Law and Disorder in the Middle East

Professor Boyle in his article ‘Law and Disorder’ in the Middle East’ calls for an honest assessment of the peace initiatives that have taken place over time concerning the Palestine question. As a legal advisor the P. L. O.

Washington delegation and a personal friend to its head, Dr. Haidar Abdel Shafi, Boyle was well placed to observe the negotiations and the intrigues that were going on.It is his humble opinion that among other things the US led peace initiatives were at best a ploy to stall the establishment of a real peace deal and at worst an official policy of sabotage to frustrate the ambitions of an independent state of Palestine and a partition of the holy city of Jerusalem. He further calls for a UN sponsored investigation of the crimes against humanity that Israel has committed in its handling of the Palestinian question. The signing of the Oslo agreement was in his opinion a big mistake and one in which he advised the PLO delegation and the offices in Algiers to reject; something they did.By accepting the agreement he argued that the Palestinians were in effect accepting a Bantustan status that offered no real solution to their problem and further compromised their legal position as concerns the official status law would have given them under the agreement.

He posits the one of the ways out of the stalemate is to force the suspension of the Israeli state from the UN and it s affiliate bodies and start a disinvestment campaign against the Israel that will force it to deal honestly in finding a lasting solution to the troubled state of affairs in the region.He ends his article will a list of seven suggestions on the way forward and gives suggestions on how the tricky question of Jerusalem can be solved. The is review will begin by assessing the role of America as an honest peace broker and delve into the issue of how genuine Israel is in calling for peace. In the various instances that Boyle has been present at meeting involving the Israeli and Americans he has failed to detect a genuine desire on their part to resolve the Palestinian question.He gives the example of the peace agreement that would have created an interim Palestinian self government for a transitional five year period.

He note with dismay that the unofficial Israeli policy was to stall the process for as long as possible. The Israeli delegation did not even prepare any proposal for this agreement to be inaugurated. He notes that there was dragging of feet by the US state department on this issue; they did not offer the PLO any assistance nor did they push the process forward.In essence the US and Israel had plotted to deceive the Palestinians on this issue by setting up peace agreements they had no intention of following up on. The lackluster position by the US government in forcing the Israelis to negotiate in good faith shows that they were party to machinations to ensure the talks failed.

Having worked on the team that tried to solve the Syrian - Israeli problem and witnessed first hand the stalling procedure, Boyle can authoritatively confirm that this was the real intention of the American and Israeli negotiating teams that had full support of their governments.When Rabin came to power, in June of 1992, Boyle noted that the lack of a serious approach to the Palestinian negotiations on a transitional government were ignored by the Israeli team as they entered into immediate negotiations with the Syrians but ignored the Palestinians. Fast progress was made in trying to resolve the Syrian issue but the Palestinians were left in limbo. Later in the summer of the same year the Israeli team produced proposal that included a draft on the nature of a Palestinian interim self government. On analyzing the document at the request of the head of the Washington team, Dr. Shafi, Boyle was convinced that the proposal was noting short of a Bantustan, the homeland settlements in South Africa.

He noted the close relations between the two countries and was convinced the intention was for the Palestinian authority that would have been established would have been an appendage of the Israeli government and nothing close to what the Palestinians were demanding. The write r advised the Washington and Algiers offices against accepting this offer and after studying his report, both Washington and Tunis official rejected the proposal.However there was growing frustration at the lack of progress over the years and unknown to the author and the Washington and Algiers offices secret negotiations were going on Arafat through emissaries. In his report he gave concrete reasons why the delegation should not agree to the proposal.

He argued the nature of setting up the government made it subject to the laws Paragraph 368 of the Field Manual [Department of The Army Field Manual FM27-10, The Law of Land Warfare (July 1956) () which were liable to the laws of war.This made any such authority in effect a puppet government that could be dismissed at the whims of the appointing authority. He drew parallels between the governments in Austria and Czechoslovakia under the Nazi regime under Hitler. He believed that this arrangement would lead to inter Palestinian conflict between those that were for the agreement and those that were against it.

