It is a war crime for an aggressor to settle its citizens in a conquered area.
Is it the most serious of war crimes? No, initiating a war is the most serious of war crimes.
Why is it a war crime, when an exactly similar settlement of foreign citizens may be legal in times of peace? Well, a peacetime settlement by foreigners would occur through the invitation of the host country, or through the normal process of paying for land from people who are willing to sell. Settlement during or after a war indicates a plan to retain territory conquered in a criminal manner. It is like the difference between an honest trade and a theft.
Why bring up this topic now? Because today the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights released a preliminary report noting that the most recent Israeli settlement in eastern Palestine violates this war crimes law. The implications are large. [See the Press release, Israeli settlements symbolize the acute lack of justice experience by Palestinian People, which links to the full report.]
Is there a statute of limitations on war crimes? I don't think so, though there probably should be. I know the Israeli and other governments continue to hunt down and prosecute alleged war criminals from the Nazi era, over sixty years ago.
If there is no statute of limitations on war crimes, or if the statute of limitations is 60 years, then the entire state of Israel is in trouble. Most Jews in Palestine had converted (perhaps not voluntarily) to Islam by about 700 A.D. Jewish communities that remained were small until the Zionist movement of the late 19th century. The early Zionists were legal immigrants, and as a result several small areas of Palestine had Jewish majorities by World War II.
Most of the post-war Jewish immigration to Palestine can be characterized as illegal. The war that established the State of Israel in 1948 coincided with the ejection of non-Jewish Palestinians, followed by Jewish settlements on their land. Thus it is not just the remnants of Palestine, the West Bank and Gaza, that are at stake. The creation of the State of Israel can be characterized as a war crime.
It is often said that the United Nations (then newly formed, and basically a war organization for fighting Germany and Japan) created the State of Israel. It appears that all the U.N. did was endorse a Jewish semi-autonomous partition zone within Palestine. But supposing the U.N. did in fact back the creation of Israel by settling Jews on lands taken from Palestinians. Then the U.N. itself should be said to have committed a war crime.
The implications are staggering the further we go back in history. What if, after a war of aggression takes place, there is a peace treaty? Does that make it legal to settle on land occupied in a war of aggression? Peace treaties tend to be imposed by aggressors. They are not really voluntary agreements.
What about the settlement of Europeans in colonial nations? What about the United States, which would not exist except for a constant clamor of wars, occupations, and settlements?
If the purpose of war crimes laws is to stop wars and war crimes, then they must be enforced. American settlements occurred, in the main, before the war crime laws were written. Israel, however, creates a different case. It came into existence after the war crimes laws were on the books.
But the real question is, will anyone enforce the war crimes laws? Conquered nations like Japan and Germany have had their leaders prosecuted for war crimes. But no victorious nation has ever been prosecuted for war crimes.
Like Hitler marching into Russia, it looks like the Israeli occupation of eastern Palestine has gone too far, endangering the entire Israeli project. A sane leadership of Israel would cut their losses to hold onto their gains. A sane leadership would trade forgiveness for their earlier crimes against humanity and war crimes in order to hold onto the lands gained by those crimes. A sane leadership would offer to remove all Jewish settlers to Israel proper, in return for an immediate and permanent peace.
Showing posts with label occupations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label occupations. Show all posts
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Monday, April 9, 2012
Cicero, Desert Revelations, and Virtue
I started reading Cicero's de Officiis (On Duties), during brief breaks, only because I ran out of better things to read. I have long had an old used Loeb Classical Library copy, with the Latin on left pages and English on the right. I once aspired to learn Latin, but now admit that is a low priority.
I am finding a lot of good stuff in Cicero. I feel like Cicero was a wise and basically modern guy, despite being pre-Christian. Whereas talking to Rick Santorum and crew I feel like there really might be demons about; how else to explain their irrational thought processes?
Today I came across Cicero quoting Prodicus in Xenophon: "When Hercules was just coming into youth's estate ... he went out into a desert place. And as he saw two paths, the path of Pleasure and the path of Virtue, he sat down and debated long and earnestly which one it was better for him to take." That made me think of Jesus, who is after all a Jewish Hercules, also spending his famous 40 days in the desert, where he was tempted by Satan. Jesus and Hercules had a lot in common, including rising from the dead, although Jesus's miracles tended towards healing, and Hercules' were feats of strength. Since they were both supposed by their followers to be sons of God, I suppose that would make them brothers.
