What’s wrong with U.N. S.C Resolution 2334? are settlement in Judea and Samaria legal

What’s wrong with Resolution 2334?

Posted on 29 December 2016by anneinpt

After all the brouhaha at the nasty surprise we received at the hands of the Obama Administration who refused to veto UNSC Resolution 2334, followed by John Kerry’s nasty attack on Israel, putting all the blame for the failure of the “peace process” on Israel and the settlements,  it’s a useful exercise to examine exactly what is so wrong with this resolution.

Just to remind you, Resolution 2334 outlaws ALL Israeli settlement, construction, residence in ANY AND ALL areas captured, or rather liberated, in 1967. This includes “East’ Jerusalem, which itself includes the Jewish Quarter, the Temple Mount – Judaism’s holiest site – and the Western (Wailing) Wall, aka the Kotel, which is the holiest site at which Jews are permitted to pray. For now.

Below is Israeli Ambassador to the US, Ron Dermer, explaining exactly what is wrong with it, and how it goes further than Resolution 242 which was voted on in 1967 after the Six Day War.

One of the most succinct and clear answers that I have read appeared on the Quora website, a site where members can ask questions on any subject, and anyone who feels qualified (or even not!) may answer. Gail Ellis, who lives in Israel, wrote the following answer to the question “Why should the US have vetoed Resolution 2334?“:

Because, in characterizing the West Bank as “Palestinian territory” and the Israeli settlements as ‘illegal’ the resolution both lying and contradicting longstanding US policy (as well as its signed legal obligations).

And in passing it, not only has the UN tried to usurp powers it is NOWHERE granted in its charter and violated its own charter, it has demonstrated that the international community (separately and collectively) will not uphold its signed agreements. None of which is going to bring peace any closer.

…

Here are the historical and legal facts in support of the above:

Jewish National Home Determined by San Remo Conference (1920)

• In 1910 the legal sovereign of the area that became the Mandate for Palestine was the Ottoman Empire. (No one disputes this).
• After the allied powers defeated the Ottomans, the Ottomans transferred the sovereignty of the area to the victorious allied powers, in the treaties of Sevres and Lausanne. (No one disputes this).
• In 1920 the Balfour Declaration was incorporated into international law in the San Remo Resolution, adopted by the victorious allied powers, this being a binding international agreement. (No one disputes this).
• In 1922 the San Remo Resolution was implemented as the Mandate for Palestine, and ratified by the League of Nations, this ALSO being a binding international agreement. No one disputes this. Or, rather, I should say (since the effect of this UN Resolution is to ignore or attempt to nullify, the provisions of the Mandate, in violation of its own charter) no one disputes that the League of Nations Mandates were binding legal documents that set valid borders for the states that emerged out of them in the case of any OTHER of the MANY instances of them).
• The MANDATE of the Mandate for Palestine WAS the creation of a Jewish national home (understood by all signatories at the time to be a Jewish commonwealth in the event that Jewish immigration was sufficient to permit this) in the area defined as the Mandate (and that included the West Bank and Jerusalem).
• In 1924 the US and Britain ratified the Anglo American treaty (which contained a carbon copy of the Mandate), this ALSO being a binding international agreement. In becoming party to this agreement the US became party to article 5 and 6, in both it and the Mandate (see below)
• Article 6 of the Mandate IS THE ONLY TIME THE WORD ‘SETTLEMENT’ IS MENTIONED IN A BINDING INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENT REGARDING PALESTINE.It states: “The Administration of Palestine … shall encourage, in co-operation with the Jewish agency referred to in Article 4, close settlement by Jews on the land”Article 5 of the Mandate specifically states “The Mandatory shall be responsible for seeing that no Palestine territory shall be ceded or leased to, or in any way placed under the control of the Government of any foreign Power.”THE US IS PARTY TO THESE CLAUSES AS WELL VIA THE ANGLO AMERICAN AGREEMENT.
• Article 80 of the UN charter PRESERVES the rights granted by Mandates.
• The 1948 partition plan was a UNGA resolution (i.e. a non binding suggestion of compromise, as all UNGA resolutions are nonbinding). IF both the Jews and the Arabs had accepted it, AND had signed a treaty by which the Jewish people relinquished part of its rights (promised in the Mandate) to future sovereignty over the area, THEN the borders suggested by UNGA 181 would have become the legal borders. The Arab side rejected the compromise (with an invasion by 5 armies). Therefore the borders proposed by UNGA 181 have the same legal validity as any other rejected offer: NONE. And NOTE – even if you assume (for the sake of argument) that UNGA 181 was legally binding (which it was not), under its terms Jerusalem was supposed to be a corpus separatum, belonging to neither party.So how did Jerusalem suddenly legally become “Palestinian territory” ? (NO ONE has an explanation for this.)
• At the end of the War of Independence, the ‘green line’ was established by the 1949 Armistice agreement, which specifically states (because it was the ONLY THING both the Jews and Arabs agreed on) that it is not a permanent political border.
• Jordan illegally annexed the West Bank. Jordan’s annexation was not recognized by anyone except the Brits AND the PLO which stated in article 24 of its original 1964 charter “This Organization does not exercise any regional sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, on the Gaza Strip or the Himmah Area. Its activities will be on the national popular level in the liberational, organizational, political and financial fields.”So how did the West Bank suddenly become ‘Palestinian Territory’? (No one has an explanation for this).
• The Oslo Accords (which transfer a kind of partial sovereignty to the Palestinian Authority in Areas A and B (basically all powers except the preservation of external security in Area A, and a joint responsibility for security in Area B) give Israel FULL administrative control over Area C (including the right to build). The Oslo accords specifically state that settlements are an issue that will be resolved ONLY in the final agreement.