He claimed that the intention of the Israeli government was to stoke the fires of such a conflict and have the Palestinians police their nationals, in essence creating more discontent and polarization of the Palestinian people.In actual sense the proposal was aimed at creating the fertile grounds for a divide and rule policy. He gave the example of his Irish home land that had not known peace since the signing of the treaty of partition in 1921 by the Irish republican army And the British government. The other mainstream faction of the national liberation movement has fought the IRA ever since and more Irish people have died in the conflict than have the original oppressors the British as Irish brother turned against one another.Boyle posited that the American and Israeli wishes were for a civil war to break our in Palestine and in the process divide them to the extent that they would bee unable to provide a united front.

As a consequence Israel could proclaim to the world that Palestinians are unprepared for statehood. He likened this scenario to the final solution as espoused by the Nazis towards the Jews. His essay went on deal with the Oslo Agreement which was signed on the grounds of the white house o September of 1993. This agreement included the Bantustan proposal that a number of plow officials worldwide had rejected.As a result many of them did not turn up fro the ceremony. The author does not fully comprehend the reasons why Arafat accepted the document but he points that there was a resolution in the Palestine National Council that allowed for the PLO to take control for any land that was ceded to them by Israel.

He goes on to mention the Camp David 2 negotiations and the attempt to make Arafat accept it as a permanent solution. Arafat refused to accept their demands effectively demonstrating showing that while he had accepted the Oslo Agreement he was not going to sell out his people to a watered down solution.As a consequence of this, the Israelis directly provoked hostilities by desecrating the Al Aqsa Mosque the third holiest shrine by the Islamists. . This operation was led by none other that Ariel Sharon who was responsible for there numerous deaths of Palestinian and Syrian refugees in refugee camps in Sabra and Shatilla plus over 20,000 Arabs in Lebanon.

The killing of several defenseless Palestinians the next day sparked off the Al Aqsa Intifada. This incident provoked widespread international condemnation and for the first time the USA did not oppose the UN resolution on this matter.In the remainder of his article, Boyle goes on to suggest that the solution to the Palestine question lies in adopting the several resolution s passed by the un over the years requiring Israel to respect the among other things U. N. General Assembly Resolution 194 (III) of1948, which determined that Palestinian refugees have aright to return to their homes, or that compensation should be paid to those who choose not to return. () and Resolution 181 (II) of 1947,which called for the creation of a Jewish state and an Arab state in the former Mandate for Palestine, together with an international trusteeship for the city of Jerusalem.

These resolutions will form the basis of any negotiated settlement that can bring about lasting peace. To resolve the issue of crimes against humanity the author suggests that the UN establishes a body modeled around the one that was created for Yugoslavia to tackle the issue. The trial of the key perpetrators will bring closure to this unending conflict and the bad memories it evokes. He further suggests that in future negotiations a more honest broker than the United States be appointed to drive the process.

The use of UN peacekeepers to reinforce the resolution of a shared Jerusalem is another of his options for lasting peace. Ultimately, Boyle notes that unless the Palestinians are given their state as per the boundaries established by Security Council resolution 242 of 967 and 338 of 1973, then the area will remain a volatile area for the foreseeable future. To his credit, Boyle accurately predicted the situation that developed in Palestine after the Oslo agreement. That Arafat could be put under house arrest by Israeli forces goes to show the farce that his authority really was.The animosity between the radical Hamas party and the PLO goes to show that the ultimate intention of the Americans and the Israelis has been fulfilled. However, Boyle fails to appreciate the pressure that the leaders of the PLO were under to provide a solution to a problem that has existed for over 70 years.

The frustration and realization that the odds were stacked against them made the Polo high command accept what ever was offered to them. This article is highly recommended to any one wishing to grasp a better idea of the Palestinian question and the background to the issue of self government.