Arms exports to Israel must stop immediately: UN experts
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Now Palestine didn’t explicitly fall under the Trusteeship, but that is only because Israel declared independence in 1948. Non other then the US (under Truman) actually proposed that Palestine became a Trustee nation under the UN.
The UN has largely been successful in its decolonization efforts (demonstrably for the better). I don’t think we give it enough credit for that.
So, yes. This does indeed exemplify UN policy. And it is a good policy, which has been proven improve the lives of millions, if not billions, in more ways then we can count.
However Palestine was never a Trust territory so it was always outside of that specific mission. However it still falls within UN’s greater mission of general decolonization. This is evidenced by one of its other Principal organs—the General Assembly—voting to start a trial at the ICJ (yet another one of its 6 Principle Organs) to see if Israel’s conduct in the occupied territories (including the West Bank and East Jerusalem) constitutes an illegal activity within international law.
So, no, UN’s mission to decolonize Palestine is still very much ongoing. And it seems like the vast majority of member nations are not happy with the current state of affairs, and do indeed want greater efforts to be taken to further decolonization of Palestine.
occupation or not occupation has nothing to do with colonization. totally different topic.
The ICJ case is about the occupation, not the colonization. However the language used in this case is very coded with terms of decolonization. The charter it self[1] for example:
> 2. Demands that Israel, the occupying Power, cease all measures contrary to international law, as well as discriminatory legislation, policies and actions in the Occupied Palestinian Territory that violate the human rights of the Palestinian people, including [...] the forced displacement of civilians, including attempts at forced transfers of Bedouin communities, the transfer of its own population into the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem,
> 6. Demands that Israel, the occupying Power, cease all of its settlement activities, the construction of the wall and any other measures aimed at altering the character, status and demographic composition of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including in and around East Jerusalem, all of which, inter alia, gravely and detrimentally impact the human rights of the Palestinian people, including their right to self-determination.
> 11. Demands that Israel, the occupying Power, comply with its legal obligations under international law, [...] and that it immediately cease the construction of the wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including in and around East Jerusalem, dismantle forthwith the structure situated therein, repeal or render ineffective all legislative and regulatory acts relating thereto, and make reparations for all damage caused by the construction of the wall, which has gravely impacted the human rights and the socioeconomic living conditions of the Palestinian people;
In, short, paragraphs 2, 6, and 11 of the charter charging Israel for the crimes of occupation, demands that Israel ceases settler colonial activities, and demand 6 even calls cites the rights of self-determination, without witch is almost the definition of colonization.
Furthermore, paragraphs 13-17 all deal with economic and structural consequences of colonialism, with demands such as cease its imposition of prolonged closures and economic and movement restrictions, and:
> 16. Urges all States and the specialized agencies and organizations of the United Nations system to continue to support and assist the Palestinian people in the early realization of their inalienable human rights, including their right to self-determination, as a matter of urgency, in the light of the passage of more than 55 years of the Israeli occupation
Paragraph 10 cites the Security Council Resolution 1860 (2009)[2] (which is ironically a ceasefire resolution) which starts with the paragraph:
> Stressing that the Gaza Strip constitutes an integral part of the territory occupied in 1967 and will be a part of the Palestinian state,
and ends with:
> 8. Calls for renewed and urgent efforts by the parties and the international community to achieve a comprehensive peace based on the vision of a region where two democratic States, Israel and Palestine, live side by side in peace with secure and recognized border
And finally, the decision in paragraph 18 (a) states:
> What are the legal consequences arising from the ongoing violation by Israel of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, from its prolonged occupation, settlement and annexation of the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem, and from its adoption of related discriminatory legislation and measures?
Which is a description of settler colonialism with occupation.
Now if we move to the testimonies delivered earlier this week, they were full of language describing colonization and demands to end it. This includes comparing Israels system to Apartheid, stressing the democratic rights of the Palestinian people, the right of self determination, economic activities prevented by Israel, etc.
Colonization is not illegal under international law, so there will never be an ICJ case demanding and end to it. Occupation is however illegal, which is why we have this legal case. The UN does however maintain (albeit rather badly) a list of shame[3] of colonies and colonizers (perhaps considered abandonware at this point). Neither Palestine nor Israel is on that list, it is however clear from the language and resolution at both the ICJ, and the security council (as well as at the Secretary General and the General Assembly; two more Principal Organs of the UN) that Palestine is a colony of Israel, and the UN is not happy about it.
