If Americans Knew
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
To better understand the Palestinian bid for membership in the United Nations, it is important to understand the original 1947 UN action on Israel-Palestine.
The common representation of Israel’s birth is that the UN created Israel, that the world was in favor of this move, and that the US governmental establishment supported it. All these assumptions are demonstrably incorrect.
In reality, while the UN General Assembly recommended the creation of a Jewish state in part of Palestine, that recommendation was non-binding and never implemented by the Security Council.
Second, the General Assembly passed that recommendation only after Israel proponents threatened and bribed numerous countries in order to gain a required two-thirds of votes.
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Alison Weir is executive director of If Americans Knew and president of the Council for the National Interest . See the “History of US-Israel Relations” for detailed citations for the above information. Additional references can be found in “How Palestine Became Israel.” |
Third, the US administration supported the recommendation out of domestic electoral considerations, and took this position over the strenuous objections of the State Department, the CIA, and the Pentagon.
The passage of the General Assembly recommendation sparked increased violence in the region. Over the following months the armed wing of the pro-Israel movement, which had long been preparing for war, perpetrated a series of massacres and expulsions throughout Palestine, implementing a plan to clear the way for a majority-Jewish state.
It was this armed aggression, and the ethnic cleansing of at least three-quarters of a million indigenous Palestinians, that created the Jewish state on land that had been 95 percent non-Jewish prior to Zionist immigration and that even after years of immigration remained 70 percent non-Jewish. And despite the shallow patina of legality its partisans extracted from the General Assembly, Israel was born over the opposition of American experts and of governments around the world, who opposed it on both pragmatic and moral grounds.
Let us look at the specifics.
Background of the UN partition recommendation
In 1947 the UN took up the question of Palestine, a territory that was then administered by the British.
Approximately 50 years before, a movement called political Zionism had begun in Europe. Its intention was to create a Jewish state in Palestine through pushing out the Christian and Muslim inhabitants who made up over 95 percent of its population and replacing them with Jewish immigrants.
As this colonial project grew through subsequent years, the indigenous Palestinians reacted with occasional bouts of violence; Zionists had anticipated this since people usually resist being expelled from their land. In various written documents cited by numerous Palestinian and Israeli historians, they discussed their strategy: they would buy up the land until all the previous inhabitants had emigrated, or, failing this, use violence to force them out.
When the buy-out effort was able to obtain only a few percent of the land, Zionists created a number of terrorist groups to fight against both the Palestinians and the British. Terrorist and future Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin later bragged that Zionists had brought terrorism both to the Middle East and to the world at large.
Finally, in 1947 the British announced that they would be ending their control of Palestine, which had been created through the League of Nations following World War One, and turned the question of Palestine over to the United Nations.
At this time, the Zionist immigration and buyout project had increased the Jewish population of Palestine to 30 percent and land ownership from 1 percent to approximately 6 percent.
Since a founding principle of the UN was “self-determination of peoples,” one would have expected to the UN to support fair, democratic elections in which inhabitants could create their own independent country.
Instead, Zionists pushed for a General Assembly resolution in which they would be given a disproportionate 55 percent of Palestine. (While they rarely announced this publicly, their stated plan was to later take the rest of Palestine.)
U.S. Officials Oppose Partition Plan
The U.S. State Department opposed this partition plan strenuously, considering Zionism contrary to both fundamental American principles and US interests.
Author Donald Neff reports that Loy Henderson, Director of the State Department’s Office of Near Eastern and African Affairs, wrote a memo to the Secretary of State warning:
“...support by the Government of the United States of a policy favoring the setting up of a Jewish State in Palestine would be contrary to the wishes of a large majority of the local inhabitants with respect to their form of government. Furthermore, it would have a strongly adverse effect upon American interests throughout the Near and Middle East...”
Henderson went on to emphasize:
“At the present time the United States has a moral prestige in the Near and Middle East unequaled by that of any other great power. We would lose that prestige and would be likely for many years to be considered as a betrayer of the high principles which we ourselves have enunciated during the period of the war.”
When Zionists began pushing for a partition plan through the UN, Henderson recommended strongly against supporting their proposal. He warned that such a partition would have to be implemented by force and emphasized that it was “not based on any principle.” He went on to write:
“...[partition] would guarantee that the Palestine problem would be permanent and still more complicated in the future...”
Henderson specifically pointed out:
“...[proposals for partition] are in definite contravention to various principles laid down in the [UN] Charter as well as to principles on which American concepts of Government are based. These proposals, for instance, ignore such principles as self-determination and majority rule. They recognize the principle of a theocratic racial state and even go so far in several instances as to discriminate on grounds of religion and race...”
Henderson was far from alone in making his recommendations. He wrote that his views were not only those of the entire Near East Division but were shared by “nearly every member of the Foreign Service or of the Department who has worked to any appreciable extent on Near Eastern problems.”
Henderson wasn’t exaggerating. Official after official and agency after agency opposed Zionism.
In 1947 the CIA reported that Zionist leadership was pursuing objectives that would endanger both Jews and “the strategic interests of the Western powers in the Near and Middle East.”
Truman Accedes to Pro-Israel Lobby
President Harry Truman, however, ignored this advice. Truman’s political advisor, Clark Clifford, believed that the Jewish vote and contributions were essential to winning the upcoming presidential election, and that supporting the partition plan would garner that support. (Truman’s opponent, Dewey, took similar stands for similar reasons.)
Truman’s Secretary of State George Marshall, the renowned World War II General and author of the Marshall Plan, was furious to see electoral considerations taking precedence over policies based on national interest. He condemned what he called a “transparent dodge to win a few votes,” which would cause “[t]he great dignity of the office of President [to be] seriously diminished.”
Marshall wrote that the counsel offered by Clifford “was based on domestic political considerations, while the problem which confronted us was international. I said bluntly that if the President were to follow Mr. Clifford’s advice and if in the elections I were to vote, I would vote against the President...”
Henry F. Grady, who has been called “America’s top diplomatic soldier for a critical period of the Cold War,” headed a 1946 commission aimed at coming up with a solution for Palestine. Grady later wrote about the Zionist lobby and its damaging effect on US national interests.
Grady argued that without Zionist pressure, the U.S. would not have had “the ill-will with the Arab states, which are of such strategic importance in our ‘cold war’ with the soviets.” He also described the decisive power of the lobby:
“I have had a good deal of experience with lobbies but this group started where those of my experience had ended..... I have headed a number of government missions but in no other have I ever experienced so much disloyalty”...... “in the United States, since there is no political force to counterbalance Zionism, its campaigns are apt to be decisive.”
Former Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson also opposed Zionism. Acheson’s biographer writes that Acheson “worried that the West would pay a high price for Israel.” Another Author, John Mulhall, records Acheson’s warning:
“...to transform [Palestine] into a Jewish State capable of receiving a million or more immigrants would vastly exacerbate the political problem and imperil not only American but all Western interests in the Near East.”
Secretary of Defense James Forrestal also tried, unsuccessfully, to oppose the Zionists. He was outraged that Truman’s Mideast policy was based on what he called “squalid political purposes,” asserting that “United States policy should be based on United States national interests and not on domestic political considerations.”
Forrestal represented the general Pentagon view when he said that “no group in this country should be permitted to influence our policy to the point where it could endanger our national security.”
A report by the National Security Council warned that the Palestine turmoil was acutely endangering the security of the United States. A CIA report stressed the strategic importance of the Middle East and its oil resources.
Similarly, George F. Kennan, the State Department’s Director of Policy Planning, issued a top-secret document on January 19, 1947 that outlined the enormous damage done to the US by the partition plan (“Report by the Policy Planning Staff on Position of the United States with Respect to Palestine”).
Kennan cautioned that “important U.S. oil concessions and air base rights” could be lost through US support for partition and warned that the USSR stood to gain by the partition plan.
Kermit Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt’s nephew and a legendary intelligence agent, was another who was deeply disturbed by events, noting:
“The process by which Zionist Jews have been able to promote American support for the partition of Palestine demonstrates the vital need of a foreign policy based on national rather than partisan interests... Only when the national interests of the United States, in their highest terms, take precedence over all other considerations, can a logical, farseeing foreign policy be evolved. No American political leader has the right to compromise American interests to gain partisan votes...”
He went on:
“The present course of world crisis will increasingly force upon Americans the realization that their national interests and those of the proposed Jewish state in Palestine are going to conflict. It is to be hoped that American Zionists and non-Zionists alike will come to grips with the realities of the problem.”
The head of the State Department’s Division of Near Eastern Affairs, Gordon P. Merriam, warned against the partition plan on moral grounds:
“U.S. support for partition of Palestine as a solution to that problem can be justified only on the basis of Arab and Jewish consent. Otherwise we should violate the principle of self-determination which has been written into the Atlantic Charter, the declaration of the United Nations, and the United Nations Charter–a principle that is deeply embedded in our foreign policy. Even a United Nations determination in favor of partition would be, in the absence of such consent, a stultification and violation of UN’s own charter.”
Merriam added that without consent, “bloodshed and chaos” would follow, a tragically accurate prediction.
An internal State Department memorandum accurately predicted how Israel would be born through armed aggression masked as defense:
“...the Jews will be the actual aggressors against the Arabs. However, the Jews will claim that they are merely defending the boundaries of a state which were traced by the UN...In the event of such Arab outside aid the Jews will come running to the Security Council with the claim that their state is the object of armed aggression and will use every means to obscure the fact that it is their own armed aggression against the Arabs inside which is the cause of Arab counter-attack.”
And American Vice Consul William J. Porter foresaw another outcome of the partition plan: that no Arab State would actually ever come to be in Palestine.
Pro-Israel Pressure on General Assembly Members
When it was clear that the Partition recommendation did not have the required two-thirds of the UN General Assembly to pass, Zionists pushed through a delay in the vote. They then used this period to pressure numerous nations into voting for the recommendation. A number of people later described this campaign.
Robert Nathan, a Zionist who had worked for the US government and who was particularly active in the Jewish Agency, wrote afterward, “We used any tools at hand,” such as telling certain delegations that the Zionists would use their influence to block economic aid to any countries that did not vote the right way.
Another Zionist proudly stated:
“Every clue was meticulously checked and pursued. Not the smallest or the remotest of nations, but was contacted and wooed. Nothing was left to chance.”
Financier and longtime presidential advisor Bernard Baruch told France it would lose U.S. aid if it voted against partition. Top White House executive assistant David Niles organized pressure on Liberia; rubber magnate Harvey Firestone pressured Liberia.
Latin American delegates were told that the Pan-American highway construction project would be more likely if they voted yes. Delegates’ wives received mink coats (the wife of the Cuban delegate returned hers); Costa Rica’s President Jose Figueres reportedly received a blank checkbook. Haiti was promised economic aid if it would change its original vote opposing partition.
Longtime Zionist Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, along with ten senators and Truman domestic advisor Clark Clifford, threatened the Philippines (seven bills were pending on the Philippines in Congress).
Before the vote on the plan, the Philippine delegate had given a passionate speech against partition, defending the inviolable “primordial rights of a people to determine their political future and to preserve the territorial integrity of their native land...”
He went on to say that he could not believe that the General Assembly would sanction a move that would place the world “back on the road to the dangerous principles of racial exclusiveness and to the archaic documents of theocratic governments.”
Twenty-four hours later, after intense Zionist pressure, the delegate voted in favor of partition.
The U.S. delegation to the U.N. was so outraged when Truman insisted that they support partition that the State Department director of U.N. Affairs was sent to New York to prevent the delegates from resigning en masse.
On Nov 29, 1947 the partition resolution, 181, passed. While this resolution is frequently cited, it was of limited (if any) legal impact. General Assembly resolutions, unlike Security Council resolutions, are not binding on member states. For this reason, the resolution requested that “[t]he Security Council take the necessary measures as provided for in the plan for its implementation,” which the Security Council never did. Legally, the General Assembly Resolution was a “recommendation” and did not create any states.
What it did do, however, was increase the fighting in Palestine. Within months (and before Israel dates the beginning of its founding war) the Zionists had forced out 413,794 people. Zionist military units had stealthily been preparing for war before the UN vote and had acquired massive weaponry, some of it through a widespread network of illicit gunrunning operations in the US under a number of front groups.
The UN eventually managed to create a temporary and very partial ceasefire. A Swedish UN mediator who had previously rescued thousands of Jews from the Nazis was dispatched to negotiate an end to the violence. Israeli assassins killed him and Israel continued what it was to call its “war of independence.”
At the end of this war, through a larger military force than that of its adversaries and the ruthless implementation of plans to push out as many non-Jews as possible, Israel came into existence on 78 percent of Palestine.
At least 33 massacres of Palestinian civilians were perpetrated, half of them before a single Arab army had entered the conflict, hundreds of villages were depopulated and razed, and a team of cartographers was sent out to give every town, village, river, and hillock a new, Hebrew name. All vestiges of Palestinian habitation, history, and culture were to be erased from history, an effort that almost succeeded.
Israel, which claims to be the “only democracy in the Middle East,” decided not to declare official borders or to write a constitution, a situation which continues to this day. In 1967 it took still more Palestinian and Syrian land, which is now illegally occupied territory, since the annexation of land through military conquest is outlawed by modern international law. It has continued this campaign of growth through armed acquisition and illegal confiscation of land ever since.
