They Are Bought!........
US Democratic Presidential party candidate Bernie Sanders’ team is pressing his party to adopt an official party platform plank referring to Israeli “occupation” of the West Bank and calling for an end to Israeli “occupation” on Palestinian held territory in the West Bank. Polls show liberal Democrats are now more pro-Palestinian than pro-Israel. Even so, why would he do this? It will only be a party platform and policy. He cannot confiscate the land, it is protected as Israel's sovereignty under international law. It would not improve the lives of the Palestinians, when they are disparately fleeing the PA for Europe, the US, and even trying to gain residence in Israel, rather than live in the PA under Abbas. It does not contribute to the efforts to resolve the Jewish Palestinian issue, and advance the possibility of peace, so just what is this about? Such a platform will demean the party in a region where they already lost much influence and dominance. It does not accomplish anything, and brings no benefits for the Palestinians.
The Jewish people has had a continuous presence in the Land of Israel for nearly four thousand years. When the Romans occupied the land of Israel in 63 BCE the population of the land was approximately three million people,out of an estimated world population of 250-300 million, most of them Jewish. By 135 CE, after the quelling of the Bar Kokhba revolt by the Romans, there were only about 700,000 Jews left in the country.
Despite Roman and Byzantine oppression of the remaining Jews in the land, spiritual and cultural life continued to develop in the Jewish communities there, with Jerusalem as the center of Jewish spiritual life. The central text of Jewish law, the Talmud, was completed during this period.
Under UN guidelines Jews are indigenous to Israel, Palestinians are not. The UN defines an indigenous people as having a continuously occupied ancestral lands, a common ancestry with original occupants, a distinct common culture, a distinct language, a religion that emphasizes spiritual ties to the land, and a genetic connection to a specific people. The Palestinians are migrates and conquerors of Israel.
Article 80 of the UN Charter implicitly recognizes the “Mandate for Palestine” of the League of Nations. This Mandate granted Jews the irrevocable right to settle anywhere in Palestine, the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, a right unaltered in international law and valid to this day. Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria, Gaza and the whole of Jerusalem are legal. The International Court of Justice reaffirmed the meaning and validity of Article 80.The International Court of Justice has consistently recognized that the Mandate survived the demise of the League of Nations. ICJ Advisory Opinion of July 9, 2004, regarding the legal consequences of the construction of a wall in the West Bank stated, neither the ICJ nor the UN General Assembly can arbitrarily change the status of Jewish settlements as set forth in the “Mandate for Palestine,” an international accord that has never been amended. All of western Palestine, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, including the West Bank and Gaza, remains open to Jewish settlements under international law. If International laws and agreements cannot be upheld and honored, then no law or agreement has any value, and no negotiations are worth participating in and signing.
For these reasons, the UN guidelines on indigenous people, Article 80 of the UN Charter and our history, should prevent The Democratic Party from adopting such a platform. If the party was truly serious about helping the Palestinians they would adopt measures to improve their standard of living, encourage industry to set up shop there, create jobs, improve their infrastructure and foster Jew and Palestinians to work together for common goals. But, they are not doing this, so I can only take this as just another episode to deny Jews a homeland they can call there own.