INTERNATIONAL LAW AND THE
JEWISH PEOPLE’S COLLECTIVE RIGHTS OF SETTLEMENT AND SELF-DETERMINATION IN THE
“בְּרֵאשִׁית
בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים אֵת
הַשָּׁמַיִם
וְאֵת
הָאָרֶץ” “Bereshit bara Elohim et HaShamayim v'et HaAretz” (“In the
Beginning of [Time], God created the Heavens and the Earth.”) -- Genesis 1:1. In his famous commentary on the very
first phrase of the Torah, namely, “בְּרֵאשִׁית” “Bereshit” (“In the Beginning of”), Rashi
(Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, b. 1040 - d. 1105) states: “Rabbi Yitzchak said that
it was not necessary for the Torah to begin except with [the Commandment]:
'This month shall be for you [the beginning of months.' -- Exodus 12:2], since
this Commandment is the first Commandment that Israel was commanded [to observe
as a nation]. And what is the reason that [instead] it [the Torah] begins with
[the phrase]: ‘In the Beginning of’? [This is] because of [the verse]: 'The
Strength of His Deeds He declared to His People, [in order] to give them the
heritage of the nations.' (Psalms 111:6). For, if the nations of the World
should say to
For most nations, the claim of an illegal Jewish occupation of “Palestinian”
Arab territories is limited to the post-1967 districts of Judea,
Samaria, the eastern portion of Jerusalem and (despite Israel’s expulsion of
all Jewish residents thereof and withdrawal of all armed forces therefrom in
August 2005) Gaza. However, for those Arab and (non-Arab) Muslim nations
and for those terrorist organizations which reject the very existence of
the modern State of Israel, the claim of an illegal Jewish occupation of “
In 1917 -- towards the end of World War I -- Great
On April 19 - 26, 1920, an international conference was held at San Remo, Italy to implement the terms of the Treaty of Versailles of June 28, 1919 which formally terminated the hostilities then known as the “Great War”, including those provisions of the Treaty (namely, Articles 1 - 26 thereof, denominated as the Covenant of the League of Nations) which declared the creation of a League of Nations (predecessor to the United Nations) and which authorized the establishment of a system of international mandates for the governance of the World's remaining non-sovereign territories.
Article 22 of the Covenant of the
ARTICLE 22
To those colonies and territories which as a consequence of the late war have ceased to be under the sovereignty of the States which formerly governed them and which are inhabited by peoples not yet able to stand by themselves under the strenuous conditions of the modern world, there should be applied the principle that the well-being and development of such peoples form a sacred trust of civilisation and that securities for the performance of this trust should be embodied in this Covenant.
The best method of giving practical effect to this principle is that the tutelage of such peoples should be entrusted to advanced nations who by reason of their resources, their experience or their geographical position can best undertake this responsibility, and who are willing to accept it, and that this tutelage should be exercised by them as Mandatories on behalf of the League.
The character of the mandate must differ according to the stage of the development of the people, the geographical situation of the territory, its economic conditions, and other similar circumstances.
Certain communities formerly belonging to the Turkish Empire have reached a stage of development where their existence as independent nations can be provisionally recognised subject to the rendering of administrative advice and assistance by a Mandatory until such time as they are able to stand alone. The wishes of these communities must be a principal consideration in the selection of the Mandatory.
Other peoples, especially those of Central Africa, are at such a stage that the Mandatory must be responsible for the administration of the territory under conditions which will guarantee freedom of conscience and religion, subject only to the maintenance of public order and morals, the prohibition of abuses such as the slave trade, the arms traffic, and the liquor traffic, and the prevention of the establishment of fortifications or military and naval bases and of military training of the natives for other than police purposes and the defence of territory, and will also secure equal opportunities for the trade and commerce of other Members of the League.
There are territories, such as South-West Africa and certain of the South Pacific Islands, which, owing to the sparseness of their population, or their small size, or their remoteness from the centres of civilisation, or their geographical contiguity to the territory of the Mandatory, and other circumstances, can be best administered under the laws of the Mandatory as integral portions of its territory, subject to the safeguards above mentioned in the interests of the indigenous population.
In every case of mandate, the Mandatory shall render to the Council an annual report in reference to the territory committed to its charge.
The degree of authority, control, or administration to be exercised by the Mandatory shall, if not previously agreed upon by the Members of the League, be explicitly defined in each case by the Council.
A permanent Commission shall be constituted to receive and examine the annual reports of the Mandatories and to advise the Council on all matters relating to the observance of the mandates.
At the
The internationally authorized trust, known as the Mandate for
Palestine, was created by the
Prior to its conquest by Great Britain during World War I, the non-sovereign territory of Palestine had been occupied, with brief interruptions, by the Ottoman Empire since 1517 and, before that, by an unbroken chain of empires stretching back in History to imperial Rome which, after crushing the third and final revolt of the Jewish people against its hated Occupation in 135, had changed the Land's name from Judea, the Latin-language word for which was Iudaea, meaning Land of the Jews, to Palestine, the Latin-language word for which was Palaestina, meaning Land of the Philistines (a long-extinct Aegean people who had disappeared from History more than 700 years earlier after being extirpated by the Babylonian Empire), as part of an unabashed effort to delegitimize any further national Jewish claims to the Land. Although, as further punishment for the uprising, the Romans also massacred and expelled much of the Land's Jewish population, the remainder thereof continued to reside throughout the Land (including the areas of Galilee, Negev, Arava, Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem, Gaza and Golan Heights) under the Roman and all successive Occupations -- including that of the colonialist Islamic Arab Empire commencing in the 7th Century -- through the advent of the Mandate for Palestine.
The Mandate for
The Mandate for
MANDATE FOR
The Council of the
Whereas the Principal Allied Powers have agreed, for the purpose of giving effect to the provisions of Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, to entrust to a Mandatory selected by the said Powers the administration of the territory of Palestine, which formerly belonged to the Turkish Empire, within such boundaries as may be fixed by them; and
Whereas the Principal Allied Powers have also agreed that the Mandatory should be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 2nd, 1917, by the Government of His Britannic Majesty, and adopted by the said Powers, in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing should be done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country; and
Whereas recognition has thereby been given to the
historical connexion of the Jewish people with
Whereas the Principal Allied Powers have selected
His Britannic Majesty as the Mandatory for
Whereas the mandate in respect of
Whereas His Britannic Majesty has accepted the mandate in respect of Palestine and undertaken to exercise it on behalf of the League of Nations in conformity with the following provisions; and
Whereas by the aforementioned Article 22 (paragraph 8), it is provided that the degree of authority, control or administration to be exercised by the Mandatory, not having been previously agreed upon by the Members of the League, shall be explicitly defined by the Council of the League Of Nations;
Confirming the said Mandate, defines its terms as follows:
ARTICLE 1 The Mandatory shall have full powers of legislation and of administration, save as they may be limited by the terms of this Mandate.
ARTICLE 2
The Mandatory shall be responsible for placing the country under such
political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the
establishment of the Jewish national home, as laid down in the Preamble, and
the development of self-governing institutions, and also for safeguarding the
civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of
ARTICLE 3 The Mandatory shall, so far as circumstances permit, encourage local autonomy.
ARTICLE 4 An appropriate Jewish agency shall be recognized as a public body for the purpose of advising and cooperating with the Administration of Palestine in such economic, social and other matters as may affect the establishment of the Jewish national home and the interests of the Jewish population in Palestine, and, subject always to the control of the Administration, to assist and take part in the development of the country.
The Zionist organization, so long as its organization and constitution are, in the opinion of the Mandatory, appropriate, shall be recognized as such agency. It shall take steps in consultation with His Britannic Majesty's Government to secure the cooperation of all Jews who are willing to assist in the establishment of the Jewish national home.
ARTICLE 5
The Mandatory shall be responsible for seeing that no
ARTICLE 6 The Administration of Palestine, while ensuring that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced, shall facilitate Jewish immigration under suitable conditions and shall encourage, in cooperation with the Jewish agency referred to in Article 4, close settlement by Jews on the Land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes.
ARTICLE 7
The Administration of Palestine shall be responsible for enacting a nationality
law. There shall be included in this law provisions framed so as to facilitate
the acquisition of Palestinian citizenship by Jews who take up their permanent
residence in
. . .
In sum, except as set forth in Article 25 of the Mandate for Palestine (discussed below), although the Arabs and other non-Jews residing in Mandatory Palestine were to retain their individual rights therein, the Jews thereof were to be accorded exclusive national rights thereto (i.e., collective sovereignty over the Land upon its independence) as a measure of restorative justice for the Jewish people.
Per the second paragraph of the Preamble of the Mandate For Palestine, the League of Nations, in formally issuing this Mandate, chose to explicitly incorporate therein the principles set forth in the letter of November 2, 1917 from British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour to Zionist leader Lionel Walter Rothschild, commonly known as the Balfour Declaration, thereby elevating these principles from a mere statement of British policy with respect to the final disposition of the non-sovereign territory of Palestine to a foundation of international law with respect thereto. That letter states, in full, as follows:
November 2nd, 1917
Dear Lord Rothschild,
I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty's Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet.
"His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."
I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.
Yours sincerely,
Arthur James Balfour
Although, from 1915 onwards, diplomatic representatives of Great Britain
had also made various written declarations to foreign Arab leaders
(such as the 1915 - 1916 letters from Henry McMahon, British High Commissioner
of Egypt, to Hussein ibn Ali, Sherif of Mecca and ruler of the Hejaz region of
Arabia) which, to a greater or lesser degree, contradicted the
principles set forth in the 1917 Balfour Declaration, thereby negating
the concept of eventual Jewish sovereignty over the Land of Israel, and
although, in June 1922, the British government even issued an official
White Paper (known as the Command Paper of 1922) explicitly stating that the
reestablishment of the Jewish National Home in Mandatory Palestine was not
intended to result in Jewish sovereignty over any portion of the Land,
the subsequent enactment by the League of Nations of the governing
instrument for its Mandate for Palestine necessarily superseded
all such declarations. This is so, because -- unlike
Nevertheless, some have argued that, although the League of Nations was
indeed preogatived by the Treaty of Versailles of June 28, 1919 to create a
mandate for the non-sovereign territory of Palestine, it had been granted no
authority by the international community to enact a governing instrument
for that mandate which granted exclusive national rights over that
mandated territory to the Jewish people (rather than to all of
the inhabitants thereof). This argument
is refuted by the Treaty of Sevres of August 10, 1920 (formally known as “The
Treaty Of Peace Between The Allied And Associated Powers And Turkey”), which
treaty was signed subsequent to the creation of the Mandate for
Palestine (April 24, 1920) but prior to the enactment of its governing
instrument (July 24, 1922). Like the Treaty
of Versailles, which incorporated therein the Covenant of the League of
Nations as its first 26 articles, the Treaty of Sevres also incorporated
therein the Covenant of the
ARTICLE 95
The High Contracting Parties agree to entrust, by application of the
provisions of Article 22, the administration of
The Mandatory undertakes to appoint as soon as possible a special
Commission to study and regulate all questions and claims relating to the
different religious communities. In the composition of this Commission the
religious interests concerned will be taken into account. The Chairman of the
Commission will be appointed by the Council of the
The Treaty of Sevres,
countersigned by
The Land subject to the Mandate for Palestine, consisting of 120,450 square kilometers, included territory lying west of the Jordan River, comprising 26,990 square kilometers (22% of the Land) and described as cis-Jordania (consisting of the districts of Judea, Samaria, the eastern portion of Jerusalem and Gaza, comprising 6,220 square kilometers (5% of the Land), and territory which later became modern Israel within its 1949 armistice demarcation lines, comprising 20,770 square kilometers (17% of the Land)), as well as territory lying east of the Jordan River, comprising 93,460 square kilometers (78% of the Land) and described as trans-Jordania (consisting of the Golan Heights, comprising 1,160 square kilometers (1% of the Land), and territory which later became Transjordan, precursor to modern Jordan, comprising 92,300 square kilometers (77% of the Land)). This data is restated in the following table:
|
cis-Jordania portion of Mandatory Palestine |
Land Area by Square Kilometer |
Land Area by Square Mile |
Percentage of Mandatory |
|
Judea & Samaria & eastern portion of |
6,220 sq. km. |
2,402 sq. miles |
5% |
|
|
20,770 sq. km. |
8,019 sq. miles |
17% |
|
Total for cis-Jordania (western portion of Mandatory Palestine) |
26,990 sq. km. |
10,421 sq. miles |
22% |
|
trans-Jordania portion of Mandatory Palestine |
Land Area by Square Kilometer |
Land Area by Square Mile |
Percentage of Mandatory |
|
|
1,160 sq. km. |
448 sq. miles |
1% |
|
|
92,300 sq. km. |
35,637 sq. miles |
77% |
|
Total for trans-Jordania (eastern portion of Mandatory Palestine) |
93,460 sq. km. |
36,085 sq. miles |
78% |
|
GRAND TOTAL |
120,450 sq. km. |
46,506 sq. miles |
100% |
On September 16, 1922, Great Britain, as Mandatory of the Mandate for Palestine,
with the consent of the Council of the League of Nations, severed from
the Jewish national home virtually all of the lands of the trans-Jordania
portion of Mandatory Palestine, namely, that large portion thereof situated
between the Jordan River and the Iraqi-Arabian frontiers, by barring all
Jewish immigration thereto and land purchases therein and by creating
therefrom the semi-autonomous Emirate of Transjordan, as a possession
under British tutelage for Abdullah ibn Hussein and his Hashemite and allied
clans after the Hashemite dynasty began losing the civil war launched against
it by Abd el-Aziz ibn Saud and his Wahhabist clans for control over Arabia.
Subsequently, in 1946,
Article 25 thereof states, in full, as follows:
In the territories lying between the Jordan and the eastern boundary of Palestine as ultimately determined, the Mandatory shall be entitled, with the consent of the Council of the League of Nations, to postpone or withhold application of such provisions of this Mandate as he may consider inapplicable to the existing local conditions, and to make such provision for the administration of the territories as he may consider suitable to those conditions, provided that no action shall be taken which is inconsistent with the provisions of Articles 15, 16 and 18.
Article 15 thereof, first paragraph, states, in full, as follows:
The Mandatory shall see that complete freedom of
conscience and the free exercise of all forms of worship, subject only to the
maintenance of public order and morals, are ensured to all. No discrimination
of any kind shall be made between the inhabitants of
After
Article 27 thereof states, in full, as follows:
The consent of the Council of the
Yet opponents of Jewish sovereignty in any portion of former Mandatory
Palestine often claim that the Mandate for
The first response to this claim is that the entirety of Mandatory Palestine was intended to become independent. It will be recalled that, pursuant to the fourth paragraph of Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations of the Treaty of Versailles, and by virtue of being designated as a Class A mandate by the League of Nations, the entirety of Mandatory Palestine was officially recognized as being among those former Ottoman-occupied lands which “... have reached a stage of development where their existence as independent nations can be provisionally recognised subject to the rendering of administrative advice and assistance by a Mandatory until such time as they are able to stand alone.”
The second response to this claim is that, except as set forth in Article 25 of the Mandate for Palestine, the Jews of Mandatory Palestine were granted exclusive national rights thereto in the form of a “Jewish national home” (Mandate for Palestine, Preamble, Paragraphs 2 & 3; and Articles 2 & 4), while the Gentiles of Mandatory Palestine were accorded only “civil and religious rights” therein (Mandate for Palestine, Preamble, Paragraph 2; and Article 2). It necessarily follows that whenever Mandatory Palestine attained independence its Jewish population would continue to be the repository of exclusive national rights therein in the form of national Jewish sovereignty over the Land.
