Fundamentals
of the International Legal Rights of the Jewish People and the State of Israel
- Palestine aka Greater Israel
Introduction
There is perhaps no area in the world more
sensitive or strategic to world security and peace than the Middle East , and arguably no
country or city more central to this sensitivity than The Jewish State of
Israel its capital and most revered Holy City "Jerusalem ".
There are as many opinions on the
corresponding issues—even legally speaking—as there are proposed
solutions. This is not only true of Israel itself and the
territories it liberated and administers, but it extends to the city of Jerusalem and the many
different views concerning its legal status.
Israel in general and Jerusalem in particular
represent unique circumstances and, in many ways, do not fit into the normal
legal parameters.
Taking Jerusalem , for example, there
is no city anywhere in the world that holds such deep-seated roots of
religious and spiritual heritage and emotional and cultural passionate bonds. These deep roots and the
potential threats to their sanctity play an extraordinarily vital role in that
city’s significance and can seem to "trump" even national and
international law norms in terms of relevance.
Why is this so vitally significant?
The Jewish heritage reaches back more than
three thousand years, Jerusalem itself having been
established perhaps more than 2,000 years before it was captured from the
Jebusites by King David about 1,000 BC. The Temple Mount in the Old City (in
now so-called "East Jerusalem") is the site of the First and Second
Jewish sacred Temples, containing the "Holy of Holies"— the most
hallowed of all spiritual sites for the Jews. As regards the whole of the Land,
expressed in their own words:
The Land of Israel was the birthplace of
the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was
shaped. After majority of Jews being forcibly exiled from their land numerous
times, the people kept faith with it throughout their Dispersion (Diaspora) and
never ceased to pray and hope for their return to it and for the restoration in
it of their political and religious freedom.
Impelled by this historic and traditional attachment,
Jews strove in every successive generation to re-establish themselves in their
ancient ancestral homeland.
The Muslim connection dates back to the oral
tradition of Mohammed’s "miraculous night journey"
("Miraj"), in AD. 621, on a "winged creature" from
Mecca to the Temple Mount, accompanied by the Angel Gabriel, thus making
it—with today’s Al-Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock—for many (though not
all ) Muslims, the third holiest site of Islam, after Mecca and Medina (which
were formerly developed and occupied by the Jews and expelled by the Muslims).
At the same time, even this "night ride", as referenced in verse 1
of Sura 17 of the Koran, does not mention Jerusalem at all, only "the
farthest [al-Aqsa] mosque". Since there was no mosque in Jerusalem at that time,
the "farthest" mosque cannot have been the one now bearing that
name on the Temple Mount in the Old City of ("East")
Jerusalem . Still, Islamic tradition holds
fast to this claim. In actual fact, early commentators interpreted the further
place of worship as heaven. The city of Jerusalem is not once mentioned
in the Koran, nor has Jerusalem ever served as the
capital of Islam or of Arab-controlled Palestine , under that or any
other name.
The Christians date their heritage from the
time of Christ, the Jewish "Founder" of their faith, as well as
reaching back to take in the entire history of the Jewish people, which was
Christ’s own heritage and which Christians regard as their own, mutually with
the Jews. For Christians, the Holy Land is "holy"
because that is where Jesus Christ was born, grew up, performed His ministry,
was crucified, resurrected and ascended from the Mount of Olives , to which He promised
to return.
But while the Christians are "at
home" in every land in which they choose to dwell, and while the Arabs
enjoy jurisdiction over vast areas of territory (twenty-one sovereign Arab
States consisting over 5,000 sq. miles), the Jewish people have only one area
of territorial “homeland": the small State of Israel, which is less than
one percent of the Arab territories of 5 million square miles.
For the Jewish people, Israel is their only
national home and Jerusalem their only Holy City
and proclaimed "indivisible" capital. The very term Wailing Wall —-
as the Western Wall of the Temple was commonly called
prior to the 1967. Jewish recapture of the Temple Mount , under Arab control
since 1949—indicates the depth of the emotionally charged significance of this
most sacred place for the Jewish people. As regards the whole of the Land, in
the words of Dr. Chaim Weizmann (later president of the World Zionist
Organization):
As to the land that is to be the Jewish land
there can be no question. Palestine aka Greater Israel alone, of all the
countries in which the Jew has set foot throughout its long history, has an
abiding place in his national tradition and a long historical connection.
The recognition of the Jewish people’s
singularly ancient historic, religious, political, and cultural link with
an ancestral home has more legal significance than it may at first appear,
and is easily bypassed in the current heated and polarized debate. These
religious and spiritual claims are what have thus far made attempted solutions
to territorial and other questions of international law in this area
particularly delicate. The real issues are often lacking in clear definition
and consensual interpretation of the relevant "law", at times even
attributing to it a kind of sui generis (one of a kind, unique or
"peculiar") character.
International law, in itself, does not rely on
religious or cultural ties but rather on accepted international law norms and
standards, which is why the legal recognition of these historical aspects, in a
binding international legal instrument, is so highly significant. It is
precisely these age-old historic ties that remain the most compelling reason
for maintaining sovereignty over all the territory the Jewish people are
legally entitled to under international law and treaties, confirmed by the
International Court of Justice.
The particular sacredness of this Land to such
differing faiths is clearly demonstrated by the ongoing dispute over the
governance of the Holy City of Jerusalem, from the Vatican to the United
Nations, including periodic initiatives to give it violating International
law a separate international legal status as a so-called corpus separatum.
Indeed, because of the delicate and sensitive nature of these
"spiritual" connections, Jerusalem is frequently left out altogether
from discussions over other so-called disputed territories such as the
"West Bank aka Judea and Samaria" and (earlier) Gaza.
The legal arguments will go on and on, with
differing interpretations often even on the same side of the arguments. But the
fundamental fact that the historical claims of the Jewish Zionist Organization,
based on centuries-old continuous connections between the Jewish people and
"Palestine aka Greater Israel", were given recognition in
a small town on the Italian Riviera named San Remo, in 1920 which
incorporated the 1917 Balfour Declaration and confirmed by the 1920 Treaty of
Sevres and Lausanne, thus, adopted and confirmed unequivocally by the terms of
the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine aka Greater Israel in 1922, takes
on enormous significance when questions of territorial rights persist.
The ongoing and never-ending legal arguments
and political posturing on both sides of the question of the "Palestine aka Greater Israel " statehood issue
will not be resolved in these pages. Yet if the above basic truths with regard
to ancestral territory are ignored, all the legal arguments in the world
will not bring about an equitable solution. Thus it is important to see in what
way(s) this most significant factor of historical ties has been endowed with a
legal character and status that undermine Israel’s legitimate rights in its
Land as it confronts today’s territorial conflicts.
While there is no way that the complex current
political issues, a culmination of centuries of conflict and legal ambiguities,
can be adequately dealt with in one brief exposé, one thing is certain: laws
may change, perceptions may vary, but historical fact is immutable. Therefore,
for the special case of Israel and Arab-Palestine,
we need to look at fact rather than opinion or emotions and seek to avoid the
promulgation of law that can result from persistent pressures of often
misguided, misinformed, fabricated and/or skillfully manipulated public
opinion.
