Vol. I:6 (No. 6)
June 2001 - Sivan 5761
Nor shall your land
be called Desolate.
-- Isaiah 62:4
I will restore My
people Israel,
They shall rebuild
ruined cities and inhabit them,
They shall plant
vineyards and drink their wine,
They shall till
gardens and eat their fruits,
And I will plant them
upon their soil,
Nevermore to be
uprooted
From the soil I have
given them,
Said The Lord your
God.
-- Amos 9:14
There is
much comment, reporting and misreporting on that part of the Land of Israel
that lies outside of the 1949 cease-fire lines ("Green Line"), and
the Israeli communities that dwell therein. Those reports and comments use a
widely accepted set of terms, assumptions and concepts without to what they
really mean:
1] Is there a region that can be called "Occupied Palestinian
Territory"
or "Israel-Occupied Palestine"?
2] What is the modern history of this region?
After World War I, the
League of Nations gave Great Britain a Mandate for temporary administration
over "Palestine", including what is now Israel and Jordan and the
Administered Territories. The Mandate confirmed the terms of the British
Balfour Declaration of 1917: Palestine was to be a Jewish National Home, open
to "close Jewish settlement". Both documents protected the personal
rights of the very sparse non-Jewish population already in this region, but
created no national rights for that sparse population. The League of Nations
Mandate was later confirmed by its successor United Nations.
In
1922, the British government altered the terms of the Mandate by detaching all
of Palestine east of the Jordan River, to create the Emirate of Trans-Jordan
for its protege Abdullah, a new arrival from the Hejaz in Arabia. This area was
76 percent of Mandate Palestine, sliced away from the Jewish National Home.
David Lincoln, Rabbi of The
Park Avenue Synagogue in New York, draws on British historical documents for an
explanation of this event, published in
The Jewish Sentinel,
October 1993:
[. . . ] The Balfour Declaration had, of course, considered
Trans-Jordan (today's Jordan) to be part of Palestine and thus to be included
in any future Jewish State. In 1921, Churchill was appointed colonial secretary
with responsibility for the Middle East. . . . . A little later he visited
Palestine at the very time when the Emir (later King) Abdullah and his Bedouin
Army were trying to enter Trans-Jordan from the south . . .
Unwilling
to reinforce the garrison [. . .] Churchill made a deal. Abdullah could settle
down where he was The area was to be excluded from the Jewish National Home,
and Abdullah was to agree not to oppose the rest of Palestine being Jewish! [.
. . .] No one and no government ever thought or suggested that the
"West Bank" should not be part of a future Israel . . . .
However,
the British government thereafter violated both the Balfour Declaration and the
Mandate by restricting or in places banning Jewish settlement even west of the
Jordan. It also restricted or virtually cut off Jewish immigration, just at the
time a National Home was most desperately needed by the Jews of German-occupied
Europe. At the same time, the British tolerated if not encouraged Arabs from
other countries to come in – albeit illegally – and take the places
from which it banned the Jews.
Since
1967, Jews have finally established or re-established communities that British
governments and news media brand "illegal". In truth, it was the
British ban on Jewish settlement that was illegal.
3] How did Israel come to administer these
territories?
In
1947, the United Nations Partition whittled down the remnant of the Jewish
National Home to a mere 17 percent of Mandate Palestine. The Arabs, including
the recent arrivals from other countries, where offered a state in the
remainder of the land. They rejected the offer, and six Arab nations went to
war to overturn the UN plan and prevent the establishment of the State of
Israel.
In
the course of that war, Trans-Jordan invaded and seized what are now the
Administered Territories. It then changed its name to Jordan. In 1967, Jordan
again attacked Israel, and lost the territories. Since them, Israel has been
administering these territories. As explained in articles that follow, Israel
did not attack or invade and does not "occupy" the territory of any
other nation or state.
4] Where are the "settlements"?
These
are communities established or re-established after 1967, in the area the
Jordanians called their West Bank. The historical names for this area are the
ancient and biblical "Judah" and "Samaria". [The Hebrew Yehuda
and Shomron
form the
acronym YESHA.)