If it were otherwise, then Article 25 of the Mandate would have been rendered completely superfluous. Article 25, which authorized the legal separation of virtually all the eastern portion of Mandatory Palestine from the western portion of Mandatory Palestine, was created and subsequently implemented precisely because, otherwise, the entirety of Mandatory Palestine would have become independent as a Jewish state only. Accordingly, Article 25 constituted the Mandate’s only legal mechanism for creating from Mandatory Palestine an independent Arab state; and Article 25 applied, by its express terms, only to the eastern Mandatory lands that eventually became the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.
Moreover, it should also be recalled that Article 25 of the Mandate, which applied only to specific Mandatory territory lying east of the Jordan River, was crafted precisely to separate the right of Jewish settlement (intended to be safeguarded via Article 15 of the Mandate) from the right of Jewish self-determination (intended to be withheld) in that eastern territory. That being the case, it cannot logically be argued that this same distinction between Jewish settlement and Jewish self-determination applied, as well, to the remainder of Mandatory Palestine (i.e., territory lying west of the Jordan River and the Golan Heights).
Consequently, in light of Article 25 of the Mandate, the entirety of
the
However, very soon,
Around the time of the announcement of the Mandate, the Arabs of the
cis-Jordania portion of Mandatory Palestine had begun a campaign of terror
attacks (via arson, bombings, knifings and shootings) and riots against the
Jewish population thereof. For example,
in March 1920, the Arabs destroyed the nascent Jewish
The 1920
It is telling that, almost one hundred years later, the international
community continues to view each and every Arab atrocity against the
Jewish population of the
The Arab pogroms of the first decade of the Mandate, punctuated by periods of calm, culminated in the coordinated atrocities of August 1929 during which the Arabs of Hebron massacred 67 of their Jewish neighbors -- leading the British Mandatory authorities, not to arrest the perpetrators of the massacre, but rather to expel the remainder of Hebron's ancient Jewish community -- and during which the Arabs of Tulkarm, Jenin, Nablus, Gaza and other Arab-dominated localities also murdered and expelled the Jewish communities within their midst.
Subsequently, in 1933, as Jewish immigration increased in the wake of Adolf Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor of Germany, Arab violence again exploded, not only against the Jewish population of the western (i.e., cis-Jordania) portion of Mandatory Palestine, but -- for the first time -- also against British Mandatory authorities.
These periodic assaults again spiked in April 1936 when the leadership of the Arabs of the cis-Jordania portion of Mandatory Palestine launched a series of terror attacks (again via arson, bombings, knifings and shootings) and riots against Jewish population centers and British Mandatory authorities, which jihad the Arab world denominated as “The Great Arab Revolt”.
Alarmed by the continuing Arab violence, the British government impaneled a Palestine Royal Commission in August 1936 to determine the causes of the Arab unrest and the means by which it might be ameliorated. In July 1937, the Commission issued its report, commonly known as the Peel Commission Report, to the British Parliament, which report stated, in Chapter IV thereof (entitled “The Disturbances of 1936”), as follows:
The underlying causes of the disturbances of 1936
were --
(1) The desire of the Arabs for national independence;
(2) their hatred and fear of the establishment of the Jewish National Home.
Consequently, the Peel Commission Report concluded that, despite the explicit
terms of the Mandate for
The Arab jihad continued to rage over the next 3 years due, in large part, to the support that it received from Nazi Germany. The Nazis, in addition to providing clandestine funding and armaments to the leadership of the jihad, also infiltrated its agents into the western portion of Mandatory Palestine in order to provide tactical advice in aid of the jihad.
The leader of the Arab jihad was Haj Mohammed Amin al-Husseini. As the British-appointed Grand Mufti of
Jerusalem (also head of the Supreme Muslim Council) and as the Arab-appointed
Chairman of the Arab Higher Committee, al-Husseini was the paramount spiritual
and political leader of the Arabs of the cis-Jordania portion of Mandatory
Palestine. However, in 1937, after
Mandatory authorities sought his arrest on account of his role in planning and
implementing that jihad, he fled Mandatory Palestine for Nazi Germany, later
helping to establish several Muslim Nazi battalions in Bosnia (which
participated in the deportation and transit of Jews to various death camps), assisting
in the creation of an Arab Nazi government in Iraq (which, at that time, had a
substantial Jewish population), and becoming one of German Chancellor Adolf
Hitler’s personal advisors on the annihilation of the Jewish people during
World War II. After the War, he was
given asylum in
Declassified information from British and German archives reveals the close relationship that developed between Nazi Germany and the “Palestinian” Arabs during the jihad of 1936 - 1939.
Republished below, in full, is an article from ynetnew.com, the English-language website of the Israeli newspaper Yediot Achronot, published on May 7, 2006, that summarizes and excerpts this information:
Nazis ‘shipped arms to Palestinians’
British National Archives unveil presence of
Nazi S.S. agents in Mandatory Palestine, working closely with Palestinian
leaders
By: Yaakov Lappin, ynetnew.com, 05.07.06
Historical documents in
A British Foreign Office report from 1939 reports
of “news of a consignment of arms from
British documents from the same period, and German records photographed by an American spy and sent to the British government, said that a number of Nazi agents were sent to Mandatory Palestine, in order to forge alliances with Palestinian leaders, and urge them to reject a partition of the land between the Jewish and Arab populations.
One Nazi agent, Adam Vollhardt, arrived in
“
German documents photographed and sent to
‘Arabs admire our Fuhrer’
“The Palestinian Arabs show on all levels a great
sympathy for the new
A second Nazi agent, Dr. Franz Reichart, was
reported to be actively working with Palestinian Arabs by the British Criminal
Investigation Division “to help coordinate Arab and German propaganda.”
Reichart was also head of the German Telegraphic Agency in
German records show that the Nazis viewed the establishment of a Jewish state with great concern. A 1937 report from German General Consulate in Palestine said: “The formation of a Jewish state… is not in Germany’s interest because a (Jewish) Palestinian state would create additional national power bases for international Jewry such as for example the Vatican State for political Catholicism or Moscow for the Communists. Therefore, there is a German interest in strengthening the Arabs as a counterweight against such possible power growth of the Jews.”
Jewish refugees abandoned
The records also show that the news of increased Nazi-Arab cooperation panicked the British government, and caused it to cancel a plan in 1938 to bring to Palestine 20,000 German Jewish refugees, half of them children, facing danger from the Nazis.
Documents show that after deciding that the move
would upset Arab opinion,
“His Majesty’s Government asked His Majesty’s
Representatives in
“If war were to break out, no trouble that the Jews could occasion us, in Palestine or elsewhere, could weigh for a moment against the importance of winning Muslim opinion to our side,” Britain’s Minister for Coordination of Defence, Lord Chatfield, told the British cabinet in 1939, shortly before Britain reversed its decision to partition its mandate, promising instead all of the land to the Palestinian Arabs.
Although Great Britain’s decision to curry favor with the belligerent Arab population of the cis-Jordania portion of Mandatory Palestine, as well as with the larger Arab and (non-Arab) Muslim worlds, by impeding mass Jewish flight from Nazi Germany to the western portion of Mandatory Palestine constituted yet another serious breach of its Mandatory obligations to the Jewish people, such informal ad hoc decision-making did not yet represent a formal and absolute bar to further Jewish immigration.
However, in 1939, as its official response to the sustained Arab
violence of the preceding three years, and in an effort -- largely unsuccessful
-- to wean the Arab populations of Mandatory Palestine and the larger Middle
East away from their open support of Nazi Germany (as the latter was beginning
its conquest of Europe), Great Britain, with the tacit support of the United
States, further violated the provisions of the Mandate for
Palestine by issuing an infamous manifesto, commonly known as the Palestine
White Paper of 1939. The White Paper,
while ostensibly asserting fealty to the stated goals of the Mandate, in
fact subverted the Mandate's raison d'être by essentially declaring
that, no later than 1949, an Arab-dominated state -- the Jewish component
of which was to be limited to one third of the population thereof in
order to assuage expressed Arab fears regarding eventual Jewish preeminence
therein -- would be established in the remaining territory of Mandatory
Palestine (i.e., the entirety of the western portion of Mandatory Palestine,
namely, the districts of Judea, Samaria, the eastern portion of Jerusalem and
Gaza, as well as the territory that would later become modern Israel within its
1949 armistice demarcation lines).
Specifically, the White Paper declared that, for the period from April
1, 1939 to March 31, 1944 (a period virtually coetaneous with the Holocaust), total
Jewish immigration thereto would be limited to a maximum of 75,000
(i.e., a maximum of 10,000 immigrants per year for 5 years with the
possible aggregate addition of another 25,000 immigrants meeting special
criteria, subject to the proviso that Great Britain would reduce even
this paltry annual “legal” Jewish immigration by its estimate of the
number of “illegal” Jewish immigrants); and that, commencing April 1, 1944,
absent the prior consent of the Arab leadership of the cis-Jordania portion of
Mandatory Palestine, any further Jewish immigration thereto would
be absolutely prohibited. Moreover, the White Paper also declared that, henceforth,
even “legal” Jewish residents would be severely restricted in their ability
to purchase land in the cis-Jordania portion of Mandatory Palestine. In
contrast to the White Paper's restrictions on Jewish immigration and land
purchases, British policy otherwise permitted unrestricted Arab
immigration to the cis-Jordania portion of Mandatory Palestine -- mostly from
the surrounding Arab lands which now comprise the modern states of Lebanon,
Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt -- and placed no restrictions on their
ability to acquire land there. For
example, the Bedouin Arab tribes presently residing in northern
In addition to the British policy of responding to Arab terrorism by barring further Jewish land purchases and by instituting a graduated ban on Jewish immigration, the Mandatory authorities, in a further effort to appease the hostile Arab population, and at the behest of the local Muslim religious authorities, also humiliated the Jewish population by hobbling the latter’s prayer services at the Western Wall of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount by means of such measures as prohibiting the use of chairs and benches for worshippers’ comfort, prohibiting the use of even a portable mechitza (the prayer partition placed between the genders, as required by Jewish tradition), prohibiting “loud” public prayer, and prohibiting the blowing of the shofar (the ram’s horn) during Rosh HaShana (as required by the Torah) and at the end of Yom Kippur services (as required by Jewish tradition).
And, while the fires of the Holocaust consumed Europe's Jewry, Great Britain
-- in abject contravention of the dictates of Morality and every fiduciary
obligation to the Jewish people imposed upon it by the Mandate for Palestine --
ruthlessly implemented its illegal White Paper, this despite the fact that the Council
of the League of Nations (whose prior consent was necessary for any
proposed modifications to the Mandate, per Article 27 thereof) had refused
to approve it. In furtherance thereof,
It is indeed ironic that from 1933 until the failure of the Evian Conference (which caused the Nazi leadership to change its policy towards the Jewish people from one of expulsion to one of extermination), while Great Britain increasingly obstructed Jewish immigration to Mandatory Palestine, Nazi officials worked closely with Jewish aliyah representatives in Germany and Austria to assist its unwanted Jewish populations in obtaining entry permits to Mandatory Palestine (as well as to any other destinations willing to accept Jews).
Great Britain’s illegal policy towards the entry of Jews to Mandatory Palestine during the Holocaust was bluntly articulated in a letter dated March 4, 1943 from British Minister to the United States Ronald Campbell to World Zionist Organization President Chaim Weizmann concerning a proposal to permit approximately 70,000 of Romania’s endangered Jews to flee to Mandatory Palestine, as follows: "His Majesty's Government has no evidence to show whether the Romanian proposal was meant to be taken seriously. But if it was, it was already a piece of blackmail which, if successful, would open up the endless prospect on the part of Germany and her satellites in southeastern Europe of unloading, at a given price, all their unwanted multitudes on overseas countries."
So it was that, at the malevolent hands of
By the end of 1943, it had become clear that Nazi Germany would eventually
be vanquished, but not before millions more Jews would be annihilated as part
of its death throes. It was also clear that
On April 18, 1946, in the aftermath of World War II, the
Although Great Britain’s resignation as the Mandate’s trustee
terminated any remnant of its international authority to further administer
the Mandate, its resignation did not -- and could not -- legally terminate
the trust which constituted the Mandate (which is the very reason why,
almost 10 months later, the United Nations itself sought to
formally terminate the Mandate).
However,
This crisis resulted in the passage of United Nations General Assembly Resolution no. 181 (II) on November 29, 1947, commonly known as the Palestine Partition Plan, which called for the termination of the Mandate for Palestine and for the division of its remaining territory -- namely, the western portion thereof, consisting of 22% of original Mandatory Palestine -- into three separate entities: (1) an independent Jewish state (comprised of 3 small barely-adjoined cantons, constituting slightly less than 11% of original Mandatory Palestine), (2) an independent Arab state (comprised of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, as well as significant portions of what would later comprise Israel within its 1949 armistice demarcation lines, constituting slightly less than 11% of original Mandatory Palestine), and (3) a U.N.-administered Special International Regime comprised of Jerusalem and certain of its environs (including Bethlehem), all of which would, however, be joined together in a supranational economic union.
Although, under the Charter of the United Nations of June 26, 1945 (per Chapter IV thereof, entitled “The General Assembly”, encompassing Articles 10 through 22 thereof), General Assembly resolutions merely constitute the informed recommendations of the international community (and are, consequently, not legally binding upon the parties to any dispute), and although this Resolution actually violated international law, namely, Article 5 of the Mandate for Palestine (which Mandate provision forbade ceding any portion of the territory of the Jewish national home to a foreign Power, and which Mandate provision was made binding upon the nascent United Nations per Article 80 of the U.N. Charter (discussed below)), the Jewish leadership of the cis-Jordania portion of Mandatory Palestine nevertheless accepted this non-binding and transgressive Resolution, subject, of course, to the Resolution's acceptance, as well, by the Arab leadership of the cis-Jordania portion of Mandatory Palestine.
In legal terminology, the Jewish leadership of the cis-Jordania portion of Mandatory Palestine offered to enter into an implied interdependent bilateral contract with the Arab leadership of the cis-Jordania portion of Mandatory Palestine, pursuant to the provisions of the Palestine Partition Plan, for the peaceful division of the western portion of Mandatory Palestine into a Jewish state, an Arab state and an internationalized greater Jerusalem.
However, despite the fact that the Resolution’s implementation would have carved out from original Mandatory Palestine a second Arab state after Transjordan, the Arab leadership -- both Muslim and Christian -- of the cis-Jordania portion of Mandatory Palestine, as well as the leaders of Transjordan and all the Arab and (non-Arab) Muslim countries which were then members of the U.N. (namely, Afghanistan, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey and Yemen), rejected the Resolution by both declaration and conduct. Not surprisingly, Great Britain, which -- despite the annihilation wreaked upon the Jewish people by the Holocaust -- had long-devolved from being a proponent to being an opponent of Jewish settlement and self-determination in the biblical Land of Israel (in rank violation of its express fiduciary obligations under the Mandate for Palestine), refused to vote in favor of the Palestine Partition Plan; rather, it abstained.
Immediately after the Palestine Partition Plan’s passage on November 29,
1947, as a result of their rejection of any Jewish sovereignty in any portion
of Mandatory Palestine, local Arab militias drawn from villages, towns and
cities throughout the biblical Land of Israel, as well as -- commencing in
January 1948 -- hundreds of foreign Arabs and (non-Arab) Muslims who began to
infiltrate the Land as part of the “Arab Liberation Army” created by the League
of Arab States (commonly known as the Arab League) and commanded by Fawzi
el-Kaukji, commenced a sustained jihad against the Jewish communities there
with little interference -- and, sometimes, even with overt assistance
-- from Great Britain, representing an exponential increase in the anti-Jewish
violence that had periodically swept through the Land since the announcement of
the Mandate in 1920. In fact, from
November 30, 1947 through March 31, 1948, almost 1,000 Jews were
murdered by Arab militias who attacked both isolated Jewish villages and Jewish
neighborhoods of mixed cities, regardless of whether they were situated outside
or inside of the Partition Plan lines.
