David Singer: Is it “Annexation” or “Restoring Jewish Sovereignty”?

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

He writes:

Students at Australia’s largest Jewish Day School – Moriah College – can be excused for being completely confused as to whether Israel’s proposed application of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria constitutes “annexation” or “restoring Jewish sovereignty” in the Jewish people’s biblical heartland after 3000 years.

There is a big difference – as College Principal Rabbi Yehoshua Smukler’s article “The myth of Israeli annexation” informed Moriah students:

“To use the term ‘Annexation’ in relation to Judea and Samaria is misleading. ‘Annexation’, a term applied to the forcible seizing of land or territory and annexing it into one’s own country or bringing it under its rule. It implies Israel is about to ‘seize control’ of areas that don’t already belong to Israel and that it doesn’t currently govern. This is simply untrue. Let’s look at the history.”

Regrettably the Principal’s look at history did not mention that:

• Judea and Samaria were designated by the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine in 1922 as part of the territory within which the Jewish National Home was to be reconstituted
• the United Nations description of this territory as “Occupied Palestinian Territory” is false and misleading 
• Jewish rights to “close settlement” in Judea and Samaria under article 6 of the Mandate are preserved by article 80 of the United Nations Charter.  

A subsequent article appeared on the Moriah blog page written by Robert Goot AO SC entitled “Perspectives on annexation”.

Goot is Chairman of the Trustees and a Life Patron of Moriah College, Co-chair of the Policy Council of the World Jewish Congress (WJC) and a past President and current Deputy President of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ).

Goot wrote:

“What is Annexation?
Currently no country has recognised sovereign rights over any of the West Bank and therefore, in strict legal terms, the area cannot be annexed in the sense of one country seizing the land of another.
A unilateral act of this kind, which seeks to change the status of the West Bank, appears to be contrary to the Oslo Accords, which continues to bind Israel and the Palestinians equally.”

Note that:

• Despite Goot agreeing with Moriah’s Principal that “annexation” is not the appropriate term to describe Israel’s intended action – Goot uses that term 35 times in his lengthy article, “the West Bank” 31 times and “Judea and Samaria” only once. 
• PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas told the United Nations General Assembly on 30 September 2015:

“We therefore declare that we cannot continue to be bound by these agreements [the transitional Oslo Agreement and its annexes, and the subsequent agreements signed with Israel] and that Israel must assume all of its responsibilities as an occupying power, because the status quo cannot continue and the decisions of the Palestinian Central Council last March are specific and binding.”

• Palestinian Minister of Foreign Affairs Riyad al-Maliki told a press conference on 15 February 2016: 

“We will never go back and sit again in a direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations”

 True to al-Maliki’s words – no such negotiations have occurred since.
Goot claims that the Mandate for Palestine – which recognised the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine – called for the “creation” – rather than the “reconstitution” – of the Jewish national home in Mandate territory. 

Transjordan – 77% of the Mandate territory denied the Jewish people where 2½ of the 12 Tribes of Israel settled – gained independence in 1946 not 1923 as Goot claims.

Jewish schoolchildren should be focusing on Jewish sovereignty in Judea and Samaria becoming a modern-day miraculous reality after an absence of 3000 years. 

Moriah students have – instead – become pawns in this political clash between two Moriah titans.

Author’s note: The cartoon – commissioned exclusively for this article—is by Yaakov Kirschen aka “Dry Bones”- one of Israel’s foremost political and social commentators – whose cartoons have graced the columns of Israeli and international media publications for decades. His cartoons can be viewed at Drybonesblog.

"Annexation Has a Precise Meaning in International Law" (Updated with video)

That's what international relations expert Eugene Kontorowich tells us here, warning us not to believe current widespread  "hype" regarding the so-called "annexation" of the West Bank.

Inter alia [emphasis added, as elsewhere below] :

'.... There  are  many  misunderstandings  about  the  planned  move—starting with what to call it. It is widely described as an Israeli “annexation” of West Bank territory, also known as Judea and Samaria. But annexation has  a  precise  meaning  in  international  law:  the  forcible  incorporation by  one  state  of  the  territory  of  another  state.  The  land  to  which  Israel seeks to apply its laws isn’t legally the territory of any other state, nor has it been since Israel’s independence in 1948. Neither the U.S.  nor the European Union recognizes the existence of a Palestinian state, and Israel’s  sovereign  claim  to  the  territory  is  superior  to  any  other country’s. Putting this move in the same category as Russia’s seizure of Crimea is entirely misleading.

