U.K. Opposes Palestine on Same Grounds It Accepts Israel
In recent months, seven South American nations have recognized Palestine “as a free, independent and sovereign state.”
Last week, following similar statements by representatives of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Chile, the Foreign Ministry of Guyana declared that its decision to recognize Palestine was based on “Guyana’s long-standing and unwavering solidarity with, and commitment to, the just and legitimate aspirations of the people of Palestine for the exercise of their right to self-determination and to achieve a homeland of their own, independent, free, prosperous and at peace.” Paraguay and Peru are expected to recognize a Palestinian state in coming weeks.
During his first official visit to Palestine a few days ago, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev reaffirmed Moscow’s commitment to an independent Palestinian state. “We have supported the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital since the last century, and we still support it,” Medvedev said, speaking in the West Bank town of Jericho.
In response to these recent developments, Ha’aretz reports that “a British Foreign Office minister said Thursday that only direct Palestinian-Israeli negotiations can achieve peace, adding that the U.K would not recognize a unilaterally declared Palestinian state.” Parliamentary Under Secretary of State Alistair Burt, while in Jordan today, said that London could not “recognize a state that does not have a capital, and doesn’t have borders.”
The irony here is striking considering Israel has no internationally recognized capital and no internationally recognized borders.
When Israel unilaterally declared independence in mid-1948, a temporary capital was set up in Tel Aviv. The April 3, 1949 armistice agreement signed between Israel and Jordan on established geographical demarcation lines which divided Jerusalem into sectors each under Israel and Jordan control with a no-man’s-land between them. On December 9, 1949, the United Nations General Assembly upheld this demarcation status. Nevertheless, in defiance of the international community, Israel soon announced that Jerusalem was its official capital. Neither the United States nor Britain, along with the majority of the rest of the world, accepted this transfer and, to this day, do not recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
In 1980, 13 years after Israel claimed to “annex” the whole of occupied Jerusalem into Israeli territory, the Israeli government passed the so-called “Jerusalem Law” which held that “Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel” and that “Jerusalem is the seat of the President of the State, the Knesset, the Government and the Supreme Court.”
Following this pronouncement, a number of governments, including France and Germany, issued statements condemning the measure and, in response, the government of the Netherlands moved its Consulate General from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv. The United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution (UNSC Res. 478), for which the U.K. voted in favor, stating that “the enactment of the ‘basic law’ by Israel constitutes a violation of international law.” The resolution (which passed with a 14-0 vote, with the U.S. cowardly abstaining) also denied acceptance of Israel’s decision and called upon all UN member states “hat have established diplomatic missions at Jerusalem to withdraw such mission from the Holy City.”
To this day, the United Kingdom does not recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, maintains that Israel has no sovereignty over Jerusalem, and retains its Embassy in Tel Aviv. In fact, there are currently no international embassies in Jerusalem (though, interestingly, both Bolivia and Paraguay have their embassies in the Jerusalem suburb of Mevasseret Zion).
Furthermore, Israel, in its eternal effort to expand its territory through illegal annexation, colonization, military conquest, and land theft, has no recognized borders. In 1937, over a decade before becoming Israel’s first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion stated that a Jewish state could first be established in part of Palestine in order to set the stage for further expansion. “We shall accept a state in the boundaries fixed today,” he said, “but the boundaries of Zionist aspirations are the concern of the Jewish people and no external factor will be able to limit them.” The next year, he declared, “[I am] satisfied with part of the country, but on the basis of the assumption that after we build up a strong force following the establishment of the state – we will abolish the partition of the country and we will expand to the whole Land of Israel.”
Even now, more than 70 years later, Israel’s current Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, refuses to talk about establishing internationally recognized borders for the state of Israel.
Similarly, responding to his country’s recent recognition of Palestine, Gabriel Zaliasnik, president of Chile’s Jewish community, claimed he was “satisfied” with the wording of the proclamation because it did not refer to borders. “Israelis and Palestinians will eventually define all the core issues like borders,” he said. “For the Jewish people, Jerusalem and borders of the state of Israel can not be provided to third parties.”
The British government even withheld formal, de jure recognition of the state of Israel for nearly two years after its creation. On April 27, 1950, the Parliamentary Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Lord William Henderson, legally recognized Israel in spite of the undetermined status of Jerusalem and the temporary nature of Israel’s borders, which are mentioned specifically in the statement of recognition.
Nevertheless, all these years later, despite having neither a capital nor borders, the British government still recognizes Israel as a sovereign, free, and independent state. In a blatant case of double standards, it now refuses to do so with regard to Palestine.
