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After the War: Why Palestine Would Be a Lawless and Militarized State

Teenage hostages before Oct. 7 and after their capture by Hamas to Gaza. Photo: Screenshot from Israeli government X/Twitter account

Once again, disparate voices are urging a “two-state solution” to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. For the most part, these urgings are either manipulative or naive, but the danger they pose for Israel is existential: Palestine would not coexist with the sovereign State of Israel, but would plan to replace Israel.

In essence, the two-state plan advocates that an Arab state of Palestine be constructed upon the ruins of Israel.

It is a position that openly displays criminal intent or mens rea toward Israel. It is unambiguously a one-state solution. It is a “final solution.”

Other legal and practical difficulties are associated with Palestinian statehood. A core difficulty would lie in deliberate Palestinian disregard of all pertinent jurisprudential standards. Even if an expanding number of existing states argue for an “official” recognition of “Palestine,” these approvals would not be legally binding. According to the Convention on the Rights and Duties of States (1934) — aka the governing “Montevideo” treaty on statehood — specific criteria must be met by nascent or aspiring states. For the case at hand, the case of “Palestine,” these standards do not include recognition.

In principle, declarations of support for Palestinian self-determination might not be unreasonable if the Palestinian side were sincerely committed to a two-state solution. But while Fatah and Hamas are very much at odds, they agree on one fundamental point, which is the long-ritualized mantra that Israel’s existence represents an intolerable abomination to Dar al-Islam (the world of Islam) and can never be anything more than “Occupied Palestine.”

The countries in world politics that seek a two-state solution are effectively urging the creation of an irredentist terror state. This advocacy position — one oriented towards Israel’s violent replacement by a protracted criminal insurgency ––originally stemmed from a diplomatic framework known as the Road Map for Implementation of a Permanent Solution for Two States in the Israel-Palestinian Dispute. Together with a Palestinian refusal to reject the “Phased Plan” (Cairo) of June 1974 and an associated no-compromise jihad to “liberate” all of “Occupied Palestine” in increments, the Road Map exposed an overlooked danger to Israel: Those well-intentioned states favoring statehood were misled by overly optimistic or flagrantly contrived hopes for Palestinian “demilitarization.”

On June 14, 2009, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to accept a Palestinian state, but made any such agreement contingent on Palestinian “demilitarization.” He said: “In any peace agreement, the territory under Palestinian control must be disarmed, with solid security guarantees for Israel.”

What Netanyahu failed to note was that there can be no “solid security guarantees for Israel.” A new state of Palestine could 1) easily evade any pre-independence promises made to Israel with impunity; or 2) fatally undermine such promises lawfully. Understandably, following the October 7, 2023 barbarisms, Netanyahu (restored to the premiership) no longer has any faith in Palestinian “security guarantees.”

Furthermore, as a fully sovereign state, Palestine might not be bound by pre-independence agreements even if the compacts were to include UN and/or US reassurances to the contrary. This argument applies even though unrestricted Palestinian claims of statehood could never satisfy the amply codified expectations of authoritative international law. It would be the likely Palestinian argument even though Palestine would have garnered no legal entitlement to any rights of treaty termination.

There would be additional legal problems. Because authentic treaties can be binding only upon states, any agreement between a non-state Palestinian authority and the sovereign State of Israel can have little tangible effectiveness. But what if the government of Palestine were willing to adhere to “peremptory” (fundamental) legal expectations for states — that is, to consider itself bound by its pre-state, non-treaty agreements?

Even in such relatively favorable circumstances, the government of Palestine could retain ample legal pretext to identify grounds for lawful treaty termination.  It could, for example, withdraw from the agreement because of what it would regard as a “material breach.” This would be an alleged violation by Israel that credibly undermined the object and/or purpose of the agreement.

Other Palestinian manipulation options could arise. To wit, Palestine could point towards what international law calls a “fundamental change of circumstances” (rebus sic stantibus). If a Palestinian state were to declare itself vulnerable to previously unforeseen dangers, perhaps from forces of other Arab armies, it could lawfully end its previously binding commitment to remain demilitarized.

There is another method by which a treaty-like arrangement obligating a new Palestinian state to accept demilitarization could quickly and legally be invalidated. The grounds that may be invoked under domestic law to invalidate contracts can also be applied under international law to treaties and treaty-like agreements. This means that a new state of Palestine could point to alleged errors of fact or duress as permissible grounds for terminating the agreement.

