International Protection

For more than two months Palestinian and international organizations have been calling for international protection of the Palestinian people, with particular attention to especially vulnerable sectors like the refugees, the Palestinian community in eastern Jerusalem, and Palestinians in remote areas of the West Bank living in areas near Israeli settlements. As of press time, discussions regarding the deployment of a UN force were continuing in the Security Council with draft resolutions submitted by the Non- Aligned movement and by France.

 Given the fact that the absence of a rightsbased approach to a political settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is directly related to the current uprising, the mandate of a UN protection force must therefore clearly relate to these underlying problems and concomitant solutions: Israeli withdrawal from all of the West Bank, including eastern Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, realization of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, and implementation of the right of return for Palestinian refugees and displaced persons.

Critical concerns regarding the mandate of  a potential UN protection force have been raised in the context of statements made the United States and the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. Both have stated that an international protection force cannot be deployed in the occupied territories without the consent of the government of Israel. This view requires immediate clarification in light of the international framework delineated in international humanitarian law and reaffirmed by the United Nations (Security Council, General Assembly, Commission on Human Rights, Economic and Social Council, a.o.) which recognizes Israel as an occupying power in the West Bank, eastern Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.

According to international humanitarian law, a military occupier can never attain de jure sovereignty over occupied territory. Consequently, the de jure sovereignty over the occupied Palestinian territories which vested in the Palestinian people with the 1919 League of Nations Covenant - which is the fundamental legal basis of the Palestinian people's collectively- International Protection al majdal 19 held right of self-determination in those areas - can never be overridden by the lesser order of military control exercised by Israel.

Israeli consent for the deployment of UN forces in the occupied Palestinian territories incorrectly implies recognition of the legitimacy of the Israeli occupation as well as the American position that the territories are disputed rather than occupied. Regardless of the issue of Israeli consent, UN forces can be deployed under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, a measure previously recommended  by the UN Commission on Human Rights.

 Functions of the Office UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
(a) Promotes universal enjoyment of all human rights by giving practical effect to the will and resolve of the world community as expressed by the United Nations;
(b) Plays the leading role on human rights issues and emphasizes the importance of human rights at the international and national levels;
(c) Promotes international cooperation for human rights;
(d) Stimulates and coordinates action for human rights throughout the United Nations system;
(e) Promotes universal ratification and implementation of international standards;
(f) Assists in the development of new norms;
(g) Supports human rights organs and treaty monitoring bodies;
(h) Responds to serious violations of human rights;
(i) Undertakes preventive human rights action;
(j) Promotes the establishment of national human rights infrastructures;
(k) Undertakes human rights field activities and operations;
(l) Provides education, information advisory services and technical assistance in the field of human rights.
In April 1996, the UNHCHR signed a technical cooperation agreement with the PA (PAL/95/AH/24, Support for the Rule of Law in Palestine) to provide the authority with technical assistance and advisory services. This includes, (a) establishing a legal framework consistent with human rights standards, through the provision of advisory services on legislation drafting and support to Palestinian institutions and organizations to conduct legal analysis work; (b) development an official human rights policy through assistance for the elaboration of a national plan of action on human rights; (c) and, strengthening of national structures whose role is crucial in protecting and promoting human rights,with special focus on the administration of justice (through advisory services and training for police, prisons officials, judges, prosecutors and lawyers), on the Palestinian Independent Commission on Citizen's Rights and on local non-governmental organizations.

Contact:
Mr. Amin Mekki Medani, Chief Technical Advisor
Halabi Street - Remal, Gaza
c/o UNDP/PAPP
PO Box 51359
Jerusalem 95912
tel. 972-7-282-7321
fax. 972-7-282-7021
email: [email protected]

Secondly, and related to the status of the occupied territories, is the intervention mandate of any UN protection force. The mandate must clearly reflect and allow for what the United Nations has already recognized as the legitimacy of struggle against occupation, foreign domination, and colonialism. The source of the current unrest in the West Bank, eastern Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, is not the Palestinian street. The source of the problem has always been, and continues to be the illegal Israeli occupation.

Finally, a UN protection force must have a mandate to move throughout the occupied Palestinian territories, investigate and publicly disseminate violations of Palestinian rights, and have the authorization, backed up by appropriate resources, to intervene to protect the Palestinian people under occupation, especially vulnerable groups such as children, refugees, the Palestinian community in occupied Jerusalem, and Palestinians living in remote rural areas facing ongoing attacks by the Israeli military and settlers.

"Impartiality for UN operations must […] mean adherence to the principles of the [UN] Charter: where one party to a peace agreement clearly and incontrovertibly is violating its terms, continued equal treatment of all parties by the UN can in the
best case result in ineffectiveness and in the worst may amount to complicity with evil. No failure did more to damage the standing and credibility of the United Nations peacekeeping in the 1990s than its reluctance to distinguish victim from aggressor."

Canada Camp: The Last Refugees Return to Gaza Two decades after they were strand ed in Egypt after the signing of the Camp David accords in the early 1980s, the last 92 of some 6,000 Palestinian refugees returned to Gaza at the beginning of December under a program facilitated by UNRWA. Under the program, each household was supplied with a grant of some $12,000 for relocation and reconstruction costs, initially covered by the Egyptian government and later by the Canadian International Development Agency and the Kuwaiti Fund for Arab Economic Development. Palestinian Bedouins stranded on the Egyptian side of the border after the Camp David accords remain without a solution.

Internally Displaced Palestinians
In late September, Israeli Prime Minister Barak asked for yet another deferral from the High Court regarding the return of internally displaced Palestinians who are citizens of Israel to their villages of Iqrit and Bir'im. A deferral had previously been granted by the High Court in May in consideration of Israel's withdrawal from south Lebanon. The new request is based on claims that the government was soon to deal with issues in the "Arab sector" pertaining to the resident's petition and that a decision at the current time would have ramifications on negotiations with the PLO concerning the issue of Palestinian refugees.

With another Israeli election scheduled for the first part of 2001 it is unlikely that the fate of the internally displaced Palestinian citizens of Israel from these two villages will be dealt with any time soon despite a legal process that has dragged on for 50 years. "We are now convinced that the present Government continues the policy of postponement initiated by its predecessors," stated Ihsan Ta'amem member of the Committee of the Iqrit's Uprooted. "[A]s to its declared intention to solve our case, it turned out to be a crossed check."

The Palestinian residents of the two villages were ordered by the Israeli military in 1948 to temporarily evacuate their homes until fighting in the northern border area resided. Thevillagers were later prevented from returning and their homes were demolished despite a 1951 High Court ruling in favor of the return of the villagers.

A classified document entitled "very secret - personal", written by Emanuel Mor, commander of the military government, following the High  Court decision in favor of Iqrit residents and before their homes were exploded, shows how he looked at the issue: "The results of the high court decision are liable to bring about great damage to  state security and IDF concerns." Mor raised four arguments: a) there will be an additional Arab village next to the border; b) following this precedent, additional legal cases of the same type will be submitted; c) the issue will lead to Arab settlement in places which are not wanted; d) it will cause serious damage to the plan of security settlement.