All about Peace Now

15 Comments / 15 Comments

1. Salubrius Said:

   But it can give him actual or apparent authority to transfer title. If it clothes him with authority to do so,

   did the state of Israel ever receive authority as agent or if they did, then did they receive authority to transfer titel. My understanding is that there was a prohibition to subdivide the land in the mandate trust; which may have prohibited UNGA 181 unless UNGA had authority to alter the mandate as envisioned under the mandate clauses.Salubrius Said:

   having already recognized the rights of World Jewry. But it is not expressly stated in the Resolution or the Mandate that the Jews are being given a beneficial interest as of 1920 with a legal interest to vest later.

   Unless the JEWISH rights were cancelled or expired then it appears that no one can legally disagree with jewish settlement west of the JOrdan river. Furthermore, one may call Israeli settlement illegal but calling Jewish settlement illegal may be libelous. IMHO, only by referring to Israeli settlement rather than Jewish settlement can illegality have a claim. If legality mattered, this could be rendered moot by settling non Israeli Jews in YS.Salubrius Said:

   equity doctrine of laches. That means a claimant may not sleep on his claim. The claim of World Jewry to Eastern Palestine, east of the Jordan will likely fall into that category unless it falls within an exception.

   Under the British, the Jordanians and even the state of Israel the Jewish people have been limited and obstucted of their right to settle and therefore there is no waiver but rather an illegal obstruction by 3rd parties. In fact, it is my view that these illegal obstructions should be redied in law and action by any administrating entity over YS as follows: in order to restore Justice and mitigate the damge of decased of obstruction there should be established an affirmative action program designed to fast track jewish settlement in large numbers and a short period of time. I have suggested a program similar to the land rush of the US homestead act where govt property is given in free land grants to jews willing to immigrate to YS. The affirmative action precedent is now widely accepted to remedy injustice as initiated by US desegregation.
   My persective is to look from the perspective of the perenially swindled Jews and not at what it entails for others. When looking through those glasses the starting premise is that Jews are legally entitled to settle YS and that they have been obstructed and swindled to date from doing so and that the world including their allies continue to swindle them and ignore the rights which they had heretofore acknowledged.
   My main reason for being interested in the legal perspective is not to prosecute in court but to be able to convince secular jews, educate ignorant jews, and use as a basis for unilateral action taken to secure jewish rights over Israel. Having a convincing legal argument gives those who want to support Israel a basis for that support which is thus far abandoned by Israel.

2. Dear Mr. Ross, I forgot to mention the equity doctrine of laches. That means a claimant may not sleep on his claim. The claim of World Jewry to Eastern Palestine, east of the Jordan will likely fall into that category unless it falls within an exception.

3. Dear Mr. Ross, You raise many interesting questions; on most of these I have not formed a conclusion because I do not have available the basic documents. But you left out an important one. The political rights to all of Palestine was given to the Zionist Organization. This organization split in two with one group, to my understanding, accepting the new paragraph 25 in the Mandate for Palestine that would foreshadow the cession of TransJordan to a foreign power. That was the Zionist Organization to my understanding, led by Chaim Weizman. The other group led by Jabotinsky did not agree with the new disposition of TransJordan. Did the split off group led by Weissman have the authority on behalf of World Jewry to agree to the new disposition?

   The principal does not give property to the agent to allow him to carry out his agency. But it can give him actual or apparent authority to transfer title. If it clothes him with authority to do so, that also gives him authority if the deal is with someone who believes he has that authority and provides some consideration for it.

   A court of equity, in my understanding, when met with a claim by the beneficiary that the trustee has misused his authority, and transferred property over which he has a beneficial interest, looks to see the nature of the transaction. If the person who receives the property is innocent of the lack of authority of the trustee and gives something of value for it, the rights of the beneficial owner may be lost to it but he still has a good claim against the trustee.

   I agree with your conclusion number 5 and apparently so did Paul S. Riebenfeld who had been on the League of Nations Permanent Mandates Committee.

