Uncategorized
What Does International Law Say About Recognizing a Current State of ‘Palestine’?
The United Nations headquarters building is pictured though a window with the UN logo in the foreground in the Manhattan borough of New York, Aug. 15, 2014. Photo: REUTERS/Carlo Allegri
All state recognitions of “Palestine” to date have failed to meet even a single one of the four Montevideo Convention requirements. Those national governments now expressing their support for the sovereignty for “Palestine” are effectively welcoming a lawless aggressor state into the community of nations. Over time, this terror-state could become an existential hazard for Israel, directly and/or in collaboration with other irredentist states. Ipso facto, it could also undermine international law generally.
Leaders of every ideological stripe of the “nonmember observer state” of Palestine have long displayed and continue to display “criminal intent” (mens rea) toward Israel.
Would this lawless behavior be reduced or better controlled in a Palestinian state? What if the new Arab sovereignty were “demilitarized?”
There is a clear answer to this question: A fully sovereign state of “Palestine” could evade any pre-independence security promises made to Israel, including those made in alleged good faith.
Because treaties are binding only on states, any agreement between a non-state Palestinian authority and a sovereign State of Israel would have no foreseeable effectiveness.
This would be the case even if the “government of Palestine” were willing to consider itself bound by its own pre-state assurances. Even in such circumstances, the government of Palestine could retain legal grounds to terminate the agreement. For example, it could withdraw from the pact on account of a supposed “material breach.” In all likelihood, such withdrawal would stem from a supposed violation by Israel that had “undermined the object and/or purpose of the agreement.”
Multiple opportunities for Palestinian manipulation would arise. Palestinian decision-makers could point toward 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 even to forces of other Arab armies or jihadist insurgencies, it could lawfully end its original commitment to remain demilitarized. A new state of Palestine could also point to “errors of fact” or “duress” as permissible grounds for agreement termination.
On its face, any treaty or treaty-like agreement is void if, at the time of entry into force, 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 sovereign states to maintain military forces essential to self-defense is precisely such a rule, Palestine could credibly argue its right to abrogate any arrangement that had “forced its demilitarization.”
In the 18th century, US president 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 simultaneously 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 continued, if performance of contractual obligation becomes “self-destructive” to a party, “…the law of self-preservation overrules the law of obligation to others.”
A presumptive Palestinian state could lawfully abrogate any pre-independence commitments to Israel to demilitarize. Recent declarations of recognition by France, the UK, and other major states have no legal bearing on the creation of such a state. On the contrary, these declarations directly undermine the authority of law-based international relations, both generally and with particular reference to Israel.
In the final analysis, Jerusalem needs to assess the existential threat of Palestinian statehood as part of a much larger strategic whole; that is, in tandem with the continuously intersecting perils of conventional and unconventional war. This points to a comprehensive analytic focus on potential synergies between enemy state aggressions and Israel’s nuclear doctrine. Notwithstanding Israel’s recent victories over Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah, Israeli leaders need to calibrate incremental shifts from “deliberate nuclear ambiguity” to “selective nuclear disclosure.” Though recent declarations of national support for Palestinian statehood can be countered on a legal level, even a non-state “Palestine” would remain intolerable.
International law is not a suicide pact. Israel has no legal obligation to carve a new enemy state aggressor from its own still-living body. Despite being expressed in stirring rhythms of high moral authority, the recent recognitions of “Palestine” by major states avoid larger justice issues altogether.
Assigning formal statehood to a violence-based entity that openly seeks the total destruction of an existing state violates both justice and logic. In the case of Israel and the Palestinians, such assignment is wrongheaded on several levels and signals an evident contradiction in terms. Instead of accepting ad hoc policy prescriptions drawn from non-legal sources, the community of states will need to display good faith (a basic expectation of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties) by upholding law-based rules.
Under the British Mandate, in confirmation of decisions made at the San Remo peace conference of April 1920, all of Palestine was reserved for the establishment of a “Jewish national home.” In 1922, though no part of mandatory Palestine had ever been designated for the creation of another Arab state, Britain illegally carved Transjordan out of 78% of its mandatory territory. Transjordan became Jordan in 1949, one year after the declaration of the State of Israel. On May 15, 1948, one day after the State of Israel was declared by David Ben-Gurion in Tel-Aviv, Azzam Pasha, Secretary General of the Arab League, forecast the war being planned by combined Arab forces: “This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre.”
The later UN partition resolution (1947) included only 22% of the lands originally pledged to establish a Jewish national home. In the interests of a peaceful start, Jewish national authorities accepted the illegally reduced land mass (essentially half of the residual one-fifth) in exchange for establishing a Jewish state. From the beginning, this immediately beleaguered state, less than half the size of America’s Lake Michigan, had to endure with virtually no strategic depth.