At the outset of this period, in an effort to isolate and starve the
Jewish neighborhoods of
In its report of February 16, 1948 to the United Nations Security Council,
the United Nations Palestine Commission expressed its frustration over the
forceful Arab rejection of the Palestine Partition Plan. The report, entitled “First Special Report to
the Security Council: The Problem of Security in
Powerful Arab interests, both inside and outside
In March 1948, in reaction to the raging Arab jihad and mindful of rising
Arab anger over the American vote in favor of Partition, the United States withdrew
its support for the Palestine Partition Plan. As an alternative to partition, the
Finally, in early April 1948 -- in response to the ongoing Arab
atrocities and in response to British indifference thereto (and, at
times, even British hostility to the plight of the victimized Jewish
population) -- the Hagana militia began to counterattack and to capture hostile
Arab villages as well as hostile Arab neighborhoods of mixed cities. Eventually, hundreds of Arab villages were
razed to the ground, and some mixed cities, such as Tiberias and Safed, became
all-Jewish cities. For example, in early
April 1948, the Arab residents of Tiberias -- a town situated on the western
shores of
The
Just before the onset of the Sabbath on Friday May 14, 1948, as British
occupation forces were completing their withdrawal from the cis-Jordania
portion of Mandatory Palestine, and as Arabs continued to attack
Jewish-populated areas both outside and inside the Partition Plan
lines, the Jewish leadership thereof nonetheless announced the creation
of the State of Israel, effective at midnight on May 15, 1948 (Israel time) within
the U.N.-recommended Palestine Partition Plan lines -- within which boundaries
Jews then constituted approximately 60% of the population -- declaring, in
part: “The
State of Israel is prepared to cooperate with the agencies and representatives
of the United Nations in implementing the resolution of the General Assembly of
the 29th of November, 1947; and will
take steps to bring about the economic union of the whole of the Land of
Israel” (Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel, Paragraph
14).
Despite a raging internal debate over the
geopolitical wisdom of establishing diplomatic relations with a State that was
not expected to survive more than a few days, the United States proclaimed its
recognition of the State of Israel at 12:11 am on May 15, 1948 (Israel time)
just 11 minutes after the Jewish State came into being -- the first country to
do so.
As anticipated, also on May 15, 1948, the local Arab militias and foreign infiltrators who had been conducting a jihad against the Jewish communities in the western portion of Mandatory Palestine since the issuance of the Palestine Partition Plan were joined by the invading armies of six Arab countries (-- Lebanon, Syria, Transjordan, Egypt, Iraq and Saudi Arabia --), all of which attempted to annihilate the Jewish State within its nonviable 1947 Partition Plan lines, and to thereby illegally effect the retroactive nullification of the internationally-sanctioned Mandatory enterprise.
That same day, commenting on the goals of the pan-Arab invasion of
This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre, which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades.
Many of the Transjordanian and Egyptian forces which attacked the renascent
Jewish State were trained and led by British officers. In addition, while
However, the
Meanwhile, in June 1948, shortly after the commencement of Israel’s War of Independence, the Soviet Union (whose forces, since the end of World War II, had been occupying the eastern zone of Germany, except for the western portion of the City of Berlin, then known as West Berlin, which -- although deep inside the eastern zone of Germany -- was connected to the American-British-French-occupied western zone of Germany by a single highway traversing the eastern zone of Germany) commenced a blockade of the highway to encircled West Berlin and a siege of that remnant city, which had been the unrepentant capital of Nazi Germany a scant three years earlier. In a bitter revelation of priorities unsullied by Morality or even Irony, the “even-handed” United States -- which refused to take any action whatsoever to aid Israel in breaking the Arab blockade of the Tel Aviv – Jerusalem highway and the siege of the encircled Jewish-populated neighborhoods of Jerusalem by a combination of Arab forces which sought to finish the task that Nazi Germany had commenced -- nonetheless spearheaded a massive airlift, lasting almost a year (from the end of June 1948 to mid May 1949) and costing the lives of 31 American pilots, to protect the relative freedom and prosperity of the former Nazi citizens of West Berlin (who, unlike the Jews of Jerusalem, were then in danger of conquest, but not annihilation).
As a result of their respective participations in the invasion, Transjordan
captured Judea,
In legal terminology, the Arab leadership of the cis-Jordania portion of Mandatory Palestine (with the substantial assistance of their many allies, including Great Britain) repudiated the existence of any implied contract with the Jewish leadership of the cis-Jordania portion of Mandatory Palestine for the peaceful division of the western portion of Mandatory Palestine, thereby absolving the Jewish leadership from any further legal obligation to comply with the repudiated Palestine Partition Plan.
Consequently, since the repudiated Palestine Partition Plan was never implemented, the Mandate was not terminated de jure thereby. However, the earlier creation by Great Britain, as Mandatory, of the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan in 1946 (pursuant to the authority of Article 25 of the Mandate) and the subsequent establishment, by the resident Jewish population thereof, of the State of Israel in 1948 (pursuant to the raison d'être of the Mandate) did legally remove those newly-independent areas from the Mandate's ambit, thereafter leaving only the districts of Judea, Samaria, the eastern portion of Jerusalem and Gaza, then illegally-occupied by Transjordan and Egypt (as well as the Golan Heights, then illegally-occupied by Syria) still subject de jure to the provisions of the Mandate.
During Israel’s War of Independence, approximately 600,000 Arab belligerents, constituting approximately 80% of the Arabs residing upon the lands which would become Israel within its 1949 armistice demarcation lines, fled or were expelled therefrom, while the remaining 150,000 Arabs thereof (who, while generally hostile to the creation of the Jewish State, did not actively participate in the War to destroy it) were not only permitted to remain within the State of Israel but were granted full citizenship rights therein, including national voting rights, in addition to which they were granted a blanket exemption from compulsory military service therein. Nevertheless, a large portion of Israel’s Arab citizenry, representing the irredentist rump of a defeated supranational enemy, has chosen to annually observe May 15, not as “Yom HaAtzma’ut” (Hebrew-language meaning: “The Independence Day”, although, due to differences between the Gregorian and Hebrew calendars, Israel’s celebration of its independence coincides with May 15 only every 19 years), but rather as “Yawm een-Nakba” (Arabic-language meaning: “The Catastrophe Day”, which the Arabs of Israel actually observe twice each year: officially on May 15 based upon the Gregorian calendar and unofficially on the date that Israel celebrates its Independence Day based upon the Hebrew calendar). By holding an annual day of mourning over the pan-Arab failure to annihilate Israel in 1948, those Arab citizens of Israel declare themselves kindred to those revanchist Germans who annually mourn Nazi Germany’s defeat in 1945. On the other hand, in the Jewish State’s successful effort to survive this first pan-Arab onslaught launched against it, the resident Druze (descendants of Arabs who deviated from the Shiite branch of Islam approximately 1,000 years ago), the resident Circassians (a non-Arab ethnic group originating from Circassia, located in the northwestern region of the Caucasus Mountains of modern Russia, who follow the Sunni branch of Islam), and a small number of resident Arabs (mostly Bedouins, who follow the Sunni branch of Islam) openly allied themselves with the resident Jews thereof, with the result that the Druze citizens and the Circassian citizens of the State of Israel were made subject to the same compulsory military service as were the Jewish citizens thereof, while the Bedouins were accepted into military service on a volunteer basis.
In the aftermath of their unsuccessful effort to destroy
Yet, despite Israel’s territorial gains during its War of Independence, the
Jewish State was, nonetheless, a tenuous creation, being a mere 18
kilometers (approximately 11 miles) wide opposite the western edge
of the coastal city of Tel Aviv (i.e., at the Mediterranean Sea), and a
miniscule 15 kilometers (approximately 9 miles) wide at its narrowest
point opposite the western edge of the coastal city of Netanya (i.e., at
the Mediterranean Sea), with the Transjordanian army encircling the
Jewish-controlled western portion of Jerusalem and its environs on three
sides, with that same Arab army controlling a territorial salient at Latrun
overlooking, and consequently capable of blockading, the Tel Aviv – Jerusalem
highway (this still being, at that time, the sole road linking the western
portion of Jerusalem with the remainder of Israel), and with the Syrian army
stationed on the peaks of the hills (comprising the Golan Heights) which
dominate the entire Upper Galilee region of Israel, including Israel’s
largest body of fresh water, Lake Kinneret (which constitutes 40% of the
Jewish State’s water supply), thereby setting the stage for the next
pan-Arab onslaught that would be launched against Israel nearly two decades
later, namely, the 1967 Six Day War.
Meanwhile, in the process of their illegal conquest of the cis-Jordania portion of Mandatory Palestine, the invading Arab armies, together with their local Arab allies, destroyed all of the extant Jewish communities in the newly Arab-occupied areas -- both those which were created under the authority of the Mandate (such as the Gush Etzion grouping of villages in Judea, the Kfar Darom and Nitzanim villages in Gaza, and the Atarot and Neve Yaakov villages in the Jerusalem area) and those which had existed from time immemorial (such as the ancient Jewish neighborhoods situated in the eastern portion of Jerusalem which now thereby joined the ancient Jewish neighborhoods of Hebron as well as of other Arab-dominated cities which had been destroyed almost two decades earlier); and these aggressors massacred or expelled all of the Jewish inhabitants thereof. Moreover, not being content with having extirpated the entire Jewish population from the newly Arab-occupied Old City of Jerusalem, the victorious Arabs also desecrated and razed all 58 synagogues in the Old City and vandalized 75% of the Jewish gravestones on the nearby Mount of Olives cemetery.
Nevertheless, Transjordan's illegal military occupation, from 1948 to 1967, of Judea, Samaria and the eastern portion of Jerusalem (as a result of which the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan, now occupying lands on both banks of the Jordan River, soon renamed itself the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan) and Egypt's illegal military occupation, from 1948 to 1967 of Gaza, as well as both countries' concomitant destruction of all Jewish communities there, did not remove these now Judenrein (cleansed of Jews) areas from the legal ambit of the Mandate. Accordingly, the internationally-authorized Mandatory rights inhering in the Jewish people to effect “... close settlement by Jews on the Land ...” (Mandate for Palestine, Article 6) and to reconstitute therein “... the Jewish national home ...” (Mandate for Palestine, Articles 2 & 4) continued to apply de jure to Judea, Samaria, the eastern portion of Jerusalem, and Gaza (and, as well, to the Golan Heights) until Israel’s reacquisition of those stolen lands in 1967.
This seldom-acknowledged truth of international law is reinforced by the
fact that the 1949 Armistice Agreements -- which were negotiated under
supervision of the United Nations and which ostensibly terminated Israel's War
of Independence -- essentially declared that the armistice demarcation lines
that encompassed Israel at the end of that war were not to be deemed its
lawful international boundaries but only military
separation-of-forces lines determined without prejudice to the combatant
parties’ “... rights, claims and positions ... in the ultimate peaceful
settlement of the Palestine question ...” (Israel-Egypt Armistice Agreement,
Article XI; Israel-Lebanon Armistice Agreement, Article II, Paragraph 2;
Israel-Jordan Armistice Agreement, Article II, Paragraph 2; and Israel-Syria
Armistice Agreement, Article II, Paragraph 2); and, amazingly, this same
juridical formulation was applied to Israel's armistice demarcation line with
Lebanon even though that line was identical to the former
international boundary between the cis-Jordania portion of Mandatory Palestine
and Lebanon. Yet, how did
The four Armistice Agreements, operatively state, in salient part, as follows:
Israel-Egypt Armistice Agreement dated February 24, 1949
. . .
Article IV
With specific reference to the implementation of the resolutions of the Security Council of 4 and 16 November 1948, the following principles and purposes are affirmed:
1. The principle that no military or political advantage should be gained under the truce ordered by the Security Council is recognized.
2. It is also recognized that the basic purposes and spirit of the Armistice would not be served by the restoration of previously held military positions, changes from those now held other than as specifically provided for in this Agreement, or by the advance of the military forces of either side beyond positions held at the time this Armistice Agreement is signed.
3. It is further recognized that rights, claims or interests of a non-military character in the area of Palestine covered by this Agreement may be asserted by either Party, and that these, by mutual agreement being excluded from the Armistice negotiations, shall be, at the discretion of the Parties, the subject of later settlement. It is emphasized that it is not the purpose of this Agreement to establish, to recognize, to strengthen, or to weaken or nullify, in any way, any territorial, custodial or other rights, claims or interests which may be asserted by either Party in the area of Palestine or any part or locality thereof covered by this Agreement, whether such asserted rights, claims or interests derive from Security Council resolutions, including the resolution of 4 November 1948 and the Memorandum of 13 November 1948 for its implementation, or from any other source. The provisions of this Agreement are dictated exclusively by military considerations and are valid only for the period of the Armistice.
Article V
1. The line described in Article VI of this Agreement shall be designated as the Armistice Demarcation Line and is delineated in pursuance of the purpose and intent of the resolutions of the Security Council of 4 and 16 November 1948.
2. The Armistice Demarcation Line is not to be
construed in any sense as a political or territorial boundary, and is
delineated without prejudice to rights, claims and positions of either Party to
the Armistice as regards ultimate settlement of the
3. The basic purpose of the Armistice Demarcation Line is to delineate the line beyond which the armed forces of the respective Parties shall not move except as provided in Article III of this Agreement.
. . .
Article XI
No provision of this Agreement shall in any way
prejudice the rights, claims and positions of either Party hereto in the
ultimate peaceful settlement of the
. . .
Israel-Lebanon Armistice Agreement, dated March 23, 1949
. . .
Article II
With a specific view to the implementation of the resolution of the Security Council of 16 November 1948, the following principles and purposes are affirmed:
1. The principle that no military or political advantage should be gained under the truce ordered by the Security Council is recognized.
2. It is also recognized that no provision of this
Agreement shall in any way prejudice the rights, claims and positions of either
Party hereto in the ultimate peaceful settlement of the
. . .
Article IV
1. The line described in Article V of this Agreement shall be designated as the Armistice Demarcation Line and is delineated in pursuance of the purpose and intent of the resolution of the Security Council of 16 November 1948.
2. The basic purpose of the Armistice Demarcation Line is to delineate the line beyond which the armed forces of the respective Parties shall not move.
. . .
Article V
1. The Armistice Demarcation Line shall follow the
international boundary between the
. . .
Israel-Jordan Armistice Agreement, dated April 3, 1949
. . .
Article II
With a specific view to the implementation of the resolution of the Security Council of 16 November 1948, the following principles and purposes are affirmed:
1. The principle that no military or political advantage should be gained under the truce ordered by the Security Council is recognized;
2. It is also recognized that no provision of this
Agreement shall in any way prejudice the rights, claims and positions of either
Party hereto in the ultimate peaceful settlement of the
. . .
Article IV
1. The lines described in articles V and VI of this Agreement shall be designated as the Armistice Demarcation Lines and are delineated in pursuance of the purpose and intent of the resolution of the Security Council of 16 November 1948.
2. The basic purpose of the Armistice Demarcation Lines is to delineate the lines beyond which the armed forces of the respective Parties shall not move.
. . .
Israel-Syria Armistice Agreement, dated July 20, 1949
. . .
Article II
With a specific view to the implementation of the resolution of the Security Council of 16 November 1948, the following principles and purposes are affirmed:
1. The principle that no military or political advantage should be gained under the truce ordered by the Security Council is recognized.
2. It is also recognized that no provision of this
Agreement shall in any way prejudice the rights, claims and positions of either
Party hereto in the ultimate peaceful settlement of the
. . .