   In number 6,, if Israel declines to annex and pulls out of Judea and Samaria, the owner of the political rights, it seems to me, would have to find some entity with the capability of exercising sovereignty to retain its rights. That is to establish unified control over all the people of the area, control its borders, exercise the ability to carry out foreign relations with other sovereigns, and others. Some of this is reviewed in a New York case dealing with the estate of Kinghoffer in which the PLO claimed sovereign immunity and the claim was rejected by the NY court which listed several obligations that the PLO did not meet. This system for world order is also discussed in Hill, The Trial of a Thousand Years as a new system of world order established in 1638 by the Treaty of Westphalia which established the principal of national self determination meaning sovereignty not under the control of other sovereigns, not necessarily self determination by the people of a country. That erga omnes didn’t come along until the beginning of the 20th century but did not end previously recognized (grandfathered) sovereignties as for example the claims of the Kurds and the Basques were not honored. In in 1920- the Principal Allied War Powers recognized the political rights of World Jewry to Paloestine and in 1922 52 nations recognized the rights of World Jewry in all of Palestine west of the Jordan. I think that if World Jewry did not exercise its sovereignty, then individual settlers would have no right to settle on public property which is the site of most of the settlements.

   The UN has no authority to make new International Law, particularly if their members are estopped from doing so, having already recognized the rights of World Jewry. But it is not expressly stated in the Resolution or the Mandate that the Jews are being given a beneficial interest as of 1920 with a legal interest to vest later. One must infer that from the provisions of the documents particularly Article 2, and the Preamble of the Mandate, and the terms of Article 22 that are incorporated by reference in the preamble. You can also more easily infer it from a comparison of the terms of the mandates for Palestine Syria and Mesopotamia and from the so called legislative intent which was the purpose of limiting Jewish Sovereignty over Palestine so long as the Jews were a small minority of the population and did not have the capability to exercise sovereignty. With the UN dominated by the OIC and their African Allies, they are loathe to make the inferences many lawyers and I have made, or to compare the language of the mandates. In the Syrian and Mesopotamia mandates, the trustee is enjoined to heed the wishes, interests and desires of the current population. No such requirement is in the Palestine mandate which says it is to take the advice of the Zionist Organizaiton which seems to me to include the interests, desires and wishes of World Jewry. Of course some lawyers are hesitant to use legislative history at all to amplify the language within the four corners of a statute, in this case a treaty. But there is also intent shown in the memo of the British Foreign Office of September 19, 1917 and in the briefing document carried by the US representatives to the Paris Peace talks that refers to a two step process to Jewish sovereignty over Palestine.

4. Wallace Brand Said:

   The question would be has the Zionist Organization clothed Israel with actual or apparent authority to cede part of the land over which it has political rights to another state or entity?

   This brings further questions:
   1-Wasn’t it the Jewish agency who was the agent for the Jewish people?
   2-Is the ownership of the rights(assets) actually transferred from agent to agent or is it the agency which is transferred? In other words don’t the rights remain with the “Jewish people” as the beneficiary regardless of transfer of agency?
   3-does an agent or trustee have a right to dispose of the sole asset(Jewish settlement rights)without consideration or compensation to the beneficiary(jewish people)?
   4- Does the state of Israel have a legal or ethical right to retain agency for the global “jewish people” when the interests of global Jewry conflict with the interests of Israeli Jewry? In other words the state of Israel has clearly and repeatedly demonstrated its disinterest in “encouraging” jewish settlement or facilitating Israeli sovereignty over YS which represents a large specific asset to global Jewry. It appears to me that although the state of Israel has a right to cede its own interests in YS it does not have a right to cede global Jewry’s rights to settlement to YS in order to fulfill its own separate interests(conflict of interest).
   5-“encouragement of close settlement of the Jewish people”- it is very clear that the settlement area was all that west of the Jordan River. If these settlement rights still exist then it appears to me that any state or entity who controls or administrates YS is obligated to facilitate this “encouragement” through action. If these rights exist then the UK, the state of Jordan when occupying and the state of Israel now in occupation have all violated this prime and clear legal directive. Therefore, it appears to me that the first determination must be whether the beneficiary (Jewish people)still retain these rights and if not then under what legal action or principle were these rights cancelled.
   6-In the event of an Israeli decision not to annex and declare sovereignty and an Israeli withdrawal from YS there would be a land without a state. That condition is similar to the UK resignation of its trusteeship. Legally and theoretically speaking,under reasonable conditions, if there was an unbiased UN then the UN would be under obligation to appoint another mandate trustee, or agency, to finish the unfulfilled mandate in YS.

