The 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine – and international law – have finally emerged as triumphant victors over the 1964 PLO Charter, following the collapse of 50 years of failed attempts by the PLO to arbitrarily void the vote of the 51 members of the League of Nations who unanimously endorsed the legal right of the Jewish people to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in 23% of former Palestine.
This significant PLO defeat and loss of face follows the ignominious end – on 29 April 2014 – of the nine months negotiating deadline period imposed on Israel and the PLO by US Secretary of State – John Kerry – designed to achieve the “two- state solution” – the creation of a second Jew-free Arab State – in addition to Jordan – in former Palestine (a name given by the Romans to the area and that has no connection to the Arabs who invaded hundreds of years later) for the first time ever in recorded history.
The American and PLO failure to achieve the “two-state solution” after 20 years of fruitless negotiations represents a lost opportunity not likely to return for a long time – leaving the political prestige, influence and credibility of those much-vaunted negotiators in total disarray in the rapidly growing silent and abandoned diplomatic graveyard.
The PLO – since its formation in 1964 – had arrogantly strode the world stage claiming Palestine as the sole property of the Arab nation, while simultaneously denying the Jewish people any right to live in their 3000 year old Jewish, ancient, legally sanctioned and biblical homeland.
Article 18 of the 1964 PLO Charter had brazenly declared:
“The Balfour Declaration, the Palestine Mandate System, and all that has been based on them are considered null and void. The claims of historic and spiritual ties between Jews and Palestine are not in agreement with the facts of history or with the true basis of sound statehood. Judaism, because it is a divine religion, is not a nationality with independent existence. Furthermore, the Jews are not one people with an independent personality because they are citizens to their states.”
Four years later article 18 had been replaced with a more strident, equally dismissive article 20:
“The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate for Palestine, and everything that has been based upon them, are deemed null and void. Claims of historical or religious ties of Jews with Palestine are incompatible with the facts of history and the true conception of what constitutes statehood. Judaism, being a religion, is not an independent nationality. Nor do Jews constitute a single nation with an identity of its own; they are citizens of the states to which they belong.”
This outright rejection of international law by the PLO has never been questioned by the League of Nations’ compliant successor – the United Nations – which, acting in clear breach of Article 80 of the UN Charter, knowingly collaborated to prolong the Arab-Jewish conflict in violation of international law when welcoming the PLO purveyor of Jew-hatred -Yasser Arafat – into its midst, with adulation and enthusiastic applause, on 13 November 1974.
The acceptance of this terrorist organization into the realm of civilised political discourse by the United Nations, while the PLO simultaneously continued to assert that the League of Nations had no power to make any legally binding decisions, must surely rank among the most shameful episodes and low points in United Nations history.
Lecturing to Israel on international law while allowing the PLO to reject international law was breathtaking hypocrisy on the United Nations part.
The principle of respect for the law was cast aside by United Nations members as they trashed the original and noble principles enunciated in the Mandate on the altar of expediency and national self-interest
Adopting countless condemnatory General Assembly resolutions of non-binding validity, those spineless members lined up with the automatic majority represented by Arab Islamic and third world member States to sell out their souls to appease an organization of terrorists, law-deniers and Jew-haters.
Former UN Secretaries General stood by in silence as anti-Israel resolutions denigrating and delegitimizing Israel were ramped up with ever increasing hatred.
The legal commitments enshrined in the Mandate had previously stood resolutely firm against this Arab assault on the Jewish National Home since 1922 – as partition proposals by the Peel Commission in 1937 and a newly created United Nations in 1947 were contemptuously shredded into the garbage bin of history by an Arab leadership that would not brook any compromise or reconciliation with the Jewish people.
The advent of major wars, including the 1948 War of Independence, the 1967 Six Day War and the 1973 Yom Kippur War, brought staggering losses and suffering for both Arabs and Jews as the Arab League armies still vainly attempted to eliminate the Jewish State and the consequences of the Mandate.