There is no one-word name for what Israel plans to do because it is so  technical  and  pedestrian.  Israel  already  governs  the  territory  in question,  as  it  has  since  1967,  when  it  liberated  the  land  from  a  two-decade Jordanian occupation. But at that time Israel didn’t fully apply its domestic laws there, leaving it under military administration. Israel expected the Arab states to sue for peace after the Six-Day War, and it was prepared to transfer some of the land to them. There was no point in  hurriedly  applying Israeli  law  to  territory  that  might  not  remain Israeli after a peace settlement.The  current  system  of  governance  was  intended  to  be  temporary, but  Israel  retained  it  during  decades  of  negotiations,  all  of  which resulted  in  Palestinian  rejection  of  internationally  backed  offers  of statehood.   In   the   Middle   East,   nothing   is   as   permanent   as   the temporary.

Over the past 53 years, Jews have returned to Judea and Samaria, territories from which they had been, to a man [and a woman! - D.A.], ethnically cleansed by the Jordanians in 1949. Today, more than 400,000 Israelis live in West Bank  settlements,  still  governed  by  an  odd  patchwork  of  military regulations. As a result, property is governed by obscure Ottoman land law. Permitting for infrastructure projects is difficult and burdensome. Most Israeli environmental regulations don’t apply. After five decades of Palestinian rejectionism, it is hard to argue that the legal regulation of these communities must remain in limbo until a far-off peace deal is signed.This doesn’t mean giving upon  the  possibility  of  a  diplomatic settlement.   

Past   peace   efforts   have   been   based   on   the   morally repugnant and impractical assumption that the creation of a Palestinian state  must be preceded by the expulsion of all Jews  from its territory. The  acceptance of  an  ethnic  pre-cleansing  was  one  of  the  reasons  the U.S.  had  previously  opposed  the  application  of  Israeli  civil  law:  to make  life  harder  and  more  uncertain  for  Jewish  settlers  and  thereby encourage  them  to  leave. 

President  Trump’s  peace  vision  rightly rejects this illiberal notion, which hasn’t been the basis of realized or proposed peace deals anywhere else in the world, from East Timor to Northern Cyprus.The  application  of  Israeli  law  wouldn’t  affect  the  treatment  of Palestinians. In the West Bank, they would continue to be governed by the Palestinian Authority. Israel’s Knesset wouldn’t rule over them. The  Palestinian  Authority  would  also  still  have  a  chance  to  make peace. While all evidence suggests the authority isn’t fundamentally serious about statehood, U.S. recognition of Israeli sovereignty in parts of  the  West  Bank  may  help  bring  it  to  the  table.  It  would  show Palestinian leaders that turning down negotiations weakens their hand.Some  Middle  East  experts  say  the  Israeli  move  could  lead  to violence, European sanctions or a reversal  of Israel’s  warming ties with Arab states. 

But the same predictions of doom were made before Mr. Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, and they proved  entirely  hollow.  Critics  must  explain  why  this  one  should  be any different.Others say Israel should desist because its actions would provoke a possible Biden administration. This is heads-I-win-tails-you-lose logic: Israel  must  accept  Democratic  policies  when  Democrats  are  in  office and   also   when   they aren’t.     President Obama,    by    contrast, had   no   problem   allowing   the United  Nations  Security  Council to  pass  an  anti-Israel  resolution even  after  President-elect  Trump asked him to veto it.U.S.   recognition   of   Israeli sovereignty  in  parts  of  the  West Bank  comes  along  with  upfront  Israeli  commitments.  Israel  has agreed to a temporary building freeze in areas of the West Bank that are  under  Israel’s  jurisdiction  but  where  Israeli  law  isn’t  being extended.  

This goes beyond what the Trump administration’s Vision for Peace requires. Israel also knows that a future U.S. administration could   repudiate   support   for   Israeli   sovereignty   and   recognize   a Palestinian state anyway.Israel’s friends are right to take such concerns seriously: 

The plan isn’t without risks for Israel.  But  these  can  be  addressed  through  a formal memorandum of understanding that would commit the U.S. to recognizing Israeli sovereignty and not recognizing a Palestinian state until  the  detailed  Palestinian  prerequisites  in  the  Vision  for  Peace have   been  met  to  America’s  and  Israel’s  satisfaction.  Such  an agreement  between  the  U.S.  and  Israel  could  be  written  to  limit backsliding by the next U.S. administration.The application of Israeli civil law to Jewish settlements isn’t an annexation  or  an  imposition  on  Palestinians.  It  is  a  long  overdue recognition  of  Israel’s  legal  and  moral  rights,  a  step  that  can  no longer be deferred by the Palestinian refusal to make peace'.

