Thursday, March 24, 2011

Confronting Terror

I participated in the JCPA seminar today, this time with Dr. Boaz Ganor.


Ganor's presentation, listened to by about a dozen diplomatis who attended along with some other very involved Israelis, was broad and deep. He was critical of the lack of sophistication of the American perceptions of the processes going on in the Muslim world. He suggested some ways to contend and above all, that moderate Muslim elements be involved in various programs, including a sort of 'Marshall Plan' to be funded not exclusively by the West to assure that the status quo now disrupted not go the radical/fundamentalist route.

While there, I picked up a recent publication by the JCPA on Palestinian Unilateralism (it can be read here). If you go to page 22, a chapter on "Israeli Claims in the West Bank" while mentioning international legal experts who, if you take the time to read their works, make the point that Israel can base its claims also on the decisions made by the League of Nations in granting a Mandate so that the Jewish people may reconstitute their national home in the territory known then as Palestine, nevertheless new works, such as the tome of Howard Grief are missing and in essence, the pre-1967 history is lacking.

This, I think, is an error by the authors (and other JCPA experts) if only because the Arab counter-claim is all pre-1967!

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