There is not a person on this earth who can give the name, date and signatories of ANY binding legal agreement which transferred the right to full sovereignty over the West Bank and Jerusalem from the last legal beneficiary thereof (the Jewish People, via the Mandate) to the Palestinian people.

As there is NO SUCH DOCUMENT, consequently, the West Bank is NOT Palestinian territory (as the resolution claims).

In addition, NOWHERE in the UN charter is it granted the power to set the borders of one of its member states OR to nullify existing treaties setting them.- which this resolution does.

…

…  apparently precedent works differently when it comes to Israel – as there is not ONE instance of the UN invoking the fourth Geneva convention in any other ongoing occupation, such as Turkey’s of North Cypress, China’s of Tibet, Morocco’s of Western Sahara, Russians of the Ukraine etc. Nor is there ONE instance of a border dispute between countries arising out of the mandate system in which the borders set by the mandate were not held to be the legal borders.)

Gail draws the very obvious, harsh conclusions of the effect of this resolution:

• To encourage the Palestinians not to negotiate (which is the only way sovereignty can be legally transferred to them), because they know the UN will LIE, USURP POWERS IT DOES NOT HAVE AND VIOLATE ITS OWN CHARTER on their behalf whatever they do
• To encourage Israel not to negotiate as it clarifies that Israel can not expect the international community to uphold any future signed agreements, as it has (separately and collectively) demonstrated that it will not uphold past signed agreements.

That is why the US should have vetoed it.

That response should be bookmarked and used every time someone questions Israel’s right to build in Judea and Samaria, Jerusalem, the Golan, or even questions Israel’s very right to exist.

It should also be sent to John Kerry next time he feels a speech coming upon him.

Facts Arab-Palestinians Would Rather Not Admit About Israel - YJ Draiman

Facts Arab-Palestinians Would Rather Not Admit About Israel

In doing my research and writing various articles about the Arab-Israeli Conflict I was asked some pointed questions about my conclusions in some of my recent articles, which dealt – as most of them do – with the history of Israel: biblical, post-biblical and international laws and treaties.

I had stated in one of my articles the following sentence: “Only one people has ever made Jerusalem its capital and only one people ever established their ancestral indigenous and biblical homeland between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea: the Jews.”

I had also added that: “the Jews were the remaining aboriginal indigenous inhabitants of the Land for two millennia before the Muslim religion was even created.”

The commenter, nevertheless, had correctly pointed out that most people, because they have been exposed for such a long time to anti-Israel Arab propaganda, falsely believe that there has not been a continuous Jewish presence in the Land of Israel for the last 2,000 years. Many also have the misconception that the UN created the State of Israel; this is a farce.

The land of Israel has been in existence for over 3700 years. The Modern reconstituted State of Israel was decreed by post WWI international law and treaties which were executed by the Supreme Allied Powers which allocated the formerly occupied territory by the defeated Ottoman Empire. In said allocation, the S.A.P. specified Mesopotamia, Syria and other territories to the Arabs; in all the Arab/Muslims received over 12 million sq. km. of territory with a wealth of oil reserves; and allocated all of Palestine, the historical ancestral land of the Israelites to the Jewish people as their reconstituted homeland.

They are thus unaware that the historical territory of the land of Israel, that was never totally cleansed of Jewish presence. Thus, the Arabs would rather you forget also that Jews lived for two millennia in Mesopotamia and in what became later known as British created Iraq.

