International Legal Rights of the Jewish People and the State of Israel
In international law, as in all law, there are always two sides to a question. If this were not the case, there would be little need for legal solutions. Moreover, both parties in any conflict believe the right is on their side, or at least that they have means to prove this to be so. Accordingly, no law is ever created in a vacuum; a law is created when a serious enough need arises. In 1917, owing to the events of World War I, a serious need was identified and a voice was raised. The need was that of the Jewish people, dispersed across the earth for some two thousand years, to have a national home. The voice was that of Lord Balfour, speaking on behalf of the British War Cabinet in defense of the Jewish people worldwide. This compelling need found official expression in the Balfour Declaration of 1917. The Balfour Declaration was a political statement with no legal authority; moreover, it was not international. Nonetheless it was a major turning point in the history of the dispersed Jewish people, giving them a future hope of eventually fulfilling their never dying longing for their ancient Holy Land. What it accomplished was to raise the profile, internationally, of the need of a stateless people to have a “national home” to which they could return. Of monumental significance was the official recognition of the all-important historic, religious and cultural links of the Jews to the land of their forefathers, the land that had come to be known under the Greeks and Romans as “Palestine”. Because the cause was just and the concept justified, there needed to be a way to elevate the content of this Declaration to the level of international law. Accordingly, the matter was taken up by the Supreme Council of the Principal Allied and Associated Powers (Britain, France, Italy, Japan and the United States) at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. The issue became more complex as submissions for territorial claims were presented by both Arab and Jewish delegations, as the old Ottoman Empire was being apportioned out to the victorious Powers; thus the matter was not able to be settled within the time frame of the Paris Conference. What did happen at the Paris Conference that factored into the progression of events we are considering here was the establishment of the League of Nations which, in Article 22 of its Covenant, provided for the setting up of a mandate system as a trust for the Old Ottoman territories. The next important milestone on the road to international legal status and a Jewish national home was the San Remo Conference, held at Villa Devachan in San Remo, Italy, from 18 to 26 April 1920. This was an ‘extension’ of the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 for the purpose of dealing with some of these outstanding issues. The aim of the four (out of five) members of the Supreme Council of the Principal Allied and Associated Powers that met in San Remo (the United States being present as observer only, owing to the new noninterventionist policy of President Woodrow Wilson), was to consider the earlier submissions of the claimants, to deliberate and to make decisions on the legal recognition of each claim. The outcome, relying on Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, was the setting up of (3) three mandates, one over Syria and Lebanon (later separated into two mandates), one over Mesopotamia (Iraq), and one over Palestine.
The Mandate for Palestine was entrusted to Great Britain, as a “sacred trust of civilization” in respect of “the establishment in all of Palestine of a National Home for the Jewish people”.
This was a binding resolution with all the force of international law.
In two out of the original three Mandates, it was recognized that the indigenous people had the capacity to govern themselves, with the Mandatory Power merely assisting in the establishment of the institutions of government, where necessary. This was not true of Palestine, as Palestine was, under the Mandate, to become a homeland (“national home”) for the Jewish people. Although the Jewish people were part of the indigenous population of Palestine, the majority of them at that time were not living in the Land. The Mandate for Palestine was thus quite different from the others and set out how the Land was to be settled by Jews in preparation for their forming a viable nation in the territory then known as “Palestine”. The unique obligations of the Mandatory to the Jewish people in respect of the establishment of their national home in all of Palestine thus gave a sui generis (unique, one of a kind) character to the Mandate for Palestine.
The boundaries of the “Palestine” referred to in the claimants’ submissions included territories west and east of the Jordan River.
The submissions of the Jewish claimants specified that the ultimate purpose of the mandate would be the “creation of an autonomous commonwealth”, provided “that nothing must be done that might prejudice the civil and religious rights of the non-Jewish communities at present established in Palestine”. The resulting Mandate for Palestine, approved by the Council of the League of Nations in July 1922, was an international treaty and, as such, was legally binding. The decision made in San Remo was a watershed moment in the history of the Jewish people who had been a people without a home for some two thousand years. From the perspective of Chaim Weizmann, president of the newly formed Zionist Organization and later to become the first President of the State of Israel, “recognition of our rights in Palestine is embodied in the treaty with Turkey, and has become part of international law. This is the most momentous political event in the whole history of our movement, and it is, perhaps, no exaggeration to say in the whole history of our people since the Exile.” To the Zionist Organization of America, the San Remo Resolution “crowns the British [Balfour] declaration by enacting it as part of the law of nations of the world.” The policy to be given effect in the Mandate for Palestine was consistent with the Balfour Declaration, in significantly recognizing the historic, cultural and religious ties of the Jewish people to the Holy Land, and even stronger than the Declaration through the insertion of the fundamental principle that Palestine should be reconstituted as the national home of the Jewish people. It is particularly relevant to underline the inclusion in the terms of the Mandate (through Article 2) of the fundamental principle set out in the Preamble of this international agreement that “recognition has thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country”. The primary objective of the Mandate was to provide a national home for the Jewish people—including Jewish people dispersed worldwide—in their ancestral home.