1: https://www.undocs.org/A/RES/77/247
2: https://undocs.org/en/S/RES/1860(2009)
3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_list_of_non-sel...
I’m assuming, off course, that you recognize the existence of the Palestinian people and their possibility that there may be a Palestinian state. Otherwise I’m not sure I should be responding to this.
do jewish people have right of self determination ?
A note here, that the question of self determination is again the words of the UN General Assembly, I have my own thoughts on it, which I try not to steer into, as this is already irrelevant to the question of decolonization efforts exemplifying the United Nations.
Like Israel, the Palestinian people also have an internationally recognized right to self determination, which is recognized by 139 of the 193 UN member states (including my home country of Iceland; Israel only has 27 more countries which recognize their statehood). They don’t get to exorcise this right as often as they would like to as many aspects of their statehood is controlled by Israel (which we were frequently reminded of in the ICJ testimonies this week; and talked about above).
One could—confusingly—argue that Catholics do have the right to self determination, as they do have an internationally recognized state representing them, but in practice (and de jure) it is merely the very senior rulers of the religion that live and work in the Vatican, which have that right.
But not every nation gets the same right of self determination. American Indians, famously have a very limited right of self determination, the Roma people in Europe get hardly any. Inuit in Greenland have much more than Inuit in Nunavut. The Tatars in Crimea don’t get it, but the Russian speakers in the same territory only get it via Russia while internationally it is recognized they should get it via Ukraine. The self determination of the Taiwanese people is even more complicated.
My personal feelings about the right of self determination is that it should not belong to nations, but rather by classes belonging to an international solidarity of workers. However we do live in this UN based world as determined by the winners of World War 2, and they say the right to self determination belongs to internationally recognized nation states. Both Israel and Palestine are one, so legally speaking, they should both have their own separate right to self determination. But in reality Israel denies Palestine of that right.
so, do jewish people have right for self determination ?
also, do you realize, that nowhere un chater or international laws written that right to self determination implies that state should be given to people ?
The right of self determination applies to peoples, not people and not states. What is peoples is another issue which is not clearly defined. But I think of it as a broad category of defined group with some shared cultural heritage, be it ethnic, religious, or culture (but not subculture). LGBTQ+ are peoples, Inuit are peoples, Icelanders are peoples, and so are Israelis, which are separate peoples from Palestinians (also peoples). Jewish people are also peoples, but they are not the same peoples as the Israeli people. Many belong to both peoples, but there are many non-jewish Israelis and much more non-Israeli Jews.
In the context of international law you can think of the Palestinian people as both an ethnic group, a group with a shared history and culture, a nation group as well as an indigenous group. As I understand it there is a varying degree of self determination which is granted to each type of group. The right of self determination of internationally recognized nation states is pretty much undisputed at the UN. And since Palestine is one (albeit without control of its territory) the question should be answered.
But the UN also has other charters like the rights of indigenous peoples (which Israel did not vote against) which grants the right of self determination to indigenous groups within your territory (in Israel this is at the very least Bedouins; but potentially all Palestinians; the case at the ICJ actually specifies Bedouins in this context). Likewise there are quite a few charters granting the right of self determination to colonized peoples, of which Palestine also qualifies.
Now when we speak of Jews as a single ethno-religious group. They are definitely peoples and as such should have some degree of self determination. But within the context of international law, this is pretty limited, probably only to the right to practice free religion (which is sadly more than the Roma people in Europe get). The Jewish people live in many different countries, have very different culture, speak many different languages and are of different ethnicity. If it was up to me, this wouldn’t matter, if they had a shared class interest (which they don’t) they should get the right of self determination (as long as it doesn’t go against the international solidarity of workers). But we are in this UN based world (for better or worse) and as such the nation state trumps all rights of self determination. So the Jewish people as a group will have to settle for the same degree of self determination as every other religious group (except the Roman Catholics) that of free religion within the nation state they live in.
respectfully, palestine is not internationally recognized as state. is not recognized as member state by security council. it doesn't control it's territory because it has no territory and it has no borders.
i don't see in international law or un charter limits on where or how self determination works.
under un chater do jews have right for self determination in territory of judea and samaria ?
The strongest form of self determination is that of the nation state. Judea and Samaria are historic territories which precised the UN by around 2000 years, the Jews that live in the historic territories of Judea and Samaria are certainly a group, but certainly not one which equates a nation state. The strongest degree of self determination among this single ethno-religious group inside this historic territory is carried by the state of Israel, which is an internationally recognized state composed of many different peoples (not just Jews).
