranton Mission on behalf of President Nixon (1970); Egyptian President Sadat’s land for peace and mutual recognition proposal (1971); U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s call for a Geneva international conference (1977); Saudi Arabian King Fahd’s peace offer (1981); U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s Reagan Plan (1982); U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz’s Schultz Plan (1988); U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s Baker Plan (1989); and the previously noted 1993 Oslo accords signed by Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin that unravelled following the latter’s assassination and subsequent return to power of the Likud party from 1996-1999 under Benjamin Netanyahu; continuation of the Taba II negotiations (2001); the unofficial Geneva Peace Initiative of November/December 2003; and the 2014 Kerry Initiative.

      As for the much touted 2000 Camp David Summit, working in tandem, Barak and Clinton tried to shove a very bad deal down Arafat’s throat. It could only be rejected. Suffice to quote Shlomo Ben-Ami, then Israel’s foreign minister and lead negotiator at Camp David: “Camp David was not the missed opportunity for the Palestinians, and if I were a Palestinian I would have rejected Camp David, as well.” (National Public Radio, 14 February 2006.)

      The “offer” made in 2008 by then Israeli PM Ehud Olmert was never seen as serious because it lacked cabinet approval, he was under indictment with only a few weeks left in office, had a 6% favorable rating, and, therefore, couldn’t have closed the deal, even if the Palestinians had accepted it. (Olmert was imprisoned.)

      Unfortunately, Israel’s response to every peace overture from the Palestinians and Arab states, has been an escalation of illegal settlement construction, dispossession and oppression in occupied Palestinian and other Arab lands.

      1. Thanks for taking the time to itemize this chronology. I do not dispute that there is a need for good faith reconstruction of the relationship between Palestinians and Israel. This has to be a premise that everyone has to concede has validity.

         The problem exists in the two-facedness that is perceptible from PA leadership that will say one thing before international councils and quite another in a rally in Gaza, for example. Palestinian leadership has to become demonstrably united behind a credible understanding that they have to hold at least a shred of empathy for the historical Jewish position that has been asserting the idea that Jews do have a right to discuss the level of autonomy that minorities would hold post 1948. This is an area that I could use some research help from anti-Zionists. We need to track any statements that have ever been made, intra-group, among Palestinian factions – that would establish that there is an inkling of understanding of the relationship between Israel and the goal of protecting pluralism within the Transjordan – as a political formulation.

         I am optimistic that once the fact that Palestinian leaders grasp that Israel as an armed entity that puts military dominance as its primary attribute – is due specifically to refusal by the Arab side to discuss minority sovereignty. This may be the pivotal impediment to the conditions for real conversation being feasible.

      2. There is a lot of false information in these posts. The comment about Iran and Hezbollah agreeing to a 2 state settlement takes the cake. Funny no one told them that they accepted the agreement. You see they keep saying this is a war to the death.

         Mohammad Khatami, the former president of Iran: “If we abide by real legal laws, we should mobilize the whole Islamic world for a sharp confrontation with the Zionist regime … if we abide by the Koran, all of us should mobilize to kill.” (2000)

         Ayatollah Ali Khamenei: “It is the mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to erase Israel from the map of the region.” (2001)

         Hassan Nasrallah, a leader of Hezbollah: “If they [Jews] all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide.” (2002)

         Nasrallah: “Israel is our enemy. This is an aggressive, illegal, and illegitimate entity, which has no future in our land. Its destiny is manifested in our motto: ‘Death to Israel.’” (2005)

         Yahya Rahim Safavi, the former commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps: “With God’s help the time has come for the Zionist regime’s death sentence.” (2008)
         Mohammad Hassan Rahimian, Khamenei’s representative to the Moustazafan Foundation: “We have manufactured missiles that allow us, when necessary to replace [sic] Israel in its entirety with a big holocaust.” (2010)

         Mohammad Reza Naqdi, the commander of the Basij paramilitary force: “We recommend them [the Zionists] to pack their furniture and return to their countries. And if they insist on staying, they should know that a time while arrive when they will not even have time to pack their suitcases.” (2011)

         Khamenei: “The Zionist regime is a cancerous tumor and it will be removed.” (2012)
         Ahmad Alamolhoda, a member of the Assembly of Experts: “The destruction of Israel is the idea of the Islamic Revolution in Iran and is one of the pillars of the Iranian Islamic regime. We cannot claim that we have no intention of going to war with Israel.” (2013)

         Nasrallah: “The elimination of Israel is not only a Palestinian interest. It is the interest of the entire Muslim world and the entire Arab world.” (2013)
         Hojateleslam Alireza Panahian, the advisor to Office of the Supreme Leader in Universities: “The day will come when the Islamic people in the region will destroy Israel and save the world from this Zionist base.” (2013)

         Hojatoleslam Ali Shirazi, Khamenei’s representative in the Revolutionary Guard: “The Zionist regime will soon be destroyed, and this generation will be witness to its destruction.” (2013)

         Khamenei: “This barbaric, wolflike & infanticidal regime of Israel which spares no crime has no cure but to be annihilated.” (2014)

         Hossein Salami, the deputy head of the Revolutionary Guard: “We will chase you [Israelis] house to house and will take revenge for every drop of blood of our martyrs in Palestine, and this is the beginning point of Islamic nations awakening for your defeat.” (2014)

         Salami: “Today we are aware of how the Zionist regime is slowly being erased from the world, and indeed, soon, there will be no such thing as the Zionist regime on Planet Earth.” (2014)

         Hossein Sheikholeslam, the secretary-general of the Committee for Support for the Palestinian Intifada: “The issue of Israel’s destruction is important, no matter the method. We will obviously implement the strategy of the Imam Khomeini and the Leader [Khamenei] on the issue of destroying the Zionists. The region will not be quiet so long as Israel exists in it …” (2014)

         Mohammad Ali Jafari, the commander-in-chief of the Revolutionary Guard: “The Revolutionary Guards will fight to the end of the Zionist regime … We will not rest easy until this epitome of vice is totally deleted from the region’s geopolitics.” (2015)

   2. Alan Blanes

      Reality:

      There is no special provision in international law (e.g., The UN Charter, The Fourth Geneva Convention, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and The Rome Statute, which are binding on all UN members) that enables Israel to violate it with impunity. Israel is an illegal, belligerent and brutal occupier of Palestinian lands (as well as other Arab lands, i.e., Syria’s Golan Heights and Lebanon’s Shebaa Farms and Kfarshuba hills.)

      (A) In the summer of 1967, “[t]he legal counsel of the Foreign Ministry, Theodor Meron, was asked [by then Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol] whether international law allowed settlement in the newly conquered land. In a memo marked ‘Top Secret,’ Meron wrote unequivocally: ‘My conclusion is that civilian settlement in the administered territories contravenes the explicit provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention.’” (New York Times, 10 March 2006)

      (B) Security Council Resolution 446 (22 March 1979) “[Affirms] once more that the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of 12 August 1949 is applicable to the Arab territories occupied by Israel since 1967, including Jerusalem,
      “1. Determines that the policy and practices of Israel in establishing settlements in the Palestinian and other Arab territories occupied since 1967 have no legal validity and constitute a serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East;..”

      (C) Security Council Resolution 465 (1 March 1980) “determines that all measures taken by Israel to change the physical character, demographic composition, institutional structure or status of the Palestinian and other Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem, or any part thereof, have no legal validity…”

      (D) Israel’s 1980 annexation of East Jerusalem was unanimously rejected by the UN Security Council in Resolution 476 (June 30, 1980): “all legislative and administrative measures and actions taken by Israel, the Occupying Power, which purport to alter the character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem have no legal validity and constitute a flagrant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention.”

      (E) On 17 December 1981, the UNSC unanimously passed Resolution 497, which declared Israel’s 14 December 1981 annexation of Syria’s Golan Heights “null and void.”

      (F) In accordance with the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention, ratified by Israel, and further underscoring the illegality of the settlements, Part 2, Article 8, section B, paragraph viii of the Rome Statute of the International Court (1998) defines “the transfer directly or indirectly by the Occupying power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies ” as a War Crime, indictable by the International Criminal Court.

      (G) On 24 February 2004, the U.S. State Department reaffirmed its earlier position in a report entitled Israel and the Occupied Territories, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: “Israel occupied the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights after the 1967 War…. The international community does not recognize Israel’s sovereignty over any part of the occupied territories.”

      (H) In its 2004 ruling, the International Court of Justice unanimously ruled that “No territorial acquisition resulting from the threat or use of force shall be recognized as legal.” The World Court denoted this principle a “corollary” of the U.N. Charter and as such “customary international law” and a “customary rule” binding on all member States of the United Nations.

      (I) US Secretary of State, John Kerry: “The US views all of the settlements as illegitimate.” (13 August 2013, Reuters Video)

      (J) British Foreign Secretary William Hague regarding Jewish settlements in the West Bank (5 April 2011): “This is not disputed territory. It is occupied Palestinian territory and ongoing settlement expansion is illegal under international law…”

      (K) UN Security Council Resolution 2334, December 23, 2016: “Guided by the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations, and reaffirming, inter alia, the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force,
      “Reaffirming the obligation of Israel, the occupying Power, to abide scrupulously by its legal obligations and responsibilities under the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, of 12 August 1949, and recalling the advisory opinion rendered on 9 July 2004 by the International Court of Justice,
      “Condemning all measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, including, inter alia, the construction and expansion of settlements, transfer of Israeli settlers, confiscation of land, demolition of homes and displacement of Palestinian civilians, in violation of international humanitarian law and relevant resolutions,….”
      “1. Reaffirms that the establishment by Israel of settlements in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law and a major obstacle to the achievement of the two-State solution and a just, lasting and comprehensive peace;
      “2. Reiterates its demand that Israel immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, and that it fully respect all of its legal obligations in this regard;
      “3. Underlines that it will not recognize any changes to the 4 June 1967 lines, including with regard to Jerusalem, other than those agreed by the parties through negotiations;..”

