By Ted Belman ——Bio and Archives--December 8, 2009
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I attended a lecture two years ago by Jacques Gauthier, a Canadian Lawyer who just received his PhD after twenty years of research on the legal status of Jerusalem and the writing of a dissertation of some 1300 pages with 3000 footnotes. He had to present his thesis to a panel of two leading international lawyers and one world famous Jewish historian.
The reason for so many footnotes was to enable him to defend his thesis from intense attack by one of the lawyers who happened to be Jewish anti-Zionist and who had represented the PA on numerous occasions. Gauthier is not Jewish.
Here’s what he said in point form,
1. The Balfour Declaration of 1917 started the whole process but it didn’t create international legal rights.
2. The San Remo decision made on 25 April 1920, incorporated the Balfour Declaration of 1917[2] and Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations. It was the basic decision upon which the Mandate for Palestine was constructed. While the decision made at San Remo created the Palestine Mandate de-facto, the mandate document signed by Great Britain as the Mandatory and the League of Nations made it de-jure. It thus became a binding treaty in international law.
He pointed out that the Arabs weren’t even mentioned but that civil and religious rights only were accorded other inhabitants. This thereby excludes political rights.
[Palestine straddled the Jordan River and thus was on the east bank and the west bank.]
3. Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations provides for the creation of mandates.
The legal significance here is that “the well-being and development of such peoples form a sacred trust of civilisation”. The Mandatory Power was the trustee of that trust.
4 The Palestine Mandate of the League of Nations, included the following significant recital,
This had never happened before in history. Palestine was to be held for the Jewish people wherever they lived. No such recognition had ever been according to anyone else, anywhere, ever.
ART. 2. 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, and the development of self-governing institutions, and also for safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of race and religion.
Thus the operative clause specifically referred to the preamble, reiterated that there were no political rights for other inhabitants.
ART. 5. 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.
ART. 6. 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, in co-operation with the Jewish agency referred to in Article 4, close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes.
5. The United Nations took over from the failed League of Nations in 1945 and its Charter included
Article: 80 .. 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.
Thus the Palestine Mandate continued under the United Nations without change.
6. In 1947, the General Assembly of the UN passed Res 181 which became known as the Partition Plan pursuant to which both Jews and Arabs could announce their state.
First it must be noted that the Charter of the UN specifically gave no power to the General Assembly because that would infringe on the sovereign power of individual members. So the GA could recommend only. Secondly, this recommendation was in violation of the terms of the Mandate. See Art 5 above.
This resolution also provided for a Special Regime for Jerusalem which had the following defined boundaries,
B. BOUNDARIES OF THE CITY The City of Jerusalem shall include the present municipality of Jerusalem plus the surrounding villages and towns, the most eastern of which shall be Abu Dis; the most southern, Bethlehem; the most western, ‘Ein Karim (including also the built-up area of Motsa); and the most northern Shu’fat, as indicated on the attached sketch-map (annex B).
But this regime was to be limited in time. It was not to be an “international city” for all time as we have been lead to believe.
This provision for a referendum was of critical importance to the acceptance of Res 181 by Ben Gurion. He knew that the Jews were in a majority within these boundaries and would be in 10 years when the referendum was to be held. Thus he was confidant that Jerusalem would return to Jewish hands.
Keep in mind that the disposition of this area was to be determined not by Israel but by the residents of Jerusalem so defined. Currently the Jews have a 2:1 majority there.
Needless to say that after the Armistice Agreement of ‘49 the Jordanians who were in control of Jerusalem violated every provision of this resolution calling for among other things respect for holy places. The referendum never took place.
After the ‘67 war in which Israel regained the land to the Jordan including Jerusalem, Res 242 of the Security Council was passed authorizing Israel to remain in possession of all the land until they had “secure and recognized boundaries”. It did not require Israel to withdraw from all of the territories and it was silent on Jerusalem.
Also it “Affirms further the necessity for achieving a just settlement of the refugee problem”. There was no reference to Res 194 nor was there a distinction made between Jewish and Arab refugees.
I would like to stress one more thing.
By virtue of this preamble
in the Mandate, the United Nations, the League’s successor, has recognized the Jewish historical rights to reconstitute their national home in Palestine. That’s Zionism. “Zion” is Jerusalem.
Thus the UN has recognized Jerusalem as the home of the Jewish people.
His lecture did not cover the following salient events which need recalling.
