Israeli Settlers Out of Gaza – Turkish Settlers Out of Cyprus

[Gavur]

Pro-Israeli American Think Tank Thunders at AKP

By Ali H. Aslan, Washington
Published: Saturday, February 18, 2006
zaman.com


The US administration did not object to HAMAS political bureau chief Khaled Mashal's surprising visit to Ankara, yet one of the most influential pro-Israeli American think tanks, Washington Institute for Near Eastern Policy (WINEP), harshly and abruptly reacted against the Justice and Development Party (AKP), in a report the organization prepared.

The last WINEP report on “policy tracking,” signed by Turkish Research Program Director Dr. Soner Cagaptay, is titled: "HAMAS Visits Ankara: The AKP Shifts Turkey's Role in the Middle East."

Despite ongoing fierce debates in the Turkish press and objections from the secular-minded foreign policy elite, according to the WINEP report, Mashal's visit was made possible with the backing up by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his AKP government. The ruling party damaged its "honest broker" role between the Israelis and the Palestinians.


The report claimed Mashal "will hear nothing in Ankara that he has not heard already from Turkey," and, "Thus the visit serves only to offer legitimacy to Mashal and terrorism without producing any progress toward a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or promoting Turkey's role as a regional mediator."


WINEP viewed this as a sign of divergence in Middle East politics between Turkey and the West. The report relates Mashal's visit to AKP's "strategic depth" policy and notes "this policy makes sense in theory while it fails in practice.” Iran and Syria "exploit" Turkey's attempts to improve "good neighborhood" as a "strategic opportunity." These countries are approaching Turkey only to circumvent an international grip, according to the same document.


The Washingtonian think tank further criticizes the AKP government for inviting “the leader of a terrorist group” to Ankara at a time that Turkey needs all the help it can receive from the West in order to defeat the relentless PKK terror campaign.


"Mashal's visit indicates that far from taking Turkey's strategic interests into account, the AKP's Middle East policy is guided by a cultural desire to help other Muslim governments and even Islamist terrorist groups, regardless of the nature of these governments and groups and irrespective of how their interests may be at odds with Turkey's."

[Gavur]

'EU Aid Comes to Turkish Cyprus via Greeks'

INTERNATIONAL 03.23.2006 Thursday - ISTANBUL 03:26

'EU Aid Comes to Turkish Cyprus via Greeks'
By Foreign News Desk, Istanbul
Published: Wednesday, March 22, 2006
zaman.com


Khristodoulos Pashiardis, undersecretary of Greek Cyprus Administration Leader Tassos Papadopoulos, said the European Union would provide 139 million euros in financial aid through the Greek administration.

While asserting that it would be their own problem if the Turkish side refused to accept this aid, Pashiardis referred to the Greek authorities handling the aid as the "official authorities."

Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus President Mehmet Ali Talat, Prime Minister Sabit Soyer and Foreign Minister Serdar Denktas met on Monday to discuss the aid. They refused to accept money that had to be approved by the Greek side as aid. The EU financial Aid Regulations includes €139 million, which was €259 million after the 2004 referendum, but was cut due to delays.

"As long as embargoes on TRNC continue, Turkey will not open its ports," Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan assured; a statement which Pashiardis considered an "EU provocation".


"If Ankara fails to fulfill its responsibilities towards Turkish Cyprus, then the EU may also have difficulty in tolerating these Turkish provocations," he said.


EU had ratified € 136 million financial aid and Greek Cyprus had revealed that this aid would be given through a project of their approval. While a financial aid crisis erupted in the Turkish Cyprus, the TRNC administration had agreed to reject the aid given upon Greek approval.

[Gavur]

Greek book costs Turk Cypriot pensioner dear

Greek book costs Turk Cypriot pensioner dear
Wed Mar 22, 2006 04:15 PM GMT
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NICOSIA (Reuters) - A Turkish Cypriot pensioner was caught on the wrong side of the fence and the law on the divided island when Greek Cypriot police found a book in his vehicle dating from 1702 and belonging to a Greek Cypriot.
Birol Hasan said he had found the book and others at a Greek Cypriot home his mother had moved into after the division of the island in 1974. Turkey invaded the north after a brief Greek Cypriot coup engineered by Greece's military government.

