By Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, “Second Thought: a US-Israel Initiative” February 27, 2024,
Secretary of State Antony Blinken represents conventional wisdom when claiming that “It’s been longstanding US policy… that new settlements are… inconsistent with international law.”
However, conventional wisdom is frequently demolished by the march of facts.
For instance:
*According to Prof. Eugene Rostow, who was the co-author of the November 22, 1967 UN Security Council Resolution 242, served as Undersecretary of State and was the Dean of Yale University Law School: “Jews have the same right to settle in the West Bank as they have in Haifa.”
*According to UN Resolution 242, Israel is required to withdraw from territories, not the territories, nor from all the territories, but some of the territories, which included Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights. Moreover, according to Prof. Rostow, “resolutions calling for withdrawal from all the territories were defeated in the Security Council and the General Assembly…. Israel was not to be forced back to the fragile and vulnerable [9-15 mile-wide] lines… but to secure and recognized boundaries, agreed to by the parties…. In making peace with Egypt in 1979, Israel withdrew from the entire Sinai… [which amounts to] more than 90% of the territories occupied in 1967….”
*Former President of the International Court of Justice, Judge Stephen M. Schwebel, stated: “Between Israel, acting defensively in 1948 and 1967 (according to Article 52 of the UN Charter), on the one hand, and her Arab neighbors, acting aggressively in 1948 and 1967, on the other, Israel has better title in the territory of what was [British Mandate] Palestine…. It follows that modifications of the 1949 armistice lines among those States within former Palestinian territory are lawful…. [The 1967] Israeli conquest of territory was defensive rather than aggressive… [as] indicated by Egypt’s prior closure of the Straits of Tiran, blockade of the Israeli port of Eilat, and the amassing of [Egyptian] troops in Sinai, coupled with its ejection of the UN Emergency Force…[and] Jordan’s initiated hostilities against Israel…. The 1948 Arab invasion of the nascent State of Israel further demonstrated that Egypt’s seizure of the Gaza Strip, and Jordan’s seizure and subsequent annexation of the West Bank and the old city of Jerusalem, were unlawful….”
*The legal status of Judea and Samaria is embedded in the following 4 authoritative, binding, internationally-ratified documents, which recognize the area for what it has been: the cradle of Jewish history, culture, language, aspirations and religion.
(I) The November 2, 1917 Balfour Declaration, issued by Britain, calling for “the establishment in Palestine (a synonym to the Land of Israel) of a national home for the Jewish people….”
(II) The April 24, 1920 resolution, by the post-First World War San Remo Peace Conference of the Allied Powers Supreme Council, entrusted both sides of the Jordan River to the British Mandate for Palestine, for the reestablishment of the Jewish Commonwealth: “the Mandatory will be responsible for putting into effect the [Balfour] declaration originally made on November 2, 1917, by the Government of His Britannic Majesty, and adopted by the said Powers, in favor of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.” It was one of over 20 Mandates (trusteeships) established following WW1, responsible for the boundaries of most Arab countries.
(III) The July 24, 1922 Mandate for Palestine was ratified by the Council of the League of Nations, entrusted Britain to establish a Jewish state in the entire area west of the Jordan River, as demonstrated by its 6th article: “[to] encourage… close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands….” The Mandate was dedicated exclusively to Jewish national rights, while guaranteeing the civic rights of all other religious and ethnic groups. On July 23, 1923, the Ottoman Empire signed the Treaty of Lausanne, which included the Mandate for Palestine.
(IV) The October 24, 1945 Article 80 of the UN Charter incorporated the Mandate for Palestine into the UN Charter. Accordingly, the UN or any other entity cannot transfer Jewish rights in Palestine – including immigration and settlement – to any other party.
According to Article 80 of the UN Charter and the Mandate for Palestine, the 1967 war of self-defense returned Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria to its legal owner, the Jewish state. Legally and geo-strategically the rules of “belligerent occupation” do not apply Israel’s presence in Judea and Samaria, since they are not “foreign territory,” and Jordan did not have a legitimate title over the West Bank. Moreover, the rules of “belligerent occupation” do not apply in view of the 1994 Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty. The 1950-67 Jordanian occupation of Judea and Samaria violated international law and was recognized only by Britain and Pakistan.
*The 1949 4th Geneva Convention prohibits the forced transfer of populations to areas previously occupied by a legitimate sovereign power. However, Israel has not forced Jews to settle in Judea and Samaria, and Jordan’s sovereignty there was never legal.
