Plan to transfer Arab-Israelis to new Palestinian state seeks legal approval

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

Plan to transfer Arab-Israelis to new Palestinian state seeks legal approval

Peter Beaumont in Jerusalem
theguardian.com, Tuesday 25 March 2014 15.36 GMT

Israel's foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, has commissioned a confidential legal opinion that argues it would be legal under international law to transfer Arab-Israeli citizens to a new Palestinian state by shifting the border.

The internal foreign ministry document, leaked to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, makes clear that the controversial proposal, which the rightwing foreign minister has been promoting for some years, would only be in line with international law if executed with the consent of those being transferred, and if it did not leave any of those transferred without any kind of citizenship.

The opinion appears to have been commissioned to lay the legal groundwork for the so-called Lieberman plan – or "populated-area exchange plan" – which he first proposed in 2004. The idea is that Israel will retain Jewish areas in the West Bank in exchange for giving the Palestinian Authority populous Israeli Arab areas within Israel, including the Galilee Triangle and the Wadi Ara valley, which includes cities such as Umm el-Fahm. However, the plan is opposed strongly by many Israeli Arabs.

The 18-page legal briefing was prepared by Ehud Keinan, a foreign ministry adviser for Lieberman, in February. It is entitled Territorial Exchange: transfer of sovereignty over populated areas in the framework of a final arrangement with the Palestinians, legal aspects. It appears to contradict previous expert opinion which suggested the plan would be illegal.

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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/25/transfer-arab-israeli-citizens-palestinian-state

[azurnoir]

1. no surprises it's Lieberman the question is whether or not it will pass in the Knesset

and that I'm not sure about

[Scootaloo]

2. Well, the "Liberals" will "oppose it" by not voting either way, so...

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

3. If these 'Arabs' were to be forcibly transfered would they

instantly become known as Palestinians?

[Forever29]

4. This would make sense if....

Swap the Israeli Arabs with the Israeli settlers, all Israeli Arabs go to a Palestinian state based on 1967 borders and the Israeli settlers go back to Israel.

However, as soon as I noticed this is the ultranationalist foreign minister of Israel, I realized that he wants the best of both worlds.

[shaayecanaan]

5. the settlers have been squatting in the west bank for thirty years

The Palestinians have been living in Israel since time immemorial.

[Mosby]

6. jews have lived in israel and west bank for thousands of years.

Palestinians for about 100 years and I'm being generous.

[azurnoir]

7. seems a rewording of there are no Palestinian people, seems it's become vogue to claim that here

however being fashionable does not make it reality

In recent years, many genetic studies have demonstrated that, at least paternally, most of the various Jewish ethnic divisions and the Palestinians – and in some cases other Levantines – are genetically closer to each other than the Palestinians or European Jews to non-Jewish Europeans.[111]

One DNA study by Nebel found genetic evidence in support of historical records that "part, or perhaps the majority" of Muslim Palestinians descend from "local inhabitants, mainly Christians and Jews, who had converted after the Islamic conquest in the seventh century AD".[111] They also found substantial genetic overlap between Muslim Palestinians and Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews, though with some significant differences that might be explainable by the geographical isolation of the Jews and by immigration of Arab tribes in the first millennium.[111]

.........................

Much of the local Palestinian population in Nablus is believed to be descended from Samaritans who converted to Islam.[133] Even today, certain Nabulsi surnames including Muslimani, Yaish, and Shakshir among others, are associated with a Samaritan origin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_people

[Mosby]

8. 2000+ years ago in Israel Jews were Jews

Palestinians did not develop a national identity until the 20th century.

That's not an opinion azur, it's a fact.

Genetics have nothing to do with it.

[azurnoir]

9. yes and today's Palestinians or according to studies the majority are desendents of those Jews

who converted to either Islam or Christianity

now you can play around with well they didn't call themselves this or that as a means of denying their existence, but in light of historical fact it rings hollow IMO