Thus our mission here is not to attempt to
pronounce legal judgments or to offer legal opinions, where even the best legal
minds have not been able to achieve consensus, but rather to proclaim
international legal truths in a largely political environment that is too
frequently polluted with distortions of the truth and outright untruths and
fabrications.
A correlated intent here is to show where Israel ’s age-old historic
links with the land intersect with legal parameters to give effect to its
international legal status in the face of current and often misguided political
initiatives.
Accordingly it should be understood from the
outset that the following is in no way intended to present itself as an
exhaustive coverage of the many-faceted and age-long disputed issues relating
to this territory. It is meant primarily as a wakeup call and/or reminder of the fundamental
international legal rights of the Jewish people that were conferred beginning
at the San Remo Conference in 1920 which incorporated the 1917 Balfour
Declaration and that had threatened to all but slip into obscurity in the
current debate, despite the fact that these rights have never been rescinded
and the UN has no authority to supersede or modify them.
To accomplish these aims, we have only to
revert back to the milestone international legal instrument, the Mandate for
Palestine of 1922, which emerged from the 1920 San Remo sessions of the Paris
Peace Conference of 1919 and in effect transformed the Balfour Declaration of
1917 (the “Magna Carta” of the Jewish people) into a legally binding
international agreement that changed the course of history forever for the
Jewish people worldwide.
Legal Rights of the Jewish People and
the State of Israel
Before examining the
all-important international legal decisions made at San Remo in 1920, it
is useful to trace back a few years to get a sense of the legal and
political environment that followed in the wake of the dissolution of
the Ottoman Empire in 1918, leading up to these significant legal and
diplomatic events that both emerged from historical roots and went on to
shape Jewish contemporary history.
The 1917 Balfour Declaration
The history of the
international legal turning point for the Jewish people begins in 1917.
World War I was exposing a growing need of Jews dispersed all over the
world to have a "national home", and in 1917 Prime
Minister David Lloyd George expressed to the British War Cabinet that he
"was convinced that a Jewish National Home was an historic necessity and
that every opportunity should be granted to reconstitute the Jewish
State". This ultimately led to Great Britain issuing, on 2 November 1917 , a political declaration known as the "Balfour
Declaration". This Declaration stated that:
"His Majesty’s Government view with
favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people,
and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object,
it being clearly understood that nothing should be done which may prejudice the
civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or
the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country".
As confirmed by Lord Balfour
to Prime Minister Lloyd George:
Our justification for our
policy is that we regard Palestine as being absolutely exceptional; that we
consider the question of the Jews outside Palestine as one of world importance
and that we conceive the Jews to have an historic claim to a home in their
ancient land; provided that a home can be given them without either
dispossessing or oppressing the present inhabitants.
This position was shared by
the other Principal Allied and Associated Powers who, in the words of Lord
Balfour, "had committed themselves to the Zionist program which inevitably
excluded numerical self-determination". Still, a declaration is not law,
and a British declaration is not international. So while it is arguable that
certain obligations of the Balfour Declaration were attributable to the British
Government, it was neither applicable to other States nor a binding instrument
under international law.
U.S. President Wilson’s “Fourteen Points” and the League of Nations
At the time, the territory
known as "Palestine " was still part of the Turkish Ottoman Empire,
with which Britain and her allies were at war. Although the British
forces entered Jerusalem in December 1917, the war with Turkey in Palestine continued into 1918. Once Britain liberated Palestine from Turkish rule in 1918, it was in a position to
implement its policy.
Meanwhile, on 8 January 1918 , U.S. President Woodrow Wilson delivered a speech to
a joint session of the United States Congress that was to become known as his
"Fourteen Points". Included in these points was the statement that
the "Turkish portion of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a
secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under Turkish
rule should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely
unmolested opportunity of autonomous development". These Fourteen
Points were accepted by some of the key Allied Powers and "informed"
(influenced and were incorporated in part into) certain principles embodied in
the Covenant of the League of Nations.
Thus the League of Nations was a direct result of the First World War, its
Covenant or Articles of Organization being incorporated in the Treaty of
Versailles, which entered into effect in January 1920. I might state that
President Wilson was not confident that some of the other members of the
Principal Allied Powers had
ulterior motives for not incorporating all 14 points (history has proven him to
be right).
1920 San Remo Sessions of the Paris Peace Conference
The following sections on the
San Remo Conference and its legacy borrow heavily upon—in some places
recording verbatim or virtually verbatim (with the full agreement of the
author)—Dr. Jacques Paul Gauthier’s monumental work, Sovereignty Over the
Old City of Jerusalem: A Study of the Historical, Religious, Political and
Legal Aspects of the Question of the Old City, Thesis no. 725, University
of Geneva, 2007. Part I of the present work draws liberally on Dr.
Gauthier’s thorough historical account. While some references to Gauthier’s
work are precisely cited, others are so interwoven, interchanged, interspersed
and integrated with the author’s own further research and formulations that it
is virtually impossible to do proper justice to Dr. Gauthier in every instance.
His indulgence is gratefully acknowledged.
The next important milestone
on the road to international legal status and a Jewish national home was the
San Remo Conference, held at Villa Devachan in San Remo , Italy , from 18 to 26 April 1920 . This was a post World War I international
reconvening of the Supreme Council of the Principal Allied Powers that had met
together in Paris in 1919 with the powers of disposition over the
territories which, as a consequence of World War I, had ceased to be under the
sovereignty of the Ottoman Turkish Empire. The Ottoman Empire had signed formal document relinquishing their rights
title and interest to the territories now controlled by The Principal Allied
Powers.
The Principal Allied Powers
of World War I present at San Remo
in 1920 were Great Britain , France , Italy and Japan . The United States had entered the war as an "Associated
Power", rather than as a formal ally of France and Great Britain , in order to pursue its new policy of avoiding
"foreign entanglements". Thus while the United States was a
member of the "Supreme Council of the Principal Allied and Associated
Powers" of the Paris Peace Conference, and was known as one of the five
"Great Powers", it is not to be associated with the term
"Principal Allied Powers", of which there were four. These four
Powers were represented in San Remo by the Prime Ministers of Britain (David
Lloyd George), France (Alexandre Millerand) and Italy (Francesco Nitti), and by
Japan’s Ambassador Keishiro Matsui. The United States was present as an "observer", represented
by Robert Johnson, the U.S. Ambassador to Italy .
The 1920 San Remo Conference
acted as an "extension" of the Paris Peace Conference, for the
purpose of dealing with some outstanding issues that had not managed to be
resolved in 1919, including certain claims and legal submissions made by
key claimants in Paris, among which Zionist and Arab delegations. In San Remo , the aim of the Principal Allied Powers was to consider
the claims, deliberate and hand down decisions on the legal recognition of each
claim. The fundamental objective of the San Remo Conference, then, was
effectively to decide the future of the Middle East following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire . In accordance with President Wilson’s "Fourteen
Points", it was not the intent of the victorious allies to acquire new colonies
in the area but rather to establish there new sovereign States, over the course
of time.
