News item: In an effort to generate renewed international pressure on Israel to resume the land for peace process with the ‘Palestinians,’ Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas urged the US and other members of the UN Security Council to convince Israel to halt construction in the settlements in order to pave the way for the resumption of the peace process. – The Jerusalem Post, June 5, 2012
Look, the lands known as Judea and Samaria by some and Palestine by others are DISPUTED territories – NOT Israeli occupied Arab lands.
In 1917 those lands, conquered from the Ottoman Empire by the victorious British Empire, were promised – through the instrument known as the Balfour Declaration – to be part and parcel of the Jewish national home.
The Balfour Declaration was ratified at the San Remo Conference in 1920.
In 1922 the League of Nations incorporated the declaration into international law and awarded the mandate for overseeing the implementation of this declaration – namely the establishing of the Jewish homeland – to Great Britain.
To please the Arabs and feather its own nest in the Middle East, Britain – in a unilateral move that was highly illegal – promptly and shamelessly lopped off two-thirds of the designated territory to create a new state called Trans-Jordan.
The international legislation applying to that territory was not, however, abrogated or rescinded.
In 1945 the United Nations was formed as the successor to the League of Nations.
According to the UN’s founding charter, all statutes on the League’s books remained in force.
In other words, Judea and Samaria remain – under international law – included in the land designated for the Jewish homeland.
In Israel’s War of Independence in 1948, Jordan took over and occupied Samaria and Judea, renaming them ‘the West Bank.’ The action was deemed illegal by the entire world except Britain and Pakistan.
Nineteen years later Israel expelled the Jordanian invaders and extended its administrative authority of the lands. The Jewish state claimed that Samaria and Judea were the cradle of the Jewish nation and the heart of their biblical kingdom.
Israel did not annex these lands, preferring to try to use them to win peace agreements with the Arabs.
Those Arabs, however, insisted that the lands in question were not the Jews’ to begin with; they had been Palestinian “from time immemorial.”
Voila – the land is DISPUTED. There are two claims to the same piece of ground.
The Jews say it is theirs.
The Palestinians say it is theirs.
If, therefore – as they claim – the United States and the rest of the nations are interested in helping bring about an ‘honest’ peace – of being ‘honest brokers’ – why is it that they already acquiesce in calling the land in question either ‘Israeli occupied territories’ or ‘the West Bank’ (which is Arab terminology buttressing Arab claims)?
And why is it that they excoriate Israel’s building of Jewish communities in these lands as ‘obstacles to peace,’ while completely ignoring (or even encouraging) building of Arab communities?
Israel should call these nations out, telling them simply that if they wish to be impartial referees then to BE impartial; otherwise to nail their colors to the mast and openly champion the Arabs’ claims.
They do it anyway. But if they did it blatantly there might well be, in some of these countries, enough citizens with enough moral integrity to cry foul and insist that their elected leaders play by the rule book of what is fair and just.
The Bible says God gave these lands exclusively to the Jewish people as an everlasting possession.
For the myriads who don’t accept the authority of Scripture, international law says this land was given to the Jewish people for the rebuilding of their national home.
For the myriads who are ignorant of international law, history supports the claim of the Jewish people to a national history in these territories and absolutely refutes any Palestinian claim to a national history in these areas.
For the many who could not care less about historical precedent, the law of what is fair, right and just should be made to appeal.
This law should, at the very least, support the right of BOTH parties to live and grow in these lands until their dispute is settled OR deny both parties the right to live and grow in these lands until the dispute is settled.
Anything else would be immoral, unethical and unjust.
Or just plain wrong.
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