Any treaty or treaty-like agreement is void if, at the time it was entered into, it conflicts with a “peremptory” rule of general international law — a jus cogens rule accepted and recognized by the international community of states as one from which no derogation is permitted. Because the right of all sovereign states to maintain military forces essential to self-defense is certainly such a rule, Palestine, depending upon its particular form of constitutive authority, could arguably be within its right to abrogate any arrangement that had “forced” its demilitarization.

Thomas Jefferson wrote about obligation and international law. While affirming that “Compacts between nation and nation are obligatory upon them by the same moral law which obliges individuals to observe their compacts…,” he also acknowledged that “There are circumstances which sometimes excuse the nonperformance of contracts between man and man; so are there also between nation and nation.” Specifically, Jefferson said that if performance of contractual obligation becomes “self-destructive” to a party, “…the law of self-preservation overrules the law of obligation to others.”

Historically, demilitarization has been a legal remedy applicable to “zones,” not to whole states.  This could offer a new state of Palestine yet another legal ground upon which to evade compliance with its pre-independence commitments to demilitarization. It could simply be alleged that these commitments are inconsistent with traditional or Westphalian bases of authoritative international law, rudiments found in treaties and conventions, international custom, and the “general principles of law recognized by civilized nations.” These commitments, the argument would stipulate, would not be legally binding.

In making its strategic and legal choices, Israel should draw no comfort from any purportedly legal promise of Palestinian demilitarization. If the government of a new state of Palestine should choose to invite foreign armies and/or terrorists onto its territory (possibly after the original government authority is displaced or overthrown by even more militantly Islamic, anti-Israel forces), it could do so without practical difficulties and without violating international law.

Prevailing plans for Palestinian statehood are still built upon the moribund Oslo Accords, ill-founded agreements that were undermined and destroyed by persistently egregious violations by the Arab side. The basic problem with the Oslo Accords that underpinned those violations should now be apparent. On the Arab side, Oslo-mandated expectations were never anything more than a cost-effective step toward the dismantling of Israel. On the Israeli side, these expectations were taken, more or less, as a promising way to avert Palestinian terrorism and prevent catastrophic Arab state aggressions.

This asymmetry in expectations, never acknowledged by the UN, enhanced Arab power while it weakened and degraded Israel.  Even now, genocidal Palestinian calls to “slaughter the Jews” (more recently phrased as calls for “Palestine from the river to the sea”) have failed to dampen international enthusiasm for a new criminal state. Much of the “international community” hopes to midwife the birth of such a state while refusing to acknowledge that state’s openly declared genocidal intentions.

What does this mean for any alleged Palestinian demilitarization “remedy” and for Israeli security? Above all, it signals that Israel should make rapid and far-reaching changes in the manner by which it conceptualizes the policy continuum of cooperation and conflict. Israel must desist in wishful thinking and recognize the zero-sum calculations of its enemies. After the Gaza War, this means acknowledging the force-multiplying calculations of Hamas and Iran.

Understood more specifically in terms of international law and world order, this could also mean an Israeli willingness to accept the peremptory right and obligation of “anticipatory self-defense.”

The Arab world and Iran still have only a “one-state solution” in mind for the Middle East. It is a “solution” that incrementally eliminates Israel altogether. Corroboratively, “official” maps of “Palestine” show an already extant Arab state in all of the West Bank (Judea/Samaria), all of Gaza, and all of Israel.

These maps exclude references to any indigenous Jewish population and include the holy sites of only Christians and Muslims. An official cartographer, Khalil Takauji, was commissioned by the Palestinian Authority (PA) to design and locate a Palestinian Capitol Building. This was drawn by Takauji on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, directly on top of an ancient Jewish cemetery.

On September 1, 1993, Yasser Arafat clearly affirmed that the Oslo Accords would be an intrinsic part of the PLO’s 1974 Phased Plan for Israel’s destruction:  “The agreement will be a basis for an independent Palestinian State, in accordance with the Palestinian National Council Resolution issued in 1974. This PNC Resolution calls for “the establishment of a national authority on any part of Palestinian soil from which Israel withdraws or is liberated.”  On May 29, 1994, Rashid Abu Shbak, then a senior PA security official, remarked ominously: “The light which has shone over Gaza and Jericho will also reach the Negev and the Galilee.”

