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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 28 Sep. - 4 Oct. 2000 Issue No. 501 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 28 Sep. - 4 Oct. 2000 Issue No. 501
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Elections Region International Economy Opinion Culture Special Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters More than a question of vocabulary
By John Whitbeck *With the "peace process" being given a few more weeks either to bear fruit or to enter into a prolonged period of hibernation (or, conceivably, to descend into violence), there is an urgent need for politicians, negotiators and commentators to clean up their language -- not with respect to obscenities but with respect to dangerously misleading terminology.
It is normal practice for parties to a dispute to use terminology that favours them. In this regard, Israel has been spectacularly successful in imposing its terminology not simply on Israeli consciousness and American usage but even on many Arab parties and commentators. It has done so not simply in obvious ways, like use of the terms "terrorism," "security," "Eretz Israel" or "Judea and Samaria," but also in more subtle ways, which have had and continue to have a profound negative impact on perceptions of matters of substance.
There is much talk of "concessions" being demanded from Israel. The word suggests the surrender of some legitimate right or position. In fact, while Israel demands numerous concessions from Palestine, Palestine is not seeking any concessions from Israel. What it is insisting upon is "compliance" -- compliance with agreements already signed, compliance with international law and compliance with relevant United Nations resolutions -- nothing more and nothing less. Compliance is not a concession. It is an obligation, both legally and morally, and it is essential if peace is ever to be achieved.
The Palestinian territories conquered by Israel in 1967 are frequently referred to as "disputed." They are not. They are "occupied," illegally so. While sovereignty over expanded East Jerusalem is explicitly contested, none of the world's other 192 sovereign states has recognised Israel's sovereignty claim. Palestinian sovereignty over the Gaza Strip and the rest of the West Bank is, in both literal and legal senses, uncontested (even if not yet universally "recognised").
Israel has never even purported to annex these territories. Jordan renounced all claims to the West Bank in favour of the Palestinians in July 1988. While Egypt administered the Gaza Strip for 19 years, it never asserted sovereignty over it. Since 15 November 1988, when Palestinian independence and statehood were formally proclaimed, the only state asserting sovereignty over those portions of historical Palestine which Israel occupied in 1967 (aside from expanded East Jerusalem) has been the state of Palestine, which, even though it continues to operate within its own territory through a transparent Trojan Horse named the "Palestinian Authority," now meets all the customary international law criteria for sovereign statehood and is already recognised as a state by over 100 other sovereign states.
Commentators on all sides speak of Israel "ceding" territory to Palestine (or to "the Palestinians," for those who refuse to admit that Palestine exists). The word suggests a transfer of land by its legitimate owner. Unless there are mutual exchanges of territory in a final peace agreement, the issue of Israel's ceding territory to Palestine does not arise. Israel can withdraw from occupied Palestinian territory or hand over administrative control of such territory, but to "cede" property one must possess legal title to it. Israel can no more cede title to occupied Palestinian lands than a squatter can cede title to an apartment he has illegally occupied. In reality, it is Israel which is insisting that Palestine cede to Israel indisputably Palestinian lands forming part of the meagre 22 per cent of historical Palestine, which Israel did not conquer until 1967. How fair, reasonable and genuinely peace-seeking is this?
At the end of the road to peace is Jerusalem, now universally recognised as the core conundrum of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Misleading language has been particularly destructive with respect to Jerusalem. For years, Israeli politicians have repeated like a mantra that "Jerusalem must remain united under Israeli sovereignty." Understandably, Israelis have come to believe that Israel currently possesses sovereignty over Jerusalem. It does not. It possesses only administrative control. While a country can acquire administrative control by force of arms, it can acquire sovereignty (the state level equivalent of title or ownership) only with the consent of the international community.
The position of the international community is clear and categorical: Israel is in military occupation of East Jerusalem and has only de facto authority over West Jerusalem. The refusal of virtually all countries (even including the United States) to recognise West Jerusalem as Israel's capital, supported by the maintenance of all embassies other than those of Costa Rica and El Salvador in Tel Aviv, vividly demonstrates the refusal of the international community, pending an agreed solution to the status of Jerusalem, to concede that any part of the city is Israel's sovereign territory.
There can be no question of Israel relinquishing sovereignty over any part of Jerusalem, for the simple reason that Israel possesses no such sovereignty. Indeed, the only way that Israel will ever acquire sovereignty over any part of Jerusalem is by agreeing with Palestine on a fair basis for either sharing or dividing sovereignty over the city (or doing a bit of both).
This distinction is of fundamental intellectual and psychological importance for Israeli public opinion, as Ehud Barak appeared to recognise when he dared to mention during a recent CNN interview that Israelis tend to be unaware that the world does not yet recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital. There is a world of difference for an Israeli leader between being perceived as the man who secured Jewish sovereignty over Jerusalem for the first time in almost 2,000 years and being perceived as the man who relinquished some measure of Jewish sovereignty over Jerusalem. It could be a life-or-death distinction.
Palestine is not seeking concessions from Israel, only compliance. The Palestinian territories conquered in 1967 are not disputed, simply illegally occupied. Israel is not graciously offering to cede its land to Palestine but insisting that Palestine cede indisputably Palestinian lands to Israel. The only way Israel will ever acquire sovereignty over any part of Jerusalem is by agreeing to share or divide the city with Palestine. It is high time for all involved to recognise and speak clearly about these fundamental realities. Peace may depend upon it.
*The writer is an international lawyer who comments frequently on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
