Just The Facts Please: Who Owns The Land? Pushing Beyond The Rhetoric Into The Land Of Reality

The following two articles summarize the facts of the situation quite accurately - "inconvenient facts" for those who hate Israel: 

The truth is a minority opinion

This morning I got an email from an American correspondent asking what are the arguments for the legitimacy of Israeli communities (not ‘settlements’) across the Green Line, including all of Jerusalem. When I responded, I realized that although I have written about this before, it needs to be repeated – and repeated, because in this case the truth is a minority opinion. So here is a slightly more complete version of my answer:

The Jewish people have a legal, historical and moral right to live anywhere in the land between the Jordan and the Mediterranean; and the only sovereign power in this region is Israel, the state of the Jewish people. Here is why:

From a legal point of view, the land was originally a part of the Ottoman Empire, which ceased to exist at the end of WWI. “Palestine” was set aside for the Jewish people by the Palestine Mandate, which was supposed to be administered for their benefit by Britain, which then tried to subvert it for its own interests. It’s clear that while the intent of the Mandate was that all residents would have civil rights, rights to a “national home” were reserved for the Jewish people, who were also explicitly granted the right of “close settlement on the land”. This was affirmed for all the land from the river to the sea by the representatives of the international community in 1923.

The partition resolution of November 1947 (UNGA 181) was non-binding – a recommendation for a permanent settlement after the end of the Mandate. But it was never implemented. 

In 1948, the Arabs rejected the UN’s partition resolution and invaded the territory of the former Mandate, blatantly violating  the UN Charter in an attempt to acquire the territory for themselves. The 1949 ceasefire agreement that ended hostilities was not a peace agreement, and both sides insisted that that the ceasefire lines were not political boundaries. Their only significance was to mark the locations of the armies when the shooting stopped.

The 19-year Jordanian annexation of the territory it controlled that followed was illegal, only recognized by Britain (and maybe Pakistan). This occupation did not change the status of the land in any way.

The state of Israel was declared in 1948 and recognized by numerous other states. But what were its borders? Certainly not the armistice lines and not the recommendations of the partition resolution. However, legal scholars Eugene Kontorovich and Avi Bell recently provided a clear answer:

Israel’s borders and territorial scope are a source of seemingly endless debate. Remarkably, despite the intensity of the debates, little attention has been paid to relevance of the doctrine of uti possidetis juris to resolving legal aspects of the border dispute. Uti possidetis juris is widely acknowledged as the doctrine of customary international law that is central to determining territorial sovereignty in the era of decolonization. The doctrine provides that emerging states presumptively inherit their pre-independence administrative boundaries.

Applied to the case of Israel, uti possidetis juris would dictate that Israel inherit the boundaries of the Mandate of Palestine as they existed in May, 1948. The doctrine would thus support Israeli claims to any or all of the currently hotly disputed areas of Jerusalem (including East Jerusalem), the West Bank, and even potentially the Gaza Strip (though not the Golan Heights)

Israel’s practical acquisition of sovereignty over all the land in 1967 is thus entirely legitimate. And since Israel did not occupy land belonging to any other sovereign power, it is incorrect to refer to Judea and Samaria as “occupied territory.” Naftali Bennett’s statement that “you can’t occupy your own land” is precisely correct.

Article 49 of the 4th Geneva convention, the usual justification for saying that settlements are illegal only applies to occupied territory, which Judea and Samaria are not. 

But even if they were occupied territory, the intent of article 49 was to prevent forcible transfer of a population the way the Nazis sent German Jews to occupied Poland, not people moving of their own free will.

From a historical point of view, the Palestinians claim that they lived here for generations and European Jews came and displaced them. But in fact all but a few ‘Palestinians’ are descended from Arabs who migrated to the area for economic reasons after the advent of Zionism, and even fewer arrived before the invasion by Muhammad Ali in the 1830s. 

