RUTHFULLY YOURS

If the Jews do one thing well, it’s to imprint their mark on new lands. And if that imprint describes one pattern, it would be some black punishment for their trouble. As dark night follows bright day, this has been the law of exile. Only to deceive, many domiciles appeared to be the land of God’s promise. It would be hard for third or fourth generation Jews in South Africa not to have that kind of feeling about the country their grandparents adopted, warts and all.

“We built this country with heart and soul.” This slogan from South Africa’s 2015 “Annual Jewish Achiever Awards” was not mere trumpet blowing; there are records to support the blare. From the early mining magnates until today, South African businesses and the sciences have been led by Jews. But our community, far from shaping today’s events, finds itself the target.

Perhaps South African Jews were too occupied making their mark to get their hands dirty with government because, unlike American Jewry, they never cared to mix politics with business. The Apartheid era did bring activists out in droves, but more as communist ideologues than as Jews. When majority rule came in 1994, the transition was better than many had been right to fear — for by that time Jews in large numbers had skipped to greener pastures. Only their timing was bad. They skipped too early, and lost out on a golden age. Under the first black President, Nelson Mandela, a Jew could enjoy the old privileged life, now with a clear conscience.

The chief rabbi was the late Cyril Harris, a bonny Scotsman and Mandela’s bosom buddy. The Rabbi stood on the inauguration podium next to his president, and the world saw and heard his ringing words from Isaiah. Here was the moment when communal pride and the sense of belonging peaked. But under the law of exile, there would soon be a price to pay.

In fearing the worst, the émigrés may have been prescient. A decade later, a threatening cloud gathers over the Jewish community in South Africa. Jews fret that a heavyweight business clout can’t seem to buy any lobbying power. Muslim interests on the other hand are all over the government, like a rash. Jews perforce have had to fall back on the path of least resistance. Two feeble dictums have been the Jewish Board’s rule of thumb: 1) Do and say nothing that might close government doors on dialogue, and 2) Avoid offending the nation by offending its favorite son, Archbishop Tutu. It was soon made obvious that both sacred cows felt free to treat the Jewish community with disdain.

What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.

— Juliet, Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare

The agreement adopted in Paris at 7:28 p.m. local time Saturday doesn’t call itself a treaty, but in every other respect it is one. Four years ago at the Durban climate conference, climate negotiators decided to launch a process “to develop a protocol, another legal instrument, or an agreed outcome with legal force.” If the Paris Agreement is to meet the requirements of the Durban Platform, legal scholar and Clinton-era climate-change coordinator at the State Department Daniel Bodansky states that “the Paris Agreement must constitute a treaty within the definition of the Vienna Convention.”

Article Two (a) of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties defines a treaty as an “international agreement concluded between states in written form and governed by international law.” Under the principle of pacta sunt servanda (“agreements must be kept”), treaties are binding on the parties and must be performed by them in good faith, Bodansky observes in a recent book. Article 14 of the Paris Agreement establishes a compliance mechanism, and Article 20 duly sets out the process for the depositing of “instruments of ratification, acceptance, approval, or accession.”

Article Two of the Constitution of the United States circumscribes the power of the executive to make treaties by stating that the president “shall have the power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur.” The question then arises whether the Paris Agreement imposes new legally binding obligations on the United States. American negotiators were mindful of this when Secretary of State John Kerry reportedly threatened that the U.S. would walk out unless negotiators removed from the draft treaty the specification that developed countries would begin providing $100 billion a year in climate funding, by 2020. The Business Standard of India reported that Kerry said: “I would love to have a legally binding agreement. But the situation in the U.S. is such that legally binding with respect to finance is a killer for the agreement.”

The perversity of European attitudes toward, and treatment of, Israel were on ludicrous display in recent weeks. Almost simultaneously, a group of high-level retired military officers cleared Israel of the war-crimes charges thrown at it for the Gaza war of 2014 — and an Israeli officer was detained in Britain on exactly such war-crimes charges. The Jerusalem Post reported that

a retired IDF officer was detained for questioning in recent weeks upon landing in Britain on allegations that he was involved in war crimes during the Gaza war in the summer of 2014. The reserves officer was questioned for hours and was only released following Foreign Ministry intervention. . . . It is thought that the officer’s name was on a list prepared by pro-Palestinian groups naming IDF soldiers involved in alleged war crimes during Operation Protective Edge.

Meanwhile, the “High Level Military Group” or HLMG concluded exactly the opposite. Here is the final conclusion of its detailed 80-page report:

We can be categorically clear that Israel’s conduct in the 2014 Gaza Conflict met and in some respects exceeded the highest standards we set for our own nations’ militaries. It is our view that Israel fought an exemplary campaign, adequately conceived with appropriately limited objectives, and displaying both a very high level of operational capability as well as a total commitment to the Law of Armed Conflict. It did this under challenging circumstances on a formidably complex urban battlefield.