There is one last critical observation. In view of continuing misinformation suggesting Israel’s alleged displacement of a pre-existing Arab state, current issues concerning Palestinian statehood and the disposition of Gaza should be understood in an accurate historical context. At absolutely no time in history has there been a Palestinian state.
Prof. Louis René Beres was educated at Princeton (Ph.D., 1971) and is the author of many books and scholarly articles dealing with international law, nuclear strategy, nuclear war, and terrorism. In Israel, Prof. Beres was Chair of Project Daniel (PM Sharon). His 12th and latest book is Surviving Amid Chaos: Israel’s Nuclear Strategy (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016; 2nd ed., 2018). A version of this article was originally published by The BESA Center.
Uncategorized
Andorra’s tiny Jewish community reels after local carnival features mock execution of Israeli effigy
(JTA) — An annual festival in Andorra drew condemnation from the country’s small Jewish community after an effigy bearing the Israeli flag was staged in a mock trial and then hung and shot.
The incident was part of the traditional Catalan festival Carnestoltes, which occurs yearly before Lent, the 40-day period that precedes Easter. At Monday’s festival in Andorra, where a mock king is typically tried and burned, organizers instead used an effigy wearing blue with the Israeli flag painted on its face.
During the festivities, the Israeli effigy was symbolically tried, hung, shot and burned, according to social media posts and a report in the Israeli outlet YNet.
ABERRANTE muestra de antisemitismo en Andorra durante el carnaval. pic.twitter.com/GeIdF635wd
— Dani Lerer (@danilerer) February 16, 2026
The incident drew outcry from the microstate’s tiny Jewish community, which only just got its first full-time rabbi, a Chabad emissary, in the last two years.
“This is a ritual they perform every year as part of carnival, where they mock many things,” Jewish Andorra resident Esther Pujol told YNet. “This time they dressed the effigy in the colors of the Israeli flag, with a Star of David on its face. They put it on trial, sentenced it to death and carried out the sentence by shooting and burning it. It is completely unacceptable.”
Pujol told the outlet that it was the first time she had seen the festival include anti-Israel or antisemitic elements, and that she had contacted Andorran lawmakers to express her outrage. The mayor of Encamp, the city where the incident took place, and local politicians took part in the ceremony, according to YNet.
The European Jewish Congress also decried the display in a post on X, writing that the mock-execution was a “deeply disturbing act that risks normalizing antisemitism and incitement.”
“This incident requires unequivocal condemnation, full clarification of responsibilities and concrete measures to ensure that antisemitism is never tolerated in public celebrations or institutions in Andorra or anywhere in Europe,” the post continued.
Other Lent festivities have also been the site of antisemitism in recent years, with Belgian celebrations in 2019 featuring antisemitic caricatures and a Spanish parade in 2020 featuring a Holocaust-themed display.
The incident marks a rare instance of open turmoil for Jews in Andorra, which is nestled between France and Spain in the Pyrenees mountains. While France and Spain have seen widespread pro-Palestinian protests and antisemitic incidents in recent years, Andorra has largely avoided similar tensions.
In September, Andorra formally announced its recognition of Palestinian statehood alongside a host of other European nations during the United Nations General Assembly in New York City.
But local Jews have also sought to remain under the radar, considering that Andorra officially prohibits non-Catholic houses of worship. The Jewish community calls their gathering place a community center rather than a synagogue. In 2023, Andorra’s parliament elected a Jewish lawmaker for the first time.
The post Andorra’s tiny Jewish community reels after local carnival features mock execution of Israeli effigy appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
British woman who removed an Israeli hostage poster from a memorial site is convicted of theft
(JTA) — A British woman who is married to a Jewish anti-Zionist activist has been convicted of theft in connection with a 2024 incident in which she removed an Israeli hostage poster and threw it in the trash.
Fiona Monro, 58, of Brighton, England, was found guilty of theft, but not convicted of criminal damage for charges stemming from a February 2024 incident in which she took a large laminated poster of Israeli hostage Tzachi Idan and disposed of it.
A relative of Idan who lives in a neighboring town, Howe, returned the poster to the memorial site after Monro threw it away. A week later, Monro also wrote the phrase “Pray for the 30,000 murdered Palestinians” on the memorial but was acquitted of charges related to the vandalism, according to Brighton and Hove News.
The incident came at a time when Israeli hostage posters were being vandalized frequently by activists across the globe who said they were protesting the war in Gaza. The war began when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages. Idan was killed in Hamas captivity and his remains were returned to Israel a year ago during a negotiated ceasefire.