I once spent several weeks, more than 40 days, alone in a desert. Nothing much came of it. No voices spoke to me. I did not see visions. The plus of that is for all my faults, I am apparently not inclined to schizophrenia. I only made one important decision in the desert. I decided to finish college. I had dropped out of college for lack of funds and out of exhaustion. I then started working in restaurants, which was a lot easier than going to college. Plus, I had some money to spend for the first time in my life. In college every dime went to tuition, textbooks, my room and cheap carbohydrate-rich foods. Being out of college was way more pleasurable than being in. Still, I decided to go back, so I hitchhiked to Rhode Island and got a job to start saving enough money to enroll again.
Cicero, on the same page as the Hercules quote, is talking about the various ways careers are chosen, and things are not much different today. "We each copy the model he fancies, and we are constrained to adopt their pursuits and vocations. But usually, we are so imbued with the teachings of our parents that we fall irresistibly into their manners and customs."
My parents had been professional terrorists, employees of the U.S. government. My older brother followed their path into the Marine Corps, and while he was not much of a combat guy, he did his logistical role in bossing Islamic people around.
I decided to write novels, which turned out to mean working in restaurants or offices, with an occasional income boost from journalism or technology work. I did finish several novels, but gave that up over a decade ago now.
The more obvious dichotomy in our society than pleasure versus virtue is money versus virtue. Money has for centuries been the mad passion of American society.
Virtue is harder to define. Some let religion define it for them. The world is a complex place, and so too virtue is complex. What is virtuous in one situation may not be virtuous in another. Cicero's world was not brimming with 7 billion people who all want central heating and air conditioning. We all need to think more about virtue in this new context. We might even want to practice it now and then, as the occasion arises.
I am finding a lot of good stuff in Cicero. I feel like Cicero was a wise and basically modern guy, despite being pre-Christian. Whereas talking to Rick Santorum and crew I feel like there really might be demons about; how else to explain their irrational thought processes?
Today I came across Cicero quoting Prodicus in Xenophon: "When Hercules was just coming into youth's estate ... he went out into a desert place. And as he saw two paths, the path of Pleasure and the path of Virtue, he sat down and debated long and earnestly which one it was better for him to take." That made me think of Jesus, who is after all a Jewish Hercules, also spending his famous 40 days in the desert, where he was tempted by Satan. Jesus and Hercules had a lot in common, including rising from the dead, although Jesus's miracles tended towards healing, and Hercules' were feats of strength. Since they were both supposed by their followers to be sons of God, I suppose that would make them brothers.
I once spent several weeks, more than 40 days, alone in a desert. Nothing much came of it. No voices spoke to me. I did not see visions. The plus of that is for all my faults, I am apparently not inclined to schizophrenia. I only made one important decision in the desert. I decided to finish college. I had dropped out of college for lack of funds and out of exhaustion. I then started working in restaurants, which was a lot easier than going to college. Plus, I had some money to spend for the first time in my life. In college every dime went to tuition, textbooks, my room and cheap carbohydrate-rich foods. Being out of college was way more pleasurable than being in. Still, I decided to go back, so I hitchhiked to Rhode Island and got a job to start saving enough money to enroll again.
Cicero, on the same page as the Hercules quote, is talking about the various ways careers are chosen, and things are not much different today. "We each copy the model he fancies, and we are constrained to adopt their pursuits and vocations. But usually, we are so imbued with the teachings of our parents that we fall irresistibly into their manners and customs."
My parents had been professional terrorists, employees of the U.S. government. My older brother followed their path into the Marine Corps, and while he was not much of a combat guy, he did his logistical role in bossing Islamic people around.
I decided to write novels, which turned out to mean working in restaurants or offices, with an occasional income boost from journalism or technology work. I did finish several novels, but gave that up over a decade ago now.
The more obvious dichotomy in our society than pleasure versus virtue is money versus virtue. Money has for centuries been the mad passion of American society.
Virtue is harder to define. Some let religion define it for them. The world is a complex place, and so too virtue is complex. What is virtuous in one situation may not be virtuous in another. Cicero's world was not brimming with 7 billion people who all want central heating and air conditioning. We all need to think more about virtue in this new context. We might even want to practice it now and then, as the occasion arises.
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