Professor Erekat, Where'd "Israel" Go?

I read this in an Al-Jazeera piece entitled, "Why there can never be a two-state solution"

...in the US-based Journal of Palestine Studies, lawyer and Georgetown University professor Noura Erekat wrote that Israel has used Resolution 242 to justify the seizure of Palestinian land."When Israel declared its establishment in May 1948, it denied that Arab Palestinians had a similar right to statehood as the Jews because the Arab countries had rejected the Partition Plan," Erekat wrote, referencing UN Resolution 181.

The professor 

further claims there that

Israel has used UN Security Council Resolution 242 to retroactively legitimate [its] colonial takings

There are two ways to counter her arguments besides discounting her use of "colonial".

There is the easy way which is to point to the website of Jadaliyya where Ms. Erekat serves as co-editor. I signed up to receive its newsletter but I had to note I reside in "palestine" (yes, with a small P) which is not a country nor a state but a region.

Why?

Well, Israel isn't listed:

Not nice. 

And she complains about Israel, which is a real state?  I hope I'm updated.

The second way, as she lectures in law, is to be a bit more serious.

In rejecting UNGA 181, the Arabs rejected the establishment of an Arab state in Palestine.  They also declared war against the nascent state of Israel and hostilities began on November 30.  In doing so, the violated UN resolutions.  What did they expect would result from all this?  That they would win even if they lost?

As for Israel's Declaration of Independence, it reads it a relevant section:

WE EXTEND our hand to all neighbouring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighbourliness, and appeal to them to establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help with the sovereign Jewish people settled in its own land. The State of Israel is prepared to do its share in a common effort for the advancement of the entire Middle East.

As for 242, it does not mention a "Palestinian people" nor a "state of Palestine".  Not all territories needed to be evacuated. The only related problem needing  solution is "the refugee" one.  And there were Jewish refugees, too.

Poor George Mason University (where she teaches).

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The 'Right of Return' - An Historical Note

When discussing the so-called 'right of return' of Arabs from the area of the Mandate of Palestine, much emphasis is placed on whether  that "return" is in addition to the compensation element of UN 194, an alternative to compensation or neither as such a "right" does not exist.

Israel has always pointed out, on an across-the-board and all-inclusive political spectrum of left to right that any return would affect the Jewish character of the state and the refugees would pose not only an immediate security problem but also a long-term demographuic one.

One aspect, however, is overlooked.

It can be found in this UN document,

UNITED NATIONS CONCILIATION COMMISSION FOR PALESTINE, 

COMMITTEE ON JERUSALEM, THIRD PROGRESS REPORT 

TO THE UNITED NATIONS CONCILIATION COMMISSION FOR PALESTINE,

A/927, 21 June 1949, A/AC.25/Com

which reads

31. It has already been indicated (see paragraph 17 above) that, for their part, the Arab delegations made a proposal that the refugees coming from certain areas defined on the map annexed to the Protocol of 12 May, comprising those from Western Galilee, from the town of Jaffa, from the central area including Lydda, Ramle and Beersheba, from the southern coastal zone and from the Jerusalem area as defined on the above-mentioned map, should be enabled to return to their homes forthwith. In the course of discussion with the Commission, the Arab delegations have indicated that this proposal bears a territorial aspect, since it envisages the return of refugees to areas designated as Arab territory, and which are in principle to be recognized as Arab territory.

In other words, the return of Arabs could result in Israel's territory being removed from the state's sovereignty.  That was the operative intention.

The Arabs, including the Palestinian Authority, have always been nebulous about numbers and the framework of that 'right of return'.  They have been also quite clear in the past as to designs on pushing Israel back into the 1947 boundaries, those the Arabs rejected and then went to war on November 30, 1947.

The 'return' of refugees was not a humanitarian measure but a method for undoing Israel's existence then and could be so exploited in the future.

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This Was a Settlement

The term for Jewish communities in post-1967 Judea and Samaria, at present and, formerly, in Gaza, is not "settlements". Use communities, cities, villages and towns.

And their residents are not "settlers" but revenants.

You want a settlement, here's one, as Eli Hertz has pointed out:

"[The United Nations General Assembly ]Resolution 181, in paragraph C, calls on the Security Council to:

"Determine as a threat to the peace, breach of the peace or act of aggression, in accordance with Article 39 of the Charter, any attempt to alter by force the settlement envisaged by this resolution."

The ones who sought to alter by force the settlement envisioned in Resolution 181 were the Arabs who threatened bloodshed if the United Nations was to adopt the Resolution:

"The [British] Government of Palestine fear that strife in Palestine will be greatly intensified when the Mandate is terminated, and that the international status of the United Nations Commission will mean little or nothing to the Arabs in Palestine, to whom the killing of Jews now transcends all other considerations. Thus, the Commission will be faced with the problem of how to avert certain bloodshed on a very much wider scale than prevails at present. ... The Arabs have made it quite clear and have told the Palestine government that they do not propose to co-operate or to assist the Commission, and that, far from it, they propose to attack and impede its work in every possible way. We have no reason to suppose that they do not mean what they say." [italics by author]

Read the entire piece here.

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