www.mythsandfacts.org
28 February '11
http://www.mythsandfacts.org/article_view.asp?articleID=196
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in its Advisory Opinion in the matter of the construction of the "wall" in Judea and Samaria, cites the right to self-determination as a fundamental right almost two dozen times, always in the Palestinian context, never in the Jewish framework.
The Bench even takes the liberty to interpret what Israel's recognition of "Palestinian rights" in a legally-binding accord [Camp David] meant, basing its own interpretation on a declarative statement of sentiment by the United Nation's General Assembly. With no reliance on legal standing, the ICJ says:
"The Israeli‑Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip of 28 September 1995 also refers a number of times to the Palestinian people and its "legitimate rights." ... The Court considers that those rights include the right to self‑determination, as the General Assembly has moreover recognized on a number of occasions [see, for example, resolution 58/163 of 22 December 2003]."
The ICJ turns General Assembly recognition - this time a March 2004 Resolution recognizing "The right of Palestinian people to self-determination"[1] - into the basis for a legal opinion, ignoring the powers vested [or not vested, as the case may be] in the General Assembly under the UN Charter.
It is instructive to compare such "instant recognition" to the way the Jewish People's right to self-determination, totally ignored by the ICJ, was anchored in a series of genuine international accords.
The British objectives in "mentoring" a national home for the Jewish People under the "Mandate for Palestine" were not based solely on the 1917 Balfour Declaration. While international support for the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine was set in motion by this landmark British policy statement, international intent rested on a solid consensus, expressed in a series of accords and declarations that reflected the "will" of the international community, hardly the product or whim of a colonial empire with its own agenda.
The Mandate itself notes this intent when it cites that the Mandate is based on the agreement of "the Principal Allied Powers" and declares:
"Whereas recognition has therefore been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstructing their national home in that country." [Italics by author]
A June 1922 letter from the British Secretary of State for the Colonies, Winston Churchill, reiterated that:
"The [Balfour] Declaration of 1917 [was] re-affirmed by the Conference of the Principle Allied Powers at San Remo and again in the Treaty of Sevres" ... "the Jewish people ... is in Palestine as a right and not on sufferance. That is the reason why it necessary that the existence of a Jewish National Home in Palestine should be internationally guaranteed and that it should be formally recognized to rest upon ancient historical connection."
In his first Report of the High Commissioner on the Administration of Palestine 1920-1925 to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, published in April 1925, the most senior official of the Mandate for Palestine, the High Commissioner for Palestine, underscored how "international guarantee[s]" for the existence of a Jewish National Home in Palestine were achieved:
"The Declaration was endorsed at the time by several of the Allied Governments; it was reaffirmed by the Conference of the Principal Allied Powers at San Remo in 1920; it was subsequently endorsed by unanimous resolutions of both Houses of the Congress of the United States; it was embodied in the "Mandate for Palestine" approved by the League of Nations in 1922; it was declared, in a formal statement of policy issued by the Colonial Secretary in the same year, 'not to be susceptible of change;' and it has been the guiding principle in their direction of the affairs of Palestine of four successive British Governments. The policy was fixed and internationally guaranteed."
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