Since these declarations, nothing has changed in Palestinian definitions of Israel and “Palestine.” This is true for the current leadership of both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. It should make no difference to Israel whether one terror group or the other is in power.

In a sermon presented on PA Television on December 12, 2014, and in the presence of PA President Mahmoud Abbas, Mahmoud al-Habbash, the Supreme Sharia Judge and Abbas’s advisor on Religious and Islamic Affairs, said: All of this land will return to us, all our occupied land, all our rights in Palestine –  our state, our peoples’ heritage, our ancestors’ legacy — all of it will return to us, even if it takes time.”

Earlier, on October 22, 2014, Al-Habbash reaffirmed that any acceptance of Israel’s physical existence is forever forbidden under Islamic law: “The entire land of Palestine (i.e., territory that includes all of Israel) is waqf (an inalienable religious endowment under Islamic law) and is a blessed land. It is prohibited to sell, bestow ownership, or facilitate the occupation of even a millimeter of it.”

But back to basics. A presumptively sovereign Palestinian state could lawfully abrogate its pre-independence commitments to demilitarize. The Palestinian Authority has been guilty of multiple material breaches of Oslo and of “grave breaches” of the law of war. Both the PA and Hamas remain unwilling to rescind their genocidal calls for Israel’s annihilation.

When he accepted the idea of a Palestinian state that had formally agreed to its own demilitarization, Benjamin Netanyahu believed he had taken a reasonable step towards reconciliation. But the Palestinian leadership and their allies in Iran will never accept or even consider any Israel-proposed idea of “limited” Palestinian statehood, particularly a state that would lack the core prerogatives of national self-defense. Whether Jerusalem likes it or not, this means that if Israel ever accepts a Palestinian state, it will be accepting an intransigent enemy endowed with all the normally unhindered military rights of sovereignty.

This does not mean Israel will have no choice but to surrender to a future “Palestine,” but that Jerusalem should fashion its post-Gaza War security policies with fact-based expectations. Among other things, this means Israel’s leaders will need to assess the existential threat of Palestinian statehood as part of a larger strategic whole; that is, in tandem with the rapidly expanding perils of catastrophic conventional or unconventional war. More precisely, this means a comprehensive analytic focus on plausible synergies between Hamas/Iranian aggressions and Israel’s problematic nuclear doctrine. To do anything else would be to seek justification for the immutably discredited promises of Palestinian “demilitarization.“

International law is not a suicide pact. Rather than pass from one untenable position to another, Israel must understand that a two-state solution can quickly become a final solution. Israel has no moral or legal obligation to carve an irredentist enemy state out of its own still-living body.

Louis René Beres, Emeritus Professor of International Law at Purdue, is the author of many books and articles dealing with nuclear strategy and nuclear war, including Apocalypse: Nuclear Catastrophe in World Politics (University of Chicago Press, 1980) and Security or Armageddon: Israel’s Nuclear Strategy (D.C. Heath/Lexington, 1986). His twelfth book, Surviving Amid Chaos: Israel’s Nuclear Strategy, was published by Rowman and Littlefield in 2016. A version of this article was originally published by The BESA Center.

The post After the War: Why Palestine Would Be a Lawless and Militarized State first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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US Clamps Sanctions on Israel-bashing UN Rights Monitor Albanese

Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, attends a side event during the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, March 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse

The Trump administration has imposed sweeping sanctions against Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, citing the UN official’s lengthy record of singling out Israel for condemnation.

In a post on X, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the sanctions under a February executive order targeting those who “prompt International Criminal Court (ICC) action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives.” He accused Albanese of waging “political and economic warfare” against both nations and asserted that “such efforts will no longer be tolerated.”

“Today I am imposing sanctions on UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese for her illegitimate and shameful efforts to prompt [International Criminal Court] action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives,” Rubio announced on X/Twitter.

“Albanese’s campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel will no longer be tolerated,” declared the Trump administration’s top foreign affairs official. “We will always stand by our partners in their right to self-defense.”  

Rubio concluded: “The United States will continue to take whatever actions we deem necessary to respond to lawfare and protect our sovereignty and that of our allies.”

The decision to impose sanctions on Albanese marks an escalation in the ongoing feud between the White House and the United Nations over Israel. The Trump administration has repeatedly accused the UN and Albanese of unfairly targeting Israel and mischaracterizing the Jewish state’s conduct in Gaza. 