The Arab people, who already exercised sovereignty in a number of States, were guaranteed protection of their civil and religious rights under the Mandate as long as they wished to remain, even after the State of Israel was ultimately formed in 1948. Moreover, a new State; Trans-Jordan was meanwhile added as a territory under Arab sovereignty, carved out of the very mandated territory allocated to the Jewish people at issue, by the British, prior to the actual signing of the Mandate in 1922 (see below). When the Council of the League of Nations approved the Mandate for Palestine in July 1922, it became binding on all 51 Members of the League.
This act of the League enabled the ultimate realization of the long cherished dream of the restoration of the Jewish people to their ancient land and validated the existence of historical facts and events linking the Jewish people to Palestine. For the Supreme Council of the Principal Allied Powers, and for the Council of the League of Nations, these historical facts were considered to be accepted and established.
In the words of Neville Barbour, “In 1922, international sanction was given to the Balfour Declaration by the issue of the Palestine Mandate”. The rights granted to the Jewish people in the Mandate for Palestine were to be given effect in all of Palestine. It thus follows that the legal rights of the claimants to sovereignty over the Old City of Jerusalem similarly derive from the decisions of the Supreme Council of the Principal Allied Powers in San Remo and from the terms of the Mandate for Palestine approved by the Council of the League of Nations.
In March 1921, in Cairo, Great Britain decided to partition the mandated territory of Palestine, for international political reasons of its own. Article 25 of the Mandate gave the Mandatory Power permission to postpone or withhold most of the terms of the Mandate in the area of land east of the Jordan River (“Trans-Jordan”). Great Britain, as Mandatory Power, exercised that right. For former UN Ambassador, Professor Yehuda Zvi Blum, the rights vested in the Arab people of Palestine with respect to the principle of self-determination were fulfilled as a result of this initial partition of Palestine approved by the Council of the League of Nations in 1922. According to Professor Blum: “The Palestinian Arabs have long enjoyed self-determination in their own state – the Palestinian Arab State of Jordan”. (Worth mentioning here, in a letter apparently written on 17 January 1921 to Churchill’s Private Secretary, Col. T.E. Lawrence (“of Arabia”) had reported that, in return for Arab sovereignty in Iraq, Trans-Jordan and Syria, King Hussein’s eldest son, Emir Feisal—a man said by Lawrence to be known for keeping his word—had “agreed to abandon all claims of his father to Palestine”.) After this partition, Churchill—British Colonial Secretary at the time— immediately reaffirmed the commitment of Great Britain to give effect to the policies of the Balfour Declaration in all the other parts of the territory covered by the Mandate for Palestine west of the Jordan River.
This pledge included the area of Jerusalem and its Old City. In Churchill’s own words: “It is manifestly right that the Jews who are scattered all over the world should have a national centre and a national home where some of them may be reunited. And where else could that be but in the land of Palestine, with which for more than three thousand years they have been intimately and profoundly associated?” Thus, in a word, the primary foundations in international law for the “legal” claim based on “historic rights” or “historic title” of the Jewish people in respect of Palestine are the San Remo decisions of April 1920, the Mandate for Palestine of July 1922, approved by the Council of the League of Nations and bearing the signatures of those same Principal Allied Powers but rendering it an international treaty binding on all Member States, and the Covenant of the League of Nations itself (Art. 22).
The Mandate for Palestine was entrusted to Great Britain, as a “sacred trust of civilization” in respect of “the establishment in all of Palestine of a National Home for the Jewish people”.
This was a binding resolution with all the force of international law.
In two out of the original three Mandates, it was recognized that the indigenous people had the capacity to govern themselves, with the Mandatory Power merely assisting in the establishment of the institutions of government, where necessary. This was not true of Palestine, as Palestine was, under the Mandate, to become a homeland (“national home”) for the Jewish people. Although the Jewish people were part of the indigenous population of Palestine, the majority of them at that time were not living in the Land. The Mandate for Palestine was thus quite different from the others and set out how the Land was to be settled by Jews in preparation for their forming a viable nation in the territory then known as “Palestine”. The unique obligations of the Mandatory to the Jewish people in respect of the establishment of their national home in all of Palestine thus gave a sui generis (unique, one of a kind) character to the Mandate for Palestine.
The boundaries of the “Palestine” referred to in the claimants’ submissions included territories west and east of the Jordan River.
