Eretz Israel is our unforgettable historic homeland...The Jews who will it shall achieve their State...And whatever we attempt there for our own benefit will redound mightily and beneficially to the good of all mankind. (Theodor Herzl, DerJudenstaat, 1896)

We offer peace and amity to all the neighbouring states and their peoples, and invite them to cooperate with the independent Jewish nation for the common good of all. The State of Israel is ready to contribute its full share to the peaceful progress and development of the Middle East.
(From Proclamation of the State of Israel, 5 Iyar 5708; 14 May 1948)

With a liberal democratic political system operating under the rule of law, a flourishing market economy producing technological innovation to the benefit of the wider world, and a population as educated and cultured as anywhere in Europe or North America, Israel is a normal Western country with a right to be treated as such in the community of nations.... For the global jihad, Israel may be the first objective. But it will not be the last. (Friends of Israel Initiative)
Showing posts with label Peel Commission. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Peel Commission. Show all posts

Sunday, 4 March 2018

David Singer: Prince William Visit Will Advance Jordan-Israel Two-State Solution

CLICK HERE for thread
Here's the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:

Kensington Palace’s carefully-crafted tweet announcing that “The Duke of Cambridge will visit Israel, Jordan and the Occupied Palestinian Territories in the Summer” – could spark a diplomatic war with far-reaching implications.

The Palace clarified that:
“The visit is at the request of Her Majesty's Government and has been welcomed by the Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian authorities.”
This will be the first official Royal tour to the State of Israel since its establishment in 1948. Israel’s President Rivlin and Prime Minister Netanyahu have expressed their delight at this long-overdue announcement.

Jordan – visited officially by Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip in 1984 – will enthusiastically welcome their grandson Prince William.

The British Government’s decision to also dispatch the Prince to visit the “Occupied Palestinian Territories” (“OPT”)  – Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), East Jerusalem and Gaza – the last remaining 5% of the territory of the Mandate for Palestine where sovereignty remains unresolved between Jews and Arabs – is very intriguing.

The PLO and Hamas have been engaged in an internecine struggle for control in the OPT since 2007 – whilst the PLO has suspended negotiations with Israel over the allocation of sovereignty in the OPT since April 2014. Corruption and nepotism are rife and elections are long overdue. Murderers of Israelis are rewarded with financial payments for life.

PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas’s incendiary comments at the United Nations on 20 February claiming the British Government bears responsibility for the catastrophic consequences inflicted on the Palestinian people as a result of Britain’s 1917 Balfour Declaration – create a toxic environment for the Royal visit.

Indeed Abbas had earlier declared in the United Nations General Assembly in September 2016:
“We ask Great Britain, as we approach 100 years since this infamous declaration, to draw the necessary lessons and to bear its historic, legal, political, material and moral responsibility for the consequences of this declaration, including an apology to the Palestinian people for the catastrophes, misery and injustice this declaration created and to act to rectify these disasters and remedy its consequences, including by the recognition of the state of Palestine. This is the least Great Britain can do.”
Another Abbas demand in March 2017 that Britain apologise for the Balfour Declaration was swiftly rejected by the British Government.

Britain’s Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson – writing in the Daily Telegraph on 29 October 2017 – went even further:
“I have no doubt that the only viable solution to the conflict resembles the one first set down on paper by another Briton, Lord Peel, in the report of the Royal Commission on Palestine in 1937, and that is the vision of two states for two peoples.” 
The Peel Commission recommended two sovereign independent States be established in Palestine:
1. An Arab State – consisting of Trans-Jordan (now called Jordan) – 77% of the territory of the Mandate for Palestine – united with part of the remaining 23% of the Mandate territory within which the reconstitution of the Jewish National Home was proposed in 1922

2. A Jewish State consisting of the remainder of the 23% of Palestine
The Arabs rejected the Peel recommendations.

However Jordan’s subsequent independence in 1946 and Israel’s in 1948 laid the groundwork for the Peel two-state solution applying in 99% of former Palestine between 1950 and 1967 after Jordan and Egypt had illegally invaded and occupied the OPT in 1948.

Great Britain in 1950 and the PLO on its establishment in 1964 recognized this two-state reality – which remains the key to resolving the 100 years old Arab-Jewish conflict.

Prince William’s visit to the Occupied Palestinian Territories ensures that resurrecting the Jordan-Israel two-state solution once again takes centre stage.

Monday, 6 November 2017

David Singer: Britain Backs Jordan and Israel to End the Arab-Jewish Conflict

Here's the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:

Britain’s Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has acknowledged that Jordan and Israel represent the only viable “two state solution” that can end the Arab-Jewish conflict.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph on 29 October – ahead of the centenary of the Balfour Declaration on 2 November – the Foreign Secretary stated:
“I have no doubt that the only viable solution to the conflict resembles the one first set down on paper by another Briton, Lord Peel, in the report of the Royal Commission on Palestine in 1937, and that is the vision of two states for two peoples.” 
 The Royal Commission had been authorised by Royal Warrant dated 7 August 1936:
“… to enquire into the manner in which the Mandate for Palestine is being implemented in relation to Our obligations as Mandatory towards the Arabs and the Jews respectively; and to ascertain whether, upon a proper construction of the terms of the Mandate, either the Arabs or the Jews have any legitimate grievances upon account of the way in which the Mandate has been, or is being implemented”
Significantly the Royal Warrant did not mention or identify the “Palestinians” as being a party to the dispute. There were only two parties – the “Arabs” and the “Jews” – not three. The “two-state solution” - one Jewish, one Arab – first envisioned in article 25 of the 1922 Mandate for Palestine (Mandate) – had restricted Jewish rights to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in just 22% of the territory covered by the Mandate. The Jews had accepted that proposal but the Arabs had rejected it.