      Furthermore, for the record:
      (1)
      “September 9, 1993
      Yitzhak Rabin
      Prime Minister of Israel
      Mr. Prime Minister,

      “The signing of the Declaration of Principles marks a new era in the history of the Middle East. In firm conviction thereof, I would like to confirm the following PLO commitments:

      “The PLO recognizes the right of the State of Israel to exist in peace and security.

      “The PLO accepts United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338.

      “The PLO commits itself to the Middle East peace process, and to a peaceful resolution of the conflict between the two sides and declares that all outstanding issues relating to permanent status will be resolved through negotiations.

      “The PLO considers that the signing of the Declaration of Principles constitutes a historic event, inaugurating a new epoch of peaceful coexistence, free from violence and all other acts which endanger peace and stability. Accordingly, the PLO renounces the use of terrorism and other acts of violence and will assume responsibility over all PLO elements and personnel in order to assure their compliance, prevent violations and discipline violators

      “In view of the promise of a new era and the signing of the Declaration of Principles and based on Palestinian acceptance of Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, the PLO affirms that those articles of the Palestinian Covenant which deny Israel’s right to exist, and the provisions of the Covenant which are inconsistent with the commitments of this letter are now inoperative and no longer valid. Consequently, the PLO undertakes to submit to the Palestinian National Council for formal approval the necessary changes in regard to the Palestinian Covenant.
      “Sincerely,
      Yasser Arafat
      Chairman
      The Palestine Liberation Organization”

      (2)
      In January 1998, Yasser Arafat, Chairman of the PLO and President of the PNC, sent the following letter to President Clinton reminding him that contrary to assertions by Israel’s Likud government under Netanyahu, the PLO Charter had been formally amended in accordance with commitments made to Yitzhak Rabin in 1993.

      “January 13, 1998
      “Dear Mr. President.

      “In the mutual recognition letters between me and the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin of September 9/10, 1993, the PLO committed to recognize the right of the State of Israel to exist in peace and security, to accept UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 and to a peaceful resolution of the conflict between the two sides. The PLO also agreed to secure the necessary changes in the Palestinian Covenant to reflect these commitments.

      “Accordingly, the P.N.C. was held in Gaza city between 22-25 of April 1996, and in an extraordinary session decided that the “Palestine National Charter is hereby amended by cancelling the articles that are contrary to the letters exchanged between the P.L.O and the Government of Israel on 9/10 September 1993”.

      “It should be noted that the above mentioned resolution acquired the consent of both the American Administration and the Israeli Government. Afterwards I sent letters concerning this historic resolution to your Excellency and Prime Minister Shimon Peres, and later a similar letter was sent to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

      “Both your Excellency and Prime Minister Peres warmly welcomed the P.N.C. Resolution.

      “The Israeli Labor Party, and in appreciation of the P.N.C. resolution dropped its objection to the establishment of a Palestinian State from its political platform.

      “From time to time questions have been raised about the effect of the Palestine National Council’s action, particularly concerning which of the 33 articles of the Palestinian Covenant have been changed.

      “We would like to put to rest these concerns. The Palestine National Council’s resolution, in accordance with Article 33 of the Covenant, is a comprehensive amendment of the Covenant. All of the provisions of the Covenant which are inconsistent with the P.L.O. commitment to recognize and live in peace side by side with Israel are no longer in effect.

      “As a result, Articles 6-10, 15, 19-23, and 30 have been nullified, and the parts in Articles 1-5, 11-14, 16-l8, 25-27 and 29 that are inconsistent with the above mentioned commitments have also been nullified.

      “I can assure you on behalf of the PLO and the Palestinian Authority that all the provisions of the Covenant that were inconsistent with the commitments (of September 9/10, 1993) to Prime Minister Rabin, have been nullified.
      Nablus: January 13, 1998
      Yasser Arafat, Chairman of the Executive Committee of the P.L.O., President of the P.N.A.”

      Eminent Jewish Israeli journalist Bradley Burston aptly sums up the horrors Israel inflicts on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem:
      “Occupation is Slavery”
      EXCERPT:
      “In the name of occupation, generation after generation of Palestinians have been treated as property. They can be moved at will, shackled at will, tortured at will, have their families separated at will. They can be denied the right to vote, to own property, to meet or speak to family and friends. They can be hounded or even shot dead by their masters, who claim their position by biblical right, and also use them to build and work on the plantations the toilers cannot themselves ever hope to own. The masters dehumanize them, call them by the names of beasts.” (Haaretz, Feb. 26/13)

      As for the Gaza Strip, to this day if remains belligerently and illegally occupied by Israel.
      To wit:
      Human Rights Watch, 2005: “…Israel will continue to be an Occupying Power [of the Gaza Strip] under international law and bound by the provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention because it will retain effective control over the territory and over crucial aspects of civilian life. Israel will not be withdrawing and handing power over to a sovereign authority – indeed, the word ‘withdrawal’ does not appear in the [2005 disengagement] document at all… The IDF will retain control over Gaza’s borders, coastline, and airspace, and will reserve the right to enter Gaza at will. According to the Hague Regulations, ‘A territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army. The occupation extends only to the territory where such authority has been established and can be exercised’. International jurisprudence has clarified that the mere repositioning of troops is not sufficient to relieve an occupier of its responsibilities if it retains its overall authority and the ability to reassert direct control at will.”

      The International Committee of the Red Cross: “The whole of Gaza’s civilian population is being punished for acts for which they bear no responsibility. The closure therefore constitutes a collective punishment imposed in clear violation of Israel’s obligations under international humanitarian law. The Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, ratified by Israel, bans collective punishment of a civilian population.”

      “In practice, Gaza has become a huge, let me be blunt, concentration camp for right now 1,800,000 people” – Amira Hass, 2015, correspondent for Haaretz, speaking at the Forum for Scholars and Publics at Duke University.

      “‘The significance of the [then proposed] disengagement plan [implemented in 2005] is the freezing of the peace process,’ Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s senior adviser Dov Weisglass has told Ha’aretz. ‘And when you freeze that process, you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, and you prevent a discussion on the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Effectively, this whole package called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed indefinitely from our agenda….’ Weisglass, who was one of the initiators of the disengagement plan, was speaking in an interview with Ha’aretz for the Friday Magazine. ‘The disengagement is actually formaldehyde,’ he said. ‘It supplies the amount of formaldehyde that is necessary so there will not be a political process with the Palestinians.’” (Top PM Aide: Gaza Plan Aims to Freeze the Peace Process, Ha’aretz, October 6, 2004)

4. Thank you Peter for a nice and all written piece …I really appreciate the great effort and points you bring to the subject and the way you compare European Jews situation under the raciest ideology of Nazi Germany.

   If I know that my comments will add a value to the blog would have not hesitated to post one or respond to Alan Blanes….. He re-iterate what many ill-informed or Israel sympathizers would defend Israel by blaming Palestinians or their leadership (the lack of )

   Cheers Essam

   Sent from my Windows 10 phone

   1. Lets just be reality-based on this point Essam. People who are under a leadership that is aggressive and can’t be trusted, and have engaged in combat with a dominant military power, are vulnerable to being destroyed in the cause of eliminating this combatant.

      The citizens of Hamburg, Dresden and other German citizens were not being “blamed” for the government policies of their nation. They were tools and resources of the German Nazi State – and were therefore in the cross-hairs of those whose task was to liquidate that state. No more and no less. Therefore, to continue the analogy, those of us who want democracy and equal rights for Palestinians have to concentrate on cornering the whole Palestinian leadership – and making sure that they are aware of what moves they have to make in order to do their jobs of standing up for Palestinians. If we ignore setting basic expectations, it is likely that the interests of Palestinians will become stillborn.

5. Peter FWIW is worth. Max Stern has been dead for 30 years. Nothing can be returned to him. The only question is whether various charities he supported should get more stuff from various agencies who bought stuff from Germans in the 1950s or not. No I don’t think they should get it back. There are with most things statutes of limitations. 21 years is pretty normal in the USA. A human lifetime is certainly more than enough time to say that past is past.

   February 1948 there is no Israel. There is a British colony in the midst of a nasty ethnic civil war started by Arabs against the Jewish ethnics who live in the colony. The Arabs instead of exterminating the Jews lose the war. When 194 passes, which includes many obligations they had regarding peace is rejected by the Arabs. Let’s not forget: Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Yemen voted against 194. The Palestinians adopt a position of constant border terrorism not peaceful coexistence within Israel. There is no return.

   The successor state to the British mandate does not recognize old property claims. That happens in revolutions. There are lots of Cubans in Florida angry about a similar situation and I should mention that Canada has been very hostile to their property claims undermining them for decades. I’ve got a lot of family property my family lost when Russia and Ukraine became the Soviet Union I ain’t getting it.

   It is possible to imagine a different history where today there is a secular state with a moderate Jewish population, a Jewish homeland but 1936-9 and 47-9 never happened. It is possible to imagine a Jewish state where after 1947-9 the Arab people’s changed course and made a quick peace. But we don’t live in the world that experienced that history. Choices have consequences.

   1. Thanks for stating the blunt realities CD-Host. I would hope that you might agree that the best course of action for justice for Palestinians will be to try to get each side to understand the minimum prerequisites that each side might have for being willing to talk seriously.

      1. I think the best course of action is to stop having two sides. This is at this point a interlocking series of complex conflicts on a range of issues that’s best handled as part of a long social and political process not a simple interstate treaty. The two state solution has been a failure since the 1930s. The Jews are not going to permanently renounce claims and access to most of the sites that formed the reason for settling in Palestine in the first place. The Palestinians simply negotiate in bad faith on the issue of full ethnic partition because they don’t and likely never will see Israel as equally legitimate to Palestine.