A lawyer for the 71-year old Turkish Cypriot said he had planned to return the books, but couldn't read the inscriptions identifying the owner because they were all in Greek.

He was fined 700 Cyprus pounds (841 pounds) by a local magistrate on Wednesday and ordered to return the books to their owner.

[Gavur]

Cyprus: Portrait of a Christianity Obliterated

3/31/2006 20:30:34
In the northern part of the island, occupied by Turkey, the churches have become stables or mosques. The diary of a trip beyond the wall.

By Sandro Magister
[email protected]
English translation By Matthew Sherry
[email protected]
Chiesa.EspressOnline.it


ROMA, March 9 2006 – The island of Cyprus was the first destination of the “special mission” that the Holy Spirit entrusted to Paul and Barnabas, according to what is written in the Acts of the Apostles, in chapter 13.

On the island they found a Roman governor, Sergius Paulus, “an intelligent man who wanted to hear the word of God and believed, deeply shaken by the teaching of the Lord.”

But if Paul and Barnabas were to return to Cyprus today, to the northern part of the island, they would find not the Romans as governors, but the Turks.

And instead of a Christianity being born, they would find a dying Christianity, with the churches and monasteries in ruin, or else transformed into stables, hotels, and mosques.

This is documented in a startling report from Luigi Geninazzi, who was sent to Cyprus by “Avvenire,” the newspaper of the Italian bishops’ conference.

Cyprus became part of the European Union on May 1, 2004. But this was true only for the southern part of the island, which is Greek and Christian.

The northern part was occupied by Turkey in 1974, with 40,000 soldiers. The Turkish occupation caused death, destruction, and a forced relocation of populations. About 200,000 Greek Cypriots of the Christian Orthodox faith who lived in the north of the island fled to the south. And likewise, the Turkish Cypriots of the south, Muslims, moved to the north.

In 1983 Turkey consolidated the occupation by creating a Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which is internationally recognized only by the government of Ankara: 180,000 persons live there, 100,000 of whom are colonists originally from Anatolia.

A wall guarded by the blue helmets of the United Nations divides the two parts of the island and cuts through the capital, Nicosia. In April of 2004, the UN placed before a referendum a plan of confederation between the two states, but this was rejected by the Greek Cypriots of the south, who are four times as numerous as the Turkish Cypriots of the north.

The Islamization of the north of the island has been concretized in the destruction of all that was Christian. Yannis Eliades, director of the Byzantine Museum of Nicosia, calculates that 25,000 icons have disappeared from the churches in the zone occupied by the Turks.

For a Turkey that aspires to enter the European Union, its actions in the north of Cyprus give a terrible impression of itself.

And what it has done in destroying the Christian presence begun by Paul and Barnabas is described in the report that follows, published in “Avvenire” on Sunday, February 26:

__________


"They did not even spare the stone altar..."
By Luigi Geninazzi

Europe ends here, in the most beautiful island of the Mediterranean, torn by a wall that splits it in two. Europe ends abruptly along a barrier of barbed wire, cement, and military turrets that splits Cyprus along its entire width and divides Nicosia, a capital wounded in its ancient heart.

For the UN, which guards over it with its blue helmets, it is the “green line.” But here the people continue to call it the “Attila line,” from the name that the Turks gave to the invasion.

The scourge has left its marks. It has struck Cyprus, the site of the most ancient Christian community on European soil, in its artistic, cultural, and religious treasury: stupendous Byzantine and Romanesque churches, imposing monasteries, mosaics and frescoes of inestimable value. It is a heritage that in the northern part of the island, under Turkish occupation, has been sacked, violated, and destroyed.

