Haaretz Reveals Secret Documents on Israeli Plans to Evade Scrutiny of Occupation

According to the Israeli newspaper, the documents also show how the Israeli regime tried to avoid granting the International Committee of the Red Cross access to the territories as mandated by the conventions.
 
“In the documents, senior civil servants admit to various violations of the conventions, including the use of violence against the Palestinian population. They also reveal how Israel sought to avoid defining itself as an occupier in the territories, while admitting explicitly that this claim was put forth for strategic reasons, to avoid criticism, even though there was no substantive justification for it,” the site wrote.
 
One of the documents is apparently a cable delivered to the Israeli ambassador in Washington back in 1968, Yitzhak Rabin, from Michael Comay and Theodor Meron, who instructed him on what to do to prevent the US from forcing its ally into applying the Geneva Conventions to the territories.
 
“Our consistent policy has been and still is to avoid discussing the situation in the administered territories with foreign parties on the basis of the Geneva Conventions. ... Explicit recognition on our part of the applicability of the Geneva Conventions would highlight serious problems under the convention with house demolitions, expulsions, settlement and more — and furthermore, when we’re obligated to leave all options open with regard to the issue of borders, we must not recognize that our status in the administered territories is solely that of an occupying power,” Haaretz quoted the cable.
 
“In short, our policy toward the administered territories is to try to prevent clear violations of the Geneva Conventions without getting into the question of the conventions’ applicability,” it continued.
 
Both advisors admitted that al-Quds (Jerusalem) posed a serious challenge because the Israelis were already beginning to violate laws that are supposed to protect it.
 
 “The most serious problem is of course East Jerusalem, because here, if the government were to follow the Geneva Conventions and the Hague Regulations, it wouldn’t be able to make far-reaching administrative and legal changes, such as expropriating land,” they wrote. “The Americans recently said that our status in Jerusalem is solely that of an occupation. On this basis, we can’t even talk to them about the issue of Jerusalem, because although here, too, we’re trying to avoid actions that would have international repercussions, there’s no possibility of making all our actions in Jerusalem fit the restrictions that derive from the Geneva Conventions and the Hague Regulations.”
 
Therefore the diplomats told Rabin “to tell the Americans that there are unique aspects to the status of the territories and to our status in the territories. Before the Six-Day War, the Gaza Strip wasn’t Egyptian territory, and the West Bank, too, was territory that had been occupied and annexed by Jordan without international recognition. Given this ambiguous, indeterminate territorial situation, the question of the convention’s applicability is complex and unclear prior to a peace agreement that includes setting secure and recognized borders.”
 
The second classified document was had been sent in 1967  by Comay to the Foreign Ministry’s deputy director general, less than two weeks after the Six-Day War ended.
 
The document served to advise the ministry to refrain from using the word “occupation” for a very disturbing reason, namely to impede the Red Cross’s free access to the West Bank’s civilian population.
 
 “In light of the fact that the international Red Cross is trying to assert rights with regard to the civilian population, in accordance with the Geneva Conventions ... it’s necessary to be careful about the use of certain phrases noted in the convention; I’m referring primarily to the phrases ‘occupied territories’ and ‘occupying power,’” Comay wrote. “Our UN delegation and our legations must know that here, we’re avoiding discussions with representatives of the international Red Cross about the status of the territories.”
 
These documents unravel how the Israelis dealt with the Geneva Conventions, particularly how they tried to manoeuvre their way out of accountability. Furthermore, they clearly act as Tel Aviv’s confession of violations back then. Yet, it is not only a revelation of the past as they pertain to today’s continuing attempt to prove the occupation’s ‘legality.’
 
“In recent years, political actors have tried to insert a claim that wasn’t serious even back in the 1970s into the discussion — that the territories aren’t actually occupied and that their residents aren’t entitled to the rights guaranteed by the Geneva Conventions,” Lior Yavne, executive director of Akevot Institute for Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Research told Haaretz.
 
“The uniqueness of the cable is the rare frankness with which the authors explain the reasons for the government’s refusal to admit the convention’s applicability to the territories, which were that some of its policies in the territories simply contradict the convention’s rules, and also as a tactical step in preparation for a future diplomatic agreement,” Yavne said.
 
Aside from being a confession, the documents are evidence of the Israelis’ initial plot to violate the Geneva Conventions and continue to do so under the world’s eyes through manipulation and deceit. Today, the Zionist regime continues to extend this policy, violate international laws, commit crimes against Palestinians and manage to get away with it.