International Legal Rights of the Jewish People and the State of Israel

In international law, as in all law, there are always two sides to a question. If this were not the case, there would be little need for legal solutions. Moreover, both parties in any conflict believe the right is on their side, or at least that they have means to prove this to be so. Accordingly, no law is ever created in a vacuum; a law is created when a serious enough need arises. In 1917, owing to the events of World War I, a serious need was identified and a voice was raised. The need was that of the Jewish people, dispersed across the earth for some two thousand years, to have a national home. The voice was that of Lord Balfour, speaking on behalf of the British War Cabinet in defense of the Jewish people worldwide. This compelling need found official expression in the Balfour Declaration of 1917. The Balfour Declaration was a political statement with no legal authority; moreover, it was not international. Nonetheless it was a major turning point in the history of the dispersed Jewish people, giving them a future hope of eventually fulfilling their never dying longing for their ancient Holy Land. What it accomplished was to raise the profile, internationally, of the need of a stateless people to have a “national home” to which they could return. Of monumental significance was the official recognition of the all-important historic, religious and cultural links of the Jews to the land of their forefathers, the land that had come to be known under the Greeks and Romans as “Palestine”. Because the cause was just and the concept justified, there needed to be a way to elevate the content of this Declaration to the level of international law. Accordingly, the matter was taken up by the Supreme Council of the Principal Allied and Associated Powers (Britain, France, Italy, Japan and the United States) at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 (there was also the Faisal Weizmann Agreement of January 1919 - which stipulated that all of Palestine as historically maped is the territory of the Jewish people). The issue became more complex as submissions for territorial claims were presented by both Arab and Jewish delegations, as the old Ottoman Empire was being apportioned out to the victorious Powers; thus the matter was not able to be settled within the time frame of the Paris Conference. What did happen at the Paris Conference that factored into the progression of events we are considering here was the establishment of the League of Nations which, in Article 22 of its Covenant, provided for the setting up of a mandate system as a trust for the Old Ottoman territories. The next important milestone on the road to international legal status and a Jewish national home was the San Remo Conference, held at Villa Devachan in San Remo, Italy, from 18 to 26 April 1920. This was an ‘extension’ of the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 for the purpose of dealing with some of these outstanding issues. The aim of the four (out of five) members of the Supreme Council of the Principal Allied and Associated Powers that met in San Remo (the United States being present as observer only, owing to the new noninterventionist policy of President Woodrow Wilson), was to consider the earlier submissions of the claimants, to deliberate and to make decisions on the legal recognition of each claim. The outcome, relying on Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, was the setting up of (3) three mandates, one over Syria and Lebanon (later separated into two mandates), one over Mesopotamia (Iraq), and one over Palestine.
The Mandate for Palestine was entrusted to Great Britain, as a “sacred trust of civilization” in respect of “the establishment in all of Palestine of a National Home for the Jewish people”.
This was a binding resolution with all the force of international law.
In two out of the original three Mandates, it was recognized that the indigenous people had the capacity to govern themselves, with the Mandatory Power merely assisting in the establishment of the institutions of government, where necessary. This was not true of Palestine, as Palestine was, under the Mandate, to become a homeland (“national home”) for the Jewish people. Although the Jewish people were part of the indigenous population of Palestine, the majority of them at that time were not living in the Land. The Mandate for Palestine was thus quite different from the others and set out how the Land was to be settled by Jews in preparation for their forming a viable nation in the territory then known as “Palestine”. The unique obligations of the Mandatory to the Jewish people in respect of the establishment of their national home in all of Palestine thus gave a sui generis (unique, one of a kind) character to the Mandate for Palestine.
The boundaries of the “Palestine” referred to in the claimants’ submissions included territories west and east of the Jordan River.
