By Wallace Edward Brand, JD, (The writer is an alumnus of Harvard and UCLA.), INN
In 1920, at San Remo, the Jewish People were recognized by the Principal Allied War Powers in WWI as owning the political rights to Palestine
The competing Arab claims also submitted at the ParisPeace talks were implicitly denied in Palestine, but recognized in the rest of the Middle East, i.e. Syria & Mesopotamia and, indirectly, later in Transjordan.
The Allies had conquered this area from the Ottoman Empire in a defensive war. Their ruling was based on the historic association of the Jewish People with Palestine (the name given to the area by the Romans) in which there had been a continuous uninterrupted Jewish presence for 3,700 years.
In 1922, this political right was recognized by 52 nations but limited to Palestine west of the Jordan River. The rights were required to be placed in trust until the Jewish People attained a majority of population in the area in which they were to exercise sovereignty and were capable of exercising sovereignty in that area.
In 1948, the trustee abandoned its legal dominion over the political rights that were in trust and the Jewish People had established unified control over Palestine west of the Jordan River with some exceptions.
Just after it had declared independence in that year, the Jewish People’s State of Israel was invaded. Judea, Samaria, and East Jerusalem were invaded by the Arab Legion supplied and led by the British; they became illegally occupied by Jordan, and Gaza was similarly invaded and illegally occupied by Egypt.
By 1950 the Jews had also attained a Jewish majority population in the remaining area. With both a majority population in the area governed and the ability to exercise sovereignty, the political rights to that area vested in the Jews so they had legal dominion over them and the Jews were then sovereign in that area.
Following 1967, the Jewish People had annexed East Jerusalem; in 1967, it also liberated the other areas that had been illegally occupied. Later, in 2005 the Jews withdrew from Gaza.
It follows that now the Jewish People have sovereignty over Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem as well as the territory within the Green Line because they own and have legal dominion over the political rights to these areas and have established unified control over them, even though they have not as yet asserted that sovereignty except for East Jerusalem.
International Law does recognize the right of political self-determination in the case of colonies external to the areas from which they are ruled. This is referred to as “decolonization”. International Law supports decolonization. The quest for the right of political-self determination of a group of people in an area internal to the boundaries of a state that has sovereignty is referred to as “secession”. A secession would violate the territorial integrity of a sovereign state.
Effective as of 1976, International Law recognized the right of a “people” to political self- determination, but it did not provide any indication of where that rule would be applied. In any event, the so-called “Palestinians” do not meet the test of a legitimate “people” but are, in fact, an undifferentiated part of the Arab people residing in Palestine who were invented as a separate “people” by the Soviet dezinformatsiya in 1964.
In a decolonization, International Law gives preference to self-determination over territorial integrity. International Law regarding secession of an area internal to a state is a wholly different matter. The right to secede is not a general right of political self-determination for all peoples or nations. It is limited by the territorial integrity of a sovereign state. The unilateral right to secede, i.e. the right to secede without consent from a sovereign state, if it is to be recognized, say most commentators on International Law, should be understood as a remedial right only, a last resort response to serious injustices. In addition, those wanting to secede must show they have the capability of exercising sovereignty.
There is no evidence of serious injustice to support such a remedial right for the Arabs residing in Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem although they have long complained of perpetual victimhood. Nor do they have the capability to exercise sovereignty such as unified control over the area they wish to have designated as an independent state.
It follows that the so called “Palestinians” have no right to political self determination under International Law.
Correction. The Future of Palestine was written in November 1993, just after OSLO. 5 Yale Stuies, etc is the citation for his 1980 paper.
