Following through on a move to increase their international recognition as an independent entity, the Palestinian Authority has formally joined five human rights treaties at the United Nations.
The treaties included bans on torture and racial discrimination, as well as three aimed at promoting rights for women, children, and the disabled. These are just the beginning, however.
The Palestinians will also join an accord on protecting children in combat zones, an optional addendum to the children’s rights treaty, as of next Wednesday, and will also join two other agreements on civil and cultural rights on July 2.
In addition to given them more nominal recognition at the UN, accession into the treaties also gives the Palestinian leadership the option of pressing claims of violation of those treaties at the UN.
The Palestinians signed the convention on the rights of children before even becoming an official state. The US is the only country that refuses to sign it. Staunchly.
Good for the Palestinians. When you are getting robbed, you are better off calling out for "police" rather than trying to negotiate with the robbers. A policeman might actually come; the robber will never listen to reason. The Palestinians wasted too much time with the phony "Peace Talks", made even more futile by being refereed by a Israeli-First dominated United States government.
But who is going to make sure they are enforced? In my opinion these treaties will be ignored by the same people who implemented them. Now that they have joined lets see if Abbas will be pressing claims of violation of these treaties which is happening at this very moment.
Does anyone really believe that the Palestinians will honor these agreements? The agreements signed would require changes in the Palestinian National Charter, Hamas Covenant and in the laws of the PA.
Sorry for the pessimism, but it's not going to happen any time soon – probably not within this century.
Perhaps the main purpose is to be able to bring charges against the Israelis? Lord knows there is an overwhelming amount of evidence to support those charges.
The Palestinians may well be opening a Pandora's Box that they'll wish they had left alone, in the long run.
What they've applied for requires some major changes in the Palestinian National Charter, some of them the exact same changes the PLO agreed to when signing Oslo I in 1993– and the Palestinian National Charter has remained the same, 21 years later.
Don't forget that every rocket fired into Israel is a war crime, every suicide bomber and ever drive-by shooting, every airline hijacking and every murder of Israeli civilians by "the resistance" are all war crimes– including the documented participation of Abu Mazzen (aka Mahmoud Abbas) in the planning and financing of the murder of 11 Israeli OIympic athletes. the PA might find it "inconvenient", to say the least, to find half or more of the Palestinian government indicted by the ICJ.
Be careful what you wish for…
The Palestinians may well be opening a Pandora's Box that they'll wish they had left alone, in the long run. What they've applied for requires some major changes in the Palestinian National Charter, some of them the exact same changes the PLO agreed to when signing Oslo I in 1993– and the Palestinian National Charter has remained the same, 21 years later. Don't forget that every rocket fired into Israel is a war crime, every suicide bomber and every drive-by shooting, every airline hijacking and every murder of Israeli civilians by "the resistance" are all war crimes– including the documented participation of Abu Mazzen (aka Mahmoud Abbas) in the planning and financing of the murder of 11 Israeli OIympic athletes. the PA might find it "inconvenient", to say the least, to find half or more of the Palestinian government indicted by the ICJ. Be careful what you wish for…
The Palestinians may well be opening a Pandora's Box that they'll wish they had left alone, in the long run. What they've applied for requires some major changes in the Palestinian National Charter, some of them the exact same changes the PLO agreed to when signing Oslo I in 1993– and the Palestinian National Charter has remained the same, 21 years later. Don't forget that every rocket fired into Israel is a war crime, every suicide bomber and every drive-by shooting, every airline hijacking and every murder of Israeli civilians by "the resistance" are all war crimes– including the documented participation of Abu Mazzen (aka Mahmoud Abbas) in the planning and financing of the murder of 11 Israeli OIympic athletes. the PA might find it "inconvenient", to say the least, to find half or more of the Palestinian government indicted by the ICJ. Be careful what you wish for…
The "leadership" corp of the Palestinians has been severely lacking from the beginning. Perhaps a complete change at the top may enlighten the citizens when choosing a new group to lead.
Israeli leadership, though more organized is rife with those who have histories of active prosecution of the Palestinians over the years. Exposition in court of the history of both parties will serve to educate the rest of the world of what has been going on from the beginning, including the lies used to continue the engagement. I suspect the Israelis would have more to lose by the full exposure and close examination of the facts.
It's a two-edged sword…the Palestinians may feel the cost incurred may justify the ends if the Israelis are made to pay an equally costly justice. We will see, I'm sure.
I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree. It seems to me that in any battle of "lawfare", the Palestinians will come off second by far in a courtroom where the rules of evidence and the burden of proof are equal for both sides.
In the long run, it's more likely that rather than being a "two-edged sword", the Palestinian leaders are holding a gun in such a way that they'll be shooting themselves in the foot… or right in the gut.
When it comes to the Israelis, world opinion is extremely fickle. I suspect the level of "proof", such as it is, will be lowered enough that "evidence" will be second to public opinion, especially when the documented crimes start to become more accepted on a wide-scale world stage. But, as is with these things, we'll see.