Indeed, Jews have resided for over 3,200 years in that territory from the Babylonian Captivity of 586 CE onwards. Jewish communities and towns were established in Aleppo and Yemen during the Days of King David. It was when International treaties executed by the Allied Supreme Powers in 1920, which incorporated the Balfour Declaration as international law and the 1919 Faisal Weizmann Agreement, that the number of Jews in Palestine-Israel became substantial enough to merit the subsequent implementation of those international treaties and guarantees.

Furthermore, due to the abrogation of its duty and the sudden departure and desertion of Britain in 1948, and thus, the failure of its promised duty and commitment to implement the Mandate for Palestine, (as agreed by post WWI international law and treaties and help bring about the sovereign Jewish Homeland in Palestine), the Jewish leadership declared independence and Israel sovereignty was re-established in 1948. It cannot be ignored that the UN resolution to advance the sovereignty of the Jewish state was only carrying out some of the terms of the post WWI international treaties and agreements.

The post WWI League of Nations and the post WWII United Nations that took over from the League have no authority to create or modify international treaties and agreements.

The UN according to its charter can only recommend its resolutions and the same applies to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), they are only advisory. As such, those recommendations must be adopted by the parties involved, and if any of the parties rejects the resolution, it has no affect or validity. Such is the factual case of the Arab Israeli Conflict. The Arabs rejected outright the UN recommended resolutions that could have altered the conflict to a peaceful coexistence.

After The Jewish people got rid off foreign powers on its historical land. The Jewish leadership announced The Declaration of independence and sovereignty of the Jewish state, and the independence of Iraqi was also declared, the Arab countries terrorized and drove the Jews from their ancient homes of over 2,700 years and confiscating all their assets, including: personal property, businesses, homes and over 120,000 sq. km. of Jewish owned Real Estate for over 2,400 years (these confiscated Jewish assets are valued in the trillions of dollars). Furthermore, one Arab state after another in the Middle East and North Africa also persecuted and drove out their Jewish populations, which had resided in those countries for over two millennia. Said persecutors also confiscated all their assets turning them into refugees who found sanctuary in Israel, at that time a fledgling impoverished country barely able to support them at the time. Such a great number of Jewish refugees were created that they outnumbered the Arab refugees by a ratio of 2 to 1. It cannot be ignored that such unwarranted persecution and unlawful confiscation of assets is a crime which is never talked about or addressed.

Arab-Palestinians and their anti-Israel supporters try to deceive and convince the world that the Jews just appeared in the early 20th century after being dispersed for over two thousand years from their biblical ancestral homeland. Such deception is a flat out lie and flies in the face of factual recorded history. But facts never seem to matter to Arabs and pro-Arabs. So the following brief history lesson will be for them an inconvenient truth.

Let me start by quoting from an article written in The Weekly Standard, May 11, 1998 by Charles Krauthammer:

"Israel is the very embodiment of Jewish continuity: It is the only nation on earth that inhabits the same land, bears the same name, speaks the same language, and worships the same God that it did 3,000 years ago. You dig the soil and you find pottery from Davidic times, coins from Bar Kochvah, and 2,000-year-old scrolls written in a script remarkably like the one today advertising ice cream at the corner candy store."

The Jewish People trace their origin to Abraham, who is called the Holy Convert, the first Jew, who established the belief in only one God, the creator of the universe. Abraham, his son Yitzhak (Isaac), and grandson Jacob (Israel), are referred to as the patriarchs of the Israelites who lived in what was then the Land of Canaan which today does exist; and which later become known as the Land of Israel. They and their wives are buried in the Ma'arat HaMachpela, the Tomb of the Patriarchs, in Hebron, Judaism’s second holiest city. (Genesis Chapter 23).

YJ Draiman

Barrack Hussein Obama face it – Greater Israel is Jewish territory for eternity and it is not negotiable. Rev1 - YJ Draiman

Barrack Hussein Obama face it – Greater Israel is Jewish territory for eternity and it is not negotiable. Rev1