It appears that the shameful and duplicitous legacy of the Balfour Declaration has yet to let go its grip on the British Foreign Office.
“The irony here is striking considering Israel has no internationally recognized capital and no internationally recognized borders.”
Uh oh…..
On May 15th 1948 The extent of Israeli Sovereignty was announced by the Israeli Government as “within frontiers approved by the General Assembly of the United Nations in its Resolution of November 29, 1947,”
On May 22nd 1948 the Israeli Government confirmed the extent of it’s sovereignty as “within frontiers approved by the General Assembly of the United Nations in its Resolution of November 29, 1947,” in statements to the UNSC.
By May 11th 1949 Israel had already been recognized by the majority of the International Community of Nations according to the Israeli Government statements of May 15th & May 22nd 1948 “within frontiers approved by the General Assembly of the United Nations in its Resolution of November 29, 1947,” .
On 11 May 1949 Israel was accepted into the UN as a UN Member State as recognized, “within frontiers approved by the General Assembly of the United Nations in its Resolution of November 29, 1947,”
On June 15th 1949 the Israeli Government again confirmed the extent of it’s sovereignty as “within frontiers approved by the General Assembly of the United Nations in its Resolution of November 29, 1947,” in statements to the UNSC
On 31st August 1949 the Israeli Government made it’s first illegal claim to territory beyond the extent of it’s Declared, acknowledged and recognized “.. frontiers approved by the General Assembly of the United Nations in its Resolution of November 29, 1947,”
Please attribute research http://wp.me/pDB7k
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May 15th, 1948 Letter From the Agent of the Provisional Government of Israel to the President of the United States,
“MY DEAR MR. PRESIDENT: I have the honor to notify you that the state of Israel has been proclaimed as an independent republic within frontiers approved by the General Assembly of the United Nations in its Resolution of November 29, 1947, and that a provisional government has been charged to assume the rights and duties of government for preserving law and order within the boundaries of Israel, for defending the state against external aggression, and for discharging the obligations of Israel to the other nations of the world in accordance with international law. The Act of Independence will become effective at one minute after six o’clock on the evening of 14 May 1948, Washington time.” Also available as PDF from the Truman Library
May 22, 1948 The reply of the Provisional Government of Israel (S/766) to the questions addressed to the “Jewish authorities in Palestine” was transmitted by the acting representative of Israel at the United Nations on May 22.
Question (a): Over which areas of Palestine do you actually exercise control at present over the entire area of the Jewish State as defined in the Resolution of the General Assembly of the 29th November, 1947?
“In addition, the Provisional Government exercises control over the city of Jaffa; Northwestern Galilee, including Acre, Zib, Base, and the Jewish settlements up to the Lebanese frontier; a strip of territory alongside the road from Hilda to Jerusalem; almost all of new Jerusalem; and of the Jewish quarter within the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. The above areas, outside the territory of the State of Israel, are under the control of the military authorities of the State of Israel, who are strictly adhering to international regulations in this regard. The Southern Negev is uninhabited desert over which no effective authority has ever existed.”
June 15, 1949 Israel-s position on its frontiers VOLUMES 1-2: 1947-1974
“As for the frontier between the State of Israel and the area west of the Jordan which is not included in Israel…”
Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague IV); October 18, 1907 Art. 42 SECTION III
“Territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army. The occupation extends only to the territory where such authority has been established and can be exercised. “
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The British recognition reflected International Law and the Israeli Government’s statements of May 15th May & 22nd 1948 and June 22nd 1949
Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague IV); October 18, 1907 Art. 42 SECTION III
“Territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army. The occupation extends only to the territory where such authority has been established and can be exercised. “
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Recognition was based on the statement of the Israeli Government 15th May 1948. Israel was recognized AND accepted into the United Nations BEFORE it first made any claim to any territory beyond it’s declared, acknowledged and recognized frontiers on 31st August 1949.
The Israeli Government, by it’s own statements, was fully aware of the extent of it’s legal frontiers at the time Israel was admitted to the UN.
The Israeli Government, by it’s own statements was fully aware of the extent of it’s legal frontiers after Israel was admitted to the UN.
Consecutive Israeli Governments have been LYING for 62 years
International Legal Rights of the Jewish People and the State of Israel
In international law, as in all law, there are always two sides to a question. If this were not the case, there would be little need for legal solutions. Moreover, both parties in any conflict believe the right is on their side, or at least that they have means to prove this to be so.
