CLAIMS OF THE JEWISH AND ARAB PEOPLES UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW TO THE RIGHT OF POLITICAL SELF DETERMINATION IN PALESTINE by Wallace Brand

CLAIMS OF THE JEWISH AND ARAB PEOPLES UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW TO THE

RIGHT OF POLITICAL SELF DETERMINATION IN PALESTINE

by Wallace Brand

Introduction

Most people don't understand that Palestine, or at least the alleged "Palestinian People," has no right to be sovereign even though they read UN Conventions dealing with the right of a “people” that appear to say any "people" has the right to self-determination.

They haven't obeyed the scholar's imperative: "read on" to where

the Charter provides for "sovereign equality". These are the legal

code words guaranteeing the territorial integrity of sovereign

states.

CNH Long became the Dean of the Yale Medical School. When he

was a freshman at Oxford, one of his friends found in the 600 year

old rule book, a rule permitting the practice of archery in a certain

way between the hours of 2 and 6. In the intervening 550 years the way had become a boulevard and then a major traffic artery. When they practiced one day, they blocked traffic and caused a

considerable traffic jam.

They were haled before the Wardens who said they would be 2

punished. One of the students pointed to the rule, the Wardens

replied: “Read on.” and pointed to another rule two pages on that

provided: “When practicing archery one must be wearing Lincoln

Green. So Long and the other students were punished. They should have read further.

By the 70s the natural law provision entitling a “people” to self determination had become international law. But the international

lawyers drafting these provisions had inserted into the rules a

provision for “sovereign equality” — legal code words standing

for the proposition that a sovereign may not invade the boundary

of another sovereign’s territory. So while the law might provide for

the self-determination of a “people”, they could not unilaterally

secede from a preexisting state. That is the rule followed by the US

in the current Ukrainian controversy and pushed by it at the

European Union and NATO.

Most people also think that the basis for Israel's sovereignty was

the UN General Assembly's Resolution 181, the Partition

Resolution, not the 1920 San Remo Resolution and the Palestine

Mandate. The latter was a treaty approved by 52 League of Nations members in 1922 and the US. This Mandate provided detail for the Balfour Declaration policy adopted by the Allies word-for-word at San Remo.

People were persuaded as above because the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People,

dominated by Arabs and Africans, got a law professor at George

Washington University W.T. Mallison (and his wife Sally) to write

a legal opinion to the effect that the occupation of Judea and

Samaria was illegal under international law. The Committee

published it in pamphlet form in 1979. It was entitled "An

International Law Analysis of the Major United Nations

Resolutions Concerning the Palestine Question". How many

people on the street know anything at all about international law? 3

Most people reading it assumed that the UN General Assembly

was like the Congress. They assumed that when the UN General

Assembly enacted a resolution, it became a part of international

law. That is not so and the Mallisons did nothing to disabuse them

of that assumption. These UN General Assembly resolutions are

only recommendations. If they are accepted by all parties to a

dispute, the parties may enter into a treaty. That becomes a part of international law. See e.g. The Effect of Resolutions of the U.N.

General Assembly on Customary International Law by Stephen M.

Schwebel, deputy legal advisor to the US Department of State in

Proceedings of the Annual Meeting (American Society of

International Law), Vol. 73(APRIL 26-28, 1979), pp. 301-309.

He said:

"It is trite but no less true that the General Assembly of the United

Nations lacks legislative powers. Its resolutions are not, generally

speaking, binding on the States Members of the United Nations or

binding in international law at large. It could hardly be otherwise.

We do not have a world legislature. If we had one, hopefully it

would not be composed as is the General Assembly on the basis of

the unrepresentative principle of the sovereign equality of states,

states which in turn are represented by governments so many of

which are themselves not representative of their peoples.

"As the [United States] Secretary of State recently put it: 'In

considering the decision making process in the United Nations, it

is important to bear in mind that while the one-state, one-vote

procedure for expressing the sense of the General Assembly is

from many points of view unsatisfactory, the incorporation of this

principle in the Charter was balanced by giving the Assembly only

recommendatory powers.'"

Schwebel went on to say there were some International Lawyers 4

that tried to fit recurring statements in UN Resolutions into the

category of long standing custom or practice between or among

states.

The Mallison legal opinion assumed that the UN Partition

Resolution was a part of International Law. It divided Palestine

west of the Jordan River into three parts. One part went to the

Jews, one part to the Arabs, and one part was to become, at least

initially, a "corpus separatum" to be ruled by a Committee of the

UN. That was the Jerusalem area -- containing many religious sites

that were holy for all three major religions.