Individual Israelis, like Palestinians and all people, are legally and morally entitled to an array of human rights.
On the other hand, the state of Israel’s vaunted “right to exist” is based on an alleged “right” derived from might, an outmoded concept that international legal conventions do not recognize, and in fact specifically prohibit.
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Hello all. I've been reading and commenting on an article on BDS, and was a bit disturbed by the extensive misconceptions about the history of the forming of Israel.
That is a short rendering of the book the article I just posted references.
Include in the above link is a substantial bibliography that supports the information given in both articles.
Further supporting information can be found here:
“...the Jews will be the actual aggressors against the Arabs. However, the Jews will claim that they are merely defending the boundaries of a state which were traced by the UN...In the event of such Arab outside aid the Jews will come running to the Security Council with the claim that their state is the object of armed aggression and will use every means to obscure the fact that it is their own armed aggression against the Arabs inside which is the cause of Arab counter-attack.”
"On Nov 29, 1947 the partition resolution, 181, passed. While this resolution is frequently cited, it was of limited (if any) legal impact. General Assembly resolutions, unlike Security Council resolutions, are not binding on member states. For this reason, the resolution requested that “[t]he Security Council take the necessary measures as provided for in the plan for its implementation,” which the Security Council never did. Legally, the General Assembly Resolution was a “recommendation” and did not create any states."
That is correct the UN never officially created the state of Israel...
BDS revisionist history.
Hello Perrie nice to meet you.
The General Assembly vote we are discussing significantly predates BDS. So, I'm not certain why you think BDS is involved. I'm talking about actual documents and statements from the time of the vote. NOT popular understanding of these things which we all know gets distorted by partisanship. However it is possible to track down what actually happened by going to the original sources of the time.
I'm sorry but General Assembly votes are not binding on member states. You can verify this in the UN Charter.
If you will read the full resolution, (I've actually already posted the relevant parts), you will find that the general assembly requested action by the Security Council, whose votes ARE binding, but the Security Council never took action.
So, no the UN did not actually create the State of Israel the general assembly is not empowered to do that. For the UN to have created the State of Israel the Security Council would have had to endorse the vote of the general assembly and enacted it.
It didn't.
Also, you might want to read the entire article. There was more than that point in it. For example, Zionists themselves bragged about rigging the vote in the general assembly. This hardly helps sustain the credibility of that vote.
Zionist intended to set up a Jewish democracy on land that was full of primarily Arabs.
How was that ever going to work without the ethnic cleansing that actually took place?
They were not setting up a "Jewish democracy"; just a plain old "democracy". (Not incidentally, still the only one in the Middle East, seventy-five years later.) As long as the Jews are a majority, they're fine.
This is why Israel most definitely does not want to absorb Judea/Samaria/Gaza. Considering the difference in birth rates, the Jews would soon be a minority.
You realize that Israel just declared itself a Jewish state? Which is actually wrong, they should have declared themselves a Zionist state and spared the Jews the association.
I know that the conditions of Arab Israelis are better than the conditions of Arabs of any other nationality, and I'm more interested in what is happening than in what is being said.
So you figure Israeli Arabs are living better than the princes in the House of Saud? Or Bahran...? Or Qatar? Or Iran?
What are you judging that by?
Then you seem to miss what the purpose was from the get go. It was to return to the Jewish motherland. The war just solidified the reason. So no it is not seperatable
I'm speaking of the man in the street.
Jewish motherland? You mean from the Torah? And like thousands of years ago?
Why should that kind of thing take precedence over people who were living there seventy years ago?
Lots of different streets. I seriously doubt that very many of the people living in the countries I mentioned would rather have Israel-Arab citizenship.
But if you can cite some evidence of that I'm more that happy to take a look at it.
I didn't say that.
Israeli Arabs are objectively better off - civil rights, health, education, whatever. That doesn't necessarily make other Arabs envious. The Israeli Arabs have their advantages at a very high price: the terrible shame of being Israeli.
People aren't often rational.
Bob,
Okay, so show me your evidence for that. Like I said. The princes of Saud tend to drive around solid silver cars and own palaces and stuff. Bahrain and Qatar are wealthy countries.
I don't think that kind of thing is common for Arab Israelis.
But if you have objective evidence, I really want to see it. You'll be helping me out. I don't want to get things wrong.
I am well aware of that and the reason I said that is because these are standard BDS talking points.
And yet Israel is a member of the UN, so someone recognizes them.
On 11 May 1949, the General Assembly by the requisite two-thirds majority approved the application to admit Israel to the UN by United Nations General Assembly Resolution 273 . [10] [11]
Well, let's see.
First of all, Jews never left the region, so it was as much theirs as not.
Second, they were living side by side for a very long time.
Third, history tells us that there was supposed to be 2 states, 1 for the arabs and one for the Jews. Jordan decided otherwise.
And as for "ethnic cleansing" of course a very ugly term, there are actually more Palestinians now than there were at the start of Israel, so the evil Israelis are doing a really bad job of their ethnic cleansing.
Which is the reason that in Judea and Samaria they are increasing the number of settlements; and increasing the size of the major settlements. Israel doesn't agree with you.
See the attached articles. They are not going to take the Palestinians. Those in the areas that are annexed will be forced into the "Palestinian" area remaining. Israel has no intention of granting the Palestinians citizenship. Which is the reason that they are pushing the whole Jordan is Palestine concept as hard as possible.
Little wonder why Jordan and Egypt are against "The Deal of the Century".
Don't worry, as I have stated no one is going to stand up to Israel if the decide to annex a good portion of the West Bank. The Palestinians don't have any capacity. Jordan relies on US aide and backing to survive. Egypt has no interest in the Palestinian cause left. Syria- please they will be fighting a proxy civil war for the foreseeable future- once that is over they won't be any shape to fight anyone. Lebanon- worse off than Jordan. So who else would stop Israel? The US will block any resolution in the UN Security Council.
I have said repeatedly. It is only a matter of time before Israel gets the borders they want. It is just taking them longer than they like.
"I'm sorry but General Assembly votes are not binding on member states. You can verify this in the UN Charter."
"And yet Israel is a member of the UN, so someone recognizes them."
Two different things. We weren't discussing whether or not Israel is a member of the UN. We were discussing whether or not the UN created the state of Israel.
It did not.
How can this be a BDS talking point when this stuff went down a long time ago? It's not a BDS talking point... it's a fact. Anyone can use a fact, don't have to create a group to do it.... or a list of talking points.
"Well, let's see.
First of all, Jews never left the region, so it was as much theirs as not."
Would you mind explaining this please? Are you saying that even one Jew in a region of millions of Palestinians has as much right to that land as the group of millions of Palestinians?
Get real. Which Israeli does? You pose to know all about it. Let's see some pictures. Not a good comparison.
I have read some of your posts and responses to them keep them safe at thi spoint?
If I was to bet, I would bet those posts push for a one state solution, based on them in entirety.
Oh, which one state solution? The one where Israel is driven in to the sea.
Am I wrong about that? Or are there other reasons for the anti Israel stance?
"I know that the conditions of Arab Israelis are better than the conditions of Arabs of any other nationality"
So at least we now agree that this is not exactly accurate.
"...and of course you are saved now on that other thread."
I'm sorry, but I don't know this means.
Here is a hint; you need to do a better job of indicating whose quotes you are using.
More propaganda?
I am thinking more propaganda. Kind os like focusing on an obfuscation and conveniently bypassing this:
What is it?
More BS.
A tailored response to me on this issue is sweeping your previous posts about Israel under the carpet.
Sure, right here.
Not sure how I quoted myself. Didn't mean to. Newb here.
"More propaganda?"
Not exactly sure what you meant with that.
Bob and I were talking about Arab Israelis.
He said, "I know that the conditions of Arab Israelis are better than the conditions of Arabs of any other nationality"
I said something to the effect of better than Arab Princes?
He said Man of the street.
I said Bahrain and Qatar are wealthy Arab countries... different streets...
Then you said.
"What is it?"
What is what? Do I push a one state solution? No. I've said that a bunch of times. I'm for a no state solution. No state is different than one state or two states.
I will give you the benefit of the doubt. Maybe you have short term memory loss.
Here, try reading this again:
Sounds like you've made up your mind.
Take care and thanks for the conversation.
Actually you made up your own mind, based on your own words.
Third time is a charm:
You see that?
I specifically stated I was speaking in absolutes. Not actually pushing an actual one state solution.
You can verify this is true simply by reading all the other times you are choosing to ignore where I made UNQUALIFIED statements concerning MY thoughts on the matter, and was not speaking in absolute terms of justice and right and wrong.
There is no absolute justice, and right and wrong is contextual.
I figured you were aware of this. I thought I was being very clear.
That is more BS.
You specifically stated this and there is nothing more to add, nor twist, nor contort.
BTW, I will say it one more time. Be careful how you use quotes. You are making it look like I stated:
Which I never did.
The fact of the matter is you pushed a one state solution and now you are trying a sorry CYA game.
Not working.
Okay one more time and you are on you own with your opinion.
There are two main sections in the comment you are objecting to:
The first I begin with
"Just speaking in terms of absolute right and wrong." You can pretend that is not a qualifier, if you'd like. But that is exactly what it is.
Leading me to the second qualifier I used in the second section.
"On a more practical note." In which I discussed what I thought was LIKELY.
In other comments, I've stated MY philosophy. Which was the no state solution.
You are welcome to take bits and pieces and put them together however you wish.
Now, I've enjoyed talking with you, and hope to do so again.
Have a great evening.
We're saying the same thing. I'm stating a reality. You're condemning it.
Israel could have annexed Judea/Samaria at any moment since 1967. The Golan, militarily important, was annexed in 1981.
Judea/Samaria would be a demographic time bomb, so Israel doesn't want it.
There is no "boundary" between Judea/Samaria and Israel. There is a "Green Line", basically the cease-fire line agreed between Jordan and Israel, to end the 1948 war. The Green Line is an accident of war. Most wars end with a treaty that rationalizes the boundary. The rationalization of the boundary remains to be accomplished.
Israel is slowly but surely changing the inevitable future boundary. This is permanent pressure on the Palestinians to make a treaty.
The Palestinians could end this process at any time, by signing the treaty that everyone knows is desirable and inevitable. But while the Palestinian people may (it's complicated) desire peace, their leadership obviously does not.
So Israel will continue to nibble...
First, there is no such thing as absolute right and wrong.
As for what you think is LIKELY, why do you need to state that? What is it with some posters who take the most obvious thing and treat it like a secret golden nugget?
Now point out where I have taken "bits a pieces". I put the spotlight on an entire post of yours. All that other nonsense is nothing more than obfuscation to smoke screen you true intent which you continue to evade since that post. You were even incapable of re-quoting it right here.
Don't shy away from it. Shout it out loud from the roof tops.
Give them "dirty Jews" the same fate they got in every other ME nation. Right? Shout it out loud!!!
As you said:
Sorry, as I stated before, Israel refuses to be a victim, regardless of what you think is LIKELY.
Princes are not a nationality, dumpkopf!
It needs to be condemned.
I will agree with you on inevitable; but desirable- only to the Israelis.
Yes, it is complicated for the Palestinian people are between a rock Israel, and a hard place (their corrupt leadership that is only interested in maintaining power and enriching themselves- that goes for both Hamas & the PA. You will never see a post from me supporting the leadership of the PA and Hamas). Israel will not negotiate on border rights, air space, water rights, mineral rights, port rights, right of return ,or even granting a land corridor for free travel between the West Bank and Gaza. Of course all they have are the PA and Hamas to negotiate with; which is also by their own making.
Yes, and in doing so further weaken the PA (which is corrupt- but also pathetic and weak at this point); and strengthens Hamas (who Israel really hates, since Hamas is willing to fight them). If Israel had any interest in peace they would negotiate in earnest with the PA, and allow them to take charge in both the West Bank and Gaza. The PA has no interest in fighting Israel anymore. It needs Israel to stay in power. Of course that would mean concessions that Israel has no intention of making.
So you are correct about the time bomb. Just wrong about the type. Israel can force Palestinians off their land- it has done so before, and continues to do so. So Demographics don't concern them in the slightest. The time bomb is Hamas, and how fast they rise to power in the West Bank. Of course Hamas might just be the excuse for Nakba II.
I think his mind was made up before he ever started posting this seed.
I'm fatally allergic to sarcasm, I'm afraid. I'll need to get to a doctor now.
Have a nice day, dave.
You've really hurt my feeling.
Have a nice day.
Um... yeah.
Wasn't yours before you read this... WTF is a "seed"?
This is a "seed". That's what we call it when you "seed" an article from another source for discussion here on Newstalkers.
Other items for discussion may be original articles written by yourself, or blogs.
Yep, I would take that bet, alright.
I am sorry, but I see nothing but nefarious intent.
What an incredibly stupid remark!
Do you actually read a comment before replying to it?
Never mind the fact Iran is not known for being an Arab state.
Exactly!
Apparently flame is unfamiliar with the real (i.e. true) history of the area-- based upon the unreliable sources he/she cites that is quite obvious!
