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When international legal scholar Howard Grief died two years ago, Israel lost one of its staunchest allies and a priceless asset. He is the originator of the thesis that the Jewish people have de jure (according to the law) sovereignty over the entire Land of Israel and Palestine. His book, which was over 25 years in the making, The Legal Foundation and Borders of Israel Under International Law, published in 2008, is a comprehensive and systematic legal treatment of that thesis.
In the preface, he writes: “This book, my life work will provide you with all the pertinent facts and the important information you need to know in advocating Israel’s iron-clad legal case to all of the Land of Israel, to the exclusion of false Arab claims.”
“His entire life was devoted to Israel,” said his Jerusalem-born wife, Ilana, who was in Toronto recently to attend a reception in her honor organized by Renanah and Joe Gemeiner. A warm, soft spoken woman with dark expressive eyes, she speaks openly about her husband, stopping to choke back the tears.
Howard was born in Montreal and attended Baron Byng high school and McGill University Law School. Ilana’s plan years ago was to come to Montreal, where her sister Tikva lived, and teach at Jewish Day School for two years. Even then, the young lawyer was a fervent Zionist and was asked to represent a new political party, Tehiya, in Canada. “He lived in Montreal but all his heart and mind was Israel,” Ilana said.
Introduced by a friend, even though Ilana believed she could never love a non-Israeli man, they married in 1982. But she had one condition: he had to promise they would one day move to Israel. “Although life here is easier and quieter, I couldn’t stay here,” Ilana said.
When the first of their two sons was about to enter grade one, the family made aliyah and settled in Jerusalem. Howard worked as legal advisor to the late Professor Yuval Ne’eman, then head of the Tehiya party and Minister of Energy. He also wrote all his speeches.
But the party folded and Howard was without a job. By then he was deep into what would become his life’s work. Ilana decided that his mission was so important that she became the breadwinner, supporting the family on her earnings as a teacher. He was consumed with his research and writing. “He would get up in the middle of the night with a thought,” she recollected. “He would stop in the middle of eating a sandwich to write something.”
“I was happy and proud to do it,” she responded instantly when asked her if she has any regrets.
Knowing the facts of Israel’s historical and legal rights as they have been recognized in international law and making that public knowledge for all was Howard’s mission in life.
Howard’s work is based on the critical period between 1915 and 1925, which shaped the modern Middle East as it is today. The base document for the founding of Israel was the San Remo Resolution, as it was also for Syria and Iraq.
When the Ottoman Empire fell, the League of Nations met in San Remo, Italy, in 1920 and carved up its territories. The treaty that gave the Jewish people the legal rights to the geographical area called Palestine, passed in l920 unanimously by the 51 member League of Nations and is embedded in international law, valid to this day. Later Britain placating the Hashemite family, illegally took part of Palestine and called it Trans Jordan, now simply Jordan.
Howard never gave up, even when for the last 11 years of his life he had to be on dialysis three times a week. But he was, to this day, aside from a few academics, unsupported in Israel. His book, written in English, has never been translated to Hebrew. Most Israelis don’t even know about Israel’s legal rights. “There is definitely a knowledge void,” admitted Minister of Defence Moshe Ya’alon. The government still refuses to put it in the official school curriculum.
In the wake of the Oslo Accords, Grief was the first to call for a state inquiry, challenging the legality of that agreement, and he used the law to oppose the “ceding of territory to any foreign state whatsoever, particularly to a criminal and terrorist organization.”
After the Six Day War, Military Advocate General and later the President of Israel’s Supreme Court, Meir Shamgar, advised the Levi Eshkol government not to incorporate the recently acquired Judea and Samaria into Israel. By so doing, he ignored both international law and Israel constitutional law. This decision led to the false belief that Judea and Samaria were “occupied territories.” Grief, years later, vigorously challenged the legal validity of Shamgar’s recommendation.
The debate within the UN to recognize the Palestinian Authority as a new member-state of the UN never mentions the legal fact that the UN is barred by its own Charter from approving of such an application – Article 80 of the UN Charter. It preserves intact all the rights granted to Jews by the Sam Remo Peace Conference of 1920.
Pleading Israeli security needs doesn’t do it. Invoking God’s covenant is not doing it. Knowing the fact of Israel’s historical and legal rights as they are recognized in international law will do it, says Salomon Benzimra. Under Howard Grief’s tutelage and inspired by him, he and Goldi Steiner founded Canadians for Israel’s Legal Rights, CILR, an advocacy group established to promote public awareness of Israel’s legal rights.
“We have to tell the world Jews are owners not occupiers,” said Israel Truth Week founder Mark Vandermaas.
Ilana quotes Howard as saying, “One day they will open their eyes. I hope it won’t be too late.”
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