09 July '12..
After nearly six months of investigations, three legal experts known colloquially as “the outpost committee” – a government-appointed advisory body – submitted some clear-cut conclusions.
For instance, the trio – former Supreme Court Justice Edmond Levy, former Foreign Ministry legal adviser Alan Baker and former Deputy President of the Tel Aviv District Court Tehiya Shapira – found that the hundreds of thousands of patriotic, productive Israeli citizens living in Judea, Samaria and the Golan Heights are not criminals, as many of Israel’s adversaries – and allies – would argue.
They also found that the 45-year-old settlement project, which has reunited the Jewish people to land resonating with Jewish history dating back thousands of years, cannot in any way be construed as an international crime.
The three men’s argument, backed up by their intimate knowledge of international law, is based on a few simple facts.
First, the British Mandate, which came into effect in September 1922 after being ratified by the League of Nations, called for the creation of “a national home for the Jewish people” in the territory west of the Jordan River, including Judea and Samaria.
Second, the 1947 UN Partition Plan for Palestine never replaced the British Mandate as intended. It was accepted by the Jewish community in Palestine represented by the Jewish Agency, but was rejected by both the Palestinian Arab Higher Committee and by the states belonging to the Arab League.
Third, in the wake of Israel’s War of Independence, when first local Palestinian militias and later the combined armies of Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon tried but failed to snuff out the Jewish state. Jordan seized control of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and parts of Jerusalem, but its sovereignty over these areas was never recognized by the international community.
Fourth, after the Six Day War, when once again the combined armies of Egypt, Syria and Jordan, with the help of numerous other countries and organizations – including the PLO – tried and failed to wipe Israel off the map, Israel found itself in control of Judea, Samaria and Gaza, along with the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights.
In 1988, Jordan ceded its claims to the West Bank to the PLO. But these so-called claims were less substantial than Israel’s for a number of reasons. First, the British Mandate never recognized Jordan’s right to the land west of the Jordan River.
Also, Jordan seized the territory in an aggressive offensive against the fledgling Jewish state. And the newly created Jordanian state – essentially a British construction – had absolutely no historical ties to Judea and Samaria, while for Jews, it is the cradle of Jewish civilization and statehood from the biblical era.
Far from “occupied,” the status of Judea and Samaria – if one is being generous with regard to Palestinian demands – can at best be described as sui generis.
The territory enjoys a unique status in international law as land that has never been unequivocally set aside for a specific people by the international community.
Even UN Resolution 242, which introduced the “land-for-peace” formula, calls on Israel to withdraw from “territories” in exchange for peace with its neighbors, but not all territories.
It was clear to the international community immediately after the Six Day War that Israel would retain an undetermined portion of Judea, Samaria and Gaza. (Israel has since magnanimously ceded the Gaza Strip to the Palestinians.) Unfortunately, the outpost committee’s conclusions are not so obvious to everyone. Just three months ago, for instance, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in response to moves by Israel to legalize outposts, declared that all settlement activity was “illegal.” Ban’s position reflected the general perception of most of the international community and certain segments of the Israeli Left.
Unsurprisingly, Levy, Baker and Shapira might not succeed in convincing Israel’s detractors that settlements are legal and the men, women and children who populate them are law-abiding citizens by any criterion.
But at least the plain truth has now been reiterated – for the record. And it should be officially recognized as such by the government.
Link: http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Editorials/Article.aspx?id=276845
Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook.
.
"The territory enjoys a unique status in international law as land that has never been unequivocally set aside for a specific people by the international community"
ReplyDeleteThis is not true!
According to the binding agreemets of the San Remo :
The whole of Palestine, on both sides of the Jordan, was reserved exclusively for the Jewish people as their national home and future independent state.
The moment of birth of Jewish legal rights and title of sovereignty thus took place at the same time Palestine was created a mandated state, since it was created for no other reason than to reconstitute the ancient Jewish state of Judea in fulfillment of the Balfour Declaration and the general provisions of Article 22 of the League Covenant. This meant that Palestine from the start was legally a Jewish state in theory that was to be guided towards independence by a Mandatory or Trustee, also acting as Tutor, and who would take the necessary political, administrative and economic measures to establish the Jewish National Home.
The official creation of the country took place at the San Remo Peace Conference where the Balfour Declaration was adopted by the Supreme Council of the Principal Allied Powers as the basis for the future administration of Palestine which would henceforth be recognized as the Jewish National Home.
The details for the planned independent Jewish state were set forth in three basic documents, which may be termed the founding documents of mandated Palestine and the modern Jewish state of Israel that arose from it. These were the San Remo Resolution of April 25, 1920, the Mandate for Palestine conferred on Britain by the Principal Allied Powers and confirmed by the League of Nations on July 24, 1922, and the Franco-British Boundary Convention of December 23, 1920. These founding documents were supplemented by the Anglo-American Convention of December 3, 1924 respecting the Mandate for Palestine. It is of supreme importance to remember always that these documents were the source or well-spring of Jewish legal rights and title of sovereignty over Palestine and the Land of Israel under international law, because of the near-universal but completely false belief that it was the United Nations General Assembly Partition Resolution of November 29, 1947 that brought the State of Israel into existence. In fact, the UN resolution was an illegal abrogation of Jewish legal rights and title of sovereignty to the whole of Palestine and the Land of Israel, rather than an affirmation of such rights or progenitor of them.
For more details, please consult :
"Legal Rights and Title of Sovereignty of the Jewish People to the Land of Israel and Palestine under International Law"
by Howard Grief
If there is a desire to create a state for Arabs who nowadays live in Judea, Samaria, Gaza, or elsewhere in the Land of Israel it should be established outside the territory of the Land of Israel.