         In practice Palestinians are all over the map about what their top priorities are. A huge percentage want concessions like and end to job discrimination or housing discrimination which is the opposite of what happens in partition. Jews are all over the map about their top priorities ranging from maximizing security, to a warm peace with the Arab world, to maximum ethnic purity. This is not the only place in the world we need to figure out a common set of laws based on lots of people with different priorities. The Canadian tax code and public transportation bills look similar.

         The big question is if we stop pretending there are 2 sides and instead realize there are lots of sides what’s the best arrangement for gradually evolving towards ever better solutions with no claim that some perfect solution will be arrived at soon? IMHO a solution that Israeli Politicians have been flirting with and seems to have some Palestinians support is a Federal solution.
         Example: http://www.federation.org.il/index.php/en/

         There is no more Jewish state though there are some very Jewish provinces. The Palestinians in the West Bank get Israeli citizenship. Israel gets a bicameral legislature reflecting both proportional representation and regional governance. There is a full fledged independent Palestinian state in Gaza. The regional governments can develop relations with their respective diaspora populations (Jewish, Druze, Muslim Palestinian, Christian Palestinian). People are free to migrate to various cantons if they want to live under different systems there doesn’t have to be universal agreement on most areas of social policy.

         Etc…

   2. CD-Host

      Reality:

      Of course the Palestinians rejected the Partition Plan (UNGA Res. 181, Nov. 29/47) and for entirely justified reasons based on international law. While Jews made up just 31% of the population (90% were of foreign origin, only 30% had become citizens, thousands were illegal immigrants) and privately owned only between 6% and 7% of the land, the Partition Plan (recommendatory only, no legal foundation, contrary to the British Class A Mandate and the Atlantic Charter, grossly unfair to the indigenous Palestinian Arabs and NEVER RATIFIED BY THE UNSC) outrageously recommended they receive 56% of Palestine (including its most fertile areas) in which Palestinians made up 45% of the population. (10% of Palestine’s Jewish population consisted of native Palestinian/Arab Jews who were anti-Zionist.)

      48% of the total land area of mandated Palestine was privately owned (‘mulk khaas’) by Palestinian Arabs. To repeat, total Jewish privately owned land was only between 6% and 7%. About 45% of the total land area was state owned, i.e. by citizens of Palestine, and it was comprised of Communal Property (‘mashaa’), Endowment Property, (‘waqf’), and Government Property, (‘miri’.) (The British Mandate kept an extensive land registry and the UN used the registry during its early deliberations. It has in its archives 453,000 records of individual Palestinian owners defined by name, location & area.)

      Although Palestinian Arab citizens made up at least 69% of the population and to repeat, privately owned 48% of the land, the Partition Plan recommended they receive only 42% as a state. (The 2% of Palestine comprised of Jerusalem and Bethlehem was to be placed under international control, a corpus separatum.)

      Re: Jerusalem:
      Population of and land ownership in West and East Jerusalem in 1947: The total population of West Jerusalem (the New City) and East Jerusalem (the Old City) and their environs was about 200,000 with a slight Arab majority. (Professor Walid Khalidi, Harvard, “Plan Dalet,” Journal of Palestine Studies, Autumn, 1988, p. 17)

      The total land area of West Jerusalem (the New City) in 1947 was 19,331 dunams (about 4,833 acres) of which 40 per cent was owned by Palestinian Muslims and Christians, 26.12 per cent by Jews and 13.86 per cent by others, including Christian communities. Government and municipal land made up 2.90 per cent and roads and railways 17.12 per cent.

      East Jerusalem (the Old City) consisted of 800 dunams (about 240 acres) of which five dunams (just over one acre) were Jewish owned and the remaining 795 dunams were owned by Palestinian Muslims and Christians. (“Assessing Palestinian Property in the City,” by Dalia Habash and Terry Rempel, Jerusalem 1948: The Arab Neighbourhoods and their Fate in the War, edited by Salim Tamari, The Institute of Jerusalem Studies, 1999, map, pp. 184-85)

      Rubbing salt into the wound, the United States quashed a proposal based on international law put forth by Arab delegates at the UN that a referendum be conducted in Palestine to determine the wishes of the majority regarding the Partition Plan. The United States also thwarted their request to have the matter referred to the International Court of Justice.

      Furthermore, members of the UNGA were pressured by the Truman administration to support the Partition Plan. For instance, although the Philippines initially opposed partition and Liberia and Haiti wanted to abstain, the United States and the Zionists pressured these countries to vote in favor, thereby gaining the necessary two-thirds approval. “Under threat of a Jewish boycott of Firestone rubber and tire products, Harvey Firestone told Liberia that he would recommend suspension of plans for the expansion of development there if Liberia voted against partition.” (Michael Cohen, Palestine and the Great Powers, 1945-1948, Princeton, N.J., 1982, p. 295-300)

      These bullying tactics were aptly described by James Forrestal, then U.S. Secretary of Defence: “The methods that had been used…to bring coercion and duress on other nations in the General Assembly bordered closely onto scandal.” (Millis, Walter, ed., The Forrestal Diaries, New York: the Viking Press, 1951, p. 363)

      David Niles, the Zionists’ point man in the White House, managed to minimize the influence of the State Department on formulating the U.S. position in the debate over the Partition Plan:
      “…David Niles was able to have Truman appoint a pro-Zionist, General John Hilldring, to the United Nations’ American delegation to offset the views of the appointees from the State Department. Through Hilldring, Niles established a direct liaison between the United Nations and Truman; indeed, U.S. positions were occasionally relayed directly from the White House without the State Department’s having been consulted. Thus, for example, after a private conversation with Chaim Weizmann, Truman phoned the U.N. delegation and told them to reverse American backing for the Arab claim that the Negev (southern Palestine) should be part of an Arab state; the United States would support its inclusion in the Jewish state as recommended in UNSCOP’s majority proposal.” (Charles D. Smith, Palestine And The Arab-Israel Conflict, 1988, p. 139)

      In response to passage of the Partition Plan, on 5 December 1947, Ben-Gurion, leader of the Yishuv (the Jewish community in Palestine), ordered “immediate action to expand Jewish settlement in three areas assigned to the Arab state: the South West (Negev), the South-East (Etzion bloc) and Western Galilee.” (Political and Diplomatic Documents of the Jewish Agency, 1947- 48, no. 12). Thus, Ben-Gurion revealed that the Jewish Agency had no intention of abiding by the terms of the Partition Plan.

      The Partition Plan proved to be so unworkable that when Polish born David Ben-Gurion (nee, David Gruen) et al. declared the “Jewish State” of Israel effective 15 May 1948 (after Jewish forces had already dispossessed and expelled 400,000 Palestinians – e.g., 30,000 from West Jerusalem in March (and a further 30,000 in May), 60,000 from Haifa in April, 75,000 from Jaffa in late April and early May), the UNGA was in the process of shelving the Partition Plan in favor of a UN Trusteeship.

      When war erupted due to necessary intervention by reluctant outnumbered/outgunned Arab state armies to stem the accelerating expulsion of Palestinians, a US proposed cease-fire was accepted by the Arab League but rejected by Israel.

      During the war Israel seized 78% of Palestine (22% more than the Partition Plan recommended, including large portions of the proposed Palestinian state, e.g., Jaffa and Acre), expelled 400,000 more Palestinians for a total of about 800,000 (according to Walter Eytan, then Director General of the Israeli Foreign Ministry) and went on to destroy over 500 of their towns and villages, including churches, mosques and cemeteries. It was only the beginning of the Zionist’s conquest of Palestine and the expulsion of its indigenous Arab inhabitants.

      1. It would really be refreshing David if you could describe some route to get the contending parties to be able to transcend their historical angst – and see how they could raise their horizons drastically – to enable collaboration on bigger things that dwelling on past conflict. I have a certain degree of certainty that if there is a common denominator that can be found – that each side sees as being essential for their long term survival, then this could dislodge this legalistic back and forth.

      2. This is a long post. But essentially what you are arguing is that when a colonial state dissolves one of the ethnic groups the Palestinians should have gotten 100% of the state lands, religious lands, foreign held lands… That everything that everything not explicitly Jewish should have been barred from them permanently and put into a Palestinian state. The UN at the time didn’t see it that way. They wanted two viable states and split the lands based on where the respective populations were concentrated and growing. The idea of the partition was to ensure healthy growth and prosperity for both people not to give the Jews as little as possible.

         There also was the hope that after partition they would rejoin. Which was the purpose of the 3 triangles design. While it was believed in 1948 the populations were too hostile to form a single country the goal was that they would eventually reconcile and the partition was designed to encourage that.

         During the war Israel seized 78% of Palestine

         The Yishuv ceased 78% of Palestine and Israel formed on that territory. 1947-9 was an ethnic civil war not a war between states.

         As for the stuff about the State Department absolutely true. The USA State Department was thoroughly Arabist in the 1940s. Their solution like the Arab Leagues to the Jewish question was for Jews to freeze to death in the DP camps. Truman found the Arab League position appalling and it was one of the reasons he switched to supporting refugee resettlement in Palestine.

         When war erupted due to necessary intervention by reluctant outnumbered/outgunned Arab state armies to stem the accelerating expulsion of Palestinians, a US proposed cease-fire was accepted by the Arab League but rejected by Israel.

         This is nonsense. The first battles had foreign Arab troops and the Haganah lost. It was not a response. Nor were the troops in 1948 outnumbered they had 2::1 troop advantages.

         You are posting a lot of misinformation.

   3. This is patently false: ” a nasty ethnic civil war started by Arabs against the Jewish ethnics who live in the colony”. In reality, the Zionist campaign to expel the indigenous Palestinian population began long before Arab states declared hostilities on Jewish colonists. This was a clear and deliberate plan (as documented in Be Gurion’s own notes, see above). to carry out what we call ethnic cleansing in modern terminology, against Mr. Abboud, his family and thousands of other civilians like them.

      1. @Davidheap

         The first attack was Jewish bus driving on the Coastal Plain near Kfar Sirkin on 30 November killing 5 wounding others. Same day Hadera, killing two more Jews. The first Jewish attack is December 30th. Is your claim that December is actually before November?

