Israel and the Inadmissibility of Territorial Acquisition by War

12 August 2016

Israel and the Inadmissibility of Territorial Acquisition by War

Palestinian Self-Determination and UNSCR 242

Israel is widely accused of occupying territory that belongs to another people: the Palestinians. This is considered immoral, oppressive and a violation of major principles of international law: 

• the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war;
• the denial of the Palestinian right of national self-determination. 

Most famously expressed in UNSCR 242 of November 1967, the legal principle of the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war is often used to imply that Israel is bound to withdraw unilaterally from the territories captured in the 6-Day War. In fact, UNSCR 242 made no such demand, although it could easily have done so if that was intended. Therefore, if the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war is indeed a principle of international law, why did 242 not require Israeli withdrawal? 

The ban on acquiring territory by war is derived from Article 2 (4) of the UN Charter, which states:

All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.

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Israel’s Two Primary Messages

08 August 2016

Israel’s Two Primary Messages 

What Israel needs the international public to know

Two core factors are missing from international understanding of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The chief of these is denial by the Palestinians and wider Arab world of the same rights of self-determination for Jews that they claim themselves.

In this view, Jews are a religious group only without national rights of self-determination. The PLO has maintained this position since its foundation. Abbas and other leading members of the PA, along with the Arab League, restate it endlessly – seeing only their own national movement as legitimate (see, The Israeli Demand that Palestinians Accept Israel as a Jewish State).

This is why no PA party, faction, militia or leader supports the recognition of Israel as a Jewish state. Nor have their Islamist rivals. This is an exclusive and supremacist view that believes there are no legitimate Jewish national rights on any part of what they consider Arab/Muslim land. On the West Bank, all PA political discourse, propaganda and education is based on this conviction.

Therefore, the formula 2-State Solution can only be utilized by the PA as long as one state is Arab but the status of the other state is never accepted as Jewish. This is why the formula 2-States for 2-Peoples is always repudiated. As a result, insofar as Israel is considered as state, it is not recognized as Jewish and insofar as it is Jewish, it is not recognized as a state but dismissed as the Zionist entity.

This refusal to accept Jewish national rights demonstrates a determined purpose:

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Naftali Bennett’s Dangerous Concession

29 June 2016

Naftali Bennett’s Dangerous Concession

Annexation concedes West Bank does not belong to Israel

In his talk to the Shurat HaDin conference (21 June 2016), Naftali Bennett stated that PM Netanyahu’s Bar Ilan speech effectively conceded that the Territories did not belong to Israel although Israel had security needs there. Bennett’s point was that if this was the case, it inevitably produced the objection that Israel should not build on land that did not belong to it.

Leaving aside that the Bar Ilan speech did not imply this, it does point to the fact that Bennett’s own policy of annexation is guilty of exactly the concession he accuses Netanyahu of making. This is because it is impossible for a state to occupy or annex its own territory – at least, not in the sense of the standard international legal definition of occupation in The Hague Regulations, 1907, which concern relations between sovereign states rather than within a state.  

For example, the USA cannot be said to occupy Massachusetts or Ohio. Nor can it annex these states for the simple reason that it is already the legitimate power in those states (to use the phrasing of The Hague Regulations, article 43). In other words, the term occupation refers to the control of territory not legally under the sovereignty of the occupying power. And annexation refers to the appropriation of sovereignty by one state power from another. In other words, a state can only annex territory that does not belong to it.

Therefore, to accept that Israel occupies or should annex any part of The Territories effectively concedes the main argument of the Palestinians Israel. That is, it accepts that someone else was, is or should be the legitimate sovereign from which the territory was taken (albeit in legal self-defense) and continues to be held.

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Inquiry into Anti-Semitism & Islamophobia among Labour Party Members, UK

19 June 2016

Inquiry into Anti-Semitism & Islamophobia among Labour Party Members, UK

As a former member of the UK Labour Party, now living in Israel, I am unable to contribute directly to the inquiry headed by Shami Chakrabarti, due to report in a few weeks. Therefore, these brief comments take the form of an open letter.