The Arabs already have Jordan which is over 77% of the territory allocated to the Jewish people under International Treaties from 1920 including the 1919 Faisal Weizmann Agreement.
It is time to stop fantasizing and deluding yourself and the rest of the world. Greater Israel is for the Jewish people, according to history, archaeology, international law and treaties.
The Arabs already have Jewish Assets including, businesses, homes and over 120,000 sq. km. - 75,000 sq. miles of Jewish owned land for over 2,400 years (6 times the size of Israel) that they confiscated from the million Jewish families and their children they terrorized and expelled from Arab countries in the past 80 years. They also have the Jewish territory of Jordan which was given to them by the British in violation of post WWI Agreements and the Arabs in Jordan expelled the Jews and confiscated their properties.
I think you do not have your facts straight – Israel belongs to the Jews. It has been a Jewish country for over 4,000 years and has been occupied by various Nations who let it deteriorate into a dessert. There are 22 Arab countries that were allocated over 12 million sq. km. with a wealth of oil reserves and only one Jewish country that from the allocation of 120,000 sq. km. the Jewish state has now about 21,000 sq. km. The land-rich Arabs already occupy over 6 million square miles and land-poor Israel, including all of its territories, comprises only about 10,000 square miles. The Arab areas are thus 500 times larger than Israel and the Arabs already possess 99.8% of the total land of which about 70% is vacant. The so-called West Bank aka Judea and Samaria and Gaza areas combined total 2,300 square miles and comprise a miniscule 0.046% of the entire Arab empire - and to seize this speck of land the Arabs are adamant and willing to fight and die forever! Only a mind, hopelessly out of touch with reality, can seriously suggest that the Arabs need still more land, carved out of historical Israel, to create yet another Arab terrorist country.
The Quran states it clearly; Israel belongs to the Jewish people.

The Jews never had a chance of reaching a majority in the country of Palestine after WW1, given the illegal restrictive immigration policy of the British in violation of 1920 International treaties and Agreements, which was recognized by a resolution in the U.S. Congress and Senate and signed by President Harding in 1922. By contrast, Palestine’s aka The Land of Israel’s Arab population, which had been declining prior to the Mandate for Palestine in 1922, grew exponentially because Arabs from all the surrounding countries were free to come albeit illegally—and hundreds of thousands did—to take advantage of the rapid economic development and improved health conditions stimulated by Zionist settlement and Worldwide Jewish financial support for development of The Land of Israel.

Historical archives lay bare the false claim that Jewish settlers dispossessed Arab people from their land in Palestine. The examination of records from 1830 onward will shock most people.

In the first place, records shows that Palestine's population barely grew for 250 years--rising from 205,000 Muslims, Christians and Jews in 1554 to only 275,000 in 1800, many were nomads. In the second, records from 1830, 1863, 1878 and 1893 and 1917, among others, demonstrate that when the heaviest Jewish immigration to Palestine began in 1880, a large proportion of the 425,000 to 440,000 Arabs in Palestine were themselves new and recent mostly illegal immigrants. (The U.S. knows well the affect of millions of illegal immigrants in the U.S. which is a small percentage compared to total population in the U.S. Now compare to at least 30% Arab illegal immigrants into Palestine aka The Land of Israel).

The research also carefully documents the origins of those Arab immigrants into Palestine. Many came from Egypt: The 1831 invasion by the Egyptian Khedive, Ibrahim Pasha, forced Palestine fellaheen, urban dwellers and Bedouin to permanently flee Ottoman military drafts and taxes. The 1837 Great Earthquake and epidemics that followed further cut their numbers. In their wake came Ibrahim Pasha's Egyptian Arabs, who settled some of the empty land. In 1831 alone, 6,000 Egyptian Arabs settled in Akko. The Egyptian Arab-Hinadi, Ghawarna tribes settled in the Beit Shean and Hula Valleys and in the Jordan Valley towns of Ubeidiya, Delhamiya and Kafer-Miser. In the Hula Valley, the Egyptian ez-Zubeids later sold their land at hefty prices to Jewish settlers from Yessud-Hama'ala. According to an 1893 British Palestine Exploration Fund report, Egyptians immigrants made up most of the population in Jaffa.

Additionally, Records shows, Arab and Muslim illegal immigrants also came from Algeria, Damascus, Yemen, Afghanistan, Persia, India, Tripoli, Morocco, Turkey and Iraq. The French conquest of Algeria, for example, led to the eventual rebellion and imprisonment of Abd el-Kadar el-Hassani, whose followers in 1856 fled to Syria and the Lower Galilee towns of Shara, Ulam, Ma'ader, Kafer-Sabet, Usha (near present-day Ramat-Yohanan), the Mount Atlas village of Qedesh and villages on Lake Hula and in the Upper Galilee, where they spoke Berber. In Ramle, the Arab immigrants spoke Qebili, a Mugrabi dialect. Circassian refugees from the Caucasus settled in Trans-Jordan and as far east as Caesarea.

Arab illegal immigration continued to rise through World War I, as research documents, despite locusts, the Ottoman draft and more epidemics. Egyptian laborers, contractors and businessmen flooded the country. By 1922, the Muslim population had more than doubled to 566,311, including 62,500 Bedouins. The 1931 Mandatory government census counted 693,147 permanent Muslim residents, including 66,553 Bedouins. It also gave the natural increase of the population as 132,211 --- 57,125 less than the absolute increase. Only illegal Arab immigration explains this contradiction, research shows.