         The first ethnic cleansing operation was against Jerusalem and started February 22 1948. This was an Arab leader targeting Jews. The leader was Mohammad Amin al-Husayni. And contrary to your position the Jews lost this battle.

6. Interesting and informative as these lengthy contributions are, none of them is relevant to the question that Peter posed, viz. if the land seized by Israel should be given back.

   Neither Fuad Abboud nor his father is responsible for the behaviour of the leaders of the PLO or Hamas.

   The intent of the Israeli leaders is not really relevant. Whether or not their intent was ethnic cleansing, that is what they did.

   The wishes of the Arab armies are also not relevant. The Abboud’s were not under their control.

   The deaths of German civilians s as a result of allied war efforts is also not relevant. There is no conceivable military reason for seizing the Abboud property and no military justification for refusing to either return it or compensate the legal owners.

   The fact that some countries have not returned the property of people who fled is not relevant. As the saying goes, “Two wrongs do not make a right”.

   The many extreme remarks made by extremist leaders on all sides are also not relevant. As far as I know, the Abboud’s have not made or supported such statements. They are responsible for what they did or said, not for what others have said.

   The relevant facts are that the Abboud family had good reason to flee in fear Like many other Palestinians, they were prevented from returning, declared to be absentees and then declared to be enemies simply because they were not Jewish. (Jews would have had the right of return. The land of Jews who fled the violence was not taken.). Using the pretence that they were enemies, their land was stolen. Justice demands that they get their land or an agreed compensation.

   1. I understand and accept the rationale for your question. Comments the surround this question are intended to look at how to reach a comprehensive justice route. It would be useful if you could provide any information as to the communications that may have transpired between the Abboud family and Israel. There is a need for those Palestinians who are serious about helping both sides to come to some understandings, to be engaged at the group level.

      1. It is important to remember that the Abboud family is but one of countless Palestinians who have been treated in this way. My contact with Palestinians is limited but I personally know many examples.

         One interesting example was a senior academic who was asked to return to head a Palestinian University. He was denied entry (even though he had a UK passport). After a lot of pressure, the Israelis allowed him to take the Presidency for one year.

         Another interesting case was a family that owned a hotel in East Jerusalem but lived in a suburb that was cut off by one of Israel’s many walls. They could not return and the Israeli government tried to seize the hotel as absentee property. They are wealthy and have good lawyers but the case is ongoing. They cannot reach their own hotel. Haaretz has reported on this case extensively.

         There is no shortage of Palestinians who want to “help both sides to come to some understanding”. In my experience, the problem is Israelis who regard the Palestinians as interlopers and believe that they will eventually succeed in driving them out. There is a need to engage them and get them to understand the immorality of that position.

7. Yes, he should be allowed back to Haifa as the rightful owner of the property given to him by his father.

   1. This will take a rapprochement situation to be achieved between Israelis and Palestinians – so that the dynamics of violence are put to rest. If this is ignored by those who only put justice on their agenda, then the cart is before the horse.

8. Reblogged this on World4Justice : NOW! Lobby Forum..

9. As to Peter’s question at hand, the Abboud’s should in both law and ethical theory have a right to return to their land and property or be given compensation.
   UNGA resolution 194 of Dec. 11, 1948 recognizes these specific rights for Palestinian refugees in a special way, including the establishment of UNRWA, that is not applied to millions of other refugees and displaced both past and present under UNHCR and national law. Israeli policies forbid the return of and compensation to any Palestinian refugees or their descendants who left in 1948 or after 1967 and even now. There has been no international UN action to enforce such a course of action on Israel

   Similarly, European Jews who lost property during the “holocaust” have a right to make claims and to receive compensation. Indeed, Germany has paid substantial compensation to Israel and many Jews have pursued successful claims in Europe and elsewhere to retrieve their property. They have been supported by sympathetic international powers, Europeans, USA Canada etc.and accommodating domestic legal systems. This is in contrast to the million Jews who left Arab countries and Iran to go to Israel or other western countries and generally could not get compensation. This is being celebrated today Nov 30 as Jewish refugee day.
   Canadian Middle East policy with Irwin Cotler’s efforts has given support to these “Jewish refugees” even though with the right to go to Israel no Jewish refugees really exist today. Canadian policy makers clear, however, that this factor does not prejudice the rights of the millions of Palestinian refugees and their descendants under international law.

   Obviously, a solution to the Palestinian refugee issue can only be found in a two state solution where a new sovereign, economically viable and contiguous state of Palestine becomes a reality standing equally with Israel. Indeed, it has become common knowledge, including during Obama Kerry peace initiative, that the Palestinian authorities would be willing to accept some sort of symbolic ” right of return and payment of some level of compensation from Israel for lost properties. A Palestinian state capable of having its own return policy through sovereign Palestinian borders would certainly attenuate the problem. Maybe only about a 50 pc of the approximately 15m Palestinians in the world might end up in Palestine but this could end up to be about the same proportion of 15 m world Jewry living in Israel. Minority Jewish and Palestinian rights would of course have to receive equal protection in both Israel and Palestine.
   Unfortunately, Israel has given no indication of accepting such a capable Palestinian state and indeed continues to exaggerate the existential dangers to its existence to any “right of return.”.

   In addition to its laudable support for UNRWA, the Trudeau government could take the lead in resolving the Palestinian refugee situation by giving voice and action to its official policy of a two state solution along the 48 lines with land swaps as defined by the UN. It could use its experience as the gavel holder of the refugee working group in previous efforts at a peace process even though virtually no progress was made in getting Israel to recognize Palestinian refugee property claims in international law. With its diverse immigrant population, Canada has great experience in assessing and sometimes supporting the consular related foreign property claims of its citizens and corporations, including those of Jewish Israeli and Palestinian Canadians although what if anything it has done in the Abboud case is not apparent. In its state of near non communication on the Israel Palestine situation and no indication of dynamic action to recognnise the state of Palestine, Canada should at least consider supporting the Trump Kirshner peace proposal if it meets Canadian standards when it comes forward (instead of disgracefully undermining the Obama Kerry plan in which the Harper govt engaged). We can at least hope that a peace plan put forward by property owners and developers will in some measure recognize the importance of a solution to violated Palestinian property rights and for Israel and Palestine to treat minority property rights and access in their territories equitably and legally.

   George Jacoby

   1. Are ya sure there are no Jewish refugees in the present day? No Ethiopian Jews trying to get out of the way of murdering bandits like Al Shabab, no Egyptians trying to get away from mindless Islamicists? One could go on and on…The Abboud family unfortunately will have to see the conditions of a minimal level of social unity emerge before hostilities can actually be declared over. Only then can resettlement of those who have been wronged become feasible. What do you think of the intriguing link provided by CB-Host on a federation model?

   2. George Jacoby,
      You wrote”Obviously, a solution to the Palestinian refugee issue can only be found in a two state solution where a new sovereign, economically viable and contiguous state of Palestine becomes a reality standing equally with Israel. ”

      First, we must recognize that whenever an Israeli official intones “Two States for Two Peoples”,, they add conditions that show that they will not accept the Palestinian State that you describe. The “state” that they describe would not have control of its borders and would not be armed.

      Second, this would not be a solution as it would leave many people uncompensated for the land and lives that have been stolen for them. Among those people would be some that would continue the armed struggle. Only a non-sectarian state (i.e. not a “Jewish State” that eliminated all laws that discriminate on the basis of religion or ethnicity and compensated people for what they have lost can be a lasting solution.

10. You would actually have to go through the 20 million or so refugees registered by UNHCR to see whether there are any Jews that meet refugee citeria. People in similar danger within their own countries are referred to as displaced or in a “refugee like” situation and may be eligible for resettlement, but are not technically refugees who receive this status from the UNCHR only after having fled their home country and deemed to be in danger of persecution under criteria in the UN Refugee Convention.

    Not aware of any Ethiopian Jews in Somalia who are in danger from Al Shabab. There have been various movements of Ethiopian Falasha Jews to Israel and having met some in Israel, am aware of some of the challenges they face there. But being Jewish they are not in danger of being deported as Israel is planning for 40,000 African non Jewish refugees against much criticism from the UNHCR and Amnesty International and many Israeli peace groups supportive of Palestinian refugee rights.

    Having visited the museum synagogue in Cairo, Egypt, would be surprised if there are many Egyptian Jews left. They would not be any more danger from Islamacists than the average Egyptian given the state of internal violence in Egypt. Even if there were, they could simply jump on a bus in Cairo and ride to Israel past the Gaza strip full of Palestinian refugees and claim aliya in Israel. This is in contrast to situations in the past where Jews had to leave countries like Syria and Iraq surreptitiously to reach refuge in Israel. A friend of mine in Global Affairs now deceased Denis Goumois de Blois worked on the removal of Syrian Jews to Israel and won an award for his good work. Of course there are Jewish communities with which I have come in contact in ME countries like Tunisia or Iran ( from ancient times of Mordechai and Esther where they now have a guaranteed seat in Parliament under the Ayatollahs ) but who may chose to stay in their countries of birth and nationality for business, cultural or family reasons rather than go to Israel.

    There have been some Jewish Israelis now numbering 15,000 in the last census who have come to Canada mainly for economic reasons, but some actually declared refugee status indicating they were persecuted in Israel for not being sufficiently Jewish or maybe nationalist. Israel protested to Canada about accepting Jewish Israelis as refugees, but Canada did not accept this criticism and said it would maintain the UNHCR and its own criteria for accepting even Jewish Israelis.
    Doubt that there are that many Jewish refugees in this category now , but the outflow of disaffected Jewish Israelis remains significant. Meanwhile the last census in Canada indicated that the number of self identifying Jews in Canada had declined from 300,000 to 150,000 and there seems to be no good explanation for this. Judging from USA statistics, there seems to be about 6-10,000 Jewish Canadians living and working in Israel many as citizens of Israel, but it is highly unlikely that any declared refugee status to escape persecution in Canada. A good number are undoubtedly in the settlements, presenting difficult problems for rendering consular assistance to Canadians living in an occupied zone in settler communities with no legal validity as recognized internationally at UN or by Canada.

