Saturday, June 2, 2012

Stealing Their Way to Statehood - Part V


by Gil Bringer

This is Part V of a meticulously researched article that describes in detail how Bedouins of the Jordan Valley are used by the Palestinian Authority to take over territory in Area C surreptitiously.

Read Part I here.
Read Part II here.
Read Part III here.
Read Part IV here.

Eighth Stop: A School as an Outpost

In the year 2009 the residents of Kfar-Adumim served a petition against the construction of the Italian regional school that was in the process of being built below their town. The school was intended for the children of the Bedouin tribes that had settled in different outposts in the area and is located right on Route 1. It serves not only the local people: the PA subsidizes transportation for students who live in more distant locations. It seems that here too, the PA endeavors to create facts on the ground using the Bedouin settlements and is willing to spend money towards that goal. The school that was created in that location is not a means to an end - it is a goal in and of itself, which is a declaration of sovereignty on the area.

A demolition order that was issued regarding the place years ago was never implemented, and this, despite the proximity of the school to a main traffic artery and its location in a firing zone, facts that were supposed to have propelled it to the highest priority for implementation. But these are, of course, exactly the same facts why the PA so much wants to leave the school right where it is.

In the year 2010, the court received the position of the civil authority, according to which the school was not to have been not be destroyed until the end of the school year. This, despite the existence of a school nearby in Abu-Dis, which transports children daily from the surrounding area to the school in Han al-Ahmar, and can accommodate all the students of the (Italian) school. The court determined that the school must not be destroyed until the end of June.

June was over and July arrived. August and September passed as well. Again and again the Prosecutor asked for more time to obtain additional approvals for the demolition of the school, approvals that apparently were impossible to obtain while waiting passively until the end of the school year.

In October, the state requested thirty additional days and in the background was the bustle of students returning for the new school year. In November, the officer in charge of coordination of activities in the territories announced that the demolition tender had progressed considerably and had actually passed every phase except for the signature of the Minister of Security. The minister was supposed to sign the permit for the demolition by the end of 2011, the prosecutor declared to the court.

In February of 2012, the prosecutor explained that because of a "technical problem" the document was not brought to the minister of security for his signature. The prosecutor requested 45 additional days. At exactly the same time that the prosecutor served his request for an additional postponement in order to fix the "technical problem", the newspaper "Haaretz" published the information that General Dangot, who is responsible for coordination of activities in the territories, visited the outpost Han al-Ahmar and announced to the residents that he has no intention to demolish the school. These things are consistent with messages that were transmitted by the people of the administration to the residents of Kfar Adumim, who told "Makor Rishon", that the administration is not interested in demolishing the illegally built school.

In a conversation with the spokesman of the coordinator of activities in the territories, we asked to understand how the response of the prosecutor, according to which only a "technical problem" held up the signature of the minister of security on the confirmation to demolish the building,
sits with the words of Dangot himself, who, according to the announcements, is not at all interested in demolishing the building.

In a verbal conversation, the spokesman claimed that the details that were published regarding Dangot in "Haaretz" are not accurate. We asked to know what, nevertheless, Dangot said to the people of Han al-Ahmar, and then the spokesman asked us to send him an email. The email was sent to the correct address but did not merit a response. We assumed that apparently there was a "technical problem" that seemed to revolve around the issue of Han al-Ahmar. At the request of the spokesman, an email was sent again but since then there has been no trace of him. Not an email nor the spokesman. One can only assume that another "technical problem" was responsible.

Meanwhile, in the PA there are no technical problems. Fiyad decided, of course, to take the Bedouin school fully under his auspices, and in the ceremony of tribute that was held last May (2011) Fiyad came to the outpost to congratulate his people.

“You Bedouins are the guardians of the land”, said Fiyad to the residents. “Your persistence in having your children learn in this modest school, that was built by an Italian organization, is a sign of hope for us all. In my visit to the village there is a strong message for the freedom of my people, and for the establishment of a Palestinian state in which the rights of our people will be maintained. In the name of the Palestinian Authority, which aspires in the near future to be the Palestinian state, we call on the international authorities and organizations to protect the rights of the Palestinians.”

This is the final installment of "Stealing Their Way to Statehood".

Next Week: "Double Standards in Judea and Samaria" by Gil Bringer, Part I

Gil Bringer is an attorney who serves as the legal consultant to the Jewish Home faction in the Knesset and co-editor of the "Tzedek" legal supplement to the "Makor Rishon" Hebrew weekly newspaper. Among other things, he deals with the areas of overlap between law and politics, Zionism and good governance. He can be contacted at gil.bringer@gmail.com

Translated from Hebrew by Sally Zahav

Source: Source: Makor Rishon weekly Hebrew newspaper; http://myesha.org.il/?CategoryID=335&ArticleID=5365&Page=1

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors

Salubrius Responds to Eli Hertz (Myths and Facts)


by Salubrius

Dear Mr. Hertz,

This is my own view of the matter. I have been trying to present this view at Harvard and UCLA but without much success. Harvard issued a press release saying it did not endorse the HateFest of March 3,4 (as described by Alan Dershowitz of the Harvard Law School in NewsMax) that its sponsors at Harvard called a "one state solution to the Arab Israeli conflict. It was carried out by so called Arab Intellectuals and Israel history revisionists. In that conference on the subject of a one [Arab Majority] state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, only a one Arab Majority state view was presented and I was not permitted an opportunity to present a "one-lawful-Jewish-state-West-of-the-Jordan-River-solution" to that conflict. It was referred to only as a one-state solution and the fact that there would be an Arab Majority was ignored. What was passed over without comment was that Jews in Palestine would become unwelcome guests in their own National Home. Jews in the Diaspora, such as those in Toulouse, site of a recent murder of little Jewish children, would know that there was no longer any place on earth they could go where they would not be in the minority. When I could not get a place on the panel, I asked for an opportunity to present the view in an op ed in the Harvard Crimson. All I got was a reply from Harvard President Drew Faust's aide that transmitted a press release stating that Harvard did not endorse the conference and remained "a free and open marketplace of ideas". But it wasn't for my idea on a one Jewish state solution. Op Ed: Harvard had no room for a one Jewish state solution. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/11323 I finally was able to get the complete story published in two conservative on line publications in Israel and paid the Crimson for a one page ad in their print edition and their on line edition for one insertion of my views by compressing them into a list of links on the Internet where the fuller views could be found. I wouldn't have been able to afford to publish the unbundled version as an advertisement. So I finally got into Harvard's "free and open marketplace of ideas" but it wasn't free and with a one time insertion of the compressed ad, it was in a dimly lit corner of that market.

Professor Alan Dershowitz will likely be able to sponsor a conference on a two-state [temporary] solution at Harvard. That is not much better than the one [Arab Majority] state solution. In the short term it would lose much Jewish and Christian Heritage, and in the long term it would turn into the one Arab Majority state. One of the links in my ad was to an article I had written entitled "Remember the Quraysh!" which criticized the two state view. Another was to an article outlining the three solutions.

Ms Cinnamon Stillwell in Campus Watch warned that UCLA, also my alma mater would be the venue of a "son-of-Harvard-Conference" so I tried to present my views there, also without success. One professor on its faculty told me that it would be impossible in that all the professors on the faculty having the authority to sponsor a conference on that topic were "too politically correct". My letters to Chancellor Block and to the head of the UCLA Hillel and to the trustees of the University of California proved that correct. There was no reply. Ms Stillwell's prediction proved correct. On May 15 UCLA sponsored a fake debate between Hussein Ibish and Reza Aslan, both Muslim extremists on a one [Arab Majority] state solution and a few days later the infamous Peter Beinart and David Suissa presented a fake debate on a two-state [temporary] solution at the Los Angeles "Temple Israel".
These three solutions, are like the three legs of a stool. Having the first two presented without the third, makes for strong presentations, but doesn't provide much balance.

I have been trying to find a platform to express my own views to the students at UCLA but so far without success. The news and editorial staff of the Daily Bruin have not replied to my letters, and even the advertising department did not reply to my emailed request for a quotation of their advertising rates for a quarter page ad.

What follows is the bundled version of my views that was published by the Harvard Crimson as an ad, and the unbundled version that I hope to publish somewhere so as to make this information more readily available to students at UCLA, particularly Jewish students. Please note that my view differs only slightly from the seminal work of Canadian lawyer, [now Israeli lawyer] Howard Grief in that I show that while the language of the grant at San Remo of exclusive political or national rights to the Jews was unclear, the legislative intent was clear by ample evidence of proof of purpose. That purpose was to place the political rights in trust until such time as the Jews in Palestine constituted a population majority so that sovereignty would not be conferred on a 10% minority of the population. Under the law of the US, the UK and Canada and many other nation- states, purposive evidence is admissible to clarify the intent of ambiguous language.