Article IV
1. The line described in Article V of this Agreement shall be designated as the Armistice Demarcation Line and is delineated in pursuance of the purpose and intent of the resolution of the Security Council of 16 November 1948.
2. The basic purpose of the Armistice Demarcation Line is to delineate the line beyond which the armed forces of the respective Parties shall not move.
. . .
Article V
1. It is emphasized that the following arrangements for the Armistice Demarcation Line between the Israeli and Syrian armed forces and for the Demilitarised Zone are not to be interpreted as having any relation whatsoever to ultimate territorial arrangements affecting the two Parties to this Agreement.
2. In pursuance of the spirit of the Security Council resolution of 16 November 1948, the Armistice Demarcation Line and the Demilitarised Zone have been defined with a view toward separating the armed forces of the two Parties in such manner as to minimize the possibility of friction and incident, while providing for the gradual restoration of normal civilian life in the area of the Demilitarised Zone, without prejudice to the ultimate settlement.
. . .
It is clear that, although the Armistice Agreements explicitly acknowledged
the Arabs’ de facto possession of lands over which the Jewish people had
acquired exclusive national rights by virtue of the Mandate for
Incredibly, even decades later -- despite the constant terrorist
infiltrations emanating from
In fact, absent
“Except as may be agreed upon in individual trusteeship agreements, made under Articles 77, 79, and 81, placing each territory under the trusteeship system, and until such agreements have been concluded, nothing in this Chapter shall be construed in or of itself to alter in any manner the rights whatsoever of any states or any peoples or the terms of existing international instruments to which Members of the United Nations may respectively be parties.”
For this reason, United Nations Security Council Resolution no. 242 --
issued in the aftermath of
The authoritative and laboriously-negotiated English-language text of the Resolution reflected an implicit international acknowledgment that, although the State of Israel had enlarged itself as a result of the 1967 Six Day War, inter alia, expanding its sovereignty over original Mandatory Palestine from 17% to 23% thereof, the Jewish State had nevertheless been the victim of genocidal Arab aggression in that War due, in part, to the wholly untenable military separation-of-forces lines of 1949 which had rendered Israel an inviting target for invasion and destruction.
It will be recalled that, for almost two decades prior to June 1967,
Lebanon, Syria, Egypt and Jordan -- in rank violation of their 1949 Armistice
Agreements with Israel -- had continuously permitted the various components of
the Palestine Liberation Organization and its fedayeen precursors to mount
terror attacks against Israel from southern Lebanon, from the Golan Heights,
from Sinai and Gaza, and from Judea, Samaria and the eastern portion of
Jerusalem, respectively. In a further
violation of its Armistice Agreement with Israel (per Article V, subparagraph
5b), Syria had gradually encroached upon and occupied the Demilitarized Zone
established between the two countries, so that by the end of 1951 its armed
forces occupied the northeastern shore of Lake Kinneret (constituting
approximately 20% of its shoreline) and the eastern bank of the Jordan River
flowing south from Lake Hula to Lake Kinneret, all west of Israel’s 1949
armistice demarcation line with Syria.
In addition, the Syrian army regularly employed mortars and snipers
against the Jewish communities of northern
It must be emphasized that the ongoing violations by Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan
and Syria of their 1949 Armistice Agreements with Israel -- culminating
in the latter three’s coordinated attempt to annihilate the Jewish State in
1967 -- necessarily absolved Israel from any further legal obligation to
comply therewith. Accordingly, the
Armistice having been breached by the Arabs, the Jewish people’s reacquisition
in a war of self-defense of Judea,
However, it should be noted that, although the U.N. Security Council implicitly conceded the undeniable fact that Israel had been the victim and the surrounding Arab countries the aggressors in the Six Day War, that deliberative body was nonetheless unwilling to explicitly elucidate this Truth in the Resolution. In fact, the text thereof is so “evenhanded” as between victim and aggressor that it neither identifies the participants in the war nor otherwise utters the name “Israel”, except in its call for “withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict” -- a call from which, ironically, an ignorant person might readily infer that Israel had been the aggressor in that War. This exhibition of diplomatic cowardice by the U.N. Security Council was motivated both by its aversion to angering the Arab and larger Muslim worlds by identifying, by name or otherwise, some of their number as aggressors and by its understanding that these countries would never acquiesce to a non-condemnatory resolution which made excessive reference, by name, to the State of Israel, the existence of which these countries refused to accept de jure or even acknowledge de facto.
U.N. Security Council Resolution no. 242 states, in full, as follows:
United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 (22 November 1967).
The Security Council,
Expressing its continuing concern with the grave
situation in the
Emphasizing the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war and the need to work for a just and lasting peace in which every State in the area can live in security,
Emphasizing further that all Member States in their acceptance of the Charter of the United Nations have undertaken a commitment to act in accordance with Article 2 of the Charter:
1. Affirms that the fulfillment of Charter
principles requires the establishment of a just and lasting peace in the
(i) Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict;
(ii) Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force;
2. Affirms further the necessity:
(a) For guaranteeing freedom of navigation through international waterways in the area;
(b) For achieving a just settlement of the refugee problem;
(c) For guaranteeing the territorial inviolability and political independence of every State in the area, through measures including the establishment of demilitarized zones;
3. Requests the Secretary-General to designate a Special Representative to proceed to them Middle East to establish and maintain contacts with the States concerned in order to promote agreement and assist efforts to achieve a peaceful and accepted settlement in accordance with the provisions and principles in this resolution;
4. Requests the Secretary-General to report to the Security Council on the progress of the efforts of the Special Representative as soon as possible.
That Israel is not required by the issued Resolution to withdraw to the military separation-of-forces lines of 1949 is further proven by the refusal of the U.N. Security Council to insert either the words “all” or “the” into the authoritative English-language text of the draft Resolution as a grammatical qualifier before the word “territories” therein -- despite a 5 month pre-passage diplomatic onslaught by the Arab nations and their allies to so modify the language thereof.
As stated on January 19, 1970 by George Brown, Foreign Secretary of
“I have been asked over and over again to clarify,
modify or improve the wording, but I do not intend to do that. The phrasing of
the Resolution was very carefully worked out, and it was a difficult and
complicated exercise to get it accepted by the U.N. Security Council. I
formulated the Security Council Resolution. Before we submitted it to the
Council, we showed it to Arab leaders. The proposal said '
This view was reiterated on July 12, 1970 by Joseph Sisco, Assistant
Secretary of State of the
“That Resolution did not say 'withdrawal to the pre-June 5 lines'. The Resolution said that the parties must negotiate to achieve agreement on the so-called final secure and recognized borders. In other words, the question of the final borders is a matter of negotiations between the parties.” (NBC Television, Meet The Press, July 12, 1970).
Moreover, the Resolution's explicit call for negotiations between “the States concerned” (i.e., Israel, Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon) to establish for Israel “secure and recognized boundaries” constituted an acknowledgment by the international community that the 1949 armistice demarcation lines were neither “secure” (-- i.e., although Israel had prevailed in the 1967 Six Day War, the 1949 separation-of-forces lines were not militarily defensible --) nor “recognized” (-- i.e., the 1949 separation-of-forces lines did not constitute internationally-recognized boundaries --).
As stated on September 10, 1968 by United States President Lyndon Johnson:
“We are not the ones to say where other nations should draw lines between them that will assure each the greatest security. It is clear, however, that a return to the situation of 4 June 1967 will not bring peace. There must be secure -- and there must be recognized -- borders. Some such lines must be agreed to by the neighbors involved.”
Yet, disingenuously -- despite the fact that the members of the U.N. Security Council debated the provisions of, and voted to pass, only the English-language version of the Resolution (the draft of which was submitted by Great Britain to the Security Council as document no. S/8247), and despite the fact that British and American diplomats have publicly stated that the omission of the definite article “the” before the noun “territories” in the text thereof was intentional -- some polemicists claim fealty only to the French-language translation of the English-language Resolution which employs the phrase “des territoires” (which literally re-translates into the English language as “from the territories” but which idiomatically re-translates into the English language as either “from the territories” or “from territories”). However, due to the fact that this apparent ambiguity in meaning occurs only because the grammatical rules of the French language do not permit the employment of the preposition “from” together with its intended object without the interpolation of the definite article “the” (i.e., the English-language phrase “from territories” cannot grammatically be rendered into the French language except as “des territoires”), France declared -- soon after the Resolution was issued -- that the French-language version thereof was intended to be an exact translation of the English-language text thereof, and that, consequently, its version did not cause the Resolution to have any different meaning in the French language than it had in the English language.
Of course, since the Resolution is merely directory and, consequently,
non-binding, any linguistic argument over the withdrawal component thereof is
only of academic interest. Yet, even if the Resolution were
mandatory rather than directory, since the Resolution does not, in fact,
demand withdrawal from all of the territories, Israel's relinquishment, in the
aftermath of the subsequent 1973 Yom Kippur War, to Egypt of the district of
Sinai (plus all of the additional lands captured by Israel in that War beyond
Sinai towards Cairo) and to Syria of the district of Kuneitra on the Golan
Heights (plus all of the additional lands captured by Israel in that War
beyond the Golan Heights towards Damascus) -- constituting in excess
of 90% of the territory acquired by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War (plus 100%
of the territory acquired by Israel in the 1973 Yom Kippur War) -- has,
arguably, already satisfied the Resolution's nonspecific withdrawal
component. At any rate, by having launched a coordinated invasion
against Israel in 1973 without provocation, Egypt and Syria (with
assistance from Jordan which sent several troop divisions to the Golan Heights'
front to fight Israel under Syrian command) thereby attempted by military means
to deprive Israel of the benefits of the Resolution's recommendation of negotiations
leading to “secure and recognized boundaries” for the Jewish State, as a
consequence of which it may be argued that the aggressors thereby forfeited their
recommended benefits under the Resolution. Moreover, it may be further argued
that -- even if
In the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War, the U.N. Security Council issued its Resolution no. 338, which -- hearkening back to the cowardice displayed in its Resolution no. 242 concerning the Six Day War -- cravenly declined either to (a) identify Israel as the victim in the Yom Kippur War (or even utter the name “Israel”), or (b) condemn Egypt and Syria as the aggressors (or even identify them as participants) in that War. The Resolution states, in full, as follows:
United Nations Security Council Resolution 338 (October 22, 1973).
The Security Council
1. Calls upon all parties to the present fighting to cease all firing and terminate all military activity immediately, no later than 12 hours after the moment of the adoption of this decision, in the positions they now occupy;
2. Calls upon the parties concerned to start immediately after the cease-fire the implementation of Security Council resolution 242 (1967) in all of its parts;
3. Decides that, immediately and concurrently with
the cease-fire, negotiations start between the parties concerned under
appropriate auspices aimed at establishing a just and durable peace in the
It is noteworthy that nowhere does U.N. Security Council Resolution
no. 242 assert any “Palestinian” collective ownership of -- or call for the
establishment of a “Palestinian” state in -- any portion of the biblical
Lastly, it is also noteworthy that U.N. Security Council Resolution no. 242,
in what is generally regarded as an implied criticism of
Although the international community has also issued myriads of other U.N. Security Council resolutions and U.N. General Assembly resolutions (and has even procured an advisory opinion from the U.N. International Court of Justice) which appear to erode, or even negate, the international legal status of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, none of these resolutions (or such non-binding advisory ruling) are able to alter preexisting international law by which “... recognition has thereby been given to the historical connexion of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country” (Mandate for Palestine, Preamble, Paragraph 3) on account of which “... close settlement by Jews on the Land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes” (Mandate for Palestine, Article 6) was thereby authorized. This is primarily due to the fact that all of these other Security Council resolutions were also issued under authority of Chapter VI rather than Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter, and they are, consequently, directory (i.e., recommendatory) rather than mandatory (i.e., obligatory), and also due to the fact that General Assembly resolutions directed against member States never have any force of law.
However, even if the Security Council were to issue a resolution under the authority of Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter, which sought to deprive the Jewish people of their collective rights of settlement and self-determination under the Mandate for Palestine, that resolution would be in flagrant violation of Article 80 of the U.N. Charter (which, absent Israel's formal consent, prohibits the U.N. from using its potential trusteeship authority over the non-sovereign territories of Judea, Samaria and Gaza “... to alter in any manner the rights whatsoever of any states or any peoples or the terms of existing international instruments to which Members of the United Nations may respectively be parties”), and would, consequently, be deemed null and void -- ab initio -- under international law.
Notwithstanding the foregoing discussion concerning the continued primacy of the Mandatory legal rights of settlement and self-determination bestowed upon the Jewish people with respect to Judea, Samaria, the eastern portion of Jerusalem, Gaza and the Golan Heights (as derived from the relevant preambulary and operative provisions of the governing instrument of the Mandate), it is clear that the Mandate’s administrative regime (i.e., the trusteeship office theoretically capable of revival by the future appointment of a successor Mandatory to govern the remaining non-sovereign territory of former Mandatory Palestine) terminated de facto when Israel declared its independence in 1948. This is so, not only because Great Britain had resigned as Mandatory trustee, but also because the Mandate’s raison d'être was fulfilled in practice the moment a Jewish State came into being, notwithstanding the fact that only a portion of the territory allocated by the Mandate for that purpose was actually under Jewish control by the end of Israel’s War of Independence. Moreover, once Israel reacquired, in 1967, the remainder of those lands which were authorized -- and always intended -- by the Mandate to be part of a Jewish State, the Mandate’s administrative regime finally terminated de jure, as once all stolen Jewish land was reunited with the Jewish State, there remained thereafter no further legal grounds or legal purpose for the revival of the Mandate’s administrative regime (whose only purpose had been to facilitate the creation of a Jewish State upon all of the territory -- after the exercise of the severance authority of Article 25 of the Mandate for Palestine -- which comprised Mandatory Palestine).
Consequently, the State of Israel is the lawful repository of
the exclusive national rights in and to the entirety of the western
portion of former Mandatory Palestine and the Golan Heights, which lands
were explicitly granted to the Jewish people by virtue of the Mandate
for
Yet, don't the countless U.N. resolutions directed against the State of
Israel’s sovereignty over the
In fact, it is often asserted that the State of Israel was created by
the United Nations via U.N. General Assembly Resolution no. 181 of November
1947 (Palestine Partition Plan) as a byproduct of
Accordingly, doesn't
FIRSTLY,
Moreover, while the Holocaust did not create the
State of Israel, the absence of the State of Israel did create
the Holocaust. For, had the Jewish State already existed when Nazi Germany
arose from the ashes of World War I, virtually all of those who perished in the
Holocaust would, instead, have been forcibly expelled by Nazi Germany to
a welcoming
Furthermore, if genuine European remorse over the Holocaust had really existed in 1947, then the United Nations General Assembly would never have issued its niggardly Palestine Partition Plan -- a recommendation of the international community which (following the decades-earlier severing from Mandatory Palestine of the territories which later became Jordan and the subsequent illegal transfer from Mandatory Palestine of the Golan Heights) left the Jewish people with less than 11% of that which the League of Nations had originally allocated to them under the Mandate for Palestine and deprived them of any sovereignty over Jerusalem. Rather -- especially in light of the uncompromising language of Article 5 of the Mandate for Palestine -- a penitent U.N., acting through its Security Council, would have issued at that time an authoritative resolution under Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter: (1) affirming the continuing primacy of the Mandate for Palestine as the legal foundation for the establishment of a Jewish state, (2) recognizing full Jewish sovereignty over the entire remnant of Mandatory Palestine (namely, the entirety of the cis-Jordania portion thereof), including Jerusalem, constituting the remaining 22% of original Mandatory Palestine and (3) acknowledging that the Jewish people had the right to repatriate to their countries of origin the many hundreds of thousands of Arabs who, from 1920 onward, had been permitted to inundate the cis-Jordania portion of Mandatory Palestine by Great Britain in rank violation of its fiduciary obligations to the Jewish people under the Mandate for Palestine.
