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US Congress endorses right of conquest

Almost certainly due to the efforts of the appalling antics and pressure of AIPAC and the Israel Lobby in America, the US Congress on 5 June passed a quite extraordinary resolution with respect to the status of Jerusalem. In effect, the Congress endorsed Israel's conquest of Jerusalem 40 years ago - in the face of international law in doing so.

"In a flagrant attack on the longstanding international legal principle that it is illegitimate for any country to expand its territory by military means, the U.S. House of Representatives, by an overwhelming bipartisan majority, passed House Concurrent Resolution 152 congratulating Israel for its forcible “reunification of Jerusalem” and its victory in the June 1967 war."

So writes Stephen Zunes, Professor of Politics at San Francisco University, in Foreign Policy in Focus [reproduced on CommonDreams]. As Zunes goes on to say:

"Jerusalem has been conquered and re-conquered more than 37 times in its 3000-year old history. Yet, with the establishment over the past century of clear international legal principles forbidding such military conquests and of international organizations with enforcement mechanisms, there has been a persistent hope that the fate of Jerusalem could – along with other territories seized by the Israeli armed forces – be resolved peacefully and with deference to international law. UN Security Council resolution 242, long seen as the basis for Arab-Israeli peace, emphasizes the “inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war.” Congress appears to think differently, however.

The bipartisan decision to pass a resolution celebrating Israel’s military conquest at a time when there is a growing consensus among Palestinians, Israelis, and the international community that a shared Jerusalem is imperative for a durable peace appears to have been designed to undermine the peace process. As M.J. Rosenberg, director of the Israel Policy Forum’s Washington Policy Center, observed, “Congress has a role to play in the Middle East…but that leadership is not expressed by resolutions celebrating a war but by using its authority to promote security for Israelis and Palestinians.”

The Palestinians may well be fighting amongst themselves and their "press" and pr poor, but the actions of the US Congress will do nothing to either enhance the way the US is viewed in the Middle East let alone provide it with even a remote platform for being seen as some sort of broker in a peace process between the Palestinians and Israelis.

Comments

Anonymous said…
i would have thought the same principle would forbid the establishment by conquest of a jewish state in palestine.

the yanks are only being consistent: "do as we say, give us what we want, or we will punish you for being evil. and you are evil if you resist us, because god is on our side."

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