Blog Spot It is time to factually clarify the legal status of Judea and Samaria under international law.

It is time to factually clarify the legal status of Judea and Samaria under international law. 

“When the occupant is not the one you want to believe in”

In 1967 Israel liberated occupied Jewish Palestinian territories.   For the enemies of Israel and many of Its’ friends, and for a majority of Israelis, this is a basic axiom. During the Six Day War, it is stated that Israel liberated and captured the Jewish Palestinian territories, resettled and installed there Its’ “settlers” with impunity and in obvious violation of international law.  Is this axiom a lie? If international law asserts the exact opposite, for obvious political and diplomatic reasons, then the facts have been ignored and have instead embraced the current unfounded and false Arab propaganda. This understanding is a misconception and false. 

It is time to clarify and illustrate the Jewish legal status of Judea and Samariaunder international law.    One only has to read the documents.  However, the Media has without a doubt, immersed itself in hearsay and untruths, twisting facts and ignoring the truth.  It is time to examine the real truth and facts as supported by documents and history.

We hardly talk about it, yet, when looking at historical documents on the legal status of Judea and Samaria, one finds powerful arguments against all critics who accuse Israel of occupation of the territories. It must be noted it doesn’t matter if these critics are Arabs, Americans, Europeans or even members of the Israeli extreme left.
The San Remo Treaty of 1920, written almost a century ago and confirmed by the 1920 Treaty of Sevres, forms the foundation of truth. Yet, it seems hardly anyone in the Prime Minister’s office, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, or Hasbara has taken the time to build a strategy based on said Treaty and other documents which followed that prove clearly thatIsrael is far from the colonial power it is being accused of being since 1967.
When considering the media archives that preceded the Oslo Accords (which are now null and void), we realize that the official Israeli narrative concerning the Israeli presence in theWest Bank was much less ”worried” then today. Until 1993, Israel gave the impression of not requiring justification for rebuilding Jewish settlements beyond the Green Line. Until that time, Israel did not seem to plead for the international community and the Arab world in particular to give It the acquiescence of keeping the famous “settlement blocs.”
According to Prof. Eliav Cho’hatman, lawyer and lecturer at the Graduate Institute of Law “Shaare Mishpat,” there is no doubt that the Oslo Accords marked the starting point of this attitude it deems “catastrophic”: “Until then, our leaders did not hesitate to brag our rights over all the land of Israel from the point of view of international law but since the agreements were signed, only security patterns are referred to plead that part of these territories we are entitled to remain in our hands.”  Prof. Cho’hatman says he sent to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu during his first term (1996-1999), his work on the above, but regrets that the head of government has not availed itself: “When I heard of two states for two peoples, I understood why.”
To understand this issue, we must examine Balfour Declaration and San Remo Treaty which was confirmed in the 1920 Treaty of Sevres, a little less than a century ago, November 2, 1917, to be precise. At that time, Lord Balfour, Foreign Minister of Great Britain, in writing, and in agreement with Chaim Weitzman, then president of the World Zionist Organization, wrote in an official letter to Lord Lionel Walter Rothschild, honorary president of the Zionist Organization of England, the following. In this letter, the UK is in favor of the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine. This is the famous “Balfour Declaration” which raises unbridled hope in the Jewish world. In the aftermath of World War I, theLeague of Nations entrusted to Britain a Mandate over Palestine as trustee for the Jewish people over all of Palestine.
Three years after the Balfour Declaration in 1920, the conference was held in San Remo, Italy during which the great powers decided how to split the territories conquered during the war. At this conference, it was decided to incorporate the 1917 Balfour Declaration into The San Remo Treaty of 1920 (its terms are in effect in perpetuity) and confirmed by the 1920 Treaty of Sevres, it set the British Mandate for Palestine as trustee for the Jewish people. This decision confirms the international recognition of the Jewish right to self-determination in Palestine and the mandate for Britain to “work towards the realization of this statement to reconstitute a national home for the Jewish people in all of Palestine” (Balfour Declaration).  It must be noted, the San Remo Treaty did not grant any other nation or people land in any part of Palestine, only the Jewish people.  Including the incorporation of the Balfour Declaration into the Palestine Mandate by theUnited Kingdom, this text is the same international resolution supported by the 52 member countries of the League of Nations, and later by the United States, which would become a member of the international organization a few years later.