Accordingly, no law is ever created in a vacuum; a law is created when a serious enough need arises. In 1917, owing to the events of World War I, a serious need was identified and a voice was raised. The need was that of the Jewish people, dispersed across the earth for some two thousand years, to have a national home. The voice was that of Lord Balfour, speaking on behalf of the British War Cabinet in defense of the Jewish people worldwide. This compelling need found official expression in the Balfour Declaration of 1917. The Balfour Declaration was a political statement with no legal authority; moreover, it was not international. Nonetheless it was a major turning point in the history of the dispersed Jewish people, giving them a future hope of eventually fulfilling their never dying longing for their ancient Holy Land.
What it accomplished was to raise the profile, internationally, of the need of a stateless people to have a “national home” to which they could return. Of monumental significance was the official recognition of the all-important historic, religious and cultural links of the Jews to the land of their forefathers, the land that had come to be known under the Greeks and Romans as
“Palestine”. Because the cause was just and the concept justified, there needed to be a way to elevate the content of this Declaration to the level of international law. Accordingly, the matter
was taken up by the Supreme Council of the Principal Allied and Associated Powers (Britain, France, Italy, Japan and the United States) at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. The issue became more complex as submissions for territorial claims were presented by both Arab and Jewish delegations, as the old Ottoman Empire was being apportioned out to the victorious Powers; thus the matter was not able to be settled within the time frame of the Paris Conference. What did happen at the Paris Conference that factored into the progression of events we are considering here was the establishment of the League of Nations which, in Article 22 of its Covenant, provided for the setting up of a mandate system as a trust for the Old Ottoman territories. The next important milestone on the road to international legal status and a Jewish national home was the San Remo Conference, held at Villa Devachan in San Remo, Italy, from 18 to 26 April 1920. This was an ‘extension’ of the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 for the purpose of dealing with some of these outstanding issues. The aim of the four (out of five) members of the Supreme Council of the Principal Allied and Associated Powers that met in San Remo (the United States being present as observer only, owing to the new noninterventionist policy of President Woodrow Wilson), was to consider the earlier submissions of the claimants, to deliberate and to make decisions on the legal recognition of each claim. The outcome, relying on Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, was the setting up of (3) three mandates, one over Syria and Lebanon (later separated into two mandates), one over Mesopotamia (Iraq), and one over Palestine.
The Mandate for Palestine was entrusted to Great Britain, as a “sacred trust of civilization” in respect of “the establishment in all of Palestine of a National Home for the Jewish people”.
This was a binding resolution with all the force of international law. Confirmed by the 1920 Treaty of Sevres and Lausanne.
In two out of the original three Mandates, it was recognized that the indigenous people had the capacity to govern themselves, with the Mandatory Power merely assisting in the establishment of the institutions of government, where necessary. This was not true of Palestine, as Palestine was, under the Mandate, to become a homeland (“national home”) for the Jewish people. Although the Jewish people were part of the indigenous population of Palestine, the majority of them at that time were not living in the Land. The Mandate for Palestine was thus quite different from the others and set out how the Land was to be settled by Jews in preparation for their forming a viable nation in the territory then known as “Palestine”.
The unique obligations of the Mandatory to the Jewish people in respect of the establishment of their national home in all of Palestine thus gave a sui generis (unique, one of a kind) character to the Mandate for Palestine.
The boundaries of the “Palestine” referred to in the claimants’ submissions included territories west and east of the Jordan River (which were to be part of the Jewish State).
The submissions of the Jewish claimants specified that the ultimate purpose of the mandate would be the “creation of an autonomous commonwealth”, provided “that nothing must be done that might prejudice the civil and religious rights of the non-Jewish communities at present established in Palestine”.
The resulting Mandate for Palestine, approved by the Council of the League of Nations in July 1922, was an international treaty and, as such, was legally binding. The decision made in San Remo was a watershed moment in the history of the Jewish people who had been a people without a home for some two thousand years. From the perspective of Chaim Weizmann, president of the newly formed Zionist Organization and later to become the first President of the State of Israel, “recognition of our rights in Palestine is embodied in the treaty with Turkey, and has become part of international law. This is the most momentous political event in the whole history of our movement, and it is, perhaps, no exaggeration to say in the whole history of our people since the Exile.” To the Zionist Organization of America, the San Remo Resolution “crowns the British [Balfour] declaration by enacting it as part of the law of nations of the world.” The policy to be given effect in the Mandate for Palestine was consistent with the Balfour Declaration, (As confirmed by the 1920 Treaty of Sevres and Lausanne) in significantly recognizing the historic, cultural and religious ties of the Jewish people to the Holy Land, and even stronger than the Declaration through the insertion of the fundamental principle that Palestine should be reconstituted as the national home of the Jewish people. It is particularly relevant to underline the inclusion in the terms of the Mandate (through Article 2) of the fundamental principle set out in the Preamble of this international agreement that “recognition has thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country”. The primary objective of the Mandate was to provide a national home for the Jewish people—including Jewish people dispersed worldwide—in their ancestral home.