The inquiry panel will probably understand the great interest that this issue has created in Israel. The panel will also know of the alarm felt by many Jews in Britain and elsewhere that Jeremy Corbyn has associated himself with groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah who seek the destruction of the world’s only Jewish state. These organizations explicitly and incessantly proclaim their genocidal anti-Semitism - the Hamas Charter is a spectacularly unhinged example. 

It is beyond belief that this is not known to Jeremy Corbyn and likeminded figures within the Labour Party. The explanation has been offered that expressions of solidarity with these organizations are for the purpose of encouraging peace in the Middle East. In his meeting with Jonathan Arkush of the Jewish Board of Deputies (Feb 2016) Jeremy Corbyn gave assurance that the Labour Party position was that Israel had a right to exist within secure and recognized borders. 

Unfortunately, these organizations have no interest in such an outcome. Instead of being committed to a 2-State Solution, they are openly dedicated to the annihilation of Israel. Therefore, if Jeremy Corbyn agrees that Israel has a right to exist, he would help ease Jewish anxiety and vulnerability if he gave an account of his progress in trying to get these organizations to agree to this position as the basis for a peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

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From Occupation to Annexation?

20 May 2016

From Occupation to Annexation?

A Desperate Miscalculation

Formerly, calls for a One-State Solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict were faintly disguised attempts to extinguish the only Jewish state in the world.  More recently, the idea of a One-State Solution has found sympathy in some Jewish-Israeli circles with the calls for the annexation of the West Bank – either completely or in part.  

Naturally, this raises questions of legality, morality and practicality.  These have scarcely been explored.  However, in his essay Resolution 242 Revisited (2015), Eugene Kontorovich drew attention to the question of whether there is a legal right to annex territory conquered and occupied in a legal war (assuming that the West Bank can be described as occupied).  His discussion of the International Law Commission draft and unratified codes from 1949 and 1954, which seem to tilt in this direction, is interesting but inconclusive.  At best, it points to a definite-maybe or possible should-be.  More legal work is apparently required.

However, after such a lengthy passage of time is there any good reason to expect an international consensus decisively favorable to annexation – especially with regard to such a contentious dispute?  Additionally, this would cut-across the more recently developed view that sovereignty does not reside with this or that state, government or ruler, but with the people.  As a result, the Palestinians are said to have both legal and moral rights to national self-determination which annexation would plainly prevent.  

In other words, from where we are now and from what we now know ....

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The PMO Statement on the French Initiative

30 April 2016

The PMO Statement on the French Initiative

“Israel adheres to its position that the best way to resolve the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is direct, bilateral negotiations.  Israel is ready to begin them immediately without preconditions.  Any other diplomatic initiative distances the Palestinians from direct negotiations.”   (28 April 2016)

My Comment

This restatement of the Israel’s position is absolutely necessary.  

But the occasion of the French Initiative also presents an opportunity to focus attention on issues that Israel needs the international public to understand. Additionally, it provides a marvelous opportunity to direct a call-for-action to states attending the Initiative to address the roots of the conflict and pursue the following measures as the only basis for a successful win-win solution.

Call for action 1 – the international community to reverse the following:

1/     the refusal of the Palestinians (and the wider Arab world) to accept Israel as the nation-state of Jews;

2/     the rejection by the Palestinians of 2-states for 2-peoples as an end to the conflict;

3/     their refusal to accept the legitimacy of Jewish legal and historic links to the region or Jewish national rights.

Call for action 2 – the international community to secure the following:

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16 October 2015

Does Israel Need to Convince the Palestinians That It Wants Peace?

Shlomo Aveniri and the Two-State Solution

How to convince the Palestinians – and much of the rest of the world - that Israel wants peace is a question that stands behind the thinking of many Israelis who occupy the political center or center-left. Numerous friends of Israel internationally also ask the same question. 

Various answers are provided. For example, Israel could show goodwill and seriousness by releasing more prisoners and halting settlement construction. Other proposals involve unilateral withdrawals by Israel. Marc Goldberg, a regular columnist with the Times of Israel and Harry’s Place, wants to withdraw all Israeli civilians from the West Bank and leave the IDF in place to prevent disorder and terror. If order ensues, this will be followed by IDF withdrawals and the handover of larger areas of control to the PA.