Very truly yours,

Wallace Edward Brand

__Compressed version__________________________________________________________

ONE LAWFUL STATE WEST OF THE JORDAN RIVER AS A SOLUTION TO THE
ARAB-ISRAELI CONFLICT

Students at Colleges and Universities should know that there are actually three solutions to the Arab-Israeli conflict. First there is a "one [Arab majority] state" solution, in which the Jewish Israelis would become unwelcome guests in their own National Home, and the Jews in the Diaspora, such as in Toulouse, lose the only place on earth they could go to and not be in a minority. In a conference at Harvard on March 3,4 a one [Jewish majority] solution was excluded. The panel was limited to Arab intellectuals and Israeli history "revisionists". Professor Alan Dershowitz of Harvard described it in Newsmax as an "Anti-semitic and Anti-Zionist Hate Fest". The second is a "two state [temporary] solution" in which the interim solution would result in the loss of much Jewish and Christian heritage and in the long run would end up as the one [Arab majority] state solution. The third is one lawful Jewish state based on the San Remo Agreement of 1920 that established the British Mandate for Palestine. It granted the Jews exclusive collective political rights to Palestine, in trust, to vest when the Jews had attained a population majority.


The details of the San Remo agreement are also on line in a two part op ed that can be seen at:
Debunking the Palestine Lie" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7ByJb7QQ9U

It is likely that a conference at Harvard will also be held on a two state temporary solution. Will a discussion of the third option be permitted at such a conference? Harvard issued a press release stating that it did not endorse the March 3,4 conference and that it was " a free and open marketplace of ideas". The three solutions are like the three legs of a stool. With only the first two, it is likely that you will get strong arguments in favor of both, but they won't provide any balance.

Here is a critical review of the two state temporary solution: http://israelagainstterror.blogspot.com/2012/03/remember-quraysh.html Also, it would be helpful to look at what Dr. Daniel Pipes has uncovered about Yassir Arafat and the treaty of Hudibyah, a two-tribe solution that went sour. http://www.danielpipes.org/316/al-hudaybiya-and-lessons-from-the-prophet-muhammads and

If Colleges and Universities are free and open marketplaces of ideas, demand a conference where all three solutions are discussed by genuine proponents and opponents.

Wallace Edward Brand, UCLA '54 HLS '57

_____Unbundled version_______________________________________________________________


ISRAEL AND THE SO CALLED "PALESTINIANS"

I
THE EXCLUSIVE POLITICAL RIGHTS GRANTED TO THE JEWS IN 1920 AT SAN REMO


It is widely accepted, but not correct, that the West Bank belongs to the local Arabs in Palestine who in 1964, at the suggestion of the Soviet dezinformatsia, decided to call themselves "Palestinians.” as is apparent from reports of their invention by Major General Ion Mihai Pacepa, the highest ranking defector from the Soviet bloc during the cold war. [1]

These "invented people" [2] also pretend they had long had a passion for self government. As shown in the footnote, the claim is actually of fairly recent origin. [3]

The full extent of Israel’s claim of sovereignty has not recently been stated. At most, it is said by the Israeli government that no one has sovereignty over the West Bank, but that Israel has the better claim. [4]

A better view is that the Jews obtained a beneficial interest in sovereignty over all of Palestine in the 1920 agreement at San Remo of a British Mandate for Palestine, that entrusted exclusive political or national rights in Palestine to Britain. The trust and guardianship was provided for the benefit of the World Jewry -- to vest when the Jews, a population minority of only 10% at the time, later matured into a legal interest. This vesting occurred at least by the time of the abandonment of the trusteeship by Britain in 1948 when the trust res devolved to the beneficiary, and in any event by the attainment of the Jews of a majority population in 1950.

The trusteeship was to be called a "mandate” as shown in Paragraphs 1 and 2 of Article 22 of the League Covenant, but it was clearly based on the British legal concepts of trusts and guardianships.

It was in 1919 that Jan Smuts submitted a memorandum to the League, which later became Article 22. The Council of Ten drafted for the League of Nations as Part I of the Treaty of Versailles [5], an Article 22 providing for mandates for the areas in The Middle East and North Africa captured by the WWI Allies from the Ottoman Empire. This concept was later applied to other areas.

Two years earlier, in 1917, in advance of the end of WWI, the British had drafted and published a policy for the disposition of the captured Ottoman lands in Palestine. [6] Britain and France were at that time following the “secret’ Sykes-Picot Agreement in their disposition of Ottoman Lands. But in recognition of the historic association of the Jews with Palestine, the Balfour Declaration, a British Policy approved by its Cabinet, provided for exclusive political or national rights in Palestine to be granted to World Jewry.

The 1920 agreement of the WWI Allies at San Remo, on the terms of the Mandate turned what had been only a British Policy approved by the Cabinet, into International Law. Under Article 22 of the League of Nations Covenant, the rights had been provided in trust, [7].

We know this because the Balfour policy had been attacked as antidemocratic, as giving sovereignty to the Jewish people who constituted only 60,000 of the total population of 600,000 in Palestine as of 1917.

In Jerusalem, the Jews had had a plurality of the population since 1845 and a majority since 1863, but in all of Palestine, in 1917 they constituted only 10% of the population. Even US President Woodrow Wilson was advancing the argument that award of sovereignty to a minority population was inconsistent with his 14 points that provided, among other things, for majority control.

To counter this argument, which they conceded was a good one, Arnold Toynbee and James Namier in the British Foreign Office, in a memorandum of September 19, 1917 [8] said the problem of control by a minority was "imaginary" because they predicted that the grant would be placed in trust and would not vest sovereignty in the Jews until the Jews were fit to govern it on principles of a modern European state.

In my view these included attainment of a majority population, defined boundaries, unified control over all within the boundaries, etc.. Providing a National Home for Jews in Palestine with the British running the government until the Jews could attain a majority status based on favored immigration from the Jews in the Diaspora to be facilitated by the trustee would be a temporary measure and not antidemocratic. [9] The local Mandate Administration was to have the Zionist organization as their official advisors.

The statement of the purpose of the British Mandate for Palestine in its Preamble and Article 2 is entirely consistent with this view although not express. [10]

What was the National Home to be, a reconstituted state? No, not immediately. It was a place for the Jewish people to feel at home while the immigration was going on that would ultimately give the Jews a majority of the population and a reconstituted state. So that the staff of the British Mandatory Power, will know how to do that: Article 4 provides for the Zionist Organization to advise the mandate government staff. Part of Article 6 requires the staff of the Mandatory Power for The Administration of Palestine, to facilitate immigration of Jews. The Mandate does NOT provide that immigration of any other peoples is to be facilitated. Article 5 provides that none of the land is to be ceded to a foreign power.

Who were the beneficiaries of the trust? Only World Jewry, both those already in Palestine and many more scattered worldwide in the Diaspora since the time of the Roman Empire conquest of Palestine.

Howard Grief, who has provided the seminal work on the legal foundations of Israel under International Law, says one can conclude this because they are the only people mentioned to be dealt with specially. [11]The non-Jews are referred to only to ensure their civil and religious rights are to be protected when the Jews attained a majority population and were vested with Sovereignty.

Because Article 22 of the League Covenant defined the relationship of Britain and the Jews as trustee and guardian with Jews in effect being beneficiaries and ward the Mandate essentially provided for a Jewish National Home that would be supervised by the British until its ward was capable of exercising sovereignty, including helping it attain a majority of population it needed to do that. It was charged with facilitating such immigration.

All this purpose was not expressed very clearly in the Mandate, likely to avoid stirring up the Arabs in time of war that might bleed off troops to maintain stability in Palestine. But the Arabs were given to understand that this was the case after World War I ended.

After the war, the Arabs were told by Winston Churchill that the request for self government by the inhabitants of Palestine would be denied until such time as the Jews had attained a majority of the population. The Arabs later made that understanding clear in their arguments against Partition in the UNSCOP hearings in 1947. [12]

The Arabs argued in 1947 "It was clear from the beginning that if Palestine were to be turned into a Jewish national home, this would involve the indefinite denial of self-government until such time as the Jews were strong enough to take over the government; that pending such time, Palestine would have to be subjected to a foreign administration [of England] which had no basis in the consent of the population and of which the policy would be determined, not by consideration of the welfare of the population, but by the desire to assist in the settlement of an alien group; and that to make such a settlement possible the country would have to be cut off from the surrounding Arab lands by artificial frontiers, would be given a separate system of law, administration, finance, tariffs, and education and would thus inevitably lose some if not all of the Arab character."

But that is what the grantors knew had been intended by the Balfour Policy and the Arabs knew it when they argued against Partition in 1947. [13] They had learned after WWI from Winston Churchill this was the intention of the British Policy in 1917 and of the San Remo grant in 1920.

"As the first Arab delegation to England stated in the course of its correspondence with Mr. Churchill, then Secretary of State for the Colonies, 'we are to understand ...that self-government will be granted as soon as the Jewish people in Palestine are sufficiently able through numbers and powers to benefit to the full by it, and not before.' "[14] And in at the Paris Peace Conference, David Lloyd-George referred to the requirement that the Jews in Palestine attain a population majority before they were to have sovereignty.

