International Law on Gaza & the Trump Plan

Ethnic Cleansing is not genocide, and the Trump Plan is not even Ethnic Cleansing. The current legal status of the Gaza Strip allows for the USA to get involved like this. President Trump is attempting to do a favor for all concerned, and to do so within the parameters of International Law.

There are some leftists in the media who equate Ethnic Cleansing with genocide by other means. Not just intentional ethnocide, but any mass moving of an ethnicity they wrongly label as ethnic cleansing. But these two concepts are not the same. It's the difference between being caught in a fire, and being allowed to escape it. Live to reestablish society on another day. Ethically speaking, genocide is much worse. Ethnic cleansing is bad. Whereas relocating people to preserve the peace, and save lives can be a good thing.

On the PBS Newshour website, in October 2017, Layla Quran, simplified an explanation of the legal standing of ethnic cleansing:

"To qualify as genocide, the actions must be done with intent to eliminate an entire group of people. Without provable intent, a group or individual can still be guilty of “crimes against humanity” or “ethnic cleansing” but not genocide.
"...Ethnic cleansing has not been defined and is not recognized as a crime under international law, according to the U.N. And in reality, the lines between ethnic cleansing and genocide are often blurred."

We illustrated last month in this blog that displacing criminals is not ethnic cleansing, further terrorists are not protected by the Geneva Conventions which their behavior rejects. Therefore to determine legality of the Trump plan, we need only consider what is President Trump's intention to the non terrorists among the Arabs of Gaza? 

What President Trump's plan calls for and explicitly is intended to do is to save and protect the Palestinian Arab population of the Gaza Strip from all the dangers and health hazards inherent in residing in ruins filled with shrapnel and the like. There is no intention of ethnocide whatsoever. Therefore it cannot be truthfully categorized as any kind of ethnocide.

The crime would be to attempt to stop the salvation of the Arabs who huddle in the ruins of Gaza. Only someone who cynically used the plight of the Palestinian Arabs as a tool to strike at Israel with, would have any grounds to object to what is best for the Palestinian Arabs. They had many chances for a more ideal peace plan, but now this is the best option that is viable under the circumstances. If indeed it results in a new Riviera of the Middle East, as Donald J. Trump dreams of, it can even become an ideal solution.

The left wing rewriting of these vital legal terms is astoundingly bad for International peacemaking; to make the legal seem illegal. German scholar, Prof. Meghan Garrity, wrote the following in her essay, 'Ethnic Cleansing’: An Analysis of Conceptual and Empirical Ambiguity':

“I recommend social scientists abandon the term (ethnic cleansing) because of five critical areas of conceptual confusion..."

After describing how this harms the efficacy of social scientists to help improve the situation, she then suggests four alternative and more accurate descriptors of these kinds of issues,

"Massacre (with the intent to annihilate)
Mass expulsion (with the intent to remove)
Coercive assimilation (with the intent to eliminate a unique cultural identity)
Control (with the intent to subjugate)"

Therefore from the Garrity perspective, entering a discussion of the Trump Plan for Gaza begins with acknowledging it is an evaluation of the intent of a mass expulsion. Just being able to use the correct terminology is half the battle to find common ground in the debate. But a classic conception of mass expulsion is one that has no hope of return, such as the Spanish Expulsion of the Jews in 1492. But here, Trump plans to invite Palestinian Arabs to return when it is safe.

Just to describe the mechanics of the legal status of the Gaza Strip today in more layman terms. The disputed territories are Israeli property that it has been trying to give away to the Palestinian Authority, but not to Hamas. Before the peace deal could be concluded by the transfer in stages program of the Oslo Accords, once called "Jericho First," Hamas' violent takeover of Gaza occurred. Without a peace deal that solidified the land transfer, Israel is empowered to select a new governor to keep the peace in the territory today. For more on this, study the International Laws on Session and Succession.

The reality of the situation is this: Let's ask the question if there is an alternative plan that protects Arab lives and provides them hope for a better tomorrow of good healthcare, prosperity, and peace, more so than the Trump plan? As of today, there is none.

May all who care for peace for Israel, and for peace, health, and wellbeing of the Palestinian Arabs acknowledge this. May it soon be so, by the grace of God.