A summary of points made by the distinguished Israeli Arab journalist Khaled Abu Toameh in a must-read article here:

'It is dead wrong to assume that if Israel abandons its plan, most Muslims would give up their desire to destroy Israel and replace it with an extremist Iran-style Islamic state.

[Islamic officials] are now calling on Palestinians to launch terror attacks against Israel, not because of the "annexation" plan, but in order to drive the Jews out of the "Palestinian Arab Islamic lands."

Those who are pressuring Israel not to proceed with the "annexation" plan need to hear what Islamic leaders are saying, day and night: that the conflict is not about Jewish settlements or the Jordan Valley, but the "big settlement" called Israel.'

From a host of of international law academics (see signatories at source), an open letter to the Israeli government opposing "annexation":

 ".... Such an action would constitute a flagrant violation of bedrock rules of international law, and would also pose a serious threat to international stability in a volatile region.

The norm prohibiting unilateral annexation of territory acquired by force has come to be universally recognized as a basic rule of international law. All international courts (including the International Court of Justice) and all international institutions (including the UN General Assembly and Security Council) who have considered this matter, as well as the overwhelming majority of international jurists, affirm this rule unequivocally. This prohibition applies equally to territories belonging to other states, as well as to non-self-governing territories in which peoples are entitled to determine their political fate in accordance with the right to self-determination. Furthermore, this prohibition applies to all territories occupied by force, even if it is claimed that force was initially used in an act of self-defense.

The West Bank was taken by force in 1967. It has been consistently recognized by the UN General Assembly, the UN Security Council, and the International Court of Justice as an occupied territory, in which the Palestinian people is entitled to fulfill its right to self-determination. This remains so even if bilateral negotiations could determine the details of security arrangements and final borders. Furthermore, the Israeli government as well as the Israeli Supreme Court have for decades applied the law of belligerent occupation to the West Bank. This is demonstrated in dozens of decisions by the Supreme Court of Israel, as well as in Israel’s positions before international treaty bodies, where it argues that the West Bank is not under Israeli jurisdiction for the purpose of application of human rights treaties.

It follows that unilateral annexation of any part of this territory would violate the fundamental norm prohibiting annexation as well as the right to self-determination. As such, it would be null and void, entail consequences of international wrongfulness, and – under certain circumstances –  lead to individual international criminal liability. In this context, it matters not whether such actions would be effected through “extension of sovereignty,” “extension of law, jurisdiction, and administration,” or explicit annexation. De facto annexation entails the same legal consequences as de jure annexation. Additionally, in no case can such an act lawfully bring about or justify discriminatory results, inter alia in relation to citizenship or property rights...."

 It seems more signatories are being canvassed.

Update: Meanwhile, here are the folks at Latma  (hat tip: David Singer)

David Singer: Jewish People Reclaiming Sovereignty in Biblical Heartland after 3000 Years

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

He writes:

The United Nations is disgracefully trying to prevent a miracle happening 100 years after the world first gave its historic imprimatur to an impossible dream becoming a possible reality:  The restoration of Jewish sovereignty in 1697km² [square kilometres] of the Jewish People’s biblical heartland in Judea and Samaria (West Bank).

The defeat of the 400 years-old Ottoman Empire in World War One revived the Jewish People’s 3000-years-old dream of regaining nationhood in their ancient homeland – which had extended across both banks of the River Jordan where the twelve tribes of Israel had finally settled 40 years after their exodus from Egypt.

The San Remo Resolution signed by Great Britain, France, Japan and Italy on 25 April 1920 promised the Jews real hope.

The Treaty of Sevres involving the international community quickly followed on 10 August 1920.
The British Empire, France, Italy and Japan (“Principal Allied Powers”) were joined by Armenia, Belgium, Greece, the Hedjaz, Poland Portugal, Roumania, the Serb-Croat Slovene State and Czecho-Slovakia (“Allied Powers”) in this peace treaty signed with Turkey.