The submissions of the Jewish claimants specified that the ultimate purpose of the mandate would be the “creation of an autonomous commonwealth”, provided “that nothing must be done that might prejudice the civil and religious rights of the non-Jewish communities at present established in Palestine”. The resulting Mandate for Palestine, approved by the Council of the League of Nations in July 1922, was an international treaty and, as such, was legally binding. The decision made in San Remo was a watershed moment in the history of the Jewish people who had been a people without a home for some two thousand years. From the perspective of Chaim Weizmann, president of the newly formed Zionist Organization and later to become the first President of the State of Israel, “recognition of our rights in Palestine is embodied in the treaty with Turkey, and has become part of international law. This is the most momentous political event in the whole history of our movement, and it is, perhaps, no exaggeration to say in the whole history of our people since the Exile.” To the Zionist Organization of America, the San Remo Resolution “crowns the British [Balfour] declaration by enacting it as part of the law of nations of the world.” The policy to be given effect in the Mandate for Palestine was consistent with the Balfour Declaration, in significantly recognizing the historic, cultural and religious ties of the Jewish people to the Holy Land, and even stronger than the Declaration through the insertion of the fundamental principle that Palestine should be reconstituted as the national home of the Jewish people. It is particularly relevant to underline the inclusion in the terms of the Mandate (through Article 2) of the fundamental principle set out in the Preamble of this international agreement that “recognition has thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country”. The primary objective of the Mandate was to provide a national home for the Jewish people—including Jewish people dispersed worldwide—in their ancestral home.
The Arab people, who already exercised sovereignty in a number of States, were guaranteed protection of their civil and religious rights under the Mandate as long as they wished to remain, even after the State of Israel was ultimately formed in 1948. Moreover, a new State; Trans-Jordan was meanwhile added as a territory under Arab sovereignty, carved out of the very mandated territory allocated to the Jewish people at issue, by the British, prior to the actual signing of the Mandate in 1922 (see below). When the Council of the League of Nations approved the Mandate for Palestine in July 1922, it became binding on all 51 Members of the League.
This act of the League enabled the ultimate realization of the long cherished dream of the restoration of the Jewish people to their ancient land and validated the existence of historical facts and events linking the Jewish people to Palestine. For the Supreme Council of the Principal Allied Powers, and for the Council of the League of Nations, these historical facts were considered to be accepted and established.
In the words of Neville Barbour, “In 1922, international sanction was given to the Balfour Declaration by the issue of the Palestine Mandate”. The rights granted to the Jewish people in the Mandate for Palestine were to be given effect in all of Palestine. It thus follows that the legal rights of the claimants to sovereignty over the Old City of Jerusalem similarly derive from the decisions of the Supreme Council of the Principal Allied Powers in San Remo and from the terms of the Mandate for Palestine approved by the Council of the League of Nations.
In March 1921, in Cairo, Great Britain decided to partition the mandated territory of Palestine, for international political reasons of its own. Article 25 of the Mandate gave the Mandatory Power permission to postpone or withhold most of the terms of the Mandate in the area of land east of the Jordan River (“Trans-Jordan”). Great Britain, as Mandatory Power, exercised that right. For former UN Ambassador, Professor Yehuda Zvi Blum, the rights vested in the Arab people of Palestine with respect to the principle of self-determination were fulfilled as a result of this initial partition of Palestine approved by the Council of the League of Nations in 1922. According to Professor Blum: “The Palestinian Arabs have long enjoyed self-determination in their own state – the Palestinian Arab State of Jordan”. (Worth mentioning here, in a letter apparently written on 17 January 1921 to Churchill’s Private Secretary, Col. T.E. Lawrence (“of Arabia”) had reported that, in return for Arab sovereignty in Iraq, Trans-Jordan and Syria, King Hussein’s eldest son, Emir Feisal—a man said by Lawrence to be known for keeping his word—had “agreed to abandon all claims of his father to Palestine”.) After this partition, Churchill—British Colonial Secretary at the time— immediately reaffirmed the commitment of Great Britain to give effect to the policies of the Balfour Declaration in all the other parts of the territory covered by the Mandate for Palestine west of the Jordan River.
This pledge included the area of Jerusalem and its OldCity. In Churchill’s own words: “It is manifestly right that the Jews who are scattered all over the world should have a national centre and a national home where some of them may be reunited. And where else could that be but in the land of Palestine, with which for more than three thousand years they have been intimately and profoundly associated?” Thus, in a word, the primary foundations in international law for the “legal” claim based on “historic rights” or “historic title” of the Jewish people in respect of Palestine are the San Remo decisions of April 1920, the Mandate for Palestine of July 1922, approved by the Council of the League of Nations and bearing the signatures of those same Principal Allied Powers but rendering it an international treaty binding on all Member States, and the Covenant of the League of Nations itself (Art. 22).