    So I do maintain my position that unlike about 12 million Palestinians living as recognized refugees by UNRWA in surrounding Arab countries or for the very fortunate in Canada or western Latin countries, under occupation in the West Bank or blockade in Gaza or under a form of discrimination as citizens in Israel, there are really virtually no Jewish refugees with Israel as the default refuge for all Jews. Creating a true two state solution with minority rights will allow the 70 year old Palestinian refugee situation to begin to be resolved and get to the much better situation enjoyed by Jews today.

    George Jacoby

11. Hey Alan Blanes and CD-Host,
    Thanks for your interesting contributions.
    I support the claim by Max Stern’s heirs to get his property back or compensation.

    I would like to know if you would support a claim by Fuad Abboud (or his heirs) to get his property back, or to get compensated for it. If not, why not? Thank you.

    1. As I said above I don’t support either Max Stern or Fuad Abboud’s claim. I think there is a lot of injustice about how wealth flows between individuals. And while in the short term it can make sense to reverse these flows I don’t see any societal benefit to relitigating all property from the beginning of time. I like the idea of a statue of limitations of say 20 years beyond which we take the current arrangement as a given and then figure out how best to move forward. Certainly when we start talking beyond one human lifetime that opens a never ending can of worms.

       1) What should we do about the interest and profits on tax rebates that are the result of bribery or illegal collusions?

       2) How do we reverse corporate mergers where the executives acted in collusion illegally with 3rd parties decades ago?

       3) Which current day Africans should pay reparations for their ancestor’s involvement in the slave trade?

       Faud Abboud’s house likely doesn’t exist anymore. He’s unusual in that his village even exists. But let’s even say it did. The people who kicked his parents out are dead. The people who ordered them to do it are dead. The people who got the property after the war are dead. The people who live there now bought the house at full market price from an Israeli who themselves bought the house at full market price from an Israel. Even if the property was returned Fuad Abboud wouldn’t do anything with it, he would just pass it on to a descendent. So the question is really about whose great grandchildren should be harmed over something that happened decades ago.

       This also applies to Max Stern. Stern is so far dead he isn’t even worm food anymore. When we talk about returning property to him we are talking about various charities that are ongoing which may have changed function that his estate paid out to in the 1980s.

       We as a species are pretty bad at the problems dealing with current injustices where the wronged and wrong doing parties are direct that I see no reason to believe we can handle complex webs many decades old all involving indirect many times removed beneficiaries. Everyone’s ancestors at one point had tremendous wealth and most lost it in unfair ways.

       1. Mr. Host,

          Your response focusses on punishing the perpetrator. The question being discussed is compensation for the victim. In cases like Mr. Abboud’s it may be impossible to decide who profited from the seizure of his property but there is no doubt about who owned it 70 years ago. The seizure of absentee property, and the denial of the right of return are both government policies and the government is responsible. The person whose property was taken should be compensated whether or not an individual perpetrator or group of perpetrators can be identified.

          Your proposed statute of limitations for these cases would encourages present day thievery. With such a statute, if you can hold on to stolen property long enough, you get keep it. “Finders keepers, users weepers” is of dubious ethical merit precisely because it encourages further seizures.

          We should not allow the fact that Mr. Abboud’s property was seized 70 years ago to lull us into thinking that this is an issue from the distant past much like Cain’s murder of Abel. In Palestine, taking property possesed by non-Jews for the eventual use by Jews continues today. Those interested in learning more should read the stories published in Haaretz by reporter Amira Haas.

12. It appears that the Palestinian family ran away because of the Arab violence in Haifa. That they had any desire to return to the land to live in peace with their Jewish neighbors, as stipulated in UN Res 181, was not proven by this article. That they took their rugs is a sign they were likely not coming back.

    1. Hey Mr. Sigman, Thanks for your comment. I agree completely that, at 70 years distance, it is indeed very hard to prove intentions of people who are now dead.

       But lets assume you are right: A wealthy Christian Arab flees Arab violence in Haifa (strange, but possible), leaving his business and Jewish business partner and all his immoveable property behind. Then, he is not allowed to return and his property is confiscated by the State of Israel.

       Now, please let me know something about your ethics. Do you, Jack Sigman, think that is fair? Ethical? Does his son, Fuad Abboud have a legitimate claim on this piece of property that he never ceded? If so, would you be prepared to send a letter to the Israeli attorney general to support his case?

       And if not, how is his situation different from that of thousands of Jews who fled Germany in the 1930’s?

       I look forward to your further commentary.

       1. Peter,
          The violence in the 30s was pretty much one sided. With rare exceptions the Jews did not, perhaps could not, fight back. Many Jews believe that this was a mistake and “Never again” became the slogan of violent groups like the Jewish Defense League. In Palestine, both sides did “fight back”. Neither tactic brought good results but there is a difference.

       2. The violence during 1947 immediately following the partition vote was started by the Arabs. Regardless, it is my understanding that a mechanism to receive just compensation was in place and was refused by the Arabs affected because it meant recognizing Israel. Further, I understand that this same procedure was followed by many states, including Pakistan, prior to the Israelis doing the same.

          Morally, I believe Israel was right to prevent the return of the Arabs who fled. However, I believe they should have allowed the return of those whom their Jewish neighbors sponsored.

          Fairness has nothing to do with it.

          To even suggest there is any comparison the Jews in Germany and the Arabs of British Mandate Palestine is an insult beyond forgiveness. The Jews of Germany were loyal to the state. They fought in the German army during WWI. The were law abiding and paid their taxes. They were well integrated in the professions. There is no recorded acts of Jewish terrorism against Germans.

          The Jews went from being distrusted but tolerated minorities to being persecuted non-citizens for political purposes.

          Shame on you for suggesting any comparison.

       3. For the last time, there were zero similarities between the Arab population of British Mandate Palestine and the Jewish population of Nazi Germany. There is nothing to discuss and the only thing to do is condemn the writer who suggests any such similarity.

          You stand condemned.

          I am carefully condemning you for your statements, not because you do not know how to write or spell.

    2. Mr. Sigman,

       In a war, there is violence on both sides. If your children are caught in the crossfire, their health won’t depend on which side fired the bullet that hit them. Bullets aren’t racist.

       People who want to protect their children, will flee the violence if they can. When fleeing their homes, most will fear looting and take portable resources with them to protect them and as a resource to allow survival while in (temporary) exile.

       1. The Jews did not run. Their children were also in the crossfire.

       2. I knew Jews who left (not to Arab countries). I know Arabs who did not flee.

       3. Mr. Sigman.
          One of your sentences said it all; for you, “Fairness has nothing to do with it.”.

          While no two situations are identical, what Nazi Germany and Israel have in common is discriminating between people wer on the basis of their ethnicity or religion. In both cases, some people lost their property, some lost their lives, some lost their freedom, not because of something they did but because they had the “wrong” ethnic background. In both cases, the government included people who avowed ethnic cleansing as a legitimate way to get a “pure” country. There are Israeli politicians today who have suggested population exchanges to achieve ethnic cleansing.

          One most distinguish between Nazi actions before and after the time of the Wannsee Conference (1941, 1942). Before that there was discrimination and a denial of rights but the idea was to purify the country by driving Jews (and some other minorities) out of the country. The horrors that we think of as the Holocaust were mostly after they decided that this would not work and held the Wannsee Conference to plan a final solution. It is these horrors that make Nazi behaviour and Israeli behaviour look so different. (The site of that meeting is now a memorial museum where you can read the documentation).

          My mother’s family eventually got compensation for what was done to them. In some cases, they got money to help them reestablish themselves. In other cases, the property survived and was returned to them. The final piece of property was returned after the Berlin wall opened. Mr. Abboud should be treated no worse.

       4. You have compounded your original sin with more of the same. There is no comparison between the actions of the Jews in the Palestinian Civil War which was started by the Arabs and the Nazi German war against the absolutely peaceful and defenseless Jews of Germany.

       5. Mr. Sigman,

          Some definitions might help this discussion. (I am using the Oxford Dictionary of English.)

          comparison |kəmˈparɪs(ə)n| (noun), |a consideration or estimate of the similarities or dissimilarities between two things or people

          I gave a comparison. It can be useful to correct facts or add additional ones, but not to assert “There is no comparison”. I look forward to a substantive discussion of the the comparison that I made.

          racist |ˈrāsəst| adjective | showing or feeling discrimination or prejudice against people of other races, or believing that a particular race is superior to another:

          You seem unaware that your remark is deeply racist; it attributes properties to groups of people on the basis of race alone. Many Arabs were peaceful, did not start any wars (but fled one). Even in the Nazi era, not all Jews preached (or practiced) non-violence. Even today, some Jews oppose the house demolitions and other forms of property seizure in Israel. Most Palestinians oppose the use of violence.

          The discussion is about individuals, such as the Abbouds, who do not deserve to be punished for the actions of others who happen to have the same ethnicity.

       6. There is absolutely no similarity between the German consideration of the Jew and the Jewish consideration of the Arabs of the Palestinian region. To even suggest a similarity is racist beyond belief and an insult which cannot be forgiven. No matter what dictionary you use, you use it incorrectly and insultingly.

          The Arabs of the Palestinian region started a war. They lost. War is hell. All suffered.

          The Jews of Germany were peacefully contributing to German society and the German Nazis decided they were not human and needed to die to protect Germany.

          Any comparison between the two people and the reasons for the fate is in the mind of an idiot or someone with a sickness. based on your writing skill, you must be merely sick.