Clearly, Israel exists neither due to Europe's alleged guilty conscience nor due to the issuance of the meager Palestine Partition Plan, but due only to the fact that the renascent Jewish State militarily defeated the six Arab states which, together with local “Palestinian” Arab militias drawn from villages, towns and cities throughout the cis-Jordania portion of Mandatory Palestine, had sought to annihilate it from the face of the Earth, thereby igniting Israel's War of Independence.
In fact, the appellation “
Those who assert that
Conversely, had the Jewish population centers of the cis-Jordania portion of
Mandatory Palestine been destroyed by the Arabs, and had
Clearly, there is an enormous difference between endorsement and creation. While the United Nations certainly endorsed
the establishment of modern
Nonetheless, that endorsement did bestow upon
However, delving deeper into the realm of Cause and Effect, it may be
cogently argued that the State of Israel presently exists in the biblical
Now, let us hypothetically assume that neither the Arabs residing within the proposed Jewish state, nor the Arabs residing within the proposed Arab state, nor the Arabs residing within the surrounding Arab states had ever initiated a war of annihilation against the Jewish population centers of the cis-Jordania portion of Mandatory Palestine, but that they had instead simply acquiesced to the creation of Israel within the Partition Plan lines recommended by U.N. General Assembly Resolution no. 181.
In these circumstances, a democratic
Also in these circumstances, an Israel which was never invaded by the Arabs of the proposed “Palestinian” Arab state and those of the surrounding Arab states would not have fought any War of Independence, and consequently would not have expanded from its 1947 Partition Plan lines to its 1949 armistice demarcation lines -- let alone to its present post-1967 defensible borders.
Consequently, it is likely that such an
That the belligerent and impatient Arabs are themselves principally
responsible for the State of Israel’s present entrenchment in the biblical Land
of Israel as a Jewish nation-state within defensible borders is not only ironic
but -- more importantly -- also constitutes a grand historic replay of the
circumstances under which the Jewish people’s forebears, under the leadership
of Joshua, originally conquered the Land.
As is related in the Hebrew Bible: “Joshua waged war with all of these
[Canaanite] kings for a long time. There was not a city that made peace with
the Children of Israel except for the Hivvite inhabitants of
SECONDLY, it must be remembered that the collective will of the international community, as expressed through the pronouncements and actions of the U.N., is not necessarily synonymous with principles of righteousness and enlightenment. The U.N. is, after all, a political body which gives equal weight to the views of pacific democracies and violent dictatorships. This unfortunate dynamic is reflected in the composition of all of its constituent agencies, such as its misnamed Security Council, its misnamed Human Rights Council (formerly, Human Rights Commission), its misnamed Disarmament Commission and its misnamed International Court of Justice. Moreover, due to the fact that nations which are governed by totalitarian regimes (of greater or lesser degree), as well as democracies which attach more importance to their mercantile interests (including their access to petroleum) than to upholding principles of either Morality or International Law, continue to constitute the vast majority of the U.N.'s membership (and, consequently, the vast majority of the membership of the U.N.’s constituent agencies), their views predominate and, consequently, tend to represent the amoral -- and often immoral -- collective will of the international community. In blunt terms, the United Nations represents rule by mob.
By way of stark example, in 1972, the United Nations saw fit to elect as its
In light of the fact that Muslim nations constitute 30% of the U.N.'s membership and, more crucially, are a core component of -- and hold sway over – both the misnamed Non-Aligned Movement (which constitutes more than 60% of the U.N.'s membership) as well as the Group Of Seventy-Seven At The United Nations (which constitutes 68% of the U.N.’s membership), and in light of the fact that the member nations of the European Union (hosting an aggregate Muslim minority population estimated at more than 30 million) usually vote as a bloc in support of Muslim-initiated resolutions against the Jewish State, it is not surprising that Israel has been the object of a disproportionate number of U.N.-approved calumnies.
In fact, almost one third of all resolutions ever issued by
the U.N. from the date of Israel's admittance thereto in May 1949 to the
present time focus upon and are condemnatory of the Jewish State and/or Zionism
-- the latter constituting the supranational political movement of the Jewish
people which was not only endorsed and encouraged by the League of Nations in
its Mandate for Palestine, but which continues to embody the philosophical and
legal underpinnings of the modern State of Israel until this very Day. Furthermore, a review of just the condemnatory
resolutions issued by the U.N. reveals the fact that
By way of example, in 1975, the U.N. issued its infamous General Assembly Resolution no. 3379 declaring Zionism to be “a form of racism and racial discrimination”. It hardly seems coincidental that this Resolution was issued, at the behest of the international community, on the 37th anniversary of Kristallnacht -- this being the first mass assault organized by Nazi Germany against the Jewish people, during which tens of thousands of Jews were beaten or murdered, as their businesses and homes were confiscated or destroyed, and their synagogues and Torah scrolls were burned to the ground, thereby heralding the incipiency of the Holocaust.
That malevolent Resolution stated, in full, as follows:
UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY RESOLUTION 3379 (NOVEMBER 10, 1975).
THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY,
RECALLING its resolution 1904 (XVIII) of 20 November 1963, proclaiming the United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, and in particular its affirmation that “any doctrine of racial differentiation or superiority is scientifically false, morally condemnable, socially unjust and dangerous” and its expression of alarm at “the manifestations of racial discrimination still in evidence in some areas in the world, some of which are imposed by certain Governments by means of legislative, administrative or other measures”,
RECALLING ALSO that, in its resolution 3151 G (XXVIII) of 14 December 1953, the General Assembly condemned, inter alia, the unholy alliance between South African racism and Zionism,
TAKING NOTE of the Declaration of Mexico on the Equality of Women and Their Contribution to Development and Peace 1975, proclaimed by the World Conference of the International Women's Year, held at Mexico City from 19 June to 2 July 1975, which promulgated the principle that “international co-operation and peace require the achievement of national liberation and independence, the elimination of colonialism and neo-colonialism, foreign occupation, Zionism, apartheid and racial discrimination in all its forms, as well as the recognition of the dignity of peoples and their right to self-determination”,
TAKING NOTE ALSO of resolution 77 (XII) adopted by the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the Organization of African Unity at its twelfth ordinary session, held at Kampala from 28 July to 1 August 1975, which considered “that the racist regime in occupied Palestine and the racist regime in Zimbabwe and South Africa have a common imperialist origin, forming a whole and having the same racist structure and being organically linked in their policy aimed at repression of the dignity and integrity of the human being”,
TAKING NOTE ALSO of the Political Declaration and Strategy to Strengthen International Peace and Security and to Intensify Solidarity and Mutual Assistance among Non-Aligned Countries, adopted at the Conference of Ministers for Foreign Affairs of Non-Aligned Countries held at Lima from 25 to 30 August 1975, which most severely condemned Zionism as a threat to world peace and security, and called upon all countries to oppose this racist and imperialist ideology,
DETERMINES that Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination.
In the very same year that the United Nations endorsed the Non-Aligned
Movement's condemnation of Zionism “as a threat to world peace and security”
and determined that the Jewish national movement endorsed and encouraged by the
League of Nations constituted “a form of racism and racial discrimination”, the
U.N. also granted Permanent Observer status to the Palestine Liberation
Organization -- the very fount of modern global terrorism -- which, by that
time, had already accumulated more Jewish blood on its hands than had any other
Reprobate since Nazi Germany. Furthermore, this terror group was also permitted
to establish a world-wide “diplomatic” infrastructure through the establishment
of (official and unofficial) “embassies” in virtually every nation, including
the
Moreover, the U.N. itself has thereupon established a well-funded official infrastructure for this terror group's benefit via the creation of the:
Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (which, inter alia, issues periodic recommendations to the U.N. General Assembly on achieving the “inalienable rights” of the “Palestinian” people, and which constitutes the only Committee in the U.N. system dedicated exclusively to the agenda of a single group);
Division for Palestinian Rights (which is a special consultative unit established within the Department of Political Affairs of the U.N. Secretariat, and which constitutes the only Division in the U.N. system dedicated exclusively to the agenda of a single group);
International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People (which is observed annually on November 29, in lamentation over the issuance of the U.N.'s Palestine Partition Plan on that very date in 1947, and in commemoration of the rejection by the recognized leadership of the Arabs of the cis-Jordania portion of Mandatory Palestine of the Plan's recommendation for the creation of a Jewish State therein);
United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (which was created for the sole purpose of administering international assistance to the “Palestinian” Arab “refugee” population exclusively, while international assistance to all other refugee populations in the World -- without exception -- continues to be apportioned and administered by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, meaning that UNRWA's 28,000 employees assist about 4 million “Palestinian” refugees and their descendants in 6 places -- 3 countries, namely, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, and 3 territories, namely, Judea, Samaria and Gaza -- while the UNHCR’s 6,300 employees must assist about 33 million non-“Palestinian” refugees in about 110 countries); and
United Nations Human Rights Commission’s (and its successor United Nations Human Rights Council’s) “Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territories occupied by Israel since 1967” (which produces an annual report detailing Israel’s “atrocities” against the “Palestinian” people); and
United Nations Register of Damage caused by the Construction of the Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (which was created to catalogue the “damage claims” accumulated by the “Palestinians” against Israel on account of the latter’s construction of a security fence to prevent “Palestinian” suicide bombers and other terrorists from perpetuating atrocities against Jewish population centers located within pre-1967 Israel).
The U.N. has permitted its Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable
Rights of the Palestinian People to grant U.N. accreditation to
non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that formally avow a human rights agenda,
but, in reality, expend virtually all of their resources to demonize the State
of Israel under the imprimatur of the United Nations. For example, U.N. accreditation has allowed
these NGOs to savage the Jewish State via the U.N.’s official website as well
as through the U.N.’s many conferences and publications. The U.N. has even
permitted its Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the
Palestinian People to create an official “NGO Network on the Question of
Palestine” in order to more efficiently coordinate the activities of these
anti-Israel NGOs. In furtherance of this
goal, the U.N. has authorized its Division for Palestinian Rights to publish a
U.N. newsletter known as “NGO Action News” which publicizes the activities of
these anti-Israel NGOs. Moreover, on
November 29 of each year, in an annual ritual which serves as a continuing Act
of Contrition for its endorsement of Jewish statehood, the United Nations
General Assembly issues approximately 20 resolutions condemning the State of
Israel; in this way, the U.N. publicly
repudiates its Palestine Partition Plan each and every year. Moreover, in a scheme to depict Israel in the
worse possible light, the U.N. has permitted its United Nations Relief and
Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (commonly known as
“U.N.R.W.A.”) to employ a unique definition of “refugee” -- which has never
been applied to any other displaced population in the World -- to encompass not
only those “Palestinian” Arabs who actually departed Israel during
its War of Independence, but, as well, all of such refugees’ descendants. By allowing non-refugee progeny of
“Palestinian” Arab refugees to inherit refugee status, the United
Nations has caused the present-day “Palestinian” Arab “refugee”
population to be officially numbered at a staggering 4,300,000 (which number
must necessarily increase over time, as it is based upon
multigenerational expansion) rather than at its true figure of approximately
200,000 (which number must necessarily decrease over time, as it is
based upon the standard definition of “refugee” utilized by the United Nations
High Commissioner for Refugees for determining the sizes of all other displaced
populations, thereby encompassing only those presently-living
“Palestinian” Arabs who actually departed Israel during its War of
Independence). In effect, the United
Nations has created a powerful institutional infrastructure whose only
purpose is to demonize -- and to thereby delegitimize -- the Jewish State. Consequently,
In fact, the United Nations, by virtue of General Assembly resolution no.
194 (III) of December 11, 1948, at section 11 thereof, continues to demand
until this very Day that Israel allow the influx of the entirety of the
irredentist and revanchist “Palestinian” Arab “refugee” population, as
expansively defined by U.N.R.W.A., into its small territory bounded by the 1949
armistice demarcation lines, despite the fact that Israel’s compliance therewith
would soon lead to its demise via a combination of Demography and War. The global call for Israel to permit the
entry of these enemy belligerents and their multigenerational descendants
stands in stark contrast to the lack of any call, by the U.N. or any
lesser organization, for the Czech Republic and Poland to permit the re-entry
of millions of ethnic Germans (let alone their multigenerational descendants)
who, from 1945 to 1947, were expelled from their ancestral homelands in the
Sudetenland (approximately 3,000,000 expelled) and Silesia (approximately
3,500,000 expelled); and these people
were not even expelled during the chaos of World War II, but only after
that conflict had already terminated.
Furthermore, by continuing to insist that the worldwide “Palestinian”
diaspora pour into the State of Israel rather than into a nascent State
of “Palestine”, the “Palestinians” have continued to belie and subvert
their self-declared raison d'être for the creation of such a sovereign entity,
namely, that the imperative needs of a homeless “Palestinian” people require
that a separate nation-state be set aside for them. By this subterfuge, the “Palestinians”
thereby seek the eventual existence of, not one “Palestinian” state, but
rather three “Palestinian” states, namely, Jordan, “Palestine” and a
“Palestinian”-inundated Israel. (As an
aside, it is noteworthy that the very demand for such a “right of return”
strips naked the blood libel that
Moreover, due to the United Nations’ obsessive attention to all manner of
“Palestinian” demands and grievances against
In 1988, in order to make its disdain for the Jewish people’s rights under the Mandate for Palestine perfectly clear, the U.N. upgraded the name of the “Palestinian” Arab Permanent Observer delegation from “Palestine Liberation Organization” to “Palestine”, despite the fact that no such sovereign country then (or ever) existed.
In 1991, in response to sustained economic and diplomatic pressure from the United States (which sought to compensate Israel for the latter's coerced participation in the 1991 Madrid Peace Conference which ultimately resulted, from 1993 through 1999, in a series of interim agreements commonly known as the Oslo Accords which, inter alia, established the semi-autonomous Palestinian Authority, delivered possession of 42% of Judea and Samaria and 80% of Gaza to the Palestinian Authority, and consequently facilitated an unprecedented wave of terrorism against Israel), the U.N. ultimately repealed Resolution no. 3379.
Yet, the very sentiment which culminated in -- and permeated -- this
repealed U.N. resolution and which also elevated to semi-sovereign status a
terror group dedicated to the Jewish State's annihilation still prevails
among virtually the entire membership of the U.N., as amply evidenced by the
post-repeal work product of the latter institution, its constituent bodies and
its official conferences, such as the misnamed World Conference Against Racism,
Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance (held in Durban,
South Africa in 2001 under the official auspices of the U.N. Human Rights
Commission), during which Zionism and the State of Israel were singled out as
the main foci of Evil in the World. A more recent example of this eternal
hostility towards the very existence of the Jewish State may be found in the
United Nations Development Program’s Arab Human Development Report 2004,
publicly released in 2005, which partially blames the very creation of
Furthermore, although, from the date of Israel's admittance thereto in May 1949 until the Fall of 2005, the U.N. and its components have issued reams of resolutions and reports condemning Israel by name for every measure of self-preservation and/or lawful entitlement (whether acting, in however restrained a manner, to defend itself against terrorism, invasion and annihilation or permitting Jews to settle in the non-sovereign territories of Judea, Samaria and Gaza), yet, during this very same period, neither the U.N. nor any of its components has ever condemned by name any nation or terror group for aggressing against Israel or Diaspora Jews. However, in the Fall of 2005, under intense pressure from the United States, the United Nations Security Council did, for the very first time, and in two separate instances, somewhat condemn -- or at least acknowledge -- aggression against Israel.