*The November 29, 1947 UN General Assembly Partition Resolution 181 was a recommendation, lacking legal stature, superseded by the Mandate for Palestine. The 1949 Armistice (non-peace) Agreements between Israel and its neighbors delineated “non-territorial boundaries.”
*The term “Palestine” was a Greek and then a Roman attempt (following the 135 CE Jewish rebellion) to eradicate Jews and Judaism from human memory. It substituted “Israel, Judea and Samaria” with “Palaestina,” a derivative of the Philistines, an arch enemy of the Jewish people, whose origin was not in Arabia, but in the Greek Aegian islands.
*The aforementioned march of facts demonstrates that Secretary Blinken’s conventional wisdom on the Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria is based on gross misperceptions and misrepresentations, which fuels infidelity to law, undermining the pursuit of peace.
*More on the legality of Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria in this article by George Mason University Law School Prof. Eugene Kontrovich.
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@Sebastien
Good point. I am glad you called me on this. It is more than we know that the fraud was actually financed outside of the US. It did involve foreign actors, and the Iranians were indicted for their involvement in hacking into upto 10 states and were known to have hacked into one for certain. Also, we know that sensitive documentation, personel info, and facility info was offshored to China where it could be used to exploit election officials in multiple states (don’t recall the number). We do not however know that the fraud was financed overseas. My appologies for that mis-statement.
What I should have stated was that none are so potentially destabilizing as the consequences from a stolen election which involve the interests of foreign powers.
@Peloni
Please elaborate.
@Felix
The meaning is pretty self evident. America is not falling apart as is often claimed, as it is simply falling, and falling fast. This would never have been tolerated under an actual American govt, ie one chosen by and answerable to, the American people. Unfortunately, it has been some years since the US has been ruled by an American govt, but it has never been more true than as things stands today.
As the saying goes, elections have consequences, but none are so potentially destabilizing as the consequences from a stolen election which was financed by a foreign power.
People of Israpundit
Please address the meaning of this very important film by Tucker Carlson
https://twitter.com/RickyDoggin/status/1759003829868392493?t=QOd7vDb39YuCIVAm5Na_CA&s=19
Chocopot
You repeat the same thing over and over again. It is problem of the Left. But you are never asked to explain what you mean by the Left.
So no knowledge comes. What do you mean?
@chocopot “Get your facts, first, then you can distort them as you please.” – Mark Twain
https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2011/reporter-on-1991-crown-heights-riots-coverage-i-saw-journalism-go-terribly-wrong/
—
My comment: It took another 9 years for me to completely wake up but this pogrom and the left’s response to it was the watershed event that made me start to re-evaluate everything in the back of my head.
I understood what was going on at the time, even though I lived in Manhattan. I didn’t need to wait for this belated confession 20 years too late to oppose the aquittal of the ring leader of Yankel Rosenbaum’s lynching, not once but twice, the second time of violating his civil rights.
Alas, I was, to all appearances, alone. Left and Liberal Jews – this is pre-“Progressive” – there was a difference back then, which seems to be re-emerging now after a long sleep – voted overwhelmingly to re-elect the liberal Black Mayor who let it happen, though he indignantly denied any responsibility, if only through incompetence.
And I recall engaging in fruitless arguments at the time with a close “comrade,” and mentor, a Jewish “comrade,” at that!
Looking back, I just can’t understand how I was ever so gullible and for so long, as a life-long free-thinker, contrarian and iconoclast by nature, regardless of what everybody else was doing. (I suppose that’s redundant)
Excuse me, “irregardless…” 😀
Facts? The Left never worries about facts. They say and do whatever they want with the knowledge that their friends in the media will lie and run cover for them.
Leftist ideology and the Leftist agenda are, and have always been, based on lies, misinformation, and deception. The greatest enemies of the Left are truth, facts, and reality. Those who support the Left live in a fantasy land.
Blinken is the queen of wonderland.
Briefly, “the law is what I say it is!”
International agreements that Israel signs are binding ONLY on Israel and no-one else, irrelevant of the co-signer.
Israel has such a luck that it was attacked by Hamas. Otherwise, it would be a genocide on the Gazan population.
By the way, could the complete removal of all Jews from Judea and Samaria during the Jordanian illegal occupation not be considered genocide. No-one seems to consider that as being a crime against the Jews who had/have a right to settle and live there according to the Balfour Declaration, the League of Nations resolutions and so on.
While some people attempt to declare that the Eternal will punish everybody, other people tell us that any sin can be forgiven. How is this supposed to work for the suffering population?