Albanese, an Italian lawyer and academic, has held the position of UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories since 2022. The position authorizes her to monitor and report on alleged “human rights violations” by Israel against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. 

Last week, Albanese issued a scathing report accusing companies of helping Israel maintain a so-called “genocide economy.” She called on the companies to cut off economic ties with Israel and warned that they might be guilty of “complicity” in the so-called “genocide” in Gaza. 

Critics of Albanese have long accused her of exhibiting an excessive anti-Israel bias, calling into question her fairness and neutrality.

Albanese has an extensive history of using her role at the UN to denigrate Israel and seemingly rationalize Hamas’ attacks on the Jewish state.

In the months following the Palestinian terrorist group’s atrocities across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Albanese accused the Jewish state of perpetrating a “genocide” against the Palestinian people in revenge for the attacks and circulated a widely derided and heavily disputed report alleging that 186,000 people had been killed in the Gaza war as a result of Israeli actions. 

The action comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits Washington, where he has received a warm reception from the Trump administration. Netanyahu has been meeting with US officials to discuss next steps in the ongoing Gaza military operation. 

Gideon Sa’ar, Minister of Foreign Affairs for Israel, commended the Rubio announcement with his own post on X/Twitter, exclaiming: A clear message. Time for the UN to pay attention!” 

The post US Clamps Sanctions on Israel-bashing UN Rights Monitor Albanese first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Hardball: Trump Administration Reports Harvard to Accreditor Over Antisemitism Allegations

US President Donald Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, July 8, 2025. Photo: Kevin Lamarque via Reuters Connect.

The Trump administration escalated its showdown against Harvard University on Wednesday, reporting the institution to its accreditor for alleged civil rights violations resulting from its weak response to reports of antisemitic bullying, discrimination, and harassment following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 massacre across southern Israel.

The US Department of Education (DOE) announced the action on Wednesday. Citing Harvard’s admitted failure to treat antisemitism as seriously as it treated others forms of hatred in the past, the DOE called on the New England Commission of Higher Education to review and, potentially, revoke its accreditation — a designation which qualifies Harvard for federal funding and attests to the quality of the educational services its provides.

“Accrediting bodies play a significant role in preserving academic integrity and a campus culture conducive to truth seeking and learning,” said Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. “Part of that is ensuring students are safe on campus and abiding by federal laws that guarantee educational opportunities to all students. By allowing anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination to persist unchecked on its campus, Harvard University has failed in its obligation to students, educators, and American taxpayers.”

The DOE, McMahon added, “expects the New England Commission of Higher Education to enforce its policies and practices, and to keep the Department fully informed of its efforts to ensure that Harvard is in compliance with federal law and accreditor standards.”

As previously reported by The Algemeiner, Harvard’s Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism has acknowledged that the university administration’s handling of campus antisemitism fell well below its obligations under both Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and its own nondiscrimination policies.

In a 300-plus-page report, the task force compiled a comprehensive record of antisemitic incidents on Harvard’s campus in recent years — from the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee’s endorsement of the Oct. 7 terrorist atrocities to an anti-Zionist faculty group’s sharing an antisemitic cartoon depicting Jews as murderers of people of color. The report identified Harvard’s past refusal to afford Jews the same protections against discrimination enjoyed by other minority groups as a key source of its problem.

Coming several weeks after President Donald Trump ordered the freeze of $2.26 billion in federal research grants and contracts for Harvard, the task force report found it was “clear” that antisemitism and anti-Israel bias have been fomented, practiced, and tolerated not only at Harvard but also within academia more widely.”

The university is now suing the federal government over the funding halt.

President Trump has spoken scathingly of Harvard, calling it, for example, an “Anti-Semitic, Far Left Institute … with students being accepted from all over the world that want to rip our Country apart” in an April post to his Truth Social platform.

In recent weeks, however, both Trump and McMahon had commended Harvard’s constructive response in negotiations over reforms the administration has asked it to implement as a precondition for restoring federal funds. The requested reforms include hiring more conservative faculty, shuttering diversity, equity, and inclusion [DEI] programs, and slashing the size of administrative offices tangential to the university’s central educational mission.

The administration has since changed its tone in the wake of a report by The Harvard Crimson that interim Harvard President Alan Garber has said “behind closed doors” that he has no intention of doing anything that would make Harvard more palatable to conservatives.

