Interpreting the San Remo Agreement of 1920 as an International Treaty

Interpreting the San Remo Agreement of 1920 as an International Treaty

There is a widespread misconception current also among Israel’s government leaders and media, that the State of Israel derives its legal existence from the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 (II) of November 29, 1947, popularly known as the “Partition Resolution.” This misconception is so ingrained in official historical, political and popular thinking, that it is extremely difficult to change, regardless of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

One major reason for this is that Israel’s own Proclamation of Independence perpetuates the wrongful notion that it was “on the strength of the Resolution of the United Nations General Assembly” that the members of what in the Proclamation itself was called “the People’s Council” relied in declaring the establishment of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948. Other reasons cited in the Proclamation were “our natural and historic right”. It was further stated there that “the State of Israel will cooperate with the UN in implementing the resolution of the General Assembly of the 29th November, 1947, and will take steps to bring about the economic union of the whole of Eretz-Israel.

The misstatement in the Proclamation of Independence that the State of Israel relied “on the strength” of the Partition Resolution for its legal establishment is false and conceals or actually suppresses the fact that Israel’s legal foundation under international law derives not from the 1947 Partition Resolution, which was merely a non-binding recommendation without any force of law, as the General Assembly of the U.N. is not a legislative body, but rather from the San Remo Resolution of April 25, 1920, issued by the Supreme Allied Council, who possessed the full legal right of disposition over the lands of the former Ottoman Empire. The San Remo Resolution did have the force of law upon its being incorporated first in the Treaty of Sèvres of August 10, 1920 and then in the first three recitals of the Preamble of the Mandate for Palestine, that was confirmed by the 52 states, all members of the League of Nations, in 1922 and separately by the United States in a 1924 treaty with the United Kingdom:-The Anglo-American Convention.

Furthermore Article 80 of the UN Charter, once known unofficially as the Jewish People’s clause, which preserves intact all the rights granted to Jews under the Mandate for Palestine, even after the Mandate’s expiry on May 14-15, 1948.

Under this provision of international law (the Charter is an international treaty), Jewish rights to Palestine and the Land of Israel were not to be altered in any way unless there had been an intervening trusteeship agreement between the states or parties concerned, which would have converted the Mandate into a trusteeship or trust territory. The only period of time such an agreement could have been concluded under Chapter 12 of the UN Charter was during the three-year period from October 24, 1945, the date the Charter entered into force after appropriate ratifications, until May 14-15, 1948, the date the Mandate expired and the State of Israel was proclaimed. Since no agreement of this type was made during this relevant three-year period, in which Jewish rights to all of Palestine may conceivably have been altered had Palestine been converted into a trust territory, those Jewish rights that had existed under the Mandate remained in full force and effect, to which the UN is still committed by Article 80 to uphold, or is prohibited from altering.