 

Re: Israel – To whom it may concern in Europe, Asia, Far East, the US and elsewhere:

We are tired of hearing that withdrawal from Judea and Samaria will bring peace. We know and you know that it would bring another Gaza. So stop saying it and promoting this fallacy. Past experience has proven that concessions, appeasement and land for peace only increased terror, violence and more conflict and hostilities.

We are tired of hearing that land beyond the Green Line is ‘Arab-Palestinian land’. The Green Line is simply an armistice line that has no political significance. You know this too. The San Remo Treaty of 1920 Granted the Mandate for Palestine to the Jewish people, the same Allied powers also established 21 Arab States and one Jewish State – The Arabs are not willing to give up any part of the 21 Arab States and the Jews are not willing to give up any part of the Jewish State.

We are tired of hearing about the “Arab-Palestinian people.” They are no different from the Arabs of Syria or Egypt, from which most of their ancestors migrated in the last 150 years or so. There is no Arab-Palestinian language or religion, and until very recently they considered themselves simply ‘Arabs’. Their culture is almost entirely defined by their opposition to the Jewish State. Teaching hate, violence and terror to their children. There never was an Arab-Palestinian State or people in History. The Arab Palestinians have a State in Jordan which is 80% of the land originally allocated to the Jewish people under the San Remo Treaty of 1920 and in violation of the 1919 Faisal Weizmann Agreement.

We are tired of hearing that “the Arab-Palestinians deserve a state.” We are indigenous here, not them, and their behavior entitles them more to a trial at The Hague than to a State. The Arab- Palestinians have a State it is called Jordan which was carved out of Jewish allocated land in 1922, in violation of the treaty of 1920.

And they certainly don’t deserve our Jewish State, which is the only State they want. They already took 80% of Jewish allocated land which is Jordan, a country that never existed in history before WWI. Israel also gave them the Gaza Strip which became a terrorist entity.

We are tired of hearing about ‘The Occupation’, it is "Liberated Jewish Land".  As Minister Naftali Bennett said the other day, you can’t be an occupier in your own land. The Arabs are the occupiers, Greater Israel has been a Jewish State for 4,000 years even if it was temporarily conquered and occupied by various nations over the centuries.

We are tired of hearing that “settlements are illegal under international law.” They are not. The San Remo Treaty of 1920 explicitly stated that Jewish people can reside anywhere in the Mandate for Palestine, those terms have not been abrogated and are set in perpetuity.

We are tired of hearing that “settlement construction is an obstacle to peace.” Arab rejectionism, destruction, violence, terrorism and suicide bombing is the reason there is no peace. When the Arab-Palestinians teach and preach hate, terror and destruction to their children, this is definitely not a road to peace and coexistence.

By the way, we are pro-peace. We are just not pro-suicide and self destruction.

We are tired of hearing about the 5 million (or whatever ridiculous number there are alleged to be) ‘Arab-Palestinian refugees’ or the ‘Arab-Palestinian Diaspora’. There were about 600,000 Arabs that left their homes in 1948, mostly of their own volition, more or less at the same time as the over a million families Jewish refugees from Arab countries, of which the Arabs confiscated all their assets personal valueables, businesses, homes and land (120,000 sq. km. which is 6 times the size of Israel) and assets totaling trillions dollars. We resettled ours with limited land and resources — resettle yours (on the land and homes you confiscated from the Jewish people), the 21 Arab states have more land and resources. The Arab dis-information must be ignored and countered.

We are tired of hearing anything from anyone associated with the U.N. The U.N. is a parasitic and criminal enterprise dominated by our mortal enemies. The U.N. cannot create states, it can only recommend a non-binding resolution with no legal standing and so can other nations only recommend and not create a state that never existed before in history. If they want an Arab-Palestinian state, it already exists, it is Jordan which has taken 80% of Jewish allocated land. They also have the land the Arabs Countries confiscated from the Jewish people which is 6 times the size of Israel.

We are tired of stupid post-colonialist rhetoric. We are not ‘colonists’ and Arabs do not have the right to murder us in the name of ‘resistance’ or beheading Jewish Rabbi’s in Jerusalem’s Har Nof Synagogue.  Talking this way reveals you as moral imbeciles. They train their children to be suicide bombers and terrorists.  The Arabs are the colonialists, they have colonized the whole Middle East and they are taking over Europe.

You can not recognize a state and people that never existed and that has no borders, no single government, and no economy. They are not trusted by the Arab states either.

We know we can not depend on any kind of security guarantee from anyone except the Israel Defense Forces. So stop being insulted because we do not trust you. And do not ask us to give up any nuclear weapons we might or might not have or any other method and technology that could help protect us.

If you hate us so much, give us back all our Medical technology that saved your lives. Give us back all our technology development that helped you advance economically and the list goes on and on.

We know that the left-wing parties in Israel are bankrupt of ideas. We are not going to vote for them, no matter how much you would like us to. So do not bother trying to influence our election. We will only vote for a government that protects its people and cares about the Jewish heritage, more than it cares for world opinion.

