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  • Facts of the History of “Palestine”.

    The Bare Basic Facts of the History of “Palestine”.
    Louis Rene Beres – Feb 21, 2009

    Reprinted without permission from The Jewish Press

    President Barack Obama has already placed the Middle East at the very top of his foreign policy agenda. There is nothing inherently wrong with this – quite the contrary. The problem, however, is that the new administration’s ambitious negotiations remain structured upon altogether erroneous assumptions. In this connection, the gravest continuing misrepresentation of all is that there are Arab lands under an Israeli “occupation.”

    Louis Rene Beres

    Today, as always, words matter. Over the years, a notably durable Arab patience in building “Palestine” upon whole mountains of Jewish corpses has drawn directly upon a prior linguistic victory. Yet, the still generally unchallenged language referring provocatively to an Israeli “occupation” always overlooks the pertinent and logically incontestable history of the West Bank (Judea/Samaria) and Gaza.

    Perhaps the most evident omission still concerns the precise and unwitting manner in which these “Territories” fell into Israel’s hands in the first place. Here it is simply and widely disregarded that occupation followed the multi-state Arab state aggression of 1967. Egypt Syria or Jordan, of course, never disguised this aggression.

    A sovereign state of Palestine did not exist before 1967 or 1948. Nor, did UN Security Council Resolution 242 ever promise a state of Palestine. Contrary to popular understanding, a state of Palestine has never existed. Never. Even as a non-state legal entity Palestine ceased to exist m 1948 when Great Britain relinquished its League of Nations mandate. During the 1948-49 Israeli War of Independence (a war of survival fought because the entire Arab world had rejected the authoritative United Nations resolution creating a Jewish State), the West Bank and Gaza came under flagrantly illegal control of Jordan and Egypt, respectively. These Arab conquests did not put an end to an already-existing state or to an ongoing trust territory. What these aggressions did accomplish was the effective prevention, sui generis, (Being the only example of its kind; unique) of a state of Palestine.

    Let us return to an earlier history. From the Biblical Period (ca 1350 BCE to 586 BCE) to the British Mandate (1918 – 1948), the land, named by the Romans after the ancient Philistines was controlled only by non-Palestinian elements. Significantly, however, a continuous chain of Jewish possession of the land was legally recognized after World War I at the San Remo Peace Conference of April 1920. There, a binding treaty was signed in which Great Britain was given mandatory authority over Palestine (the area had been ruled by the Ottoman Turks since 1516) to prepare it to become the ‘national home for the Jewish People. ‘Palestine’, according to the Treaty comprised territories encompassing what are now the Jordan and Israel, including the West Bank and Gaza.

    Present day Israel comprises only 22 percent of Palestine as defined and ratified at the San Remo Peace Conference. In 1922, Great Britain unilaterally and without any lawful authority split off 78 percent of the lands promised to the Jews – all of Palestine east of the Jordan – and gave it to Abdullah, the non-Palestinian son of the Sharif of Mecca. Eastern-Palestine now took the name Transjordan, which it retained until April 1949, when it was renamed as Jordan. From the moment of its creation, Transjordan was closed to all Jewish migration and settlement – a clear betrayal of the British promise in the Balfour Declaration of 1917, and a patent contravention of its Mandatory obligations under international law.

    On July 20, 1951, a Palestinian Arab assassinated King Abdullah for the latter’s hostility to Palestinian aspirations and concerns. Regarding these aspirations, Jordan’s ‘moderate” King Hussein – 19 years later, during September 1970 – brutally murdered thousands of defenseless Palestinians under his jurisdiction. In 1947, several years prior to Abdullah’s killing, the newly-formed United Nations, rather than designate the entire land west of the Jordan River as the long-promised Jewish national homeland, enacted a second partition. Curiously, because this second fission again gave complete advantage to Arab interests, Jewish leaders accepted the painful judgment.

    As readers of The Jewish Press already know all too well, the Arab states did not. On May 15, 1948, exactly 24 hours after the State of Israel came into existence, Azzam Pasha, Secretary General of the Arab League, declared to a tiny new country founded upon the ashes of the Holocaust: “This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre.” This unambiguous declaration of genocide has been at the core of all subsequent Arab orientations toward Israel, including those of ‘moderate’ Fatah. Even, by the strict legal standards of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Arab actions and attitudes toward the microscopic Jewish state in their midst, has remained patently devoted to the annhilation of Israel. For some reason, this persistence has repeatedly been made to appear benign. However, President Obama and Senator Mitchell now have a clear obligation to look behind these propagandistic appearances.

    In 1967, almost 20 years alter Israel’s entry into the community of states, the Jewish state, as a result of its unexpected military victory over Arab aggressor states, gained unintended control over West Bank and Gaza. Although the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war is properly codified in the UN Charter, there existed no authoritative sovereign to whom the Territories could be returned. Israel could “hardly have been expected to transfer them back to Jordan and Egypt, which had exercised unauthorized and terribly cruel control since the Arab-initiated war of “extermination” in 1948-49. Moreover, the idea of Palestinian “self-determination” had only just begun to emerge after the Six-Day War, and, significantly, had not even been included in UN Security Council Resolution 242 which was adopted on November 22, 1967.

    For their part, the Arab states convened a summit in Khartoum in August 1967, concluding “no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it.” The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was formed three years earlier, in 1964, before there were any Israeli ‘Occupied Territories.’ Exactly what was it, therefore that the PLO sought to liberate between 1964 and 1967? This critical question should now be considered by Barack Obama’s special envoy to the region, Senator George Mitchell.

