April 6, 2002
NewsWithViews.com
The following article was
written by Professor Beres in June 1992.
____________________________
Media references to territories administered
by Israel since the June 1967 war now routinely
describe them as "occupied." Yet, this description
conveniently overlooks the pertinent history of these lands, especially the authentic Israeli claims supported by international
law, the unwitting manner in which West Bank and Gaza
fell into Israel's hands after sustained Arab
aggression and the overwhelming security considerations involved. Contrary to widely disseminated but wholly
erroneous allegations; a sovereign State of Palestine
did not exist before 1967 or 1948; a State of
Palestine was not promised by authoritative UN Security Council Resolution 242; indeed, a State of Palestine has never
existed.
As a nonstate legal entity, Palestine ceased
to exist in 1948, when Great Britain relinquished its
League of Nations mandate. When, during the 1948 -
1949 war of independence, the West Bank and Gaza came under illegal control of Jordan and Egypt respectively, these aggressor
nations did not put an end to an already-existing
state. From the Biblical Period (ca. 1350 BC to 586
BC) to the British Mandate (1918 - 1948), the land named by the Romans after the ancient Philistines was controlled only by
non- Palestinian elements.
Significantly, however, a continuous chain
of Jewish possession of the land was legally
recognized after World War I at the San Remo Peace Conference of April 1920. There, a binding treaty was signed in
which Great Britain was given mandatory authority over
Palestine (the area had been ruled by the Ottoman
Turks since 1516) to prepare it to become the "national home for the Jewish people." Palestine, according to the
treaty, comprised territories encompassing what are
now the state of Jordan and Israel, including West
Bank (Judea and Samaria) and Gaza. Present day Israel, including West Bank and Gaza, comprises only twenty-two
percent of Palestine as defined and ratified at the
San Remo Peace Conference.
In 1922, Great Britain unilaterally and
illegally split off 78 percent of the lands promised
to the Jews -- all of Palestine east of the Jordan River -- and gave it to Abdullah, the non-Palestinian son of the
Sharif of Mecca. Eastern Palestine now took the name
Transjordan, which it retained until April 1949, when
it was renamed as Jordan. From the moment of its creation, Transjordan was closed to all Jewish migration and
settlement, a clear betrayal of the British promise in
the Balfour Declaration of 1917 and a contravention of
its Mandatory obligations. On July 20, 1951, a Palestinian Arab assassinated King Abdullah for his hostility
to Palestinian aspirations and concerns.
Several years prior to Abdullah's killing,
in 1947, the newly-formed United Nations, rather than
designate the entire land west of the Jordan River as
the Jewish national homeland, enacted a second partition. Ironically, because this second fission again gave unfair advantage
to the Arabs, Jewish leaders accepted the painful
judgment while Arab states did not. On May 15, 1948,
exactly one day after the State of Israel came into existence, Azzam Pasha, Secretary General of the Arab League,
declared to a tiny new nation founded upon the ashes
of the Holocaust: "This will be a war of
extermination and a momentous massacre...." This declaration, of course, has been at the very heart of all subsequent Arab policies
toward Israel.
In 1967, almost twenty years after Israel's
entry into the community of nations, the Jewish State
-- as a result of its stunning military victory over
Arab aggressor states -- gained unintended control over West Bank and Gaza. Although the idea of the inadmissibility
of the acquisition of territory by war is enshrined in
the UN Charter, there existed no authoritative
sovereign to whom the territories could be "returned." Israel could hardly be expected to transfer the
territories back to Jordan and Egypt, which had
exercised unauthorized and generally cruel control
since the Arab-initiated war of "extermination" in 1948-49. Moreover, the idea of Palestinian self-determination was only
just beginning to emerge after the Six Day War, and
was not even codified in UN Security Council
Resolution 242, which was adopted on November 22, 1967. For their part, the Arab states convened a summit in Khartoum in
August 1967, concluding: "No peace with Israel, no
recognition of Israel, no negotiations with
it...."
Resolution 242 has been generally
misinterpreted. The formula advanced by the
Resolution is patently one of "peace for land," not "land for peace." The Resolution grants to every state in the Middle
East "the right to live in peace within secure and
recognized boundaries." It points, therefore, to
peace before territorial withdrawal to "recognized boundaries."
Security Council Resolution 242 is a
balanced whole. The right of self-determination of
the Palestinians does not appear in the Resolution; an
international conference is never mentioned; the parties referred to
include only states, not insurgent/terror organizations; and
the phrase "territories occupied" is neither preceded
by "the," nor is it followed by "on all
fronts."
These have been the essential historic
reasons why the territories are not "occupied."
Israel's right to reject this improper description also stems from its incontrovertible legal right to security and
self- defense. Because transformation of West Bank
(Judea/Samaria) and Gaza into an Arab state of
Palestine would threaten the very existence of Israel,
the Jewish State is under no current obligation to relinquish control. Its rights, in this regard, are peremptory.
International law is not a suicide pact.
Anyone who takes the trouble to look at a map of the
region will discover that Israel and the territories, comprising an area less than half the size of San Bernadino County
in California, cannot afford to yield its already
minimal "strategic depth." In this connection, Israel
should take little comfort from the promise of
Palestinian demilitarization. Indeed, should the government of Palestine choose to invite foreign armies or territories on to
its territory (possibly after the original national
government had been displaced or overthrown by more
militantly anti-Israel forces), it could do so not
only without practical difficulties, but also without necessarily violating international law.
The threat posed by an independent
Palestinian state would also impact directly upon
Jerusalem's nuclear strategy. For the moment, Israel -- still buffered from a hot eastern border by the West Bank -- can
afford to keep its bomb "in the basement." If,
however, this territory became the heart of
"Palestine," Israel would almost certainly have to move from "deliberate ambiguity" to disclosure, a shift that could
substantially improve the Jewish state's nuclear
deterrence posture but could also enlarge the chances
of a nuclear war should this posture fail.
Israel does not hold any "occupied"
territories. It is critical that the Government of
Israel recognize this, and that it never accept such an incorrect characterization. To do otherwise would be to degrade its
very capacity to endure.
LOUIS RENE BERES was educated at Princeton (Ph.D., 1971) and is author of many books and articles dealing with the Law of War. He has been a consultant on this matter in both Washington and Jerusalem. Professor Beres's columns appear often in major American, Israeli and European newspapers.
Louis Rene Beres
Professor of International Law
Department of Political Science
Purdue University
West Lafayette IN 47907 USA
E MAIL BERES@POLSCI.PURDUE.EDU
No comments:
Post a Comment