The submissions of the Jewish claimants specified that the ultimate purpose of the mandate would be the “creation of an autonomous commonwealth”, provided “that nothing must be done that might prejudice the civil and religious rights of the non-Jewish communities at present established in Palestine”. The resulting Mandate for Palestine, approved by the Council of the League of Nations in July 1922, was an international treaty and, as such, was legally binding. The decision made in San Remo was a watershed moment in the history of the Jewish people who had been a people without a home for some two thousand years. From the perspective of Chaim Weizmann, president of the newly formed Zionist Organization and later to become the first President of the State of Israel, “recognition of our rights in Palestine is embodied in the treaty with Turkey, and has become part of international law. This is the most momentous political event in the whole history of our movement, and it is, perhaps, no exaggeration to say in the whole history of our people since the Exile.” To the Zionist Organization of America, the San Remo Resolution “crowns the British [Balfour] declaration by enacting it as part of the law of nations of the world.” The policy to be given effect in the Mandate for Palestine was consistent with the Balfour Declaration, in significantly recognizing the historic, cultural and religious ties of the Jewish people to the Holy Land, and even stronger than the Declaration through the insertion of the fundamental principle that Palestine should be reconstituted as the national home of the Jewish people. It is particularly relevant to underline the inclusion in the terms of the Mandate (through Article 2) of the fundamental principle set out in the Preamble of this international agreement that “recognition has thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country”. The primary objective of the Mandate was to provide a national home for the Jewish people—including Jewish people dispersed worldwide—in their ancestral home.
The Arab people, who already exercised sovereignty in a number of States, were guaranteed protection of their civil and religious rights under the Mandate as long as they wished to remain, even after the State of Israel was ultimately formed in 1948. Moreover, a new State; Trans-Jordan was meanwhile added as a territory under Arab sovereignty, carved out of the very mandated territory allocated to the Jewish people at issue, by the British, prior to the actual signing of the Mandate in 1922 (see below). When the Council of the League of Nations approved the Mandate for Palestine in July 1922, it became binding on all 51 Members of the League.
This act of the League enabled the ultimate realization of the long cherished dream of the restoration of the Jewish people to their ancient land and validated the existence of historical facts and events linking the Jewish people to Palestine. For the Supreme Council of the Principal Allied Powers, and for the Council of the League of Nations, these historical facts were considered to be accepted and established.
In the words of Neville Barbour, “In 1922, international sanction was given to the Balfour Declaration by the issue of the Palestine Mandate”. The rights granted to the Jewish people in the Mandate for Palestine were to be given effect in all of Palestine. It thus follows that the legal rights of the claimants to sovereignty over the Old City of Jerusalem similarly derive from the decisions of the Supreme Council of the Principal Allied Powers in San Remo and from the terms of the Mandate for Palestine approved by the Council of the League of Nations.
In March 1921, in Cairo, Great Britain decided to partition the mandated territory of Palestine, for international political reasons of its own. Article 25 of the Mandate gave the Mandatory Power permission to postpone or withhold most of the terms of the Mandate in the area of land east of the Jordan River (“Trans-Jordan”). Great Britain, as Mandatory Power, exercised that right. For former UN Ambassador, Professor Yehuda Zvi Blum, the rights vested in the Arab people of Palestine with respect to the principle of self-determination were fulfilled as a result of this initial partition of Palestine approved by the Council of the League of Nations in 1922. According to Professor Blum: “The Palestinian Arabs have long enjoyed self-determination in their own state – the Palestinian Arab State of Jordan”. (Worth mentioning here, in a letter apparently written on 17 January 1921 to Churchill’s Private Secretary, Col. T.E. Lawrence (“of Arabia”) had reported that, in return for Arab sovereignty in Iraq, Trans-Jordan and Syria, King Hussein’s eldest son, Emir Feisal—a man said by Lawrence to be known for keeping his word—had “agreed to abandon all claims of his father to Palestine”.) After this partition, Churchill—British Colonial Secretary at the time— immediately reaffirmed the commitment of Great Britain to give effect to the policies of the Balfour Declaration in all the other parts of the territory covered by the Mandate for Palestine west of the Jordan River.
This pledge included the area of Jerusalem and its Old City. In Churchill’s own words: “It is manifestly right that the Jews who are scattered all over the world should have a national centre and a national home where some of them may be reunited. And where else could that be but in the land of Palestine, with which for more than three thousand years they have been intimately and profoundly associated?” Thus, in a word, the primary foundations in international law for the “legal” claim based on “historic rights” or “historic title” of the Jewish people in respect of Palestine are the San Remo decisions of April 1920, the Mandate for Palestine of July 1922, approved by the Council of the League of Nations and bearing the signatures of those same Principal Allied Powers but rendering it an international treaty binding on all Member States, and the Covenant of the League of Nations itself (Art. 22).
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