KFAR SABA, Israel — It’s taken a long time, but finally the US has recognized the obvious fact that Jewish communities everywhere in Israel do not violate international law. The Washington Post, which is one of many media outlets that is unfriendly to Israel, verified this fact in its reporting of Secretary of State Pompeo’s pronouncement on November 18, 2019. To wit: “… the Trump administration had determined that Israel’s West Bank settlements do not violate international law.”
The newspaper further reported: “Pompeo said the Trump administration, as it did with recognition of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital and Israel’s sovereignty over the disputed Golan Heights, had simply ‘recognized the reality on the ground.’”
NOTE: When the British Mandate for Palestine was instituted by the League of Nations in the early 1920s, only 22% of Palestine – just the land west of the Jordan River – was available for Jewish settlement. Fully 78% of Palestine had summarily been given by the British to the Hashemite Arab clan, whose rule in “Arabia” had been usurped by the Saud clan. Thereby, the area for settlement east of the Jordan River was solely for Arabs and closed to Jews. (“Palestine” is the 1st century CE name coined by the victorious Roman general, Hadrian, to erase Jewish-identified Eretz Yisrael-Land of Israel.)
Consequently, only the area west of the Jordan River remained for “close settlement” by the Jewish people in their “national home,” as stipulated in the Balfour Declaration, the San Remo Conference, and the League of Nations’ Mandate, which was adopted in full by the United Nations at its inception after WWII.
The British, not content with leaving only a paltry 22% for the Jewish home, restricted Jewish immigration while allowing unrestricted Arab immigration from the surrounding region, even when Jews were fleeing Nazi-controlled Europe. Both Arabs and Jews were designated “Palestinians,” although the Arabs rejected this description. The Jews were not so particular, naming major Jewish institutions like the Palestine Post, which after 1948 became the Jerusalem Post. The first prominent use of “Palestinian” by the Arabs came only in 1964, when the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was founded to terrorize Jews and usurp Israel.
In 1947, the United Nations Assembly passed its Partition Plan for a Jewish and an Arab (as distinguished from a Palestinian) state, which envisioned two states in the diminished 22% Palestine. But this was not to be. The surrounding Arab countries attacked Israel immediately after it declared independence. But Israel won the war and legally established the third (some say fourth) Jewish nation in the Land of Israel after a hiatus of about 2,000 years.
The Jordanians occupied a small portion of the territory west of the Jordan River, including Jerusalem’s Old City. A few years later they coined the description: West Bank (1950) to replace the Jewish-linked traditional names, Judea and Samaria. Likewise, Egypt controlled the Gaza Strip. These occupations were intact for just 19 years. During the Six Day War of 1967, Israel took control of the balance of the 22% left to it in the British Mandate for Palestine.
NOTE: The Jews’ right to settle in its homeland doesn’t depend on legal proclamations. Our claim to the land is perhaps the world’s oldest. We have continuously lived on the land for more than 3,500 years. All of the previous peoples who dwelt here in ancient times, with the exception of the Jews, assimilated or otherwise disappeared from the area.
The Arabs arrived on the scene in the mid-7th century CE and in the ensuing centuries they fought with Christians and non-Arab Muslims for sovereignty. While Palestine fell into decrepitude during the 400 years of Ottoman rule (1517-1917), it began to revive in the late 19th and 20th centuries with the renewed Jewish development of the homeland. As a consequence of Zionism, the Arabs’ small numbers increased with the dramatic need for laborers.
The American acceptance of Jewish rights in the Land of Israel completes a triumvirate of “asks” that I and many others have long requested: recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital; recognition of the Golan Heights as part of Israel; recognition of communities in Judea and Samaria as part of Israel. Simultaneously, it refutes the perfidious Security Council resolution 2334 of 2016, which “made” the Jews’ holiest sites (and more) in Jerusalem “illegal,” as well as all the Jewish communities beyond the 1949 Armistice lines.
NOTE: After the War of Independence, the temporary armistice lines were emphatically declared by the Arabs NOT to be permanent borders: “According to this agreement (article 2), the armistice agreement did not affect any legal claims of the parties, therefore the cease fire lines were not considered a border.” (biblefocus.net) Regardless, the armistice lines are constantly referred to as the “1967 borders,” a misunderstanding shared by groups opposed to Israel and even by many Jewish ones, such as the American Reform and Conservative movements and various Jewish organizations.
Of course, the Trump administration’s recognition of reality has not been universally applauded. In fact, recognizing reality is not something the international community and the mass media are used to doing when Israel is concerned. They will go on bleating about the “rights” of the Arabs to their own 23rd state (or 24th if you include Gaza) in the 22% of Palestine left after the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan was established. It should be remembered that there has never been a State of Palestine, nor is there any evidence of an historical Palestinian people.
This American recognition of Jewish legitimacy throughout Israel begs the question of what to do with the so-called West Bank Arabs. A third Arab state (after Jordan and Gaza) is out of the question in this small area. It might have worked if the Arabs were peaceful, but they aren’t. Therefore, another solution is required. I refer you to two excellent possibilities to deal with the situation. A combination of these two plans could be the best idea for the Palestinian Arabs, who will never achieve the replacement/demise of Israel – which is their “plan” for the State of Palestine.
Motti Kedar’s 8-state Emirates Plan and Martin Sherman’s plan to compensate Palestinian Arabs who emigrate.
In the meantime, contrary to what some pundits say, time is on the side of the Jews. Israel has strengthened in every way, decade by decade. We have more than 3,500 years of history invested in our land. We are sovereign by means of conquest of all of Mandate Palestine, which is the usual way states have been formed, including the USA. And, if you put any stock in the Bible, Israel is the Promised Land of the Jews, where Jews have lived since Abraham’s time, as a people and then as a nation, following our Exodus from Egypt. Religious Jews celebrate this every day in their prayers, and all Jews celebrate it at Passover each spring.
It’s very gratifying that the world’s leading country, the United States, has boldly broken with the UN, the EU, the Arab League, and any other group that distorts “international law” to accuse Israeli Jews of “occupying Arab land” in the Jewish homeland. I say again, “Can Jews be occupiers in Judea?”
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Steve Kramer is a freelance writer based in Kfar Saba, Israel. He may be contacted via steve.kramer@sdjewishworld.com