The state the Palestinian spokespersons are gunning for is also smack in the middle of the land-starved Jewish people’s tiny, zero-strategic-depth homeland.
By SIMCHA ROTHMAN, JPOST FEBRUARY 22, 2024
Responding to “Israel has no veto power over Palestinian statehood, PA tells ICJ,” Palestinian Arab spokespersons excel in generating rhetoric that always sounds plausible and always presents them as the most deserving of persons, as opposed to Jews who, it seems, barely deserve their own lives.
But this rhetoric is non-factual. In this case, for example, of course, Israel must have, and does have, “veto power” over Palestinian statehood. That’s because preventing that calamity is a matter of life and death for Israel.
That’s also because the state the Palestinian spokespersons are gunning for is smack in the middle of the land-starved Jewish people’s tiny, zero-strategic-depth homeland – which is no accident. Let’s understand:
Irrevocable international commitments have been made to the ancient Jewish people for the western Land of Israel – even in the United Nations’ own Charter (Article 80), which obligates everybody. So Israel does have “veto power” over establishing a Palestinian state in the western part of The Land of Israel, for the same reason that any home-owner in the world has “veto power” over her or his own living room.
Israeli Foreign Ministry legal adviser Tal Becker and British jurist Malcom Shaw sit in the International Court of Justice on January 12, 2024. (credit: THILO SCHMUELGEN/REUTERS)
If this sounds unfair, recall that Israel doesn’t have “veto power” over any of the over 20 spacious Arab states that serve the ancient Arab nation (“Umma”). To this nation, all Palestinian Arabs belong; they share this ancient nation’s language, national dress, religion and origin. All this makes the Arab nation, to which all Palestinians belong, one of the most generously endowed nations, territorially, in the world.
I also thank Dr. Alan Baker for his recent contribution, aptly entitled “The latest legal misconception: The call for unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state.” Dr. Baker delicately raises the possibility that politicians abroad may not understand what they are talking about. Indeed, many political figures abroad are unaware of the following three key considerations for Jews. First, there is no way back from statehood; divorce is the well-known procedure for dismantling a bad marriage, but there is no procedure for dismantling a bad (hostile or fail) state. Second, a “state” (as opposed to an “authority” like the Palestinian “Authority”) is entitled to arm itself as much as it pleases, eventually becoming a behemoth that is militarily impossible for an overshadowed small country like Israel to defeat.
Judea and Samaria belong to the Jewish people, irrevocably, by international law, which many like to ignore. The same is true of Gaza. If these are officially taken over by Iran, which is what would happen the morning after a “Palestinian” state were established, this would be an absolute disaster for the Jewish people.
The leadership of the Jewish people is entitled, indeed obligated, to prevent this from happening at a distance of a few meters from our capital, Jerusalem, and Road 6 (Israel’s main artery), and if we prevent it, we will. All well-meaning leaders and journalists are invited to support our efforts to do the right thing publicly. The message of the Israeli Right and Center has always been, and will always be, that incessant “two-state” rhetoric does not promote co-existence – it promotes danger and war. Israel’s hand is ever extended in peace. True peace, peace-for-peace.
Some 99 Knesset members just voted that a “Palestinian state” will be a “prize for terror.”
Our friends should respect our right to exist as a Jewish state. Our friends must respect our independence and our democracy.
Recognizing a “Palestinian State” in the land of Israel will ignore our democratic process and will bring the destruction of the one and only Jewish State.
Simcha Rothman is an Israeli MK and Chair of Israel’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee
Well what do you know the text of article 80 is vague. Amazing. What in public international law is not vague? What I do know under so called international law the rules, if they can be called rules, for recognition of a state are “vague” and if a preponderance of other states led by the US decide to recognize a Palestinian state it will be recognized notwithstanding article 80 or any other provision of international law. You don’t like it, sue me. The misconception here is that international law is law. It’s only a simulacrum of law. So Rothmans argument is cogent but useless. The good news is so far it’s all posturing and stirring the pot by the idiots in Washington. On top of that it’s one thing for the rest of the world to recognize a Palestinian state and quite another for that state to be anything but a failed state ab initio. But it would bring us that much closer to Armageddon.
https://tbtnisrael.com/article-80-of-un-charter/
Article 80 is concerned with UN TRusteeships. These are territories that member states were authorized by a UN Trusteeship Commission to govern until they were “ready” to become independent states. The immediate purpose was to transfer the “mandate” given to Japan by the League of Nations over a chain of Pacific islands to the United States. Since the United States completely dominated the United Nations in it s early years, the transfer was easy to arrange. Evenually, granted independence to most of the islands in this chain, which are now, at least officially, independent republics. However, the US retains sovereignty over several islands. that are now called “Associated States” of the United States.
However, what is most relevant to the application of article 80 to Palestine west of the Jordan is a sentence that impliss that article 80, “in and of itself,” did not cancel the League of Nations mandates that it did not convert into trustteeships. This sentence is a little vague in its meaning, but that is how many experts in international law interpret it. Some international law experts have also interpreted it as meaningf that when the Brits decided to pull out of Palestine without making any arrangements at all for its future governance, that the Jewish Agency, designated as the secondary trustee for Palestine in the original mandate document (I am oversimplifying a bit) now became the government of Palestine once the original “mandate” power, abandoned its responsibility for
governing the territory.
And this is more or less what happened. The executive committee of the Jewish Agency, joined by representives of the” National Assemby” of Jews in Israel/Palestine, and by representives of several different sectors of the Jewish population, Declared the independence of the state. The Jewish agency leadership had already drafted a Declaration of Indpendence, which was now “edited” and “refined” by the other groups represnted in the new government in the new government . The new government also set a date for a elections to a parliament of the new state, named “Knesset Israel.
All of this implemented what Article 80 suggested what should be done with those League of Nations decided not to “convert” into trusteeships. However, since the text of article 80 is vague, international law experts have disagreed whether this was in accord article 80, mainly depending on whether they have pro-Israel or pro-Arab sympathies.