Sunday, September 25, 2005

Hello? Why No Answer?

I found a web site which promotes the "Palestinian" viewpoint.

The blogger noted that Israel had "occupied" Palestinian land following the 1967 war.

So I innocently asked him, but really,

Without being provocative, you write that Beit Hanina was occupied by Israel since 1967. And prior to 1967? Was it occupied or what? How do you explain this?


He replied:

Prior to 1967, Beit Hanina was under direct Jordanian control...The residents of Beit Hanina enjoyed the same rights as other citizens of Jordan. Also, while under Jordanian rule, we were allowed to build on our lands, we didn't have our homes demolished, trees uprooted, or lands stolen from us so that Jewish only settlements such as Ramot


Well, I then responded this way:

thanks for replying.

i will try to avoid the more sensitive issues which i would consider problematic in that either there is a factual error or a subjective one.

but i need your response to the issue of Jews owning property in Jordan (which included the area now under Israeli military control until 1967) and in the area administered by the Palestinian Authority. As you know, in Israel within the 1967 borders, Arabs live and own property whether or not there is discrimination which is not the issue now.

here is a statement regarding Jews owning land

LAND LAW IN JORDAN

Under the direct instructions of King Husayn23, the government of Jordan in 1973 passed the "Law for Preventing the Sale of Immovable Property to the Enemy."24The "enemy" is defined in Article 2 as "any man or judicial body [corporation] of Israeli citizenship living in Israel or acting on its behalf." Under Article 4 of this law any Jordanian citizen who sold land in Jordan or the West Bank to the "enemy" faced the death penalty and forfeiture of all his property to the state:
The sale of Immovable property against the provisions of this law constitutes a crime against state security and well being, punishable by death, and the confiscation of all the culprit's Immovable and moveable possessions.
In addition, Article 3 deemed the sale of land to any alien (i.e., a non-Arab) without permission from the Council of Ministers a security offense punishable by death.
According to PA Attorney General Khalid al-Qidra, Jordan had sentenced 172 people to death under this law.25 Amnesty International reported that as of 1988 many of the convictions were in absentia and that there had been no executions. 26 However, PA Justice Minister Meddein claimed that Jordan had executed 10 violators.27

Whatever its application, the Jordanian Parliament repealed the 1973 law in 1995, following the peace treaty between Israel and Jordan. Milder statutes adopted in its place still effectively bar Israelis from purchasing or leasing land in Jordan. The Law on Economic Boycott and Banning Dealing with the Enemy (Article 6) states that "it is impermissible for foreign persons or corporate entities that do not hold an Arab nationality to purchase, lease, or own directly or indirectly any immovable property in the kingdom." 28 The only exceptions require high level political authorization.

23 Arab Report and Record (London: Arab Report and Record), Apr. 16-30, 1973, p. 179; May 1-15, 1973, p. 204; July 16-31, 1973, p. 319.
24 Al-Jarida ar-Rasmiya (Amman), #2429, 1973, p. 1223-1224.
25 Palestine Report, June 6, 1997.
26 Jordan: Human Rights Protections After the State of Emergency (New York: Amnesty International, 1990), pp. 53,55.
27 The Los Angeles Times , June 1, 1997.
28 Al-Aswaq (Amman), July 27, 1995, as translated by the Foreign Broadcast Information Service.


Legislation passed in 1954 declared that only non-Jews coming from the former British Mandate of Palestine were entitled to Jordanian citizenship.36

36 Section 3(3) of Jordanian Nationality Law no. 6 of 1954, recorded in Al-Jarida ar-Rasmiya, no. 1171, Feb. 16, 1954, p. 105.

and this
LAND LAW UNDER THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY

Enforcement of the old Jordanian law. The PA's justice minister, Meddein, has repeatedly stated his intention to enforce the 1973 Jordanian law.29 It is doubtful, however, that this law has any legal standing in territories under control of the PA. The Oslo 2 Agreement of September 1995 specifically deals with regulations of this sort and renders them null and void in PA territories. Oslo 2 states that any legislation "inconsistent with the provisions of the DOP, 30 [or] this Agreement ... shall have no effect and shall be void ab initio."31Imposing the death penalty on Palestinians for selling land to Israelis clearly violates at least two provisions of Oslo 2. 32

The new Palestinian law. The Palestinian Legislative Council has passed the first reading of a draft law intended to supersede the 1973 Jordanian statute.33This new law reportedly bar sales to "occupiers" whom it defines as the "Israeli occupying government and its civil and military institutions, settlements and whomever is under their authority." It declares the sale of land in "Palestine" to such occupiers to be "high treason" punishable "according to the criminal law." And it states that foreign violators have "committed harm to the national security and will be punished according to the criminal law." The draft law is vague about punishment, but according to the Jordanian Penal Code, which is still in effect on the West Bank, the crime for treason is death. 34

According to PA legislators, the term "Palestine" in the law refers to all the territory of the Palestine Mandate, meaning all of Israel.35 Under this proposed statute, then, an Israeli Arab who sells any land in Israel to an Israeli Jew would face the death penalty. Such extraterritorial threats receive added weight from the reported formation by the PA of a shadowy force known as "The Long Arm," whose task is to track down and execute Palestinians living anywhere in the world who have sold land to Israeli Jews.36

It hardly needs pointing out that this new Palestinian law would, like the 1973 Jordanian law it replaces, directly violate the Oslo 2 Accords.

29 Independent Media Review and Analysis (IMRA) interview, Dec. 23, 1996 and June 4, 1997; Agence France Presse, May 5, 1997; Yedi'ot Ahranot, May 20, 1997; Ha'aretz, May 28, 1997.
30 Declaration of Principles, the agreement signed on the White House lawn in September 1993.
31 Oslo 2 Agreement (formally, the "Israeli-Palestinian Agreement on the West Bank and Gaza Strip"), Article XVIII.4.a.
32 Article XVI, paragraph 2 of Oslo 2 requires that Palestinians who have "maintained contact with the Israeli authorities" will not on this account be subject to "harassment, violence, retribution or prosecution." Article XIX requires that the Palestinian Council "shall exercise their powers and responsibilities pursuant to this agreement with due regard to internationally—accepted norms and principles of human rights and the rule of law."
33 Palestine Report, Aug. 22, 1997.
34 Amnesty International, Jordan: Human Rights Protections, 1990, p. 52.
35 Agence France Presse, June 16, 1997.
36 Al-'Arab al-Yawm, May 17, 1997, as translated in the British Broadcasting Corporation Summary of World Broadcasts.

Would you consider the foregoing problematic?


And would you believe it, he hasn't been heard of since.

His name is Mike Hanini (or Odetalla), his e mail address is hanini@comcast.net and his blog site is at http://www.hanini.org/ also called Ramallah Online.

Do you think it's because I'm Jewish, or a Zionist or a revenant of Shiloh or maybe he has no answer? Every time I try to initiate a dialogue, I get cut off.

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