Don’t believe what you read in Ha’aretz newspaper, they represent a minority that has no allegiance to the Jewish heritage.

Jerusalem, undivided, is the capital of the Jewish State of Israel. Get used to it, because you can’t change it, the Jewish temple will be rebuilt in Jerusalem. It was never a Capital of any other nation.

Sincerely,

Ordinary Israelis who care about their heritage and ancestry.

The Arab-Palestinian state is in Jordan. The Arabs have no legal claim to any territory west of the Jordan river. Jordan's territory was taken away from the Jewish people and given to the Arabs as their state in violation of the San Remo Treaty of 1920. The Arabs can also move to the million Jewish homes the Arabs confiscated from the Jewish people who were expelled from the Arab countries.

The legal uncontested claim of Israel to the Jewish Land in the Mandate for Palestine.

When the U.N. passes a resolution it is only a recommendation. If accepted by the parties it becomes a valid agreement and or Treaty.

In the case of Israel and the Arabs, the U.N. passed a resolution in 1947 for the creation of a Jewish State and an Arab State. The Arabs did not accept the U.N. resolution of 1947 for a Jewish State and an Arab State. Thus the resolution is not binding. As such Israel's rights to the land falls back to the terms in the San Remo Treaty of 1920 which delineated The Mandate for Palestine to the Jewish people with all its terms without any deviation.

If anyone is contesting the legitimacy and sovereignty of the territorial boundaries assigned based on the San Remo Treaty of 1920 and the Treaty of Sevres of 1920 Article 95. You now have to contest and question the legitimacy and sovereignty including the territorial boundaries of the 21 Arab State created by the same Allied powers including Transjordan (Jordan).

 

Therefore if you accept the 21 Arab State and Jordan as assigned by the Allied Powers after WWI, you must accept Israel's sovereignty and boundaries as stated in the San Remo Treaty. The San Remo Treaty of 1920 assigned the Mandate for Palestine entirely which includes Jerusalem to the Jewish people. The terms of the San Remo Treaty of 1920 are valid in perpetuity.

If you cannot live together and you the Arabs pursue, hate terror and violence, than the only solution is a population transfer.

“Historically, there was an exchange of populations in the Middle East and Europe (over 100 million) and the number of displaced Jews exceeds the number of Arab-Palestinian refugees. Most of the million Jews were expelled as a result of an open policy of anti-Semitic incitement and even ethnic cleansing. However, unlike the Arab refugees, the Jews who fled are a forgotten case because of a combination of international cynicism and domestic Israeli suppression of the subject (recently the government of Israel has set a day for the memory of the million Jewish refugees from Arab countries). The Arab-Palestinians are the only group of refugees out of the more than one hundred million who were displaced after World War II and are intentionally remain as refugees and who have a special UN agency that, according to its mandate, cannot but perpetuate their tragedy. An open debate about the forced exodus of the million terrorized Jewish families is critical for countering the Arab/Palestinian demand for the “right of return” or right to stay and will require a more objective scrutiny of the myths about the origins of the Arab-Israeli conflict.”

 

President Donald Trump. Are you willing to help set-up and approve a terrorist Arab State in the United State? Your actions and deeds show you do not! Why would you want Israel to permit an Arab terrorist State in Judea and Samaria? Just see the results of giving the Arabs control of Gaza, which is now a terrorist entity that launches thousands of rockets at Israel and threatens its safety and security.

No sane leader or government would permit such a move or it will be replaced.

The same applies to many other Democratic countries, they would not put a terrorist entity in their midst.

 

United States is "occupied" territory - Not Jerusalem or Judea and Samaria (The whole territory of the Historical Land of Israel)

Washington, D.C., New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, etc is far more of an "occupied" capital or territory than Jerusalem (Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria have thousands of years of Jewish history and habitation). 

Europeans after creating new settlements, conquered an entire continent of North America, annihilated most of the natives, extracted its natural resources, kicked out the Mexicans and called it "America," claiming first “Philadelphia” and afterwards, the city of Washington as its capital.                                                                                         

Over six hundred thousand people died in the American Civil War that prevented the South from seceding and breaking apart the United States.                                                                                                    

As regards the rest of the world, Jerusalem is the oldest capital in the world, and it belongs to the Jewish people.                                                                 
The world does not recognize Jerusalem as the Jewish capital, because the world does not recognize the right of Jews to exist. 