       7. Mr. Sigman,

          I made a comparison in which I stated characteristics that were similar in the two situations as well as characteristics that were different. If you see errors or missing facts, please state them If not, the comparison stands. Similarity is not a binary function; there are degrees of similarity ranging from a complete lack of common characteristics to near identity. You can correct my comparison but to deny any similarity without identifying errors or omissions is simply illogical. If you feel insulted, ask why. I don’t feel insulted when someone makes a false accusation but true ones hurt.

          Wars often start as a vicious cycle that begins with small acts and ends in a total battle. It is often impossible to say where a series of aggressions and violent incidents crosses the line into war. It would be easy to argue that Irgun began the war long before 1948. Others could consider the Israeli declaration of a Jewish state on land that had been majority Arab was an aggression. Of course, those who want to can identify reactions to those events as the acts that crossed the line. Picking any one event in such a cycle as the start of a war is a fool’s game that doesn’t matter. According to the facts given us, the Abbouds were not combatants and only fled to let the violence play out in their absence. As noncombatants, they did not lose the war because they did not participate. They lost when the Israeli state refused to allow them to return to their property. In the dispute (war?) between the Abbouds and Israel, that Israeli move was the first aggression.

          Yes, my family was peacefully contributing to German society when the Nazis began to act against them without justification. In fact, I have seen a picture of my great grandfather festooned with German medals for his contributions in WWI. Mr. Abboud’s family was also peacefully cooperating with its neighbours before their property was seized without justification. I left that parallel out of my comparison but it is quite concrete.

          I was careful to discuss your statement and not you. If you want to participate in an adult discussion, I would hope that you would refrain from talking about the other participants. Just talk about the facts and ethical principles that are relevant to the case.

13. @Dr. David Lorge Parnas

    There are several large topics in your thread. We don’t agree on much. I’ll respond but we might be too far apart on two many issues.

    Your response focusses on punishing the perpetrator. The question being discussed is compensation for the victim. In cases like Mr. Abboud’s it may be impossible to decide who profited from the seizure of his property but there is no doubt about who owned it 70 years ago.

    I don’t know that there isn’t doubt. If this case were actually litigated Abboud’s claim might not hold up. Nobody is questioning the claim because no one is going to the trouble to investigate they way they would in a real lawsuit.

    More importantly though assume he did get his day in court but the court is under the new standards of infinite claims. So Abboud’s family bought the land in 1526. But the title transfer was bad it was improperly measured. There was an unresolved issue from 1371 about the property was measured that didn’t get cleaned up properly. The family from 1371 has progeny. Suddenly he owes those people 700 year’s interest on the land his family took.

    And while it is a hypothetical in a world of never resolved claims that’s precisely what the defense would do. They would quite rightfully attack the Abboud’s family ownership by putting his claim under a microscope. And it wouldn’t hold up under a microscope not because the Abbouds were bad people but just because given enough 10% chances of a mistake in the aggregate the chance of a mistake is 100%.

    The seizure of absentee property, and the denial of the right of return are both government policies and the government is responsible.

    This may be an American vs. Canada thing but in general it is quite hard to sue the Federal government in the USA. The government is just a collective. Saying the government is responsible is essentially the same as saying “I want a state handout”. Which is fine but that state handout doesn’t come from the handout tree it comes at the expense of other government expenses. A hospital doesn’t get opened and 50 Abbouds gets a check.

    The person whose property was taken should be compensated whether or not an individual perpetrator or group of perpetrators can be identified.

    Sorry but no. Part of proving a tort is finding a responsible party. If he can’t find a responsible party he doesn’t have a tort.

    Your proposed statute of limitations for these cases would encourages present day thievery. With such a statute, if you can hold on to stolen property long enough, you get keep it.

    Yes that’s correct. It creates a point where property stops being the proceeds of theft and normalizes. It is very bad to have everyone’s possessions constantly being threatened by the weight of all human history.

    We should not allow the fact that Mr. Abboud’s property was seized 70 years ago to lull us into thinking that this is an issue from the distant past much like Cain’s murder of Abel.

    We shouldn’t allow the fact that it happened in the distant past to lull us into thinking it from the distant past?

    In Palestine, taking property possesed by non-Jews for the eventual use by Jews continues today.

    Yes it does. I proposed a 20 year statute of limitations. I have no problem with litigating the more recent cases. I’m a strong proponent of Israel enforcing civil law in Area-C and giving all the residents full protection of law. Very few here agree with me on that because they want to claim the territory is “occupied”.

    1. Mr. Host,

       I will respond to each of your points without repeating them.

       1) Mr. Abboud cannot even get his day in court because he is not Jewish. He probably would not need a day in court if he had been born a Jew. Whether or not he would win in court, he has been denied the opportunity to return and try to occupy his property

       2) Mr. Abboud is a lawyer but I am not. I can say that in the last year the Canadian government has given large amounts of compensation to several people it had wronged. What I said was that the Israeli government is responsible. I did not say that it would pay. The Canadian government seems to have some respect for justice and responsibility. The Israeli government does not.

       It is irrelevant to this discussion but in the US the federal government claims to be immune from suit but can (and has) waived its immunity. State governments can be sued and real-estate law is not usually a federal matter.

       3) The Israeli government is responsible and can be considered the perpetrator.

       4) The “weight of history”argument is a red herring. Mr. Abboud has a deed. If there were previous owners with a claim, the issuers of the deed have a responsibility to compensate him. The successors are responsible if the original issuers are no longer the authority.

       5. Seventy years ago is not the distant past, i.e. not like Cain and Abel. Several of us were alive when this happened. The practice of seizing land on various pretences has never stopped since 1948, This is an ongoing issue.

       6 . Some of the more recent cases, were, or are being, litigated. Unfortunately, the scales of justice are not balanced in Israel. They are manipulated using some very thin pretences such as claiming that people who have used the land for centuries are not settled or do not meet recent building standards. The system seems designed to squeeze Palestinians out and replace them with Jews.

       The question posed by Mr. Larson used the word “should”. He has added that the issue is about ethics not law. Raising legal technicalities is really off topic.

       1. @Dr. David Lorge Parnas

          The question posed by Mr. Larson used the word “should”. He has added that the issue is about ethics not law. Raising legal technicalities is really off topic.

          I understand the should. I think we should have statutes of limitations. I don’t think we should have open ended eternal claims. The impossibility of resolving the infinity of legal issues going back to the beginning of time are reasons why I believe that. It is hard enough to adjudicate property disputes dealing with the finite.

          Some of the more recent cases, were, or are being, litigated. Unfortunately, the scales of justice are not balanced in Israel. They are manipulated using some very thin pretences such as claiming that people who have used the land for centuries are not settled or do not meet recent building standards. The system seems designed to squeeze Palestinians out and replace them with Jews.

          There isn’t a system. There are several. The Israeli one is quite good and in most respects fair.
          The one with the worst abuses is the military dictatorship in Area-C. The obvious solution is to replace the military dictatorship with the good quality civil one that exists in Israel.

          The practice of seizing land on various pretences has never stopped since 1948, This is an ongoing issue.

          I responded to this already. I have no problem with the recent cases. But the recent cases don’t change the status of the ancient cases. Insider trading is an ongoing issue. That doesn’t mean that the thousands of stock trades which pile on a 50 year old insider trading case should be reversed. You deal with the recent ones.

          The “weight of history”argument is a red herring. Mr. Abboud has a deed.

          Maybe he has a deed. And maybe that deed is valid. But in a system where all claims from all time are considered open he doesn’t have a valid deed anymore because inevitably somewhere in the past there will have been mistakes. That’s why I object to your system of no statute of limitations. No one has clear title to anything under it.

          It is irrelevant to this discussion but in the US the federal government claims to be immune from suit but can (and has) waived its immunity. State governments can be sued and real-estate law is not usually a federal matter.

          Wartime seizures of property are federal. For example tomorrow 4751 W. Bay Boulevard, Unit 1504, Estero, Florida 33928 is being sold for failure to pay taxes, that’s a Federal government seizure. Maritime seizures of boats illegally in the USA are rather common there are a few coming up for sale in January. Those people BTW won’t be able to sue either in 70 years.

          Mr. Abboud cannot even get his day in court because he is not Jewish.

          Now that is just nonsense. Israeli Arabs have full access to the courts. There is no requirement to be Jewish to have use of high quality Israeli courts.

          Mr. Abboud cannot go to Israeli court not because of his religion but he is a person who who is not now nor has never been an Israeli at all. He has never done business nor legally held property in Israel. As such he is entitled only to the protections offered under international law and trade agreements between Canada and Israel. He has no rights under Israeli domestic law. If Israel had done something wrong to Mr. Abboud he should approach the Canadian government which can help do initial processing on verifying his claim and if Canada verified his claim (or really your claim) that Israel committed a crime against him they have the rights to collect. Since his property was lost prior to Israel even existing they are unlikely to do agree with you that Israel is responsible.

          Whether or not he would win in court, he has been denied the opportunity to return and try to occupy his property

          We don’t know that it is his property under your system.

       2. Mr. Host,

          If you want to raise red herrings like the “infinity of of legal issues going back to the beginning of time”, you might want to think about the claims made by millions of Jews who moved to Palestine and began to use lands that were then in active use by Palestinians. Those claims are based on their view of the situation in biblical times. Mr. Abboud’s claim goes back to events in my lifetime..

          Remember that a basic principle about systems is that a collection of interacting systems is a system. The Israelis are using their legal system to slowly drive Palestinians out of Palestine.

          If Mr. Abboud’s deed is not valid, that should have been decided by an objective court. It is not up to you or I to discard it.

          In the US cases that you cite, those whose property was seized had committed crimes. Mr. Abboud has not even been accused of a crime.

          Unlike Arabs who are not allowed into Israel, Israeli Arabs do have access to Israeli courts. It is a separate discussion whether they are equal under the law. Mr. Abbad and his family were not allowed to return and become Israeli Arabs. It was not their choice.

          This is not a Canadian issue and the Canadian government has no obligation or power in the matter.

          Your claim that Mr. Abboud’s property was lost prior to the existence of Israel is strange. It was the victorious Israeli government that did not allow the Abboud family to return. How could it be non-existent?.