Prior to the publishing of the British Mandate the French attached a "proce’s verbal" in French shown only in the French Version. [15] This was the agreement of the French to the 1920 grant only on their stated understanding that the Mandate would not require any non-Jews in Palestine to surrender any existing rights. The League had no objection to the process verbal.

The Mandate expressly preserved existing civil and religious rights of the non-Jews but could not preserve their political rights because they had never had any. The preservation of their civil rights only protected their individual political rights, ie. their right to vote. It did not protect their collective political rights or national rights, the right of sovereignty and political self-determination.

The Arabs in Palestine had always been ruled from afar. So the Mandate carried out the “process verbal”

Why, in 1917, did Britain establish a policy that gave a preference to the Jews? There were several reasons.

1. Britain's Prime Minister at the time of the Balfour Declaration was David Lloyd-George. Later, in 1923, he was the author of an article "The Jews and Palestine" [16] In it he revealed his view that the Arabs under Ottoman Rule had turned Palestine, the Biblical land of milk and honey into a malarial wasteland. He believed it could be remedied under a reconstituted Jewish State.

2. There was considerable sympathy among many Christian Evangelicals in England who thought the Jews should be restored to Palestine to flee from the pogroms of Russia and Poland. This sympathy did not extend to receiving them in England. British workmen had complained that Jews were flooding in to England and taking their jobs and working for less. This led to the Aliens Act of 1909 restricting Jewish immigration into England.

But the British recognized that the oppression of the Jews in Russia and Poland was very bad and they needed some place to go. [17]

3. Chaim Weismann, an ardent Zionist and also a good chemist, had helped Britain in the war by developing an inexpensive method of manufacturing acetone used in cordite for munitions and had given it to the British. It was a great help to the British war effort. [18]

4. And England, according to Winston Churchill, also desired to win over the Jews in Russia, many of them in the Bolshevik government, so that they might influence the new Marxist government to remain in battle with the Germans and Ottomans in WWI on the side of the Allies. He thought that the Balfour Declaration could sway them in British favor. [19]

There came a time, some 28 years later, after WWII that the British decided their effort to be trustee was simply costing it too much. They tried to obtain some funding from the United States, but the United States declined to provide any. Britain finally decided to abandon its trusteeship and guardianship in 1948.

On the abandonment of its trusteeship by Britain in 1948, political rights that were the "trust res" (the thing put in trust) devolved to the Jews as beneficiaries or wards of the trust and vested in them the political rights permitting them to exercise sovereignty. These rights had survived the demise of the League of Nations by virtue of Article 80 of the UN Charter. [20] By 1948 the Jewish population had grown to one third the total population of what had been granted in the 1922 Mandate, in which TrasJordan had been split off and granted to Abdullah and the Hashemite tribe.

It should be expressly noted that the Jews did not receive these rights from the 1948 Partition Resolution. The General Assembly "recommended" a Partition of the land west of the Jordan River. It was in the form of a recommendation as the UN General Assembly had no authority to grant political rights or in fact any rights. It only had the authority to recommend and its recommendations were without effect unless both involved parties agreed to accept the recommendation.
By that time the Jewish population had increased significantly to about one third the total population in Palestine West of the Jordan. In 1947 the UN General Assembly had recommended that the Jews give up some of its rights in an attempt to avoid violence that had been threatened by the Arabs if the Jews were to reconstitute their state in Palestine. The Jews agreed to give up some of the land over which they were to have political rights, but the Arabs rejected the recommendation and commenced a war.

It was by the Arabs starting a war that led to a Jewish population majority in 1950. Some 600,000 to 700,000 Arabs fled the country before even seeing an Israeli soldier. The wealthy left first, at the first foreshadowing of war. According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, Mahmoud Abbas wrote this in the official organ of the PLO, “Filanstin”, most of the rest left at the request of the Arab Higher Committee that wanted to get them out of the way of the Arab armies in the surrounding states. [21]

Many left because of a false report that the Irgun had committed a massacre of Arabs at Deir Yassin, that the Haganah, their political enemies did not dispute. A BBC program based on an interview of an Arab radio commentator at the time revealed he had been pushed into designating a hard fought battle as a massacre so as to provide an excuse for the invasion of surrounding armies. [22] A very few Arabs, mainly those living in Lydda and Ramle, were required to leave to protect the rear of the Israeli battle line.

Many Arabs local to Palestine left; some remained.

But those that left could not go back because the Arab Armies did not prevail

In 1948 Israel declared Independence and vindicated its claim by force of arms against the assault of other Arab states surrounding it. It established an orderly unified stable control of its territory except for Judea, Samaria, and East Jerusalem which had been invaded and occupied by the Arab Legion in the East. This British supplied and led organization became the Army of Jordan. [23] In the South, the Egyptian Army was able to maintain its occupation of the Gaza Strip.

In 1920 the Ottoman Empire in Article 95 of the Treaty of Sevres,had ceded its sovereignty in Palestine, which had been undisputed for 400 years, to a Mandatory Power in trust for a National Homeland for the Jews. [24] The Sevres Treaty was never ratified by the Turks who were concerned over Turkey’s boundaries in Europe and in adjacent areas in Asia, not in the Middle East and North. But these issues were finally settled in 1923 in the Treaty of Lausanne that left the agreements in the Middle East unchanged. By then they were fait accompli.

The trustee selected by the League of Nations at San Remo was Great Britain; the US had been another possibiility. Sovereignty, i.e. political rights, over the other 99% of the lands captured from the Ottomans in the Middle East was allocated to Arab and Muslim majorities in some 20 areas such as Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq but as in the case of Palestine, in mandates of guardianship as the inhabitants had had no prior experience in self rule.

While it was expected in 1920 that the Jewish Homeland would eventually become a state when immigration gave the Jews a majority of the population, at the time the Jews were incapable of exercising sovereignty. Lord Balfour had resigned as Foreign Secretary following the Paris Conference in 1919, but continued in the Cabinet as lord president of the council.



In a memorandum addressed to new Foreign Secretary Lord Curzon, he stated that the Balfour Declaration contradicted the letters of the covenant (referring to the League Covenant) the Anglo-French Declaration, and the instructions to the King-Crane Commission.

All of the other engagements contained pledges that the Arab or Muslim populations could establish national governments of their own choosing according to the principle of self-determination. Balfour explained: “… in Palestine we do not propose to even go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present (majority) inhabitants of the country though the American [King-Crane] Commission is going through the form of asking what they are."

Balfour stated explicitly to Curzon:
"The Four Great Powers [Britain, France, Italy and the United States] are committed to Zionism. And Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long traditions, in present needs, and future hopes, of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land. In my opinion that is right." * * * * *

Balfour continued:
"I do not think that Zionism will hurt the Arabs, but they will never say they want it. Whatever be the future of Palestine it is not now an ‘independent nation’, nor is it yet on the way to become one. Whatever deference should be paid to the views of those living there, the Powers in their selection of a mandatory do not propose, as I understand the matter, to consult them.". . ."If Zionism is to influence the Jewish problem throughout the world, Palestine must be made available for the largest number of Jewish immigrants"

While the rights granted under the Trust restricted the Jews, when they did exercise sovereignty, from doing anything that would impair the civil or religious rights of the Arabs it was silent as to the political rights for the Arabs. The Mandate Law also became the domestic law of the UK and the US in 1924 as Treaty Law when, under a new American Administration, the Mandate became the subject of the Anglo American Convention of 1924.[24]

Perfidious Albion did not maintain the 1920 form of its trust for very long. Circumstances changed, British interests changed, and the British Government also changed. Italy's opposition had delayed the issuance of the mandate as proposed in the initial draft submitted to the WWI Allies at San Remo. In the meantime, England had installed Feisal as the King of Syria.[25] After the Battle of Maysalun, in which the French Armed Forces defeated the Syrian Army the French deposed Feisal.[25] Abdullah, Feisal's brother, was furious. He marched his troops from their home in the Hejaz (in the Arabian Peninsula) to Eastern Palestine and made ready to attack the French in Syria.

Churchill did not want war between the Arabs and the French. In the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement, Syria was in the French sphere of influence. Churchill gave Feisal the Kingdom of Iraq as a consolation prize[26] and gave Abdullah and his Hashemite tribe from the Arabian Peninsula Eastern Palestine in violation of the British Mandate.[27] The Mandate at San Remo had prohibited the Mandatory from ceding any land to a foreign nation. In the 1922 change, with a new Article 25, it formally approved delaying organized settlement by the Jews East of the Jordan River and informally gave TransJordan to Abdullah and his Hashemite Tribe from the Hejaz.