While the PLO fails to recognize Israel as the Jewish State – no peace between Jews and Arabs is realistically likely to occur.
The Arab League and Kerry have the power to create a breakthrough – pressuring Jordan and Israel to redraw the internationally recognized boundary between their respective countries, as successor States to the Mandate for Palestine
In view of their loss of political clout, do these neutered politicians and the United Nations really possess the diplomatic ability to make peace finally happen?
Using the wisdom and political sagacity of their League of Nations ancestors – the miracle created by the Mandate for Palestine 92 years ago might hopefully be set to resurface.if attempts to rescue the peace process are started once again.
David Singer is an Australian lawyer who is active in Zionist community organizations in that country.
The West still refuses stubbornly to admit that Islam is at War against the rest of the World and prefers to undermine and demonize Israel.
My comment is shorter. A Great bridge game. The ultimate Trump.
Some of us are engaged in winning the dangerous propaganda war raging in the West. This article is excellent and will be a useful tool. The target for Advocates for Israel are the approximate 75% of the Western world who seek factual information because they realize they are often hearing bellicose propaganda from the pro-Arab side of the conflict. If you are concerned about the information war start to accumulate resources that you find convincing. There is so much.
Thank you Ted for being a conduit of terrific content.
I also think the following recently posted item will be of great value: http://www.conferenceofpresidents.org/content/declaration-establishment-state-israel
This is a great document worthy of rereading!
Gary Acheatel http://www.advocatesforisrael
Do my eyes deceive me?
This statement is wrong on more than one level:
First, it borders on the absurd to counsel Jews to accept, rely upon or depend upon anything which flows from the anti semitic buffoon, failure, liar and clown named Kerry OR even more ridiculous: the Arab League who have ethnically cleansed Jews from their lands for over a thousand years. I refer this author to the recent Yamit82 citation on another forum which should awaken this author and put that notion to bed:
http://www.aish.com/h/9av/ju/What_Happened_to_the_Jews_of_Arabia.html
This is a bankrupt concept which seeks once more to repeat the same mistakes of the past. It is an insult to suggest that outsiders should impose or force any solution on Israel when they have utterly failed in the past. The opposite should be advised: to leave Israel alone to work out, or not work out, solutions with the arabs. The world should withdraw and ignore the arab whining and hijacking of more important world issues.
Furthermore, it is a vague suggestion: what borders are suggested and what political arrangements? It is a statement without any details to evaluate or any clear concept which can be understood.
How the beginning of this article led to this conclusion baffles my mind?????
this is misleading and inaccurate. What has trumped the PLO charter, and maintained Jewish lives, is ONLY fighting Jews and War. What has utterly failed the Jews are all the international commitments and supposedly legal documents including the Palestine Mandate. For all intensive purposes the LON Mandate has been lynched by dishonest, reneging leaders and nations who created and then ignored all aspects of the Mandate. Although it should be considered legally binding by all members of the UN and all who originally signed and guaranteed the relevant documents it has instead been subject to the most massive lies and doublespeak unimagined even by George Orwell. Therefore, this utter failure should be no cause for celebration or reverence.
What should be gleaned from recent events is NOT another appeal to foreigners who have always consistently betrayed the Jews and lulled them into false securities, but rather a renewed reliance on WAR and the independent strength of the Jewish people. What is needed is a repudiation of all former paradigms, of all meddling by foreigners, and all attempted swindling by the supersessionist eurochristians and their muslim allies. A ruthless and merciless approach of solely self interest, with no attention given to the interests of others, should be the new paradigm suggested by the utter failure of all former paradigms. I recommend highly the Putin approach demonstrated in Crimea.
Only strength and War have been successful whereas peace and compromise has robbed the Jews of all gains acquired through the success of war with no real tangible, reliable, dependable and STABLE gain.
Singer means well but Israel needs to annex Area C and not rely on Arab country Jordan that is terrified of the Palestinians starting an uprising in Jordan overthrowing the King. This King is not the solution.