That the legal opinion was a gross distortion of international law

outraged Julius Stone, an Australian,world recognized international lawyer. In response he wrote a book published in 1981 entitled Israel and Palestine: Assault on the Law of Nations. In it he showed that the Major UN General Assembly Resolutions were not international law because Resolution 181, the Partition Resolution, although accepted by the Jews was not accepted by the Arabs and therefore it died at birth. For that reason the Jews were not limited to the territory they were assigned in Resolution 181. Also, the Jews were not illegally in the Jerusalem area because the corpus separatum also died at birth along with Resolution 181.

Mallison's legal opinion also opined that Arabs residing in

Palestine had, under international law, a right to self-determination.

But that right has never been awarded under international law in

the case of attempted secession where its application would have

empowered the UN to redraw the boundaries of an existing

sovereign state. It has only been applied to cases of decolonization.

Mallison ignored that all of Palestine west of the Jordan River was

recognized by some 53 states in 1922 as being owned by the Jews

when they approved the Palestine Mandate. Some 52 were

members of the League of Nations that approved it as a treaty and

the United States that wasn't a member of the League approved it 5

by a Joint Resolution of Congress in 1922 and in a separate treaty,

the Anglo-American Convention of 1924.

The chronology is this. At the Paris Peace Talks in 1919, claims to

the European and Middle East territories that the Allies had won in

WWI, for them a defensive war, were the subject of claims by

European parties and also by the Arab people and the Jewish

People. The Arabs through King Hussein claimed Syria, Iraq and

Palestine — the Jews, through the World Zionist Organization

claimed only Palestine, both east and west of the Jordan River. The

Allies disposed of the claims to European territories at Versailles

but did not resolve the claims to the Middle East territories until

they had reconvened at San Remo in 1920. There they placed the

political rights to Syria and Mesopotamia (now Iraq) in trust for

the Arab people who were in the majority in those areas when the

Arabs were capable of exercising sovereignty and placed the

political rights to Palestine in trust for the Jews in the light of their

historic association with Palestine. Why? At the time the Jewish

population in all of Palestine was only about 10% of the total, even

though the Jews had enjoyed a majority population in the

Jerusalem area since 1863 and a plurality since 1845. The British,

in their Balfour policy framed in November, 1917 had decided to

handle this by placing the political rights in trust not only until the

people in the territory were capable of exercising sovereignty but

also not until the Jews had attained a population majority by their

hard work to bring back to Palestine Jews from the diaspora to get

a population majority. This would avoid an "antidemocratic"

government, rule by a 10% minority — like the later French

recognition of the Alawites as sovereign over Syria that has

resulted in so much death and destruction. To award the Jewish

People only the equitable ownership of the political rights to

Palestine — the rights to self-determination, they would place

these political rights in trust, not to vest until the Jews had both a

population majority as well as the capability of exercising

sovereignty and would require the trustee to facilitate Jewish 6

immigration (but not Arab immigration) so as to obtain that

majority more quickly. However between 1920 and 1922 events in

Syria and in transJordan, Palestine east of the Jordan River had

motivated Britain to limit the area placed in trust for the Jews to

the territory of Palestine west of the Jordan. The Palestine Mandate was drafted to specify in detail the new British Policy in Article 25, a temporary limitation on Jewish settlement east of the Jordan.

In 1947 the British decided to abdicate their responsibilities as

trustee of the political rights to Palestine in 1948. The political

rights of the Jews matured in 1948 when the Jews attained a

population majority in the area within the Armistice boundary.

Instead of only an equitable interest, now, without formal

acclamation, the Jews now had a legal interest in the political

rights and the Jewish National Home had matured into a Jewish

reconstituted Commonwealth as originally conceived in the

framing of the Balfour Declaration. If those Arab people residing

in Palestine west of the Jordan had any right to self-determination,

the UN would have to redraw the boundary of the sovereign state

of Israel to exclude at least East Jerusalem from the sovereign

State of Israel, and also to exclude Judea and Samaria to which

Israel was entitled but to which Israel had not as yet asserted its

rights. This would violate Israel's territorial integrity that was

guaranteed by the UN Charter. My legal opinion to that effect can

be found at SSRN.com/abstract=2385304 and is shown below in

detail.

