Thursday, November 30, 2017

Recognition of Israel as the Jewish national home became binding international law not in 1947 or 1948, but in 1920

There has been a lot of fuss made of the 70th Anniversary of the UN Partition Resolution 181, of 19 November 1947. However, that resolution did not create the State of Israel.

Let’s remember the following points about the 1947 UN Resolution 181
  • It was simply a recommendation – and It was outright rejected by Israel’s neighbours
  • It included the concept of “internationalizing” sovereignty of Jerusalem under UN control, to protect access to holy sites – but the UN neglected its own recommendation, allowing Jordan to control and desecrate Jewish sites between 1949 and 1967.
In short, it was a failed resolution that no longer has any force or relevance. As Liora Chartouni states in JCPA Vol. 17, No. 33, 26 Nov 2017:
“when Mahmoud Abbas claims that Resolution 181 is a solid proof and basis that “Palestinians” have a right to their state of their own within the frontiers that it delineates, he is misleading the international community”
We should be careful not to give credence to that lie by overstating the significance of that resolution.

A much more significant event in the process of re-establishing Jewish sovereignty in Israel, is the San Remo Agreement, rather than Resolution 181....


… it is astonishing that San Remo and the ensuing Mandate for Palestine have hardly been mentioned.  Is it deliberate? Is it a mere omission?  How could there be peace and reconciliation without acknowledging fundamental historical and legal facts?
…Commemorating the San Remo Conference should be more than a mere remembrance. It enjoins us to consider the legal reach of the binding decisions made in 1920  … unassailable rights enshrined in international law, namely the acquired rights of the Jewish people in their ancestral land.  No wonder the Palestinian Authority -- intent on eliminating the “Zionist entity,” as spelled out in the PLO Charter -- abhors the provisions of the San Remo Resolution…
In reality, the San Remo Resolution and the ensuing clauses of the Mandate for Palestine are akin to a treaty entered into and executed by each and every one of the 52 member states of the League of Nations, in addition to the United States which is bound by a separate treaty with Great Britain, ratified in 1925. 
… you should remember that [the West Bank], as the rest of Israel, was lawfully restored to the Jewish people in 1920 and its legal title has been internationally guaranteed and never revoked ever since.  Any negotiation toward achieving a lasting peace should be based on this premise.

As stated in Israel Forever Blog:

“It is essential that we protect the truth that formal recognition of Israel as the Jewish national home became binding international law not in 1947 or 1948, but in 1920, when the resolutions of the San Remo conference were included as part of the Treaty of Sèvres (August 1920), and were adopted and signed unanimously by all 51 countries of the League Of Nations.”