This is a variation of the approach proposed by Ami Ayalon in Israel and Cary Nelson in the USA, for a unilateral phased withdrawal from the West Bank. Each successive phase of the withdrawal will be contingent on a peaceful Palestinian response to the previous phase. The aim is to withdraw in this manner from up to 85% of the West Bank, by which time, assuming good Palestinian behavior, the situation would be ready for a 2-State Solution to the conflict (for a full-scale destruction of this perspective, see How Not to Rescue the 2-State Solution).

An Alternative Question

Revealingly,

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Islamic Wars and Palestinians

8 October 2015

Islamic Wars and the Palestinians

Lies, Damned Lies and Taqiyya

The current eruption of murderous attacks on Jews over the issue of the Temple Mount is causing speculation about a third intifada. It also provokes Jewish despair at the blatant lies of the PA leadership – and the repetition of Palestinian propaganda by much of the international media. The mixture of Islamism and Arab nationalism, neither of which accepts Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, continues to be the driving force of the conflict. 

As a fundamental factor, Islam divides the world into the Dar al-Islam (the House of Islam) and Dar al-Harb (the House of War) which is under the rule of Dar al-Kufr (the House of the Unbeliever). Apart from temporary treaties, war is permanent. A significant product of this idea is that anyone leaving Islam is seen exactly as we view someone siding with an enemy in war: as a traitor. 

Do all or the great bulk of Muslims think this? I've no idea. But in the UK I slightly knew someone who was a noted Catholic theologian. He would sigh in amused dismay at the distance between the beliefs of the Catholic hierarchy and himself and those of many of his fellow churchgoers. So it wouldn't be a surprise to find something similar in Islam. Not everyone is a theologian. 

However, with Catholicism, no-one can be forced to adhere to it any longer and there are lots of alternatives for those who don't like it. And anyone who prefers something else can denounce the Pope as the anti-Christ (or whatever) as loudly as they wish without fear of being burned at the stake. Alas, we know that in Arab states the public criticism of Islam is impossible and changing religion very dangerous. Therefore, as a generalization, Islamic intolerance has a far greater hold on minds and behaviors than, for example, modern western Christianity.

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How to Cure a Disastrous Self-inflicted Diplomatic Wound

July 25 2015

How to Cure a Disastrous Self-Inflicted Diplomatic Wound

The Hidden Dilemma of Final Status Negotiations

Currently, the issue of negotiations with the Palestinians is not at the forefront of diplomatic activity and there is no indication that negotiations are imminent. PA President Abbas has set preconditions for talks which are unacceptable to Israel and this makes PM Netanyahu’s offer of talks without preconditions unacceptable to the Palestinians.  

But neither party can be confident that this diplomatic limbo will last forever.  

Outside pressures will once again provide the key impetus to renewed talks. Israel will then be subject to a major hidden obstacle that will completely nullify any diplomatic advantage expected by its participation. 

  

The hidden obstacle is that years of peace talks, interim agreements, on-off negotiations, recriminations over settlements, disputes over land-swaps, prisoner releases, and so on, have all reinforced the idea that a win-win approach to resolving the conflict is normal and possible.  As a result, the Palestinian rejection of the Jewish state is obscured from view.  Yet this is the rock against which all peace attempts crash.  

Therefore, by participating in final status talks as if the PA, or any other Palestinian body, were willing or able to agree to the necessary compromise to end the conflict, Israel’s diplomacy has the disastrous effect of hiding the Palestinian zero-sum approach behind the appearance of a win-win process. This conceals from the international public that the Palestinian/Arab rejection is the driving force of the conflict and the insurmountable obstacle to a genuine 2-state solution (see The Israeli Demand That Palestinians Accept Israel as a Jewish State).  

This appearance is compounded by the inevitable failure of the fake final status talks.  Without producing an agreement for a full Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank or an agreement for a Palestinian state, the widespread belief is reinforced that Israel is to blame for denying Palestinian self-determination.  As a result, Israel is viewed as the obstacle to peace.  This solidifies international hostility, fosters criticism of Israel from the Jewish diaspora and fuels BDS activities. 

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The Folly of Coordinated-Unilateral Withdrawal

10 July 2015

The Folly of 'Coordinated-Unilateral Withdrawal'

How Not to Rescue the Two-State Solution 

By inviting comments to Cary Nelson’s essay A Proposal to Rescue the 2-State Solution, Fathom Journal (Issue 10, July 2015) has surely provided a useful forum for exploring and clarifying what is possible and not possible in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  In response, a slightly abbreviated version of the following article was submitted to the journal.  