Institute a Death Penalty for Terrorists With Blood on Their Hands

What a nightmare to watch the injustice of terrorists having freedom while the people they killed are still in the grave. What a perversion that the release of hostages, an otherwise extremely holy act, is used to fuel such evil. The last time Israel gave away so many terrorists to release an Israeli hostage, it included the mastermind of the October 7th massacre. What new risks to the people of Israel has the government of Israel negotiated itself into? If there had been an active death penalty for terrorists with blood on their hands, we would have been celebrating the release of hostages without worry of the new potential dangers that lay in wait. It's high time for such a law to pass through legislation. 

14 years ago I wrote that "When emotions no longer rule policy, lawmakers will face the need to do something to avoid this from ever happening again." & "Repeat after me, "it is wrong to release unrepentant murders out onto the streets for any reason." 

If there were only pro terrorism advocates without blood on their hands in Israeli prisons before the Biden hostage exchange occurred, then there would have been no clear and present danger being sent back to Gaza to attempt to kill our citizens again. Further, the October 7th massacre revealed a new and deeper running cruelty on the street among many Gazans, so that the risk of attempting terror from this group of criminals is greater than from any criminal element ever released before. Among the most basic concepts of criminal profiling is to deliberate over recidivistic tendencies. I am unsatisfied that this was sufficiently considered in this case.

Now quickly misuse heartwarming photos of those hostages being released and only talk about that, so that we can put all this out of our minds long enough to complete this circle of danger!! ...A misappropriation of hasbara for the wrong reasons, I call this.

These matters have long been known. These dangers have long been preventable. Multiple governmental administrations under different Prime Ministers have not fixed this. This is a systemic problem and must be repaired. It will take public outcry to motivate this change. 

If your friend, even your very best friend, likes to drive while drunk, do not give him the keys to the car. Especially if he wants to give you a lift. If he is sober at the moment, but has the same philosophy of driving drunk being some kind of a legitimate option, and he also has a bottle of liquor within his reach, you should still not trust him behind the steering wheel. Similarly we should not put such a temptation upon future governments to have to deal with. Once there is no new supply of murderers sitting in jail for the PLO to potentially upgrade their roster with, there will be no more kidnappings to fuel their release. This nightmare will be over, permanently.

Practically speaking, it's time to admit, the risk of kidnapping is not going away unless and until a real peace solution is fully in place. If a government would consider such legislation as suggested here, the following is a vital point. Include a clause that requires swift fulfillment of orders of execution. Closing potential appeal processes within a matter of days or weeks, not months or years, keeps such a law a practical deterrence of kidnappings. Otherwise there would be a fresh supply of terrorists with blood on their hands potentially motivating more kidnappings. To protect Israel from kidnappings, not a month should pass before the murderers are themselves killed.

If the government will not protect the people (Likud,) and the other government elected will not protect the people (Bennett / Lapid,) then it is time to cry out to Heaven for help. The need is urgent. The intent of government of most parties is to not recognize this as an important value. But God is our King, and He can intervene, and will if we but ask Him to. Despite God's plan of freewill for humanity, God is willing to intervene in such circumstances, to preserve civilization, as it says, "A king's heart is like rivulets of water in the Lord's hand; wherever He wishes, He turns it." (Proverbs 21:1) & "Israel shall be saved by the Lord with an everlasting salvation; you shall neither be ashamed nor disgraced to all eternity. For so said the Lord, the Creator of heaven, Who is God, Who formed the earth and made it, He established it; He did not create it for a waste, He formed it to be inhabited, "I am the Lord and there is no other." (Isaiah 45:17 & 18)

Let's encourage the habitation of the land by those who can come to the Holy Land through a reassurance of safety, and the long life of those who live there by a reassurance of justice.

May the government recognize the need to protect their citizens in such a way, and act accordingly in an appropriate manner. May it soon by so, by the grace of God.

On Ethnic Cleansing

The International Law on ethnic cleansing and the Torah law is similar in this case. Displacing civilian population groups solely because of ethnicity is wrong, even if they are allowed to live elsewhere. This is assuming not displacing them brings maximum protection of fundamental rights for all. Whereas if it did not, the displacement would not necessarily be wrong. It's not black and white in this direction or that but depends on the circumstances of each case. Ethnicity based cleansing (for its own sake) is not in the category of acceptable cleansing in this case. To put it in more colloquially familiar terms, the Palestinians Arabs are not a pure example of a modern Amalekite nation. There are too many roses in this thornbush to honestly make such a comparison.