The next census in 1948, as the research recounts, followed unprecedented economic growth by the Jewish immigration and infusion resources, during which illegal Arab immigration continued and increased substantially. From April 1934 to November 1935, for example, 20,000 Hurani Arabs families came to Palestine. These and tens of thousands of other Arab immigrants worked on Jewish farms, construction projects (building roads, railroads and the Haifa port), and government and municipal jobs. Syrians and Lebanese Arabs were free to come with nothing but border passes, and they came along with immigrants from Somalia, Trans-Jordan, Persia, India, Ethiopia and the Hejaz. British Mandatory government rules required the supervision of immigration, but Palestine's borders remained porous to all but Jews. In all, records shows that 45,000 to 50,000 illegal Arab families immigrants came from 1931 to 1947 --- on top of up to 30,000 other Arab illegal immigrants families who arrived from 1935 to 1945.
The research also carefully examines numerous historical descriptions of a desolate landscape; composed almost entirely of swamps and deserts, and sold to the Jewish people by absentee Arab landlords, appointed by the Ottoman government which owned over 90% of all the land in Palestine, at enormous profits (those facts were confirmed by the Mufti of Jerusalem while testifying in front of the British Peel commission in 1937). Dozens of sales are documented specifically, including some by the Egyptian el-Husseini family of Yasser Arafat.
Altogether, this research shatters the Arab claim of dispossession. The real disposition and ethnic cleansing was taking place in the Arab countries that expelled over a million Jewish families.

With research and documentation, its argument, and its moral outrage -- was the written description of how powerful Arab-Palestinian politicians sold land at inflated prices to Jewish immigrants in Palestine-Israel, with the full understanding that once the British left, the Arab-Palestinians would steal that land back from the Jews, thus getting paid for the land a hefty price and getting the land back for free. This was a widespread, systematic scheme on the part of Arab-Palestinian land-owners and political leaders.

Israel is a Jewish State its territories are non-negotiable. It has been a Jewish country for over 4,000 years and that is not going to change.
The Arab-Palestinians are the occupiers. All they want is to destroy the Jews. They educate their children and the masses to commit terror and violence against Israel. They danced in the streets when the twin towers in 9-11 collapsed and 3,000 Americans died. They supported Sadam Husein taking over Kuwait. (Kuwait therefore expelled over 400,000 Arab-Palestinians who worked in Kuwait.
It is amazing how you and many others choose to ignore that the Arab countries have persecuted and expelled over a million Jewish families and their children from their countries in the last 90 years. The massive numbers of Jewish people who lived in the now called Arab countries for over 2,600 years. The Arabs confiscated all their assets, businesses, homes and real estate property 6 times the size of Israel – over 120,000 sq. km. or 75,000 sq. miles which is valued in the trillions of dollars.
Any Arab who is not happy to live under the Israeli government in The Land of Israel can move there.
Study your history; Muhammad in 627 about 1,500 years ago beheaded 700 Jews in Medina which was a Jewish town in Saudi Arabia for over a thousand years, he killed all the men took the women as slaves and raped their daughters. This is just the tip of the history of the Jewish people in Arab countries.
Do you want more; study the complete unbiased history of the Jewish people in Arab countries objectively.
How many Jews are left today in Arab countries and how many Christians have been murdered and millions forced to leave the Arab countries and how much assets and properties of those forced to leave was taken over by the Arabs without any regard to compensation.
YJ Draiman

P.S. The UN can pass resolutions, but it can neither change history nor alter reality.

I tell the Arab-Palestinians! Go ahead try and take my/our Jewish land if you want to try! - NEVER AGAIN - YJ Draiman

I tell the Arab-Palestinians! Go ahead try and take my/our Jewish land if you want to try!

There are laws that will stop you and than there is me/us the IDF and other forces that will stop you! We are done being pushed around by anyone and I mean anyone. We will fight back and defend ourselves; we will not let the Holocaust repeat itself - NEVER AGAIN.

As it is now, Israel has the Jewish land by right!

That is just the fact! Israel is in possession of its own historical land and possession is nine tenths of the law.

I am also telling the rest of the world to mind its own business and stay out of Israel's internal affairs; it includes any people in Israel who want to give away Jewish rights and heritage to others. That includes the criminal biased organization known as the U.N. a corrupt, biased and a parasitic enterprise that must be dismantled. As Jews we are prohibited in giving away Jewish land in Israel and if it given away it is not valid. (See Ben Gurion statement at the 1937 Zionist Convention.
They, the world at large have their own problems to contend with.

They were complicit during WWII when over 6 million Jews, men, women and children were exterminated. This will not happen again! The world stood by while the Arab countries terrorized and expelled over a million Jewish families and their children where they have lived for over 2600 years and confiscated all their assets. Most of those expelled Jewish families were resettled in The Land of Israel, their historical homeland.