14. “the claims made by millions of Jews who moved to Palestine and began to use lands that were then in active use by Palestinians.” Really? Millions of Jews did not move to Palestine. It is likely that far less than one million Jews moved to Palestine. Those Jews who moved to Palestine purchased land in active use by Arab tenants and as the legal owners, along with the previous Arab landlords, paid off the tenants and moved them off that now Jewish owned land.

    After the Palestinian Civil War, started by the Arabs living in Palestine, supported by foreign Arab irregulars, the Israeli government claimed the property abandoned by those Arabs who fled and used it to help solve their refugee issues. The seasure of abandoned property was done following the example of similar states, notably Pakistan.

    1. Mr. Sigman,

       It is fruitless to talk to someone who would cite Pakistan as a model to be emulated. There is actually truth in the story that Israel emulated some Pakistani policies at about the same time.

       Those who follow this blog and are interested in learning more can read an article that appeared in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz a few years ago that discusses it from the point of view of a Jew, born in South Africa, who came to Israel to escape apartheid. The title is, “How Pakistani law inspired Israel to seize Arabs’ land”

       https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.62747

       The article might be behind a paywall. I will send a pdf to anyone who requests it and supplies an e-mail address.

       A useful quotation from the article is,

       “… by 1948 only 5.7 percent of the land of then Palestine had been purchased. The War of Independence that year opened the way to far-reaching changes: the land allocated by the
       United Nations partition plan to Jews was extended by 38 percent as local Arab militia and invading Arab armies were defeated and driven back.
       The government seized the lands of Arabs who had left their homes,
       whether they fled outside the borders or remained inside. The new
       state ended up owning some 93 percent of the land, with the rest
       remaining as private property belonging to Arabs, Jews, Christian
       churches and the Muslim Waqf.”

       Note that even the land of people who were still in the country was seized. State ownership is one of the ruses used by Israel to transfer land from Arabs to Jews.

       For the record, in the 1920s, before the influx of Zionists began, there were fewer than a million people in the whole area. Today, there are more than six million Jews alone, Of course, the immigrants bred, so some of today’s Jews were born there. However, the immigration continues. The government actively encourages Jews in safe countries to immigrate. Sometimes land is given to “charities” like the Jewish National Fund, which prepares homes for Jews.

       1. It has been quite fruitless citing truth to you. Israel’s actions in 1949 were similar to many other states during the initial days of their independence. No one is complaining about those states, only about Israel. Your haaretz article negates none of the facts I presented so you must be using it as a red herring. That Israel ended up owning 93% of the land has no bearing as the article does not state who owned that 93% previously. I will give you a hint; about 50% is what is known as “state land.”

       2. Mr. Sigman
          “Similar to other states” does not mean “just”. I was raised to believe that Jews should be just. In fact, all people should act justly. Israel uses “state land” to construct a Jewish state. It gives it to Jews, removing any others who happen to be living there or using it. That isn’t just.

       3. I was raised that people should accept reality and apologize when they discover they put out misleading information.

       4. Mr. Sigman,

          Most Germans were “accepting reality” as they watched their Jewish neighbours being “deported”. Ask them! Many Jews accepted reality too and did not fight back.

          We must accept the things that we cannot change and have the courage to try to change the things that can be improved. I believe that Israel’s policies towards non Jews can be improved. As our Prime Minister said during our 2016 campaign, “Better is always possible.”

15. @David

    If you want to raise red herrings like the “infinity of of legal issues going back to the beginning of time”, you might want to think about the claims made by millions of Jews who moved to Palestine and began to use lands that were then in active use by Palestinians.

    The Jews when they moved there for the first 2 generations legally acquired lands from deed holders. If deeds somehow imply absolute ownership then the claims as to why they wanted to move back are irrelevant. You can’t have it both ways here.

    Those claims are based on their view of the situation in biblical times. Mr. Abboud’s claim goes back to events in my lifetime..

    Those claims were also based upon legal purchase.

    Remember that a basic principle about systems is that a collection of interacting systems is a system. The Israelis are using their legal system to slowly drive Palestinians out of Palestine.

    That’s correct in Area-C not as generally as you are putting it. And that is a severe problem. Aboud claim is about land in Haifa. The Palestinian residents of Haifa have equal protection of law, property rights and courts that enforce those rights.

    If Mr. Abboud’s deed is not valid, that should have been decided by an objective court.

    Not necessarily. Courts decide application of law. They don’t get to decide what they law is. Abboud’s deed was nullified. My point though is that if your standard had been in effect then he would still lose in an objective court because he wouldn’t be able to establish unencumbered title which is a prerequisite to establishing standing.

    It is not up to you or I to discard it.

    Yes but is is up to the courts and the government where the territory resides to discard it and they have.

    In the US cases that you cite, those whose property was seized had committed crimes. Mr. Abboud has not even been accused of a crime.

    Or course he has been accused of a crime were he to arguing he had a deed. I’ll just list a few. He failed to register his deed with the Land Registry Bureau. He has not coordinated development of the land with the Development Authority and the Israel Land Authority. His name does not properly appear on leases. Since 1969 if the house still exists he has been violating the tenants rights act in that he hasn’t made proper filings. More recently he’s failed to file properly with agencies having to deal with lease transfers. The Land Registry Bureau can charge him with crimes as long as your arm if he is the owner of the that house. Then of course there are decades of back taxes involving this property he hasn’t paid nor properly filed on.

    And that’s just Israeli law. There is law in Lebanon about owning property in Israel he also would be in violation of. And then of course there are the crimes against the previous Yishuv government which was the entity that seized the property in the first place.

    And I’m not a lawyer or an Israeli. Were he to go to court he’s been the owner the whole time that’s just the start of what he’d be facing. The reason he is not a criminal is because he never owned any Israeli property even though he may have owned property in the time of the British Mandate.

    Unlike Arabs who are not allowed into Israel, Israeli Arabs do have access to Israeli courts. It is a separate discussion whether they are equal under the law. Mr. Abbad and his family were not allowed to return and become Israeli Arabs. It was not their choice.

    Foreigners are allowed access to the Israeli courts if they have businesses in Israel. Had Abbad recognized the government of Israel and obeyed the law regarding registration in 1949 his deed, if it exists, could have been reregistered from the British Mandate to the new Israeli Government. In New Jersey colonial deeds have no legal standing, but there was a period of transition where they were moved from colonial status and reregistered to the now independent states. My house specifically there is a deed from the 1830s that still exists which gives me ownership over the lands of 3 of my neighbor’s property. That and a dime would buy me a cup of coffee because the State of New Jersey recognizes the more recent property lines as being the one’s in effect.

    This is not a Canadian issue and the Canadian government has no obligation or power in the matter.

    If he did have a valid claim that Israel was refusing to recognize then it becomes a Canadian matter. Fuad Abboud is a Canadian not an Israeli. As such he lacks the ability to effectively petition the Israeli government for a redress of grievances. The government he can petition is the Canadian one. The Israeli government has treaty obligations to consider petitions by Canada on behalf of its people who choose to own property or do business in Canada. Abboud has less ties to Israel than you or Peter do. But if he had any ties and were Israel being as unfair as you claim then Canada could intervene.

    Your claim that Mr. Abboud’s property was lost prior to the existence of Israel is strange. It was the victorious Israeli government that did not allow the Abboud family to return. How could it be non-existent?.

    They didn’t allow him to return. They weren’t the ones who seized the property. The property was already seized and in other hands when they started addressing property claims at all.

    1. Mr.Host,

       Much of what can be in response to your comment has been said in response to Mr. Sigman. In particular, the Haaretz article that I cited provides a lot of insight and refutes the myth that Palestinian land was generally purchased.

       The US cases you cited previously were cases in which property was seized for real crimes, not administrative violations such as those you list for Mr. Abboud. I find it surprisingly strange that anyone would accuse Mr. Abboud of “crimes” that were non-administration of property that had been seized by the authorities.

       There is no doubt that had Mr, Abboud tried to bring a claim in Israeli courts, it would not have been handled fairly though it might have been handled legally under some very discriminatory laws.

       The idea that either Canada or the US would serve as an agent to handle private property disputes in another country is, to put it mildly, original.

       1. @David

          The idea that either Canada or the US would serve as an agent to handle private property disputes in another country is, to put it mildly, original.

          That’s not abnormal at all. For example the Sandinista government of Nicaragua seized 28,000 pieces of property with some USA ties they have been in negotiations and several thousand of them have been resolved. The USA has also been involved in Nicaragua in clearing up deeds where multiple parties have deeds to the same land where one of the holders was an American. The State Department maintains a standing office (The Managua Property Office) to deal with these cases.

          To pick a recent Canadian example the USA has intervened when 2 Pharmaceutical companies had their patents invalidated and the USA didn’t believe the appeal was properly handled.

          I find it surprisingly strange that anyone would accuse Mr. Abboud of “crimes” that were non-administration of property that had been seized by the authorities.

          You are arguing it is his property and he has deed. Which is it? Is it legally seized property or does he have deed to this property?

       2. Mr. Host,

          As was said earlier, the question being discussed here is an ethical/moral one not a legal one. Israel’s ability to make biased laws is well known. That its courts and police treat non-Jews and Jews differently is also well known. A list of 50 laws that discriminate on the basis of ethnicity or religion has been published and circulated widely. The issue being discussed here is another of those. Israel has laws that seize the property of “absentees” whom they do not allow to return. It is my belief that such law violate “natural justice” not the laws of any particular country.

          The fact that the US has intervened in Nicaraguan internal affairs is well known and not relevant here.

          The Canadian cases that you cover were violations of a trade agreement, not a dispute about private property.

       3. My other response may have been a bit unclear. If Abboud were to be claiming it were his property he has an obligation to try to the best of his ability to act like the lawful of the property and follow the law. If he doesn’t to the best of his ability follow the law, then he is not on an ongoing basis acting like lawful owner. That makes the property abandoned.

