Points to Ponder Number 15
“Israel is the only country in the world occupying another country”. How many times have you heard that accusation against Israel when the rights of the Palestinians to their independent country in the West Bank, Judah and Samaria, are being discussed? So many times and by so many seemingly authoritative people that it has to be true.
The points to ponder are: Is the West Bank the only occupied or disputed territory in the world? Are the Palestinians the only oppressed people claiming independence from a cruel occupier? Or are there other land disputes which are scarcely, if ever, mentioned?
The list of land disputes is so long that it is easier to ignore them than to try to recall them. Close to home it includes the Turkish occupation of northern Cyprus, the Kurds desire for independence, the dispute between Spain and Morocco over Western Sahara and the Basque desire for independence from Spain.
Further afield the dispute between India and Pakistan over Kashmir is 66 years old. Japan and Russia haven’t settled their differences; Russia opened a new conflict in Ukraine and Japan and South Korea still have open issues. Apart from China’s conquest and occupation of Tibet China also has a separate land dispute with Japan, Vietnam, Taiwan, Korea, India and the Philippines.
Surprise, surprise – Argentina still has a dispute with the UK over the Falkland Islands, Australia and East Timor haven’t solved their problems and while Canada claims that the Northwest Passage is part of its territorial waters the United States regards it as international waters.
For more background details see Maurice Ostroff article Disputed territories around the world
As it would be a display of paranoia on my part to conclude that the pre-occupation with the Palestine occupation is because of an anti-Semitic or an anti-Israel bias and not merely because of abject ignorance and a disregard for the truth, I leave it to you to draw your own conclusions.
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“Israel was born in sin and so cannot be / is not a legitimate member of the nations of the world”. That’s a favorite of all those trying to delegitimize Israel and to call its very existence into question. As with all canards, the more often one hears it the more likely one is to believe it. The point we ponder is whether there is any truth in this claim.
As you will see from the following excerpts from the research papers of two renowned experts on international law, Julius Stone and Stephen Schwebel, Israel is as legit as any other of the 193 countries who are members of the UN.
Julius Stone was recognised as one of the twentieth century’s leading authorities on the Law of Nations. “Israel and Palestine – Assault on the Law of Nations“, which appeared in 1980, presented a detailed analysis of the central principles of international law governing the issues raised by the Arab-Israel conflict and drew upon the writings of Professor Stephen Schwebel, the former Chief Judge of the International Court of Justice. Extracts were edited by: Ian Lacey, B.A., and LL.B who added some of his own comments. The full article can be seen at http://www.strateias.org/international_law.pdf
Contrary to common belief, “the State of Israel is not legally derived from the partition plan”, (UN Resolution 181) which was “frustrated ab initio by the Arab rejection, a rejection underlined by armed invasion of Palestine by the forces of Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Saudi Arabia, timed for the British withdrawal on May 14, 1948, and aimed at destroying Israel”. …
“The Partition Resolution thus never became operative either in law or in fact, either as to the proposed Jerusalem corpus separatum or other territorial dispositions in Palestine”. …
“The legality of the State of Israel rests (as do most other states in the world) on assertion of independence by its people and government, on the vindication of that independence by arms against assault by other states, and on the establishment of orderly government within territory under its stable control”.
“The immediate recognition of Israel by the United States and other states was in no way predicated on its creation by the partition resolution, nor was its admission in 1949 to membership in the United Nations…”
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Yet another canard laid to rest and now the point we ponder is can united Jerusalem legally be the capital of Israel? Once again I quote directly from the research reports of Julius Stone and Professor Stephen Schwebel.
“The Partition Plan of 1947 envisaged an international Jerusalem, separated from both Israel and the then proposed Palestinian State” (which was rejected by the Arabs). However, “during the critical period of the changeover of power in Palestine from British to Israeli and Arab hands, the UN did nothing effectively to implement the idea of the internationalization of Jerusalem and so the idea was allowed quietly to drop”…
“Israel and Jordan demonstrated that each was capable of ensuring the security of the Holy Places and maintaining access to and free worship at them – with the exception, on the part of Jordan, that the Jews were not allowed access to Jewish Holy places in the area of Jordanian control” …
“In 1967, Israel’s entry into Jerusalem was by way lawful self-defense, confirmed in the Security Council and General Assembly by the defeat of Soviet and Arab-sponsored resolutions demanding her withdrawal … Jordan, itself had occupied the city in the course of an unlawful aggression and therefore could not, under principle of ex iniuria non oritur ius, be regarded as an ousted reversioner.” …
“On the merely political and commonsense level, there is also ground for greater tolerance towards Israel’s position, not only because of the historic centrality of Jerusalem to Judaism for 3,000 years, but also because in modern times Jews have always exceeded Arabs in Jerusalem. In 1844 there were 7,000 Jews to 5,000 Moslems; in 1910, 47,000 Jews to 9,800 Moslems; in 1931, 51,222 Jews to 19,894 Moslems; in 1948, 100,000 Jews to 40,000 Moslems, and in 1967 200,000 Jews to 54,902 Moslems”.
In the next issue of points to ponder I plan to use the same source as above to discuss the myth that “Israel’s “occupation” of Judah and Samaria, the West Bank, is illegal”.
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