Signatories for the British Empire were representatives of:

• His Majesty the King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland 
• The Dominion of Canada
• The Commonwealth of Australia
• The Dominion of New Zealand
• The Union of South Africa
• India

Article 95 provided that Palestine – within such boundaries as might be determined by the Principal Allied Powers – be administered by a Mandatory to be selected by them. The Mandatory was to be responsible for putting into effect the Balfour Declaration made on 2 November 1917, by the British Government – and adopted by the Allied Powers – in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people – it being clearly understood that nothing would be done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine – or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

The League of Nations' 51 member states unanimously appointed Britain as Mandatory and approved the terms of the Mandate for Palestine on 24 July 1922. 

Intervening political events in Syria between 1920 and 1922 involving France and Britain saw the Mandate’s provisions deny the Jewish People the right to reconstitute the Jewish National Home on the East Bank of the Jordan River where two and a half of the twelve tribes had settled after reaching the Promised Land.

Judea and Samaria were reserved however for the Jews under the Mandate – that right being preserved under article 80 of the 1945 United Nations Charter notwithstanding the demise of the League of Nations in 1946.

After Britain handed its Mandate back to the United Nations in 1948 – every Jew living in Judea and Samaria was driven out by the invading army of Transjordan which itself comprised 77% of the Mandate territory and had achieved independence in 1946.

Judea and Samaria were unified with Transjordan to become “The West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan” from 1950 to 1967 – recognized only by Great Britain, Iraq and Pakistan. Jordanian citizenship was extended to all its Arab citizens from 1954 to 1988. 

Jordan’s loss of Judea and Samaria to Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War saw some 450,000 Jews returning to reclaim their patrimony over the next 53 years – but the international community’s seal of approval soon changed to outright condemnation. President Trump’s 2020 Peace Plan has confirmed those vested legal rights acquired 1920-1922 by the Jewish People in Judea and Samaria. 

An amazing miracle is about to occur on 1 July without any parallel in world history.

Author’s note: The cartoon – commissioned exclusively for this article—is by Yaakov Kirschen aka “Dry Bones”- one of Israel’s foremost political and social commentators – whose cartoons have graced the columns of Israeli and international media publications for decades. His cartoons can be viewed at Drybonesblog.

David Singer: “Restoring Jewish Sovereignty” is Not “West Bank Annexation”

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

He writes:

Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz have reached a critical point in their negotiations to form a Government of National Unity: whether to seize the opportunity presented by President Trump to restore Jewish sovereignty in Judea and Samaria – the heartland of the ancient and biblical Jewish National Home – after an absence of 3000 years.

Netanyahu wants to do so in tandem with President Trump – immediately a Government of at least 61 members headed by him as Prime Minister is formed. Gantz is not prepared to do so unless the Arab States – notably Jordan – and the international community agree – virtually guaranteeing it will never happen.

The Jewish media do not seem to have grasped this unique opportunity given to the Jewish People to turn a 3000-year-old dream into a miraculous reality.

Using what can only be described as the language of the enemies of the Jewish people, the mainstream Jewish media in Israel and elsewhere have been headlining their reports of the ongoing struggle between Netanyahu and Gantz with very similar headlines:

• “Gantz weighing limited West Bank settlement annexation – report”
• “Two leaders forced to yell to each other with PM in precautionary isolation; main disagreement is still over annexing parts of West Bank, which Netanyahu wants as his ‘legacy’”
• “Gantz reportedly prepared to accept limited annexation of West Bank”
• “Report: Gantz agrees to limited West Bank annexation, inches closer to unity gov’t”
• “Dan Shapiro: Gantz and Netanyahu are ‘haggling’ over West Bank annexation”
• “West Bank annexation remains a sticking point in Israel unity government talks”

These Jewish media reports are doing the Jewish People a great disservice.

The correct name of the “West Bank” is “Judea and Samaria” – the geographic place name used for 3000 years until 1950 – when its name was changed by Transjordan following its illegal occupation of Judea and Samaria and the ethnic cleansing of all Jews living there in the 1948 War of Independence.

Transjordan and Judea and Samaria were unified into one territorial entity and renamed Jordan. The West Bank was the area of Jordan on the West Bank of the River Jordan. The area on the East Bank of the Jordan River comprised what was formerly Transjordan.

The term “Judea and Samaria” had been recently used in Part II A of the 1947 UN Partition Resolution.

The 1950 change of name to “West Bank” has since been used to mask any Jewish claims or connection to the land. To rub salt into the wound the United Nations now calls it the “Occupied Palestinian Territories”.