There is a real status quo that requires energy to make the change!

Are you going to put in the energy to try to change it???

Maybe it is better to cut your continued losses and accept whatever generous package we the Israelis offer you the Arab-Palestinians, because quite frankly under the current conditions we do not owe the Arab-Palestinians anything (there is also the Faisal Weizmann Agreement of 1919) and we can just unilaterally set our own legal borders insisting that viable land for real Arab-Palestinians self determination already exists in Jordan on Jewish allocated land and historical land (and expelling and confiscating all Jewish assets) which the British in violation of Agreements reallocated to the Arabs over 77% of Jewish allocated land under the San Remo Conference of 1920!  The Arab countries were not satisfied with the over 12 million sq. km. with a wealth of oil reserves they were allocated after WWI.
The Arab-Palestinian can also relocate to the Jewish homes and land (over 120,000 sq. km. which is 6 times the size of Israel) previously owned by the million Jewish families who were terrorized and expelled from Arab countries and all their assets and land confiscated by the Arab countries, the confiscated assets and land which is at over six times the size of Israel and is valued in the trillions of dollars.

Israel has resettled the million Jewish families and their children the Jewish refugees expelled from Arab lands, with limited resources.

It is time that the Arab countries resettle the Arab-Palestinians refugees, in Jordan which was suppose to be part of the Jewish state, or the homes and the over 120,000 sq. km. of land that the Arab countries confiscated from the million expelled Jews who owned it for over 2,400 years.

The options we are proposing to the Arab-Palestinians is more than fair, considering you are constantly terrorizing and killing our people every chance you get. That is what you teach your Arab children and masses to do.

It all depends on whether we can see the Arab-Palestinians as peaceful neighbors and there is nothing that they have ever done to date that can lead us to believe that they will be good peaceful neighbors!

On the contrary; their actions and incitement has been more terror and violence, and the indiscriminate killing of men, women and children, including babies in their cribs. Trying to control the U.N. to get what you want unjustly will not work. Start working and stop milking the world nations for funds, which you use mainly to finance terror and violence and your corrupt leaders are stealing a good part of those funds.

YJ Draiman

BEN-GURION’S DECLARATION ON THE EXCLUSIVE AND INALIENABLE JEWISH RIGHT TO THE WHOLE OF
THE LAND OF ISRAEL:
at the Basle Session of the 20th Zionist Congress at Zurich(1937)

No Jew has the right to yield the rights of the Jewish People in Israel -
David Ben Gurion

(David Ben-Gurion was the first Prime Minister of Israel and widely hailed as the State's main founder).

"No Jew has the right to yield the rights of the Jewish People in Israel.
No Jew has the authority to do so.
No Jewish body has the authority to do so.
Not even the entire Jewish People alive today has the right to yield any part of Israel.
It is the right of the Jewish People over the generations, a right that under
no conditions can be cancelled.
Even if Jews during a specific period proclaim they are relinquishing this right, they have neither the power nor the authority to deny it to future generations.
No concession of this type is binding or obligates the Jewish People. Our right to the country - the entire country - exists as an eternal right, and we shall not yield this historic right until its full and complete redemption is realized."

(David Ben Gurion, Zionist Congress, Basel, Switzerland, 1937.)

"No country in the world exists today by virtue of its 'right'.
All countries exist today by virtue of their ability to defend themselves against those who seek their destruction

The UN can pass resolutions, but it can neither change history nor alter reality - Jewish presence and land ownership goes back to the time of Abraham - YJ Draiman

The UN can pass resolutions, but it can neither change history nor alter reality.