You're comparing Apples with Oranges. You're trying to compare ordinary Israeli Arabs with the leadership of the surrounding countries and that is not a valid comparison. The Saudi princes live better than everyone in Israel, including the leaders. They also live far better than the ordinary Saudi citizens. That difference between the way the rulers live and the way ordinary people live is prevalent throughout the Middle Eastern states, at least in every country but Israel. Not that the Israeli leaders don't live better than ordinary citizens, Jewish or Arab, but the difference is much less marked than in the other countries in the area.
When it comes right down to it, the reason the US supports Israel is not because they have a nice clean history and the other countries don't. It has nothing to do with right or wrong. Simply put, the Israelis are stronger and particularly they are more stable than the surrounding states. Do the Israelis have blood on their hands? Sure they do, all governments do. What of it. The US State Department couldn't care less whether one side is nicer than the other or even whether they have a better historical right to exist. The simple fact is that the other Middle Eastern states are not dependable enough nor useful enough to the United States to matter that much in the calculation.
We're not dealing with exercises on a children's playground here. This is international politics, where gentlemen decide their differences based on who has the biggest club.
No-- like from decomented history. As well as from archaeological finds, verified by scientifically reliable carbon dating, that have proven that Jews have inhabited that area since ancient times. (BTW this started long before the first Muslim ever set foot in the area).
Here's an animated map of the area showing the various groups that were there. Notice when the first Hebrew peoples inhabited the area. Tghen notice when the first "palestinians" appeared in the area.
Then you can post the dates here for each...
OK?
Israeli Arabs are objectively better off - civil rights, health, education, whatever.
Exactly!
Actually I've always found it ironic that Israeli's Arab citizens can vote in free elections-- and even have elected representatives in the Israeli parliament. Yet if they were citizens of just about all of the 20+ Arab countries instead of Israel-- they wouldn't have that right!
(Isn't it interesting that flame has somehow "forgotten" to mention that...?)
All good points.
And BTW-- there's another reason which, strangely, is not all that well known amongst most Americans. And that is that israel is not only an American ally, but probably has done more in recent times to assist American goals.
(Personally I was opposed to the war in Iraq. But once American forces invaded-- imagine what would have happened to them if Saddam had tactical nuclear weapons-- and used them on advancing American forces? Well-- he didn't have nukes, at least at that time. And we have Israel to thank for that!)
The first masquers were done by Arabs.
Here is a full chart of who killed who.
Great link, Perrie. The table shows the horrible intimacy of the two sides.
I'd like to recall that Black September cost many thousands of Palestinian lives... far more than Israel has taken in all the years since independence.
Chart only goes back to 1920...
The chart contains all the important events The only one it doesn’t contain is the Grand Muffi meeting with Hitler discussing how to make the region Juden frei
The chart doesn't contain a lot of information Perrie. It certainly does not contain the full record of conflict between Zionists and Palestinians. That runs further back than 1920.
Stuff was happening in the 1890's between the two groups. The Ottomans allowed some Jewish refugees into Palestine due to pogroms in Europe. The refugees began trying to assert political control and this caused issues. Between the two groups.
"The Hovevei Zion, or the Lovers of Zion, were responsible for the creation of 20 new Jewish settlements in Palestine between 1870 and 1897"
The thing to remember is that Palestinians were there all along with a small number of Jews in the region... and they did not own very much land.
All this is in the article.
Zionists began a program of trying to buy up land as one way to gain political control. This was funded by wealthy Zionist families from outside the region.
In the USA right now we have an immigration problem, with new people coming in and the old coming into conflict with them.
This happens and is not particularly noteworthy in historical terms. Nor was it in Palestine until Zionists began pouring in with the express intent of gaining political control of the region.
So... I guess I'm wondering if you'd side with immigrants coming here to the USA if they had the express purpose of taking the USA over? And were funded by Muslims?
Perrie, too PC of the article to mention that little tid bit.
Gee, I wonder how that happened?
Exactly.
Anti-Semitism and other forms of racist bigotry were quite common amongst the Arabs in the area. (I dsay "Arabs" not "Palestinians" because up until failr recently, "Palestine" was not a nationality or even an ethnicity-- rather, "Palestine" was the name for a general area. (Comparable, for example, to the term "Southerner" in the U.S.-- Someone from a vaguely defined area , someone who could be of any race or religion).
The chart contains all the important events The only one it doesn’t contain is the Grand Muffi meeting with Hitler discussing how to make the region Juden frei
Exactly.
Anti-Semitism and other forms of racist bigotry were quite common amongst the Arabs in the area. (I say "Arabs" not "Palestinians" because up until fairly recently, "Palestine" was not a nationality or even an ethnicity-- rather, "Palestine" was the name for a general area.
(Comparable, for example, to the term "Southerner" in the U.S.-- Someone from a vaguely defined area , someone who co uld be of any race or religion or ethnicity).
However, moving away from flameaway's feeble racist attempts at derails, back to the topic. Yyou make an excellent point Perrie. many people forget the types of leaders the so-called "Palestinians" picked.
And the extent to which they acted on their racvism. For example, their leader , The Mufti of jerusalem, actually met with Hitler in an attempt to expedite their common goals to extermination of the Jews.
But surely, that must be some incidental photo...oh wait, I wonder what was going on here?
You don't think there were some deeper ties to get rid of "them dirty Jews" do you?
Why not just use Stormfront as your source?
In an ostensibly anti-Israel piece entitled “9 things you need to know about the Israeli occupation of Palestine,” Stanford professor of comparative literature David Palumbo-Liu, a strident supporter of academic, cultural, and economic boycotts of Israel, recommended that readers eschew the “mainstream media” in favor of an anti-Semitic hate site.
“Here’s what you can do,” he wrote . “Find out more on your own from multiple sources—do not rely solely on the US mainstream media for your information. Look at Mondoweiss , the Jewish Voice for Peace , the American Friends Service Committee , Electronic Intifada , If Americans Knew .”
Several of these outlets have been credibly accused of publishing anti-Semitic content. But one of them has been so blatant in its anti-Jewish invective that it has even been denounced by other members on Palumbo’s list. If Americans Knew (IAK), a non-profit founded by activist Alison Weir, has the rare distinction of being condemned for furthering anti-Semitism by the Anti-Defamation League , Jewish Voice for Peace , and the U.S. Campaign to End the Occupation .
Weir earned this remarkable wall-to-wall opprobrium by promoting anti-Semitic myths, working with white supremacists, and publishing anti-Jewish content on IAK’s web site. Among other exploits:
• Weir published an original blog post on her personal site which justified anti-Semitism by labeling the Jewish “race” as “an object of hatred to all the peoples among whom it has established itself,” In the words of the U.S. Campaign to End the Occupation, the piece “effectively blam[ed] Jews for anti-Semitism.”
• Weir has not only promoted the conspiracy theory that Israel harvests the organs of Palestinians—an update of the medieval blood libel—but has actually asserted the accuracy of the original blood libel itself, which accused Jews of ritually murdering Christian children to use their blood in Passover matzo. (Weir cited the discredited and since withdrawn research of a Jewish writer.)
• Weir has worked repeatedly with white supremacists, while never challenging their bigoted claims. For instance, in a series of appearances on the radio show of white supremacist and Holocaust denier Clayton Douglas , Weir dismissed allegations that he was a racist, did not challenge his repeated assertions of Jewish control of the world, and did not protest when he played a speech by former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke. Writes the U.S. Campaign to End the Occupation, “Weir made little to no effort to challenge, confront, or rebut any of these views; on the contrary, she continued to appear on the show.”
• Weir has also published repeatedly at the American Free Press , a white supremacist anti-Semitic site that is designated as a hate outlet by the Southern Poverty Law Center .
So, none of that prevent Ms. Weir from actually being able to accurately criticize Israel.
As a general rule I don't judge that Zionist have much credibility when it comes to charging other entities with Antisemitism.
You see... all Jews get blamed for what Zionists do. And Zionism isn't equivalent to Judaism. Not even close.
Zionism is Antisemitic for this reason. Which is why you have Christian Zionists, and Nazi Zionists and just all kinds of different Zionists.
And it's all about stealing other people's lands. NOT Judaism.
I saw some Jews just a little while ago. They were getting arrested for blocking an ICE facility.
Those ones are Jews... Judge a tree by the fruit... and the shit it stands in. Those ones are welcome and principled.
The Zionists ones are tyrants... whatever their religion just happens to be. These ones... Why bother to belabor it?
Once again, another contradiction of this very statement found right here 5.3.4 DanSchmidt1959 :
In all practical purposes a wish of genocide against the Jews.
What happened to all the Jews in all the surrounding Arab nations and for that matter the Aryan nation of Iran?
interesting new addition, know ?
Dave,
We've already discussed this, I explained it to you twice. I'm not going to keep trying to help you understand my position when you so clearly do not want to.
It's gonna be the same message each time you bring it up.
You are misunderstanding my position.
Period.
I'd know.
Have a nice day.
Everyone is interesting. I'm just newly interesting.
[deleted]
[comments about other members are always off topic & no value.]
[Ditto, disparaging comments about NewsVine and ex-NV members.]
Sorry there DanSchmidt/flameaway, there is very little to misunderstand about this genocidal statement:
Tell me again, what happen to all the Jews in all those neighboring Arab countries? Don't forget that neighboring country of Iran.
Oh, that's right, you haven't said.
Nope and nope.
Hey, I have an idea, maybe my name is Dave. Oh, that's right it is Dave.
Based upon the flavour of his racist rants, I have a feeling he already does!
What are you-- some kind of a nut?
What about all the Israeli Jews' land that was seized by the former part of Palestine (now "Jordan") when it was carved out of The Britisih Mandate of palestine. They seized jews' land in a widespread and blatant violation of international law!
Guess you don't want to discuss that, eh flamebrain???
Attacking sources is a logic error.
"If Americans Knew" is well-known anti-Semitic website!
Shame on you!!!
"On Nov 29, 1947 the partition resolution, 181, passed. While this resolution is frequently cited, it was of limited (if any) legal impact. General Assembly resolutions, unlike Security Council resolutions, are not binding on member states. For this reason, the resolution requested that “[t]he Security Council take the necessary measures as provided for in the plan for its implementation,” which the Security Council never did. Legally, the General Assembly Resolution was a “recommendation” and did not create any states."
That is correct the UN never officially created the state of Israel...
"Israel, which claims to be the “only democracy in the Middle East,” decided not to declare official borders or to write a constitution, a situation which continues to this day. In 1967 it took still more Palestinian and Syrian land, which is now illegally occupied territory, since the annexation of land through military conquest is outlawed by modern international law. It has continued this campaign of growth through armed acquisition and illegal confiscation of land ever since.
Individual Israelis, like Palestinians and all people, are legally and morally entitled to an array of human rights.
On the other hand, the state of Israel’s vaunted “right to exist” is based on an alleged “right” derived from might, an outmoded concept that international legal conventions do not recognize, and in fact specifically prohibit."
So Israel was never actually created by the UN, it doesn't have a written Constitution or defined borders, and it was created by invasion, occupation, and terror.
These are all not nice things.
Verify your sources.
Google "Alison Weir Israel".
Please look up the Sterns, Irgun, and Lehi gangs they are facts.
Also, Israel did move against Palestinians living in Israel when they declared statehood. The Nakba did occur- despite Isreali denial. The call for Palestinians to remain in their homes was a lie.
Neither side is clean in this conflict. Pretending one is better than the other is a complete waste of time.
Reality is that Israel is backed by the US. Israel has the largest military in the ME. Israel will have borders of their choosing; it will just take longer than they like.
They are true. But that was not what most Zionist believed. They were extremist... just like any other extremist.
Tell me. Where they US backed during the 1948 war? '67 war? Yom Kipper war? Funny but I don't remember American troops there.
I don't know what "better" means in this context. My article attempts to recount the facts. Contrary to popular opinion, facts do not have any particular bias.
If you mean some sort of moral scale.... I wouldn't know how to weigh seventy-five years of conflict. Israel has its stains - Sabra and Shatila being perhaps the worst. The Arab nations have been abominably cynical. Jordan undoubtedly killed and exiled more Palestinians during Black September than Israel has since the beginning.
Palestinian leadership has been more interested in holding power than in finding a solution. Israeli leadership has gradually declined from Ben-Gurion to the lamentable Netanyahu. Arab leadership has of course been strictly self-interested.
What do you mean by "better"?
Do you really think Israel has too much land?
Here's a map of Israel and the Muslim world (israel is so tiny its a bit difficult to see-- its the area coloured in red):
And none of this stuff you mention would be happening if Israel hadn't forced it's way into the region.
There are 22 Arab countries (this is not counting Gaza which has been judenfrei and self governing since Israeli troops destroyed all the settlements there and forceably ended the Occupation and totally withdrew in 2005).
Here is how Israel compares in size to one of its neighbours. This is an old Size Comparison Map-- Israel, plus occupied West Bank, plus independent Palestinian Gaza shown in dark blue. Gaza should no longer be included in the dark area as it is now a self-governing Palestinian entity-- there's no longer a single Jew in the entire place!)