International Law is derived principally from treaties between or

among states, but also can be derived from long standing custom

between or among states. In 1984 those pushing Palestinian

statehood financed the publication of a scholarly appearing journal entitled Palestinian Yearbook of International Law responding to Professor Stone's treatise. In it, in an article entitled "The Juridical Basis of Palestinian Self-Determination" the Mallisons attempted to resurrect their legal opinion by trying to fit the UN's Partition 7 Resolution, that had died at birth, into the category of a longstanding custom or practice of many states. That is hard to accept because the Arab states that were a major part of the group that dominated the UN and its Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, at the time of the Partition Resolution had not accepted the Resolution as international law but instead had rejected it so violently they had gone to war.

PART I: "Roots Of Israel's Sovereignty And Boundaries In International Law: In Defense Of The Levy Report

Part I first examines the legal basis of the Levy report, which

concluded that Jewish settlements are legal. In fact, the legality of

Israel's presence in Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem was res

judicata as of April 25, 1920, when [at the San Remo Conference]

World Jewry received a beneficial interest in the political rights to

Palestine that was intended to mature into a legal interest. The

policy for the Arab States that were established at around the same time by other Mandates was to bestow on the current Arab

inhabitants of those states an equitable interest in the political

rights to those states, but the beneficiary for Mandated Palestine

was not the Jews residing in Palestine but World Jewry. The

Mandate thus confirmed a living connection between the Jews and their homeland, extending over some 3700 years. Modern Israel was legally projected to be molded in two stages, where [1]

"Palestine was legally recognized as a Jewish National Home -- as

a prelude to [2] a reconstituted Jewish State," which would come

into being when the Jews in Palestine were in the majority. Part I

also discusses the sorry history of Britain’s role as trustee.

In sum, "the Mandate system provided in Article 22 of the League 8 of Nations’ Covenant was designed to help states that had been

subject to Ottoman occupation for 400 years, to become

independent after they learned democratic principles, formed

political parties and were able to self govern. An exception was the Mandate for Palestine where the Jewish People who had largely been driven out of Palestine and dispersed by the Romans, were recognized as the equitable owners of the political rights." World Jewry became the cestui que trust.

The  decision  on  whether  the  Arabs  or  the  Jews  have 

sovereignty  over  all  of  Palestine  west  of  the  Jordan 

River  under  International  Law  is  res  judicata,  lawyer 

talk for "the issue has already been decided".

We tell you below who the judges were, what gave them 

jurisdiction or authority to make the decision, when the 

competing  claims  were  received  and  when  they  were 

acted  upon,  how  the  Judges  communicated  their 

decision,  and  why  the  decision  was  to  provide  a  two‐

step  process,  first  a  Jewish  National  Home  and  then  a 

Jewish State.

The  recent  Levy  Report  is  one  of  a  series  of  legal 

opinions  by  several  people,  each  independently 

reaching  the  same  conclusion.  This  is  the  conclusion 

that World Jewry has had as of 1920, a Jewish National 

Home in  all  of  Palestine,  or  since  1922  at least in  that 

part of Palestine west of the Jordan River. That National 

Home  was  always  intended  to  be  a  prelude  to  a 

reconstituted  Jewish State in Palestine.  It was a part of 

the  mandate  system  provided  for  in  the  League  of 

Nations  Covenant  or  charter,  Article  22.  These 

mandated  areas  were  areas  ruled  from  afar  for  many 9

years  and  were  intended  to  be  helped  by  more 

established states to become self‐governing states when 

they  were  found  to  be  ready  for  it.  The  Mandate  for

Palestine  had  different standards  for  statehood.  It  was 

to  become  a  reconstituted  viable  Jewish  State  of  Israel 

when it met two standards originally established i.e.  to 

attain  a  majority  of  Jewish  population  in  the  area 

governed,  and  to  become  as  capable  of  exercising 

sovereignty as any modern European State.

Recent Levy Report on whether settlements  in Judea, 

Samaria and East Jerusalem are illegal

I started my own inquiry and analysis several years ago. 