The Principal
Allied Powers in San Remo were charged, inter alia, with responding to the claims
that the Zionist Organization had submitted in February 1919 at the Peace
Conference in Paris , while taking into consideration the submissions of the Arab
delegation. (The Arab and Zionist delegations had pledged to support each
other’s claims.) The claims of the Zionist
Organization included a demand for the recognition of "the historic title
of the Jewish people to Palestine
and the rights of the Jews to reconstitute their National Home in Palestine ".
The boundaries of
the "Palestine " referred to in these submissions
included territories west and east of the Jordan River . The Zionist Organization had requested the appointment of Great Britain as Mandatory (or Trustee) of the
League in respect of the Mandate over Palestine . The submissions specified that the
ultimate purpose of the Mandate would be the "creation of an
autonomous
‘Commonwealth’", with the clear understanding "that nothing must
be done that might prejudice the civil and religious rights of the non-Jewish
communities at present established in Palestine , nor the rights and political status
enjoyed by the Jews in all other countries".
The policy to be
given effect in the Mandate for Palestine was to be consistent with the 1917
Balfour Declaration in recognizing the historic, cultural and religious ties of
the Jewish people to the Holy Land and the fundamental principle that Palestine should be the location of the
reestablished national home of the Jewish people. It is particularly relevant
to underline the inclusion in the terms of the Mandate (through Article 2) of
the fundamental principle set out in the Preamble of this international
agreement that:
recognition has
thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting
their national home in that country.
Similarly consistent with the
1917 Balfour Declaration, as reiterated in the submissions to the Paris Peace
Conference, the Mandate’s Preamble retained the condition that:
"nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights
of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political
status enjoyed by Jews in any other country". This conferred no new rights
on either the non-Jewish inhabitants of Palestine or the Jewish populations in other countries; it
merely preserved existing rights in both cases (see also Articles 2, 6, 9, and
13). The Mandate for Palestine aka Greater Israel can nonetheless be regarded
as affecting the Jewish people worldwide to the extent that it provided a
national home for all Jews everywhere to return to, encouraging settlement in
Palestine and therefore immigration (Article 6) and facilitating the
acquisition of citizenship (Article 7). It was anticipated that non-Jews would
live as a protected population within the Jewish national home.
The Decision of the
Principal Allied Powers Relating to the Mandate for Palestine
The Allied Powers, assembled
in San Remo to deliberate this and other submissions,
recognized that not all areas of the Middle East were yet
ready for full independence. So they agreed to set up Mandates for each
territory, with one of the Allied Powers to be in charge of implementing
each Mandate, respectively, "until such time as [the territories] are
able to stand alone".
Initially three Mandates were
assigned—one over both Syria and Lebanon , one over Mesopotamia (Iraq ) and one over Palestine . In the first two Mandates, the native inhabitants
were recognized as having the capacity to govern themselves, with the Mandatory
Power merely serving to advise and facilitate the establishment of the
necessary institutions of government. Accordingly, Article 1 of the Mandate for
Mesopotamia states:
The Mandatory will frame
within the shortest possible time, not exceeding three years from the date of
the coming into force of this Mandate, an Organic Law for Mesopotamia . This Organic Law shall be framed in consultation with the native
authorities, and shall take account of the rights, interests and wishes of all
the populations inhabiting the mandated territory.
The language notably differed
in the case of the Mandate for Palestine , in which it was specifically stipulated in Article 4
that:
See San Remo Resolution, Appendix C,
para. (c).
An appropriate Jewish agency
shall be recognized as a public body for the purpose of advising and
co-operating with the Administration of Palestine: in such economic, social and
other matters as may affect the establishment of the Jewish national home and
the interests of the Jewish population in Palestine, and, subject always to the
control of the Administration, to assist and take part in "the development
of the country". The Zionist organization, so long as its organization and
constitution are in the opinion of the Mandatory appropriate, shall be
recognized as such agency.
So while the Preamble
states that it is "clearly understood that nothing should be done which
might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish
communities in Palestine ", the political authority was explicitly vested in the
Jewish people, with the ultimate objective of the establishment of the Jewish
national home. The language of the Mandate persistently refers
specifically to the reconstituted "national home" for the Jewish
people.
Although the
Jewish people were part of the indigenous population of Palestine for over 3700 years, the majority of them
at that time were not living in the Land. At the same time, while the
civil and religious rights of the Arab and other inhabitants were safeguarded,
including voting rights, no sovereign political rights were assigned to
them. (It is of significance that the Mandate did not distinguish these
non-Jewish inhabitants similarly as "a people" or as lacking a
"national home".)
Thus the Mandate for Palestine differed significantly from those established for the
other former Ottoman Asiatic territories, setting out how the Land was to be
settled by the Jewish people in preparation for their forming a viable nation
within all the territory then known as "Palestine ". The unique obligations of the Mandatory to the
Jewish people in respect of the establishment of their national home in
Palestine thus gave a sui generis (one of a kind, unique) character to the
Mandate for Palestine aka Greater Israel.
It is also
important to note that, pursuant to Article 5 of the Mandate:
No Palestine territory shall be ceded or leased to, or
in any way placed under the control of the non-Jewish government of any people
or foreign Power.
So having
considered the claims, deliberated and reached a decision, the parties to the
1920 San Remo Conference produced binding resolutions relating to
the recognition of claims to the Ottoman territories presented in Paris by the Jews and the Arabs. These members
of the Supreme Council thus reached an agreement that had the force of a
legally binding decision of the Powers with the right to dispose of the
territories in question which included Arab territories in Syria and Lebanon , also Mesopotamia aka Iraq .
Accordingly, the
Principal Allied Powers decisions, in conformity with the provisions of Article
22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, decided to entrust to Great
Britain the Mandate for Palestine aka Greater Israel which involved a
"sacred trust of civilization" in respect of "the establishment
in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people", thus confirming
the decision made a few months earlier by these same Powers at a conference in
London in February of that year.
The decision made
in San
Remo
was a watershed moment in the history of the Jewish people - a major
turning-point, Jews who had been a people without a permanent home for some two
thousand years. From the perspective of Dr. Chaim Weizmann, president of the
newly formed Zionist Organization and later to become the first President
of the State of Israel, the decision made relating to the destiny of Palestine at the San Remo sessions of the Paris Peace Conference was
a turning point in the history of the Jewish people. In Weizmann’s own words:
Recognition of our rights in
To the Zionist Organization of America ,
the decision of the Supreme Council of the Principal Allied Powers "crowned
the British declaration by enacting it as part of the law of nations of the
world".
There are a number
of points that should be noted concerning the 1920 San Remo decision.
1. For the first time
in modern history, Palestine became a legal entity. Hitherto; for many centuries
it had been just a geographical area.
2. All relevant
agreements prior to the 1920 San Remo Conference were superseded. (Although not
all specifically named at the Conference, this would include both the
Sykes-Picot agreement and the Feisal-Weizmann agreement.)