When it comes to the Israelis, world opinion is extremely fickle. I suspect the level of "proof", such as it is, will be lowered enough that "evidence" will be taken at face value and end up second to public opinion, especially when the documented crimes start to become more accepted on a wide-scale world stage. But, as is with these things, we'll see.
So I guess you admit that Israel won't get a fair shake no matter what. Damn the evidence, no matter how stacked it may be against the Palestinians– public opinion, no matter how ignorant and ill-informed it may be, shall reign. Gee, that sounds an awful lot like Judeophobia.
The level of Palestinian "veracity" is well-known when natural deaths, traffic accidents and even suicide bombers and the bomb-makers who were victims of their own ineptitude are added to the lists of "Palestinian victims of the occupation".
Woe betide a court that accepts evidence from such a source at face value.
No, you're projecting. Except when their crimes have been so egregious the world could not ignore nor condone, the Israelis have been given pretty much a free ride. They've been allowed to systematically beat down the Palestinians using the wail of "anti-Semetic" and the whine of "we're the victims" to cudgel the world to look the other way.
IMO, the Israelis have pushed too far and are garnering the world's enmity for their arrogance and lies. They are quickly running out of friends who will blindly support them regardless of what they do. The Palestinians have problems of their own but do not deserve to be treated as the subhumans the Israelis claim they are.
But, have a nice day anyway.
From the content of your first paragraph here, it seems that you're the one projecting. Can you point to specific "crimes" that you think Israel has actually committed that have a basis in some piece of international law?
The Palestinians' main "problem" as you put it, is an inability to accept that they themselves embarked on a war of aggression and lost. If you kno0w nothing else, learn the history of the region from the beginning of the 20th century, and don't assume that 1967 was the starting point of the conflict, because it wasn't.
What do you know of the Nebbi Moussa riots against the Jews in 1920? What do you know of the Arabs' rejection of partition plans that gave the 90% of the Palestine Mandate in 1937 and 1938 (Peel Commission and Woodhead Plan)?
I know of no Israeli who claims that Palestinians are sub-human, but I do know of many Palestinian figures who refer to Israelis and Jews in general as "the descendants of apes and pigs".
Perhaps you have your facts mixed up? To assume the Palestinians can't be held responsible for their murderous actions is racism of one of the worst types– the same kind of racism practiced by the European empires when they "civilized" the rest of the world, claiming it was "the white man's burden"–patronization.
My suggestion to you would be to get out and read more material from both sides and reach an independent conclusion, rather than stick to the meaningless slogans and buzzwords invented by propagandists.
Have a nice life.
Please do not go on about the Hamas Covenant, when Hamas has been in a political mode for 8 years. it is Israel which needs to sign AND FOLLOW these rules, as does the USA, which scorns international agreements.
I wonder which planet you live on? In that 8 years of "political" mode, Hamas and their surrogates in Gaza have shot off more than 10,000 rockets and mortar shells into Israel at civilian establishments. Unless you come from Mars, you have to understand that means more than 10,000 war crimes. the amount of damage and killed is irrelevant– have you never heard of criminal intent?
It would be hard to ignore the Hamas Covenant when Mahmoud al-Zahar, the Hamas Foreign Minister, insists on making statements like this to the news:
"Neither the liberation of the Gaza Strip nor the liberation of the West Bank or even Jerusalem will suffice us. Hamas will pursue the armed struggle until the liberation of all our lands. We don't recognize the state of Israel or its right to hold onto one inch of Palestine. Palestine is an Islamic land belonging to all the Muslims." (reported by the Washington Times)
"Before Israel dies, it must be humiliated and degraded. Allah willing, before they die, they will experience humiliation and degradation every day." (Reported by the Washington Times)
"She [Hamas suicide bomber Re'em Al-Riyashi] is not going to be the last because the march of resistance will continue until the Islamic flag is raised, not only over the minarets of Jerusalem, but over the whole universe." (Reported by AP)
With high "ideals" such as these, declared almost daily by Hamas personae, do you really think that peace is anywhere in their minds… other than the peace of the grave for all Jews?
It rarely ceases to amaze me that supposedly intelligent people can believe the transparent lies, bigotry and hatred that organizations like Hamas represent, yet convince themselves they support "freedom fighters".
Now the Zionist have an excuse to invade and destroy Gaza once again and once again America will say do not provoke my friends keep quiet in your open air prison.
This is going to end in ethnic cleansing or the Gazafication of the West Bank. Even typical American supporters of Israel are going to find it impossible to continue supporting Israel as it drifts to the extreme right. In addition to BDS, someone should organize a boycott of the NY Times over their disgustingly biased coverage of Israel-Palestine. Jodi Rudoren is absolutely terrible in particular, but they are so subtle that those without prior knowledge of what's happening can be suckered into believing her spin. Spin is much too polite of a word for justifying apartheid.