   My prior thoughts are based on the notion that the jewish rights of settlement were not cancelled or expired by any action to date. However what is the LEGAL position of the UN regarding those rights and what principle are they using to ignore those rights.
   1- I suspect that the UN position involves the right of the UNGA to alter the terms of the mandate and therefore the UNGA partition reflected the desire of UNGA to alter the mandate to take more land from the area assigned to Jewish settlement; this done despite UNGA having non binding status on members but rather based in mandate trustee stewardship rules empowering UNGA. Am I correct that this is their position? I have seen no continuous line of reasoning which justifies under principles of law the removal of jewish settlement rights from YS by the UN.
   the other two legal obstructions to Jewish settlement or Israeli sovereignty might be
   1-UNSC 242- but how does this relate to a conflict with principle of jewish settlement as opposed to Israeli sovereignty
   2- the treaty with Jordan – I understand treaties are a major factor so my question becomes: in what ways are jewish settlement and/or Israeli sovereignty over YS affected. Must these rights be determined by agreement with Pals as opposed to unilaterally?

   It appears to me that in all situations clarity comes through examining the legal rights of jews separately from the sovereign claims of the state of Israel(especially as these appear to be in conflict). It is legality of Israels sovereignty status that has been the only detraction to the settlement of jews in YS. I have never seen a detracting argument which speaks to the rights of Jewish settlement. The only arguments I have seen are based on Geneva conventions occupation clauses and general self-determination principles. This is why I have argued for focus on jewish settlement and jewish rights so as to render irrelevant current legality issues. However, this would involve a clear establishment of the continuing rights of the “jewish people”.
   My limited understanding of principles of law is that unless 2 apparently conflicting situations cannot possibly exist then they are legally considered to simultaneously be allowed to exist. In other words Israeli YS non-sovereignty claims in conflict with jewish settlement rights are not mutually exclusive, they can exist together under various theoretical scenarios:
   1-the state of Israel can withdraw and abandon claims to YS and Jewish settlement could still continue under a different administration, as it did under the UK mandate, established by the UN or agency claimed by another entity(diaspora org or settlers org).
   2-Israel could abandon sovereignty claims in YS but remain in occupation in order to facilitate the prime directive of jewish settlement under the mandate until the original goals are fulfilled and the jewish political rights there are established.

5. @ Bernard Ross: Mr. Ross, in my opinion, the owner of political rights may cede them to another state or entity or an agent who has actual or apparent authority can cede them. The question would be has the Zionist Organization clothed Israel with actual or apparent authority to cede part of the land over which it has political rights to another state or entity? An entity who has been ceded political rights also has to qualify as a state. These qualifications include, for example, unified control over its population, control over its borders, ability to engage in foreign relations, and there may be other qualifications. These were listed a few years ago in a case in which the PLO claimed sovereign immunity from the heirs of Klinghoffer and the New York court rejected its claim.

   Only a “people” may claim sovereignty. There is no Palestinian People and tghere never has been one. The “Palestinian Arab People”, a collective noun, is a fake invented by the Soviet dezinformatsia in 1964 when the PLO Charter was drafted in Moscow. Likely, one of the reasons for its invention was to enable some Arab entity to enter a competing claim with Israel for sovereignty. Another reason is that it permitted the Arabs to continue to engage in murderous jihad with a claimed motivation of perpetual victimhood that was more acceptable to world public opinion than its actual religious motivation. Initially those Palestinians were identified as people that were all inside the Green Line. After 1967 the PLO added those within Palestine West of the Jordan but not those East of the Jordan. Later on it claimed to no longer claim the Arabs inside the Green Line as Palestinian Arab People but they have never formally changed their charter to carry out this claim.

6. Perhaps you can explain how and when CIJA has “embraced” Peace Now? I’ve never seen it.

7. Wallace Brand Said:

   The absence of an act of annexation of Judea and Samaria does not diminish the Jewish People’s political rights in those areas

   I would also think it does not diminish the Jewish people’s right to settle there either. Would I be wrong in stating that regardless of what nation holds sovereignty, or administrative rights, over YS there is still an ongoing legal obligation under international Law, and treaty, to “encourage the close settlement of the Jewish people” west of the Jordan River?

8. The absence of an act of annexation of Judea and Samaria does not diminish the Jewish People’s political rights in those areas as stated by Paul S. Riebenfeld in “Israel’s Legitimacy in Law and History” the Proceedings of the Conference on International Law and the Arab-Israeli Conflict sponsored by the Louis D. Brandeis Society of Zionist Lawyers, October 21, 1990, New York. This excellent book is out of print and very expensive in the used book market. It would be good to have it reprinted. Harold Greenwald, in its introduction, notes that “Israel’s very existence was perceived by many as a result of a series of “faits accomplis” rather than by International Law. That is still the case. Riebenfeld had been a member of the Palestine Mandates Commission of the League of Nations.

