Herb Keinon quotes an Israeli official as follows ‘Quartet ‘parameters’ must address our needs’
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Britain, France and Germany have reportedly been urging the EU and the UN to propose a statement that would say that a future agreement would be based upon the 1967 lines “with agreed upon land swaps,” and reach a “just fair and agreed solution to the refugee question.” One of the key sticking points in relaunching Israeli-Palestinian negotiations has been the Palestinian insistence that the baseline for talks be a return to the 1967 lines, and Israel’s position that those lines are not sacrosanct, and that what needed to be discussed were secure and defensible borders – something Israel says is not provided by the 1967 lines.
Israel should be demanding our rights, not just our needs.
Negotiations should start not with the idea that Israel is occupying Palestinian lands but that the Palestinians are occupying Israeli lands.
Israel obviously has accepted Res 242 which provides for “secure borders” in place and instead of our rights to Judea and Samaria pursuant to the Palestine Mandate.
Yes. This is very much to the point.
Pres. of JCPA, and Former Ambassador of Israel to the UN [1997-99], Dore Gold, puts it well in his book, The Fight for Jerusalem: Radical Islam, the West, and the Future of the Holy City (Regnery, DC, 2007):
“Significantly, the League of Nations Mandate did not create new rights, but rather acknowledged a pre-existing right which, in the view of the international community at the time, had clearly not been forfeited by the Jewish people or suspended by international law after successive empires occupied and ruled Jerusalem and the rest of the area of Palestine in the intervening centuries.
“Indeed, while the mandate documents for Syria and Iraq called on the French and the British to ‘facilitate the progressive development’ of these mandates ‘as independent states’ [and in both cases, on behalf of the (undelineated) ‘people of the area’ —- dweller], the Palestine mandate related [specifically] to the need to ‘secure the establishment of the Jewish national home, as laid [down] in the preamble.’ [Article 2]
“This had legal significance, for the declarative language about the historic rights of the Jewish people that appeared in the preamble was linked to the binding operative language of the Palestine Mandate. When the Council of the League of Nations confirmed the Mandate in July 1922, it acquired the force of law.” [p. 123]
“Negotiations should start not with the idea that Israel is occupying Palestinian lands but that the Palestinians are occupying Israeli lands.”
Robert K and/or Michael Chenkin should run for Prime Minister of Israel! They truly know the complete truth regarding Israel and what belongs to her, including Jordan.
Robert K is entirely correct. The lawful status of Yehuda, Shomron and Gaza is that they are part of the Mandate for Palestine territory that remained actively designated for close settlement by Jews at the close of 1922. The purpose of “close settlement” was to facilitate the Jews “reconstituting” their national homeland.
What is now Jordan, was originally part of the area designated for close settlement by Jews. In 1922, a few months after signing the Mandate as the Mandatory power, or trustee, and, as allowed by the Mandate, Britain “withheld or postponed” the close settlement provisions of the Mandate for lands east of the Jordan River. What Britain was not allowed to do under the Mandate, was to surrender land of the Mandate to a foreign power, thus her ceding the land to Abdullah, a Saudi Arabian, was illegal. Further, while “close settlement” could be withheld or postponed, it could not be terminated, which is therefore an unlawful consequence of the creation of Jordan.
The Mandate was a trust agreement created pursuant to Article 22 of the League of Nations Charter, that labeled such trusts “sacred trusts.” It is essential to realize that the League of Nations (and as Robert K points out) the United Nations (through Article 80 of its Charter), did not establish the right of Jews to their homeland. The preamble to the Mandate for Palestine makes it very clear that the international community recognized the pre-existing right of Jews to their land. The Mandate, and the UN through Article 80, only incorporated into international law the Jews’ rights to their land, as a well as creating a formal mechanism to help the Jews realize their pre-existing rights.
The right to recreate our homeland is vested in the Jewish people, not the government of the modern state of Israel. Israel as a state can decide its own borders. Israel cannot however surrender a right that does not belong to her.
It is a complex area of law, but its most accurate summarization is that rights established by a Trust cannot be withdrawn (other than by terms of the Trust itself, and that doesn’t apply here.) So firstly, if the UN sanctions the creation of an Arab state on Mandate lands the UN is simply proving that there really is no such thing as international law. More fundamentally, by establishing an Arab state on Jewish land, the UN would simply be stealing our land.
If the Arabs declare a State in the “West Bank” based on international law, why can’t the Jews declare a State in Judea and Samaria based on international law? After all the Jews have international law on their side – The San Remo Resolution – April 25, 1920 which was ratified by the League of Nations and the United States signed onto – although not a part of the League of Nations – is grandfathered into the UN Charter. This is so in spite of the hypocrisy of the EU, the US, and the nations of the world which claim that Jewish settlements are illegal or “illegitimate”. If anything these nations should be encouraging and financing the “close settlement of the territories by the Jews”. The sad fact that the government of Israel doesn’t assert Jewish rights to the land even by “secular” international law probably is due to the influence of the Post-Zionists on the secular oligarchy that leads Israel today. The Post-Zionists themselves were indoctrinated by the German Jewish intellectuals who taught the Humanities, social sciences and law at Hebrew University – Israel’s first university (see Yoram Hazony’s The Struggle for Israel’s Soul).
The very fact that the Europeans are seeking a UN declaration that the pre-1967 armistice lines are binding, shows that there is no such UN declaration at present. In fact, the 1967/73 truces and Resolution 242 end the legitimacy of all the armistice lines preceeding them. In Israel’s subsequent treaties with Egypt and Jordan, the latter two countries cede all rights to control of Judea, Samaria and Gaza to Israel, with any consideration of a future Arab state or states within those territories subject to approval by Israel.
Any UN move to declare an Arab state withing Israel’s current borders, is not based on any binding agreement. Rather, it is based on the “New Regime” of the arbitrary takeovers of land by UN-NATO-US forces, a la Kosovo, Afghanistan and Libya, and of the Russian annexation of Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transnistria. In other words, it is based on brazen bullying.