The Peel Commission after a lengthy and detailed Inquiry confirmed that the “two-state solution” contemplated by the Mandate – one Jewish, one Arab – remained the only solution to end the grievances between Arabs and Jews – concluding that:
“two sovereign independent States would be established – the one an Arab State, consisting of Trans-Jordan united with that part of Palestine which lies to the east and south of a frontier such as we suggest in Section 3 below; the other a Jewish State consisting of that part of Palestine which lies to the north and west of that frontier.”
Transjordan – renamed Jordan in 1950 – comprised the remaining 78% of the territory contained in the Mandate for Palestine closed to Jewish settlement under the Mandate. Britain still retained full responsibility for Transjordan as Mandatory Power until Transjordan was finally granted independence by Britain in 1946.

The Peel Commission’s “two-state solution” is shown on the following map:


The Arabs rejected partition and the creation of any Jewish State. The Jews accepted the principle of partition – but not the borders designated on the map.

Boris Johnson has advanced the resolution of the Arab-Jewish conflict by highlighting that:
· the only viable “two-state solution” is the partition proposed by the Peel Commission with newly-negotiated borders agreed between Jordan and Israel
· Jordan remains the Arab key to resolving the Arab-Jewish conflict - which a naïve and gullible world continues to ignore.
Trying to create two Arab States and one Jewish State in an area where only one Arab state and one Jewish state is warranted by history, geography and demography has been a diplomatic disaster with horrendous consequences for Arabs and Jews.

Messrs Arkush and Johnson: read article here
Jordan and Israel  the two successor States to the Mandate – currently exercising sovereignty in 95% of former Palestine – need to sit down and resolve Jewish and Arab claims to the remaining 5%.

Britain’s reaffirmation of Peel’s proposed “two-state solution” is long overdue.

The “two-state solution” posited in 1922 and 1937 – Jordan and Israel – still remains the only viable solution to resolve the Arab-Jewish conflict in 2017.

Wednesday, 10 May 2017

David Singer: United Nations Web of Deceit snares International Court of Justice

Here's another of Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer's important exposures of the United Nations' duplicity and its dangerous, deleterious effects.

Writes David Singer

The United Nations publication The Origins and Evolution of the Palestine Problem 1917-1988 (“Study”) has falsely misrepresented that the Mandate for Palestine was a class A Mandate – deceiving the International Court of Justice and many other reputable sources.

The Study has been published by the Division for Palestinian Rights of the United Nations Secretariat for, and under the guidance of, the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People.

The Study falsely asserts without substantiation: 
“All the mandates over Arab countries, including Palestine, were treated as class 'A' Mandates, applicable to territories whose independence had been provisionally recognized in the Covenant of the League of Nations”.
The Study then erroneously concludes:
“Only in the case of Palestine did the Mandate, with its inherent contradictions, lead not to the independence provisionally recognized in the Covenant, but towards conflict that was to continue six decades later.”
However the 1937 Peel Commission Report comprehensively debunks the Study’s concocted claims
“The Mandate [for Palestine] is of a different type from the Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon and the draft Mandate for Iraq. These latter, which were called for convenience “A” Mandates, accorded with the fourth paragraph of Article 22. Thus the Syrian Mandate provided that the government should be based on an organic law which should take into account the rights, interests and wishes of all the inhabitants, and that measures should be enacted ‘to facilitate the progressive development of Syria and the Lebanon as independent States.’ The corresponding sentences of the draft Mandate for Iraq were the same. In compliance with them National Legislatures were established in due course on an elective basis. Article 1 of the Palestine Mandate, on the other hand, vests ‘full powers of legislation and of administration,’ within the limits of the Mandate, in the Mandatory.”
The Study for reasons unknown completely ignores this detailed Peel Commission rebuttal.

The Study’s unchallenged statements  – seemingly authentic bearing United Nations imprimatur – appear on many websites including:
1. The Rights Forum – which claims to strive for a rights-based policy of the Netherlands and the European Union with regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. On 10 December 2009, the International Day of Human Rights, The Rights Forum was launched by its Chairman former Dutch Prime Minister Andreas van Agt – assisted by an Advisory Council of former Ministers and Professors in International Law. 
2. The Global Education Project – which states it adheres to rigorous standards and strives for an impartial and comprehensive presentation of the most relevant information necessary for both accurate and adequate education.
3. ProCon.org – which asserts it is America’s leading source for non-partisan information and civic education - serving more than 25 million people each year including teachers and students in more than 9000 schools in all 50 states and 90 foreign countries. It claims that 34 US state governments,17 US state Departments of Education, 23 foreign governments and 22 US federal agencies have cited ProCon.org materials.
A large number of anti-Israel sites and books have also embraced these Study’s false claims.
However the biggest fish snared in the Study’s web of deceit is the United Nations own primary judicial branch – the International Court of Justice – which in paragraph 70 of its Advisory Opinion of July 9, 2004 stated: 
“Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire. At the end of the First World War, a class ‘A’ Mandate for Palestine was entrusted to Great Britain by the League of Nations, pursuant to paragraph 4 of Article 22 of the Covenant. ...” 
The Study’s fabricated narrative has certainly reaped – and continues to reap – huge dishonest dividends.