9. Ted, I fully agree with what you wrote re Peace Now.
   The reckless pursuit of “peace” never ceases to amaze me. Two thoughts:

   1. “When the pursuit of peace becomes the entire objective of foreign policy, it becomes a weapon in the hands of the most ruthless. It produces moral disarmament” (Henry Kissinger, 1979). Yet, this is what successive Israeli governments have been doing for the past 20 years, and this is the only purpose of Peace Now: peace at any cost will be a time bomb waiting to explode.

   2. If any negotitions with the Palestinian Arabs are contemplated, it seems to me that they should be preceded by a strong declaration of Israel’s Legal Rights, so that there is no doubt that Judea and Samaria are Jewish lands by international law. Only then, any future concession by Israel will be really seen as a concession to the Arabs and not a due, as the Arabs (and their Western supporters) have been led to believe for decades.

10. Ted,
    CIJA is also a virtual appendage of the Liberal Party of Cda. Rest assured that they are trying to get Cdn Jews to vote out the conservatives. Watch them cozy up to Justin-the-drama-teacher or even a Lib-NDP alliance by this time next year. Jews who give a cent to ANY of the orgs under the CIJA umbrella are nuts.

11. @ ArnoldHarris:
    Well and brilliantly put, Arnold! Annexation of area C is vital to Israel’s future and continued health. The world will howl. Let them. Israel needs room to grow and real estate to provide security.

12. Report: Anti-Israel NGOs receive US funding

    Research institute says some Mideast organizations receiving grants from Washington ‘demonize Israel, promote BDS campaigns targeting Israel’

    Defense Minister: We Destroyed Syrian Target
    Syria says it destroyed an IDF vehicle; IDF denies this, but says IDF vehicle was damaged and IDF fired back.

13. @ ArnoldHarris:

    That’s a lot of learning for the demented BB administration!

14. All these feverishly-pursued and typically liberal Jewish propaganda maneuvers have demonstrably little or perhaps even nothing to do with peace or war in the Middle East, and especially Israeli involvement in the endless civil wars of that region. And they most certainly have nothing to do with providing Israel a geographical, demographic, military and economic power base for the needs of the Jewish nation over an extended future.

    Israel, the Jewish nation, and its revolutionary Zionist arm, do not need for its friends to win arguments with J-Street or Peace Now. What they need — what we need — is immediate annexation to the State of Israel of Area C of Shomron in the north and Yehuda in the south. That is the only act that can break the chain which enslaves Israel and the Jewish nation to a future in which the heartland of Eretz-Yisrael would be sold out to a pernicious foreign enemy.

    Area C comprises some 72% of the Shomrom and Yehuda territories, but contain less than 2 per cent of the Arab population of those same territories. We know now from research by Yoram Ettinger and other geographers and demographers that the true Arab population numbers in Shomron and Yehuda do not exceed 1.5 million. Which means that the Arab population of Area C probably comprises only about 25,000-30,000 persons. Levi Eshkol, the great prime minister of Israel during the victorious Six Day War, accurately described Israel’s position regarding the newly-reacquired territories. He likened the situation to a wedding in which the groom kept the dowry but not the bride; the dowry were the lands and the bride was the Arab population. But now, Israel needs the dowry irrespective of the bride.

    Israel, under minimal security circumstances, must forever have the Jordan River Valley as its immediate eastern frontier. The time will come when that frontier must and shall shift much further eastward to the Syrian Desert. But for now, the immediate goal is to keep the Jordan River line as a defense and state administrative frontier. And that can be achieved solely by unilateral annexation — the same way Israel took eastern Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. Recognition of these annexations by the so-called international community may never be achieved, or at least in our lifetimes. But what is important is de facto control and Jewish settlement, irrespective of long faces or even howlings from abroad, Jewish or otherwise.

    Learn to keep your eyes on the prize, and learn to take that prize before the chances of doing so are gone.

    Arnold Harris
    Mount Horeb WI

15. Those two messages appeared to form the foundation of Hagel’s effort to improve U.S. relations with Israel, which have been strained in recent years by obstacles to reviving Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and by the threat of an Iranian bomb.