          So you are getting into a contradiction here.

          a) If he is the lawful owner and intends to be the lawful owner he needs to follow the law.
          b) If he is the lawful owner and intends to abandon the property that’s often illegal. But regardless having abandoned the property 7 decades ago, the revolutionary interim government rightly ruled it was abandoned property.
          c) If he was never the lawful owner then he can of course legally abandon it.

          What is impossible to argue though is that he is entitled to remain lawful owner for 7 decades while not following any of the laws that apply to foreign property owners.

       4. There is no “myth” that Palestinian land was generally purchased. Did you just invent that red herring? Almost 100% of all scholarly sources show between 5-7% of the land having been purchased by Jews.

       5. Mr. Sigman,

          We agree, more than 93% of the land was not purchased.

          When I wrote of a myth, I was responding to Mr. Host who wrote, “The Jews when they moved there for the first 2 generations legally acquired lands from deed holders. “

16. @Dr. David Lorge Parnas

    As was said earlier, the question being discussed here is an ethical/moral one not a legal one.

    If you want to stop talking about laws then stop making legal claims like Abboud has a deed to a home he owns. Deeds and ownership are legal not ethical concepts. If you want strip legal status than this should have been framed as Abboud has a piece of paper about a house that no longer exists, and that he likes to complain that he owns this house. Or make claims that Abboud didn’t commit crimes unlike other people who had their property seized, because “crime” is also a legal claim.

    If ethics to you means just fabricating stuff out of thin air and arguing about a fictional reality that bears no resemblance to reality then you are quite correct that I’ve been refusing to have an ethical discussion. But that is not at all what I mean by ethics. I consider ethics to be a philosophical discussion of the nature of the good. And that means that when principles are asserted they are evaluated with respect to ethics they are evaluated in light of the harms they would create.

    And as I’ve said repeatedly I consider the concept of Statutes of Limitations to be a very high moral good. I consider non discrimination to also be a very high moral good. So I consider ignoring statutes of limitations so as to discriminate against Jews ethically a noxious evil. I also think that the good is defined by advancing the common welfare. The problems of Israel / Palestine are hard enough to solve for people who actually live there without compounding them with mythology about people who don’t live there, never have lived there and don’t want to.

    And moreover if one is going to talk about ethnics I have little sympathy for the genocidal psychopaths that ran Palestinian society in the 20s-40s having failed in their aims and lost their war. Ethically it would be wonderful if the Buddhists slaughtering the Rohingya in Myanmar were to lose. And if as a result of that loss some property ended up being seized by Rohingya I’d have little sympathy for them as well. Israel/Palestine is one of the few cases where instead of the side of human decency being defeated it won. One of the few cases where reality did grant some measure of justice.

    You’ve made claims to how the 40s is not ancient history because you were alive for them. Well I was alive for Vietnam. I most certainly know people who lost property in the Vietnam war. There would be nothing ethical about throwing the Vietnamese people who live on that property today into the streets based on oversimplifying the history of the Viet Minh and the Viet Cong liberating their country. And unlike the Palestinians those people understand that.

    But to pick a moral relevant example for Canada. I wasn’t alive for Castro’s take over of Cuba. There an exploitive oppressive upper class, very much like what existed in Palestine prior to the Jews taking control, was overthrown and property taken from rich absentees who fled. Unlike the case of Israel where Canada played no role, in the case of Cuba Canada was an aggressive advocate against those people being able to return, against the return of their property and advocate for the legitimacy of the government that seized it. Outside of Florida their claims aren’t taken seriously, and as I mentioned your country is actively hostile to those claims. That distinction is rooted in discrimination.

    But this hasn’t been about ethics. In addition your ethnical case has repeatedly depended on asserting false facts about how cases involving internationals are handled and what his rights are and should be. You had presented a narrative that Abboud was a guy who owned a house in Israel which the Israeli government gave to other people and that he should be allowed to return to that house and reside there. Every single element of that narrative is false. You also have repeatedly made dubious legal claims as part of your ethnical narrative. You have also presented an ethnical standard which is impossible to implement as normative.

    I think it is time for you to reread what you have written and consider that maybe you are grossly oversimplifying and distorting. You simply have a profound distaste for Israel and so want to make them wrong.

    Israel’s ability to make biased laws is well known. That its courts and police treat non-Jews and Jews differently is also well known.

    I would disagree strongly that the Israeli courts that apply outside Area-C treat non-Jews differently or discriminate in matters of property. I think that assertion is simply false.

    A list of 50 laws that discriminate on the basis of ethnicity or religion has been published and circulated widely.

    Which also tends to be biased and lack context. Certainly there is still housing and workplace discrimination in Israel. But the actual history of Israel is one of quite rapidly diminishing inequality as shown by the economic statistics for the Israeli-Arab population. The misery of that population has been replaced by prosperity. In general Ottoman Palestine was a miserable society of disease, starvation and decay. The society that exists there now is thriving and prosperous. There have been huge increases in both the mean, median welfare caused by kicking people like the Abbouds out of power. Israel is not a perfect society but it is a rapidly improving one fighting against tremendous opposition that can’t stand the idea of Jews as equals.

    The issue being discussed here is another of those. Israel has laws that seize the property of “absentees” whom they do not allow to return.

    Which as discussed above rarely happened. Israel didn’t seize anything. Israel inherited a legal mess and cleaned up the property that existed from the previous government.

    As for not allowing people to return. No sane country allows its enemies to mass inside itself. The Palestinian refugees refused to be willing to live in peace in Israel and instead spent decades working to destroy both the state and the nation of Israel. They openly advocated for a policy of extermination rather than peaceful coexistence. Of course they weren’t allowed to return under those circumstances. Just to pick one sample quote Article 22 of the Charter, “the liberation of Palestine will destroy the Zionist and imperialist presence”. To this day the Palestinian refugee population has never asked to be allowed to live in Israel as Israelis under Israeli law contribute to and benefiting from Israeli society. To this day the goal is still to replace Israeli society with another society entirely.

    Now of course there are individual ethnic Palestinians who disagree with their leadership and are willing to return to live in peace. Many of them did during the Oslo years. So saying they weren’t allowed to return is a misnomer since many tens of thousands did return.

    It is my belief that such law violate “natural justice” not the laws of any particular country.

    If it violates natural justice then why are you actively oppressing the Cubans in Florida rather than fighting for their property?

    The fact that the US has intervened in Nicaraguan internal affairs is well known and not relevant here.

    Your claim was that citizens of country X owning property in country Y who are being treated unfairly in country Y’s courts do not have appeal to country X’s courts. In particular that Abboud has access to Canada’s court if in the real world he actually had a legitimate claim to owning something that the Israeli government wasn’t protecting.

    The Canadian cases that you cover were violations of a trade agreement, not a dispute about private property.

    The trade agreements are about how private property disputes get resolved. In that case IP having to do with pharmaceuticals.

17. After reading this lengthy rehashing of the sordid story of Israel (with huge support from western states) gaining control of land previously occupied by others, I had to scroll a long way back to the top to find out what the discussion was supposed to be about. It was supposed to be about how, “Canada was one of only seven which opposed the resolution, along with the Israel, the USA, and a small coterie of tiny pacific Island states – Nauru, Micronesia, Marshal Islands, and the Solomon Islands.” In other words, most of the countries in the world have looked at the situation on the ground and recognized the injustice of that situation. Canada has chosen to shut its eyes and side with the powerful and the oppressors. Canadians should be writing to their MPs to object.

    1. That is one way of looking at it. Another way is that states do not vote on the basis of right and wrong but on the basis of national interest. This vote is just a vote against Israel, the only liberal democracy in the Middle East. It has nothing to do with justice. That was answered in the infamous 1975 vote orchestrated by the USSR (72 for to 35 against with 32 abstentions) and reversed in 1991 (111 for to 25 against with 13 abstaining and 15 refusing to enter the room.

       What changed? Nothing. Except the USSR was no longer a super power. Israel did not stop being Israel.

       Canadians are rightfully proud of their government standing up to the often antisemitic votes in the UN.

       1. Mr. Sigman,

          You are right! Canada was isolated because its vote was not based on right and wrong but on a notion of political pragmatism. Yes, the majority vote had everything to do with justice since there is no pragmatic benefit to voting the way that they did.

          The phrase, “the only liberal democracy in the Middle East” is both inaccurate and out of date. One cannot use the phrase “liberal democracy” when referring to a country that denies the right to vote for many people under its control and discriminates among its citizens on the basis of what it calls “nationality” (meaning religion and ethnicity). Since that phrase was first used, both Iran and Iraq have had hard fought elections.

          Many Canadians are ashamed of the anti-Palestine positions of its government over the years and many of us are Jews. I believe that the same statement can be made about Americans but they speak for themselves.

18. Mr. Parnas,

    First you admit that states only vote on the basis of national interest and then you aver that in this instance off the overwhelming condemnation of Israel, the only liberal democracy in the Middle East (No one educated would ever claim that Iran or Iraq is liberal anything), is a matter of justice. You are not vast enough to contradict yourself so please do not try.

    The Arabs living in the disputed Palestinian territories are not and have never been citizens of Israel. There is no reason on Earth that Israel should give them a say in Israeli affairs.

    Many Canadians are insane. So what?

    1. Mr. Sigman,

       Some states, sometimes vote on the basis of self-interest. Luckily, others appear to be voting on the basis of principle. That was the case for the large majority on the motion we were supposed to be discussing.

       Israel discriminates against non Jewish Citizens of Israel in both law and practice. Further, it has had total military control of the remainder of Palestine since 1967 – 50 years. It has effectively annexed that area and has obligations to those living there.

       To paraphrase Princess Trump, if having principles and wanting to work for justice is insane, many Canadians would admit to that sickness. So would some Americans.

       1. Mr. Parnas,

          I did not expect an honest answer. Therefore you did not disappoint.

Comments are closed.