    This has been a very brief account of essential historic reasons why the so-called ‘Palestinian Territories’ are not occupied by Israel. Several other equally valid reasons stem from Israel’s intrinsic legal right to security and self-defense. As I have said so often in this column, international law is not a suicide pact. Because a Palestinian state would severely threaten the very existence of Israel- a fact that remains altogether unhidden even in the Arab media and governments – the Jewish State is under no binding obligation to-end a falsely alleged ”occupation.” No state, not even a Jewish one, can ever be required to accept complicity in its own dismemberment.

    No doubt, both President Obama and Senator Mitchell want to be fair and evenhanded in their developing plans for the Middle East. To meet this obligation, however, it is essential that they first build all pertinent negotiations upon a firm foundation of historical accuracy and ethical truth. This means, at a minimum, the aspiring US peacemakers must familiarize themselves with correct history, and not simply allow themselves to be swallowed up with their many predecessors in ritualistic dogma and empty platitudes.

    LOUIS RENE BERES was educated at Princeton (Ph D, 1971) and is a long-time expert in international relations and international law.

    http://www.jewishpress.com/pageroute.do/38331 

    Re-printed without permission

    3 Responses to “Facts of the History of “Palestine”.”

    1. rene says:

      what i don’t understand is if the two state solution is not the way to go, why did pres. George Bush technically started the talk about it and seemed to be for it. he was a great friend of Israel. I don’t think he meant harm to Israel

    2. Guran says:

      As the articles suggests: “No doubt, both President Obama and Senator Mitchell want to be fair and evenhanded in their developing plans for the Middle East. To meet this obligation, however, it is essential that they first build all pertinent negotiations upon a firm foundation of historical accuracy and ethical truth. This means, at a minimum, the aspiring US peacemakers must familiarize themselves with correct history, and not simply allow themselves to be swallowed up with their many predecessors in ritualistic dogma and empty platitudes.”

    3. Guran says:

      We can do better than this:
      What THE PLANT said:-
      “What I don’t understand is if the two state solution is not the way to go, why did pres. George Bush technically start the talk about it and seem to be for it? He was a great friend of Israel. I don’t think he meant harm to Israel.”
      – O –

      I (we) have looked at your post and some at Angel Central have stopped laughing. I was the first to finish wiping the tears from my eyes.

      We are assuming your post was a ‘plant’.

      The Post you stuck your comment to was precisely in answer to the question you asked but for the record: American presidents don’t do what is good for Israel, just like Israeli Prime Ministers don’t do what is good for Israel. They play the Game!

      The idea is that the real world is supposed to look like a reality TV program and the Programming Board have set certain rules that prevent any nasty truth being shown to those nice folk who watch the world, the Life They Live, from their sofas.

      If you were allowed to see the Truth, that people are going to put stuff into the air you breath that will turn your brain to snot, someone would complain. So you will know, We have better snot-making stuff than Them, so when the time comes you can be sure very very few people will not have snot between their ears. Not for long of course – you get blurred vision, a headache and then you choke to death on the snot that comes out of your lungs.

      The Nuclear War? Lucky you!! That would be good eh? Quick flash bang and you’re dead. Sadly, quite a few will die a worse way: Their bodies will rot with them inside. Their eyes and tongues will drop out of their heads and they will pray for death to “Hurry Up!”

      So yeah. It’s a worry. What can anybody do about these filthy arab scum and their lies. Even their pseudo religion is just a scam! But George senior showed that really nobody is interested in making Peace. By the time he got permission (it took two years, plus the time to send all those thousands of soldiers and their trucks and tanks to the ME) the ‘facts on the ground’ had changed. I liked that when the Israelis found where the Iraqi nuclear technology had gone they bombed Syria. That was neat.

      There is no such thing as a palestinian people. The Article you commented on said many of the important facts. But people don’t want facts, they want to not see or hear anything bad while they have their dinner. Arabs don’t worry about dinner. Did you see that picture of the female suicide bomber? The one whose head was still wrapped in its black scarf, lying on the road. Her head wasn’t even hurt! Aside from the fact there was only the head.

      Oh! By the way. Before the War, things are gunna get pretty bad where you are. People in your street are gunna be even meaner than they already are. If you live long enough, you will eventually have to start eating people – be careful! If you eat a dead sick one you will get their disease! Soon you will see. There will be no truckers on the highways. No food in your shops. No doctors. No Police. At first there will be lots of hungry people. After a while there won’t be so many. If you don’t die it will be because you learn what to eat.

      And that’s not even the War!

      So yeh. George Dubwa played the game. Uncle Obie seems to think he can play games by feeding Israel to the arabs . . . No. That won’t work. He will have to play “Good Cop – Bad Cop” all on his own.

      When uncle Obie plays Bad Cop it will already be too late.

      Listen. You should start putting aside a little food and water where you are. First just for a few days! 72 Hrs. When the earthquake struck SF it took three days for the police to get back out on the streets. Riots! Food riots! You want to be indoors until the smoke clears.

      After you have your 3 days emergency supplies you should plan on slowly building that up to a Month. Then 3 Months.

      Iunno. Mebbe you live on acreage? If you can grow vegetables, the odd fruit tree, grape vine . . . You could store enough and be able to hold out for two years. Buy stuff like rolled oats – keeps for 30 years!

      If you can – do it!

      Remember. You have been warned.

      That stuff about food storage is from the angel Rai.

      Guran
      (assistant ghost)