Jewish presence and land ownership goes back to the time of Abraham who dug wells in the territory later called the Land of Israel (The City of Be’er Sheva in the Negev is named after one of Abraham’s wells. Abraham took his people and helped save the captured people in Shalem which is Jerusalem). Jewish sovereignty STARTED about 1250 B.C.E. in Jordan with defeat of Amorites under Moses' lead! The tribe of Reuven, Gad and half of Menasheh were the FIRST to have designated land! Only later, when Moses passed away did Joshua lead the rest of the Israelites into Canaan and conquered the area.
What we today call Jordan was ours, as a people, BEFORE what we today call Israel!
...
Even in the 2nd commonwealth The Jewish sovereign kingdom under the Hasmonaems included all the inhabitable area of today's "Jordan".
I beg to defer with those who claim that the east bank of the Jordan River which is now called Jordan was not Jewish land. Jordan is "Palestine" as much as Israel can be claimed to be; and because the British Mandate and the British Army were in control of Palestine aka The Land of Israel as trustee for the Jewish people to help the reconstituted The Jewish National Home and bring about Jewish control and sovereignty over Palestine aka The Land of Israel; but the British violated their duty and obligation and assigned over three quarters of Jewish allocated historical land to the new Arab State of Trans-Jordan. Moreover, the Jewish people in 1922 Palestine did not have their army to defend and protect them from international complicity in the theft of Jewish historical territory.
As for options, though none are necessarily easy, 50 yrs later, the  "outcome thesis" of preserving the "status quo" has been miserably shortsighted.
1) The world unjustified pressure for Israel to be 8-15 miles wide and accept the 1948 armistice line as a permanent border is increasing.
2) We all know what happens when Arabs "Palestinians" have Israel leave. Gaza. It becomes an Arab terrorist State that fires thousands of rockets at Israel’s civilian population centers.
Jordan IS Palestine. It is over 77% of the Palestine Mandate, which was allocated to the Jewish people after WWI, its population is 80% Arab-Palestinians, and its numerically insignificant royal family are British imports from another area entirely (modern day Saudi Arabia), circa 1920.
Israel can not be 8 miles wide. If Palestine/Jordan wants to be antagonistic they will reap what they sow. Moreover, it is about time for the weakness of 20 centuries of ghetto living, to come out of the Jew Daniel. When this is done we will be alright, b'ezrat Hashem (with the Almighty’s help).

YJ Draiman

There Was Never a Country Called Palestine By Jerrold L. Sobel

February 12, 2012

There Was Never a Country Called Palestine

By Jerrold L. Sobel

Please forget one of the great fallacies of our time: Israel did not steal Arab-Palestinian land.  It's not Arab-Palestinians' land; it's never been their land; it will never be their land.  This land was given to the Jewish people, as stated in the Bible, by the Creator, and will remain the homeland of the Jewish people in perpetuity.  Despite 27 invasions of Judea and Samaria (erroneously called the West Bank), conquests by many, forced conversions, exiles, massive oppression, generations of Diaspora, and cowardly acquiescence by a cadre of 5th-column Jews themselves, Jews have not only survived in what's known in Hebrew as Eretz Yisrael (Israel), but they've taken a desert wasteland and turned it into a powerful little democracy, with green pastures and thriving industry, the envy of the world.

To her detractors, of whom there are many worldwide, the mantra remains the same, ad nauseam.  "Israel is complicit in doing this." 
"She omitted doing that."  "We respect Judaism but are against Zionism."  Attempting to mask their anti-Semitism as anti-Zionism, Israel's enemies propagandize the most vile accusations in such numbers that much of it sticks.  To cite just a few:
Myth: "Israel discriminates against its Arab citizens."  

The facts show otherwise.  Israel is one of the most open societies in the world.  Out of a population of 6.7 million, 1.1 million are Muslims, 130,000 are Christians, and 100,000 are Druze.  All have equal voting rights -- Israel is one of a very few place where Arab women have the right to vote, and Arabs currently hold 14 seats in the Knesset.

Following a five-year trial, in a landmark decision for women's rights, an Arab judge, Salim Joubran, sentenced the former president of Israel, Moshe Katsav, to seven years in prison for rape.  In what Muslim country do Jews have such rights?  How many seats do Jews hold in the Saudi government or Jordan?  Can anyone recall a Jewish judge sentencing a prominent Arab in Egypt?  More to the point, has anyone even heard of a Jewish judge in Egypt?

Myth: "The Arab-Palestinian Authority protects Jewish holy sites."  

If only that were true.  Then one important element blocking a sincere peace would be eliminated, but the facts speak otherwise.  Just in the years between 1996-2000:

• In Septemer 1996, Arab-Palestinian rioters destroyed a synagogue at Joseph's Tomb in Nablus.
• Rachel's Tomb near Bethlehem has been repeatedly attacked since 1996.
• In October 2000, Joseph's Tomb was torched after the Israeli garrison guarding it was temporarily withdrawn.  It was subsequently rebuilt as a mosque.
• In October 2000, the ancient synagogue in Jericho was destroyed by arson, and a second historic synagogue was damaged.

Forget about protecting these sites -- in textbooks, speech, and daily life, the Arab-Palestinians and their supporters absurdly deny any Jewish connection at all to these ancient landmarks.  This all occurs under nominal Israeli control of these areas; one can only imagine the fate of Jewish holy sites left to Arab-Palestinian stewardship.

This brings us to the greatest canard of them all, the foundation on which every pro-Arab/Palestinian lie is based: "The Jews are building settlements on Arab-Palestinian land."

