Legal Policy and Advocacy Update September 2011 …………………………….

Remarks by PM The Palestinian Bid to the in the UN UN General Insights and opinions about the Palestinian Assembly: Declaration in the United Nations The truth is that wants peace , Israel's Ambassador to the UN with a Palestinian state, but the Palestinians want discusses "Abbas' U.N. fantasy". Only in the a state without peace. And the truth is you real world, in a direct dialogue filled with shouldn't let that happen. difficult truths and serious compromises, can Israelis and Palestinians forge a viable, secure Read and watch full speech here>>> and long-lasting peace. Read Here>>>

Yossi Gal, Israel's Ambassador to France says the Middle East is in need of a sincere peace, Congratulations Professor Eyal Benvenisti, for not a diplomatic mirage (French) Je vous his recent nomination to the Institut de droit promets qu'Israël ne sera pas le dernier pays à international accueillir l'Etat palestinien à l'ONU. Il sera le Eyal Benvenisti is a professor of law and premier. » Cette déclaration du premier ministre director of the Cegla Center for israélien devant le Congrès américain en mai, Interdisciplinary Research at Tel Aviv quant à la reconnaissance d'un Etat palestinien University, Israel. Previously, he served as issu de pourparlers, est une nouvelle preuve de Hersch Lauterpacht Professor of International Law l'engagement d'Israël pour la paix. Depuis plus and director of the Minerva Center for Human de deux ans, Benyamin Nétanyahou a fait le Rights at the Hebrew University of choix, un choix sincère, de se déclarer The Institute of International Law is a purely publiquement en faveur de la création de deux scientific and private association, without official Etats pour deux peuples. Read Here>>> character, whose objective is to promote the progress of international law.

Amichai Magen says The EU should demand the same peace-building measures from the Israel accepted as associate member of Palestinians as it did before recognizing new

CERN. states in its own neighborhood. The EU’s On Friday, security strategy states that “the quality of September 16, international society depends on the quality of Israel signed the governments that are its foundation. The best an agreement protection for our society is a world of well- in Geneva governed democratic states". These words just with CERN, as valid for the security and well-being of the European Israelis and Palestinians as they are for Organization for Nuclear Research, Europeans. Read Here>>> becoming an associate member of the

organization, in preparation for its acceptance as a full member. Read Here>>> Yossi Klein Halevi, argues that all the

Palestinians need to do to get a state is to convince Israelis that this state does not represent a threat. Instead of encouraging Grandstanding won't win peace. Palestinian rejectionism and fantasies of a "right of return" to the Jewish state, the international Talking will community should be asking Palestinian leaders some hard questions: Why have you rejected every offer for statehood - going back decades? And do you really expect Israeli Jews to accept an agreement that would threaten the only state in the world in which the Jewish people is Daniel Taub The Times, September 20 2011 sovereign? Read Here>>> The Palestinians need candid friends to tell them that their UN initiative is a mistake Rory Lancman and Rachel Ehrenfeld ask Some years ago, I headed the Israeli side of the Israeli- states not to reward the Palestinians' 'lawfare' Palestinian “culture of peace” negotiations to find what campaign with statehood. The United Nations' steps could be taken to create conditions for peace. My potential blessing of a Palestinian state in an end run around direct negotiations with Israel Palestinian counterpart and I travelled to Northern will add a dangerous new dimension to the Ireland to see whether, a decade after the signing of the Palestinians' decades-long campaign of Good Friday agreement, there were lessons we could conventional and unconventional war against learn from the Irish experience. the Jewish state - the commencement of a full- The most inspiring insight we gained was a sense of blown "lawfare" campaign against Israel and its how difficult it is not only to reach peace, but to keep it allies. Read Here>>> alive. It might seem strange but it was the challenges and daily dilemmas that offered the greatest inspiration. Witnessing the constant vigilance, sacrifice and compromise required from all parties to maintain the fragile peace made it seem real and tangible. I have been thinking back to that visit, as the Palestinian leadership pushes ahead with its unilateral initiative to gain recognition at the UN. Support for the initiative comes from many corners, some no doubt well intentioned after years of frustrated hopes. But the