Prior to the signing of the Mandate, However, in 1921, the British took off the “East Bank” from Jewish Palestine, enlarged the territory eastward up to the borders of Mesopotamia (Iraq), and gave the whole thing to Abdullah. Unfortunately, the final signing of the Mandate happened only in July, 1922, and the British included in it a provision to prevent Jews from settling anywhere east of the Jordan River (Article 25). This provision was supposed to be temporary, but it lasted to this day.
The east bank represented 77% of Palestine so the Jews only got 23%. In addition the British also gave the southern Golan which was promised to the Jews, to the Syrian Mandate.
In doing so Britain, the Mandatory Power violated Articles 5 and 27 of the Mandate.
ART. 5. “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.”
ART. 27: The Mandatory had no right to amend the Mandate terms without the full consent of the League of Nations or its Mandates Commission.
What follows next are comments by Eli Hertz in his pamphlet “The Legal Aspects of Jewish Rights”. It is titled, This Land is My Land and can be purchased from Israpundit for $20.00. Simply write to tedbel@rogers.com for instructions.
Jerusalem in “Mandate” Time
Two distinct issues exist: the issue of Jerusalem and the issue of the Holy Places.
Cambridge Professor Sir Elihu Lauterpacht, Judge ad hoc of the International Court of Justice and a renowned editor of one of the ‘bibles’ of international law, International Law Reports has said:
As far as the City of Jerusalem itself is concerned, the question is one of establishing an effective administration of the City which can protect the rights of the various elements of its permanent population— Christian, Arab and Jewish—and ensure the governmental stability and physical security which are essential requirements for the city of the Holy Places.”27
The notion of internationalizing Jerusalem was never part of the “Mandate”. Nothing was said in the Mandate about the internationalization of Jerusalem. Indeed Jerusalem as such is not mentioned—though the Holy Places are. And this in itself is a fact of relevance now. For it shows that in 1922 there was no inclination to identify the question of the Holy Places with that of the internationalization of Jerusalem.”28
Jerusalem the spiritual, political, and historical capital of the Jewish people has served, and still serves, as the political capital of only one nation—the one belonging to the Jewish people.
Jerusalem, a city in Palestine, was and is an undisputed part of the Jewish National Home.
Jewish Rights to Palestine Were Internationally Guaranteed
In the first Report of the High Commissioner on the Administration of Palestine (1920-1925) presented to the British Secretary of State for the Colonies, published in April 1925, the most senior official of the Mandate, the High Commissioner for Palestine, underscored how international guarantees for the existence of a Jewish National Home in Palestine were achieved:
United States Government and the “Mandate” Policy
Despite not being a member of the League, the U.S. Government
claimed on November 20, 1920 that the participation of the United States in WWI entitled it to be consulted as to the terms of the Mandate. The British Government agreed, and the outcome was an agreement calling to safeguard the American interests in Palestine. It concluded with a convention between the United Kingdom and the United States of America, signed on December 3, 1924.
It is imperative to note that the convention incorporated the complete text of the “Mandate for Palestine,” including the preamble!30 President Wilson was the first American president to support modern Zionism and Britain’s efforts for the creation of a National Home for Jews in Palestine (the text of the Balfour Declaration had been submitted to President Wilson and had been approved by him before its publication).
President Wilson expressed his deep belief in the eventuality of the creation of a Jewish State:
On June 30, 1922, a joint resolution of both Houses of Congress of the United States unanimously endorsed the “Mandate for Palestine,” confirming the irrevocable right of Jews to settle in the area of Palestine—anywhere between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea:
“Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled. That the United States of America favors the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which should prejudice the civil and religious rights of Christian and all other non-Jewish communities in Palestine, and that the holy places and religious buildings and sites in Palestine shall be adequately protected.”32
The “Mandate for Palestine” is Valid to This Day
The Mandate survived the demise of the League of Nations. Article 80 of the UN Charter implicitly recognizes the “Mandate for Palestine” of the League of Nations.
This Mandate granted Jews the irrevocable right to settle anywhere in Palestine, the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, a right unaltered in international law and valid to this day.
Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria (i.e. the West Bank), Gaza and the whole of Jerusalem are legal.
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I will leave it to another article to set out why the passing of Res 181 or Res 242 or the signing of the Oslo Accords did not diminish or derogate from the rights of the Jews to the land,
I would also like to point out that Howard Grief did independent research for his book “The Legal Foundation and Borders of Israel under International Law” in which he came to similar conclusions.
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Ted Belman is a retired lawyer and Editor of Israpundit.org. He made aliyah from Canada in 2009 and now lives in Jerusalem.