3. The Balfour
Declaration, which had been given recognition by many Powers prior to 1920
San Remo, achieved international legal status by being incorporated into the
agreement.
4. “Jewish people"
were designated as the exclusive beneficiaries of a sacred trust in
the Mandate for Palestine, the first step on the road leading to national
sovereignty of the Jewish people, even though a substantial number of the Jews
had not yet returned to their Land.
5. Hence forward,
transfer of the title on Palestine
could not be revoked or modified, either by the League of Nations or the United Nations as its successor, unless
the Jewish people should choose to give up their title only by mutual valid agreement.
6. The San Remo
decisions were incorporated into the Treaty of Sèvres, signed on 10 August
1920 by, inter alia, the four Principal Powers and Turkey. [Note: Although
the treaty was never ratified by Turkey (non-the-less by the 4 Principal
executing it, it obligated them to abide by those terms as it relate to
Palestine, additionally the same parties (including Turkey) did sign and
ratify the superseding Treaty of Lausanne in 1923.
7. The Arabs gained
even greater rights in Lebanon , Syria and Mesopotamia , as they were considered ready, or near ready, for
autonomy.
8. The San Remo decision marks the end of the longest colonized
period in history, lasting around 1,800 years in Palestine .
With reference
to the historic connection of the Jews with Palestine, as recognized in the
Mandate, Churchill wrote in his White Paper of 1922, after reneging on the
complete territory of Palestine for the Jewish people and allocating over three
quarters of the Jewish territory to set-up an Arab State of Trans-Jordan,
shortly before the Mandate’s adoption by the League of Nations:
…it is essential that [the
Jewish community in Palestine ]
should know that it is in Palestine
as of right and not on sufferance. That is the reason why it is necessary that
the existence of a Jewish National Home in all of Palestine
should be internationally guaranteed, and that it should be formally recognized
to rest upon ancient historic connection.
The League
of Nations and the Mandate for Palestine
aka Greater Israel
The ultimate Mandate for Palestine aka Greater Israel approved by the Council of the League of Nations on 24 July 1922 explicitly refers back to the decisions of the Supreme Council of the
Principal Allied Powers of 25 April 1920 . The Mandate begins: "Whereas the Principal
Allied Powers have agreed…". The League Council adopted the 1920 San
Remo Treaty verbatim, the Palestine Mandate became binding on all fifty-one
members of the League. Since the United States officially endorsed the terms of the Mandate but had
not joined the League of
Nations , special
negotiations between Great Britain and the United States with regard to the Palestine Mandate aka Greater
Israel had been successfully concluded in May 1922 and approved by the Council
of the League in July. The United States ultimately signed a bilateral treaty with Britain (on 3 December 1924 ), actually incorporating the text of the Mandate for Palestine and approve by the US Congress and Senate, thus
completing its legal alignment with the terms of the Mandate under the League of Nations .
This act of the League
Council enabled the ultimate realization of "the long cherished dream
of the restoration of the Jewish people to their ancient land" and
validated “the existence of historical facts and events linking the Jewish
people to Palestine aka Greater Israel . For the members of the Supreme Council, these
historical facts were considered to be accepted and established". In the
words of Neville Barbour, "In 1922, international sanction was given to
the Balfour Declaration by the adoption of the San Remo Resolution issued in
the Palestine Mandate".
In actual fact, the Mandate
went beyond the Balfour Declaration of 1917.
The incorporation, in the
Preamble of the Mandate, of the principle that Greater Israel aka
Palestine should be reconstituted as the national home of the Jewish people
represented a deliberate broadening of the policies contained in the Balfour
Declaration, which did not explicitly include the concept of reconstitution. It
is of some interest that, while the word "reconstitute" was absent
from the Balfour Declaration, it was actually Lord Balfour himself who ensured
the inclusion of this concept in the final, internationally legally binding
Mandate. Thus it was not a new idea, "grafted on" at the last moment,
but was well deliberated. The ultimate effect was that the rights of the Jewish
people under the Mandate for Palestine were thereby greater than the rights contemplated in
its source document, the 1917 Balfour Declaration. According to Abraham
Baumkoller:
The choice of the term
"reconstitute" clearly indicates that in the eyes of the Council, it
was not a question of creating something new, but of admitting the
reconstitution of a situation that already existed ages ago. This idea
coincides, if you will, with the notion of "historic ties", even if
these are not altogether identical.
In addition to the insertion
of the "reconstituting" language, the phrase in the Mandate’s Article
2: "…will secure the establishment" (of the Jewish national home, as
laid down in the Preamble of the Mandate for Palestine) is equally said to go
beyond the Balfour Declaration which uses the considerably milder language:
"…view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for
the Jewish people" and "will use their best endeavors to facilitate
the achievement of this object".
Looking beyond the details,
the important point is that the primary objective of the Mandate for Palestine is to provide a national home for the Jewish
people—including Jewish people dispersed worldwide—in their ancestral Land, had
been fulfilled.
The Arab
people, who already exercised jurisdictional sovereignty in a large number of
States, were guaranteed protection of their civil and religious rights under
the Mandate as long as they wished
to remain—even after the State of Israel was ultimately formed in
1948—including citizenship if they so chose. Moreover, for the Arab population,
Trans-Jordan had meanwhile been added as a territory under Arab sovereignty,
carved out of Jewish Palestine itself, the very mandated territory at issue,
prior to the actual signing of the Mandate in 1922 under the League of Nations .
In sum, the Mandate for Palestine
aka Greater Israel ,
adopted and approved by the Council of the League
of Nations in July 1922, was an international
treaty and, as such, was legally binding. The International Court of Justice
(I.C.J.) has since confirmed that the Mandate for Palestine
instrument granting all the territory west of the Jordan
river "in fact and in law, is an
international agreement having the character and force of a treaty or
convention".
The Mandate for Palestine aka Greater
Israel as it Pertains to Jerusalem and the Old City
The rights
granted to the Jewish people in the 1920 San Remo Conference and adopted by the
Mandate for Palestine relating to the establishment of the Jewish national home
were to be given effect in all parts and regions of the Palestine territory. No exception was made for Jerusalem and its Old City , which were not singled out for special
reference in either the Balfour Declaration, the 1920 San Remo Treaty or the
Mandate for Palestine , other than to call for the preservation of existing
rights in the Holy Places. As concerns the Holy Places, including those located
in the Old City , specific obligations and
responsibilities were imposed on the Mandatory.
It follows that
the legal rights of the claimants to sovereignty over the Old City of
Jerusalem similarly derive from the decisions of the Principal Allied Powers in
the 1920 San
Remo
conference and from the terms of the Mandate for Palestine adopted and approved by the Council
of the League of
Nations . In
evaluating the validity of the claims of Israel relating to the Old City - Eastern Jerusalem , the Council decision is of great
significance from the perspective of the rights and obligations that it created
under international law.