To realize this it is enough to cross the “Attila line” at the checkpoint of Nicosia, and there you are in the so-called Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which greets the visitor with a large banner on which is written a topsy-turvy welcome: “How happy I am to be a Turk!” (a famous phrase of Kemal Ataturk). The nationalist pride of the descendents of the Ottoman empire has also modified the natural countryside, carving the crescent moon and the red star on the side of the Pentadattilos mountains, which dominate the wide plains.

The Turkish flag billows on the façade of the church of Agia Paraskevi, in the once Greek Orthodox village of Angastina. A sign says that work is underway to transform it into a mosque. The bell tower, which no longer bears a cross, is a strange minaret with the loudspeaker of the muezzin fixed upon an archway.

Christodoulos, the young archeologist accompanying me, is visibly shaken: “I was baptized here,” he says in a voice hoarse with emotion. He is one of the 200,000 Greek Cypriot refugees who, thirty years ago, lived in the north of the island and were chased out of their homes.

Christodoulos kneels on the spot where he was once baptized and lights a candle. The Turkish construction workers, squatting in front of the apse for their lunch break, look at him curiously: “Every time I come back to this area, it’s always worse,” he sighs.

We stop at Trachoni, where a jewel of the Renaissance once stood, the church of the Panagia, Our Lady. Now only the walls are left; the interior bears the signs of vandalism that has not spared even the stone altar, the pieces of which have ended up in a hole dug recently to search for who knows what treasure.

Ours is a sad pilgrimage that at every stop adds to one’s outrage and disbelief, a via dolorosa that retraces the places of Christian memory at risk of disappearing. At the village of Peristerona, on the road to Famagosta, the medieval monastery of Saint Anastasia (see photo) is being used as a stable, with the cows chewing their cud amid what remains of the ancient cells. The tombs of the cemetery have been profaned, and the gravestones broken.

We leave the countryside behind and go to the coast. Here many of the churches have been turned into restaurants, bars, and nightclubs, for the enjoyment of the tourists. At the top of the rock of Lapethos, which juts out over the sea, the church and convent of Agia Anastasia have become a sumptuous hotel with a swimming pool dug into the cloister, and a casino under the bell tower.

Almost the entire artistic patrimony of the Orthodox Church in the territory occupied by the Turks – 520 buildings between churches, chapels, and monasteries – has been sacked, demolished, or disfigured. Only three churches and one monastery, the monastery of Saint Barnabas, which has been turned into a museum, are in a more or less dignified state.

“The ruin is before our eyes, but the European Union prefers to look the other way,” the Cypriot foreign minister, George Iacovou, bitterly tells us. “The only hope is that, in the course of negotiations for Turkey’s adhesion to the EU, someone might pull out the dossier of shame.”

The Byzantine Academy of Nicosia has gathered detailed and meticulous documentation on the occupied churches in Cyprus. And for two years an attempt has been made at religious dialogue, with the support of the Orthodox bishop Nikiforos of the historic monastery of Kykko: “We have met with the Muslim leaders headed by Lefka, and I told them that respect for our places of worship is the basis for cooperation.” Nikiforos is moderately optimistic: “I encountered a lot of understanding. Errors have been made on both sides; we must overcome the divisions of the past and walk together.”

But the last word belongs to the politicians. Huseyn Ozel, a government spokesman for the so-called Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, displays great cordiality with the foreign journalist. The destroyed and sacked churches? “There was a war, and bad things happened on both sides,” he explains.

I point out to him that most of the mosques in Greek Cypriot territory have been restored, while his government has authorized the transformation of churches into restaurants and hotels, an insult to the sentiment of believers. “They did this to keep the buildings from falling into ruin, and anyway, these are decisions made by the preceding government, which I do not share,” Ozel counters.

I insist: what do you have to say about the churches that, still today, are being turned into mosques? The Turkish Cypriot functionary spreads his arms wide: “It is an Ottoman custom...”

It as a tradition that, unfortunately, continues. An unsettling calling card for a Turkey that aspires to enter the European club.