The essence of the proposed plan is that in the absence of a final status agreement, there should be a series of major unilateral Israeli withdrawals from the West Bank.  The hope is for both sides to agree that each party would make moves that the other accepts to be part of any final status agreement.  Failing that, the tacit approval of the parties would be sufficient.  This means that each phase of the withdrawal would depend on positive reactions to the previous withdrawal.  

Cary Nelson envisages that this unusual process, which he terms coordinated-unilateralism, will initially result in around 85% of the West Bank being handed to the Palestinians.  Further Israeli withdrawals will be dependent on a final status agreement with the final border based potentially on the Security Barrier.  His hope and belief is that this series of unprecedented withdrawals will encourage trust and momentum towards the 2-State Solution.

  

These and similar ideas are also in circulation in Israel.  For example, Ami Ayalon, the former commander of the Israeli navy, former head of Shin Bet and former MK, featured in the documentary film The Gatekeepers, is a prominent advocate. 

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Protecting Israel's Blockade of Gaza

29 June 2015

Protecting Israel’s Blockade of Gaza

The Legal Rules and Israel’s Hasbara

The new flotilla of ships from Sweden and elsewhere, currently attempting to breech Israel’s efforts to stop war-material reaching Hamas, will provide Israel with enormous diplomatic and hasbara opportunities.  These will be primarily in the areas for the promotion of Israel’s legal rights and opportunities to shift public perceptions of Israeli blame onto the Palestinians. 

Israel’s legal rights to act in international waters against attempts to break a lawful blockade are specific.  They include the legal permission to stop, search, divert, seize and even attack ships attempting to breech the blockade. 

The San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea, 1994 provides:

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How Israel Can Benefit Diplomatically from the Dissolution of the Palestinian Unity Government

 18 June 2015

How Israel Can Benefit Diplomatically from the Dissolution of the Palestinian Unity Government

With the end of the PA-Hamas ‘government’, we can now expect greater international pressure on Israel to embark again on the ‘peace-process’ with the PA.  Indeed, only recently PM Netanyahu announced a readiness for such talks.  This may have been advantageous from an image point of view.  But it also involves a serious difficulty which can easily be rectified.  

The difficulty is that simply agreeing to peace-process negotiations with the PA creates a false impression.  This severely damages Israel by fostering the incorrect belief that a win-win solution to the conflict is possible.  Yet as long as the Palestinians refuse to accept Israel as a Jewish state, and to deny 2 states for 2 peoples, there can be no implementation of the favorite solution of the international community – the 2-state solution.

A diplomatic own-goal

That is, agreeing to talks as if a win-win solution to the conflict were feasible in these circumstances obscures from view the zero-sum/winner-takes-all strategy of the Palestinians. As a result, this remains the unseen driving force of the conflict (see Abbas’ Cairo Interview and The Israeli Demand that Palestinians Accept Israel as a Jewish State ).

Without this being clear, those who profess to believe that peace will only be achieved by an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank will continue to blame Israel for not agreeing to withdraw. Israel’s diplomatic approach is thus a key element that reinforces the belief that Israel is yet again to blame for the inevitable failure of any talks. 

In other words, the continued lack of international awareness of the Palestinian refusal to accept Israel as a Jewish state is in part due to Israel’s own international diplomatic stance. This in turn is reflected in its non-existent public diplomacy on this core issue.

Solving the problem

Therefore, a better response is to ...

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Loading the Legal Dice against Israel

08 March 2015

Loading the Legal Dice against Israel

The Core Legal Deceptions of Israel’s Opponents

1. The Framework of Deceit

Legally framed attacks on Israel by critics and enemies feature prominently in the international mass media with propaganda hostile to Israel.  Repeated by political leaders, commentators and at every opportunity by the Palestinians, their claims have become more or less standard ‘truisms’:

1. The West Bank is occupied;

2. The occupied West Bank is Palestinian territory;

3. The border of the Occupied Palestinian Territory is the 1949 Armistice Line between Jordanian and Israeli military forces: the Green Line;

4. The Jewish communities inside the Green Line are illegal under international law;

5. Israel is required to withdraw from the West Bank.

Yet all this has been almost without public challenge by Israel’s hasbara.   This has created the impression that Israel has no adequate response to the accusations and that it is guilty as accused.   As a result, the allegations have been widely and uncritically accepted as established truth. 