Article 25 preserved the prohibition of the Mandatory Power from discriminating among races or religions.[28] Under that Article the land East of the Jordan River became TransJordan in which settlement of the Jews was postponed. Later, a permanent mandate of Transjordan was executed changing the beneficiary to Abdullah and his Hashemite Tribe. Despite the specific terms of the mandate, England prohibited Jews, but not other ethnic groups, from settling there.

The British urging the League to adopt Article 25 was a breach of its fiduciary relationship as trustee with World Jewry its beneficiary and as guardian, with its World Jewry its ward.[29] as were the policies in their White Papers of 1922, 1930 and the vicious White Paper of 1939 under the Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, of Munich fame. It was the last paper that had blocked many Jews from fleeing from the Nazi Holocaust. A vicious enforcement of the blockade ensued and directly disobeyed the Mandate's requirement to facilitate Jewish immigration. The British had reneged on their promises to the Jews.

During WWI the Hussein/McMahon correspondence with the Arabs in the Arabian Peninsula led to a British offer of self-government free from Turkish rule to all Arabs in the Caliphate if they helped the British in the war.[30]

The Arabs local to Palestine, unlike the Arabs from the Arabian Peninsula that had been led by Lawrence, declined the British offer of political self determination if they were to help the Allies, and preferred to fight for the Ottoman Turks who ruled from Constantinople. According to Winston Churchill, , "The Palestinian Arabs, of course, were for the most part fighting against us, ,,," [31]
"However the Jews assembled several battalions of Jewish soldiers that fought alongside the British in Palestine in WWI.[32] They were known as "Palestinians".

At that point the Jews had, de facto, lost 78% of their Mandated beneficial right to sovereignty in Palestine, the land TransJordan or East of the Jordan River. Only 22% of the Mandate was left. After WWII, Article 80 of the UN Charter[33] expressly preserved the rights that had been granted by the League of Nations prior to its demise, i.e. the Jewish national rights, so the UN could not grant any of it to the Arabs. As I have noted, the Mandate itself prohibited the trustee from ceding any land in Palestine to a foreign Power.

Known as “the Palestine clause,” Article 80 was drafted by Jewish legal representatives including the liberal Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, Peter Bergson (Hillel Kook) from the right-wing Irgun, and prominent Revisionist Ben-Zion Netanyahu (father of Bibi). It preserved the right of the Jewish people to “close settlement” throughout their remaining portion of Palestine west of the Jordan River.

In 1947 nevertheless, the UN did not “grant” but its General Assembly “recommended” (not a grant-- that would be inconsistent with the previous grant) a partition that offered a part of the area West of the Jordan (a part of the 22% remaining) to the Jews, in effect, releasing that part of the trust res (the political rights) to the Jews, and the remainder to the local Arabs, although the latter was unauthorized by the Mandate. In the UNSCOP hearings, the Arabs had threatened violence if the Jews were to have a state in any part of the Middle East. It is evident that the UN, by submitting to the Arabs extortion -- threats of violence -- and recommending still further partition of the remainder, hoped to avoid the violence.

In the San Remo Resolution, the Allies agreed
"To accept the terms of the Mandates Article as given below with reference to Palestine, on the understanding that there was inserted a process-verbal an undertaking by the Mandatory Power that this would not involve the surrender of the rights hitherto enjoyed by the non-Jewish communities in Palestine;"[34]

What were those rights? The Mandate preserved the civil and religious rights of the local Arabs but did not create any political rights for them. The civil rights included individual political or electoral rights but not the collective political right of self-determination. It did not and could not "preserve" any collective political rights or "national rights" in Palestine for local Arabs in Palestine as they had never in history had any. It follows, therefore, as to political rights, the local Arabs were no worse off than they were under the Ottoman rule from 1520 to 1920, the British suzerainty from 1920 to 1948, or the Jordanian rule from 1948 to 1967.

But the Arabs didn't want the Jews to have any land with political rights for religious reasons, because it violated Islam to have any inroads on the Dar-al-Islam.[35] They engaged in jihad against the Jews and the Arab Higher Committee brought in the Armies of the surrounding Arab and Muslims States.

What was the effect of the abandonment of the trust by the trustee in 1948? Howard Grief provides a more legally precise reason,[36] but a simple way to look at it was that when the trustee quit his obligation, the only equitable thing to do was to give the rights to the beneficiary of the trust or the ward of the guardian.

Going back to 1922, by 1922 the British Government's interests had changed and the government had changed. In addition to its problems with the deposing of King Feisal, it was defending itself from charges that it had conferred political rights to the same land to the French, the Arabs and the Jews in three different agreements, the Sykes-Picot agreement, the McMahon-Hussein correspondence, and the Lord Balfour Declaration. So in 1922, Churchill, in a White Paper, tried wiggle out of England's obligation to the Jews by hinting broadly that a "national home" was not necessarily a state. However in private, many British officials agreed with the interpretation of the Zionists that a state would be established when a Jewish majority were to be achieved.[37]

In the British cabinet discussion during final consideration of the language of the Balfour Declaration, in responding to the opposition of Lord Curzon, who viewed the language as giving rise to the presumption that Great Britain favored a Jewish State, Lord Balfour stated: "As to the meaning of the words 'national home', to which the Zionists attach so much importance, he understood it to mean some form of British, American, or other protectorate, under which full facilities would be given to the Jews to work out their own salvation and to build up, by means of education, agriculture, and industry, a real center of national culture and focus of national life. It did not necessarily involve the early establishment of an independent Jewish State, which was a matter for gradual development in accordance with the ordinary laws of political evolution." The key word here was 'early'; otherwise, the statement makes it quite clear that Balfour envisaged the eventual emergence of an independent Jewish state. Doubtless he had in mind a period somewhat longer than a mere thirty years; but the same could also be said of Chaim Weizmann."[38]

According to Lloyd George, one of Churchill's contemporaries, for example, the meaning was quite clear:
"There has been a good deal of discussion as to the meaning of the words "Jewish National Home" and whether it involved the setting up of a Jewish National State in Palestine. I have already quoted the words actually used by Mr. Balfour when he submitted the declaration to the Cabinet for its approval. They were not challenged at the time by any member present, and there could be no doubt as to what the Cabinet then had in their minds. It was not their idea that a Jewish State should be set up immediately by the Peace Treaty without reference to the wishes of the majority of the inhabitants.

On the other hand, it was contemplated that when the time arrived for according representative institutions to Palestine, if the Jews had meanwhile responded to the opportunity afforded them by the idea of a National Home and had become a definite majority of the inhabitants, then Palestine would thus become a Jewish Commonwealth. The notion that Jewish immigration would have to be artificially restricted in order to ensure that the Jews should be a permanent minority never entered into the heads of anyone engaged in framing the policy. That would have been regarded as unjust and as a fraud on the people to whom we were appealing."[39]

And in his memoirs of the Paris Peace Conference Lloyd George remarked:




If there is any further doubt in the matter, Balfour himself told a Jewish gathering on February 7,1918: "My personal hope is that the Jews will make good in Palestine and eventually found a Jewish state. It is up to them now; we have given them their great opportunity." [40]

Following an opinion of the renowned international lawyer Julius Stone that focused on the settlement question,[41] President Reagan and succeeding Presidents through George W. Bush maintained a US view that the Jewish Settlements in the West Bank were legal but as a policy matter should be discouraged because of their tendency to discourage the Peace Process. President Obama while continuing the position on policy has not specifically stated his view on legality of the settlements but has referred to them as “illegitimate”..

As to Jerusalem, East Jerusalem fell in 1948 [42] to an attack of the Arab Legion supplied and trained by the British and led by Sir John Bagot Glubb frequently referred to as "Glubb pasha". The Arab Legion later became the Jordanian Army.

The Jordanians demolished 58 synagogues and their contents, uprooted the tombstones of Jewish cemeteries, and used them for paving or building latrines, and built a latrine against the Western Wall of the Temple Mount, the single most holy site for Jews.[43] They expelled all the Jewish inhabitants of East Jerusalem and it became, as Adolph Hitler liked to say, judenrein or cleansed of Jews. In 1967 in the Six Day War, Israel drove the Jordanians east to the Jordan River and became in control of East Jerusalem.[44] They did not use their conquest to deprive the Moslems access to their holy sites in East Jerusalem as the Jordanians had done to the Jews and Christians.

Has the UN's Partition Plan any remaining significance for either the Arabs or the Jews?