__________


The Greek Orthodox bishop: "Europe, intervene!"
An interview with Chrisostomos Englistriota

In Cyprus, the head of the Church has always been an ethnarch, too, a leader of the people. This directly political role was exercised by the famous archbishop Makarios, the charismatic leader of the rebellion against the English domination during the 1950’s, and the first president of the independent republic of Cyprus.

“Our Church doesn’t practice politics anymore, but its authority has not diminished,” recalls the bishop of Paphos, Chrisostomos Englistriota. Since His Beatitude Chrisostomos I was struck by a grave illness, the bishop of Paphos has carried out his functions as leader of the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church on the island.

Q: Your Excellency, Cyprus remains divided. Can the Greek Orthodox Church foster dialogue between the parties?

A: “It is a situation that saddens us deeply, the result of a completely illegal military occupation. A true dialogue is impossible, because the Turkish Cypriots do not enjoy any autonomy, the last word belongs to the government of Ankara.”

Q: Are there contacts among the religious exponents?

A: “Some of our bishops have met with the leaders of the Turkish Cypriot Islamic community. It’s important to us to have good relations with them, but then when it comes time to discuss concrete matters, like the problem of the sacking and profanation of our churches, they don’t know what to say, they refer everything to the political authorities.”

Q: Have you tried to raise the question in international circles?

A: “Yes, of course. We have repeatedly turned to the European Union to ask for their intervention. The last time was in the autumn of 2004, after Cyprus entered the EU.”

Q: The results?

A: “Nothing so far. My personal conviction is that the European governments should exert pressure on Turkey, above all in this phase of the opening of negotiations for the entry of Ankara into the Union. But they don’t want to take advantage of this opportunity. And so the more time passes, the more our sacred places in the northern part of Cyprus are falling into ruin. The Turks want to destroy every trace of Hellenism and of Christianity. Only strong international pressure can stop them.”

[Jooboian]

Just Get Out!
by Gabriel Ash

How many Palestinians are dead in Jenin? Dozens? Hundreds? How many hundreds? If the number turns out to be exactly 641, or exactly 139, will that be a PR "victory" for the Palestinians, or for the Israelis? As journalists are lining up to declare the "victor," CNN runs a web poll about each side's credibility. Soon we may see the dead jostling with the living in CNN's sordidly named "crossfire."

As a mental exercise, let each of us decide at exactly how many deaths the scale tips from the Israeli side to the Palestinian side, at what point an incursion becomes a slaughter, at what point a slaughter becomes a massacre, at what point a massacre becomes a genocide.

This is all very important, PR-wise.

For eleven days, IDF soldiers have been preventing journalists, medics, rescue teams and aid convoys from entering Jenin.

This is how they "protect" the truth inside from all those outside who might want to "misuse" it against Israel.

After all, the truth is such a terrible weapon. It would be wrong to allow one side to have more of it than the other. There must be balance. But only regarding the truth. There need not be balance in firepower, for example. It is O.K. that Israel has nuclear weapons and Apache helicopters, paid for by American taxpayers who can't afford to pay for adequate health care, while Palestinians fight with rifles and home-made explosives.

There need not be balance about land either. It is O.K. that Israelis control all the land and Palestinians none.

Nor is balance a requirement regarding liberty, or human rights, which Israelis enjoy and Palestinians do not. But there must be balance in describing what happened in Jenin.

That is why accuracy is very important in Jenin. Was it exactly a "massacre," as Perez called it and then denied, or a "devastation," or just an "incursion" that used "minimal force" to achieve "necessary goals," such as showing Palestinians who's the boss and what you get for upsetting him? If you use too strong a word, if you match the expression to the stench of the decomposing bodies, Israel will reprimand you, brand you an anti-Semite, maybe even expel you. Be forewarned.