I have a feeling you are trying to direct this discussion towards the prospects of a Jewish ethno-state in some vague historic territories. But such country does not exist. The Khmer Rouge tried to create something similar in the historic territories of the Khmer empire, and committed a horrible genocide while trying so. Israel is not the Jewish Khmer Cambodia. It is composed of more peoples than just Jews. The Khmer rouge had no rights, nor authority to create such a state, and neither do the ethno-fascists in Israel, no matter high up in government they are. The right of self determination does not extend towards the rights to deny others the right to live.
I also just don't understand the point of arguing about it. They're not going anywhere. They're extraordinarily well armed, economically productive, and invested in their state. You'd have a better chance of getting us out of Ohio than Israeli citizens out of Tel Aviv.
My parent was asking about the right of self determination of the Jewish people in the context of the UN general assembly demanding that Israel grants this right the Palestinian people, living under its occupied territories. And I’m trying to convey—and I might even be wrong about this—that the right of self-determination of an ethno-religious group that lives across many and diverse set of states and are citizens of equally many, does not have the same right of self-determination, under the current UN based international order, as nation states (such as Palestine) do.
This is until a bit later when my parent’s posts (your sibling post) started hinting at the potential for a Jewish ethno-state within vague historic territories, which I’m hoping is a misunderstanding on my part.
I don't think any of the reasoning is as simple as "the Levant is the historic homeland of the Jewish people"; I think it's a complicated and deeper mess than that.
If you're not saying that Israelis have a lesser claim to self-determination within the '67 borders than Palestinians do, we're just on the same page. :)
The right of self determination of Israelis, living within the internationally recognized borders of the independent state of Israel, is never questioned at the UN level.
When I wrote the post which you originally replied to, I was working under the suspicion that my parent wasn’t arguing in good faith (a suspicion which was reinforced downthread) and I was trying really hard to not steer this conversation into this direction, only focusing on how the UN deals with the right of self-determination within the context of decolonization. I can see that I failed.
hence was my question, can jewish people in your opinion exercise universal right of self determination in territory of judea and samaria (it's not vague territory, it's very specific territory) ?
it was annexed by jordan till 1967. in 1967 it was liberated and jordan renounced it's rights to this territory in 1980 or 1988.
not citizens of israel but jews. 2-states strategy not really in un charter or ICCPR or ICESCR. right to self determination of people is, without limits or definition where this right can be exercised.
so, you say, that you oppose "universal right of self-determination" ? or you think that some people have more right to do it and some less ?
> As of 2022, the Samaritan community is estimated to number around 874 people, split almost evenly between Israel (some 460 in Holon) and the Israeli-occupied West Bank (some 380 in Kiryat Luza).
> All Samaritans in both Holon and Kiryat Luza are Israeli citizens, but those in Kiryat Luza also hold Palestinian citizenship.
> Much of the local Palestinian population of Nablus is believed to be descended from Samaritans who converted to Islam.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samaritans
Sorry, but I don’t think you are talking about the Samaritans. And if you are, they are totally irrelevant to our conversation. But the short answer would be, they should have the rights of an indigenous or a religious minority within a broader region.
so how is that in your only palestinians can do it ? is the right of self determination does not apply to samaritans and jews, only to palestinians ?
un charter on self determination or other treaties that i referenced says nothing about location of self determination, btw. there is only right to self determination. not to land. not to state.
Home land of both the peoples, then? Looking more like a one-state reality to me.
Note that this etno-religious minority numbers fewer than a 1000 people, only about 400 live in the occupied West Bank (and honestly, I haven’t asked them, but I would be very surprised if they were happy with the occupation). It is obvious from the early points that parent was arguing for something with much grander stakes than this tiny minority.
Not only that but your parent explicitly mentioned Jewish people earlier (obviously referring to illegal settlers), while from what I know about the Samaritan minority is that their religion related to Judaism while still distinct, so I question whether it is actually accurate to refer to them as Jewish.
In other threads your parent actually crossed the line and started attacking me as a person. Wrongly claiming my position is pro-colonial https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39497508 Which kind of feels like the poster is trying to Kafkatrap[1] me.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies#[[wikt:Kafka...]
Which by no means conveys any rights to Israel, as Jordan's occupation of the territory was also illegal and unrecognized from the very beginning.