It was commenced before  the recent publication of  the 

report  of  the  Levy  Commission  [1]  finding  that  Jewish 

Settlements  in  Judea  and  Samaria  were  not  illegal  as 

Article 49 of the 4th Geneva Convention [2] prohibiting 

the  "deportation  or  transfer"  of  its  citizens  was  not 

applicable  to  decisions  of  individual  Israeli  citizens  to 

move their place of residence. Permitting them to do so 

or  even  facilitating  the  relocation  was  not  the 

proscribed  exercise  of  State  Power.  The  Levy  Report

held that the 4th Geneva Convention was directed solely 

at prohibiting the exercise of state power. Under Article 

2  of  the  Convention,  Any  occupation  must  be  of  the 

territory  of  another  party.    But  below  we  show  that

Palestine  west  of  the  Jordan  belonged  to  the  Jewish

People in 1967, not another party.  The report also held 

that the claim by Israel to the ownership of the political 10

rights  to  this  territory  was  a  good  claim  based  on  the 

1920 San Remo Resolution and on  the British Mandate 

for  Palestine  as  of  1922  [3]  because  The  San  Remo 

decision,  a  treaty  among  the  Principal  Allied  War 

Powers, had  adopted  the  1917  Balfour  Declaration  of 

British Policy [4] with the result that it had now become 

International Law. The 1922 League of Nations Mandate 

for  Palestine,  providing  detail  for  administering  the 

content of the Balfour Declaration [5] confirmed the San 

Remo  agreement  as  the  source  of  Jewish  political  or 

national  rights  to  Palestine,  with  a  new  Article  25

intended  to  limit  Jewish  settlement  East  of  the  Jordan 

River.

Other opinions reaching the same conclusion

In the course of my own inquiry, I learned that before I 

had  started,  Dr.  Jacques  Gauthier  had  compiled  a 

monumental  1400  page  doctoral  thesis,  [6]  Dr. 

Gauthier's  work  was  followed  by  a  legal  tome  of  732 

pages written by Howard Grief, Esq. a Canadian lawyer 

now residing in  Israel.[7] Grief's book was followed by 

that of a non‐lawyer, Mr. Salomon Benzimra of Toronto, 

who stated in a much shorter and more readable work

— with helpful maps — the factual premises leading to 

the  legal  conclusions  of  Gauthier  and  Grief.  His  book 

was published in Kindle by Amazon in November, 2011. 

[8]  My  own  view  was  initially  published  on‐line  in  a 

blog — Think‐Israel.org — but  thereafter, with greater 11

documentation,  in  a  two  part  op  ed  in  a  conservative 

newspaper in Israel known as Arutz Sheva. [9]

My  legal  opinion  was  followed  by  the  opinion  of  Dr. 

Cynthia  Wallace,[10]  who  had  been  retained  by  a 

Christian  Evangelical group.  Finally, a  recent  report  by 

the  Levy  Commission  authorized  by  the  current  Prime 

Minister  of  Israel  [English  translation  of  the  legal 

arguments in the Levy Report (updated) [11] contained 

the legal  opinions  of  three  distinguished  Israeli jurists. 

One  was  the  late  Justice  Edmund  Levy,  formerly  a 

Justice of the Supreme Court of Israel. These jurists, for 

the  first  time,  delivered  an  opinion  on  the  status  of 

Judea,  Samaria  and  East  Jerusalem  that  was  not 

dominated by an Israeli left wing Labour Government.

All  these  opinions  have  only  minor  differences  and 

reach  the  same  conclusion  — that  World  Jewry  owns 

the political or national rights to all of Palestine West of 

the Jordan, and possibly some of that east of the Jordan 

as well. Legal opinions reaching the same conclusion, to 

my knowledge, go back at least to 1993 [12] so it cannot 

be said to be a recent politically inspired  fabrication as 

some of its critics have charged. See especially, "Israel's 

Rights  to  Samaria"  [13]  and  excellent  articles  by 

Douglas  Feith  and  Elliott  A.  Green.[14]  Feith  was  later 

the  Deputy  Secretary  of  Defense  for  Policy  under 

Rumsfeld in  the George W Bush Administration; Elliott

Green is an Israeli researcher. The critics with this view

have responded ad hominem but few have raised issues 

of  fact  or  law.    More  recently  I  have  encountered  the 

opinion  of  the  acclaimed  international  lawyer,  the  late 12

Julius  Stone  of  Australia,  the  author  of  Israel  and 

Palestine: Assault on the Law of Nations. [15a]