But what can one do? Even the cautious and pro-Israeli The Economist saw clear evidence of war crimes. U.N. envoy Terje Roed-Larsen described the devastation in Jenin as "horrific beyond belief," and said it was "morally repugnant" that Israel blocked humanitarian emergency workers from entering Jenin for 11 days. Israel is still blocking rescue teams, while Perez is pondering whether to send Roed-Larsen home with a note to his parents or merely revoke his weekly allowance. The undiplomatic words of the Norwegian diplomat, but not the undiplomatic reality these words refer to, really hurt Israel's highly evolved moral sensibility.

Having agreed to it earlier, the government of Israel is now blocking the UN fact-finding mission to Jenin. The problem, according to Israel, is that too many of the members have "humanitarian" experience, and might not understand the requirements of warfare. It is easy to imagine the people and the resumes Israel would want to see instead: maybe a few Latin American death-squad leaders; or Lt. William Calley, whose experience at Mai Lai could prove invaluable in determining what is and what isn't a massacre; or perhaps the French General Paul Aussaresses, commander of the 1957 French paratroopers' attack on the Casbah of Algier. To top it all, war crimes connoisseur Madeleine Albright, or even Henri Kissinger, could provide moral leadership, as well as much needed verbal elasticity.

As long as there is balance.

For the Israeli public and politicians, the widespread, and very unbalanced, opprobrium is just one more affirmation that the "whole world is against us."

Echoing popular sentiment, Israel's President Moshe Katsav whines: "with all due respect and esteem for people of conscience and the bleeding-heart liberals of the world, I don't understand why they've clamped their mouths shut for a year and a half while the cruelest of unprecedented terrorist acts were committed against Israelis citizens everywhere."

President Katsav, are all the inhabitants of Jenin terrorists? Are most? Is God's own standard, of requiring only ten righteous men to save a city, too lax for you? What part of "collective punishment is a war crime" don't you understand?

The fact that the eruption of violence during the last eighteen months baffles you so much makes me wonder, President Katsav. Do you understand the idea of liberty? Have you ever read the universal declaration of human rights?

Do you understand that "universal" means "applies to everybody equally"?

Does the declination of possessive pronouns confuse you? Surely you are at ease with "mine" and "ours." But do you also understand the concepts behind "yours," "his," "hers," and "theirs"? When I look at the map of the land grab for your illegal settlements, I have serious doubts.

Are you troubled why "people of conscience" do not condemn terrorism? Even to make such an accusation you must be living in an alternate universe. But I will answer your whining twice nevertheless.

The long answer, President Katsav, "with all due respect and esteem," is that the suicide bombers did not land in Israel from outer space. The explosive belts might as well carry a label that reads "made in the Greater Eretz Israel."

The suicide bombs are the mutant flowers of Israel's brutalizing occupation, springing from the seeds of the 54-year-long dehumanization of Palestinians. They are the ghosts of your brutality coming back to haunt you, the mementos of your war against memory.

The massive and deliberate destruction of Palestinian civil records in the West Bank in the last weeks is but the most recent chapter in a war against Palestinian memory that began in 1948, with the annihilation of 400 Palestinian villages. But you seem to learn nothing from history, indeed from your own history: ghosts always return, each time more violently.

For those ready to die, their spiritless hatred towards you is what remains after you have bulldozed their past and their future. Whether you like it or not, they are your bastard offspring. Everything they know about hate, you taught them. Everything they forgot about humanity, you made them forget. Give them a hug now, as they have proven themselves worthy of their parents – you.

The short answer, President Katsav, is really short: just get out!

Call the army home. Call the occupation off. And get out of the Occupied Territories. Just get out!

Don't mumble about how "difficult" or "complex" the situation is. It isn't. You are the oppressor. You are the occupier. You park your tanks on plundered land. You fill your swimming pools with stolen water. You kill and destroy in order to inherit. So don't bullxxxx about "the situation." Just get out!

Stop abusing people. Stop abusing language. Stop spinning your own moral cocoon. Stop turning your country and your people into a metaphor of evil. Just get out!

Don't wait for Bush. Don't wait for Arafat. Don't wait to negotiate with the mythical Palestinian leader who will finally accept your dominion. There is nothing to negotiate about. Just get out!