In the first instance, on October 26, 2005, the
President of Iran, speaking at a government-sponsored conference held in
In response to the stated goal of one U.N. member
nation to eradicate another U.N. member nation, more than 6 weeks passed
before the U.N. Security Council finally issued a tepid statement on the matter
that dealt more with
Below is the media statement issued by the U.N. Security Council’s
Department of Public Information, News and Media Division (U.N. document no.
SC/8576 of December 9, 2005) in response to
SECURITY COUNCIL PRESS STATEMENT ON REMARKS BY
The following press statement on the remarks by the
President of Iran was delivered today by Security Council President Emyr Jones
Parry (
The members of the Security Council condemn the
remarks about
The members of the Security Council fully support the Secretary General's statement of 8 December, in which he recalled that the General Assembly had recently adopted a resolution rejecting denial of the Holocaust as a historical event, either in full or in part, and urged all Member States to educate their populations about the Holocaust.
The members of the Security Council reaffirm the rights and obligations of the State of Israel as a full and long-standing Member of the United Nations, and reaffirm that, under the United Nations Charter, all Members have undertaken to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State.
For information media • not an official record
In the second instance, on November 21, 2005 (which event was subsequently replicated -- this time successfully -- on July 12, 2006 in an assault which initiated the Second Lebanon War), the Hizbullah terror group unsuccessfully attempted to infiltrate the Jewish State in order to kill and kidnap Israeli soldiers under the cover of a mortar and rocket bombardment that it had simultaneously launched from southern Lebanon against northern Israel’s civilian population centers.
In response, and after days of contentious debate (during which time period United States Department of State spokesman Sean McCormack condemned Hizbullah by name but, at the same time, urged Israel to limit its military response in order to avoid any “escalation” of tensions in the region), the U.N. Security Council ultimately agreed to acknowledge and identify Hizbullah as the aggressor, but without using that pejorative label and without using any language of condemnation. Likewise, the Security Council failed to condemn the roles of any of the 3 nations without whose support that terror group could not exist, let alone launch deadly attacks against Israel, namely, the states of Lebanon (in whose parliament Hizbullah members sit and in whose government Hizbullah members hold office, and from whose territory that terror group operates without hindrance), Iran (which directs the activities of Hizbullah by sending huge amounts of money and weaponry to Syria for re-delivery to that terror group in Lebanon), and Syria (which also exercises control over the activities of Hizbullah by re-delivering Iranian money and weaponry, and by also providing its own weaponry, to that terror group in Lebanon).
Below is the media statement issued by the U.N. Security Council’s
Department of Public Information, News and Media Division (U.N. document no.
SC/8563 of November 23, 2005) in response to Hizbullah’s 2005 attack against
SECURITY COUNCIL PRESS STATEMENT ON INCIDENTS
ALONG BLUE LINE SEPARATING
Following is the Security Council press statement
on the 21 November Blue Line incidents, delivered today by Council President
Andrey I. Denisov (
The members of the Security Council received a briefing on 21 November 2005 from the Department of Peacekeeping Operations on the serious incidents along the Blue Line on that day.
The members of the Council expressed deep concern about the hostilities, which were initiated by Hizbollah from the Lebanese side, and which quickly spread along the entire Blue Line. They regretted the resulting casualties on both sides.
They appealed to all parties to respect the Blue Line in its entirety, to exercise utmost restraint and to refrain from any action that could further escalate the situation.
They reiterated their call on the Government of Lebanon to extend its authority and to exert its monopoly over the use of force all over its territory in accordance with Security Council resolutions.
For information media • not an official record
Significantly, these two media statements by the Security Council
were not subsequently converted into resolutions of either
the Security Council or the General Assembly, thereby patently signaling to
Conversely, shortly thereafter, on November 29, 2005, the United Nations, as part of its official annual observance of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, held a conference jointly hosted by its three foremost officials, namely, the Secretary-General (Kofi Annan), the President of the Security Council (Andrey Denisov) and the President of the General Assembly (Jan Eliasson), which unabashedly displayed a gigantic U.N.-produced map of the Middle East which had erased the entire State of Israel and had replaced it with a putative State of “Palestine”.
Moreover, in the aftermath of the horrific suicide bombing in Netanya by the Islamic Jihad terror group on December 5, 2005, the U.N. Security Council refused, despite Israel’s urgent request, to issue a mere statement condemning Islamic Jihad (as perpetrator) and/or the Palestinian Authority (as enabler).
In fact, the United Nations has never condemned the Palestinian Authority, the Palestine Liberation Organization or any “Palestinian” terror group for any act of violence against Israelis or Diaspora Jews. Consequently, it appears that those few examples of the United Nations defending (however halfheartedly) Israel’s entitlement to exist, free from external threat, are merely the rare exceptions that prove the general rule, which is that the United Nations is simply unwilling to accord to Israel the same rights and protections that it routinely guaranties under its Charter to all other member nations.
A particularly egregious example of this hypocrisy occurred in late 2003, when the Third Committee of the U.N. General Assembly (which forum deals with social, humanitarian and cultural issues) overwhelmingly approved Egypt’s draft resolution, entitled “Situation of and assistance to Palestinian children”, demanding that “Palestinian” children be protected from Israeli aggression, but thwarted a vote on Israel’s mirror-image draft resolution entitled “Situation of and assistance to Israeli children”, demanding that Israeli children be protected from “Palestinian” aggression. This subterfuge was accomplished when Egypt, being assured of majority support in the Third Committee, introduced amendments to Israel’s draft resolution which were so extensive that Israel’s draft resolution received a new title, namely, “The situation of and assistance to children in the Middle East Region”, and suffered a complete substitution of its pertinent preambulary and operative provisions, with the result that it was transformed into a draft resolution lacking any reference whatsoever to Israeli children and condemnatory of the Jewish State.
A more detailed account of this episode will serve to demonstrate the extent
to which
On October 28, 2003,
Situation of and assistance to Palestinian
children
The General Assembly,
Recalling the Convention on the Rights of the Child,
Recalling also the World Declaration on the Survival, Protection and Development of Children and the Plan of Action for Implementing the World Declaration on the Survival, Protection and Development of Children in the 1990s, adopted by the World Summit for Children, held in New York on 29 and 30 September 1990,
Recalling further the Declaration and Plan of Action adopted by the General Assembly at its twenty-seventh special session,
Concerned that the Palestinian children under Israeli occupation remain deprived of many basic rights under the Convention,
Concerned also about the continued grave deterioration of the situation of Palestinian children in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and about the severe consequences of the continuing Israeli assaults and sieges on Palestinian cities, towns, villages and refugee camps, resulting in the dire humanitarian crisis,
Emphasizing the importance of the safety
and well-being of all children in the whole
Expressing its condemnation of all acts of violence, resulting in extensive loss of human life and injuries, including among Palestinian children,
Deeply concerned about the severe consequences, including psychological consequences, of the Israeli military actions for the present and future well-being of Palestinian children,
1. Stresses the urgent need for Palestinian children to live a normal life free from foreign occupation, destruction and fear in their own State;
2. Demands, in the meanwhile, that Israel, the occupying Power, respect relevant provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and comply fully with the provisions of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, of 12 August 1949, in order to ensure the well-being and protection of Palestinian children and their families;
3. Calls upon the international community
to provide urgently needed assistance and services in an effort to alleviate
the dire humanitarian crisis being faced by Palestinian children and their
families and to help in the reconstruction of relevant Palestinian
institutions.
Fifteen days later, on
November 12, 2003,
Situation of and assistance to Israeli
children
The General Assembly,
Recalling the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
Recalling also the World Declaration on the Survival, Protection and Development of Children and the Plan of Action for Implementing the World Declaration on the Survival, Protection and Development of Children in the 1990s, adopted by the World Summit for Children, held in New York on 29 and 30 September 1990,
Recalling further the Declaration and Plan of Action adopted by the General Assembly at its twenty-seventh special session,
Emphasizing the importance of the safety
and well-being of all children in the whole
Concerned that Israeli children suffering from the effects of terrorism are deprived of many basic rights under the Convention,
Concerned also about the continuous grave threat to Israeli children from terrorism, and about the severe consequences of continuing terrorist attacks by terrorist groups such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade directed against Israeli civilians, including children,
Expressing its condemnation of all acts of violence and incitement to violence and terrorism, resulting in extensive loss of human life and injuries, including among Israeli children,
Deeply concerned about the severe consequences, including psychological consequences, of terrorist attacks on the present and future well-being of Israeli children,
1. Stresses the urgent need for Israeli children to live a normal life free from terrorism, destruction and fear;
2. Demands that the Palestinian Authority respect its obligations to undertake effective operations aimed at confronting all those engaged in terror and the dismantlement of terrorist capabilities and infrastructure and to guarantee that those responsible for terrorist acts are brought to justice.
Six days later, on November 18,
2003, in order to garner more support for its draft resolution,
Concerned also about the continuous grave threat to Israeli children from terrorism, and about the severe consequences of continuing terrorist attacks directed against Israeli civilians, including children,
Nonetheless, one day later, on
November 19, 2003,
The situation of and
assistance to children in the Middle East Region
The General Assembly,
Recalling the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
Recalling also the World Declaration on the Survival, Protection and Development of Children and the Plan of Action for Implementing the World Declaration on the Survival, Protection and Development of Children in the 1990s, adopted by the World Summit for Children, held in New York on 29 and 30 September 1990,
Recalling further the Declaration and Plan of Action adopted by the General Assembly at its twenty-seventh special session,
Emphasizing the importance
of the safety and well-being of all children in the whole
Concerned that
Emphasizing that foreign occupation, violations of international law, including international humanitarian law, and violations of instruments relevant to the well-being of the child, as well as deprivation, hostility and confrontation, are the main sources of the suffering and hardship of children in the whole Middle East region,
Expressing its condemnation of all acts of violence, military assaults, excessive use of force and incitement of violence and terrorism, resulting in extensive loss of human life and injuries, including among children,
Affirming the obligations
of
1. Stresses the urgent need
for
2. Expresses its support for all efforts to achieve a just and comprehensive peace in the Middle East and to ensure peace and prosperity for the peoples of the region, including children.
Not taking any chances, two days
later, on November 21, 2003,
As a consequence of the foregoing, on November 26, 2003 -- just 14 days after the introduction of its draft resolution on the protection of Israeli children from “Palestinian” terrorism -- Israel was compelled by the brutality of logic to withdraw it (as recounted in the Report of the Third Committee to the General Assembly dated December 15, 2003, no. A/58/508/Add.2).
Contrariwise, the approved “Situation of and assistance to Palestinian children” draft resolution was included in the recommendatory Report of the Third Committee to the General Assembly dated December 4, 2003, no. A/58/504; and that draft resolution thereafter became finalized as U.N. General Assembly Resolution no. 58/155 of February 26, 2004.
Moreover, the U.N.'s primal enmity towards the State of Israel is not
limited to the mere issuance of condemnatory resolutions. For, the U.N.,
through U.N.R.W.A., funds and supervises the very “refugee camps”
(which are actually built-up neighborhoods of various Arab-populated cities in
Judea,
In essence,
“Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. ...”
Furthermore, the hypocritical United Nations, which is so adept at condemning Israel’s lawful possession of lands that were internationally granted to the Jewish people by virtue of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, is equally adept at condoning the many disputed occupations of recent memory, such as those:
by Great Britain: of the northern portion of Ireland (which occupation has prompted that country to officially denominate itself as “The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland”), and of the southern tip of Spain (known as “Gibraltar”), and of the Falkland Islands (which are within the territorial waters of Argentina and known as Las Islas Malvinas to that nation) and of two areas of Cyprus (both used as British military bases, one known as Akrotiri located near Limassol in the southern portion of the island and the other known as Dhekelia located between Larnaca and Famagusta in the southeastern portion of the island;
by the
by Spain: of the cities of Cueta (known as Sebta to the Arab world) and Melilla (known as Maliliyya to the Arab world) on the northeastern coast of Morocco as well as several islands within the territorial waters and a small peninsula of that nation, and of a small region of Portugal on the Guadiana River (called Olivenza by Spain and Olivenca by Portugal);
by
by
by
by
by
by Russia: of four Japanese islands at the southern tip of the Kuril archipelago (known as the Northern Territories to Japan), and of the Abkhazia and South Ossetia provinces of Georgia, and of the Transnistria (also known as Trans-Dniester or Transdniestria) province of Moldava, and of Chechnya, and of Afghanistan, and of the 14 nations which (together with Russia) comprised the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (commonly known as the Soviet Union)
by
by
by
by Iran: of the oil-rich region of Khuzestan (known as the region of al-Ahwaz to the Arab world) which has been populated almost exclusively by Arabs for the past 600 years, and of the islands of Greater Tunb, Lesser Tunb and Abu Moussa located within the territorial waters of United Arab Emirates;
by
by
by the United Nations itself: of the Kosovo
by nations (such as Great Britain, Australia, Brazil, Chile, Denmark, Ecuador, France, India, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, and Yemen): of islands that lie well beyond their own territorial waters.
This inversion of Morality was lamented by Solomon, third monarch of
biblical Israel, who presciently observed: “There is a Futility that takes
place on the Earth -- there are righteous ones who are treated as [if they had
performed] the actions of the evil ones; and there are evil ones who are
treated as [if they had performed] the actions of the righteous ones -- I
declared that, also, this is a Futility.” (Ecclesiastes 8:14). His
father, David, second monarch of biblical
The depths of depravity to which the U.N. has descended since its founding has been further demonstrated by its leadership assignments in the first years of the 21st Century. For example, the U.N. has offered to Libya, a major abuser of human rights, chairmanship of its Human Rights Commission (subsequently reinvented in 2006 as the equally malevolent Human Rights Council), and to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, a major developer of banned biological and chemical weapons (the latter of which were used in March 1988 to annihilate over 5,000 Iraqi Kurds residing in Halabja), chairmanship of its Disarmament Commission, and to Syria, a major sponsor and harborer of terrorist groups (as well as Nazi war criminals such as Alois Brunner who was responsible for the mass murder of approximately 128,500 Jews from Austria, Greece, France and Slovakia during the Holocaust), presidency of its Security Council, and to Iran, a major violator of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, vice chairmanship of its Disarmament Commission.
Unsurprisingly, despite acts of genocide, war crimes, and other serious human rights violations being perpetuated all over the World, Israel is the only country in the World which has ever been censured by the U.N. Human Rights Council; and Israel is also the only country in the World whose activities have been designated for scrutiny as a permanent agenda item of that U.N. agency.
Moreover, Israel is the only member nation of the U.N. which has never been accepted as a permanent member of any of the 5 regional groups of which the U.N. is comprised for purposes of agency assignments, with the result that Israel is the only member nation of the U.N. which has been barred since the very date of its admittance thereto from serving as a member -- let alone becoming the President -- of the U.N. Security Council or any other constituent agency of the U.N. This status changed somewhat in 2000 when Israel -- a rightful member of the “Asian” regional group -- was finally accepted as a temporary member of the “Western European And Others” regional group for 4 years under draconian admittance conditions which have severely limited its ability to apply for such U.N. agency assignments, with the result that the Jewish State continues to be barred from serving on most, including the most important, constituent agencies of the U.N., including its Security Council, its Human Rights Council, and its International Court of Justice.
The United Nations’ institutional bias against
The International Court of Justice, like all U.N. agencies, is a political body composed of States drawn from the 5 regional groups which comprise the United Nations for purposes of agency assignments. Consequently, its members, although experienced jurists, are nevertheless subservient to the respective States which assign them to the Court as their respective representatives thereto.
