On the Legal Issue

I was sent a position paper on legal ramifications of Israel's rights and presence in Judea and Samaira and quote sections:

Jewish Rights of Presence and Settlement in West Bank

...Is not the opposition to the “occupation” really an expression of Arab-Islamic opposition to a Jewish right of presence in the West Bank, with equality of the right to acquire land, construct homes, and reside and work in the area?

...[there exists] the Palestinians’ claim that Israeli settlement activity brought about in consequence of the occupation is contrary to International Law and therefore is illegal. The claim is rooted in Article 49(6) of Geneva IV:

”The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies”

...[however] Israel and its Jewish population have a second and independent right of settlement in the West Bank directly linked to Turkey’s ceding of sovereignty over Palestine following WW I. Israel’s claim is grounded in the following international legally recognised instruments:

• San Remo Conference Resolutions, April 1920 in which the Allied Powers, after defeating the Central Powers in W.W.I, accepted Turkey’s relinquishing of sovereignty in respect of Syria, Mesopotamia (Iraq) and Palestine. The Treaty of Sevres provides in Article 95:

“The High Contracting Parties agree to entrust, by application of the provisions of Article 22 [of the League of Nations Covenant], the administration of Palestine, within such boundaries as may be determined by the Principal Allied Powers, to a Mandatory, to be selected by the said Powers. The Mandatory will be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November [2], 1917 by the British Government, and adopted by the other Allied Powers, in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, ...”

• Palestine Mandate, 1922.

The terms of the Palestine Mandate, implemented by the Palestine Order-in Council 1922, creates the substructure for the legal settlement of Jews in Palestine, on land lying to the west of the Jordan River. Article 6 declares:

“The Administration of Palestine, while ensuring that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced, shall facilitate Jewish immigration under suitable conditions and shall encourage, … close settlement by Jews on the land, including State Lands and waste lands not required for public purposes”

Although Britain exercised its power under the Mandate contrary to its terms in respect of Jewish immigration and land acquisition (especially in its 1939 White Paper policy) and surrendered its responsibilities in 1948 to the United Nations which replaced the League of Nations, neither fact nullifies, ipso facto, the validity and continuing legal effect of the Palestine Mandate or any other Mandates by virtue of UN Charter, Article 80. This preserves the rights granted to peoples and states under Mandates, notwithstanding the establishment of the United Nations Trusteeship system.

P.S.

Article 80:

Except as may be agreed upon in individual trusteeship agreements, made under Articles 77, 79, and 81, placing each territory under the trusteeship system, and until such agreements have been concluded, nothing in this Chapter shall be construed in or of itself to alter in any manner the rights whatsoever of any states or any peoples or the terms of existing international instruments to which Members of the United Nations may respectively be parties.