“This crime was one out of 50 times the memorial was vandalised and it took two years to get justice. But it is possible to get a win,” Heidi Bachram, one of the memorial’s organizers, told the Jewish News following Monro’s convict. “We cannot let hateful people get away with attacking us.”
Monro told police that the memorial located in Brighton’s Palmeira Square “did not represent the Jewish community,” citing her marriage to the prominent activist Tony Greenstein. Greenstein was expelled from Great Britain’s Labour Party in 2018 over his social media comments about Israel, which his party deemed antisemitic.
“The board was clearly there to justify the genocide that was happening,” Monro said in the police interview. “A large laminated board with a photograph of a hostage was highly inflammatory to many people in that community clearly found it very upsetting to have that constantly thrust in our face daily.”
After Monro’s lawyer, Hamish McCallum, requested that the jury consider whether it was proportionate to convict her on the basis she was exercising her right to express her political views, Judge Stephen Mooney rejected the proposal.
“This is not therefore a case of the state seeking to prosecute the defendant disproportionately for expressing her own views or otherwise interfering with her rights,” said Mooney. “It is a case of the state prosecuting the defendant for putting her views above those of others and causing them wholly unnecessary distress by so doing.”
Mooney gave Monro an 18-month conditional discharge and ordered her to pay $1,637 in prosecution costs.
The post British woman who removed an Israeli hostage poster from a memorial site is convicted of theft appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Community Leaders Slam Campaign in Canada Targeting Accreditation of Jewish Summer Camps
Illustrative: People take part in “Shut it down for Palestine!” protest outside of Tyson’s Corner as shoppers participate in Black Friday in Vienna, Virginia, US, Nov. 24, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Leah Millis
Jewish community leaders across Canada are pushing back against a campaign by anti-Zionist activists that seeks to pressure accrediting bodies to reconsider recognition of several Jewish children’s summer camps.
The controversy centers around at least 17 overnight camps in provinces including Ontario, Quebec, Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, and Nova Scotia, according to a statement circulated by the activist group. A coalition of leftist and pro-Palestinian groups has identified the camps and is urging provincial associations to review and potentially revoke their accreditation.
Members of the anti-Israel coalition — which includes the Palestinian Canadian Congress, Just Peace Advocates, the Ontario Palestinian Rights Association, PAJU Montreal, and the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign — claim that some of the camps promote or normalize support for Israel.
Organizers say institutions connected to Israel, which they falsely accuse of committing genocide against Palestinians, should face scrutiny.
“We have identified at least 17 overnight summer camps throughout Canada that support the State of Israel in some way,” the campaign says. “These camps are not problematic because they encourage connection to Jewish identity. Rather, they pose a problem because they encourage support for a genocidal, settler-colonial state.”
Among the claims cited are that camps celebrate Israeli national holidays, incorporate Israel-focused educational content, or employ staff members who have previously served in the Israel Defense Forces, including in non-combat capacities.
The messaging reflects themes commonly associated with the BDS movement, which seeks to isolate Israel from the international community as a step toward its eventual elimination. The campaign against Jewish camps has been endorsed by the official Canadian BDS Coalition.
The campaign appears to represent a new front in a broader pattern of activism that has targeted universities, cultural organizations, and other institutions over perceived ties to Israel.
Camp leaders and Jewish organizations say the effort singles out Jewish institutions and risks politicizing spaces designed for children, while presenting a threat to effectively dismantle Jewish life.
The UJA Federation of Greater Toronto described the campaign as harassment and intimidation directed at Jewish families. Community leaders have emphasized that summer camps are focused on youth development, cultural enrichment, and recreation, not political advocacy
“This direct targeting of Jewish campers and staff is a deliberate act of intimidation,” UJA wrote in a statement.
The Ontario Camps Association, which accredits camps in that province, also condemned the initiative. The association said accreditation decisions are based on health, safety, and program standards, not political views, and characterized the coalition’s allegations as discriminatory.
The dispute has unfolded amid a surge in antisemitic incidents over the past two years, following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, amid the ensuing war in Gaza.
According to the Jewish advocacy group B’nai Brith Canada, which tracks antisemitism across the country, antisemitic incidents in 2024 rose 7.4 percent from 2023, with 6,219 adding up to the highest total recorded since it began tracking such data in 1982. Seventeen incidents occurred on average every day, while online antisemitism exploded a harrowing 161 percent since 2022. As standalone provinces, Quebec and Alberta saw the largest percentage increases, by 215 percent and 160 percent, respectively.