  

A ‘key feature’ of these accusations is that they are conducted in a very peculiar way.   The dice are loaded against Israel by a major deception.

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The Israeli Demand that Palestinians Accept Israel as a Jewish State

15 January 2015

The Israeli Demand that Palestinians Accept Israel as a Jewish State

Why the Deal-Maker for Israel is the Deal-Breaker for the Palestinians - and Vice Versa

Part 1 Reut and wrong

Gidi Grinstein is founder and CEO of the Re’ut Institute of Tel Aviv. The great thing about his article Israel as the Nation State of the Jewish People / Palestine as the Nation State of the Palestinian People (Re’ut-Institute website), is that it takes as its subject the crucial issue at the heart of the Israeli conflict with the Arabs. The not-so-great-thing is that it does this with a shallow analysis that trivializes and distorts a serious matter.

The issue is the Israeli requirement that the Palestinians recognize Israel as the nation state of the Jewish People.   Prime Minister Netanyahu has regularly made this the fundamental building block of any 2-State Solution.  For example:

There will be no Palestinian state before the state of Israel is recognized as the Jewish people’s state, and there will be no Palestinian state before the Palestinians declare an end to the conflict.

(Y.net.com 02/12/2012)

Gidi Grinstein finds that this Israeli demand is:

a just one, yet non-essential, and therefore unnecessary.  

Unfortunately, he supports this view with some silly arguments. Yet, Gidi Grinstein is both smart and substantial.  Therefore, his use of explanations that trivialize the issue is worrying.  For example, he says this:  

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Abbas' Cairo Interview: The Demise of Israel: Hidden in Plain Sight

12 December 2014

ABBAS’ CAIRO INTERVIEW

The Demise of Israel:  Hidden in Plain Sight

Here are three quotations from the interview given by PLO appointed Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to the Egyptian newspaper ‘Akhbar Al-Yawm’ on 30 November 2014.

Israel must recognize the June 4, 1967 border.

We cannot recognize a Jewish state.

There are six million refugees who wish to return, and by the way, I am one of them.

(MEMRI 05 Dec 2014 Special Dispatch 5898)

The occasion was the meeting of the Arab League on the previous day in Cairo where the Arab League restated its position as:

categorical rejection of recognizing Israel as a Jewish state

(Al-Ahram online 29 Nov 2014)

These terms were almost identical to a statement by the 22-member body made earlier in the year when the Council of the Arab League stated that it:

emphasizes its rejection of recognizing Israel as a ‘Jewish state’

(Al-Jazeera online 09 Mar 2014)

The same Al- Jazeera article observed that:

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B’tselem and the Martians Part 2

16 August 2014

B’tselem and the Martians (2) 

The Gaza War and Hamas

In Part 1 it was suggested that whereas the Martians were only able to see one of the parties to a conflict due to an equipment malfunction, B’tselem has no such excuse. Its failure to see is a product of downplaying or ignoring what it prefers not to see. 

As an illustration of this, Part 1 noted that the B’tselem website covers the conflict in Gaza with only a single article devoted to Hamas out of 15 front-page articles (on 11 August 2014). This briefly comments that the Hamas practice of firing rockets from civilian areas in Gaza into civilian areas in Israel is ”morally and legally reprehensible” – but apparently this is not illegal or criminal for B’tselem.

Given the unrelenting blame heaped upon Israel by B’tselem elsewhere on its website with a variety of accusations of criminal activity, it is hard to view this mild rebuke as other than a mere token. Presumably, its inclusion is intended to provide at least some appearance of 'balance' in its criticism.

How else to explain that nowhere in the article, or elsewhere in its coverage of the war, or elsewhere on the B’tselem website, is there any mention that Hamas is a murderous anti-Semitic terrorist organization dedicated to the destruction of Israel and the slaughter of as many Jews as possible?     