On April 24, 1997, the U.N. General Assembly convened its “Tenth Emergency
Special Session”, ironically entitled“Uniting for Peace”, in order to
officially condemn Israel for the “Illegal Israeli actions in
occupied East Jerusalem and the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territory”. That same “Tenth Emergency Special Session”
was subsequently reconvened 11 more times over the next 7 years
until December 8, 2003, when the General Assembly passed its 14th
“Tenth Emergency Special Session” condemnatory resolution against
United Nations General Assembly Resolution no. ES-10/14 states, in full, as follows:
United Nations General Assembly Resolution ES-10/14 (8 December 2003).
The General Assembly,
Reaffirming its resolution ES-10/13 of 21 October 2003,
Guided by the principles of the Charter of the United Nations,
Aware of the established principle of international law on the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force,
Aware also that developing friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples is among the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations,
Recalling relevant General Assembly
resolutions, including resolution 181 (II) of 29 November 1947, which
partitioned mandated
Recalling also the resolutions of the tenth emergency special session of the General Assembly,
Recalling further relevant Security Council resolutions, including resolutions 242 (1967) of 22 November 1967, 338 (1973) of 22 October 1973, 267 (1969) of 3 July 1969, 298 (1971) of 25 September 1971, 446 (1979) of 22 March 1979, 452 (1979) of 20 July 1979, 465 (1980) of 1 March 1980, 476 (1980) of 30 June 1980, 478 (1980) of 20 August 1980, 904 (1994) of 18 March 1994, 1073 (1996) of 28 September 1996, 1397 (2002) of 12 March 2002 and 1515 (2003) of 19 November 2003,
Reaffirming the applicability of the Fourth
Geneva Convention as well as Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions to
the
Recalling the Regulations annexed to the Hague Convention Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land of 1907,
Welcoming the convening of the Conference
of High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention on measures to
enforce the Convention in the
Expressing its support for the declaration
adopted by the reconvened Conference of High Contracting Parties at
Recalling in particular relevant United Nations resolutions affirming that Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, are illegal and an obstacle to peace and to economic and social development as well as those demanding the complete cessation of settlement activities,
Recalling relevant United Nations resolutions affirming that actions taken by Israel, the occupying Power, to change the status and demographic composition of Occupied East Jerusalem have no legal validity and are null and void,
Noting the agreements reached between the
Government of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization in the context
of the
Gravely concerned at the commencement and continuation of construction by Israel, the occupying Power, of a wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including in and around East Jerusalem, which is in departure from the Armistice Line of 1949 (Green Line) and which has involved the confiscation and destruction of Palestinian land and resources, the disruption of the lives of thousands of protected civilians and the de facto annexation of large areas of territory, and underlining the unanimous opposition by the international community to the construction of that wall,
Gravely concerned also at the even more devastating impact of the projected parts of the wall on the Palestinian civilian population and on the prospects for solving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and establishing peace in the region,
Welcoming the report of 8 September 2003 of
the Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on the situation of
human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied by
Affirming the necessity of ending the conflict on the basis of the two-State solution of Israel and Palestine living side by side in peace and security based on the Armistice Line of 1949, in accordance with relevant Security Council and General Assembly resolutions,
Having received with appreciation the report of the Secretary-General, submitted in accordance with resolution ES-10/13,
Bearing in mind that the passage of time further compounds the difficulties on the ground, as Israel, the occupying Power, continues to refuse to comply with international law vis-à-vis its construction of the above-mentioned wall, with all its detrimental implications and consequences,
Decides, in accordance with Article 96 of the Charter of the United Nations, to request the International Court of Justice, pursuant to Article 65 of the Statute of the Court, to urgently render an advisory opinion on the following question:
What are the legal consequences arising from the construction of the wall being built by Israel, the occupying Power, in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including in and around East Jerusalem, as described in the report of the Secretary-General, considering the rules and principles of international law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, and relevant Security Council and General Assembly resolutions?
Based upon the “facts” and “principles of international law” embedded in the authorizing Resolution, it is unsurprising that the members of the International Court of Justice, with the notable exception of the jurist representing the United States, adopted all of those same “facts” and “principles of international law” as the foundation for its Advisory Opinion. Indisputably, via its authorizing Resolution, the General Assembly dictated to its judicial agency exactly how it expected the Court to rule on the matter. Accordingly, the nearly-unanimous Court opined, inter alia:
(a) that there is no longer any dispute over the existence of an ethnic “Palestinian” people (see Paragraph 118 of the Advisory Opinion);
(b) that the Mandate for Palestine, being denominated as a Class A mandate by the League of Nations, was, pursuant to the fourth paragraph of Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, intended to fulfill the inherent right of self-determination of the “Palestinian” people -- the Court identifying them, in euphemism, as the “inhabitants of the territory” (see Paragraph 70) and as the “peoples concerned” (see Paragraph 88) -- via the creation of a State for them in the western portion of Mandatory Palestine (there being no discussion by the Court as to whether the Mandate for Palestine had granted to the Jewish people any national rights with respect to Mandatory Palestine);
(c) that, although Israel’s 1949 armistice demarcation line with Jordan was no more than a military separation-of-forces line between the parties (see Paragraph 72), Israel’s capture of lands from Jordan on the other side of that line in 1967 -- namely, the “Occupied Palestinian Territory” -- nonetheless rendered Israel merely the “Occupying Power” thereof (see Paragraph 78) rather than the Sovereign thereof (implicitly due -- as elsewhere declared by the Court -- to the preexisting national rights therein, flowing from the inherent right of self-determination, recognized in favor of the “Palestinian” people by virtue of the Mandate for Palestine);
(d) that (despite the clear contrary language of Article 2 of the Fourth Geneva Convention) the Fourth Geneva Convention was applicable to Israel’s capture from Jordan of the “Occupied Palestinian Territory” regardless of whether or not, at the time of capture, these lands actually belonged to Jordan, as Sovereign thereof (see Paragraphs 90 - 101); and further that (despite the clear contrary language of Article 49 of the Convention) the Jewish communities subsequently established in these captured areas, even if not the product of any governmental deportation or transfer of Jews thereto, were nonetheless illegal under the Convention (see Paragraph 120);
(e) that Israel’s erection of the “Wall” in portions of the “Occupied Palestinian Territory” was not a security measure necessary for the protection of Israel’s civilian population against terror attacks perpetrated by the “Palestinians” (see Paragraphs 134 - 137, 140 & 142);
(f) that (despite the clear contrary language of Article 51 of the U.N. Charter which recognizes that all member States possess an “inherent right” of “self-defense” against “armed attack”) Israel was not entitled, pursuant to the overriding authority of Article 51 of the U.N. Charter, to defend itself against “Palestinian” terrorists by building the “Wall” in portions of the “Occupied Palestinian Territory” (or, implicitly, by utilizing any other measures of self-defense therein), because that Article authorizes a member State to defend itself only against aggression perpetrated by another State -- and not against aggression committed by a non-State perpetrator such as the “Palestinian” Arabs (see Paragraphs 138 - 139 & 142); and
(g) that, consequently, Israel was required to remove the “Wall” forthwith and to thereafter pay reparations and make restitution to the “Palestinians” harmed by the “Wall” (see Paragraphs 151 - 153).
It is ironic that, in the International Court of Justice’s zeal to
judicially strip Israel of its “inherent right” under Article 51
of the U.N. Charter to defend itself against an “armed attack”
perpetuated by the “Palestinians” -- even by employment in Judea,
Samaria and the eastern portion of Jerusalem of the most passive of
obstacles thereto -- the Court has, of necessity, also deprived all
other member States of a crucial U.N.-recognized mechanism for defending
themselves against atrocities perpetrated by terrorist organizations
operating from safe havens located beyond those States’ recognized
jurisdictions. Putting aside the fact
that the Court’s opinion is only advisory, it is unlikely that any
Equally as significant, by its purposeful misapplication of the Fourth
Geneva Convention to
The Court’s pointed refusal to acknowledge:
(a) that the League of Nations did not recognize the Arabs of Mandatory Palestine as an ethnic group separate and distinct from other clans of Arabs residing elsewhere in the World, referring to them in the Mandate for Palestine only as “existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine” (Mandate for Palestine, Preamble, Paragraph 2);
(b) that the explicit language of the Mandate for Palestine granted exclusive national rights in the western portion of Mandatory Palestine to the Jewish residents thereof (Mandate for Palestine, Preamble, Paragraphs 2 & 3; and Articles 2 & 4), while affording only “civil and religious rights” to the Arab and other non-Jewish residents thereof (Mandate for Palestine, Preamble, Paragraph 2; and Article 2);
(c) that Israel’s post-Armistice retention (from 1949 to 1967) of its pre-war Mandatory sovereignty claims (from 1920 to 1948) to Judea, Samaria and the eastern portion of Jerusalem permitted the Jewish State to lawfully exercise those claims by reacquiring these areas in a defensive war after Jordan breached the Armistice (in 1967);
(d) that (as discussed below) the explicit language of Article 2 of the Fourth Geneva Convention renders the Convention inapplicable to Israel’s reacquisition of Judea, Samaria and the eastern portion of Jerusalem; and further that (as discussed below), even if the Convention is nonetheless applicable to Israel’s possession of these areas, the Jewish communities therein were not established in violation of Article 49 thereof;
(e) that the Mandate for Palestine, as made binding upon the U.N. Charter via Article 80 thereof, preempts all Security Council resolutions (both those which have been issued pursuant to Chapter VI of the U.N. Charter and those which might, in the future, be issued pursuant to Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter) and all General Assembly resolutions, including the General Assembly’s Palestine Partition Plan, that have sought to repudiate or diminish the Jewish people’s collective rights of settlement and self-determination in Judea, Samaria and the eastern portion of Jerusalem; and
(f) that Israel’s security barrier, having been erected on lands over which the Jewish people were granted exclusive national rights by the League of Nations, and being otherwise consistent with the explicit language of Article 51 of the U.N. Charter, is consequently lawful
merely serves to demonstrate the unfettered hostility of the Court, acting
as proxy for the General Assembly, towards the Jewish State and the latter’s
lawful possession of Judea,
In this context, it is noteworthy to point out that, not only has Israel
been barred from being a member of the Court, but two States which were
members thereof at the time of the Advisory Opinion, namely, Jordan and Egypt,
are the very same States whose illegal possession of Judea,
Samaria, the eastern portion of Jerusalem and Gaza during the 1948 War of
Independence was rectified by Israel during the 1967 Six Day War. Consequently, the judicial posture of
the assigned jurists of these two States (namely, Awn Shawket Al-Khasawneh
representing Jordan and Nabil Elaraby representing
As was concluded, in part, by a 2005 task force report on the United Nations commissioned by the United States Congress:
“Contrary to the equality of rights for all
nations enshrined in the U.N. Charter, Israel continues to be denied rights
enjoyed by all other member states; and a level of systematic hostility against
it is routinely expressed, organized, and funded within the U.N. system.”
(Page 5 of the United States Institute of Peace Report of the Task Force on the United Nations entitled “American Interests And U.N. Reform”, prepared at the direction of the United States Congress per Public Law 108-447 of 2005, originated as House of Representatives Bill 4818, entitled “Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2005”)
This dark conclusion was yet again vindicated in late September 2008 when the President of the U.N. General Assembly (Miquel d’Escoto Brockmann) publicly embraced Iran’s President (Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) immediately after the latter had given a speech to the U.N. General Assembly at its opening session for the 2008 - 2009 year demonizing Israel and rhapsodizing over its future destruction, and in late November 2008 when -- during a conference held as part of the U.N.’s annual “International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People” festivities -- that same official declared that the nations of the World must subject Israel to “a campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions”.
Yet, as despicable as is the United Nations’ treatment of
However, even if the preceding analysis seems overly harsh, it cannot be denied -- after juxtaposing the U.N.’s belated remorse over the genocide perpetrated by the Nazis and their transnational collaborators against the Jewish people more than 60 years ago with the U.N.’s persistent hostility to the Jewish State’s exercise of its inherent right of self-defense against its current genocidal enemies -- that there is much greater support at the United Nations for mourning long-dead Jews than for protecting presently-living Jews.
Moreover, ostracism of
However, in December 2005, after coercing Israel’s
recognition of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society as the national medical
relief agency of “Palestine”, the I.C.R.C. adopted a third permissible insignia
-- a Red Crystal -- which could be used on international missions by any member
society in place of the Red Cross or the Red Crescent. Subsequently, in June 2006, after having
agreed to employ the Red Crystal as its sole insignia on international
missions (unless the host country permitted a small Red Star of David to be
inserted within the Red Crystal emblem) and after having also agreed to support
the simultaneous admission of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society into the
International Federation (despite the fact that the Palestinian Red Crescent
Society does not -- as has always been required by the
regulations of the I.C.R.C. -- represent a sovereign nation, thereby making it
the only member society of the International Federation which does not
represent a sovereign nation), Israel’s Magen David Adom was permitted by the
I.C.R.C. to become a member society of the International Federation. However, should anyone thereby conclude that
a historic injustice has finally been redressed, it is pointed out that the
I.C.R.C., which is officially dedicated to eschewing all partisan activities
in favor of providing humanitarian relief in all situations of conflict,
has nevertheless continued to ally itself with those nations and
entities which seek to undermine international recognition of the Jewish State
as well as the latter’s legal claims to Judea, Samaria and Gaza. For, although Israel’s national medical
relief agency is now a member of the International Federation of Red Cross and
Red Crescent Societies, its price of admission thereto included both having
to capitulate on the international use of its official emblem and having
to agree that the medical relief agency of the non-sovereign Palestinian
Authority be accorded international recognition equal to that of the
national medical relief agency of sovereign Israel. Accordingly, in an exercise of extreme
partisanship, the I.C.R.C.’s official recognition of
And then, of course, there is the matter of
Lastly, the international community has acquired the insidious habit of equating binding U.N. Security Council resolutions (issued pursuant to Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter) directed against evil and aggressive dictatorships (such as Saddam Hussein's Iraq, Kim Jong-il’s North Korea and Islamo-fascist Iran) with non-binding U.N. resolutions directed against the terror-targeted Jewish State.
Remarkably, the international community’s strident isolation of
Clearly,
Yet, in an attempt to denigrate the continuing international legal authority
of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, the Jewish State's adversaries
often claim that the Mandate for Palestine was -- and consequently the
modern State of Israel is -- the product of post-World War I
geopolitical manipulations by a small cartel of colonialist European powers,
and that both are, accordingly, illegitimate. Of course, such a claim is
not an assault merely upon the Jewish people's collective rights
of settlement and self-determination in Judea,
Moreover, although the League of Nations, as well as its Mandate for
Furthermore, there are many instruments of international law, decades
older than the Mandate for Palestine, the continuing validities of which
are not questioned Today, despite being almost entirely a product
of the colonialist powers. Examples of
these are the various international treaties created by the Hague Convention of
1899 and the Hague Convention of 1907 which establish the Laws of War, the most
renowned of which is the treaty formally known as “Convention (IV) Respecting
the Laws and Customs of War on Land,
Despite all of the foregoing, the argument is often made that demographic dominance trumps both legal and historical rights, meaning that -- despite the international juridical authority of the Mandate for Palestine (which explicitly based itself upon the Jewish people's de jure historical connection to the biblical Land of Israel) -- the “Palestinian” Arabs have nonetheless acquired some form of de facto collective ownership over Judea, Samaria, the eastern portion of Jerusalem and Gaza simply because (except in the eastern portion of Jerusalem where they constitute only a slight majority) they presently constitute the overwhelming majority of the population thereof. Since this demographic status was achieved largely due to the successive massacres and expulsions by the “Palestinian” Arabs of their Jewish neighbors resident in these areas during the entire Mandatory period (from 1920 to1948), and due to the illegal restrictions instituted by Great Britain against Jewish immigration thereto and against Jewish land purchases therein (from 1939 to 1948), and due to the destruction by Jordan and Egypt -- in the wake of their illegal military occupations of these areas -- of all preexisting Jewish communities therein, thereby rendering these areas Judenrein (from 1948 to 1967), the “Palestinian” Arabs' present demographic dominance thereof hardly constitutes a moral imprimatur for their claim of de facto collective sovereignty thereto.