Those liberal Jews in USA and Europe and elsewhere who pander to the non-Jews by endorsing views that deny or compromise the Jewish sovereignty over The Historical Land of Israel and hoping that they would be "acceptable" are deluding themselves, they live in fantasy world, not reality. It did not help with Nazi Germany who exterminated over 6 million Jews, men, women and children; or in the past 2,500 years in the Diaspora, when the Jews were persecuted, tortured, murdered and discriminated and it will not help them today.                                                                                         

The Arabs/Muslims were allocated after WWI over 12 million sq. mi. with a wealth of oil reserves and the Jewish people were allocated 120,000 sq. km. of their historical territory and today they have only about 21,000 sq. km., but the Arabs/Muslims and the world nations begrudge even that small peace of our Jewish historical territory. The world nations stood idle and silent while The Arabs/Muslims terrorized, murdered and expelled over a million Jewish families with their children and confiscated all their assets, including personal valuables, businesses, homes and over 120,000 sq. km. of Jewish owned Real Estate for over 2,500 years (valued in the trillions of dollars); where was the world nations cries and demand for justice and return of Jewish Homes and Real Estate then and where are they now.                                                       

Most of the expelled Jewish families from Arab/Muslim countries were resettled in The Land of Israel, and today comprise over half the population. The European nations had better refrain from demanding that Jewish people in Israel should give up their historical land to the Arabs; since the European nations have taken over the Jewish assets, personal property (Gold, Silver, Artifacts, etc.), businesses, homes and Real Estate and many of those Jewish people and their descendants and heirs were also resettled in The Historical Land of Israel. 

We the Jewish people returned to the occupied and desolate Land of Israel in the 1800’s and joined our Jewish brethren to re-blossom, revitalize and turn it into green pastures, with great economic infrastructure, industry and housing, after much toil and hard work with the help in infusion of capital and resources by our brethren in the Diaspora. We are proud and thankful to have back our historic sovereign Jewish country with an Army that can defend itself properly. 

We will not surrender our land to nobody. (We should be thankful to the almighty that we are in a similar position today as we were during the time of King David). The world as whole needs Israel and The Jewish people, more than the Jewish people need the world.                                                                                                             

Look at history every nation or society that let the Jewish people thrive and flourish, they thrived and flourished also. When a nation or society harassed, terrorized, murdered and discriminated against the Jewish people in their country, the country declined and its power and economy diminished greatly, if not disappeared altogether.                                                                            

Today's time is not like the Bolshevik era when Jews were persecuted and murdered or Nazi Germany when Jews tried to escape Nazi extermination Camps, they had nowhere to go for sanctuary; even The Jewish Land of Israel aka Palestine was illegally blocked by the British. 

Today the Jews have the sovereign State Israel, with its strong defense, advance technology and Medical innovations that the whole world relies on. 

May we be granted and merit the honor to live and see the rebuilding of The Jewish Temple in its previous holy site on Temple Mount also known as Mount Moriah.

YJ Draiman

 

No Jew or Jewish government has the right to evict Jews from their historical land in Greater Israel. “Israel, including Judea and Samaria, and the land east of the Jordan River has been the land of the Jewish people since time immemorial, over 30 centuries. Judea means Land of the Jews. Never in the history of the world has there been an autonomous state in the area that was not Jewish.” There has never been a Nation known as Arab Palestine. The Arabs received over five million sq. mi. – 12 million sq. km. of territory with a wealth of oil reserves, but that was not enough. Violating international law and treaty the British allocated over three quarters of Jewish allocated land to the Arabs as the new Arab state of Jordan. Now the Arabs want more; they will not stop until they have all of Israel without the Jews. The Arab countries expelled over a million Jewish families and confiscated all their assets including businesses, homes and over 46,332 sq. mi. (about 120,000 sq. km. which is 6 times the size of Israel) of Jewish owned land for over 25 centuries. The Faisal Weizmann Agreement of January 1919 stipulated that all of Palestine is Jewish territory. No Jews are allowed to live in Jordan or in the West Bank area controlled by the Arab Palestinian Authority – Now you see it is the Arabs who are committing ethnic cleansing, just like they cleansed over a million Jewish families from Arab countries and now they are cleansing the millions of Christians and others.
The Oslo Accord is null and void as Abbas stated in the summer of 2015 at the U.N.
You; the Arabs have murdered the Jews and others and now you want to inherit them?

In view of past history of persecution; Israel and the Jews have an obsolete obligation to defend themselves at all costs. NEVER AGAIN. It must be in action not just words. No capitulation to the bias world.
YJ Draiman