Earlier this month, the Trump administration’s Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism issued Harvard a formal “notice of violation” of civil rights law. Charging that Harvard willfully exposed Jewish students to a flood of racist and antisemitic abuse both in and outside of the classroom, it threatened to strip whatever remains of Harvard’s federal funding.

“Failure to institute adequate changes immediately will result in the loss of all federal financial resources and continue to affect Harvard’s relationship with the federal government,” wrote the federal officials comprising the multiagency Task Force. “Harvard may of course continue to operate free of federal privileges, and perhaps such an opportunity will spur a commitment to excellence that will help Harvard thrive once again.”

In Wednesday’s announcement, US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Harvard’s conduct “forfeits the legitimacy that accreditation is designed to uphold.”

“HHS and Department of Education will actively hold Harvard accountable through sustained oversight until it restores public trust and ensures a campus free of discrimination,” he said.

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

The post Hardball: Trump Administration Reports Harvard to Accreditor Over Antisemitism Allegations first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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IDF Strikes Hezbollah Sites in South Lebanon as Terror Group Pushes to Rebuild Amid US Disarmament Talks

IDF operating in southern Lebanon. Photo: IDF Spokesperson

Israeli forces uncovered and destroyed Hezbollah weapons caches in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, as a new report indicated that despite ongoing U.S.-led efforts to secure a disarmament deal, the Iran-backed group is making repeated, largely concealed attempts to rebuild its military presence in the area.

Troops carried out several operations targeting Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon on Wednesday morning, destroying weapons depots, explosives and multibarrel launchers concealed in forested terrain, the IDF said, in violation of the November ceasefire, which requires Hezbollah to withdraw its forces 20 miles from the Israeli border.

A new report released this week by the Alma Research and Education Center found that Hezbollah is focused on rebuilding in three areas: operational deployment, weapons acquisition, and financial recovery. 

“Hezbollah didn’t give up its resistance narrative and motivation,” Alma’s director, Lt. Col. (Res.) Sarit Zehavi, told The Algemeiner

“It wants to rebuild its capabilities and infrastructures, whether it’s the villages that will be used as human shields or the military infrastructure in South Lebanon and in Lebanon in general.”

According to Zehavi, Hezbollah is attempting to return Radwan fighters to positions south of the Litani River as part of a wider plan to restore its elite forces to operational readiness. The IDF on Monday killed Radwan commander Ali Abd al-Hassan Haidar in a targeted strike. The action came hours after US Special Envoy for Syria Thomas Barrack met with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri in Beirut to discuss a long-term deal that would include an Israeli withdrawal and complete disarmament of Hezbollah.

Barrack described the Lebanese response to the proposal as positive. Later, he issued a blunt warning to Hezbollah in response to a vow by the terror group’s leader, Naim Qassem, not to lay down its arms. “If they mess with us anywhere in the world, they will have a serious problem with us,” Barrack said in an interview with Lebanese news network LBCI. “They don’t want that.” 

Zehavi said it was premature to predict the outcome of the diplomatic efforts. She warned that the challenge of disarming Hezbollah remains enormous and emphasized that the Lebanese Armed Forces have not demonstrated the capability or willingness to confront the group.

“It’s too soon to be optimistic or pessimistic,” she said, noting that no firm commitments have emerged from the Beirut talks. 

Hezbollah’s efforts to smuggle and manufacture weapons have been complicated by both Israeli strikes and the regional realignment over recent months. While Israeli strikes have disrupted many supply routes, according to Zehavi, Syrian authorities have intercepted far more Hezbollah-bound weapons than the Lebanese Army, which claims to have uncovered 500 arms caches but has provided no evidence.

The financial front marks the third aspect of Hezbollah’s rebuilding effort. Last week, the group halted cash payments to Shiite civilians whose homes were damaged in the war, citing liquidity problems. Zehavi attributed the shortfall to disruptions in Iran’s funding networks — an outcome of the 12-day war against the regime in Tehran — and said the constraints would likely hamper Hezbollah’s ability to compensate its base and sustain operations. 

“I hope they will continue to have problems with the cash flow, that way it will be very difficult for them to recover,” she said.

The post IDF Strikes Hezbollah Sites in South Lebanon as Terror Group Pushes to Rebuild Amid US Disarmament Talks first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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