*So, you say, that you oppose "universal right of self-determination"?*
No one has a right to "self-determine" themselves on land to which they hold no legal claim.
When you then talk about Judea and Samaria, which are indeed historic territories, and indeed vague compared to the specific territories the UN General Assembly is talking about. Judea and Samaria existed as an actual territory of nations which were at some point independent, colonies, then occupied, then ethnically cleansed, regions of empires, etc. The boarders over the thousands of years have shifted significantly. The people living in these territories have shifted religion, language, national affiliations, etc. many times over. And the people living inside these territories haven’t called it by those names for like 1500 years at least.
But more importantly, neither Judea nor Samaria are UN recognized territories, with any special status what so ever. Now there is a subdivision within Israel which is named Judea and Samaria Area. This is not internationally recognized subdivision (not even by nations which recognize Israel as a state). Within the UN this area is called The West Bank and is internationally recognized to be a Palestinian territory occupied by Israel.
When you talk about the self determination of the Jewish people in that area, within the context of decolonization efforts by the UN, and when you use the name of its colonizers of this area, it does sound like you are talking about excluding this right of the actual nation state which already lives there and is internationally recognized owner of. This is an oft cited prospect of ethno-facists within the Israeli government, to ethnically cleanse the territory of its internationally recognized inhabitants (the Palestinians) and reserve it for Jews alone. This might not be your intention, but this is what I heard.
i am not excluding anybody or anything.
I am just asking you if jewish people per "un charter, ICCPR and ICESCR" which declare "that people have universal right of self determination" can exercise this right in judea in samaria ? yes or no ?
I am just asking you if samaritan people per "un charter, ICCPR and ICESCR" which declare "that people have universal right of self determination" can exercise this right in judea in samaria ? yes or no ?
I am just asking you if palestinian people per "un charter, ICCPR and ICESCR" which declare "that people have universal right of self determination" can exercise this right in judea in samaria ? yes or no ?
The settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international law. This ICJ case is about determining the consequences of Israel for allowing these settlements. The demands of the General Assembly (cited above) was for Israel to stop expanding these settlements. In general the very existence of Judea and Samaria Area as an Israeli subdivision is precisely the kind of colonial enterprise which the UN has been working to dismantle since its founding in 1945.
The only thing I do know is that the UN describes these settlements as illegal, so I parrot it, as it fits my narrative. I believe illegal has something to do with the illegal occupation and international agreements which Israel has signed and since broken (e.g. the transfer of civilian population to and from occupied territories) by allowing these settlements to materialize, persist and proliferate.
Some of these settlements are even illegal under Israeli law, but are still allowed to persist. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_outpost, but all of them are indeed “illegal” under international law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_settlement
Second, you proved what other poster said about Palestinian cause. In your eyes rights of palestinians superior to rights of other people per UN charter and other international treaties. Shame on you
I find it troubling, that Samaritan people who live in area called Samaria for more than 2000 years continuously have according to you less rights than palestinians (who started to self identify only like 100 years ago). Shame on you.
In the sense that all peoples have the right of self-determination - of course, unquestionably.
As to whether that applies to the self-determination in the sense of a viable community within the boundaries historic Palestine? You know the answer already, of course. As per the Balfour declaration, as long as it is:
clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine
but given that you opened this topic, under international law, un charter, etc, do jewish people have right of self determination in judea and samaria ?
The international community does not recognize "Judea and Samaria" as a jurisdiction. So the question is moot.
Further, what you're getting at is a question of sovereignty -- which has nothing to do with religious belief or cultural identity, per se. Which makes the question doubly moot.
Judea and Samaria are historical names and predate establishment of state of Israel and it administrative division. This naming is also used by UN and going back for example to 1947 UN Partition plan: "the boundary of the hill country of Samaria and Judea starts on the Jordan River...".
and i am not talking about sovereignty. i am talking about self determination per us charter. can jews do it there ? can samaritans do it there ? can palestinians do it there ?
Right, but that doesn't make them internationally recognized.
If you can't use valid jurisdiction names, there's nothing to talk about here.
The account I’m responding to has been shadow banned since 2017. Now while I appreciate this post gave me a chance to talk about a very nerdy—and IMO interesting—subject of the UN Trusteeship Counsel, and UN policy of decolonization in general, I’m curious why my parent’s post was vouched for. It hardly seems of any better quality than any of the other posts which were flagged.