No. According to acclaimed International Lawyer Julius Stone, ""The State of Israel is … not legally derived from the partition plan, but [in addition to the grants referred to above] rests (as do most other states in the world) on A. assertion of independence by its people and government, B. on the vindication of that independence by arms against assault by other states, and C. on the establishment of orderly government within territory under its stable control." The Partition plan had assigned the Jerusalem Metropolitan Area to the UN's International Control, at least temporarily for a period of 10 years. However in the war of 1948, the UN did nothing to vindicate that assignment by force of arms against the assault of the surrounding Arab states. Therefore nothing remains of that part of the Partition Plan either. [45]

In fact you read in the news and hear on TV a lot about Jewish settlements outside of Jerusalem and in East Jerusalem, but have you ever seen or heard a reference to new Arab settlements there? Since 1950 more than twice as many new settlements have been built by Arabs in the West Bank as have been built by Jews,[46] totally ignored by the press. They fill them with Lebanese, Iraqis, Jordanians and Egyptians, and, mirabile dictu, they are Palestinians. An Israeli Professor in Haifa named Steven Plaut suggests, tongue in cheek, that the Arabs must have changed the name of the area from Judea and Samaria to the "West Bank" so they wouldn't look silly in claiming that the Jews were illegally settling in eponymous Judea.

In June,1967, in the Six Day War , Israel recaptured Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem.[47] In 1994 Israel agreed that in return for a quitclaim of Jordan, to CisJordan, or the land of Palestine west of the Jordan River, it would release its claim to TransJordan, the land East of the Jordan to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. [48]

My understanding from many authors, is that the Arab claims for the Arab population in Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem are overstated. Annexing the so called West Bank would not currently jeopardize a Jewish democracy in Israel. Nor would it in the long run as correct population growth shows Jewish population increase in the West Bank greater than that of the Arabs.[49]

I would only offer citizenship to those, Muslim, Jewish or Christian, who would take a loyalty oath to Israel. Others could remain with the status of permanent residents.

What about Gaza? It it were to keep shooting missiles at Israel, that would be a casus belli and Israel should take it over. Also, when it ceded its sovereignty over Gaza to the Arabs living there, the cession was under a tacit agreement that the Arabs would quit their attacks on Israel. They haven't. [50] A material breach of that obligation also justifies a takeover. Although the people in Gaza were ceded Israel’s political or national rights to the Gaza Strip, they never met the requirements for sovereignty

The first of these is: are the Arabs local to Palestine a “people”? No, as noted above they are an invented people. Another requirement of a separate nation-state is unified control. When armed truces were broken by the Gazans, Hamas, that claims control, always blames the problem on other terrorist organizations. Since Israel’s takeover would not be taking land of another sovereign, the land would not be occupied, but disputed with Israel having the far better claim.[51] I would suggest that until further Jewish population increase over that of the non-Jewish population justifies annexation of Gaza, that the Gazans be authorized Home Rule, but no vote in Israel’s policies.

Israel should retain the right to eliminate candidates or parties that are terrorists. That should meet the requirements of the French "procès verbal" as the Arabs in Gaza never had the right to vote on the policies of the Ottoman Empire.

In sum, it appears that there are five separate views that justify Israeli sovereignty over CisJordan. These are

1. The San Remo Resolution of 1920 which is justification under International Law,

2. The Anglo-American Convention of 1924 makes the Balfour Policy Treaty law and therefore the Domestic Law of the US and the UK,

3. Facts occurring after 1948, including Jordan’s aggressive war in invading a land in which the Jews had been awarded political rights, and the defensive war by the Jews retaking it resulted in acclaimed International Lawyers holding that the West Bank was disputed, not occupied, and the Jews had the better claim to it.

In the Partition of 1947, the UN General Assembly recommended an award of part to the Arabs, that was not a grant because it had already been granted to the Jews. The Jews assented, but the Arabs declined. The Jews still had their rights under San Remo. The Arabs had no rights, certainly not the inalienable rights continuously claimed by Arafat and Abbas or by the General Assembly that has no authority to avoid Article 80 of the UN Charter, or even to go beyond a recommendation for Partition that has no effect if both parties do not agree.

4. In 1948 Israel declared independence, established unified control over its territory and defended it by blood and treasure. That is historically the way sovereignty arises.

5. Under canon law the Jews had exclusive rights granted by G-d as provided in the Old Testament.

These San Remo rights make possible a one state solution to the current Arab Israeli conflict in Palestine. Those in the Diaspora are also intended as the beneficiaries of the San Remo grant. However in writing this from the relative safety of suburban Washington, DC, it is not our intention to urge this course on the heroic Israelis who currently face an added existential threat from Iran. Note we say relative safety.

With Iran’s hurrying development of nuclear bombs and intercontinental ballistic missiles, no one is safe. This is only to confirm the necessity and legality of a "one Jewish state solution" that others, before us, have already suggested. It is the Israelis who must choose.

Mr. Salomon Benzimra contributed to this article. He is the author of "The Jewish People's Rights to the Land of Israel", available in "Amazon-Kindle edition".



End Notes

1. Brand, Soviet Russia, The Creators of the PLO and the Palestinian People, http://www.think-israel.org/brand.russiatheenemy.html

2. Newt Gingrich, Campaign speech, 2012 Republican Primary

3. Brand, Was there a Palestine Arab National Movement at the End of the Ottoman Period? http://www.think-israel.org/brand.palnationalism.html

[4] Danny Ayalon, Israel's current Deputy Foreign Minister, The Truth About the West Bank /News/News.aspx/145836

[5] See the original documents in the Avalon Project at Yale University. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/versailles_menu.asp





[7] See the first two paragraphs of Article 22

[8] Mueller, Editor, Churchill as a Peacemaker, Feith, p. 224 n. 36 citing Sir Martin Gilbert, Exile and Return, p. 111-12

[9] Charles Hill, Trial of a Thousand Years, World Order and Islamism

[10] San Remo Convention Text of the Mandate


[11] Howard Grief, The Legal Foundation and Borders of Israel under International Law, p. 36

[12] The Future of Palestine" by Musa Alami with a foreword by Mr. Alami. Hermon Press, Beirut, London (1970)

[13] Id

[14] Id

[15] Salomon Benzsimra, Jewish People’s Rights to the Land of Israel, n. 68 See below

[16] David Lloyd George, The Jews and Palestine, http://einshalom.com/archives/210

[17] Ronald Sanders, The High Walls of Jerusalem, A history of the Balfour Declaration and the Birth of the British Mandate for Palestine. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York (1983) p. 90-94

[18] High Walls at 189

[19] Sir Martin Gilbert, Churchill and the Jews,Gilbert reveals the beliefs that moved the British government to issue the Declaration: “The War Cabinet hoped that, inspired by the promise of a national home in Palestine, Russian Jews would encourage Russia—then in the throes of revolution—to stay in the war,. . . http://www.inconvenienthistory.com/archive/2011/volume_3/number_1/churchill_international_jews_and_the_holocaust.php


[21] Abu Mazen Charges that the Arab States Are the Cause of the Palestinian Refugee Problem (Wall Street Journal; June 5, 2003)










[28] Article 15. It is preserved by Article 25






[34] Text of San Remo Resolution, section (a) I am advised it appears only in two paragraphs of the Agreement, written in French http://www.cfr.org/israel/san-remo-resolution/p15248


[36] Grief refers to the doctrine of "acquired rights" codified in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, Article 70 Article 70 1 b) and the legal doctrine of "estoppel" See: Grief at pp.175,176 (The Legal Foundation and Borders of Israel under International Law)


[38] High Walls of Jerusalem, at 611

[39] David Lloyd-George, Memoirs 736-7.


[41] “Israel and Palestine: An Assault on the Law of Nations” which dealt with the legal aspects of the Arab-Israeli conflict. In it, Stone set forth the central principles of international law upon which Israel’s right to settle the West Bank is based and discussed the inapplicability of Article 49(6) of the Fourth Geneva Convention to the case of Israeli settlement.

Stone drew upon the writings of Professor Stephen Schwebel, former judge on the Hague’s International Court of Justice (1981-2000), who distinguished between territory acquired in an "aggressive conquest" (such as Japanese conquests during the 1930s and Nazi conquests during World War II) and territory taken in a war of self-defense (for example, Israel’s capture of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in 1967 war). He also distinguished between the taking of territory that is legally held by another nation (such as the Japanese occupation of Chinese territory and the Nazi Germany occupation of France, Holland, Belgium and other European lands) as opposed to the taking of territory illegally held. The latter applies to the West Bank and Gaza, which were not considered the legal territories of any High Contracting Party when Israel won control of them; their occupation after 1948 by Jordan and Egypt was illegal and neither country ever had lawful or recognized sovereignty. The last legal sovereignty over the territories was that of the League of Nations Palestine Mandate which encouraged Jewish settlement of the land. See also a discussion of Stone's work, by Andrew Dahdal: “A Reflection On The Views Of Julius Stone And The Applicability Of International Law To The Middle East Israel and Palestine: An Assault on the Law of Nations” which dealt with the legal aspects of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Finally, see a video with Danny Ayalon, Deputy Foreign Minister of Israel, adopting and illustrating the position of Stephen Schwebel and Julius Stone.