In the view of Oxford international law professor Ian Brownlie, "in
many instances the rights of parties to a dispute derive from legally
significant acts, or a treaty concluded very long ago". As a result of
these "legally significant acts", there are legal as well as
historical ties between the State of Israel and the Old City of Jerusalem.
The intellectual ties were
further solidified by the official opening of the Hebrew University on 1 April 1925 in Jerusalem , attended by many dignitaries, including the
University’s founding father, Dr. Chaim Weizmann, Field Marshall Allenby, Lord
Balfour, Professor William Rappard and Sir Herbert Samuel, among many other
distinguished guests. According to Dr. Weizmann, addressing the dignitaries and
some twelve thousand other attendees at this memorable event, the opening of the
University in Jerusalem was "the distinctive symbol, as it is destined
to be the crowning glory, of the National Home of the Jewish people which we
are seeking to rebuild".
In addition to the legal,
historical and intellectual heritage, in the words of Canadian scholar
Dr. Jacques Paul Gauthier: "To attempt to solve the Jerusalem / Old
City problem without taking into consideration the historical and religious
facts is like trying to put together a ten thousand piece puzzle without
the most strategic pieces of that puzzle". In his monumental work entitled Sovereignty Over
the Old City of Jerusalem: A
Study of the Historical, Religious, Political and Legal Aspects of the Question
of the Old City, Dr. Gauthier offers an exhaustive review of these historical/spiritual/political/legal
bonds, emphasizing the "extraordinary meaning" of the Old City of
Jerusalem and the temple to the Jewish people.
Indeed, with respect to the
question of the Old City , the historical facts and the res religiosae (or
things involving religion) are rendered legally relevant by the decisions
taken at the 1920 San
Remo sessions of
the Paris Peace Conference, together with the terms of the Mandate for Greater
Israel aka Palestine . Notwithstanding the fact that historical, religious
or other non-legal considerations may not be considered relevant or sufficient
to support a legal claim normally in international law cases, these aspects of
the issue of the city of Jerusalem are relevant in evaluating the claims of
Israel and the Arab-Palestinians relating to sovereignty over the Old City,
just as much or perhaps even more than over the entire State of Israel and the
Holy Land, as noted in the Introduction.
Israel was ready to declare its independence when it felt it
was able to meet all the criteria and international prerequisites of statehood
and assume full international legal responsibility. The actual
declaration of statehood was somewhat hastened by the earlier than anticipated
withdrawal of British forces, resulting in the State of Israel being born at midnight on 14 May 1948 . This event basically fulfilled the ultimate aim of the drafters
of the 1920 San Remo decision nearly thirty years before.
Israel ultimately also withdrew from the Gaza
Strip, on 12 September 2005 , but did not transfer control to any other
State. Thus, legally, the Gaza Strip remains part of Israel ’s territory, even though it is
not occupied by it at this time. (These withdrawal of Israel from Gaza was intended to promote and accomplish
peace and coexistence between the Arab and Israel . It caused the opposite, it brought on more
terror, more violence, kidnapping. tunneling underground to kidnap and attack Israeli
civilians and launching thousands of rockets at Israel 's population centers. Israel also agreed to allow the PA administrative
control of its Arab population in Judea and Samaria , provided no hostile actions were taken by the PA and its Arab
population. This concession also backfired and increased Arab terror and
violence, thus a reduced safety and security to Israel 's population.
The “Arab-Palestinian” Identity - an illusion
Something that is largely overlooked in the current debate is the point to which equitable resolutions to the issues of today’s Israeli / Arab Palestinian conflict is exacerbated by linguistic hyperbole, factual distortion and outright fabrication and/or pure political maneuvering and calculated false rhetoric.
Take for example the word "Palestinians" itself. "Palestine " is actually a land the Jews
have called "Eretz-Israel" (the "Land of Israel ") for over three thousand years.
The name "Palestine " was actually first applied in Greek and Roman
texts. At the time of the 1920 San Remo decision and the resulting Mandate for Greater
Israel aka Palestine , the territory then known as "Palestine " was attributed exclusively to the Jewish people
for the "reconstitution" of their national home in their historical
ancestral land.
Indeed, this was the very purpose of the Mandate forPalestine aka Greater Israel and its precursor the 1917 Balfour Declaration. While
care was taken to protect the rights of Arab inhabitants, the Jews alone were
the people singled out for the creation of a national home within the territory
then known as Palestine, there was no allocation to any other people.
This fact is seriously clouded by the linguistic extension of the name
"Palestinian" or Arab-Palestinian, solely to the present-day
remnant and descendants of those Arabs who fled or otherwise left the
territory by the request of the Arab armies in 1948 of the former greater Palestine (see next section).
"Palestine " was the name applied to the entire mandated
territory at the time that Israel came under the League Mandate for Palestine aka Greater Israel (i.e. all Jewish inhabitants
of that territory were equally "Palestinians"). This means that when
the Mandate for Palestine was created there were effectively both
"Palestinian Jews" and "Palestinian Arabs", as well as
other inhabitants of the territory.
At the time of the Mandate forPalestine , it would have been more accurate to refer to
"Palestinian Jews" and "Palestinian Arabs" (along with the
various other non-Jewish inhabitants). But owing to the creation of the
State of Israel, the Palestinian Jews reclaimed their ancient name of
"Israelis" while the non-Jews (mainly but not all Arabs) continued
under the name "Palestinians", with the foreseeable result that they
are now wrongfully and falsely viewed as being the rightful inhabitants of the
Land.
Thus by virtue of word association, the strong and distinct but erroneous and false impression is created that it is the (Arab) "Palestinians" who are the real "titleholders" to the territory and that they have been displaced by an aggressive foreign occupying power with no natural or historical claim to the land. In actual fact, the Land called "Palestine " covers territory that the Jews have called the
"Holy Land " for over 3700 years, since well before the name
"Palestine " implemented by the Romans and was first used by the Greeks and Romans.
The truth is that the territory once known as "Palestine" has never—either since this name was applied or before—been an Arab nation or been designated to become a sovereign Arab nation. (on the contrary in all of history it is known thatPalestine
is Israel the land of the Jewish people only. Yet this
nomenclature carries with it great psychological impact, with the inference
that it is the former illegal Arab inhabitants of Palestine that are falsely
viewed as the true "Palestinians", that they therefore uniquely
belong in "Palestine" as a distinct "people", and that they
have been displaced from territory that was their ancestral heritage (although
they controlled territory there for only twenty-two years as foreign
occupiers), rather than that of the Jewish "Palestinians" who in
actual fact inhabited the Land for thousands of years and had no other
"home". Based on factual historical and archaeological data,
unequivocally supports the Jewish peoples historical connection to their
ancestral land. It is the Arab-Palestinians who are the occupiers of Jewish
territory. (hundreds of thousands of Arabs crossed
illegally into Palestine-Israel after WWI. The Arabs living in Palestine prior to the Mandate for Palestine- Israel and after, since they had Jordan , thus, and until the 1967 war never asked to set-up
their own Arab-Palestinian State . Once the Jewish people developed it and made it
flourish. The local Arabs with outside help, decided to usurp the Jews and
claim the now developed and prosperous Israel-Palestine and set-up their own
state with their own fictional history), just like all the other previous
occupiers since the destruction of the second Jewish Temple in 70 AD by the Romans.
