As I noted earlier, the territory that the League of Nations originally contemplated for inclusion in the Mandate for Palestine stretched from the Mediterranean, across the river Jordan. It included all the land east of the Jordan “out to the desert” that later became the Emirate of Transjordan. In 1921, however, the British decided to seal off from Jewish settlement all of the Mandate’s land east of the river.
The League of Nations was quite clear, however, that all of the territory between the Mediterranean and the river Jordan remained part of the Palestine Mandate, the mandate that had only one purpose: to create under the supposedly benign British administration a state — the only state — for the Jews. When the League of Nations collapsed, the United Nations replaced it. In Article 80 of the UN Charter, this successor organization committed itself to continuing to bring to statehood any mandates still outstanding — and the only one then outstanding was the Mandate for Palestine. Legally, then, the UN was bound to recognize the Jewish state’s claim to all of the territory between “the river and the sea.”
In the 1948 war, however, Jordan’s Arab Legion, which English officers including the formidable John Bagot Glubb (“Glubb Pasha”) led, and equipped with English weapons, managed to seize Judea and Samaria, and then to hold onto that territory at war’s end. Jordan had no legal right to that territory; Israel continued to be its rightful claimant according to the Mandate, but from 1949 to 1967, it was unable to exercise that right. In 1967, during the Six-Day War, Israel captured Judea and Samaria, and since then Israelis have been able to exercise their pre-existing right to that land. Hundreds of thousands of Israeli Jews have settled on that territory, where they have every right to be. And they are determined to stay.
This history is not hard to grasp. Why, then, one wonders, do Israeli leaders not give the world the history lesson it needs, by providing the following facts:
1. That Jews have lived continuously in Judea and Samaria for 3500 years, 2000 years before there was a single Muslim Arab living in the land.
2. That the League of Nations recognized the Jewish claim to all the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River when it established the borders of the Mandate for Palestine in 1921.
3. That “West Bank” was a toponym invented by the Jordanians in 1950, in order to replace “Judea and Samaria,” terms that the Arabs knew were too redolent of Jewish history and identity. But it is time for everyone to cease using “West Bank” and instead to use the toponyms that had been in continuous use for thousands of years throughout the Western world.
4. Israel won by force of arms in the Six-Day War what had rightly belonged to it all along. Jordan was that territory’s military “occupier” from 1949 to 1967.
5. It was from Judea and Samaria that the Jordanian army launched its attack on Israel in June 1967. Its aggression failed. Jordan had no legal claim to Judea and Samaria at that time, nor at any time before or since.
6. Beginning in the mid-1960s, the Arabs began to talk about a “Palestinian people” that was invented in order to appeal to the world, by reframing the jihad against Israel not as war between the Jews and a host of Arab states, but rather, as one between “two tiny peoples, each struggling for its homeland.”
7. Were Israel to be pressured into giving up Judea and Samaria, which means it would be squeezed back within the 1949 Armistice Lines (they were never recognized borders), it would then have a nine-mile-wide waist from Qalqilya to the sea. An invader from the east could slice the country in two within a few hours, long before Israeli reservists, so essential to the country’s defense, could be called up.
There. That’s enough for now. What Israeli leader will respond to “the proud Jew” Ed Miliband, the foreign secretary of the United Kingdom, with the facts listed above? Who will speak first about the Mandate for Palestine and Article 80 of the UN Charter?
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Don’t use the UN, of all institutions, to legitimize Israel’s existence. After all, they have also passed hundreds of resolutions against Israel, including those recognizing a “Palestinian” state. The moment you dignify those the original UN recognition of Judea and Samaria as Israeli territory, you also unwittingly dignify the UN itself as a respectable institution of authority
The UN should not be the equivalent of the US Senate or Electoral College, where every country has an equal vote. Each countries vote should have different values, based on their populations, per Capita GDP, & a whole bunch of other factors. In other words, the votes of a Somalia or a Yemen should not be the same as the vote of even Russia, let alone the votes of China or the US
Israel owns Judea & Samaria courtesy the 6-day war of 1967. That’s all there is to it. If anyone contests it, they can fight Israel and try reconquering it. Just like Russia tried seizing the Crimea and Donbass, but now are getting repelled by Ukraine, our’s is a world governed by the aggressive use of force. Whoever wins that war will end up w/ Crimea and Donbass, If it’s Ukraine, I wouldn’t even be surprised if they got some Russian territory as compensation, such as Kursk, Belgorod and Rostov, in addition to Donetsk and Luhansk
It’s high time Israel annexes Judea & Samaria. Now is the best time to do it, while the US is busy in the war w/ the islamic regime. Kushner & Witkoff have finally thrown in the towel on negotiations, and have turned their attention to the Russo-Ukraine war, which too has been a disaster for their efforts
In the meantime, Hizbullah’s last stronghold in Lebanon Ali al-Tahir Ridge – has fallen. Israel should do the same w/ the remnants of Hamas
pinchas says
grat summation, Hugh. I am sending it Ben Gvir, Smotrich, Feiglin, Yishai Fleisher, foreign ministerSa’ar, and others.