damaging message of this support is that you don’t need to make difficult choices to make peace. Behind the Headlines: the dangers of premature recognition of a Palestinian State. Deep down both sides know that peace means taking A unilateral declaration harms true peace, some tough and unpopular decisions, and that this will challenging the most basic principles of Mideast only happen in the negotiating room. Creating an peacemaking and undermines all internationally illusion that these can somehow be bypassed at the UN accepted frameworks for peace. Read Here>>> does no service to either side. It merely creates a further magnetic attraction away from the negotiation A CAMERA legal backgrounder on the table. Palestinian Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI): such a move by the It is worth remembering that the tangible progress Palestinian side would fundamentally violate made by the Palestinian side to date, including the agreements with Israel that were mediated and establishment of institutions being touted as the basis witnessed by the United States, would be unlikely for the current claim to statehood, is itself the result of to be effective, might provoke unilateral moves negotiations between the two sides. To be sure, these by Israel, might also provoke violent clashes, negotiations haven’t reached their final destination, but and would certainly hinder rather than advance the search for peace. Read Here>>> over the years they have brought significant changes on the ground. By contrast, decades of UN General Assembly In Other News resolutions have not moved us one inch closer to peace. Indeed, as a forum the UN has more often driven the UK Universal Jurisdiction change becomes two sides apart. law: Israel appreciates the revision in British As an Israeli diplomat I meet many counterparts from legislation which was completed yesterday putting an end to frivolous, politically based other countries who describe themselves as genuine arrest warrant requests. While the change was friends of Israel, whose friendship expresses itself in clearly not about Israel, it is clear that the legal candid criticism and advice. I sometimes wonder where system in Britain had been abused by individuals are the genuine friends of the Palestinians to tell them who were not interested in the rule of law but in that their course of action is not bringing them closer to taking advantage of the British legal system. meeting their aspirations but farther away. The Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act means that the Director of Public Prosecutions will be Where are the genuine friends who will point out the required to give his consent when a group calls for an evident truth that you can’t have peace and an alliance arrest warrant to be issued on the grounds of with Hamas while it continues to call for the universal jurisdiction. Read Here>>> destruction of the state of Israel? Or while your schoolbooks and children’s television programmes Amnon Rubinstein and Yaniv Roznai on the indoctrinate your children in hatred? Or while you problematic legal concept of human shields. The current rules and their application have refuse to acknowledge the idea of a homeland for the allowed the blatant use of human shields to Jews, even though every Israeli prime minister for two successfully tie both hands of a democratic state decades has accepted the idea of a Palestinian one? by preventing it from defending itself. Read The current unilateral initiative will not only move us Here>>> no closer to peace, it will undermine what delicate co-

operation does exist. The West Bank’s remarkable economic growth and relative stability are due in no Alan Baker: Israel’s Rights as a Nation-State in International Diplomacy. In response to the small part to quiet co-operation between Israelis and ongoing delegitimization campaign on Israel, Palestinians, including in the sensitive fields of several world-renowned experts have joined to intelligence and security. It is hard to conceive how present an authoritative exposition of Israel’s such co-operation would survive the initiative, Rights as a Nation-State in International particularly in the face of the recent admission of Diplomacy, published jointly by the Jerusalem Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian President, that his Center for Public Affairs and the World Jewish Congress. Read Here>>> push for recognition is motivated not by a desire to end the conflict but to internationalise it and pursue claims against Israel in a slew of international forums. If that co-operation is jeopardised, it is Palestinians Is.Real who stand to lose most. That is why so many of the As part of an initiative to show the 'real' true builders in their society, including members of the life of young Israelis, The StandWithUs business community and Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian Fellows of Tel Aviv University are launching Is.Real – a new docu-reality Prime Minister, have expressed their own doubts about series on YouTube. the plan. They see their painstaking efforts to build a viable Palestinian society being put at risk by political grandstanding. Palestinians need a vision, but their leadership is being encouraged to reject negotiations and, more importantly, to avoid the crucial internal decisions that Click here to see the trailer>>> progress will require. Genuine friends of the Palestinians should tell President Abbas that his unilateral initiative addresses none of the choices This Update was prepared by Meital Nir-Tal of the Legal Adviser's Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs necessary to bring peace. And that’s not a vision — it’s evasion. Daniel Taub is the Israeli Ambassador to the UK

Visit our website: http://www.mfa.gov.il/LEGALADVOCACY

Be our friend on

Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs Office of the Legal Advisor