The San Remo Treaty of 1920 and its terms to reconstitute the Jewish people in its ancestral land was reconfirmed in the 1920 treaty of Sevres and the treaty of Lausanne.

British Mandate for Palestine

The three principles of the British Balfour Declaration regarding Palestine as a reconstituted Jewish country were adopted in the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres:

ARTICLE 95.

The High Contracting Parties agree to entrust, by application of the provisions of Article 22, the administration of Palestine, within such boundaries as may be determined by the Principal Allied Powers, to a Mandatory to be selected by the said Powers. The Mandatory will be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 2, 1917, by the British Government, and adopted by the other Allied Powers in the San Remo Conference, in favor of the re-establishment in all of Palestine a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may 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 and granting the Jewish people exclusive political rights in Palestine.

Palestine officially fell under the British Mandate as trustee for the Jewish people.

French Mandate of Lebanon

The French Mandate was settled at the San Remo Conference. Comprising the region between the Euphrates River and the Syrian Desert on the east, and the Mediterranean Sea on the west, and extending from the Alma Dagh Mountains on the south to Egypt on the south; Area of territory about 60,000 sq mi (160,000 km2) with a population of about 3,000,000. Lebanon and an enlarged Syria, which were later assigned again under League of Nations Mandate. The region was divided under the French into four governments as follows: Government of Aleppo from the Euphrates region to the Mediterranean; Great Lebanon extending from Tripoli to Palestine; Damascus, including Damascus, Hama, Hems, and the Hauran; and the country of Mount Arisarieh.

French Mandate of Syria

Faisal ibn Husayn, who had been proclaimed king of Syria by a Syrian national congress in Damascus in March 1920, was ejected by the French in July of the same year.

The San Remo Treaty of 1920  – some relevant terms
In paragraphs 5, 6 and 7 of the Protocol of San Remo, we read: “No territory of Palestine will be sold or leased or held in any way under the control of the government of any foreign power.” Or: “The Administration of Palestine, while ensuring that the rights of other parts of the population are not altered, shall facilitate Jewish immigration under suitable conditions and encourage, in cooperation with the Jewish Agency; The dense settlement of Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes. ”
Finally, the Palestine Mandate states: “the Administration of Palestine is responsible for the adoption of a law on nationality. Included in this law must be provisions framed so as to facilitate the acquisition of Palestinian citizenship by Jews who acquire permanent residence in Palestine.”  At that time, it must be remembered, Palestine is not just the west bank of the Jordan. Rather, it also includes, most importantly the majority (approx. 77%) of the territory which is the east bank of the Jordan River, where today is located the new State of Jordan.

Britain reneged on its promises
What happens next is related to internal political changes in Britain and the election of a government hostile to the creation of a Jewish homeland throughout the territory of Palestine. Thus Britain, having clearly supported the conclusions of the San Remo Conference of 1920 and its confirmation in the 1920 Treaty of Sevres, changes its mind in violation of the treaty and weaves very tenuous diplomatic ties with the Arab countries surrounding the area of Palestine and with several Arab leaders (to control natural resources, such as oil).
If one argues that the perpetual right of Israel to all of Palestine has been abrogated, then one also brings into question the status of the Arab states that were created by England in the aftermath of World War 2. The legality of these Arab states that were carved out of the defunct Ottoman Empire also rests on the same “trusteeship system” installed after the first world war by the community of nations. In fact, the Weizmann-Feissal agreement of the 1919 peace conference talked of one Jewish state (all of Palestine) and only one Arab state (the other 99.9% of the Middle East).
The creation of Transjordan on Jewish land