Arab-Palestinians Opposition
The Arab-Palestinians of Greater
Israel aka Palestine did not want to give up any of the land and, among other
objections, generally took the position that the terms of the Mandate for Palestine
aka Greater Israel relating to the establishment of a Jewish national home
there contravened the provisions of Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of
Nations (setting up the Mandates of Syria, Mesopotamia and Palestine). This
argument is, however, not valid and deceptive regarding the Mandate for
Palestine, since the Principal Allied Powers who were the founders of the
League of Nations and the authors of its Covenant had specifically approved the
inclusion of the policies of the Balfour Declaration in the Mandate for
Palestine in San Remo in April 1920 and confirmed by the 1920 Treaty of Sevres
and Lausanne. The members of the League
of Nations did not challenge
the validity of this Mandate for Palestine after it was adopted and approved by the Council of
the League of Nations in July 1922. The Council was very much aware of the
objections of the Arabs of Palestine when it decided to approve the terms of
the Mandate for Palestine aka Greater Israel. It made all the territory west of
the Jordan river as exclusively Jewish territory under international
law after it took away 78% of Jewish allocated territory and reallocated it to
the Arabs as the new Arab state of Trans-Jordan.
The 1921 Partition of Palestine
aka Greater Israel
(in violation of international treaties)
One possible exception
regarding the Mandatory’s obligations was that relating to the
"territories lying between the Jordan and the eastern boundary of Palestine " (Article 25). In March 1921, in Cairo ,
Great Britain decided (in violation of international treaties) to
partition the mandated territory of Greater Israel aka Palestine , for international political reasons of its own (it
wanted control of the oil). Article 25 of the Mandate gave the Mandatory
Power permission to "postpone or withhold" (but not partition or
assign territory to other nationality or people. The Mandate terms specifically
stated that Palestine is allocated to the Jewish people and no territory may be
ceded to anyone else) most of the terms of the Mandate for Palestine
in the area of land east of the Jordan River ("Trans-Jordan"),
if it wrongly did not consider them to be applicable. Great Britain , as Mandatory Power, wrongly exercised that
right (in violation of international treaties - The League of Nation and the
U.N. cannot supersede, modify or amend international treaties).
The Greater Israel
aka Palestine partition proposal was illegally approved
by the Council of the League of Nations on 16 September 1922 . Thus from 1921-1922 there was not yet any
effective "partition", only a separate administration. The Zionist
Organization presented its objections to this partition decision because part
of the "Promised Land" was located on the east bank of the Jordan River (referred to in Hebrew as Ever-Hayarden).
Therefore, …to all intents and purposes [Trans-Jordan was] an integral part of
Greater Israel aka Palestine . We do not differentiate in our sentimental and historical
relation between west and east of the Jordan .
Sir Hersch
Lauterpacht—one-time Cambridge international law professor and ad hoc judge at
the International Court of Justice, and considered one of the leading
international lawyers of the twentieth century—expressed the opinion that this fundamental modification of the
Mandate for Greater Israel aka Palestine made by Great Britain and later
approved by the Council of the League of Nations contravened the terms of the
Mandate for Greater Israel aka Palestine, which was a recognized
international treaty concluded between the Principal Allied Powers and the Mandatory
Power in 1920. For Lauterpacht, the consent of the Principal Allied Powers
should have been obtained prior to modifying one of the material terms of
the Mandate for Palestine agreement. Furthermore, the modification intentionally
failed to protect the rights of non-Arabs in Trans-Jordan, in marked
contrast to the protection of the rights of non-Jews in the rest of
(Jewish) Palestine (later, Israel ).
In actual fact, the language
of Article 25 ("postpone or withhold") suggests that this provision
was meant to be only temporary. Whatever the case, once the territory of Palestine aka Greater Israel was partitioned it violated the treaty. Winston
Churchill—British Colonial Secretary at the time—reaffirmed the commitment of
Great Britain to give effect to the policies of the 1917 Balfour Declaration in
all the other parts of the territory covered by the Mandate for Palestine aka
Greater Israel all the territory west of the Jordan River. This pledge included
the area of Jerusalem and its Old City . In Churchill’s own words:
It is manifestly right that the Jews who
are scattered all over the world should have a national center and a return of
their national home where some of them may be reunited. And where else could
that be but in the land
of Greater Israel
aka Palestine ,
with which for more than 3000 years they have been intimately and profoundly
associated?
The effect of the partition
of the territory covered by the Greater Israel aka Palestine Mandate was that
90,000 square kilometers out of a total area of about 117,000 square
kilometers—representing about 78 percent of the territory under the Mandate for
Palestine granted to Great Britain in Greater Israel aka Palestine—was placed
illegally under partial control of a new Arab government.
The increasing tensions
during the next decades between Jews and Arabs in the remnant of the territory
covered by the Palestine Mandate was, according to Chaim Weizmann, partially
attributable to the fact that:
…in the dead of the night
Trans-Jordan had been separated from Greater Israel aka Palestine . When the policy of the National Home was framed,
eastern and western Palestine
were considered a unit. Suddenly, more than half [in fact over three quarters
of] the territory was illegally cut off and an embargo laid on it as far as
Jewish colonization or the prohibition of Jewish residency was concerned
[emphasis added].
There was no new Mandate for
Trans-Jordan. It was still covered by the Mandate for Greater Israel
aka Palestine . Thus Great Britain continued as the trustee and Mandatory Power over
both Jewish and Arab portions. The real partition was finally consummated only
in 1946 when, on 25 May, Trans-Jordan achieved independence, relying on the
support of Great
Britain
and the illegal endorsement of the Council of the League of Nations . For former Israeli Ambassador to the UN, Professor
Yehuda Zvi Blum, the rights vested in the Arab people of Greater Israel aka
Palestine with respect to the principle of self-determination were fulfilled as
a result of this initial illegal partition of Greater Israel aka Palestine and
illegally approved by the Council of the League of Nations in 1922. According
to Professor Blum:
The Palestinian
Arabs have long enjoyed self-determination in their own state - the Palestinian Arab State of Jordan .
Worth mentioning
here, Colonel T.E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia"),
in a letter
apparently written on 17 January 1921 ,
informed Churchill’s private secretary that he had reached an
"agreement" with Emir Feisal, the eldest son of King Hussein
(internationally recognized King of Hedjaz and self-proclaimed King of all
Arabs). Feisal—a man said by Lawrence to be known for keeping his word—had
agreed that in return for Arab sovereignty in Iraq, Trans-Jordan and Syria, he
would abandon all claims of his father to Palestine.48 While such an agreement
cannot be enforced under international law, Great Britain would seem to have
accepted this condition in good faith and acted upon it in a way that had
legally binding consequences. As recently as 1981, King Hussein of Jordan
himself exclaimed: "The truth is that Jordan is Palestine and Palestine is Jordan ".
