Close to half a million Jews live on West Bank land captured by Israel in 1967, including East Jerusalem. Some settlers claim a God-given right to live in lands they call Judea and Samaria.
Actually, almost all of us claim the right of international law to live in the Jewish national homeland as well as historical and cultural rights.
And read this summary:
The legal position of the whole of Palestine was clearly defined in several international agreements.
The most important is the one adopted at the San Remo Conference (following the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire in the First World War), which decided, on April 24, 1920 to assign the Mandate for Palestine under the League of Nations to Britain. An agreed text was confirmed by the Council of the League of Nations on July 24, 1922 and came into operation in September 1923.
In the preamble to this document it is stated that "...the Principal Allied Powers have also agreed that the Mandatory should be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 2nd 1917, by the Government of His Britannic Majesty, and adopted by the said Powers in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people." The declaration of November 2, 1917 is the famous Balfour Declaration and in this document, it was given international ratification.
Moreover, in Article 2 of the document, the League of Nations declares that "The Mandatory shall be responsible for placing the country under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment of the Jewish national home, as laid down in the preamble.”
In the preamble it was clearly stated that "recognition has hereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country."
It was on this basis that the British Mandate was established. Britain betrayed its duty and far from keeping to its undertakings did everything to jeopardize the establishment of the Jewish National Home and finally decided, in 1947, to end its mandate unilaterally, leaving Palestine on May 15, 1948.
Meanwhile the UN (which had inherited the League of Nations) decided on the partition of Western Palestine into two states, Jewish and Arab, but this decision of November 29, 1947 was not only rejected out of hand by the Arabs, but seven Arab armies invaded Palestine to put an end to the young State of Israel which had been established on May 14, 1948.
And more there as well as here and here.
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4 comments:
I am soooooo tired of this (bet you are, too) - no matter what all the damned demographers may say, it's waaaaaay past time we made Judaea & Samaria officially part of Israel... this "territories" business is crazy. Has NO ONE thought that perhaps if we actually did the right thing, G-d would support & help us! What a concept!
suzanne
PS - before I get a lot of LOL replies related to the secularism of the government, believe me, I DO realize that the non-believing government is a big part of the problem, but then, so are all the Israelis who refuse to see their own rights given to them by G-d and act on them - in the "right" way, of course. WE should all read and live by 2Chronicles 7:14.
The problem is, of course, that, as you must very well understand, Israel had never intended to give any rights to the people leaving in the territories, that you claim it "liberated". As they say in Hebrew "ha-ratzakhta ve-gam yarashta", loosely translated as "add insult to injury": that's fine, claim this your God-given land, blah-blah-blah, but make all the people living there full-right citizens of your country, then, maybe, just maybe, you can claim some moral ground. In reality, the only part of the West Bank territory "liberated" in 1967 that was officially annexed to Israel is East Jerusalem, but even there the Arabs did not receive Israeli citizenship (only resident documents, allowing them to vote in municipal elections.) Thus all your talk about some legitimacy stemming from international law is pure hypocrisy.
Let's start at the end. Let's clarify what you briefly mentioned. Arabs were indeed offered citizenship and many refused because Fatah and later Hamas pressured them not to. In fact, they all can vote, citizen or not, in the Jerusalem Municpality elections but usually don't. Same reason: afraid of a bullet, an Arab one. Second, did you know there are over 100,000 Jews resident in Israel who can't vote in the Knesset elections because they too decided not to take out citizenship? Moreover, moving on, I don't think it smart or clever to give anybody, Arab or not, citizenship if he/she doesn't accept the existence and character of the state. Could they "pledge allegiance" in all honesty? Why award an enemy, one who tried to eradicate the state and then, when they lose, cry for the right to be a citizen of the state they abhor. Who now is holding the moral ground, Peter? And while blah-blah-blahing, Peter, did I mention God?
Yisrael, when you say "Arabs were indeed offered citizenship and many refused" you're probably talking about East-Jerusalem Arabs, because I have never heard of any such offer to the West Bank Arabs after the Six-Day War. Correct me if I'm wrong. And was Fatah so strong in 1967 as to pressure the entire population of the West Bank (not to mention Gaza) not to accept Israeli citizenship were they offered one? No idea. That's a bit beyond the point which I made: if Israel ever had such intentions - even if rejected by the Arabs - then it could talk about some moral ground. Because it is for these people to decide whether they want to be citizens of the Jewish state or not. If I were a Palestinian in 1967, I am not sure I would have accepted an offer of equal citizenship of Israel but I suspect some would. Israel has a large and mostly loyal Arab population - despite the fact that there is still a long way before they can enjoy truly equal citizenship.
I'm not sure what "100,000 Jews resident in Israel who can't vote in the Knesset elections because they too decided not to take out citizenship" have to do with any of that...
An while it is true that you don't mention God here, isn't it a bit disingenuous of you to suggest that you base the legitimacy of your presence in the territories on some antiquated and superseded document from San Remo Conference or even the Balfour Declaration itself?..
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