The term “annexation” connotes taking something to which you have no claim. Yet the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine included Judea and Samaria as areas in which the Jewish National Home could be “reconstituted”.  This right to do so is preserved today by article 80 of the United Nations Charter.

Language is important.

The Jewish media is letting the Jewish People down at this critical moment in Jewish history. In seeking to underplay the Netanyahu-Gantz divide, the Jewish media is giving ammunition to our enemies to use “West Bank annexation” at every opportunity.

“West Bank annexation” is a distinctly anti-Jewish phrase. “Restoring Jewish sovereignty in Judea and Samaria” states the Jewish case. Four more words for media to include in their headlines and reports that create a very different perception and understanding of what is at stake.

As Jews recount the miracle of the Exodus from Egypt at their Seders this week, think of the miracle Jews may be soon blessed to witness with their own eyes – reclaiming patrimony in the ancient Jewish homeland after 3000 years.

 Author’s note: The cartoon—commissioned exclusively for this article—is by Yaakov Kirschen aka “Dry Bones”—one of Israel’s foremost political and social commentators—whose cartoons have graced the columns of Israeli and international media publications for decades. His cartoons can be viewed at Drybonesblog

David Singer: Trump Set to Reject UN and PLO on Jews' Legal Rights in West Bank

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

He writes:

President Trump is set to reject the United Nations (UN)and Palestine Liberation Organization(PLO) claim that Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) is illegal in international law.

 The UN and PLO have for decades denied thel egal rights vested in theJewish people to reconstitute the Jewish NatIonal Home in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) pursuant to article 6 of the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine – preserved until today under article 80 of the UN Charter.

Some 400,000 Jews now live in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and  Trump is going to recognize that those areas “will remain in Israeli hands under a permanent accord,” according to a report on Israel’s Channel 12.

To that end, the report said, “the Americans will not oppose Israeli steps relating to the settlements”.

Specifically, while the US will not explicitly back the formal “extension of Israeli sovereignty” to the settlements, or their “annexation,” the report said, it will not object to the “extension of Israeli law” to the settlements.

Trump’s decision – if correctly reported – will send the UN and the PLO into dual tailspins of their own making.

Acting in breach of its own Charter has reduced the UN to an organization held hostage by the 134 anti-Israel nations comprising the G77 that have long sponsored this canard of Jewish illegality.

The PLO’s claim since its formation in 1964 that the Mandate for Palestine was “null and void” ignored the fact that all 51 member states of the League of Nations had unanimously conferred those rights on the Jewish people in recognition of the “the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country”.

Trump’s decision would not go as far as the promise made by Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

In the run up to last month’s Israeli election:

“I am going to apply Israeli sovereignty, but I don’t distinguish between settlement blocs and isolated settlements.  From my perspective, each of those settlement points is Israeli. We have responsibility [for them] as the government of Israel. I don’t uproot any, and I won’t transfer them to the sovereignty of the Palestinians. I take care of them all.”

Trump’s decision would not resolve the issue of Jewish and Arab sovereignty in specifically designated areas of Judea and Samaria (WestBank) which would still remain to be resolved in direct negotiations.

 However Trump would be clearly signaling that the PLO claim to establish a second UN-backed Palestinian Arab State in every square meter of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) – in addition to Jordan – is dead in the water.

Seven weeks ago at a White House ceremony with Netanyahu present, Trump signed a proclamation declaring it “appropriate to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights” and that “the United States recognizes that the Golan Heights are part of the State of Israel.”

Trump’s reported position on Judea and Samaria (West Bank) is a natural progression in his plan to end the 100 years old Jewish-Arab conflict.

The decades of denial by the UN and PLO of any legal rights vested in the Jews to live in  – and claim sovereignty over  – any part of the 22 per cent of the territory of former Palestine allocated to them for that purpose by the Mandate will be ended by President Trump.

Trump would be finally restoring the League of Nations decision on Palestine to its preeminent position in international law. Excising the greatest obstacle to resolving the Jewish-Arab conflict would be one of Trump’s greatest political achievements.

(Author’s note: The cartoon—commissioned exclusively for this article—is by Yaakov Kirschen aka “Dry Bones”-one of Israel’s foremost political and social commentators—whose cartoons have graced the columns of Israeli andinternational media publications for decades. His cartoons can be viewed at Drybonesblog)