Does Israel have "too much land"? I suppose that's a matter of opinion!
And none of this stuff you mention would be happening if Israel hadn't forced it's way into the region.
WTF? Jews-- and an independent Jewish state-- had existed there long before the first Muslim ever set foot into the region!
There have been numerous conquests, by many different empires, over the centuries. Here's an animated map that shows the conquests. Watch it carefully and you will see when the first independent Jewish state was created-- and then find when the first Palestinian state was created!
So, military and financial aid don't count? Being the #1 weapons supplier, and joint military training and research. Backing Israel in the UN Security Council by blocking resolutions. Using US influence and money to get concessions from Egypt, Jordan, and Saudia Arabia. Sharing intelligence with Israel beyond our normal allies.
Boots on the ground is not the only way to "back" a country.
Why are you posting false information?
For starters, Turkey's military is much larger than that of Israel. (And if I'm not mistaken, Egypt's might also be larger0..
Of course is there another Arab-Israeli war, israel would be fighting a much, much largwer force-- the combined armies of several Arab countries which would be several times larger than Israeli forces...
Any land taken from others is too much land. I don't just feel this way about Zionists. Same deal anywhere you find native people's beset by settler colonialism.
So are you saying Israel has a right to impose borders however they choose just because they have a small amount of land? Regardless of international law?
How big do you think any Palestinian state is going to be? A fraction of the West Bank (growing smaller by the passing year, and more Israeli settlements) and the Gaza Strip- that are not even connected. Try making that work as a viable country.
Before you ask. No, Arabs are not even close to "all being the same people". There are religious, tribal, clan, and even family conflicts that go back decades. The Palestinians that were forced out of Israel/Palestine have not been absorbed into Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, or even Jordan (though Jordan has made full citizens of some). They are not wanted anywhere else in the ME.
Sorry, Israel has the most advanced, most dominant, and best military in the ME. Happy?
Want to make a bet on who wins the next war? There is a reason Egypt, Jordan, and Syria have not tried for round 3 with Israel. That is if the US would be willing to step aside and not impose crippling sanctions and stop aide to Egypt and Jordan. Much the less not get involved directly militarily on Israel's side.
"...had existed there long before the first Muslim ever set foot into the region!"
As I recall they lost that state.... and there were Palestinians around back then as well. You know living in Palestine, but they hadn't become Muslims yet because there weren't any Muslims yet.
Ever heard of Philistines?
You might want to look up the etiology of that word... on a Jewish history site.
Did Jews start in the Biblical land of Israel? Because I seem to remember something about an Exodus and Joshua horning down the walls of Jericho. Why he have to do that if the region was Jewish homeland again?
According to the Torah, the Jews were given a land by god, but that land was already occupied and was NOT the Jewish homeland... if it were then god would not have to have given it to them, and they wouldn't have needed god's help to kill the people who were already there...
I mean if you believe the Torah and in god.
The colonialists were the Ottoman Empire (now Turkey)-- they were the colonial rulers. Since those colonial rulers lost WWI< the former colonial rulers (Turkey) lost the land, and it got new colonial rulers-- Great Britain. (It became a defacto british colony, called "The British Mandate of Palestine).
In 1946 Britain gave independence to the larger portion of the Mandate, the land east of the Jordan River, to form a new country ruled by Arab inhabitants of "Palestine"-- the country was called The Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan.
In 1948 Britain no longer wanter to rule the smaller remaining portion, so it turned the problem over to the UN. Here's what the UN did:
The UN created recommended the creation of independent Arab and Jewish states, with Jerusalem to be placed under international administration .
On 29 November 1947, the UN General Assembly, voting 33 to 13, with 10 abstentions, adopted a resolution recommending the adoption and implementation of the Plan of Partition with Economic Union as Resolution 181 while making some adjustments to the boundaries between the two states proposed by it. The division was to take effect on the date of British withdrawal. Both the U.S. and the Soviet Union supported the resolution.
So 2 years after Britiain gave the larger portion over to Arab self-rule, the smaller remaining portion was supposed to be made into another Arab ruled country as well as a Jewish country.
But several Arab states attacked attempting to "drive the Jews into the sea".
Israel survived.
But what became of the areas that were to become the second new Palestinian state?
After a cease-fire, Egypt ended up occupying Gaza, Jordan ended up occupying "the West Bank". These two areas were supposed to be another new Palestinian (Arab ruled) country. But both Egypt and Jordan , in violation of International Law, refused to withdraw, refused to allow a new Palestinian country to be formed!
(Later changed the status of the West Bank from "Occupied"-- they actually annexed it and made itnpart of Jordan!!!! (So no indopendenct "Palestine" was formed there).
The UN did not create Israel. This has already been established due to the fact that UN General Assembly votes are non binding on member states.
If you can show a Security Council Resolution enacting the General Assembly vote recommending the creation of Israel, I'd certainly like to see it.
"But several Arab states attacked attempting to "drive the Jews into the sea".
Actually several Arab states counter-attacked. Israel was the original aggressor.
"Seems so silly that they just can’t let them have that little bit of land."
Would it seem silly to you if it was someone claiming just a little room in your home?
Right but you keep skipping past the part where Israel started all this, in the first place.
Zionist's invaded and annexed other people's homes.
It actually did happen that way.
Some interesting points.
I think it's anachronistic to call the Ottoman Empire "colonialist". The Ottomans claimed to be, and were generally accepted to be, the successors of the Caliphates. They ruled the region as an integral part of their empire. (For the inhabitants, this was just another regime. The region has been ruled by "people fromn elsewhere" at least since the Roman Empire.)
Personally, I am very skeptical of the Brits. They carved off the "Hashemite Emirate of Transjordan" in the 1920s, supposedly as a reward for loyal allies during WWI. The Emirate had "protectorate" status, with the Brits keeping control of military and diplomatic affairs. The Brits led the Arab Legion (Transjordanian army commanded by British officers) until the aftermath of the 1956 war, which Jordan sat out.) The Arab Legion, led by its British officers, occupied Judea/Samaria in 1948.
A skeptic like me sees the whole history of Jordan as the Brits taking all the land east of the Jordan off the "Jewish homeland" negotiating table. The timing is impeccable.
Good point.
For those unfamiliar with the map of the Middle east-- here's another size comparison map. Here's the size of Israel compared to Mexico:
And as previously mentioned, thse Israel size comparison maps are outdated. When they were created, they included Gaza as part of Israel (it was occupied at the time).
However Israel is actually smaller than shown in this map as they have since totally ended the occupation of Gaza. (Gaza is now a wholly palestinian governed entity-- a second independent Palestinian state!
I have something against Zionism, mostly because it is profoundly Anti-Semitic. If you support Israel you are supporting Antisemitism.
Which is what you just accused me of.
Israel does not equal Jews. Israel equals Zionism.
So, here is why Zionism is Anti-Semitic.
Because all Jews get blamed for the the horror that is Israel. And true to the "if I can't win on points, I'll try to win on BS" ethic that pervades people that choose the wrong sides of moral issues... those people accuse others of the faults they are guilty of.
I've got no problems with Jews. But I do have problem with the Zionist murders.
Something else you might want to keep in mind before you start trying to smear people who criticize Zionism as Antisemitic...
Zionism is not a religion, it's a philosophy and as such it's held by very many people who simply are not Jews.
Have a nice day.
Does Israel have too much land?
Does a bank robber have too much money after a job?
This is not a rational argument you are making here. It's not a matter of opinion whether or not Israel has too much land. That is not how things are decided... Do you know why?
Because if it were, I'm personally entitled to the Koch brother's money. Cause they just have too much... and I don't have any.
Hmmm. I don't personally own any of the Wailing Wall.
I'll take it.
WTF?
You lack of knowledge of history is astounding-- for someone who is so poorly informed about the history of the area you really spew forth a lot of anti-Semitic crap!!
Fact: Jews have lived there since continuously ancient times. Its been continuously inhabited by Jews since ancient times.(And before you post more of your hate-filled racist lies, you might want to checkout the evidence of Jewish presence of this that archaeolgists have found-- and verifiably proved with carbon-dating!
Attacking sources is a logic error. You are supposed to debate the information. Alison Wier is a anti Zionist partisan. But there are innumerable sources in the material that I posted that are not Alison Wier.
And being a partisan is not evidence of wrongness. It is possible to be partisan in a just cause.
All that being said.
The information I've posted is verifiable from sources in the material I posted. These sources include US internal government memos, Statements from officials, UN documents, News stories from the times, books.
It's a lot to dismiss without even having had the conversation about.
No. Neither of us was a first-hand witness. We are both quoting third parties. The quality of our knowledge is strictly a function of the quality of our sources.
I wrote my article based on a number of Wikipedia articles. Those articles are constantly subject to wide scrutiny. The article once had a number of links... but it has been copied, re-copied, and re-re-copied... and somewhere along the line, the links were lost. Perhaps some day, I'll get courageous, and re-research them.
Alison Weir has made a career of attacking Israel. Her one-sided articles are not subject to critical editors.
Your choice.
Wiki is not source material. I'm using source material. Please actually read my article. I read yours.
Just because Alison Weir has made a career of attacking Israel does not mean what she says is false.
This is the logical fallacy.
I think you should re-read the definition.
I read Weir's article.
I'm going to stop here for a cooling-off period. Please think about all of this. Maybe we'll come back later.
sources matter. That is why we have so much fake news. Sources can also be bias. History can be distorted by agenda.
Fair enough.
I know the definition of source material. But we can go into that later at your discretion.
Sources do matter. And divining between sources is a matter of critical thinking. But attacking a source because they disagree with your position is not a valid logical argument. It is possible to legitimately criticize Israel. Just because someone makes a career of this does effect their credibility.
The content of what they criticize should effect their credibility. Not whether they support Israel or not.
Wiki has all the sources at the bottom of every page.
Doesn't make it true either.
It is a rewriting of history. That is the issue. For that matter "Stormfront" could be source material, or Mein Kampf, but we really want to use that? I think not.
Hi Perrie,
Sure, wiki has source material... but it's often buried in off line books or article. You can find the relevant source material in the articles I cited. Or I'm providing it from other sources I cite.
For example the UN Charter concerning non binding general assembly votes.
You are of course, correct that we can't simply assume that Ms. Weir is telling the truth any more than we can assume she is lying.
Completely agree with that. This is why I was careful to identify Ms. Weir as an Anti Zionist partisan above here somewhere.
So, I'm not so much Anti Zionist as I'm an anarchist... or anti-authoritarian. So one of my biases is against authority in all forms that can't be justified in some rational way that trends toward minimum authority and maximum freedom for individuals and societies.
So, for example. I feel exactly the same way about Hamas as I do about the governing authorities in Israel. Both are abusive authorities, that might vary in extent, but not significantly in quality. So, for example if the leadership situation in Palestine/Israel were reversed I would expect Palestinians to be at least as abusive toward Israelis as Israelis currently are being toward Palestinians. It's not so much that the dog is different but that one is on top in any fight.
Violence escalates, that is why it's foolish, we tend to follow this in our personal lives because we tend to cooperate. But at leadership scales it's rarely about cooperation and much more often about competition. This means personal egos and interests are served not public safety and health.
This leadership dynamic is operating almost across the board in US and world society and the blind drive for personal success is rendering the ecosystem, public health and safety, world peace, and very possibly our future as a species.
The truism goes that the victors write the history books. Who won between Palestinians and Israel?
Not when the sources are as unreliable-- even downright false-- like the ones you use!!!
I look at all this a little bit differently. At this point, it doesnt matter how Israel was created, but it does matter why it was created. At the end of World War 2 it was crystal clear that anti-semitism is a world wide phenomena and that it led directly to the deaths of millions of Jews , and that the Jewish people would not necessarily be safe as a group unless they controlled their own territory and were subject to their own governmental authority. I have no issue with the creation of a Jewish state on their ancestral homeland. Nor do I object to the U.S. providing them funding to protect themselves and also advance US interests in the region.
But, there should be a Palestinian state as well. The concept of Palestinians living within Israel as second class citizens is neither fair nor workable.
I agree. What's important is how the Muslim state of Palestine was not created... and how the hapless Palestinians have been weaponized by various Muslim states ever since.
May I suggest Jordan. It was part of the original Palestinian Mandate, and is three times the size of Israel. I suspect that massive international aid could be found for desalination / irrigation projects.
Hi John, Nice to meet you. There have been Jews living all over the world for thousands of years. And they are not the only group to suffer pogroms.
I think the homeland argument has legs to some extent, if you apply it to all people's everywhere.
So for example. White people have been around for about 8000 years. Their ancestral homeland is the Caucuses.
The people of Turtle Island, (what you call North America) have a homeland as well. As do Palestinians... in Palestine.
The focused concern on one group to the extent that it removes other peoples... seems inconsistent.
"As do Jews...in what is now called Israel...for hundreds of years"
Probably more like thousands actually. But whatever
Something like 20% of Israeli citizens are Muslim Arabs. They have the right to vote. And, in fact, they elect representatives to the Knesset (Israel's parliament). But here's the irony-- this (as well as some of the other Democratic rights they have as Israeli citizens) they would not have in almost all of any of the 22 Arab states!