However, even had the “Palestinian” Arabs achieved their demographic dominance in these areas exclusively by peaceful and legitimate means, they would not thereby have acquired any collective sovereignty thereto. For example, the fact that ethnic Japanese have long constituted themselves the dominant population of the non-continental American state of Hawaii does not thereby provide such local Japanese with any claim of collective sovereignty to that archipelago (despite the fact that the Hawaiian Islands are many thousands of kilometers distant from the continental United States); and, consequently, that area will continue to be a lawful part of the United States irrespective of that state's present or future demographic character. Similarly, by virtue of the Mandate for Palestine, exclusive collective sovereignty over the areas of Judea, Samaria, the eastern portion of Jerusalem and Gaza (as well as the Golan Heights) will continue to lawfully inhere in the Jewish people irrespective of these areas' present or future demographic character (e.g., Jews presently constitute about 16% of the population of Judea and Samaria; and Jewish settlements presently occupy about 4%, while Arab settlements presently occupy about 7%, of the land area thereof) and despite the fact that, due demographic and diplomatic considerations, Israel has -- to date -- declined to annex the entirety of these areas (i.e., Israel has formally annexed the eastern portion of Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, but not Judea, Samaria or Gaza). Presently, as a result of the Jewish people’s reclamation of Judea, Samaria, the eastern portion of Jerusalem, and Gaza during the 1967 Six Day War, more than 450,000 Jews have voluntarily relocated themselves to, or have been born in, these historically Jewish areas (save for Gaza and the northern portion of Samaria, from which all Jews were expelled by Israel in August 2005).
Finally, as a last resort, the Jewish State's adversaries, including the U.N. International Court of Justice, claim that all Jewish cities, towns, villages and neighborhoods in Judea, Samaria and the eastern portion of Jerusalem (and formerly in Gaza) are illegal under international law because their very existence violates Article 49 of Section III of Part III of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 (formally known as the “Convention (IV) Relative To The Protection Of Civilian Persons In Time Of War, Geneva, 12 August 1949”), to which international agreement Israel is a signatory State. Article 2 of Part I of the Convention states that the Convention binds and benefits the “High Contracting Parties” thereto (i.e., the signatory States) as well as those non-signatory States which voluntarily undertake to be compliant therewith in “all cases of declared war or of any other armed conflict” between such States or in “all cases of partial or total occupation of the territory of a High Contracting Party, even if the said occupation meets with no armed resistance” -- in other words, in situations either of ongoing hostilities between such States (whether or not accompanied by the occupation by one such State of the territory of another such State) or of the occupation by one such State of the territory of another such State (whether or not accompanied by ongoing hostilities between such States). In either situation, per the applicability standards set forth in Article 2 of the Convention, those provisions of the Convention which apply to captured lands -- namely, Section III of Part III of the Convention, encompassing Articles 47 - 78 thereof, entitled “Occupied Territories” -- apply only to those captured lands which belong to a signatory or compliant State.
Moreover, since the Fourth Geneva Convention does not purport to determine which lands belong to which signatory or compliant States, the Convention is legally and logically irrelevant to issues of sovereignty. Consequently, the Convention can never be used as a basis for determining the legal status of captured territory (i.e., whether the captured lands lawfully belong to the State from whom they were seized, or to the State by whom they were seized or to a nonparticipating third State). However, if the captured lands lawfully belong to the State from whom they were seized, then -- and only then -- the Convention applies to the capturing State’s administration of those lands.
Article 2 of the Convention states, in full, as follows:
In addition to the provisions which shall be implemented in peacetime, the present Convention shall apply to all cases of declared war or of any other armed conflict which may arise between two or more of the High Contracting Parties, even if the state of war is not recognized by one of them.
The Convention shall also apply to all cases of partial or total occupation of the territories of a High Contracting Party, even if the said occupation meets with no armed resistance.
Although one of the Powers in conflict may not be a party to the present Convention, the Powers who are parties thereto shall remain bound by it in their mutual relations. They shall furthermore be bound by the Convention in relation to the said Power, if the latter accepts and applies the provisions thereof.
Article 49 of the Convention states, in full, as follows:
Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as
deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of
the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are
prohibited, regardless of their motive.
Nevertheless, the Occupying Power may undertake total or partial evacuation of
a given area if the security of the population or imperative military reasons
so demand. Such evacuations may not involve the displacement of protected
persons outside the bounds of the occupied territory except when for material
reasons it is impossible to avoid such displacement. Persons thus evacuated
shall be transferred back to their homes as soon as hostilities in the area in
question have ceased.
The Occupying Power undertaking such transfers or evacuations shall ensure, to
the greatest practicable extent, that proper accommodation is provided to
receive the protected persons, that the removals are effected in satisfactory
conditions of hygiene, health, safety and nutrition, and that members of the
same family are not separated.
The Protecting Power shall be informed of any transfers and evacuations as soon
as they have taken place.
The Occupying Power shall not detain protected persons in an area particularly
exposed to the dangers of war unless the security of the population or
imperative military reasons so demand.
The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian
population into the territory it occupies.
Although Article 49 of the Convention generally prohibits a signatory (or
compliant) State from effecting “individual or mass forcible transfers
... regardless of their motive” and specifically prohibits such a State from
“deport[ing] or transfer[ring] parts of its own civilian population” from its
territory into the captured territory of another signatory (or compliant)
State, it bears reiterating that Judea, Samaria, the eastern portion of
Jerusalem and Gaza are not the captured territories of another
State, as these areas never belonged either to those sovereign
signatory States -- Jordan and Egypt -- from which they were repossessed or
to the non-sovereign “Palestinian” Arabs who have presently asserted their
fictitious claim of collective ownership thereto. Rather, under the international
authority of the Mandate for
Yet, even if Article 49 of the Convention were to be applicable to Judea, Samaria, the eastern portion of Jerusalem and Gaza, Israel has nonetheless not violated the provisions thereof precisely because Israel has not transferred (forcibly or otherwise) any portion of its population from its pre-1967 territory into the territories that it captured in the 1967 Six Day War; rather, portions of the Jewish people have themselves voluntarily relocated thereto. Furthermore, this voluntary relocation effort was commenced without prior authorization from the Israeli government and in direct violation of the government’s initial policy of barring Jewish settlement in these areas. Moreover, not all of the Jewish communities established in these areas were new, as many were former Jewish communities that had been destroyed by the Arabs during the 1948 War of Independence (or earlier) and were subsequently rebuilt by the returning Jewish population. Moreover, a substantial portion of the Jews presently residing in these areas did not even relocate thereto; rather, they were born there.
Moreover, unlike Jordan and Egypt, since the “Palestinian” Arabs are not a sovereign State, they cannot presently be a lawful signatory to (or a non-signatory State undertaking to be compliant with) the Convention; and, consequently, even if Article 49 thereof were to be otherwise applicable to Judea, Samaria, the eastern portion of Jerusalem and Gaza, since the non-sovereign “Palestinian” Arabs have no legal standing to invoke the Convention, the provisions of that Article cannot inure to their benefit under international law (except to the extent that Israel, in its sole discretion, chooses to apply them).
This, however, has not prevented the leadership of the “Palestinian” Arabs from claiming sovereign status. Shortly after the United Nations changed the name of the “Palestinian” Permanent Observer delegation from “Palestine Liberation Organization” to “Palestine” in 1988, the Palestine Liberation Organization, acting as “Palestine”, attempted to join all four Geneva Conventions of 1949 by sending a letter of accession thereto to the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs of Switzerland (an agency of the Federal Council of Switzerland, being the official depositary of the Geneva Conventions for purposes of receiving and recording the ratifications, accessions and denunciations thereto). Below is the report of that attempt, posted in the form of a footnote to the section of the website of the International Committee of the Red Cross which lists the States that either originally ratified or subsequently acceded to the Conventions:
On 21 June 1989, the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs received a letter from the Permanent Observer of Palestine to the United Nations Office at Geneva informing the Swiss Federal Council "that the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, entrusted with the functions of the Government of the State of Palestine by decision of the Palestine National Council, decided, on 4 May 1989, to adhere to the Four Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 and the two Protocols additional thereto".
On 13 September 1989, the Swiss Federal Council informed the States that it was not in a position to decide whether the letter constituted an instrument of accession, "due to the uncertainty within the international community as to the existence or non-existence of a State of Palestine".
As to this last point, it is noteworthy that that the “Palestinians” are not
even a truly distinct ethnic group. This is because the Arab clans that
comprise the “Palestinian” people are not ethnically different from the
multitude of Arab clans ranging through 21 sovereign Arab nations from
Further proving the point that the “Palestinians” constitute a fabricated
ethnicity is the fact that, by the time that
Furthermore, even if the “Palestinian” Arabs (either via the Palestinian Authority formerly ruled by Egyptian national Yasser Arafat or via some other recognized leadership) could be a lawful signatory to the Convention, the fact remains that no part of Judea, Samaria, the eastern portion of Jerusalem and Gaza (nor, for that matter, any part of Israel within its 1949 armistice demarcation lines) ever collectively belonged to them. This is because never in the annals of History, did the ancestors of the people who now call themselves “Palestinians” ever rule -- or even reside in -- a nation-state of “Palestine”, as such a sovereign entity never existed.
Moreover, during the 19 years (from 1948 to 1967) that Judea, Samaria, and
the eastern portion of Jerusalem, and Gaza, were illegally occupied,
respectively, by Jordan and Egypt, neither the Arab inhabitants of those
areas nor the larger Arab and Muslim worlds ever asserted the
existence therein of either an ethnically distinct “Palestinian” people
or a historical nation-state (or kingdom or other sovereign entity)
known as “Palestine”. And, during those
same 19 years, neither the “Palestinian” Arabs nor any nation of the World ever
asserted that the Fourth Geneva Convention was applicable to Jordanian and
Egyptian governance of occupied “
. . .
Article 1. Palestine is an Arab homeland bound by strong Arab national ties to the rest of the Arab countries which together form the large Arab homeland.
Article 2. Palestine with its boundaries at the time of the British Mandate is a regional indivisible unit.
Article 3. The Palestine Arab people has the legitimate right to its homeland and is an inseparable part of the Arab nation. It shares the suffering and aspiration of the Arab nation and its struggle for freedom, sovereignty, progress and unity.
Article 4. The people of Palestine determine their destiny when they complete the liberation of their homeland in accordance with their own wishes and free will and choice.
. . .
Article 17. The partitioning of Palestine in 1947 and the establishment of Israel are illegal and false regardless of the lapse of time, because they were contrary to the wish of the Palestine people and its natural right to its homeland, and in violation of the basic principles embodied in the Charter of the United Nations, foremost among which is the right to self-determination.
Article 18. The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate system and all that has been based upon them are considered a fraud. The claims of historic and spiritual ties between Jews and Palestine are not in agreement with the facts of history or with the true basis of sound statehood. Judaism, because it is a divine religion, is not a nationality with independent existence. Furthermore, the Jews are not one people with an independent personality because they are the citizens of the countries to which they belong.
Article 19. Zionism is a colonialist movement in its inception, aggressive and expansionist in its goal, racist and segregationist in its configurations and fascist in its means and aims. Israel, in its capacity as the spearhead of this destructive movement and the pillar of colonialism, is a permanent source of tension and turmoil in the Middle East in particular and to the international community in general. Because of this the people of Palestine is worthy of the support and sustenance of the community of nations.
Article 20. The causes of peace and security and the needs of right and justice demand from all nations, in order to safeguard true relationships among peoples and to maintain the loyalty of citizens to their homelands, that they consider Zionism an illegal movement and outlaw its presence and activities.
Article 21. The Palestine people believes in the principle of justice, freedom, sovereignty, self-determination, human dignity, and the right of peoples to practice these principles. It also supports all international efforts to bring about peace on the basis of justice and free international cooperation.
Article 22. The people of Palestine believe in peaceful co-existence on the basis of legal existence, for there can be no co-existence with aggression, nor can there be peace with occupation and colonialism.
Article 23. In realizing the goals and principles of this Covenant the Palestine Liberation Organization carries out its complete role to liberate Palestine in accordance with the fundamental law of this Organization.
Article 24. This Organization does not exercise
any regional sovereignty over the West Bank in the
Article 25. This Organization is charged with the movement of the Palestine people in its struggle to liberate its homeland in all liberational, organizational, political and financial matters, and in all other needs of the Palestine Question in the Arab and international spheres.
Article 26. The Liberation Organization cooperates with all Arab Governments, each according to its ability, and does not interfere in the internal affairs of any Arab State.
. . .
Since the Palestine Liberation Organization's original Covenant explicitly recognized Judea, Samaria, and the eastern portion of Jerusalem, and Gaza as belonging to other Arab states, the only “homeland” of “Palestine” which that organization sought to “liberate” in 1964 was the State of Israel (all of which was then within its 1949 armistice demarcation lines). However, in response to the Jewish people's reclamation in the 1967 Six Day War of those illegally-occupied areas, the Palestine Liberation Organization thereupon revised its Covenant on July 17, 1968 to, inter alia, remove the operative language of Article 24 therefrom, thereby rescinding its prior declaration that those areas were not occupied “Palestine” and thereby newly asserting a “Palestinian” claim of collective sovereignty thereto.
Lastly, it bears reiterating that the ancient Philistines, after whom the “Palestinians” have named themselves, were not even Arabs. Moreover, in light of “Palestinian” claims to aboriginal status, it is ironic and noteworthy that the English-language cognate words “Palestine” and “Philistine”, as well as the Arabic-language word “Falastin”, are all derived (via Latin and, before that, Greek) from the biblical Hebrew-language word “Pelishtim”, meaning literally: “Invaders”. It is indeed telling that the “Palestinians” have created for themselves a faux ethnic identity whose very name originates, not from their own Arabic language, but rather from the Hebrew language.
In truth, the “Palestinian” designation is geographical rather than ethnic; for, the “Palestinian” Arabs are no more a distinct ethnic people than are Texans or Californians (and no one suggests that either of the latter have the juridical right to establish a separate ethnic nation-state).
Occasionally, even “Palestinian” leaders themselves admit as much. As candidly stated by Zahir Muhsein, then head of the Palestine Liberation Organization's Military Department and a member of its Executive Committee:
“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. In reality, Today, there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. 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. For tactical reasons, Jordan -- which is a sovereign state with defined borders -- cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa. While, as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beersheba and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.” (Amsterdam-based newspaper “Dagblad de Verdieping Trouw”, March 31, 1977).
Despite the layers of falsehoods, half-truths and distortions that have encrusted this subject matter over the past decades, international law remains Today as it was in 1920: All of cis-Jordania (as well as the Golan Heights portion of trans-Jordania) collectively belongs to the Jewish people. Accordingly, it is the Arab population thereof -- being the descendants of the massive 7th Century colonialist Islamic invasion force emanating from ancient Arabia -- which is occupying Jewish land.
Yet, if the World should still complain that Israel's possession of Judea, Samaria, the eastern portion of Jerusalem and Gaza, even if lawful, nevertheless deprives the Arabs of the cis-Jordania portion of Mandatory Palestine of a separate “ethnic homeland”, then the World should be reminded that the modern state of Jordan (its precursor having been rendered Judenrein by the British Mandatory authorities in 1922) -- constituting 77% of original Mandatory Palestine and overwhelmingly comprised of an Arab population native to original Mandatory Palestine (with the balance thereof, composed of the ruling Hashemite clan and its Bedouin allies, having originated from that which is now Saudi Arabia) -- is already that separate “ethnic homeland”.
© Mark Rosenblit