This is apart from the fact
that, before the dissolution of the League of Nations on 17 April 1946,
all the so-called Class A mandates (i.e. those mandated territories that
had been deemed ready or near ready for self-government), including the
Hashemite 50 Kingdom of Trans-Jordan as the Arab state which constituted 80% of
Jewish territory under international treaties, had become autonomous or gained
their independence—all except for the territory covered by the British
Mandate for Greater Israel aka Palestine located west of the Jordan River.
It should be remarked that the illegal partition of
Greater Israel aka Palestine by Great Britain did not remove the rights
under the terms of the Mandate for Greater Israel aka Palestine of the Arab inhabitants
of the territory of Greater Israel aka Palestine located west of the Jordan
River. But in violation of the Mandate, West of the Jordan river Jews were illegally prohibited from residing or
purchasing land in their own ancestral land.
History is left to judge how Britain violated and carried out the "sacred trust"
vested in her by the League of
Nations .
Prior to the dissolution of
the League of Nation in 1946, the League was preparing to file a formal
complaint against Britain as trustee for violating the terms of the Mandate for
Greater Israel aka Palestine . The British by violating the terms of the Mandate
for Greater Israel aka Palestine and severely restricting Jewish immigration from
1939-1948 caused the deaths of millions of Jews trying to escape German Nazi extermination
camps. The British went as far as blowing up Jewish refugee ships bound for
Greater Israel aka Palestine under "Operation Embarrass".
The Treaty of Lausanne
One year after the approval
of the Mandate for Palestine aka Greater Israel by the Council of the League of Nations , on 24 July 1923 , the
Treaty of Lausanne was signed by Turkey . While this Treaty contained no specific
reference to Greater Israel aka Palestine , by its Article 16 Turkey renounced
"all rights and title whatsoever over or respecting the territories"
which implicitly included Greater Israel aka Palestine , "the future of these territories and
islands being settled or to be settled by the parties concerned". Turkey thereby relinquished all rights and title
over the region (including Jerusalem and its Old City ). This
paved the way for the entry into force of the Mandate for Greater Israel aka Palestine on 29 September 1923 , when the British officially assumed control as
trustee of the Greater Israel aka Palestine Mandate.
Part II: The Question of a Unilateral
Declaration of a Second Arab-Palestinian State - Jordan being the First
In order to get the proper
perspective in considering the international legal framework surrounding
the question of a unilaterally declared Greater Israel aka Palestinian State with the Old City of Jerusalem as its capital, we
need first to go to some of the sources of contention. As this involves
making reference to highly controversial "core" issues, the main aim
here is not to presume to cover all aspects of each issue and/or offer cursory
or facile legal opinions. Indeed, as mentioned at the outset—and, if anything,
far more applicable here— it should be emphasized that the following is in
no way intended to be anything like an exhaustive coverage of the many-faceted
and age-long disputed issues relating to this contested territory. The
objective is rather to provoke some new thinking beyond the current
clichés and to raise awareness over (‘innocent’ or intentional) (miss)usages of
language to influence and manipulate public opinion and potentially culminate
in ill-founded legally binding decisions with long term consequences.
As in Part I, in order to
gain a better understanding of the roots of the current heated debate, a
brief look at the historical setting out of which today’s issues arise is
needed. This will help to make sense out of the following efforts at
connecting the historical legal foundations with the current debate.
The UN illegal Partition Plan—Resolution
181 (II) and Arab Rejection
After the Second World War,
the League of Nations was disbanded and a new international
peacekeeping body, the United Nations Organization, was set up. This new body
inherited all the agreements made by its predecessor, including the Mandate for
Greater Israel aka Palestine . In 1947 Britain decided to abandon her stewardship of the Mandate for
Greater Israel aka Palestine and notified the United Nations accordingly. It
should be noted that the Mandate itself was not terminated but only Britain ’s stewardship and trustee of it. In a similar way, Britain ’s stewardship of the Trans-Jordan portion of the
Mandate had been terminated the previous year by virtue of that territory
gaining its independence.
In November 1947, the United
Nations illegally and in violation of valid International treaties, proposed a
Partition Plan for Greater Israel aka Palestine (Resolution 181 (II)), (previously
it allocated 78% of Jewish allocated
territory illegally to Jordan) it is now recommending the setting up— in the
remaining 22 percent of the original Palestinian Mandate aka Greater Palestine—
of setting-up another second Arab State in the territory known as Palestine,
its new proposition is a Jewish State and an international zone to include East
Jerusalem for 10 years only. This Resolution to consider partition, as is the
case with all UN General Assembly Resolutions, was only a recommendation as the
UN cannot supersede and/or amend International law and/or treaties. It was reluctantly
accepted by the Jewish leadership but rejected outright by the Arabs (which
makes such resolution null and void - since any UN resolution must be accepted
and executed in writing by both parties to be valid). This important fact is
often intentionally left out of the debate relating to the Arab-Israeli
conflict.
It should also be noted that
if UN Resolution 181 were valid today (which it is not), then so would be
the provision in Part III-D that stipulates that after ten years,
Jerusalem’s international status could be subject to a referendum of
all Jerusalem residents as to a change in the status of the city—a
decision that today, as in the past, would have been made by Jerusalem’s
decisive Jewish majority. (there has been a Jewish majority in Jerusalem since the 1800's).
Around the time of the
reconstitution of Israel as a State, in May 1948, there was some talk of
reviving the Partition Plan, but by the end of Israel’s forced 1948 War of
Independence and the conclusion of the 1949 armistice agreements, Resolution
181 had become largely moot, as the establishment meanwhile of a military
armistice-line (the "Green line") had created the expectation of an
ensuing negotiation of peace treaties.
A July 1949 working paper of
the UN Secretariat entitled "The Future of Arab-Palestine/Jordan and the
Question of Partition" noted further that:
The Arab-Palestinians
rejected outright the United Nations Partition Plan so that any comments of
theirs did not specifically concern the status of the Arab section of Palestine under partition but rather rejected the scheme in its
entirety (which in itself voids any implied agreement).
While the primary objective
of the Mandate for Greater Israel aka Palestine had been achieved, the State
established in 1948 was not exactly what was contemplated and decided upon at
San Remo in 1920 (where the Balfour Declaration was incorporated into
international law and the official recognition of the Jewish people to their
long standing historical ancestral land - without stating any modifications),
where the Jewish national home was first envisaged as including Jewish
Palestinian territory on both sides of the Jordan (as was the case in Eretz
Yisrael in the Jewish Kingdoms). In any case, Israel’s new status as a
nation-state, essentially everything west of the Jordan River, was effectively
confirmed and "officially" recognized by the United Nations upon its
acceptance of Israel into membership on 11 May 1949, one year after Britain’s
termination as trustee of the Mandate for Palestine aka Greater Israel and Israel’s
simultaneous declaration of independence.