I'm wondering-- where's the outrage and the lack of democratic freedoms Arabs have in the vast majority of Arab countries?
Yeah I don't like people being held under authoritarian regimes as literally every single existing nation on Earth is.
We can talk about how bad Arab Authoritarians are. But I specifically seeded this article trying to clear up some misconceptions about how Israel was formed.
But yeah, I tend not to break it down by this authoritarian or that authoritarian. Arabs are authoritarians. Floridians are authoritarians... Businesses are authoritarian...
As far as I can tell any authoritarian of any creed is gonna suck in the sense that person is just some other dude/dudette with no authority to tell anyone what to do except violence.
If you are asking why I'm concerned for Palestinians... at this particular time, that's easy.
They need help they aren't getting.
And yup Palestinians are authoritarians too... dying and shyte overrides my objections to authoritarians.
If Trump and Nancy Pelosi were being abused... I'd speak against it and try to help them.
And when I say that I don't particularly care for them... I don't. Doesn't matter. Hospitality trumps politics in my world.
And you find this surprising? Why?
There are already two self-governing Arab states, wherein Palestinian Arabs form the majority. that have been created out of the British Mandate of Palestine:
-Jordan
-Gaza
They deliberately refuse to declare statehood...can you guess why?
If each side had its choice tomorrow, Israel would peacefully remain where they are. Given its druthers, the arab countries surrounding Israel would slaughter every Jew in Israel and take the whole country for themselves. History has shown that to be true and the various powers surrounding Israel have said so out loud for many years.
"Israel would peacefully remain where they are."
This is not accurate. Israel is constantly expanding. And Israel hasn't been peaceful.
"Given its druthers, the arab countries surrounding Israel would slaughter every Jew in Israel and take the whole country for themselves."
You mean like it was theirs before Israel invaded?
That's simply not true. In fact, after being attacked and taking land, Israel subsequently gave back land in the interests of peace. What did they get for their trouble? More attacks.
No, actually it was being administered by Britain under the authority of the League of Nations, with the stated purpose of turning it into a homeland for the Jews. Before that, it belong to the Ottoman Empire, and preceding muslim empires, and before that, the Romans - all of whom invaded and took over the land of Israel, home of the Jews. How far back would you like to go to see who it belongs to? Maybe some Cro-Magnon guy has a deed in his prehistorical basement.
Gave back? Then they must have taken it in the first place. Sound like expansion followed by appropriate contraction. But are you saying that ever since then. Israel hasn't taken ANY new territory?
Does Israel have self defined borders? Why do you think that is?
If they were interested in peace when returning the territory, why did they blow stuff up as they left?
"No, actually it was being administered by Britain under the authority of the League of Nations, with the stated purpose of turning it into a homeland for the Jews."
Not entirely accurate... with the stated purpose of administrating Sanjaks left without governance... until they could stand on their own. This has been quoted above and is in the article I posted.
"How far back would you like to go to see who it belongs to?"
Well... seems appropriate to go back to what the Torah of the Jews says about it. Since you asked.
If you will recall. Israel of the times was the promised land that the Jewish god decided to give to the Jews because they were his chosen people... even though they were always messing around and cheating on god... and even in spite of such notions as ethnic superiority (an almost universal problem with small groups of people, not just Jews and angry white men with tattoo tears)
So anyway, burning bush, first set of BS rules, leadership hierarchy... that's leaders of tens and leaders of tens of tens. This is how the Jews managed to take the Promised Land. Hierarchical military organization. Before that they were wanderers. Hunting manna in the wilderness provided by god.
In other words they were hunter gatherers with a range they roamed like a mountain lion.
One of the most detailed descriptions of the process of moving from hunter-gatherers to the agrarian lifestyle extant. But then the Jews had been hunter gatherers before wandering in the wilderness and crossing the Red Sea. It's fairly typical for group to make the transition to the agrarian lifestyle in stages. It's risky business learning agriculture from scratch. The Jew did not have to do that. Humanity and the humanities owes many debts to the general scholarship and intellectual achievements of the Jews. Egypt beat them to the transition of course, but that is only important to the story. Egypt is who the Jews were fleeing from. Before that they'd endured enforced sedentism.
They'd been tribes who'd been captured by civilized men. And forced to stay in one spot... sedentism... and work and endure orders. All of these things are literal torture to peoples who are not accustomed to this kind of madness.
Square houses trap madness inside. Such is the belief of many round house dwellers... Everyone can have a round house... rich men live in squares.
But this time in Egypt was how they developed and got ideas and gained a sense of themselves as a people. A sense that has lasted intact for THOUSANDS of years. It's a wonderful story. And probably the most stable-ish authoritarian system ever.
And they broke free! The magic and mystery... that Egyptians built their characters on... The characters in the Torah... Moses, Abram... church fathers... They saw through it.... penetrated it... And used it to defeat a kingdom so much more powerful than they were that it makes a mouse roaring at a lion look like pessimism.
But this is the power of rational thought and analysis... and tightly knit culture. Unsophisticated, unlearned, but with practical knowledge and depth... they got away.
Back to the wilderness... to the Eden they'd been taken from... but those times were gone for them. They knew too much... wanted a security that no tribe seeks.
Which brings us to the promised land.
There were people already there. The Jews kicked them out with an army.
End of story.
And those people are gone, but the Jews are not. Or we'd be talking about them. End of story.
Crap I ran out of editing. Anyway paraphrasing the story. Mixed up the order a bit. Can't fix it now. General thing is it's a great story, with real history behind it.
Part of that history were the people who came before.
Why do you think they are gone? Are you saying the Jews just genocided them? There is absolutely no evidence of that. There are almost always survivors Tacos! And it wasn't one people's but several, a campaign.
But you do make a strong point. Jewish culture and cohesion is remarkable in it's longevity.
Doesn't have much to do with Zionism though. Zionist in not specific to one religion, it's not a religion... it's a philosophy... several philosophies. Part of the philosophy is an idea of Jewish culture that tries to deal with security. Seeking the promised land. Their amazing record of recording their history and taking it seriously.
But it doesn't really work to say god gave it to me at this point.
And doing another campaign to take back the promised land kind of has to have that god gave it to me bit, or the story doesn't work.
And not all Jews believed the god gave it to me the second time around. That's pretty important.
Besides how long do you figure the Palestinians have been living in the region called Palestine?
Both groups have been living there for thousands of years.
Which is the source of the problem.
They didn't even really call it that until this century. And anyway, Israelis are Palestinians if we're talking about geography. But that's not really where the divide is.
The bottom is line is it's pretty silly to cast Israel as the aggressor when they are surrounded by a couple dozen larger countries who have sworn to wipe them from the face of the Earth and you don't have the reverse commitment or effort from Israel. I think you must know that somewhere down deep inside.
Damn straight yes they took some land.
Pre 6 day war, constant border incursions, soviet intelligence encourages Arab troop build up for attack. Sorry those Jews were quicker on the draw to put that Arab attack to an end.
Your philosophy, might makes right.
Yes, those Jews of Israel gained land. Shouldn't have been making those move for attack of Israel, and of course, those Jews.
Yom Kippur, October 1973, surprise, you Arabs had a war that was yours to lose "DanSchmidt".
It was bad. It was very bad, but you lost again. At the end Israel was 20K inside Syria. In the end, it was given back. Same on the western and southern sides. International peace and all.
That is when the real terrorism started and propaganda wars started. I see you following in that propaganda path.
That is when the Syrians thought they could have their way with Tel Aviv U kids taking field classes in the far eastern Golan.
As a long range border guard I can tell you I never lost 1 of my charges. None.
But yeah, for the good of international peace, Israel return land here and there, though the aggressor Arabs really didn't deserve it.
...ps, don't be coy, why does any occupying force blow things up when they leave?
The rest of your post is worse bs. ..."chasing" manna, my ass...during a temporary episode and you get worse from there.
P.P.S.
You made your bed, now lay in it:
Have a nice day, dave.
And now for the true non-antisemitic unbiased side of the story....
Puncturing the big lie of Palestinian identity
By Melanie Phillips, Jewish News Syndicate
Their claim to be the rightful inheritors of the land represents one of the most successful, if fiendish, propaganda achievements ever to have been pulled off—to have persuaded millions of people that this ludicrous falsehood is an unchallengeable truth.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas recently claimed that the Palestinians were the descendants of the Canaanites. “This land is for its people, its residents and the Canaanites who were here 5,000 years ago – and we are the Canaanites!” he declared, vowing that every Israeli stone and house “built on our land” would end up “in the garbage dump of history.”
Any Western Palestinian supporter might have been left somewhat perplexed. After all, it’s an article of faith among those hostile to Israel that the indigenous inhabitants of the land are Palestinian Arabs who have been supplanted by Jewish occupiers.
Since Canaanites were said to have been conquered by the Jews, Abbas is laying claim to Canaanite ancestry to give the Palestinians a prior right to the land of Israel. But if they were actually Canaanites, then they can’t be Arabs, who many centuries later came, as the name implies, from the Arabian Peninsula, just as the Philistines, from whom in other moods the Palestinians also claim to have descended, came from Crete.
Abbas’s argument is, of course, ludicrous. The fact is that the Jews were the only people for whom the land of Israel was ever their national kingdom, several centuries before the creation of Islam.
The Jews are the only extant indigenous people of the land. Palestinian identity was invented in the 1960s in order to destroy the Jews’ claim to Israel and airbrush them out of their own history.
From time to time, this inconvenient historical truth has been blurted out by Arabs themselves. In 1937, a local Arab leader, Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, told the Peel Commission, which ultimately suggested the partition of Palestine: “There is no such country as Palestine! ‘Palestine’ is a term the Zionists invented!”
In 1977, PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein said: “The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. … Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct ‘Palestinian people’ to oppose Zionism.”
In 2012, Hamas Interior and National Security Minister Fathi Hammad said: “Brothers, half of the Palestinians are Egyptians and the other half are Saudis. Who are the Palestinians? We have many families called Al-Masri, whose roots are Egyptian. Egyptian! They may be from Alexandria, from Cairo, from Dumietta, from the north, from Aswan, from Upper Egypt. We are Egyptians. We are Arabs. We are Muslims.”
All of this has been totally ignored by Westerners who continue to promote the Palestinians’ fictitious identity. Now, however, a stunning if inadvertent acknowledgment of the truth has emerged from an unlikely source.
Nazmi al Jubeh, an associate professor of history and archaeology at Birzeit University outside Ramallah, told a UN conference last June that there was no evidence linking the Jews to Jerusalem.
Thus far, so predictably mendacious. But thanks to the Elder of Zion website, a piece has now surfaced written by al Jubeh in 2006 in which he demolished the myth of Palestinian identity and made plain that it was invented solely to destroy Zionism and Israel.
Not that he acknowledged the Jews’ own history in the land. He made correct but passing reference to the Romans renaming Judea as “Palestina” in order “to challenge the memory of the Jews” after the Romans put down “the Jewish rebellion.”
Yet he didn’t provide the context for this by explaining that the Romans had crushed the Jewish kingdom, which had existed for centuries before being conquered in turn by successive waves of colonial invaders.
Instead, he claimed that the “Palestinian Jews, an essential component of the Palestinian people, started at the beginning of the twentieth century to identify themselves with the Zionist movement, thus separating themselves from the rest of their own people … ”
Despite this egregious and absurd falsification of Jewish history, the striking element of al Jubeh’s account is his admission of what we know to be objectively true – that, from the earliest times, there was no Palestinian identity.
Those living in Palestine from the time of the Romans, he wrote, were “mostly part of a greater regional or international political entity, which usually housed several nations, ethnic groups, and cultures.”
Similarly, today’s Palestinians, he wrote, “are the result of accumulated ethnic, racial, and religious groups, who once lived, conquered, occupied, and passed through this strip of land.
“Wars and invasions have never totally replaced the local population in any period of history; they rather added to, mixed with and reformulated the local identity. The Palestinian people are the Canaanites, the Philistines, the Jebusites, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Egyptians, the Aramaeans, the Greeks, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Arabs, the Turks, the Crusaders, and the Kurds, who once settled, conquered, occupied or just passed through Palestine.”
What gave the Palestinians their identity, he said, was their “struggle” against Zionism and the State of Israel. “There is no way to understand this identity apart from the conflict.”
It became internationally recognized as “a symbol for liberation and for the anti-colonial struggle.” Only after the 1967 Six-Day War did the Palestinians start trying to flesh this out by self-consciously developing artistic expression, architecture, and local history.
More sharply still, al Jubeh wrote that if the history of the region after the First World War had been different, the Palestinians may not have chosen a state in which to express their identity.
For decades, they marketed the conflict with Israel as “Arab-Israeli” and not as “Palestinian-Israeli.” The idea of a state of Palestine, he wrote, only emerged in the mid-1970s when Palestinian identity became politicized around the heavily promoted image of “a fighting nation seeking freedom.” This aspiration became the major vehicle in forming the Palestinians’ current sense of themselves.
In other words, Palestinian identity has no meaning except as a movement to deny the right of the indigenous Jewish people to their own homeland.