[46] Draft Report of Arab Settlement Activity in the West Bank http://www.eretzyisroel.org/~jkatz/settlementreport.html

[47] Best account is still Michael B. Oren, Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East (2003) See also, his Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present



[50] 660 rockets and 404 mortar shells fired into Israel since the end of Operation Cast Lead until the end of February, 2012.
March 1, 2012 Palestinians fired three rockets toward Ashkelon. The projectiles landed in the Ashkelon Coast Regional Council, causing no injuries or damage.
March 2, Palestinians fired a Qassam rocket into the Eshkol Regional Council, causing no injuries or damage., March 3
After nightfall, Palestinians fired a Qassam rocket into the Eshkol Regional Council, causing no injuries or damage, March 4. Palestinians in the Gaza Strip fired two Qassam rockets at Israel. One exploded in the Sdot Negev Regional Council


The political rights of the Jews under San Remo make available three possible solutions to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

II

THREE POSSIBLE TERRITORIAL/POLITICAL SOLUTIONS TO THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT

A One (Arab Majority) State Solution

This scenario would be impractical and patently undesirable from Israel's point of view, but I have included it as one of the three theoretical possibilities.

A one (Arab) state solution West of the Jordan could likely be effected by Israel's prompt annexation of Judea, Samaria and Gaza with these results:

1. The state would no longer have a Jewish population majority and its democracy would no longer have Western values. The Jews would find they were unwelcome guests in their own National Home in which they had fairly achieved a population majority and so had earned sovereignty.

2. The state with an Arab Muslim majority would adopt sharia law.

3. In the short run, there would be killings and persecution of Christians and Jews, payment of a much higher discriminatory tax by them and dhimmitude. under the pact of Umar.

4. In the long term, Christians and Jews would migrate from Palestine to the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia as the Jews did from Arab and Muslim states in the Middle East after the War of Independence in Palestine and the Christians are currently from migrating from Bethlehem, the area currently under PA control in Palestine and likely the Copts and Christians from Egypt after Mubarak..

A Two State Solution

A two state solution could occur if Israel agreed to that an armistice line between it and adjacent Arab states were to be changed to a boundary line. This return to the so called Green Line, would actually (at least temporarily) effect a new boundary because the 1948 Armistice document at the request of Israel's opponents expressly stated that the Armistice line was NOT a boundary line.

1. According to Abbas Zaki, a member of the Fatah Central Committee, and quasi Ambassador to Lebanon, "With the two-state solution, in [his, Zaki's] opinion, [and he said also that of Mahmoud Abbas] Israel will collapse, because if they get out of Jerusalem, what will become of all the talk about the Promised Land and the Chosen People? What will become of all the sacrifices they made - just to be told to leave? They consider Jerusalem to have a spiritual status. The Jews consider Judea and Samaria to be their historic dream. If the Jews leave those places, the Zionist idea will begin to collapse. It will regress of its own accord. Then we will move forward.

He suggested, however, also in Arabic, that this view not be made known to the West . The end result will be one state with the loss of a Jewish majority and the substitution of sharia for Western values.

Since 1920, the motives in the Middle East have been split. Kemal Attaturk started the Turks on the path of the West and its renaissance and enlightenment to cure falling behind the West. (Very recently Erdogan is changing that.) In Egypt, Hasan al Banna, organized the Muslim Brotherhood and pushed the view that only the return to Islam as practiced by Mohammed would restore the caliphate and world leadership. With the arrival of OPEC and petrodollars in the 60s, religious jihad commenced being seen in the West in the 70s. In Palestine, it was imported much earlier by Haj Amin al Hussein, from right next door in Egypt. The Soviet dezinformatsia in 1964, [see The Soviet Roots of Terrorism ] in their drafting the Charter of the PLO in Moscow, successfully disguised this motive as secular nationalism. It is well known that the first priority of Islam is to organize attacks on infidels who have gained control of any land formerly controlled by Muslims, i.e. the dar al Islam. When Arafat was criticized for negotiating with the Jews, he winked and referred to the Treaty of Huddibyiah. Instead of "Remember the Alamo, Jews should “Remember the Quraysh”. Under the two state solution some land of the dar al Islam will still be under infidel control. See: Daniel Pipes, "Al-Hudaybiya and Lessons from the Prophet Muhammad's Diplomacy"
2.. In the interim, much Christian and Jewish Heritage would be permanently lost. Arabs had dominion over Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem during the 19 year period between 1948 and 1967, as a result of the invasion of the British supplied and led Arab Legion that became the Army of Jordan. During that period 58,000 tombstones were destroyed in the Jewish Cemetery on the Mount of Olives, a cemetery that had been there for 4,000 years. One of the destroyed tombstones was estimated to be 1000 years old. The Israeli soldiers who liberated East Jerusalem in 1967 found that a latrine had been built against the Western Wall, the holiest site in the world for Judaism. Visits by Christians to their holy sites such as those in Bethlehem would cease.

3. In the interim there would also be much killing of Christians as in the Arabs dominated areas as there is currently in Egypt after the fall of Mubarak. In Bethlehem From the time Oslo placed the Palestinian Authority in control, there has been persecution and killings of Arab Christians and a mass emigration.

4. In the long run the result would be the same as in the one state solution. The Jews would be returned to the Diaspora in the Biblical land of the Jews. They would be unwelcome guests in their National Home and reconstituted state. Perhaps instead of Remember the Alamo, Jews should "Remember the Quraysh".

A One Lawful State Solution

A one lawful state solution would be grounded on International Law based on the San Remo Resolution of 1920. A later amendment of that resolution in 1922 is invalid because it came about as a result of the British needing to solve their political problems with the French as a result of the secret Sykes-Picot agreement. That agreement divided the former Ottoman Empire lands captured by the WWI Allies into spheres of influence. Syria was allocated to the French. Britain, in de facto control following the end of the war, placed one of King Hussein's son, Feisal on the throne of Syria. The French deposed him after the battle of Maysalun. Abdullah, Feisal's brother marched his army up to East Palestine and readied for battle with the French. Winston Churchill gave the throne of Iraq to Feisal and East Palestine, east of the Jordan River, called "TransJordan" to Abdullah and his Hashemite tribe.

In accepting the responsibilities of trustee of the exclusive political rights granted by the WWI Allies at San Remo in 1920, the British accepted a fiduciary responsibility in its trusteeship. Its grant of what some have estimated to be more than some three quarters of the trust res to Abdullah and his Hashemite Tribe of Arabs to solve its political problems with France was therefore in breach of its fiduciary responsibility to the trust beneficiary, the Jews. However a lawful representative of the Jews, the government of Israel in return for a quitclaim on Jordan's rights West of the River Jordan, gave the country now called Jordan, a quitclaim to all the land East of the Jordan River. So the Jews now only held political rights to CisJordan, or the land of Palestine West of the Jordan River.

Currently, under the Oslo agreement, the Palestinian Authority holds Judea and Samaria and the terrorist organization [PLO]; Hamas holds Gaza.

A one lawful state solution could be achieved in this way and would have this result:

1. Israel would immediately annex only Judea and Samaria. This would not result in the loss of a Jewish population majority. In fact, Israel would still have a comfortable majority. That is because it has been determined that the PA has been overstating the Arab population if Judea and Samaria, likely so as to increase their welfare claims from the UNRWA. Would this change in time because of a greater Arab birth rate as compared with that of the Jews? No. That assumption that the Arab birth rate is greater is not based on fact. The much lower infant mortality rate in the Arab population, as a result of Jewish medicine being available to them, has resulted in a drop in the Arab birth rate. However many orthodox Jewish families have an extremely large number of children so as to make up for all the loss of Jewish life, one third of all Jews, lost in the Holocaust. Families with eight or ten children are not unusual.

2. The next step would be to retake Gaza. The continued firing of rockets, missiles and mortar shells at Israel is a casus belli as well as a war crime. It is a war crime because the rockets cannot be aimed accurately so that their firing indiscriminately targets both Israeli military and civilians. That would justify Israel retaking the Gaza Strip that it had pulled out of in 2005. A second justification arises from the conditions of the tacit agreement between Israel and the Arabs local to Gaza. That was that if the Jews pulled out of their area, also withdrew all of Israel's citizens, the Arabs would quit attacking Israel with rockets, missiles and mortar shells. There was failure of consideration because not only did the rockets not stop, they increased.

3. In the interim, Israel could then provide the Gazans with a form of Home Rule. They would have a local government with complete internal control over Gaza but with Israeli remaining in control of external affairs. The one exception would be Israel's control over elections in Gaza. Gaza would be forbidden to permit elections in which terrorist candidates or parties could be elected. Would this satisfy the requirements of the mandate to preserve the civil rights of the non-Jews. Yes, it would. The mandate preserved rights of the non-Jews. It did not create any for them. In fact the French process-verbal stated that their understanding of the effect of the Mandate was that the non-Jews would not surrender any of their rights. The other Allies agreed to that meaning. The Arabs in Gaza had theretofore been colonized and occupied and ruled for 400 years by the Turks from Istanbul. The Arabs in Gaza had never been permitted to vote on Turkish Caliphate policy. They would not be surrendering anything by the establishing of Home Rule. In the long run, it could be a very long time, when Jewish population resulted in a comfortable Jewish majority in all of CisJordan, Israel could then annex it and award citizenship to those, Arab Muslims and Christians, and Jews willing to swear fealty to the Jewish nation-state of Israel. The rest could remain as permanent residents or compensated to leave. The fine details are left to other minds better than mine.

