Scene of the shooting, (photo credit: BBC)
Batsheva Nigri who died yesterday after coming under gun fire from Palestinians who are rising up against a brutal illegal occupation.
Ms Nigri is thought to have made Aliyah from Italy.
She made a choice – to go and live in Israel proper, or to live in the West Bank on illegally occupied Palestinian land.
She chose the latter. In international law The Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols provide protections for civilians.
A civilian is someone who for example in Ukraine is going about their daily life in Kyiv, and they get targeted by Russian bombs or artillery.
They have a legal right to be their on their land.
Israeli illegal settlers on Palestinian land in the West Bank have no such rights, because the Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states: “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”
It also prohibits the “individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory”.
Which basically means that Israelis living in the settlements in Palestine, have no right to be there to begin with. The fact that they are there renders them criminals, because they are partaking in illegality.
If someone came into my house, broke in, started squatting in my house and started building illegal structures, then they are criminals. Every national law in the world accepts this as does international law.
A critically important dimension is added in the equation once we factor in the legal rights, under international law of the illegally occupied to armed resistance.
This right is confirmed under the United Nations resolution 37/43, dated 3 December 1982, it “reaffirms the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial and foreign domination and foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle.”
As we have argued on previous occasions at The Curated Edit, the circa 700 thousand Israeli settlers are not there peacefully, they are there through violence, terror, murder of the native Palestinians. Either directly perpetrated by the settlers themselves, or done on behalf of them via the Israeli occupation forces. Which works by keeping Palestinians under Israeli martial law.
Therefore it is grossly inaccurate to refer to any of the settlers in the West Bank who’ve made a conscious decision to live there, as innocent civilians.
We have established that they are criminals, that they use violence to sustain themselves there, and the third element is that they are there the achieve a political objective. Which is the expansion of the state of Israel further into Palestinian territory.
The third is what makes this potent and renders the settlers as terrorists. Definition below:
“Terrorist – a person who uses unlawful violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.”
Europe, UK and USA as well as the world recognises all these individual elements – the illegal occupation designation was confirmed with UN Security Council resolution 2334 , which all members voted in favour of or allowed it to pass.
Whilst UN General Assembly votes are advisory and non-legally binding, ALL UN Security Council resolutions are legally binding. They are either made under Chapter 6 or 7, the former being legally binding but not enforceable with force, the latter is legally binding and enforceable with force. 2334 was made under Chapter 6.
Whilst 2334 is not enforceable by military force by the member states – it nonetheless is unequivocally legally binding.
Taking all the aforementioned factors into account, it is grossly inaccurate for us to continue to refer to illegal settlers as merely innocent civilians.
It does not help the Israelis or diaspora Jews either who are making Aliyah every year.
It gives them the impression that moving to illegally occupied land is somehow acceptable. It’s not acceptable.
And that is evident by “the West’s” refusal to accept the illegal occupation by Turkey of Northern Cyprus.
Israel should not be given a free pass and held to a lower standard than other nations.
“The West” acknowledges Israel’s illegal occupation is not acceptable – but yet has not been able muster the political courage to correctly label the illegal settlers for what they really are.
Not what illegal settlers really are based on what we are saying – but what they really are based on actions the western and global politicians they themselves have taken, and based on international law.
