reply to post by Deeep
Summary ... To truely determine the legal status of the area known as
Yesha (Judea, Samaria and Gaza), it is important to understand the
different types of UN resolutions. Once this is understood, it becomes
clear there is no such thing as the Israeli-occupied territories. (If
anything, they are actually Arab-occupied territories.)
One of the most misused, misapplied and misunderstood definitions in the
dictionary of the Arab-Israeli conflict is the term "occupied
territories". The vast majority of people simply do not know the facts or
misinterpret them, thus completely distorting the real picture of the land
distribution between the Arabs and the Jews. The truth of the matter is
that, according to international law, the Jews have the complete and
unquestionable right to settle the territories of Judea, Samaria and Gaza
(collectively known as Yesha). Not a single enforceable international
document exists that forbids them from settling the lands of Yesha.
On the contrary, the only existing enforceable document actually
encourages Jewish settlement. This document was created on April 24, 1920
at the San Remo Conference when the Principal Allied Powers agreed to
assign the Mandate for the territory of Palestine to Great Britain. By
doing so the League of Nations "recognized the historical connection of
the Jewish people with Palestine" and established "grounds for
reconstituting their national home in that country." Article 6 of the
Mandate "encouraged ... close settlement by Jews on the land," including
the lands of Judea, Samaria and Gaza (Yesha).
There is nothing whatsoever in the Mandate that separates Yesha from the
rest of the mandated territory. That means that the right of the Jews to
settle the land spreads to the whole of Palestine. As a side note it is
worth mentioning that the 76% of the territory of Mandated Palestine known
today as Jordan, were [sic] not permanently exempt from settlement by the
Jews either. Article 25 only allowed to "postpone or withhold application
of [this] provision."
With the disbanding of the League of Nations, the rights of the Jews to
settle the territories of Palestine, including Yesha, were not hurt. When
in 1946 the United Nations was created in place of the League of Nations,
its Charter included Article 80 specifically to allow the continuation of
existing Mandates (including the British Mandate). Article 80 stated that
"nothing ... shall be construed in or of itself to alter in any manner the
rights whatsoever ... of any peoples or the terms of existing
international instruments to which Members of the United Nations may
respectively be parties."
Then in November 1947 came time for Resolution 181, which recommended the
Partition of Palestine. Like all UN Resolutions pertaining to the
Jewish-Arab conflict it was not enforceable. It was simply a
recommendation, and the Arab countries rejected it. As the Syrian
representative in the General Assembly stated:
"In the first place the recommendations of the General Asembly are not
imperative on those to whom they are addressed.... The General Assembly
only gives advice and the parties to whom advice is addressed accept it
when it is rightful and just and when it does not impair their fundamental
rights"(1).
If the resolution had been implemented maybe it would be possible to argue
that it replaced the San Remo Conference resolution, which had legitimized
the rights of the Jews to settle in any place in Palestine. However, it
was not only rejected by the Arabs, but in violation of the UN Charter
they launched a military aggression against the newly reborn Jewish state
thus invalidating the resolution. By the time of the ceasefire at the end
of the War of Independence there was still no other enforceable document
pertaining to the rights of the Jews to settle E