They are all within the bounds of the Mandate Jewish National Home after 1922,
and on land over which no other nation or state has or can rightfully claim
sovereignty.
Some
of the communities were re-established in places where the Jews had in previous
decades been massacred or violently driven out by Arabs. These include the
older parts of Jerusalem and the ancient Jewish community of Hebron, and the
Etz-Zion bloc near Jerusalem. Some of those who came back to re-establish those
communities are the children of the Jews who had been murdered or driven
out. Of the other communities, most of
them are built on wasteland that had no owners. Any land that had a previous
owner was purchased and paid for.
5] Are these Jewish communities a violation of
the Oslo Accords or any other agreement?
No.
They are not a violation of any agreement. They are not banned or limited in
any agreement.
They
are termed "illegal" or "a violation of human rights" or
"a war crime" by parties who hold that once Arabs destroy a Jewish
community in the Land of Israel, it must remain forever judenrein. These same parties have no
complaints about the proliferation of Arab "settlements" in the same
area. Nor do they question the Arab demand that all territory they occupy or
claim be free of Jews, while Arabs make up almost 20 percent of the population
of Israel inside the Green Line.
6]
Is the so-called "occupation" illegal? Are the
"settlements" illegal?
No.
Experts on international law have analyzed the status of the administered
territories and the Jewish communities and found no taint of illegality on
Israel's part.
Outstanding among these experts
was Eugene V. Rostow, an authority on international law, a U.S. government
Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs (1966-1969) and a Distinguished
Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace. He examined the subject in two
articles in The New Republic, 1990 and 1991.
Excerpts from article of April 1990:
The
Jewish right of settlement in the West Bank is conferred by the same provisions
of the Mandate under which Jews settled in Haifa, Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem
before the State of Israel was created. The Mandate for Palestine differs in
one important respect from the other League of Nations mandates, which were
trusts for the benefit of the indigenous population. The Palestine Mandate,
recognizing 'the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and
the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country,' is
dedicated to 'the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish
people, it being clearly understood that nothing should be done which might
prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in
Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other
country'.
The
Mandate does not . . . permit even a temporary suspension of the Jewish right
of settlement in the parts of the Mandate west of the Jordan River. The
Armistice Lines of 1949, which are part of the West Bank boundary, represent
nothing but the position of the contending armies when the final cease-fire was
achieved in the War of Independence. And the Armistice Agreements specifically
provide, except in the case of Lebanon, that the demarcation lines can be
changed by agreement when the parties move from armistice to peace. [. . . .. ]
Many
believe that the Palestine Mandate was somehow terminated in 1947, when the
British government resigned as the mandatory power. This is incorrect. A trust
never terminates when a trustee dies, resigns, embezzles the trust property, or
is dismissed. The authority responsible for the trust appoints a new trustee,
or otherwise arranges for the fulfillment of its purpose. . . . . In Palestine
the British Mandate ceased to be operative as to the territories of Israel and
Jordan when those states were created and recognized by the international
community. But its rules apply still to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which
have not yet been allocated either to Israel or to Jordan or become an independent
state. Jordan attempted to annex the West Bank in 1951, but that annexation was
never generally recognized, even by the Arab states, and now Jordan has
abandoned all its claims to the territory. [. . . . ]
The
State Department has never denied that under the Mandate 'the Jewish people'
have the right to settle in the area. Instead, it said that Jewish settlements
in the West Bank violate Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949,
which deals with the protection of civilians in wartime. [. . . .] Article 49
provides that the occupying power 'shall not deport or transfer part of its own
civilian population into the territory it occupies'. But the Jewish settlers in
the West Bank are volunteers. They have not been 'deported' or 'transferred' by
the government of Israel, and their movement involves none of the atrocious
purposes or harmful effects on the existing population the Geneva Convention
was designed to prevent.