Take your rabid Jewish fundamentalists from Kiriat Arba and Beit El with you. Load them on buses and pump the gas pedal until the hills of the West Bank vanish in the rear mirror. Just get out!

Gather your thugs from the borderless "border police," give them scholarships and send them to school again. Let them discover there is more to life than beating people to a pulp. Just get out!

Take your checkpoints, with all their petty humiliations and deadly snipers, with you. And just get out!

Send the Shin-Bet packing. After 35 years, the world had enough of your clever jailers and torturers. Take them with you and just get out!

Let your hideous bulldozers loose on the illegal settlements of Ma'ale Edomim, Har Homa and Gilo. There is plenty of demolition work for them there. Let them continue until the mountain line bears no more memory of your rape. Then just get out!

Don't apologize. Don't justify. Don't explain. There is nothing left to explain. Honestly. Just get out!

Don't even worry about the thousands of olive trees, symbols of peace, you uprooted. Someone will plant them again.

Just get out!

[Jooboian]

“Loizidou v. Turkey: A Precedent for Palestinian Refugees?”
by Arjan El Fassed



Overview:

When Israel was created in 1948, 800,000 Palestinians were expelled by Jewish forces or fled from their homes and land in historic Palestine. Today, there are more than five million Palestinian refugees worldwide. Their fate remains unresolved.

A situation similar to that of the Palestinians resulted from Turkey’s occupation of Cyprus. Therefore, it is worth examining the case of Greek Cypriot Titina Loizidou, a refugee who was prevented from returning home by Turkey. More than four years ago, Loizidou won a lawsuit against Turkey before the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). This legal action could provide a precedent for Palestinian refugees wishing to file claims against Israel.



Historical Comparisons:

The historical similarities between the Israeli and Turkish cases are striking, including the creation of refugees, colonization, and international condemnation. In July 1974, after Turkey invaded the Republic of Cyprus, 200,000 Greek Cypriots—or one third of the population—were forcibly expelled from their homes. They continue to be deprived of the right to return to their homes and land. More than 80,000 settlers from Turkey were imported illegally to colonize the occupied areas with the aim of changing the demographic structure of Cyprus. Properties usurped from the expelled Greek Cypriots were distributed to these settlers.

A series of resolutions adopted by the UN General Assembly and Security Council, as well as by numerous other international organizations, have condemned the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, demanded the return of refugees to their homes, and called for the respect of all Cypriots’ human rights. The UN, in Security Council Resolution 361 and General Assembly Resolution 3395, called for urgent measures to facilitate the voluntary, safe return of all Cypriot refugees to their homes. Twenty-six years have elapsed since then, and Turkey still refuses to implement these resolutions.

Likewise, Israel has refused to allow Palestinian refugees and those who are internally displaced to exercise their right of return for more than 50 years. This is the case despite the fact that the international community has consistently and formally recognized the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes, as well as their right to their property and to the income derived from their property (the key documents in this regard are UN General Assembly resolutions 194 and 51/129).



Loizidou v. Turkey:

In December 1996, the ECHR examined a case against Turkey by Titina Loizidou, a refugee from Kyrenia in Turkish occupied Cyprus. The Court ruled that she remains the legal owner of her property in Kyrenia, and that Turkey is in violation of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights by not allowing her to access her property. Article 1 of Protocol 1 of this Convention states: “Every natural or legal person is entitled to the peaceful enjoyment of his possessions. No one shall be deprived of his possessions except in the public interest and subject to the conditions provided for by law and by the general principles of international law.”

This unprecedented ruling offers the opportunity to hundreds of Greek Cypriot refugees to claim their right to use and enjoy their property in the Turkish occupied part of Cyprus. The ECHR said in its ruling that it “holds by eleven votes to six that the denial of access to the applicant’s property and consequent loss of control thereof is imputable to Turkey.”