An ideology of criminality within a given ethnicity, removes the shield against ethnic cleansing against said subgroup. For example, a drug cartel, can't seek to find extra protection under the law for reasons of bias against their race or ethnicity despite their crimes. Their criminal ideology and behavior makes them criminals under the law, it is all the other citizenry, not the criminals, who are entitled to protection from the police even if it would eventually lead to loss of many rights of the criminals were they be brought to justice. These matters are rudimentary concepts of criminal justice, yet they have seemed an elusive matter to grasp for some at the United Nations as well as at many World news media outlets.

Those who reject civilization among the Palestinian Arabs are a non ethnic segment, rather they are an ideological segment, and those are the ones to whom it is legal to relocate. Whereas the ancient Amalekites were completely the same in their ethnicity and ideology. They themselves made that distinction with their universal support of violence. If Palestinian Arabic radicalism reached 100 percent on both sides of the Greenline, God forbid, that would be after the Amalekite model, but that does not exist as an accurate monolithic standard in this case. 

In Talmudic terms, let us consider, the great Hillel's golden rule of  "'not to try unto thine fellow, what is hateful to thyself', is the foundation of Judaism." (Shab. 31a) 

There are plenty of Arabs who are proud and grateful to currently be Israeli citizens and many others on the other side of the Greenline who would be too, if given the opportunity. The rationale of Rabbi Meir Kahane on this issue is evidently inaccurate.

Yet if keeping a group of people in a certain location would cause generations of bloodshed, it is morally wrong to assume that moving people in such a case would be ethnic cleansing. In fact not moving people could be dangerous. That part of it Rabbi Kahane got right.

As I mentioned years ago, the more this goes on, the worse the trend to radicalization would become. Violent indoctrination at Palestinian Arabic schools has caused a loss of so many who could have been civilization builders, but who now support terror. But it's not too late to find many innocents among them who can be saved, if offered a safe way out.

Moving masses of peoples is not always ethnic cleansing. If they could move people and divide a neighborhood often against the will of the residents there, to put in a highway, and for people who do not even live in that neighborhood, then why can't they do the same, to protect lives, on both sides of the ethnic divide? Certainly we should not destroy people's neighborhoods for no good reason. It's wrong to hurt the innocent in any way, if at all possible to avoid. But the point is, nations sometimes have done, and continue to do that, if they feel a compelling enough reason, for a sometimes esoteric ideal of "the greater good." 

Ethnic cleansing, is the attempt to create ethnically homogeneous geographic areas through the deportation or forcible displacement of persons belonging to particular ethnic groups. Here, we are suggesting only filtering terrorists out of the populace via ideological markers and values that are too destructive for the common society of all ethnicities to bear in a given state. You can't kick out Jews or Arabs, but you can bring terrorists to justice.

More often than not, too many either foolish or hypocritical, and or antisemitic voices at the United Nations cried "wolf" and "apartheid" and "ethnic cleansing" in an effort to stop Israel from fixing this problem in a way that protects citizens of all ethnicities. How many nations protested that the Jews were being ethnically cleansed from Gush Katif two decades ago? If you don't know offhand, I'll give you a hint: you will not need a calculator to figure this one out...

But times are a changing, and Israel is and should get used to the idea of doing what is best for all their citizens of all ethnicities, without catering to the whims of anti semitic politicians protesting life saving policies at the U.N.

Peace depends upon Israel establishing it's own sense of a legal right to live in safety, and to demand it as a right before the United Nations. Don't be defined as "ethnic cleansers" by those who allowed it to actually occur in Syria for many decades until it laid the foundation for civil war there.

For the sake of the peace of all Israelis of all ethnicities, demand your rights and assert them. Even if ideological targeted relocation of groups of people becomes necessary to an extent.

Then you will be free to do the good in your heart for all your people, of all ethnicities, in the united Israel of tomorrow.

May it soon be so, by the grace of God.