Furthermore,
the Convention applies only to acts by one signatory 'carried out on the
territory of another'. The West Bank is not the territory of a signatory power,
but an unallocated part of the British Mandate. It is hard, therefore, to see
how even the most literal-minded reading of the Convention could make it apply
to Jewish settlement in territories of the British Mandate west of the Jordan
River. [. . . . ]
But
how can the Convention be deemed to apply to Jews who have a right to settle in
the territories under international law: a legal right assured by treaty and
specifically protected by Article 80 of the U.N. Charter, which provides that
nothing in the Charter shall be construed 'to alter in any manner rights
conferred by existing international instruments' like the Mandate? The Jewish
right of settlement in the area is equivalent in every way to the right of the
existing Palestinian population to live there.
Another
principle of international law may affect the problem of the Jewish
settlements. Under international law, an occupying power is supposed to apply
the prevailing law of the occupied territory at the municipal level unless it
interferes with the necessities of security or administration or is 'repugnant
to elementary conceptions of justice'. From 1949 to 1967, when Jordan was the
military occupant of the West Bank, it applied its own laws to prevent any Jews
from living in the territory. To suggest that Israel as occupant is required to
enforce such Jordanian laws-a necessary implication of applying the
Convention-is simply absurd. When the Allies occupied Germany after the Second
World War, the abrogation of the Nuremberg Laws was among their first acts.
[.
. . .] Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 rule that the Arab states and
Israel must make peace, and that when 'a just and lasting peace' is reached in
the Middle East, Israel should withdraw from some but not all of the territory
it occupied in the course of the 1967 war. The Resolutions leave it to the
parties to agree on the terms of peace.
Excerpts from article of October 1991:
The
British Mandate recognized the right of the Jewish people to 'close settlement'
in the whole of the Mandated territory. It was provided that local conditions
might require Great Britain to 'postpone' or 'withhold' Jewish settlement in
what is now Jordan. This was done in 1922. But the Jewish right of settlement
in Palestine west of the Jordan river, that is, in Israel, the West Bank,
Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, was made unassailable. That right has never been
terminated and cannot be terminated except by a recognized peace between Israel
and its neighbors. And perhaps not even then, in view of Article 80 of the U.N.
Charter, 'the Palestine article', which provides that 'nothing in the Charter
shall be construed ... to alter in any manner the rights whatsoever of any
states or any peoples or the terms of existing international instruments . . .
.'
Yet
the Jews have the same right to settle there as they have to settle in Haifa.
The West Bank and the Gaza Strip were never parts of Jordan, and Jordan's
attempt to annex the West Bank was not generally recognized and has now been
abandoned. The two parcels of land are parts of the Mandate that have not yet
been allocated to Jordan, to Israel, or to any other state, and are a
legitimate subject for discussion.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
"God
will have mercy on Jacob yet,
And
again in his borders see Israel set."
-- George Gordon, Lord Byron
Since the PLO launched the Oslo War in September
2000, there have been efforts in may quarters to make the perfectly legal
civilian communities of YESHA equivalent to or even the cause of the violence
and terrorism. There are even international efforts to make an end to terrorism
conditional on the end to such communities.
The fallacies of these demands is exposed in "The Settlement
Myth", by Jeff Jacoby,
The Boston Globe, 24 April 2001:
[.
. . .] The Palestinians, you may have noticed, have changed their tune. When
the current orgy of violence against Israelis began last fall, the explanation out
of Gaza City -- faithfully echoed by most of the Western media -- was that it
was all Ariel Sharon's fault. His visit to the Temple Mount on September 28, it
was said, outraged and infuriated Palestinians. [. . . .] Even Palestinians
admit it isn't true.
[. . . . ]
The real cause of the violence, Palestinians now claim, is the growth of
Israeli communities in Gaza and the West Bank. 'A cessation of settlement
activities is part of a cessation of violence,' says Faisal Husseini, a
prominent Palestinian official. Jibril Rajoub, one of Arafat's top militiamen,
seconds the motion. 'Everybody should know,' he announced, 'that those
settlements are the cancer and the reason at all times for tension.'
This excuse,
too, has found a ready reception in the media -- especially since the
international fact-finding committee headed by George Mitchell recommended, as
a 'confidence-building measure,' that Israel declare a moratorium on expanding
the settlements. When Secretary of State Colin Powell briefed the press on the
Mitchell Committee report, he was repeatedly asked what Washington would do to
compel Israel to freeze its settlements. No reporter seemed to wonder what
Washington would do to compel Arafat to stop his murderous offensive.
