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Daniel Taub, deputy legal adviser to Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, spoke to Rutgers University students March 26 about the role of international law in the Middle East, and the real versus perceived roots of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Taub, who has been part of negotiating teams with Syria and the Palestinians, is currently serving on the Israeli side of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. His speech shared insight into different grounds of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Is it really about territory?

"There's a tremendous sense, certainly in Europe and possibly in the U.S. as well, that the conflict is essentially a territorial conflict," Taub said. "I think there's a growing realization amongst Israelis and supporters of Israel that our conflict is not at root about territory."

Taub pointed out that if the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was about land, pulling out of southern Lebanon in 2006 and Gaza in 2005 would not have resulted in violence.

"When Israel pulled out of every inch of Lebanon or pulled out of every inch of the Gaza Strip, that was the cue for Hezbollah and Hamas to start their attacks," Taub said. "It seems increasingly clear that we are talking about a conflict in which beyond the territorial issue, it is fueled by winds of extremism blowing through our region, primarily from Iran."

These winds of extremism, Taub said, come with "a silver lining" because there are moderate Arab governments who want to fight radical Islam as well.

"There are Arab regimes in the area that are just as worried about this conflict as we are," Taub said. "It means in a very real sense [that] our conflict is not an Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but it is a conflict between moderates and extremists, and it creates the possibility for new alliances."

Talking to terrorists

Taub said that one issue that ties into the moderate-extremist clash is the definition of a terrorist.

"States come up to us and say, 'How can we not speak to Hamas or Hezbollah? Those are democratically elected organizations! Of course we have to speak with them,'" Taub said. "But as far as we are concerned, Hezbollah is a terrorist organization that had 14,000 missiles pointed at Israel the day it was elected, and it had the same number of missiles pointed at Israel the day after they were elected."

Taub believes that democratically elected terrorist organizations need to display a commitment to democracy before they can be considered an actual player in a democracy.

"There is no Western country that would allow a party to run in its election if it had an armed militia in its back pocket and it was going to use it if things didn't go its way," Taub said. "And yet, some of these countries come to us and say because these groups are elected, we have to engage with them.... That doesn't mean democracy has to be one size fits all, but it does mean we have to think beyond just the process of democracy. What is the commitment of democratic values that we should expect from parties in the process?"

A major difference Taub defined between supporters and critics of Israel relates to the use of force to combat terrorism. Taub said that Israel has a "very empty toolbox" with which to fight terrorism because many of these tools were handed over to Palestinian leadership so they could lead the efforts to uproot terrorists from amongst their population.

"There are very few tools at our disposal," Taub said. "Almost all of them come with extremely painful dilemmas."

The human rights issue

One of these dilemmas Taub defined was the Palestinian human rights issue, which became a focal point in the recent Gaza conflict, when several humanitarian organizations believed that Israel violated international human rights laws during the war. One of Taub's responsibilities during the war was to meet with vocal critics of Israel's actions.

"I sat with [them] and showed them a number of things," Taub said, "including a satellite photo of Gaza, on which is marked all the populated houses, and also all the sensitive sites [like] schools and hospitals... I showed them a map found in Gaza that shows a populated area, a series of civilian houses, with a key of where all the tunnels, and wires, and explosives, and booby traps had been laid by Hamas because their strategy, particularly in the last week of the conflict, [was] to try and draw the soldiers into this area and to blow it up on them," Taub said.

When human rights organizations approached Israeli authority figures on human rights issues, Taub said that some did not even have a military expert to advise them. Frequently, human rights groups criticized Israel about its disproportionate response without consulting a military expert.

Taub also said both sides of the argument think the other side is "monolithic," which he says is certainly not the case.

"There are differences of opinion on both sides," Taub said. "If you're a supporter of the Palestinian side, you really need to ask yourselves... which Palestinian side you're supporting." Referring to one recorded incident in which a Palestinian terrorist used a young child to shield himself as he crossed a road, Taub asked Palestinian supporters: "Are you supporting the side of the terrorist with the gun, or are you supporting the kid?"

The U.N.'s expanding war on Israel

A major concern of Taub's is the resistance Israel meets in the U.N. politically as well as in the human rights arena.

"In many ways, the U.N. is an impressive organization," Taub said. "The only problem is, as far as Israel is concerned, they are a disastrous organization."

Taub said that Israel is the only country in the U.N. that cannot be a full member of a regional grouping, which is "a significant part of the basis in which the U.N. does its work." During the 1980s and 90s, the anti-Israel lobby in the U.N. began to expand its political influence from the political organs of the organization into its humanitarian aid and human rights branches. During this time, Taub said that "this human rights group became an absolute travesty."

"Every human rights violation in the world is dealt with under one agenda item in Geneva [Switzerland], and Israel... has an agenda all of its own," Taub said. "We have more procedures [and] more resolutions condemning us than anybody else. A few months ago, I had the bizarre experience of going to defend [Israel's] human rights record in front of the new universal human rights body. The first question I was asked was prefaced with, 'Never in the history of humanity have human rights violations been committed to equal those committed by Israel.' And this is a forum that welcome with applause Syria, Cuba, Saudi Arabia."

Taub is concerned that all the attention spent on Israel takes away from other groups that may need U.N. intervention, and that the expanding anti-Israel influence will have a negative effect.

Taub also shared his concern that over recent decades, the political campaign directed against Israel in the United Nations has begun to spread to legal and judicial institutions. As examples he cited the introduction of crimes designed to target Israel in the statute of the International Criminal Court, the referral of Israel's security fence to the International Court of Justice, and the attempt to put Israeli soldiers on trial before foreign courts.

Taub concluded by describing his work as head of the Israeli side of the Culture of Peace track of negotiations with the Palestinians, addressing issues like images and stereotypes in schoolbooks and in the media.

"One of the things I've learned is that we Israelis have a strategic interest in the development of a positive Palestinian identity," he noted. "Only if there is a positive vision, will the Palestinians be able to say 'no' to the negative elements in their society."