This grand daddy of all fabrications makes great copy for the media and is excellent for denigrators of Israel, but it lacks any basis in historical fact.  There is no Arab-Palestinian land, plain and simple.  If there were, when would it have been founded, and by whom?  What would its borders have been, and what about the name of its capital?  What would its major cities have been?  What would have constituted the basis of its economy?  What form of government would it have lived under?

Was Arab-Palestine ever recognized as an entity by another country?  By whom?  What was the language of the country called Arab-Palestine?  What was Arab-Palestine's religion?  What was the name of its currency?  Since there is no such country today, what caused her demise?


These questions were posed by a Japanese writer, Yashiko Sagamori.  Only the most revisionist adherent of the Palestinian narrative could even attempt to answer her queries.  Pose these same questions regarding Israel and Jewish connection to this land, and except for the willfully blind and delusional -- of which, admittedly, there are many, each can be factually answered.

At no time in history has there ever been a nation called Arab-Palestine.  During the Ottoman Empire, which lasted from 1299-1922 CE, the land dubbed by the Romans as Palestine was controlled by the Turks; there was never an outcry for a Palestinian State then.  During the illegal annexation of Judea and Samaria by the Hashemite kingdom of Jordan subsequent to the 1949 Armistice and prior to 1967, there was never talk of "occupied territory" or a Palestinian State.  Why did the dynamic change subsequent to Israel's glorious victory in the Six-Day War -- a conflict unprovoked by Israel?

Search as you will -- throughout the annals of history, Israel is the only nation victorious in war on successive occasions and then expected by the vanquished and the world at large to sue for peace, to cede land she reclaimed that was historically hers to begin with.  It raises the question: which of the "Quartet" cajoling Israel to acquiesce to Palestinian demands should be allowed land won in conflict?

The Russians?  It's beyond the scope of this essay to delve into their inglorious, extensive imperialist history and their oppression of native peoples, but as one example, isn't it time they relinquish the Kuril Islands to the Japanese?  The Second World War has been over for 67 years.

The same holds true for my favorite imperialists, the British, who never miss an opportunity to castigate the Jewish State but somehow fail to look at their own sordid history.  Just this past week, they proudly announced sending a sophisticated warship 7,700 miles into the South Atlantic to dissuade Argentina from re-establishing sovereignty over the Falkland Islands, which lie just 250 miles off Argentina's coast.  Why are the Falkland Islands controlled by the British to begin with?  Historically, doesn't Argentina, which controlled these islands until 1830, have a greater claim to them? 

For that matter, when will the British finally relinquish Gibraltar to its "rightful owner," Spain?

Likewise, if not for hundreds of years of British tyranny and greater military strength, wouldn't Northern Ireland be part of the Republic of Ireland?

What about the United States?  Let's face it: if they had more sticks and stones than we do, wouldn't Mexico wrest back the American Southwest and all its resources?  Basically, wasn't all this land stolen by the harsh dictates of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo?  Why is there such uproar over illegal immigration in the United States?  After all, when Mexicans sneak across the border, in effect, aren't they just practicing "the right of return"?

Unquestionably, with the exception of the United States, it was from countries like these that Jews in Diaspora were forced to escape repression and rejoin their coreligionists who maintained a three-thousand-year continuous existence in Judea, Samaria, and the outlying areas. 

Does might make right?  With exceptions made against Israel, it seems to.  The Jewish people were driven out of Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria by the Babylonians.  They returned to their homeland and rebuilt the Second Temple only to have it burned again, this time by Romans, and to be once again exiled from their land.  

Despite 27 invasions and conquests subsequent to the Grand Monarchy of Kings David and Solomon, Jews have always had a contiguous connection to this land.  Only in the minds of the disparaging and the uninitiated did she ever relinquish it.  If not the land of Israel, where are Jews from?  Poland?  The Ukraine?  Russia?  Only hateful revisionists such as Helen Thomas, Mel Gibson, Oliver Stone, and some sanctimonious loonies with Ph.D.s inculcating our kids with venom believe that.  

As to the other detractors of Israel in the EU and the U.N., I ask the following questions.  Who legitimately owns Alsace-Lorraine -- the Germans or the French?  It's changed hands so many times over the past five hundred years that no one has a clue.  What's Turkey doing in Northern Cyprus?  Where is the world uproar over China's occupation of Tibet, East Turkestan, Inner Mongolia, and Manchuria?

We can go on and on and on with this.  Certainly the Jewish people have at least as great a legitimate claim to their historic homeland than any of these other nations, and certainly more so than the so-called Palestinian Arabs do.

Why are the rules of international relations being changed for Israel?  Is it because after thousands of years, the world at large can't bear to see the Jewish people once again in charge of their own land and their own destiny?