Lawfare Pally Style
Jordan has filed a written request with the Canadian government asking for our government to seize possession of the scrolls to ensure the ancient Hebrew scrolls do not return to Israeli possession. The Globe and Mail:
Jordan has asked Canada to seize the 2,000-year-old Dead Sea scrolls, on display until Sunday at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, invoking international law in a bid to keep the artifacts out of the hands of Israel until their disputed ownership is settled.
Even if Canada ignores the request, it will make other countries think twice before accepting the controversial exhibit. Summoning the Canadian chargé d’affaires in Amman two weeks ago, Jordan cited the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, to which both Jordan and Canada are signatories, in asking Canada to take custody of the scrolls.
Jordan claims Israel acted illegally in 1967 when it took the scrolls from a museum in east Jerusalem, which Israel seized from Jordan during the Six-Day War and subsequently occupied. The Hague Convention, which is concerned with safeguarding cultural property during wartime, requires each signatory “to take into its custody cultural property imported into its territory either directly or indirectly from any occupied territory. This shall either be effected automatically upon the importation of the property or, failing this, at the request of the authorities of that territory.” This means Canada must act, says Jordan. “The Government of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan would be grateful if the Government of Canada would confirm … whether it is prepared to assume its international legal responsibility, and the means by which it intends to do so,” it wrote.
The Jordanian government must have a sever case of senile dementia as it forgets the only reason the Jordan government had custody of the ancient Jewish scrolls owes more to its own illegal occupation of the disputed territories from 1948-1967. I am not holding my breath but it does look like the Canadian government maybe refuse to be sucked into Pally-lawfare.
While confirming that Canada has received a message from Jordan, a spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade said yesterday that “differences regarding ownership of the Dead Sea scrolls should be addressed by Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority. It would not be appropriate for Canada to intervene as a third party.”
An eminently sane position but the Jordanians and Palestinians are not suggesting Canada seize the ancient Jewish scrolls from Israeli custodianship per say but act as a neutral third party in retaining the ancient Jewish scrolls until ‘ownership’ of the Dead Sea Scrolls can be ‘legally’ resolved. So the Jordanians want the international community to determine who is legal rightful custodian of ancient Hebrew scrolls documenting the ancient Jewish presence to the land – the Palestinian Authority or Israel, the homeland of the Jewish people.
My question on this is “why now”? I recall seeing The Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit when it came to Ottawa a few years back and it didn’t seem to be an issue then?
To me the scrolls are interesting historical artifacts and little more however I find it sad that, given their cultural/spiritual significance to others, that they cannot be a shared cultural/spiritual treasure as opposed to something to be fought over.
Oh, of course, being a proper Arabic cultural treasure, the scrolls should be in Amman. Or Beirut. Whatever.
@SnoopyTheGoon And everybody knows Hebrew is just an Arabic patois.
@stageleft Its not that I don’t agree with the sentiment SL but everything is now in the realm of the political. Although, I do find it an interesting pathology that the Palestinians want to conduct every disagreement internationally wherein the Israelis try to keep everything local. I suspect it signifies nothing much and is merely one of those little oddities.
@Kateland: You’re right, it is politics, and I would put to you that
[1] Palestine needs to conduct as many disagreements internationally as possible because they, and a great many others, see no change in the Palestinian situation without international pressure being applied, and;
[2] Israel wants to keep everything local because of that international pressure.
@stageleft So the PLO has always claimed, but this failure to keep it local also lead directly to the PLO orchestrating international airline and cruise ship hijackings, embassy hostage situations, contributed significantly the the Lebanese civil war and attempted coup in Jordan…and now this attempt to involve the Canadian government via the Dead Sea Scrolls which will probably result in the scrolls never travelling outside Israel again. And that case of a Palestinian state being established via international pressure; well its 2010 and its still not happening.