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by Louis René Beres
• May 12, 2016 at 5:00 am
- Under relevant
international law, a true state must always possess the following
specific qualifications: (1) a permanent population; (2) a defined
territory; (3) a government; and (4) the capacity to enter into
relations with other states.
- While this contingent
condition of prior demilitarization of a Palestinian state may at
first sound reassuring, it represents little more than a impotent
legal expectation.
- For one thing,
no new state is ever under any obligation to remain
"demilitarized," whatever else it may have actually agreed
to during its particular pre-state incarnation.
- "The
legality of the presence of Israel's communities the area (Judea and
Samaria) stems from the historic, indigenous, and legal rights of
the Jewish people to settle in the area, granted pursuant to valid
and binding international legal instruments, recognized and accepted
by the international community. These rights cannot be denied or
placed in question." — Ambassador Alan Baker, Israeli legal
expert.
Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, U.S. President
Bill Clinton, and PLO chairman Yasser Arafat at the Oslo Accords signing
ceremony on September 13, 1993. (Image source: Vince Musi / The White
House)
International law has one overarching debility. No matter how
complex the issues, virtually everyone able to read feels competent to
offer an authoritative legal opinion. While, for example, no sane person
would ever explain or perform cardio-thoracic surgery without first
undergoing rigorous medical training, nearly everyone feels competent to
interpret complex meanings of the law.
This debility needs to be countered, at least on a case by case
basis. In the enduring controversy over Palestinian statehood, there are
significant rules to be considered. For a start, on November 29, 2012,
the General Assembly voted to upgrade the Palestinian Authority (PA) to
the status of a "Nonmember Observer State."
by Raymond Ibrahim
• May 12, 2016 at 4:00 am
- Yazidi girls
were "sold" in exchange for a few packs of cigarettes.
- "They
would come and take any girl against her will; if she refused, they
would kill her on the spot." — all quotes below from
"Birvan," on "Shabaab [Youth] Talk," hosted by
Ja'far Abdul, March 22, 2016.
- "Anyone
who walked by our room and liked us would just say 'Let's go.'"
- "There
were 48 ISIS members in that house, and we were two girls — two
Yazidi girls."
- "What
hospital?! They beat me even more!"
- "I didn't
care if I got caught. Escape or death were both better than remaining
there."
A new televised interview, conducted in Arabic with a Yazidi girl
who endured sexual captivity at the hands of the Islamic State, was
published on March 22, 2016. It appeared on "Shabaab [Youth]
Talk," hosted by Ja'far Abdul.
The teenage girl, who went by the pseudonym of Birvan, was enslaved
when she was 15 and endured months of captivity before she managed to
escape. She is now 17. Based on the 40-minute interview, her story is as
follows:
Yazidis were escaping from their war-torn village near Tel Affar,
Iraq, when they were intercepted on the road by four ISIS operatives. The
men swore that if the Yazidis would cooperate and answer some questions,
no harm would befall them and they would be allowed to return home in
peace. Asked how many Yazidis there were, Birvan says she recalls only 95
men and their families — "many, many women and children."
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