On the establishment of Israel in West Asia: are reparations owed? [Content Warning: discussion of crimes, including violence and SA, and injustice]

Note: CONTENT WARNING - some of this content is about upsetting, disturbing or triggering events & attitudes. Seek competent help - including professional - if you need it. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that linked articles may contains names and/or images of deceased people. READER CAUTION IS RECOMMENDED! For anyone distressed by anything in this post, or for any other reason considering seeking support, resources are available in Australia here, here, and here. In other nations, you will have to do an Internet search using terms such as “mental health support - <your nation>” (which, for instance, may lead to this, this, and this, in the USA, or this, this, and this, in France [biased towards English-language - my apologies]), or perhaps try https://www.befrienders.org/. 

To begin with, I consider that: 

• the establishment of a nation for Jewish people (who are not only followers of Judaism - the abuses committed were against children etc irrespective of their faith; now it includes others of no faith and some original Palestinian inhabitants) was unavoidable after World War (part) Two because of the Western world’s failures in allowing the Holocaust to occur AND actively blocking any refuge for the Jews of Europe in the 1920s and 30s. Any opinion that antisemitism can be adequately addressed inside existing nations - particularly given the continuance of antisemitism in nations outside West Asia - is naïve at best and enabling at worst; 

• the  two  state  solution is ESSENTIAL, but this must include adequate and appropriate compensation for the loss of their land for Palestinians; and 

• Israel’s worsening conduct since the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the death of the reformed Ariel Sharon, including Israel’s rejection of the essential two state solution and its increasingly barbaric abuses of Palestinians, is unconscionable, and a human rights abuse that merits the labels apartheid and genocide.
  

It is the aspect of compensation that I wish to return to. 

One of the aims of any law is to enable a remedy for a wrong - there are other aims, but it is this issue of a remedy that I wish to return to, as the Palestinians deserve an adequate remedy for having been robbed of their homes by the world, as a result of the world’s incompetence at preventing mass hate crimes.

Legal systems are not perfect, and they have admitted that by - in effect - admitting that restoration of conditions prior to a crime is not always possible. You cannot restore a murder victim to life, for instance, and, in many cases, the psychological damage of a crime cannot be undone no matter how much counselling is provided. 

The “in effect” is because of the use of financial penalties and reparations as an outcome of criminal proceedings. 

If, say, my car is damaged beyond repair, I could get compensation from the person who damaged it. 

More pertinently to this situation, if land is resumed for the provision of a government service (e.g., building a road), I am entitled to a fair and just compensation. 

The people of Palestine have been subjected to - in effect - the resumption of much of their land for the purposes of a world project (the establishment of a safe haven for Jewish people). 

They are owed reparations - from a combination of the world at large and Israel, not from other Arab nations, their neighbours who have also been harmed by the establishment of Israel (through having to take in refugees, etc).

OK, given that, is there a place where a legal remedy could be sought? 

Yes: the International  Court of Justice (ICJ). 

The problems with doing so include the jurisdictional challenge of Palestine being recognised as a nation-state or otherwise able (having standing) to bring a case to the ICJ. Perhaps a case could be made that the UN’s proposal of a two state solution is recognition of Palestine as a de facto state, one that has been ... interrupted - and a number of nations have been moving towards that in recent years, and the negotiations around the Oslo agreement are suggestive of Israel having recognised a de facto Palestinian state or potential state at one point in history.

Funding and resources would be required for this, which may be where Palestine’s wealthier Arab nations could step in. 

The ICJ would also have to be convinced that is has the competence and jurisdiction to hear such a case. 

Another option would be for an individual - or several - who had been deprived of their land to seek compensation through the International  Criminal  Court (ICC), which includes the capacity for individual  complaints, but that is for human rights violations, which may or may not include acquisition of land.

The other judicial aspect is who the reparations are sought from. In my opinion, that would include: 

• Germany - who have paid reparations to Israel for the costs of resettling Jewish people and for compensation, but who have not paid any reparations to displaced Palestinians; 

• all nations who failed Jewish people - including the USA, over incidents such as this; and 

• Israel, who have enjoyed the benefits of the land acquired - including, in some cases, theft of produce (there have been recent reports of Israeli occupiers stopping Palestinians harvesting their olives but then doing so themselves - which is, in my opinion, theft).
  

One could suggest the UN as a surrogate, but that would also include nations that had done no harm to Palestinians, including the many nations who did not exist in the late 1940s. 

The biggest problem, though, is the lack of a sense of justice - there would be no emotional healing for the Palestinian victims of the broader world’s negligence before and during World War (part) Two and clumsiness after. (Perhaps labelling a reparations agreement as interim would help that, but making reaching such an agreement more difficult - unless it was agreed that it would be part of the final settlement.)

This aspect is, in some ways, akin to the jailing of the notorious criminal Al Capone, who was jailed for tax evasion rather the violent abuses, including murder, that he was responsible for.

The solution was adequate to the law enforcement bodies, but I question whether it was adequate for the victims - including the relatives of those murdered.

The approach I have outlined above, if practicable, would involve at least some Palestinians (those actively participating in the case) giving up the dream of having their lands back - which is a cruel choice coming out of the colonialist action of establishing Israel. 

It’s not fair, but it may be just. 

Oh - one other point: anyone attacking Palestinian property or people after such an agreement is attacking the financial interests  of those nations who have paid reparations, and thus is going to harm support for those attackers. And, as a fair reparation would have to be adequate to see Palestinians establish a modern nation-state that their near century of compelled refugee status has denied them, I would expect those assets to be considerable and significant ... 

A few other points: 

• reparations is something that all affected by the terrible events of 7^th October can seek: 
• Israel, from Hamas; 
• Palestinians who are not members (or [active?] supporters?) of Hamas from Israel, and perhaps also from Hamas for having provoked the Israeli response.
  

• Germany and Israel reached their reparations agreement without a court case, so the nations of the world are also free to do the same with Palestinians ... (yeah, I know: dream on ... ); 
  
• prevention is much better than cure, so maybe the nations of the world should state recognising rights to self determination, such as that of the Kurdish people and all Indigenous people (including effective reparations that restore their conditions to that of a modern nation-state ... including in my nation: Australia), and proper attention to major injustice as they occur - injustice such as the genocide against the Rohingya (not just sending victims back to places they fled), what is happening in nations subjected to coups, and what is happening now in West Asia ... 

 

Here are other posts of mine on this subject: 

• “A Circuit-Breaker between Israel and Palestine”   https://politicalmusingsofkayleen.blogspot.com/2017/01/a-circuit-breaker-between-israel-and.html    

• “Despair [Content Warning - violence, oppression, language]”   https://politicalmusingsofkayleen.blogspot.com/2023/10/despair-content-warning-violence.html   
  

 

Assumptions / basis 

In writing this, I have assumed / started from the following: 

• this blog states quite clearly that it is about political and human rights matters, including lived experience of problems, and thus I will assume readers are reasonable people who have noted the content warning in the post header;

Possible flaws 

Where I can, I will try to highlight possible flaws / issues you should consider:

• there may be flawed logical arguments in the above: to find out more about such flaws and thinking generally, I recommend Brendan  Myers’ free online course “Clear and Present Thinking”; 
  
• I could be wrong - so keep your thinking caps on, and make up your own minds for yourself.
  

 

If they are of any use of interest, the activism information links from my former news posts are available in this post. 

 

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Remember: we need to be more human being rather than human doing, and all misgendering is an act of active transphobia/transmisia that puts trans+ lives at risk & accept that all insistence on the use of “trans” as a descriptor comes with commensurate use of “cis” as a descriptor to prevent “othering”.