It hasn't
taken long for the Palestinian line -- Jewish settlements justify Arab violence
-- to become conventional wisdom. 'Stop those settlements,' commands [British
magazine] The Economist [. . . .] The Chicago Tribune editorializes: 'There is
little incentive for the Palestinians to return to the table without an Israeli
freeze on settlements.'
Nonsense.
[. . . .]
The Arab rocks, bullets, Molotov cocktails, and suicide bombs of the past eight
months are no different from the Arab rocks, bullets, Molotov cocktails, and
suicide bombs of the past eight years -- the years of the Oslo
"peace" process. The more Israel has agreed to give, the more enraged
and uncompromising the Palestinian reaction has been. A paradox? Only to those
who have never mastered the fundamental lesson of Appeasement 101: Give a
dictator the sacrifice he demands and you inflame his appetite for more.
To insist
that Israel "stop those settlements" in exchange for an end to Arab
violence is to insist that Oslo be up-ended. The Israeli-Palestinian accords
have never barred Israel from building or expanding settlements in the
territories; the ultimate fate of those communities has always been one of the
'permanent status' issues to be decided at the end of the process.
By contrast,
the starting point of the peace process -- the foundation on which it was built
-- was that Palestinian violence had ended. 'The PLO commits itself ... to a
peaceful resolution of the conflict between the two sides,' reads the document
that Arafat signed on September 9, 1993, 'and declares that all outstanding
issues relating to permanent status will be resolved through negotiations....
The PLO renounces the use of terrorism and other acts of violence.' [ . . . . ]
They did not promise to end the violence only if Israel agreed to their every
demand. They promised to end the violence for good.
If
that promise was a lie, the entire peace process is a lie. Is it? Look at the
Middle East and draw your own conclusion.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
The Israel Foreign Ministry makes these points
on the issue of the "settlements":
1]
Jewish settlement in the West Bank and Gaza Strip territory has existed from
time immemorial and was expressly recognized as legitimate in the Mandate for
Palestine adopted by the League of Nations.
2]
Some Jewish settlements, such as in Hebron, existed throughout the centuries of
Ottoman rule, while settlements such as Neveh Ya'acov, north of Jerusalem, the
Gush-Etzion block in Judea and Samaria, the communities north of the Dead Sea
and Kfar Darom in the Gaza region, were established under the British Mandate
prior to the establishment of the State of Israel.
3]
For more than a thousand years, the only administration which has prohibited
Jewish settlement was the Jordanian occupation administration, which during the
nineteen years of its rule (1948-1967) declared the sale of land to Jews a
capital offense.
4]
Repeated charges regarding the illegality of Israeli settlements must be
regarded as politically motivated, without foundation in international law.
Similarly, as Israeli settlements cannot be considered illegal, they cannot
constitute a grave violation of the Geneva Convention, and hence any claim that
they constitute a war crime is without any legal basis. Politically, the West
Bank and Gaza Strip is best regarded as territory over which there are
competing claims which should be resolved in peace process negotiations. Israel
has valid claims to title in this territory based not only on its historic and
religious connection to the land, and its recognized security needs, but also
on the fact that the territory was not under the sovereignty of any state and
came under Israeli control in a war of self-defense, imposed upon Israel.
The real issue is not the plots of land on which
Israelis dwell, but that they dwell anywhere at all. How this issue is
disguised is shown in "The Meaning of al-Nakba," by Daniel Doron, Jerusalem Post, 24
May 2001:
The
Palestinian Arabs' insistence that Israel's establishment - which they mark as
al-Nakba [the Catastrophe] Day - was on Arab land, stolen from them, reveals
that their conflict with Israel is not about settlements or the refugees'
rights. It is about Israel's legitimacy and right to exist.
