Britain is cozying up to Israel after 100 years

By Ze’ev Jabotinsky, ISRAEL HAYOM

Prince William’s historic Israel visit is part of Britain’s efforts to contend with the consequences of its withdrawal from the European Union. The British are acting out of a clear interest in improving ties between the two countries, as a result of Israel’s growing economic and political prowess – the product of many years of effort by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Britain’s ties to Zionism began when the Zionist movement sent thousands of Jewish volunteers from around the world to fight with British forces against Germany and its allies in World War I. Thanks to their joint efforts during the war, Zionist leaders like Joseph Trumpeldor and my grandfather and namesake were able to establish the Jewish Brigade they had always dreamed of.

The Zionist movement’s enlistment to the war effort was also why the Zionist Organization was invited to the Versailles Peace Conference. In February 1919, Chaim Weizmann led a large group of representatives of the Zionist Organization to the conference and presented their draft resolutions for Palestine for its consideration. All of these draft resolutions were added to the British Mandate for Palestine, an international agreement authorized by the San Remo Conference in 1920 and formally ratified by the League of Nations on July 24, 1922. This ratification made the British Mandate for Palestine international law, and it remains valid today.

The United Nations, which was established following the demise of the League of Nations, had nearly three years in which to apply its international trusteeship system to the land of Israel. Had the U.N. decided to apply the trusteeship system, it would have been able to restrict the rights of the Jewish people. But as the U.N. chose not to act, it preserved the Zionist Organization’s rights to exclusive sovereignty over Palestine as laid out in the mandate.

Britain did not take advantage of this window of opportunity to cancel the British Mandate for the Jewish state either. The establishment of the State of Israel was declared just eight hours before the mandate over the land of Israel came to an end. Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, wanted the new country to be a realization of the mandate for Palestine, thereby inheriting the rights to exclusive sovereignty over all of the land that had been allocated in the mandate for the Zionist Organization. Because Britain chose not to act against the declaration of Israel’s independence, the State of Israel gained the exclusive right to sovereignty over all of the land of Israel, including all of Jerusalem. This right is fully anchored in international law and remains valid today.

For a majority of the British Mandate period, the British administration adopted a policy that violated international law, in that it violated its written commitment to encourage Jewish immigration to the land of Israel. Britain’s policy since the 1967 Six-Day War is also a violation of international law, and its description of Jerusalem as “occupied territory” on the official itinerary for William’s visit is a blow to our right to exclusive sovereignty over Jerusalem.

One can only hope that the Israeli leaders who meet with the Duke of Cambridge will convey the message that Israel wants to move past Britain’s disrespectful treatment of our rights and, to the extent it is possible, assist Britain in its withdrawal from the European community. For their part, the British will recognize the rights of the State of Israel and its full sovereignty over the western part of Greater Israel, as it is written in the mandate they themselves formulated. One must hope Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin, who takes care to express our right to sovereignty over Jerusalem at every opportunity, explained this to William, even if he may not have enjoyed hearing it.