RUTHFULLY YOURS

Teaching While White (TWW) is becoming an occupational hazard these days. So is being a white student, for that matter. At the “Unofficial Scripps College Survival Guide,” students learn that “white peers and faculty — portray Claremont Consortium as a haven for liberal ideology and acceptance. It’s a rhetoric that has led many white students to believe that racism does not exist on campus.” Thus, “as white students, [they] must identify the ways that [they] are engaging in the perpetuation of white supremacy and work to unlearn [their] racism.”

Of course, “reverse racism does not exist because there are no institutions that were founded with the intention of discriminating against white people on the basis of their skin. Many white people claim to be victims of reverse racism when people of color associate negative characteristics with white people or have a general dislike for them as a group. This is not reverse racism because racism is privilege plus power and people of color do not have racial privilege. Moreover, distrust or anger at white people is a legitimate response to a repetitive history and current state of racist violence.”

And so Rachel, Anna, Emi, and Jasmine, authors of the above, state that “[t]he solution to white privilege is to ‘ask people of color to absolve [white people] of [their] guilt.'” But even that is “not an adequate response… [since] whites must be accountable and hold other white students accountable, too.”

I would like to ask the authors if I decide to be black tomorrow a la Rachel Dolezal, would I still be guilty of white supremacy? After all, an Indian-American student got into medical school by pretending to be black.

Under relevant international law, a true state must always possess the following specific qualifications: (1) a permanent population; (2) a defined territory; (3) a government; and (4) the capacity to enter into relations with other states.
While this contingent condition of prior demilitarization of a Palestinian state may at first sound reassuring, it represents little more than a impotent legal expectation.
For one thing, no new state is ever under any obligation to remain “demilitarized,” whatever else it may have actually agreed to during its particular pre-state incarnation.
“The legality of the presence of Israel’s communities the area (Judea and Samaria) stems from the historic, indigenous, and legal rights of the Jewish people to settle in the area, granted pursuant to valid and binding international legal instruments, recognized and accepted by the international community. These rights cannot be denied or placed in question.” — Ambassador Alan Baker, Israeli legal expert.

International law has one overarching debility. No matter how complex the issues, virtually everyone able to read feels competent to offer an authoritative legal opinion. While, for example, no sane person would ever explain or perform cardio-thoracic surgery without first undergoing rigorous medical training, nearly everyone feels competent to interpret complex meanings of the law.

This debility needs to be countered, at least on a case by case basis. In the enduring controversy over Palestinian statehood, there are significant rules to be considered. For a start, on November 29, 2012, the General Assembly voted to upgrade the Palestinian Authority (PA) to the status of a “Nonmember Observer State.”

Although it is widely believed by many self-defined “experts” that this elevation by United Nations has already represented a formal bestowal of legal personality, that belief is incorrect. Under law, at least, “Palestine” – whatever else one might happen to think of “fairness” – remains outside the community of sovereign states.

This juridical exclusion of “Palestine,” whether welcome or not, on selective political grounds, is evident “beyond a reasonable doubt.” The authoritative criteria of statehood that express this particular exclusion are long-standing and without ambiguity. Under relevant international law, a true state must always possess the following specific qualifications: (1) a permanent population; (2) a defined territory; (3) a government; and (4) the capacity to enter into relations with other states.

Moreover, the formal existence of a state is always independent of recognition by other states. According to the 1934 Convention on the Rights and Duties of States (the Montevideo Convention):

“Even before recognition, the state has the right to defend its integrity and independence, to provide for its conservation and prosperity, and consequently to organize itself as it sees fit….”

It follows that even a Palestinian state that would fail to meet codified Montevideo expectations could simply declare otherwise, and then act accordingly, “to defend its integrity and independence….”

More than likely, any such “defending” would subsequently involve incessant war and terror against “Occupied Palestine,” also known as Israel. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was formed in 1964, three years before there supposedly were any “Israeli Occupied Territories.” What, then, exactly, was the PLO trying to “liberate?”