[
. . . .] Few deal any more with how the conflicting claims to the land arose,
and what Israel's claim to the land is based on, morally and legally. Legal
title to land is based on national sovereignty over it and on individual
property rights. The tiny Palestinian Arab community that inhabited the
Southern Syrian-Turkish province, which was later named Palestine, never had
any national sovereign rights in this land. There was never an independent
Palestinian Arab entity in 'Palestine', so no one could have stolen
'Palestinian' lands.
Private
Arab property rights (mostly squatters' rights) were only over a small fraction
of the land that was habitable. Over 95% of the land was totally desolate (as
is most of the land in the West Bank today) or swampy, as Mark Twain and others
attested back in the 1860s. The land was Turkish, then British and later
Jordanian by unilateral annexation. It was always acquired, like the Arabs did,
by conquest, not through any moral or legal claim.
After
conquering the Middle East, the British decided, generously, to gradually
return most of it to its Arab clients. The British reserved, however, a tiny
sliver relative to the vast territories given to the Arabs, as a mandate
sanctioned by the League of Nations for the express purpose of establishing a
Jewish national home, because Jewish claims to this land were far more
compelling, historically and morally.
Jewish sovereignty preceded the Arabs' by many centuries.
Jews were forcibly expelled, and ever since were continuously endangered for
lack of a home. It was only just to give them, too, a chance to survive in what
was then a virtually empty, deserted land, especially since the Arabs received
vast territories that could fully satisfy their yearning for independence.
[. . . .]
As for individual Arab property, none was seized then for the purpose of
building the Jewish national home. The Jews bought every acre of land, even
though the mandate required the British to allocate to them much of the vast
government holdings.
When
catastrophe struck, the Jews were its victims, not the Arabs. The Arabs who feel
the world owes them because of the refugees' tragedy showed no pity for Jewish
refugees. As Jewish existence increasingly became endangered, they became more
determined to annihilate those who were saved. [. . . .]
Refusing
to accept moral responsibility and blaming Israel, the Arabs are trying to
undermine Israel's moral right to exist and are rationalizing its eventual
elimination. This is what the commemoration of al-Nakba means."
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Among
the most passionate foes of Jewish communities in Judea-Samaria is the
International Committee of the Red Cross, which defines them as "a war
crime". This is the ICRC that:
--
refrained from any effort to help the prisoners in Nazi concentration camps.
--
assisted the escape of Nazi war criminals.
-- recognizes the Arab Red Crescent, the Iranian Red Lion and the Russian Red Star, but refuses to recognize
the Israeli Red Shield of David, whose emblem the ICRC president equates with the swastika
-- refrains from any criticism of action when Arabs murder Israeli prisoners of war.
--
refrains from any disapproval when the PLO uses Red Crescent ambulances
to transport terrorists and their weapons.
One response to the IRC is "Legality of the
Settlements" by Moshe Dann,
The
Jerusalem Post, 22
May 2001:
The accusation by Rene Kosirnik, head of the International Red Cross's delegation to Israel and the territories, that settlements are 'war crimes' at a time when Palestinian gunners and suicide bombers are targeting civilians is a moral outrage.
But
Kosirnik's condemnations of settlements as 'illegal' according to international
law are not new. They rely solely on Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva
Convention, drawn up a few years after the end of the Second World War . . . .
According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, the recognized
authority on the Geneva Convention, this applies to what it calls 'Israel's
occupation of the West Bank'. But there was no court; the ICRC was judge and
jury. [Comment: See Rostow, above, on the accurate interpretation of this
Convention]
This
decision, taken originally by the ICRC in the early 1970s and confirmed every
year since, has been the basis for opposition to Israeli 'occupation' and
'settlement'. But these decisions, unlike legal opinions on any other issues,
are made in secret, without any form of due process. Those who made the
decision and the procedures by which they arrived at their conclusions are
'confidential'. Every attempt I made to obtain more detailed information was
rejected. So much for democracy and judicial fairness.
[.
. . .] The ICRC's consistent and determined bias, which undermines its claim to
impartiality. Theirs is a shameful past and a dishonest present.
When the Lord restores the fortunes of Zion
We are veritable dreamers.
Our mouths shall be filled with laughter,
Our tongues with songs of joy.
--
Psalm 126:1-2
END