The Jewish connection to the land doesn’t need further explication. Judea and Samaria, in fact, represent the biblical heartland of the Jewish people, where its history took place and where its holy places are located. If there is any part of the land of Israel that should belong to the Jewish people, it is Judea (including Jerusalem) and Samaria.

From a moral point of view, the Palestinians have had criminal leaders that have relied on war and  terrorism to achieve their goals. Haj Amin al-Husseini started several pogroms in pre-state Palestine, and then collaborated with Hitler in his attempt to bring the Holocaust to the Middle East. 

Yasser Arafat and the PLO popularized airline (and other) hijacking to blackmail nations into supporting his goals, and was responsible for at least one major regional war (Lebanon 1982) and countless massacres and terror attacks against Israel and other nations. Hamas explicitly calls for genocide against Jews and is guilty of numerous war crimes. Palestinians have refused territorial compromises when offered and have started several wars against Israel (1947, second intifada, Hamas wars). Why should they be allowed to benefit from these actions?

Jerusalem. One interesting additional issue is the insistence of the US State Department that no part of Jerusalem, eastern or western, belongs to Israel. The 1947 partition resolution called for Jerusalem to be under international control. But as I noted, the resolution was only advisory and was never implemented. 

The Mandate did not give any special status to Jerusalem. The State Department’s insistence on this point is inconsistent, given that it appears to agree that Acco and Nazareth, which were to be parts of the Arab state proposed in 1947, are currently parts of Israel. It is also indefensible. And the deliberate vehemence with which the Obama Administration has pressed this view is irrational, insulting and clearly anti-Zionist.

I hope the information in this post will be helpful to my correspondent, and to others as well. I’ll add that nothing would make me happier than to hear the Government of Israel make an unambiguous declaration of sovereignty over Judea and Samaria, as is our legal, historical and moral right.

Very simple, not so easy

Much is always being made of the “complexities” of the Israel-Palestine problem. It’s no such thing; it is very easy, very simple to understand. And as a service to my beloved readers, I am now going to lay it out for you, in a way that even the simplest libtard could grasp, were they willing to even try.

It all boils down to this quote from the Hadith:

Sahih Bukhari (52:177) – Allah’s Apostle said, “The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say. “O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him.”

And there it is. How do you negotiate, how do you compromise, how do you find common ground with that? With people whose most sincere wish—for whom the cornerstone of their very existence—is to see Israel destroyed and the Jews—all Jews, including those foolish and despicable American Jews immersed in Progressivist self-deception and wishful thinking—wiped from the face of the earth?

There are plenty more such quotes from the Koran, Hadith, and Sura (a hundred and nine of them, in fact, for which there is NO equivalent in the Christian bible, although the Torah does have some questionable passages that hew uncomfortably close to the Koran), not just endorsing, not just suggesting, but outright commanding violence on the part of the followers of the vile, deranged pedophile Mohammed. Such commands are what make Islam unique among all the world’s religions, particularly in the modern age. Thus:

The Messenger of Allah said: I have been commanded to fight against people so long as they do not declare that there is no god but Allah.

And again: there it is.

Now, the Israelis have tried trading land for peace in the West Bank and Gaza; in each case, they lost the land, but did not gain peace.

Time and again—and even as staunch and solid an Israeli leader as Netanyahu has fallen victim to the delusion—Israel has been led to the bargaining table with deceptive, treacherous, and genocidal Paleosimian leaders. Time and again, they have made their bootless concessions. And time and again, the Palestinian swine have walked away, from Arafat to Abu Mazen, now known for some reason as Mahmoud Abbas. The inescapable historical fact:

UN Resolution 181, the Partition Resolution, passed in November 1947, called for the creation of a Jewish state and an Arab state in the land which at that point was controlled by the British-run Palestine Mandate. All the Arab countries opposed the resolution, voted against it, and promised to go to war to prevent its implementation. Representing the Palestinians, the Arab Higher Committee also opposed the plan and threatened war, while the Jewish Agency, representing the Jewish inhabitants of the Palestine Mandate, supported the plan.
The Arabs and the Palestinians were true to their word and did launch a war against the Jews of Palestine, violating both Resolution 181 and the UN Charter. Much to the surprise of the Arab side, the Jews were able to survive the initial onslaughts and eventually win the war.
The fundamental fact remains that had the Arabs and the Palestinians accepted the Partition Resolution and not violated the UN Charter by attacking Israel, there would be a 63-year-old Palestinian state today next to Israel, and there would not have been a single Palestinian refugee.
Just as today, it seems that even in 1948 the Arab side was more concerned with opposing and attacking the Jewish state than with creating a Palestinian state.

The Jews were living in Judea hundreds of years before Mohammad was even born and his filthy pseudo-religion established by conquest and murder. The so-called Palestinians have no legitimate, historical, or legal claim to so much as one inch of Israeli land. 

The Israelis would be perfectly happy to adopt the so-called “two-state solution,” and have tried in good faith and with no intent of deception to do just that. 

The Palestinians have rejected each and every such offer and resumed their barbaric atrocities. They wish to see Israel destroyed, and the Jews wiped from the face of the earth. There’s your Israeli-Palestinian problem summed up; there’s why, as long as the Palestinians cling to the abominable teachings of Mohammed, there will never be a real solution. It doesn’t get much simpler than that.

As I said yesterday, there are those on the alt-Right who would see us abandon Israel and cozy up to the Muslim shitrapies. I will never be one of them.

Bottom line update! JJ Sefton sums up pretty well:

Since its founding in 1948, the modern State of Israel has been the lone beacon of freedom and enlightenment surrounded by a vast wasteland of medieval tyranny, pig-ignorance, squalor, barbarity and a blind, centuries-old unreconstructed hatred. In spite of this, it has year after year made concession after concession in a desperate attempt to stop generational bloodshed and save the lives of not only its own children but of children whose parents use them as suicide bombers. It has only earned them enmity. And the twin ideologies of Islam and Marxism are converging with the aim of wiping Israel off the map and annihilating every Jew that Hitler couldn’t gas now in sight; all thanks to Barack Hussein Obama, 44th President of the United States.
Having backed Israel into a corner by all but giving Iran nukes, and now opening a second front at the UN to annihilate the Jewish state politically, I suppose Bibi’s only response must be as unthinkable as Obama’s incitement: Annex the West Bank and to hell with the consequences.

Well, nah; all he really has to do is just wait till January 20th, when the Marxist, Jew-hating Left will finally get its comeuppance, Israel will once again have a friend in the White House and, as Trump said, “things will be different.”

Things WILL be different update! A most delicious quote: “Who is Obama?” (Israel’s Culture and Sports Minister Miri) Regev asked rhetorically. “Obama is history. We have Trump.” Yes, we do—all of us, Israelis and Americans alike—and not a moment too soon, either.

5 questions update! Here’s the first two:

1.  Why are the territories continually referred to as “Palestinian?” With cities such as Hebron, Shilo, Bethlehem, Jericho, and Jerusalem—and many others from the Bible—why is the land never referred to as “Jewish” or “Christian?” For example, one of the most well-known cities in the West Bank is known as “The Palestinian city of Nablus.” How many people know how that name came about? (Hint: the Roman Emperor Vespasian re-named it from Shechem to “Neapolis,” as in Naples).
2.  Why are Palestinians free to live throughout cities in Israel such as Tel Aviv, but Jews are told they cannot be free to live in cities such as Hebron or Jerusalem?

Good questions all. I’ll add one of my own: what kind of access do you think Christians, Jews, or any non-Muslims would be allowed to holy sites in Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Jericho, and other places in Israel if the Palestinians were in charge of them? Hint: one need only look to Mecca for the answer.