The Palestinians’ claim to be the rightful inheritors of the land lies at the very heart of the Western animus against Israel. It represents one of the most successful, if fiendish, propaganda achievements ever to have been pulled off – to have persuaded millions of people that this ludicrous falsehood is an unchallengeable truth.
All the malicious libels and distortions thrown at Israel by Western foes to delegitimize and destroy it rest on this historical lie. Claims that Israel is occupying another people’s land, that its actions are illegal, that it behaves with the cruelty and ruthlessness associated with colonialist invaders – all of this and more rests upon the belief that the Palestinians are the rightful inheritors of the land.
It is the foundation stone of a cause that Western liberals believe defines them as anti-colonialist defenders of the rights of indigenous peoples.
But it’s the Palestinians – and behind them the Arab and Muslim world – who are intent on colonialism and depriving the Jewish people of their rightful and historic homeland. And it is support for that ignoble cause more than any other that has destroyed the moral compass of the West.
BUZZ NOTE: The TRUE legal and historical factual reasons for Israel's entitlement to all of Israel has been propounded after considerable independent study by Bob Nelson and outlined in his summary:
As well the legal and historical validity for Israel's entitlement to Judea and Samaria has been described by a Canadian lawyer who has extensive knowledge of Israel:
SUMMARY OF ISRAEL'S LEGAL RIGHTS TO JUDEA AND SAMARIA
Background:
The Middle East was a part of the Ottoman Empire, which had ruled it some 400 years when World War I broke out. The Ottomans allied themselves with Germany. And so it was that, when the war ended, the Ottomans had lost their land. As part of the readjustments, the map of the huge area we call the Middle East was reconfigured. The original plan was to create a Jewish state in what the British called Mandatory Palestine (some 45,000 square miles on both sides of the Jordan river) and an Arab state in the rest of the region. In 1922, the British put the Hashemite family in charge of "administering" the area on the east side of the Jordan -- some 78% of the land destined to be the Jewish state -- leaving the Jews with some 8,840 square miles, 1/10 of 1% of the area of the Middle East, for a future homeland. The land holdings of the 22 Arab League countries, in contrast, is 6,145,389 square miles.
1. According to international law, the Jewish people are the sole beneficiary of Self-Determination in the land that was Mandatory Palestine. The rights of the Jewish People to Palestine are enshrined in three legally binding international treaties. These rights have not expired and are still in full force and effect. [1]
The process began at San Remo, Italy, when the four Principal Allied Powers of World War I — Great Britain, France, Italy and Japan — agreed to create a Jewish national home [*] in what is now the Land of Israel.
The 1920 San Remo Resolution
This was passed by the San Remo Supreme Council. This council was given the power of disposition by the Great Powers and was convened for the purpose of dividing what was the Ottoman Empire, i.e, redrawing the borders of the Middle East and giving its land to its original inhabitants.
The relevant resolution reads as follows:
The San Remo Resolution also bases itself on Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, which declares that it is "a sacred trust of civilization" to provide for the well-being and development of colonies and territories whose inhabitants are "not yet able to stand by themselves under the strenuous conditions of the modern world." Specifically, a resolution was formulated to create a Mandate to form a Jewish national home in Palestine.
Professor Jacques Gauthier wrote that the San Remo treaty specifically notes that "nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine" - but says nothing about any "political" rights of the Arabs living there.[2]
The 1922 Mandate for Palestine
The League of Nations' resolution creating the Palestine Mandate included the following significant clause: "Whereas 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." No such recognition of Arab rights in Palestine was granted.
The 1924 Anglo-American Convention on Palestine.
The United States of America ratified a treaty with the British Government known as the Anglo-American Treaty of 1924, which included by reference the aforementioned Balfour Declaration and includes, verbatim, the full text of the Mandate for Palestine.
The United States of America is legally bound to the principles contained in the "Balfour Declaration" and the "Mandate for Palestine."
2. The British Mandatory was not a sovereign. All its rights and obligations relating to Palestine, emanated from the Mandate of Palestine. The Mandatory was a trustee for the League of Nations, and it was not given the power to take any steps which violated the terms of the Mandate. It could not change the terms of the Mandate at its pleasure, as it did in the following two cases:
Ceding 77.5 % of Palestine to Trans Jordan (in 1922)
Ceding the Golan to Syria (in 1923)
3. The Mandatory violated article 5 & article 27 of the Mandate when it ceded 77.5% of Palestine to TransJordan and the Golan to Syria:
4. In the 1924 Anglo American Convention the U.S. agreed to support Great Britain as a Mandatory so long as the Mandatory abided by the San Remo Resolution. The sole purpose of the Resolution regarding Palestine was:
There was not even one word in the Mandate or the Anglo American convention about creating an Arab land in Palestine.
In November 2009, the Office for Israeli Constitutional Law (OFICL), a non-governmental legal action organization, sent a letter to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, warning that by labeling Jewish settlements in the West Bank illegal, she is violating international law, as well as American law. OFICL directer Mark Kaplan said:
5. The Lodge-Fish Resolution of September 21, 1922, was a Joint Resolution passed by both houses of the U.S. Congress and signed by President Warren Harding, endorsing the Balfour Declaration with slight variations. This made the text of the Joint Resolution part of the law of the United States until this very day.
confirming the irrevocable right of Jews to settle in the area of Palestine — anywhere between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea:
6. Under American Law when a joint resolution is passed by both the Senate and the House of Representatives in an identical form and then signed by the President, it becomes the Law of the U.S.
7. Both the Lodge-Fish Resolution and the Anglo American Convention underwent the above noted process (see point 6). Therefore reconstituting Palestine as a National Homeland for the Jewish People worldwide and recognizing their historical connection to the land became part of US LAW.
Any attempt to negate the Jewish people's right to Palestine — Eretz-Israel — and to deny them access and control in the area designated for the Jewish people by the League of Nations is an actionable infringement of both international law and the Supremacy Clause (Article VI, paragraph 2 of the United States Constitution), which dictates that Treaties "shall be the supreme Law of the Land".
8. The 1924 Anglo American Convention on Palestine included the whole text of the Palestine Mandate. The Palestine Mandate included the Balfour declaration preamble committing to reconstitute Palestine as a National homeland for the Jewish People worldwide and to recognize their historical connection to the land. It did not mention anything about creating an Arab State in Palestine. The Mandate explicitly prohibited ceding any land in Palestine to any foreign powers or changing the terms of the Mandate without the League's expressed permission. That permission had to be unanimously passed by all members. That never occurred.[3]
9. The significance of the above (see #8 ) is that no decision made by the US or Britain, may be in conflict with the terms of the Mandate or the Anglo American Convention. France, Italy and Japan sat on the San Remo Supreme Council - along with the US and Britain - approving the San Remo decision. After the Supreme Council approved the San Remo decision, the resolution was further approved by the League of Nations and its 51 members. This resolution became a binding international Treaty. The Treaty became Res Judicata . Consequently all the above noted countries are bound by their own approval. Thus they are prevented from changing their approval without Israel's consent.
10. No decision, policy or measure taken by subsequent American administrations may be in conflict with the Terms of the Palestine Mandate. (The sole purpose of the Mandate was-to reconstitute Palestine as a national homeland for the Jewish People world-wide and recognize their historical connection with the land.) Under the Doctrine of Estoppels the US is estopped from making policies, taking any steps, measures, spending any monies on policies, which run contrary to its covenants and undertaking under the Anglo-American Convention of 1924, because among other things they are violating US Law.
11. Both their Excellencies, the Emir Faisal and Abdullah approved the League of Nations decisions. At different points in history, Emir Faisal, in an agreement with Weitzman, agreed to support the Zionist claim on both sides of the Jordan river and later Abdullah, agreed with Churchill to support the Zionist claim to the territory from the Jordan river to the Mediterranean, including Judea and Samaria and Gaza, and the Golan Heights. The Supreme Council did not want to approve the final borders of Palestine on both sides of the Jordan until they had the approval of Emir Feisal.[4]
12. All rights emanating from the three international treaties were approved by the League of Nations and inherited by the United Nations. They did not expire. The United Nations had no right to vary them.
13. The General Assembly does not have the right to create enforceable resolutions or borders. So even if the Arabs had accepted the Green Line [the armistice lines after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war], these borders would not have been legally enforceable.
14. The Partition Plan of 1947 only demarcated the cease fire lines. It had no binding legal force.
"This treaty which was concluded by the principal powers, in effect, as representative of the League of Nations, is binding on the League, particularly after it approved it. The League cannot therefore change the mandate provisions. (Nor, of course, does the Mandatory have that right)"[6]
OFICL chairman Michael Snidecor has stated, "The General Assembly has no authority to create countries or change borders. The UN partition plan [1967] was just that -- a plan."
Significant precedents:
1. The Vienna decision on treaties: According to Howard Grief:
Rights gained from Mandates don't cease at the expiration of the Mandate
The principle of law that rights once granted or recognized under a treaty or other legal instrument do not expire with the expiration of that treaty or instrument is now codified in article 70(1)(b) of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (the Treaty on Treaties). This article states that "unless the treaty otherwise provides or the parties otherwise agree, the termination of a treaty... does not affect any right, obligation or legal situation of the parties created through the execution of the treaty prior to its termination".
As a result, Jewish rights to Palestine and the Land of Israel remain in full force today under international law.
The South Africa decision on Mandates basically says the same thing: rights gained by a country through a mandate don't expire at the expiration of the mandate.[7]
Article 80 of The UN charter: No right gained by a country through a mandate will expire as a result of the expiration of the mandate.
End Notes
[*] Jewish National Home and "homeland for the Jewish people" were a less in-your-face way of saying "Jewish State."
[1] See, for example, this , this , this , this and this, for starters. Other articles can be retrieved by googling for "Howard Grief" and/or "Yoram Shifftan".
OFICL chairman Mark Kaplan has pointed out that IDF's presence in the West Bank has added to this misconception of illegal activity.
[2] Jacques Gauthier, Thesis Defense,
gauthiers-phd-dissertation-on-the-legal-status-of-jerusalem-an- important-document-to-be-read-by-the-annapolis-process-and-the-un-lawyers/,
[3] Howard Grief, The Legal Foundation and Borders of Israel under International Law: A Treatise on Jewish Sovereignty over the Land of Israel , pg 204
[4] Jacques Gauthier re: minutes of San Remo Conference.
[5] Joan Peters, From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict Over Palestine, pg 236.
[6] Jacques Gauthier, Thesis, pg 404.
[7] Jacques Gauthier.
Ted Belman is a Canadian lawyer and editor of the IsraPundit.com website, an activist pro-Israel website. He now lives in Jerusalem.
AND THIS:
LEGAL RIGHTS AND TITLE OF SOVEREIGNTY OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE TO THE LAND OF ISRAEL AND PALESTINE UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW
by Howard Grief
The objective of this paper is to set down in a brief, yet clear and precise manner the legal rights and title of sovereignty of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel and Palestine under international law. These rights originated in the global political and legal settlement, conceived during World War I and carried into execution in the post-war years between 1919 and 1923. Insofar as the Ottoman Turkish Empire was concerned, the settlement embraced the claims of the Zionist Organization, the Arab National movement, the Kurds, the Assyrians and the Armenians.
As part of the settlement in which the Arabs received most of the lands formerly under Turkish sovereignty in the Middle East, the whole of Palestine, on both sides of the Jordan, was reserved exclusively for the Jewish people as their national home and future independent state.
Under the terms of the settlement that were made by the Principal Allied Powers consisting of Britain, France, Italy and Japan, there would be no annexation of the conquered Turkish territories by any of the Powers, as had been planned in the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement of May 9 and 16, 1916. Instead, these territories, including the peoples for whom they were designated, would be placed under the Mandates System and administered by an advanced nation until they were ready to stand by themselves. The Mandates System was established and governed by Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, contained in the Treaty of Versailles and all the other peace treaties made with the Central Powers - Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey. The Covenant was the idea of US President Woodrow Wilson and contained in it his program of Fourteen Points of January 8, 1918, while Article 22 which established the Mandates System, was largely the work of Jan Christiaan Smuts who formulated the details in a memorandum that became known as the Smuts Resolution, officially endorsed by the Council of Ten on January 30, 1919, in which Palestine as envisaged in the Balfour Declaration was named as one of the mandated states to be created. The official creation of the country took place at the San Remo Peace Conference where the Balfour Declaration was adopted by the Supreme Council of the Principal Allied Powers as the basis for the future administration of Palestine which would henceforth be recognized as the Jewish National Home.
The moment of birth of Jewish legal rights and title of sovereignty thus took place at the same time Palestine was created a mandated state, since it was created for no other reason than to reconstitute the ancient Jewish state of Judea in fulfillment of the Balfour Declaration and the general provisions of Article 22 of the League Covenant. This meant that Palestine from the start was legally a Jewish state in theory that was to be guided towards independence by a Mandatory or Trustee, also acting as Tutor, and who would take the necessary political, administrative and economic measures to establish the Jewish National Home. The chief means for accomplishing this was by encouraging large-scale Jewish immigration to Palestine, which would eventually result in making Palestine an independent Jewish state, not only legally but also in the demographic and cultural senses.