The Arab people, who already exercised sovereignty in a number of States, were guaranteed protection of their civil and religious rights under the Mandate as long as they wished to remain, even after the State of Israel was ultimately formed in 1948. Moreover, a new State; Trans-Jordan was meanwhile added as a territory under Arab sovereignty, carved out of the very mandated territory allocated to the Jewish people at issue, by the British, prior to the actual signing of the Mandate in 1922 (see below). When the Council of the League of Nations approved the Mandate for Palestine in July 1922, it became binding on all 51 Members of the League.
This act of the League enabled the ultimate realization of the long cherished dream of the restoration of the Jewish people to their ancient land and validated the existence of historical facts and events linking the Jewish people to Palestine.
For the Supreme Council of the Principal Allied Powers, and for the Council of the League of Nations, these historical facts were considered to be accepted and established.
In the words of Neville Barbour, “In 1922, international sanction was given to the Balfour Declaration by the issue of the Palestine Mandate”. The rights granted to the Jewish people in the Mandate for Palestine were to be given effect in all of Palestine (including east of the Jordan River).
It thus follows that the legal rights of the claimants to sovereignty over the Old City of Jerusalem similarly derive from the decisions of the Supreme Council of the Principal Allied Powers in San Remo and from the terms of the Mandate for Palestine approved by the Council of the League of Nations.
In March 1921, in Cairo, Great Britain in violation of agreements and treaties, decided to partition the mandated territory of Palestine, for international political reasons of its own. Article 25 of the Mandate gave the Mandatory Power permission to postpone or withhold most of the terms of the Mandate in the area of land east of the Jordan River (“Trans-Jordan”). Great Britain, as Mandatory Power, exercised that right. For former UN Ambassador, Professor Yehuda Zvi Blum, the rights vested in the Arab people of Palestine with respect to the principle of self-determination were fulfilled as a result of this initial partition of Palestine approved by the Council of the League of Nations in 1922. According to Professor Blum: “The Palestinian Arabs have long enjoyed self-determination in their own state – the Palestinian Arab State of Jordan”. (Worth mentioning here, in a letter apparently written on 17 January 1921 to Churchill’s Private Secretary, Col. T.E. Lawrence (“of Arabia”) had reported that, in return for Arab sovereignty in Iraq, Trans-Jordan and Syria, King Hussein’s eldest son, Emir Feisal—a man said by Lawrence to be known for keeping his word—had “agreed to abandon all claims of his father to Palestine”.) After this partition, Churchill—British Colonial Secretary at the time— immediately reaffirmed the commitment of Great Britain to give effect to the policies of the Balfour Declaration in all the other parts of the territory covered by the Mandate for Palestine west of the Jordan River.
This pledge included the area of Jerusalem and its Old City.
In Churchill’s own words: “It is manifestly right that the Jews who are scattered all over the world should have a national centre and a national home where some of them may be reunited. And where else could that be but in the land of Palestine, with which for more than three thousand years they have been intimately and profoundly associated?”
Thus, in a word, the primary foundations in international law for the “legal” claim based on “historic rights” or “historic title” of the Jewish people in respect of Palestine are the San Remo decisions of April 1920, the Mandate for Palestine of July 1922, approved by the Council of the League of Nations and bearing the signatures of those same Principal Allied Powers but rendering it an international treaty binding on all Member States, and the Covenant of the League of Nations itself (Art. 22). It is important to note that the Allied Powers also set-up 21 Arab states after WWI of which no one is questioning its boundaries, therefore the boundaries of Israel as set-up according to the San Remo Treaty of 1920 should not be questions either (As confirmed by the 1920 Treaty of Sevres and Lausanne) . In addition, there is no mention that the Arab countries have expelled over a million Jewish people, confiscating their assets, businesses, home and land totaling over 120,000 sq. km. or 46,000 sq. miles valued at today’s market in the trillions of dollars. It seems that the Arabs and the International community keep taking areas of land from the Jewish state again and again, until there is nothing left. That is exactly what the Arab Palestinians want.