Thus, Israel’s statehood does
not rely, as many suppose, on the United Nations Partition Plan of 1947
(Resolution 181) (since this UN resolution was not accepted in writing and
executed by both parties and therefore bears no validity whatsoever. In a word,
the primary foundations in international law for the “legal” claim based on
“historic rights” or “historic title” of the Jewish people in respect of
Palestine aka Israel are the 1920 San Remo decisions by the Supreme Allied
Powers of April 1920 which incorporated the Balfour Declaration and the
allocation of all of Palestine as a Jewish State, and as adopted by the Mandate
for Palestine of July 1922 and the Covenant of the League of Nations (Article
22).
These instruments alone
constitute the "Charter of Freedom" of the Jewish people under
international law and treties.
Israel’s War of Independence
On 15 May 1948, one day after the reestablishment of the State of Israel on its own historical, ancestral land, the new Jewish State was invaded by five Arab armies (Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon, plus numerous Arab militias), afterward reinforced by other Arab forces. By the time all hostilities ceased in January 1949, Israel had lost a significant part of its internationally mandated territory to the Arab invading forces—namely, Judea and Samaria (including the eastern part of Jerusalem) to Trans-Jordan, and the Gaza Strip to Egypt, and the Golan Heights to Syria. Such an invasion, unilaterally or collectively, for the purpose of acquiring territory, is contrary to and a flagrant violation of international law. Whereas Egypt only occupied its captured territory, Trans-Jordan illegally went ahead and annexed Eastern Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria and called the combined entity the "west bank" aka Judea and Samaria in order to link the territory with the east bank of the Jordan territory, which was created by taking Jewish allocated land.
On 15 May 1948, one day after the reestablishment of the State of Israel on its own historical, ancestral land, the new Jewish State was invaded by five Arab armies (Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon, plus numerous Arab militias), afterward reinforced by other Arab forces. By the time all hostilities ceased in January 1949, Israel had lost a significant part of its internationally mandated territory to the Arab invading forces—namely, Judea and Samaria (including the eastern part of Jerusalem) to Trans-Jordan, and the Gaza Strip to Egypt, and the Golan Heights to Syria. Such an invasion, unilaterally or collectively, for the purpose of acquiring territory, is contrary to and a flagrant violation of international law. Whereas Egypt only occupied its captured territory, Trans-Jordan illegally went ahead and annexed Eastern Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria and called the combined entity the "west bank" aka Judea and Samaria in order to link the territory with the east bank of the Jordan territory, which was created by taking Jewish allocated land.
This illegal annexation by Jordan was only recognized by two nations, namely, Britain and Pakistan . It should be noted that, in any case, recognition of
annexation, however limited or general, has no bearing upon the question of
legality under international law.
The areas captured by the surrounding Arab countries by the time of the 1949 Armistice Agreements continued to be under Arab control until the Six-Day War of June 1967.
The Six-Day War of 1967
The Six-Day War, fought from 5 to10 June 1967 between Israel on the one hand and Egypt , Jordan and Syria on the other, was a swift and decisive victory
for Israel , allowing it to liberate and reclaim those
territories it had lost in 1948.
FromIsrael ’s legal and factual perspective, this was a defensive
war, since, for example, on 15 May, Israel ’s Independence Day, Egyptian troops had begun moving
into the Sinai and massing near the Israeli border, and by 18 May, Syrian
troops as well were positioned for battle along the Golan Heights . Egypt had also paved the way for war by
ordering the removal of special UN peacekeeping forces in the Sinai (that
served as a buffer between Israel and Egypt) as of 16 May, a withdrawal that,
absent any consultation with the UN General Assembly, was completed within
three days, permitting the Egyptian forces a direct confrontation with Israel's
Defense Forces. Then on 22 May, Egypt had effectively declared war by blocking the Straits
of Tiran in the Gulf of
Aqaba , Israel ’s vital trading and supply link to the rest of
the world; and by 31 May, Egypt had moved one hundred thousand of its own troops
plus one thousand tanks and five hundred heavy guns into the
Sinai "buffer zone". The Egyptians announced in the Media that
they avowed objective was the "extermination of
Zionist existence" and the "annihilation" of the
"Zionist presence" in Israel .
Shortly after the outbreak of war,Jordan also declared war on Israel and started shelling Israeli positions. Israel had relayed a message to Jordan that if it would stay out of the war, there will be
no military confrontation with Israel . Jordan King Hussein decided to ignore Israel 's pleas to stay out of the war. These declarations of
war by the surrounding Arab states gave rise to the right of military
self-defense and added additional impetus and legitimized Israel the liberation and recapture of the territories Israel had lost in 1948. First, Israel was not acquiring territory as an aggressor, but
rather in a defensive war which, like its War of Independence nineteen years
earlier, had been forced upon it by the surrounding Arab nations desiring to
annihilate it. Secondly, the liberated and recaptured areas were a part of the
territory rightfully restored to Israel in fulfillment of the Mandate for Palestine aka Israel and allocated under international law and treaties.
In fact, after returning the Sinai to Egypt in the peace agreement of 26 March 1979, the territory under Israeli control was almost identical to that which comprised the internationally allocated the Mandate for Palestine aka Greater Israel. The Palestine Mandate allotted to it all the territory west of the River Jordan in 1922.
The areas captured by the surrounding Arab countries by the time of the 1949 Armistice Agreements continued to be under Arab control until the Six-Day War of June 1967.
The Six-Day War of 1967
The Six-Day War, fought from 5 to
From
Shortly after the outbreak of war,
In fact, after returning the Sinai to Egypt in the peace agreement of 26 March 1979, the territory under Israeli control was almost identical to that which comprised the internationally allocated the Mandate for Palestine aka Greater Israel. The Palestine Mandate allotted to it all the territory west of the River Jordan in 1922.
The “Arab-Palestinian” Identity - an illusion
Something that is largely overlooked in the current debate is the point to which equitable resolutions to the issues of today’s Israeli / Arab Palestinian conflict is exacerbated by linguistic hyperbole, factual distortion and outright fabrication and/or pure political maneuvering and calculated false rhetoric.
Take for example the word "Palestinians" itself. "
Indeed, this was the very purpose of the Mandate for
"
At the time of the Mandate for
Thus by virtue of word association, the strong and distinct but erroneous and false impression is created that it is the (Arab) "Palestinians" who are the real "titleholders" to the territory and that they have been displaced by an aggressive foreign occupying power with no natural or historical claim to the land. In actual fact, the Land called "
The truth is that the territory once known as "Palestine" has never—either since this name was applied or before—been an Arab nation or been designated to become a sovereign Arab nation. (on the contrary in all of history it is known that
The Interest of State is the main motive of Middle East Governments as of others, and here as elsewhere the idea of interest which determines policy is a blend of two elements: a certain concept of what is good for the State as a whole, and a concept of what is good for the rulers and the group which they immediately represent. î
ReplyDeleteAlbert Hourani, The Middle East and the Crisis of 1956
To All my friends ...
Have but their stings and teeth newly taken out
By whose fell working I was first advanced
And by whose power I well might lodge a fear
To be again displaced; which to avoid...
Be it thy course to busy giddy minds
With foreign quarrels....î
William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part Two