Please note this is suggested as an available solution for Israeli consideration. I think the Israeli are the ones who take the risks of any solution and therefore are the ones who should decide. But this solution is not only suggested, it is recommended.


III

REMEMBER THE QURAYSH! --- A CRITICISM OF THE TWO STATE INTERIM SOLUTION



The title of this piece should be a slogan for those who are considering the two-state solution as a solution to the Arab Israeli conflict.

You needn't "Remember the Alamo" any longer. There are lots of Texans who will do that for you. Remember the Quraysh - and the Atalena as well.

What happened to Alan Dershowitz's two-state solution to the Arab Israeli conflict on the way to the forum? See "The Case against the Left and Right One State Solution" http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-dershowitz/the-case-against-the-left_b_1370294.html

Did a dog eat up his homework? He hasn't said why he has overlooked so much.

What did he overlook?

1. He over looked 38,000 broken or defaced tombstones at the 3000 year old Cemetery at the Mount of Olives, destroyed when the Jordanians had control [from 1948 to 1967] of the same land he wants to give to those Arabs local to Palestine -- Arabs that the Soviet dezinformatsia want us to call "The Palestinian Arab People".

Be sure to keep the word "Arab' in that designation otherwise someone might think you were referring to Trumpeldor and the Jews who formed the Palestinian brigade to help the WWI Allies, instead of those Arabs in Palestine.

Those "Palestinian Arab People" turned down an offer by the British to have their own state. Why? Because they could help out those occupying and colonialist rulers from Turkey, the Ottomans by fighting on their side against the British.

2. He forgot about how people in Israel and around the world missed visiting Rachel's Tomb, the Tomb of the Patriarchs, the Christian sites in and around Bethlehem, and even the Western Wall of the Temple Mount. He forgot that when the Jews weren't looking at the Western Wall, the Jordanians built a latrine against it, removed by its liberators in June, 1967.

I visited Rachel's Tomb last may when the UN designated it as a mosque. I bought some genuine red threads from the tomb to give to my daughters and granddaughters and daughter's in law and the mother of one of my daughters in law who lives in Japan. (She loved it.)

When I was at the Tomb, a nice man asked me to put on Tefillin, and when I told him I didn't remember how, he said he would help.

That was also the day that a gang of so called Palestinians threw rocks at the guardians of their "mosque", the Jewish border patrol. Fortunately I had left by then. I had talked to those guards and they posed for a picture with us. They are nice guys. I don't know why "The Palestinian Arab People" threw rocks at them.

3. Alan forgot about the Treaty of Huddibyah and the Jewish tribe of Qurayza, whose 500 men, after they had surrendered to Mohammed's Quraysh tribe, had their arms tied behind them and their heads cut off, so fortunately they couldn't see their wives led off to Arab harems and their young children brought up under sharia.

He forgot about the time when Arafat was being criticized by "other Palestinians" ? (he was an Egyptian) for negotiation with the Jews instead of killing them. He winked at them and said in Arabic, "Huddibyah" -- "Remember the Qurayza" (the predecessor in the Middle East to the Two State Solution") that worked out well for the Arabs and not so well for the Qurayza who lost their heads.

The Qurayza had entered into a two-tribe solution when they were stronger than the Muslims, the treaty of Huddibyah. When Mohammed's Quraysh tribe grew in power, they canceled the treaty and wiped the Qurayza off the face of the earth. Hmmm. I've heard that expression before. Isn't that what Ahmadinejad says?.

4. What will happen to those beautiful green areas planted by the Jews since 1967? Will they go the same way as those greenhouses left behind for the Arabs of Gaza by politically correct philanthropists?.

Did Professor Dershowitz forget why Prime Minister David Lloyd George was so anxious for Lord Balfour to finish his Declaration? Lloyd-George thought that the Arabs in Palestine, whom the Soviets now want us to call Palestinians, turned the Biblical land of Milk and Honey into a malarial wasteland.

Alan Dershowitz should read (or reread) "The Jews and Palestine" by the former prime minister, published in 1923 but fortunately Jews at Ein Shalom have put it on the internet and kept it there. http://einshalom.com/archives/210

5. Young Alan forgot about those exclusive political rights the WWI Allies granted to the Jews, in trust until they could attain the things they would need to become a model of a modern European state.

He forgot about how the Arabs in Palestine, according to Mahmoud Abbas who wrote about it in Filastin, the official organ of the PLO, had voluntarily created a mass exodus from Palestine at the behest of the Arab Higher Executive Committee who said to them: "We are about to invade Palestine to clean up after Hitler, by annihilating those Jews he left behind. Leave your homes for a couple of weeks and after we finish them off, you can come back -- if you don't, you will be considered to be a traitor; you remember what we do to traitors, don't you? We tie them upside down on telephone poles, slit open the bellies and pull out their guts, a blessing for Allah's flies".

And then when they got out and the invading armies surrounding Palestine never got in, the same guys threw them into prison (eternal refugee) camps so their hatred of the Jews would fester.

He forgot that after the exodus of those Arabs, and arrival of new immigrants from the aftermath of the Holocaust and from Russia, the Jews had the population majority that would allow their beneficial grant of political rights to mature into a legal grant. Part 2:6.

He forgot that the British Mandate for Palestine was a trust agreement, so that England, who volunteered to be the trustee, and guardian, assumed a fiduciary obligation to the beneficiaries of the trust, and to his wards in Palestine. See Article 22 of the League of Nations Covenant, paragraphs 1,2.

And he forgot that it was while England was abusing its fiduciary obligations, that it gave away what British Col. Richard Meinertzhagen, the political officer of England at the time of the Balfour Declaration, called some three-quarters of the land that had been pledged to the Jews. Meinertzhagen, Middle East Diaries 1917-1956 p. 118.

On an earlier page, in a foonote inserted 38 years later when the diaries were published as a book, he changes his mind, but as a lawyer, I prefer the contemporaneous account.

7. Alan forgot to read Sheik Abdullah Azzam's books on how much priority must be assigned to getting infidels off any part of the dar al Islam, the land formerly controlled exclusively by Muslims, and how the two state solution would leave infidels still in control, be it ever so small, of some of the dar al Islam. Azzam taught Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden probably killed him and his two boys.

So, the best things is to assign young Alan some reading so he could learn about all these things and come back with a better paper:

1. Article 22 of the League of Nations covenant drafted by Jan Smuts. The Council of Ten put it into Part I of the Treaty of Versailles and it became the Covenant or charter of the League of Nations. By reading the first two paragraphs of Article 22, Alan will learn that the mandate was based on the old British concepts of a trust agreement or guardianship.

2. The language of the French process-verbal (he must get it translated - Mr. Salomon Benzimra can do it for him. Mr. Benzimra was born in Tangiers when it was an International Area (it is now Morrocco) went to school in Bordeaux and now resides in Toronto where one of the two official languages is French. He not only speaks French very well, he is the author of the excellent book, published last November on Kindle, entitled "The Jewish People's Rights to the land of Israel." and knows more about the San Remo agreement than some might want to know. Maybe one of them is Alan Dershowitz.

3. One of Shlomo Sand's fans has been at Harvard or UCLA, Saree Macdisi, pushing a "one [Arab Majority] state solution to solve the Arab-Israeli conflict but leaving out the bracketed worlds. He has been telling the students there that the Jewish People don't exist. Sand likely got that theory from Arthur Koestler who wrote a good novel on the subject matter.

He is a terrific novelist. Have you read his "Darkness at Noon"?

Shlomo Sand seems to believe this novelist's theory, but a historian should have done more than a novelist to conclude there is no connection between Palestine and the Ashkenazis whom he claims are not Jews. How about the more than 50% of the Israelis that are Sephardic Jews that lived in the Middle East from the time of the Roman conquest, long before Mohammed invented Islam? Why is he silent about them? How about the DNA studies that provide proof positive that the Ashkenazis and the Sephardic Jews are the only remaining indigenous people of Palestine. Professor Dershowitz can look at them.

5. I have put together some of these solutions and the facts and legal conclusions in a piece written for the blog Middle East and Terrorism and edited by the charming and friendly Sally Zahav. It is called: Three Solutions to the Arab-Israeli Conflict. and can be found on the internet at: http://israelagainstterror.blogspot.com/2012/03 It outlines the three solutions being pushed by the extremists on the left and right (according Alan Dershowitz) as well as the liberal politically correct two-state solution he and Barack Obama are pushing. He should look also at the two part op ed I have written
Part 1: /Articles/Article.aspx/11408
Part 2: /Articles/Article.aspx/11412
about the evidence I have gathered on the purpose of the Balfour Declaration, the language in the cession of Ottoman sovereignty in the Article 95 of the Treaty of Sevres (as amended by the Treaty of Lausanne). He may or may not agree with me that evidence of purpose is admissible in the US, the UK and Canada as well as other nation-states to clarify ambiguity in the language of a statute such as the British Mandate for Palestine which became International Law.