The ECHR’s decision invalidated Turkey’s expropriation laws. The ECHR not only ordered Turkey to return Loizidou’s property, it also awarded her compensation for Turkey’s interference with her right to full enjoyment of her property. Loizidou remained the legal owner of her land. Consequently, the continued denial of the applicant’s access to her property interfered with her right to her property, which the ECHR found unjustified.

Achilleas Demetriades, who argued Loizidou’s case before the ECHR, asked for approximately $1 million in compensation with regard to the denial of access to the property, and asked that Loizidou be able to freely exercise the right to peacefully enjoy her property.

In July 1998, the ECHR ordered Turkey to pay $600,000 in damages to Loizidou for the continued violation of her right to peaceful enjoyment of her property, $40,000 for non-pecuniary damage, and $244,168 for her costs and expenses. The amount of damages was assessed as the loss suffered by Loizidou with reference to the annual ground rent, calculated as a percentage of the market value of the property that could have been earned on her properties between 1989 and 1997. Finally, the ECHR ordered that within the six months following the ruling, Loizidou and the Turkish government submit written observations on the issue of compensation and costs.

This ruling set another precedent, stressing that in light of the December 1996 decision, Loizidou “is still the legal owner of the property, no issue of expropriation arises, … and that her claim is thus confined to the loss of use of the land and the consequent lost opportunity to develop or lease it.”

In January 2000, three Greek Cypriot refugees originally from the village of Lefkoniko, but now residents of the United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia, filed a lawsuit before the ECHR. They are suing Turkey for denying them access to and use of their properties, which have been incorporated into a Turkish military airbase. They have been unable to access these properties since Turkey invaded Cyprus in 1974.



Relevance to Palestinian Refugees:

At present, Palestinian refugees have limited avenues to seek remedies for violations of their basic rights. An issue which has been carefully hidden since 1948, but which is a potential nightmare for Israeli governments, is that of restitution claims for extensive Palestinian properties in the entire pre-1948 territory of historic Palestine. Palestinian property claims involve an enormous amount of land, potentially encompassing the overwhelming bulk of Israel. Given the inherent rights of refugees, the confiscatory nature of Israel’s land and property legislation after 1948, and other refugee groups’ increasingly successful efforts to reclaim dispossessed properties, the basis for Palestinian claims has great potential.

The case of Loizidou v. Turkey established a precedent for Palestinian restitution claims to be made even after the conclusion of an agreement between states. Legal research has shown that the right of return and restitution, being an individual right, cannot be overridden by intergovernmental agreements. Based on the guiding principle of refugee choice, i.e. voluntary participation by the refugee community, Palestinian refugees can reject any deal that does not meet the parameters set forth in Resolution 194.

Neither Israel nor the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), nor the two in concert, have the legal capacity to extinguish claims of individuals. If a PLO-Israel agreement makes inadequate provision for repatriation and compensation, the claims of individuals will survive.

Although Israel is not a member of the European Union (EU) or the Council of Europe, it has close economic ties with the EU. The practice of including explicit human rights clauses in the Euro-Mediterranean Association Agreements, which bind the EU and Israel, demonstrates a declared intention of the EU to incorporate respect for human rights as a material condition of EU external relations. This practice could be enhanced by submitting nonmember countries, such as Israel, to the jurisdiction of the ECHR. Petitions regarding Palestinian restitution/compensation claims against Israel might then be brought before the ECHR.

The ECHR took jurisdiction over Loizidou’s claim even though Turkey was not a member of the EU. Loizidou was a citizen of Greece, however, which is an EU member state. Therefore, even though Israel is not a EU member state, Palestinian refugees who are residents or citizens of a member state of the EU are prospective petitioners in a future case brought directly before the ECHR.



Arjan El Fassed is a political scientist and human rights activist in the Netherlands. The above text may be used without permission but with proper attribution to the author and to Palestine Center. This Information Brief does not necessarily reflect the views of Palestine Center or The Jerusalem Fund.

This information first appeared in Information Brief No. 69, 23 February 2001.

http://www.palestinecenter.org/cpap/pubs/20010223ib.html