@ CuriousAmerican: According to the account of Major-General Pacepa, the highest ranking officer to defect during the Cold War, the first 422 members of the Palestinian National Council were hand picked by the KGB. This was a period in which the Soviet Union had decided to push for hegemony in the Middle East according to Eugene Rostow who mentions it in a paper he wrote in 1980 entitled Palestinian Self-Setermination” Possible Futures for the Unallocated Territories of the Palestinian Mandate. Its major weapon was the exploitation of Arab hatred for Jews, including the Balfour Declaration, the San Remo Resolution and the existence of the State of Israel. (See also Pacepa’s “Russian Footprints” in the National Review online) I found this paper of Rostow when I did the research for the foregoing piece. He also wrote in November, 1993, just after OSLO a paper entitled “The Future of Palestine.” He was in agreement with me, except that I used a sprinkling of equity jurisprudence in reaching the same conclusion and I also noted the evolution of the natural law pertaining to self-determination into International Law. The foregoing is a short summary of two papers I have written, the first one is on the implicit denial of political rights to the Arabs at San Remo and in the Balfour Declaration, and the second is entitled “The so called Palestinians People’s alleged right to self-determination” which shows that even if it existed as a people it does not have one and also that it is not a “people”. The UN General Assembly in its resolution 3236 agrees with the Arab claim but has no effect under International Law. But it has a very large effect on world public opinion.
Here is a pertinent excerpt from Rostow’s 1993 paper:
Professor Rostow, examining the claim for Palestinian’s self-determination on the bases of law, concludes:
“The mandate implicitly denies Arab claims to national political rights in the area in favour of the Jews; the mandated territory was in effect reserved to the Jewish people for their self-determination and political development, in acknowledgment of the historic connection of the Jewish people to the land. Lord Curzon, who was then the British Foreign Minister, made this reading of the mandate explicit. There remains simply the theory that the Arab inhabitants of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip have an inherent “natural law” claim to the area. Neither customary international law nor the United Nations Charter acknowledges that every group of people claiming to be a nation has the right to a state of its own.” That is because the UN Charter preserves the right of territorial integrity and in particular implicitly preserves Israel’s rights in Article 80. Compare Article 2(1) with Article 2(4) and 2(6). Article 2(4) provides: All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations. Article 2(6) provides “The Organization shall ensure that states which are not Members of the United Nations act in accordance with these Principles so far as may be necessary for the maintenance of international peace and security.” Rostow, The Future of Palestine, 1980 5 Yale Studies in World Public Order 147 (1978-1979) It is likely they were late in publishing that volume because Rostow says in the piece that it was written in 1980.
While Professor Porath professes to document Palestinian nationalism since 1920, a look at his book shows he is not documenting Palestinian nationalism but only a Palestinian anti-Zionist movement.
Efraim Karsh, in his book Palestine Betrayed, to my aging recollection at page 239, disagrees with Porath who supervised his Doctoral dissertation. Count Folke Bernadotte who was an investigator for UNSCOP wrote in his diary that the Arabs in Palestine were not interested in nationalism and never had been. In the First World War they did not accept Britain’s offer for independence if they fought on the British side. Those who did fight, fought on the side of the Ottomans. I have found no mention of the Arabs in Palestine as a people until it appeared in the preamble of the 1964 PLO Charter drafted in Moscow.
Precisely! International Law is too slippery to base Israel’s existence on it.
This is not an effective piece.
I do NOT want Israel to surrender land; but the logic in the article above is flawed
The author of the above article has the right goal, but the wrong approach.
Actually, it is not to hard to show a Palestinian identity long before 1964.
A Palestinian National Council was set up in 1948
Palestinian immigrants to Chile set up a soccer club called, the Palestinos, in 1920, and the Palestinian Social club in 1938.
There was a paper called the Filastin set up during the Ottoman empire arguing against Zionism.
The truth is that Israel, if it is to exist, will do so on the corpse of Palestine. Israel has the better claim.
But it is folly to deny that Palestine existed. Better to admit the ugly truth and work on from there.
ISRAEL HAS THE BETTER CLAIM, BUT IT IS FOLLY TO DENY YOUR ENEMY’S EXISTENCE.
When the ancient Israelites took over Canaan, they did not say the Canaanites never existed.
International law is a fiction. When mass murderers like Assad are protected by it, we see it holds no real meaning!
Why Jews worship piously at its altar, knowing full well its directed solely against them, is one of the biggest mysteries on the planet! If the Jews spent less time genuflecting in front of the false gods of the UN and America, they would be far better off!
As Meir Kahane famously wrote once: “When will they learn?”
International law is ignored, interpreted or applied as the powerful nations and/or the international community wills it, especially when it comes to Israel and Palestinians and in that regard, that will is ordinarily exercised against Israel’s interests.