Typically, this is also absent from the coverage of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict by the mainstream mass media.   But why would B’tselem want to hide it?   Is it such an irrelevance that it can be ignored?   Or is it information critical to understanding the conflict?   

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B’tselem and the Martians Part 1

14 August  2014

B’tselem and the Martians (1)

The Gaza War and Hamas

Shortly after writing the previous blog entry (How Many Civilian Casualties in Gaza?) a link to the website of B’tselem arrived from a friend. This devotes many articles to the damage and casualties in Gaza. Possibly, the sender meant them as an antidote to my article. Instead, it reminded me of a story I heard many years ago.

This was not long after the BBC’s monopoly of British television was broken by ITV.   One of the innovations of ITV was the introduction of wrestling into sports programs.   Much of this was the sham, entertainment-type of wrestling - far too vulgar for the BBC.   

One day, as the wrestling was being shown; earth was visited by beings from space – almost certainly Martians.   While circling the earth, their receivers somehow picked up the wrestling transmissions.  

Unfortunately, these suffered a serious malfunction – and only one of the wrestlers was visible.   The Martians watched as the lone wrestler repeatedly smashed his head against the corner post, screamed in agony, twisted his arms behind his back, contorted his face in pain, bounced off the ropes, rose into the air and crashed to the floor in an unconscious heap.

Disturbed by this alarming display, the Martians could see no rational explanation and concluded that the earthlings were mad.  Curiosity satisfied, they reversed direction and headed back into space never to return.   

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How Many Civilian Casualties in Gaza?

24 July 2014

How Many Civilian Casualties in Gaza?

At the time of writing, it is reported that over 800 civilians in Gaza have been killed in the current conflict with Israel. But is this true? Where did these figures come from? Are they reliable? 

The short answer is that the figures come from Hamas and they are not reliable. They have been deliberately distorted. This is how.

In the first place, a directive from the Hamas Interior Ministry instructed spokesmen to report that ALL casualties are civilian. Further, they are instructed not to show pictures of rockets being fired from civilian areas. This can easily be confirmed by reference to the stalwart translation work of Memri.org. 

Secondly, from Hamas sources Al-Jazeera has compiled a list of what it says are civilians killed. This shows that male deaths were over 80% of the total. Even more indicative, those men between the ages of 18 and 38 were over 65% of the total. This means that deaths among men of fighting age are disproportionately high. 

Thirdly, the policy of Hamas to use civilians as human shields has contributed .... 

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Mazal Tov President Abbas Part 2

22 January 2012

Mazal Tov, President Abbas (2)

Lenin, President Abbas and the UK Deputy Prime Minister

Lenin is credited with having coined the expression useful idiots. By this is meant the service provided by innocent and ideologically blinded western politicians and reporters who defended the young Soviet state and did their best to deny, excuse or shield its totalitarian savagery from exposure. 

In other words, the useful idiots served a totalitarian, anti-democratic and anti-liberal purpose. In reality, by defending revolutionary totalitarianism instead of supporting the democrats and liberals, who were being wiped-out by Lenin, Trotsky, Bukharin and Stalin, they became dangerous idiots. 

To look at this from another angle, the only people who are fooled by useful idiots are the liberal democrats who fail to see that their own liberal-democratic way of thinking and behaving is far from being shared by everyone. The liberal-democratic view that thinks disputes should be settled on a win-win basis without violence is fine when dealing with others who share a similar outlook. When reinforced by well-established and agreed structures, limits and laws the advantages seem obvious.

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Mazal Tov, President Abbas Part 1

21 January 2012

Mazal Tov, President Abbas (1)

Solidarity with the Palestinians

Earlier this month, a momentous occasion passed for the President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas - he began the eighth year of his four-year term as President. But instead of a tsunami of congratulations from the world's leaders for this popular figure on such a remarkable anniversary, the occasion has been almost universally ignored.

The absence of elections for the Presidency is not the only feature of Palestinian democracy to be ignored by large sections of the world's political leaders and media. They have also ignored repeated cancellations of the Palestinian local elections. Likewise, the disappearance of elections to the Palestinian Authority has been greeted by silence. This is not an oversight. There is a pattern and the pattern is clear. 

The Palestinian leaders, in both Gaza and the Disputed Territories, jettison democracy ...

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