The details for the planned independent Jewish state were set forth in three basic documents, which may be termed the founding documents of mandated Palestine and the modern Jewish state of Israel that arose from it. These were the San Remo Resolution of April 25, 1920, the Mandate for Palestine conferred on Britain by the Principal Allied Powers and confirmed by the League of Nations on July 24, 1922, and the Franco-British Boundary Convention of December 23, 1920. These founding documents were supplemented by the Anglo-American Convention of December 3, 1924 respecting the Mandate for Palestine. It is of supreme importance to remember always that these documents were the source or well-spring of Jewish legal rights and title of sovereignty over Palestine and the Land of Israel under international law, because of the near-universal but completely false belief that it was the United Nations General Assembly Partition Resolution of November 29, 1947 that brought the State of Israel into existence. In fact, the UN resolution was an illegal abrogation of Jewish legal rights and title of sovereignty to the whole of Palestine and the Land of Israel, rather than an affirmation of such rights or progenitor of them.
The San Remo Resolution converted the Balfour Declaration of November 2, 1917 from a mere statement of British policy expressing sympathy with the goal of the Zionist movement to create a Jewish state into a binding act of international law that required specific fulfillment by Britain of this object in active cooperation with the Jewish people. Under the Balfour Declaration as originally issued by the British government, the latter only promised to use their best endeavors to facilitate the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people. But under the San Remo Resolution of April 24-25, 1920, the Principal Allied Powers as a cohesive group charged the British government with the responsibility or legal obligation of putting into effect the Balfour Declaration. A legal onus was thus placed on Britain to ensure that the Jewish National Home would be duly established. This onus the British Government willingly accepted because at the time the Balfour Declaration was issued and adopted at the San Remo Peace Conference, Palestine was considered a valuable strategic asset and communications center, and so a vital necessity for protecting far-flung British imperial interests extending from Egypt to India. Britain was fearful of having any major country or power other than itself, especially France or Germany, positioned alongside the Suez Canal.
The term "Jewish National Home" was defined to mean a state by the British government at the Cabinet session which approved the Balfour Declaration on October 31, 1917. That was also the meaning originally given to this phrase by the program committee which drafted the Basel Program at the first Zionist Congress in August 1897 and by Theodor Herzl, the founder of the Zionist Organization. The word "home" as used in the Balfour Declaration and subsequently in the San Remo Resolution was simply the euphemism for a state originally adopted by the Zionist Organization when the territory of Palestine was subject to the rule of the Ottoman Empire, so as not to arouse the sharp opposition of the Sultan and his government to the Zionist aim, which involved a potential loss of this territory by the Empire. There was no doubt in the minds of the authors of the Basel Program and the Balfour Declaration regarding the true meaning of this word, a meaning reinforced by the addition of the adjective "national" to "home". However, as a result of not using the word "state" directly and proclaiming that meaning openly or even attempting to hide its true meaning when it was first used to denote the aim of Zionism, ammunition was provided to those who sought to prevent the emergence of a Jewish state or who saw the Home only in cultural terms.
The phrase "in Palestine", another expression found in the Balfour Declaration that generated much controversy, referred to the whole country, including both Cisjordan and Transjordan. It was absurd to imagine that this phrase could be used to indicate that only a part of Palestine was reserved for the future Jewish National Home, since both were created simultaneously and used interchangeably, with the term "Palestine" pointing out the geographical location of the future independent Jewish state. Had "Palestine" meant a partitioned country with certain areas of it set aside for Jews and others for Arabs, that intention would have been stated explicitly at the time the Balfour Declaration was drafted and approved and later adopted by the Principal Allied Powers. No such allusion was ever made in the prolonged discussions that took place in fashioning the Declaration and ensuring it international approval.
There is therefore no juridical or factual basis for asserting that the phrase "in Palestine" limited the establishment of the Jewish National Home to only a part of the country. On the contrary, Palestine and the Jewish National Home were synonymous terms, as is evidenced by the use of the same phrase in the second half of the Balfour Declaration which refers to the existing non-Jewish communities "in Palestine", clearly indicating the whole country. Similar evidence exists in the preamble and terms of the Mandate Charter.
The San Remo Resolution on Palestine combined the Balfour Declaration with Article 22 of the League Covenant. This meant that the general provisions of Article 22 applied to the Jewish people exclusively, who would set up their home and state in Palestine. There was no intention to apply Article 22 to the Arabs of the country, as was mistakenly concluded by the Palestine Royal Commission which relied on that article of the Covenant as the legal basis to justify the partition of Palestine, apart from the other reasons it gave. The proof of the applicability of Article 22 to the Jewish people, including not only those in Palestine at the time, but those who were expected to arrive in large numbers in the future, is found in the Smuts Resolution, which became Article 22 of the Covenant. It specifically names Palestine as one of the countries to which this article would apply. There was no doubt that when Palestine was named in the context of Article 22, it was linked exclusively to the Jewish National Home, as set down in the Balfour Declaration, a fact everyone was aware of at the time, including the representatives of the Arab national movement, as evidenced by the agreement between Emir Feisal and Dr. Chaim Weizmann dated January 3, 1919 as well as an important letter sent by the Emir to future US Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter dated March 3, 1919. In that letter, Feisal characterized as "moderate and proper" the Zionist proposals presented by Nahum Sokolow and Weizmann to the Council of Ten at the Paris Peace Conference on February 27, 1919, which called for the development of Palestine into a Jewish commonwealth with extensive boundaries. The argument later made by Arab leaders that the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate for Palestine were incompatible with Article 22 of the Covenant is totally undermined by the fact that the Smuts Resolution - the precursor of Article 22 - specifically included Palestine within its legal framework.
The San Remo Resolution on Palestine became Article 95 of the Treaty of Sevres which was intended to end the war with Turkey, but though this treaty was never ratified by the Turkish National Government of Kemal Ataturk, the Resolution retained its validity as an independent act of international law when it was inserted into the Preamble of the Mandate for Palestine and confirmed by 52 states. The San Remo Resolution is the base document upon which the Mandate was constructed and to which it had to conform. It is therefore the pre-eminent foundation document of the State of Israel and the crowning achievement of pre-state Zionism. It has been accurately described as the Magna Carta of the Jewish people. It is the best proof that the whole country of Palestine and the Land of Israel belong exclusively to the Jewish people under international law.
The Mandate for Palestine implemented both the Balfour Declaration and Article 22 of the League Covenant, i.e. the San Remo Resolution. All four of these acts were building blocks in the legal structure that was created for the purpose of bringing about the establishment of an independent Jewish state. The Balfour Declaration in essence stated the principle or object of a Jewish state. The San Remo Resolution gave it the stamp of international law. The Mandate furnished all the details and means for the realization of the Jewish state. As noted, Britain's chief obligation as Mandatory, Trustee and Tutor was the creation of the appropriate political, administrative and economic conditions to secure the Jewish state. All 28 articles of the Mandate were directed to this objective, including those articles that did not specifically mention the Jewish National Home. The Mandate created a right of return for the Jewish people to Palestine and the right to establish settlements on the land throughout the country in order to create the envisaged Jewish state.
In conferring the Mandate for Palestine on Britain, a contractual bond was created between the Principal Allied Powers and Britain, the former as Mandator and the latter as Mandatory. The Principal Allied Powers designated the Council of the League of Nations as the supervisor of the Mandatory to ensure that all the terms of the Mandate Charter would be strictly observed. The Mandate was drawn up in the form of a Decision of the League Council confirming the Mandate rather than making it part of a treaty with Turkey signed by the High Contracting Parties, as originally contemplated. To ensure compliance with the Mandate, the Mandatory had to submit an annual report to the League Council reporting on all its activities and the measures taken during the preceding year to realize the purpose of the Mandate and for the fulfillment of its obligations. This also created a contractual relationship between the League of Nations and Britain.
The first drafts of the Mandate for Palestine were formulated by the Zionist Organization and were presented to the British delegation at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. The content, style and mold of the Mandate was thus determined by the Zionist Organization. The British Peace Delegation at the Conference produced a draft of their own and the two then cooperated in formulating a joint draft. This cooperation which took place while Arthur James Balfour was Foreign Minister came to an end only after Lord Curzon, the Foreign Secretary who replaced Balfour on October 24, 1919, took personal charge of the Mandate drafting process in March 1920. He shut out the Zionist Organization from further direct participation in the actual drafting, but the Zionist leader, Chaim Weizmann, was kept informed of new changes made in the Draft Mandate and allowed to comment on them. The changes engineered by Curzon watered down the obvious Jewish character of the Mandate, but did not succeed in suppressing its aim - the creation of a Jewish state. The participation of the Zionist Organization in the Mandate drafting process confirmed the fact that the Jewish people were the exclusive beneficiary of the national rights enshrined in the Mandate. No Arab party was ever consulted regarding its views on the terms of the Mandate prior to the submission of this instrument to the League Council for confirmation, on December 6, 1920. By contrast, the civil and religious rights of all existing religious communities in Palestine, whether Moslem or Christian, were safeguarded, as well as the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of race and religion. The rights of Arabs, whether as individuals or as members of religious communities, but not as a nation, were therefore legally assured. In addition, no prejudice was to be caused to their financial and economic position by the expected growth of the Jewish population.
It was originally intended that the Mandate Charter would delineate the boundaries of Palestine, but that proved to be a lengthy process involving negotiations with France over the northern and northeastern borders of Palestine with Syria. It was therefore decided to fix these boundaries in a separate treaty, which was done in the Franco-British Boundary Convention of December 23, 1920. The borders were based on a formula first put forth by the British Prime Minister David Lloyd George when he met his French counterpart, Georges Clemenceau, in London on December 1, 1918 and defined Palestine as extending from the ancient towns of Dan to Beersheba. This definition was immediately accepted by Clemenceau, which meant that Palestine would have the borders that included all areas of the country settled by the Twelve Tribes of Israel during the First Temple Period, embracing historic Palestine both east and west of the Jordan River. The very words "from Dan to Beersheba" implied that the whole of Jewish Palestine would be reconstituted as a Jewish state. Though the San Remo Resolution did not specifically delineate the borders of Palestine, it was understood by the Principal Allied Powers that this formula would be the criterion to be used in delineating them. However, when the actual boundary negotiations began after the San Remo Peace Conference, the French illegally and stubbornly insisted on following the defunct Sykes-Picot line for the northern border of Palestine, accompanied by Gallic outbursts of anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist sentiments, though they agreed to extend this border to include the Galilee but not any of the water sources from the Litani valley and the land adjoining it. As a result, some parts of historic Palestine in the north and northeast were illegally excluded from the Jewish National Home. The 1920 Boundary Convention was amended by another British-French Agreement respecting the boundary line between Syria and Palestine dated February 3, 1922, which took effect on March 10, 1923. It illegally removed the portion of the Golan that had previously been included in Palestine in the 1920 Convention, in exchange for placing the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) wholly within the bounds of the Jewish National Home, and made other small territorial adjustments. The British and French negotiators had no legal right to remove or exclude any "Palestine territory" from the limits of Palestine, but could only ensure that all such territory was included. The exchange of "Palestine territory" for other "Palestine territory" between Britain and France was therefore prohibited as a violation of the Lloyd George formula accepted at the San Remo Peace Conference.
The 1920 Convention also included Transjordan in the area of the Jewish National Home, but a surprise last-minute intervention by the US government unnecessarily delayed the confirmation of the pending Mandate. This gave an unexpected opportunity to Winston Churchill, the new Colonial Secretary placed in charge of the affairs of Palestine, to change the character of the Mandate: first, by having a new article inserted (Article 25) which allowed for the provisional administrative separation of Transjordan from Cisjordan; second, by redefining the Jewish National Home to mean not an eventual independent Jewish state but limited to a cultural or spiritual center for the Jewish people. These radical changes were officially introduced in the Churchill White Paper of June 3, 1922 and led directly to the sabotage of the Mandate. Thereafter, the British never departed from the false interpretation they gave to the Jewish National Home which ended all hope of achieving the envisaged Jewish state under their auspices.
The question of which state, nation or entity held sovereignty over a mandated territory sparked great debate throughout the Mandate period, and no definitive answer was ever given. That is extremely surprising because the Treaty of Versailles, signed on June 28, 1919 and ratified on January 10, 1920, stated flatly in Article 22 that the states which formerly governed those territories which were subsequently administered by a Mandatory had lost their sovereignty as a consequence of World War I. That meant that Germany no longer had sovereignty over its former colonies in Africa and the Pacific, while Turkey no longer had sovereignty over its possessions in the Middle East, prior to the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. The date when the change of sovereignty occurred could only have been on January 30, 1919, the date when it was irrevocably decided by the Council of Ten in adopting the Smuts Resolution, that none of the ex-German and ex-Turkish territories would be returned to their former owners. These territories were then placed in the collective hands of the Principal Allied and Associated Powers for their disposition. In the case of Palestine, that decision was made in favor of the Jewish people at the session of the San Remo Peace Conference that took place on April 24, 1920 when the Balfour Declaration was adopted as the reason for creating and administering the new country of Palestine that, until then, had had no official existence. Inasmuch as the Balfour Declaration was made in favor of the Jewish people, it was the latter upon whom de jure sovereignty was devolved over all of Palestine. However, during the Mandate period, the British government and not the Jewish people exercised the attributes of sovereignty, while sovereignty in the purely theoretical or nominal sense (i.e. de jure sovereignty) remained vested in the Jewish people. This state of affairs was reflected in the Mandate Charter where the components of the title of sovereignty of the Jewish people over Palestine are specifically mentioned in the first three recitals of the Preamble, namely, Article 22, the Balfour Declaration and the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine. These three components of the title of sovereignty were the grounds for reconstituting the Jewish National Home in Palestine as specifically stated in the third recital of the Preamble. On the other hand, since the Jewish people were under the tutelage of Great Britain during the Mandate Period, it was the latter which exercised the attributes of Jewish sovereignty over Palestine, as confirmed by Article 1 of the Mandate, which placed full powers of legislation and of administration in the hands of the Mandatory, save as they may be limited by the terms of the Mandate.