He can find it in Arutz Sheva, edited by Rochel Sylvetsky, in English on the Internet.:

Finally he can read "Soviet Russia, the Creators of the PLO and the Palestinian People. http://www.think-israel.org/brand.russiatheenemy.html , "Was there a Palestine Arab National Movement at the End of the Ottoman Period?" http://www.think-israel.org/brand.palnationalism.html , and "The Third Wave" http://www.think-israel.org/brand.thirdwave.html

These are all in the Think-Israel.org blog edited by Dr. Bernice Lipkin. To make absolutely sure he hasn't forgotten anything, he should read Col. Richard Meinertzhagen's "Middle East Diaries, 1917-1956" - a Dane who became a British Army "political officer" in the Middle East when all this was being decided. It is hard to find and pricey when you find it, but the Harvard Harry Elkins Widener Library, donated by a distant relative of mine, can undoubtedly find a copy for him.

After Harvard excluded me from their "free and open marketplace of ideas" as claimed in their press release for their two day "One State Conference", I wrote a codicil to my will, excluding them from it.

6. Alan should take his two-state solution to UCLA too. They had a "Son of Harvard Conference" conference and Judea Pearl, a faculty member, told me that they were all so politically correct -- that it was impossible to present to the students at UCLA the idea of "one lawful state to the West of the Jordan River" - a Jewish one - as a solution to the Arab Israeli conflict.

Alan has a politically correct solution so he might be given access there although the Muslim influence there is scary. Alan would give them the second leg of the stool, and so they would would have a strong presentation of the one Arab majority state solutions and Alan's politically correct two-state solution, but not the third leg. The students would not get a balanced presentation, but that does not seem to matter anymore in academia."

Salubrius (Wallace Edward Brand)

Source: Email from the author

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

DOJ Blocks Effort to Enforce Voting Laws


by Alana Goodman

The New York Times editorial board members aren’t the only ones hyperventilating over the Florida voting roll purge, as John Steele Gordon noted earlier. The Department of Justice is now demanding that state election officials halt efforts to remove ineligible felon and illegal immigrant voters from its registration rolls, claiming the process may discriminate against minorities:

Florida’s effort appears to violate both the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which protects minorities, and the 1993 National Voter Registration Act – which governs voter purges – T. Christian Herren Jr., the Justice Department’s lead civil rights lawyer, wrote in a detailed two-page letter sent late Thursday night.

State officials said they were reviewing the letter. But they indicated they might fight DOJ over its interpretation of federal law and expressed frustration that President Barack Obama’s administration has stonewalled the state’s non-citizen voter hunt for nine months.

“We are firmly committed to doing the right thing and preventing ineligible voters from being able to cast a ballot,” said Chris Cate, spokesman for Secretary of State Ken Detzner, who was ordered by Gov. Rick Scott to conduct the search for potentially ineligible voters.

Florida has found 2,700 registered voters so far that it believes may not be U.S. citizens. It has sent the list to local election supervisors for further investigation, which includes contacting the potential non-citizens by mail. If the individuals don’t respond within a two-month time frame, they may be removed from the voting rolls — which seems like a fairly logical request.

According to the Miami Herald, the problem is the Florida purge may be discriminatory because the list of potential illegal immigrant voters “disproportionately hits” the Hispanic community:

About 58 percent of those flagged as potential non-citizens are Hispanics, Florida’s largest ethnic immigrant population, a Miami Herald analysis found. Hispanics make up 13 percent of the overall 11.3 million active registered voters.

The DOJ could solve this entire problem by simply supporting voter ID laws. It would save state election officials the time and energy of figuring out who is and is not a legitimate citizen, and reduce the chances of human error during voter roll purges. Instead, the DOJ is doing the exact opposite, which just goes to show how serious this administration is about voting integrity.

Alana Goodman

Source: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/06/01/department-of-justicej-blocks-effort-to-enforce-voting-laws/

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

The Process Trap


by Shoshana Bryen

If Iran's nuclear aspirations are thwarted, it will not be by talk.

Few things ought to be as urgent as keeping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, yet the West – led from the front by the United States – has fallen into the "peace process" trap that considers talk to be progress and, once a conversation has begun, that there is nothing worse than stopping it.[1] Iran understands this as a Western peculiarity, and has used it to cause a rift between Israel and the West; receive assurances that that military action is not in the offing; and begin a process that leaves the Islamic Republic in full control of its nuclear program for a negligible price.

Talk about your demands. Talk about what you've talked about. Talk about what you won't talk about. Talk about talking again. Talk again. Repeat.

Several months ago, the media was ablaze with war talk -– a potential Israeli strike against Iran, of course, but also the war between Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and his former Mossad chief, Meir Dagan. While the PM was working to keep the threat of military action on the Western agenda, Dagan was announcing to the world that military action was a choice to which he was opposed. Time Magazine put "King Bibi" on its cover and said he was "unlikely to forge a peaceful path." Everyone seemed to know when Israel was going to "do it."

In truth however, Dagan was not so much opposed to the military option as to its imminent exercise and its exercise by Israel. He told Lesley Stahl, "An attack on Iran before you are exploring all other approaches is not the right way to do it."

Dagan: I heard very carefully what President Obama said. And he said openly that the military option is on the table, and he is not going to let Iran become a nuclear state.

Stahl: What I think you're now saying (is), "Why should we do it? If we wait and they get the bomb, the Americans will do it."

Dagan: The issue of Iran armed with a nuclear capability is not an Israeli problem; it's an international problem.

Stahl: So wait and let us (the U.S.) do it.

Dagan: If I prefer that somebody will do it, I always prefer that Americans will do it.

Since there wasn't as much distance between Dagan and Netanyahu as they had hoped, American officials – including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff – publicly denounced the idea of an Israeli strike and talked up Iranian air defense capabilities, and "containment,"

Reassured that it didn't face military action in the short term, Iran - without actually stopping uranium enrichment and without actually allowing inspectors into its facilities -- moved to block upcoming Western sanctions.

Talk would do the trick.

The P5+1 met with Iran in Istanbul in April, where EU negotiator Catherine Ashton lauded the "atmosphere," the "body language" of the Iranians, and their willingness to go to Baghdad in May. During the Baghdad talks, the IAEA discovered that not only was Iran continuing to enrich uranium, but also had stockpiles enriched to 27%. The Iranians called these developments a "technical glitch" and said Western complaints were designed only to "damage the existing constructive cooperation between Tehran and the IAEA."

The Western powers, however, did not complain very much. "The two sides' commitment to diplomacy in the absence of any clear agreement is a positive sign," said Ali Vaez, Iran expert at the International Crisis Group. "All parties should be commended for returning to the negotiating table. Obama should be commended for having turned diplomacy into a process rather than the one-off meetings that existed in the past," wrote Trita Parsi, President of the National Iranian American Council.

Eyes are now on Moscow for the next round of talks in June. After that? Stockholm in July is lovely; August is for vacation; then perhaps Vermont to watch the leaves turn in September.

The process is likely to continue as Iran's nuclear program continues. But the recent – and ongoing – revelations of the so-called Flame malware infecting computer systems in Iran are a reminder that action has its place, albeit not necessarily with airplanes over Fordo.

60 Minutes narrator: Soon after (Dagan became head of Mossad), Iranian cargo planes started falling from the sky, nuclear labs were catching fire, centrifuges were malfunctioning. And then, one by one, Iranian nuclear scientists started disappearing and getting killed, blown up by shadowy men on motorcycles. But no matter how hard we tried, whenever we asked about any of this, he stonewalled.

Dagan: I'm not going to discuss anything about this issue.

Stahl: Okay, but that's pretty well known.

Dagan: Nice try.

Stahl: So you were dealing with the possibility of Iran getting a bomb for eight years.

Dagan: More than eight years.

Stahl: More than eight years. Did you fail?

Dagan: I could say one thing – that when I ended my role in Mossad, they still didn't have a bomb.

If Iran's nuclear aspirations are thwarted, it will not be by talk.

Shoshana Bryen is Senior Director of The Jewish Policy Center. She was previously Senior Director for Security Policy at JINSA and author of JINSA Reports from 1995-2011.

[1] Israel is the original victim of the "process" problem, trapped in an endless succession of talks, confidence building measures, and demands that it offer inducements (bribes) to its enemies in hopes of receiving some measure of satisfaction in return. Nothing the Palestinians did – the so-called "second intifada," the Hamas rocket war, the official PA incitement to violence against Israel – has been deemed sufficient reason to stop the "peace process."

Shoshana Bryen

Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3088/process-trap

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.