RE: Palestine Today
※→ P F Tinmore,
et al,
Ghada Karmi opens her take with what she describes as an iconic image.
⇒ The KEY across an open palm.
It is a representation of the keys to the homes they left behind in the initial outbreak of hostilities in 1948.
Ghada Karmi at the Edinburgh International Book Festival
(COMMENT)
You really need to go no further. This is a claim on Israeli sovereignty for
maybe 60,000 (maybe much less). You would have to be:
✪ A persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15
May 1948,
✪ A person who lost both:
• Home
• Livelihood
✪ The lost of each was a direct result of the 1948 conflict.
Whoever, the territory Dr Ghada Karmi was referring to in the book was not under the sovereignty of the Arab Palestinians; and the Jordanians and Egyptians took possession of each respectively.
A war was fought over the issues and the subsequent treaties resolved the sovereignty, which now imposes Israeli Law as it has become a domestic issue.
By the beginning of the nineteenth century, the basic rule concerning the post-War victor
(to the victor goes the spoils) had changed considerably; but the right of those victorious in battle to change borders and transfer populations of conquered countries was enshrined in Customary Law, and internationally recognized.
At the conclusion of Great War (WWI) the Senior of the Allied Powers negotiated the Versailles and Lausanne Treaty and forced Axis Powers to accept it. This treaty changed borders of the defeated nations and moved populations. Their right to do so was never really questioned.
Several of the Allied Powers met in San Remo in 1920 to make disposition of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire was broken-up into various countries as willed by the Allied Powers.
The Arab Palestinians and other Arabs refuse to accept that the victorious powers had the right to create the conditions that would ultimately establish The State of Israel through their right of self-determination. Although the 1948 Israeli War of Independence was fought and the post-War Settlements went through the process of an Armistice and Peace Treaty, the Arab Palestinians are still fighting an insurgency.
Dr Karmi, like so many other Arab Palestinians, are trying to apply future law with decision made prior. You cannot apply 21st Century law and concepts to 19th century practices.
Most Respectfully,
R