This situation continued so long as the Mandate was in force and the Jewish people living in Palestine were not able to stand alone and hence not able to exercise the sovereignty awarded them by the Principal Allied Powers under international law.
The decisive moment of change came on May 14, 1948 when the representatives of the Jewish people in Palestine and of the Zionist Organization proclaimed the independence of a Jewish state whose military forces held only a small portion of the territory originally allocated for the Jewish National Home. The rest of the country was in the illegal possession of neighboring Arab states who had no sovereign rights over the areas they illegally occupied, that were historically a part of Palestine and the Land of Israel and were not meant for Arab independence or the creation of another Arab state. It is for this reason that Israel, which inherited the sovereign rights of the Jewish people over Palestine, has the legal right to keep all the lands it liberated in the Six Day War that were either included in the Jewish National Home during the time of the Mandate or formed integral parts of the Land of Israel that were illegally detached from the Jewish National Home when the boundaries of Palestine were fixed in 1920 and 1923. For the same reason, Israel cannot be accused by anyone of "occupying" lands under international law that were clearly part of the Jewish National Home or the Land of Israel. Thus the whole debate today that centers on the question of whether Israel must return "occupied territories" to their alleged Arab owners in order to obtain peace is one of the greatest falsehoods of international law and diplomacy.
The most amazing development concerning the question of sovereignty over Palestine is that the State of Israel, when it finally had an opportunity to exercise its sovereignty over all of the country west of the Jordan, after being victorious in the Six Day War of June 5-10, 1967, did not do so - except in the case of Jerusalem. The Knesset did, however, pass an amendment to the Law and Administration Ordinance of 1948, adding Section 11B, which allowed for that possibility and was premised on the idea that Israel possessed such sovereignty. Israel did not even enforce the existing law on sovereignty passed by the Ben Gurion government in September 1948, known as the Area of Jurisdiction and Powers Ordinance, which required it to incorporate immediately any area of the Land of Israel which the Minister of Defense had defined by proclamation as being held by the Defense Army of Israel.
Israel's legal rights and title of sovereignty over all of the Land of Israel - specifically in regard to Judea, Samaria and Gaza - suffered a severe setback when the Government of Prime Minister Menahem Begin approved the Camp David Framework Agreement for Peace in the Middle East, under which it was proposed that negotiations would take place to determine the "final status" of those territories. The phrase "final status" was a synonym for the word "sovereignty". It was inexcusable that neither Begin nor his legal advisers, including Aharon Barak, the future President of the Israel Supreme Court, knew that sovereignty had already been vested in the Jewish people and hence the State of Israel many years before, at the San Remo Peace Conference. The situation became much worse, reaching the level of treason when the Government of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin signed the Declaration of Principles (DOP) with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and agreed to give it about 90% or more of Judea and Samaria and most of Gaza over a five-year transitional period in order to "achieve a just, lasting and comprehensive peaceful settlement and historic reconciliation through the agreed political process" with the Arabs of Palestine. The illegal surrender of territory to the "Palestinian Authority" originally called the "Council" in Article IV of the DOP was hidden by the use of the word "jurisdiction" instead of "sovereignty" in that article. Further dissimulation was shown by the sanitized reference to "redeployment of Israeli military forces in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip" to disguise the illegal act of transferring parts of the Jewish National Home to the PLO. A spade was not called a spade.
To understand why even the State of Israel does not believe in its own title of sovereignty over what are wrongfully termed "occupied territories" even by leading politicians and jurists in Israel, it is necessary to locate the causes in the Mandate period:
The end result of British sabotage, misinterpretation, distortion and outright denial of what the Mandate stood for was that Jewish legal rights and title of sovereignty over the whole of Palestine as originally envisaged in the San Remo Resolution and the Mandate became so blurred, obfuscated and confused by the time the Mandate ended that it was no longer understood or held to be true. Not even the legal experts of the Jewish Agency for Palestine and the Zionist Organization asserted Jewish sovereignty over the whole country in any official paper or memorandum submitted to the British government or to the League of Nations.
The mutilation of the Mandate Charter was continued by the United Nations when this new world organization considered the question of Palestine. On August 31, 1947, the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) proposed an illegal partition plan which recognized Arab national rights in western Palestine, specifically in the areas of western Galilee, Judea, Samaria, the southern coastal plain from Ashdod to the Egyptian frontier and a portion of the western Negev including Beersheba and what became Eilat. It apparently did not occur to the members of the Committee representing 11 states headed by Swedish Chief Justice Emil Sandstrom, that the UN did not have the legal authority to partition the country in favor of the Arabs of Palestine who were not the national beneficiary of the Mandate entitled to self-determination. The trampling of the legal rights of the Jewish people to the whole of Palestine by the United Nations was in clear violation of the Mandate which forbade partition and also Article 80 of the UN Charter which, in effect, prevented the alteration of Jewish rights granted under the Mandate whether or not a trusteeship was set up to replace it, which could only be done by a prior agreement made by the states directly concerned. The illegal partition plan, with some territorial modifications made in the original majority plan presented by UNSCOP, was then approved by the General Assembly on November 29, 1947 as Resolution 181 (II). The Jewish Agency for Palestine, recoiling from the loss of six million Jews in the Holocaust and trying to salvage something from British misrule of Palestine, accepted this illegal Resolution. By doing so, it lent credence to the false idea that Palestine belonged to both Arabs and Jews, which was an idea foreign to the San Remo Resolution, the Mandate and the Franco-British Boundary Convention of December 23, 1920. The Jewish Agency should have relied on these three documents exclusively in declaring the Jewish state over all of Palestine, even if it was unable to control all areas of the country, following the example of what was done in Syria and Lebanon during World War II.
Another facet of the story that concerned the illegal denial of Jewish legal rights and title of sovereignty over Palestine was the attitude adopted by the United States government towards the infamous British White Paper of May 17, 1939. The United States agreed to the British administration of Palestine pursuant to the Mandate when it signed and ratified the Anglo-American Convention of December 3, 1924. This imposed a solemn obligation on the US government to protest any British violation of this treaty, which had repeated every word, jot and tittle of the Mandate Charter in the preamble of the Convention, regardless of whether the violation affected American rights or those of the Jewish people. Yet when the White Paper was issued in the year of 1939, the US government did not lift a finger to point out the blaring illegalities contained in the new statement of British policy that smashed to smithereens the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate, and brought immense joy to the Arab side. It accepted the incredible British contention that changes in the terms of the Mandate effected by the White Paper did not require American consent because no US rights or those of its nationals were impaired, an argument that was demonstrably false. This US passivity in the face of British perfidy, which was strongly denounced by the venerable David Lloyd George and even by Winston Churchill who had himself contributed to the betrayal of the Jewish people and their rights to Palestine, allowed the British government to get away with the highest violation of international law at the very moment when the Jewish people were about to suffer the greatest catastrophe in their history. There can be no doubt that the Holocaust could have largely been prevented or its effects greatly mitigated had the terms of the Mandate been duly implemented to allow for a massive influx of Jews to their national home.
American inaction against the British government was particularly unforgivable in view of the fact that the articles of the Mandate were a part of American domestic law and the US was the only state which could have forced the British to repudiate the malevolent White Paper and restore the right of the Jews of Europe to gain refuge in their homeland.
Both the Mandate and the Anglo-American Convention have ceased to exist. However, all the rights of the Jewish people that derive from the Mandate remain in full force. This is the consequence of the principle of acquired legal rights which, as applied to the Jewish people, means that the rights they acquired or were recognized as belonging to them when Palestine was legally created as the Jewish National Home are not affected by the termination of the treaty or the acts of international law which were the source of those rights. This principle already existed when the Anglo-American Convention came to an end simultaneously with the termination of the Mandate for Palestine on May 14-15, 1948. It has since been codified in Article 70(1)(b) of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. This principle of international law would apply even if one of the parties to the treaty failed to perform the obligations imposed on it, as was the case with the British government in regard to the Mandate for Palestine.
The reverse side of the principle of acquired legal rights is the doctrine of estoppel which is also of great importance in preserving Jewish national rights. This doctrine prohibits any state from denying what it previously admitted or recognized in a treaty or other international agreement. In the Convention of 1924, the United States recognized all the rights granted to the Jewish people under the Mandate, in particular the right of Jewish settlement anywhere in Palestine or the Land of Israel. Therefore the US government is legally estopped today from denying the right of Jews in Israel to establish settlements in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, which have been approved by the government of Israel. In addition, the United States is also debarred from protesting the establishment of these settlements because they are based on a right which became embedded in US domestic law after the 1924 Convention was ratified by the US Senate and proclaimed by President Calvin Coolidge on December 5, 1925. This convention has terminated, but not the rights granted under it to the Jewish people. The American policy opposing Jewish settlements in Judea, Samaria and Gaza is a fit subject for judicial review in US courts because it violates Jewish legal rights formerly recognized by the United States and which still remain part of its domestic law. A legal action to overturn this policy if it was to be adjudicated might also put an end to the American initiative to promote a so-called "Palestinian" state which would abrogate the existing right of Jewish settlement in all areas of the Land of Israel that fall under its illegal rule.
The gravest threat to Jewish legal rights and title of sovereignty over the Land of Israel still comes from the same source that has always fought the return of the Jews to their homeland, namely, the medley of Arabic-speaking Gentiles who inhabit the land alongside the Jews. They no longer call themselves Arabs or Syrians, but "Palestinians". This has resulted in a switch of national identity. The Palestinians used to be the Jews during the Mandate Period, but the Arabs adopted the name after the Jews of Palestine established the State of Israel and began to be called Israelis. The use of the name "Palestinians" for Arabs did not take general hold until 1969 when the United Nations recognized the existence of this supposed new nation, and began passing resolutions thereafter affirming its legitimate and inalienable rights to Palestine. The whole idea that such a nation exists is the greatest hoax of the 20th century and continues unabated into the 21st century. This hoax is easily exposed by the fact that the "Palestinians" possess no distinctive history, language or culture, and are not essentially different in the ethnological sense from the Arabs living in the neighboring countries of Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq. The very name of the supposed nation is non-Arabic in origin and derives from Hebrew root letters. The Arabs of Palestine have no connection or relationship to the ancient Philistines from whom they have taken their new name.
It is a matter of the greatest irony and astonishment that the so-called Palestinian nation has received its greatest boost from Israel itself when it allowed a "Palestinian" administration to be set up in the areas of Judea, Samaria and Gaza under the leadership of Yasser Arafat.
The situation in which the Arabs of Palestine and the Land of Israel claim the same legal rights as the Jewish people violates the authentic international law that was created by the San Remo Resolution, the Mandate and the 1920 Franco-British Convention. It is part of the worldwide folly that has occurred since 1969 when the "Palestinian people" were first accorded international recognition, that authentic international law has been replaced by an ersatz international law composed of illegal UN Resolutions. The Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 and the Hague Regulations of 1907 are acts of genuine international law, but they have no direct application or relevance to the legal status of Judea, Samaria and Gaza which are integral territories of the Jewish National Home and the Land of Israel under the sovereignty of the State of Israel. These acts would apply only to the Arab occupation of Jewish territories, as occurred between 1948 and 1967, and not to the case of Israeli rule over the Jewish homeland. The hoax of the Palestinian people and their alleged rights to the Land of Israel as well as the farce that results from citing pseudo-international law to support their fabricated case must be exposed and brought to an end.
The Arabs of the Land of Israel have ignited a terrorist war against Israel to recover what they consider to be their occupied homeland. Their aim is a fantasy based on a gross myth and lie that can never be satisfied, since that would mean the conversion of the Land of Israel into an Arab country. It is up to the government of Israel to take the necessary steps to remedy what has become an intolerable situation that threatens the Jewish people with the loss of their immutable rights to their one and only homeland.
Howard Grief was born in Montreal, Canada and made aliyah in 1989. He served as a legal advisor to Professor Yuval Ne'eman at the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure in matters of international law pertaining to the Land of Israel and Jewish rights thereto. He is a Jerusalem-based attorney and notary, as well as a specialist in Israeli constitutional law. In October 1993, he wrote the first of several articles denouncing the illegal agreements Israel made with the PLO that appeared in the pages of Nativ and elsewhere. He is the founder and director of the Office for Israeli Constitutional Law.
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