The major points of the Levy Report

In  the  Levy  Report,  the  first issue was whether  Jewish 

settlements in Judea, Samaria, and East Jerusalem, three 

areas invaded by  the Arab Legion in 1948 and illegally 

occupied until 1967, were unlawful. The Israeli Labour 

Government  lawyer,  Theodor  Meron  [15b]  had 

suggested  the  proper  law  to  apply  was  the  law  of 

"belligerent  occupation." Belligerent occupation  occurs 

when a belligerent state invades the territory of another 

sovereign  state  with  the  intention  of  holding  the 

territory  at  least  temporarily.  That  law  is  based  on 

Article  43  of  the  4th  Hague  Convention  of  1907  that 

assumes  that  land  being  occupied  has  a  legitimate 

sovereign.  It  is  not  applicable  because  Jordan  was 

illegally  occupying  it  after  an  aggressive  invasion  in 

1948.  Another  Labour  Party lawyer,  Talia  Sasson,  [16] 

also  claimed  the  occupation  was  illegal,  also  assumed 

belligerent  occupation,  and  strongly  criticized  the 

settlements.  But  even  if  belligerent  occupation  were

found  applicable,  there  would  have  to  be  shown  that

under  the  Geneva  Convention  the  state  of  Israel  had

"deported or transferred" the "settlers". These "settlers" 

[17] were individuals who had decided on their own for 

economic or religious reasons to move to a new place to 

live  outside  the  1949  Armistice  "Green  Line".  Some  of 

them  were  re‐settlers,  who  just  wanted  to  return  to 13

their homes — after the area had been liberated. Their 

homes were in a place  that had been illegally occupied 

by Jordan and they had been expelled by Jordan in 1948 

or  thereafter.  They  clearly  were  not  "deported"  by 

Israel and if they relocated under their own motivation 

for patriotic reasons, religious reasons or just to go back 

to the home from which they were expelled in 1948, no 

state  had  "transferred"  them.  They  simply  moved  for 

their own reasons.

The  term  "transfer" must  be  distorted  to  be applied  to 

situations it simply was not intended to cover such as a 

movement  of  that  kind.  The  4th  Geneva  Convention  is 

directed  at  state  action,  not  the  action  of  individuals. 

The  earlier  opinions  of  Labour  Government  lawyers 

took  a  Convention  that  was  directed  at  states  and 

attempted  to  apply  it  to  individuals  by  holding  that  it 

meant  that  the  State  of  Israel  was  required  to  prevent 

its Jewish  citizens  from  moving  where  they  wanted  to 

even  though  preventing  them from  doing  so  would 

violate  the  UN  Universal  Declaration  of Human  Rights, 

Articles  13  and  15(2).[18]  One  of  the  authors  of  the 

Levy  Report  had  in  2011  written  about  the 

interpretation that distorted the word "transfer".[19]

After finding that the Geneva Convention did not apply, 

the Levy Commission looked to determine the state that

did  have  sovereignty  over  the  area  conquered  by  the

Arab Legion in 1948.[20]

In  1948,  the  Arab  Legion,  acting  as  the  army  of 

transJordan that later became the Nation State of Jordan, 

invaded  the  area  that  had  been  ruled  by  the  British14

Mandatory  government  for  Palestine  as  the  trustee 

under  the Mandate  for  Palestine.  It  was  soon  after the 

Mandate  or  trust  had  been  abandoned  by  its  trustee,

Great  Britain.  Israel  had  announced  its  independence 

and  was  ruling  as  the  reconstituted  State  of  Israel  as 

had  been  recommended  by  the  UN  General  Assembly 

Resolution 181.[21]

The Arab Legion was an Army consisting in the main of 

Arab  transJordanian  soldiers  but  they  were  supplied 

with  arms  by  the  British  and  led  by  British  Officers 

under  the  command  of  British  General  Glubb,  (Glubb 

Pasha)  even  though  Britain  the  US  and  many  other 

countries  had  embargoed  arms  to  Israel.  For  some  19 

years,  from  1948  to  1967,  Jordan  illegally  occupied 

what  had  been Judea,  Samaria  and  East  Jerusalem. 

Under its rule all the 58 synagogues in the area but one 

were  destroyed;  some  38,000  tombstones  from  the 

Jewish Cemetery on the Mount of Olives were broken or 

defaced;  all  Jews  were  expelled  from  the  area  it 

acquired.  Jordan's  promises  in  the  1948  Armistice 

Agreement  to  permit  visits  by  Christians  and  Jews  to 

their holy places were not kept.  In 1967, when  the IDF 

reached  the  Western  Wall  of  the  Temple  Mount,  they 

found a latrine had been built against it.

While  the  former leftist  Labour  Government  lawyers 

had  held  after  1967  that  Israeli  was  holding  the 

territory under  the  Law  of Belligerent Occupation, it is 

hard  to  see  how  they  arrived  at  that  conclusion.  That 

doctrine only applies to belligerent occupation against a 

lawful  sovereign  in  an  area.  Only  two  countries  in  the 15

whole  world,  Britain  and  Pakistan  had  recognized 

Jordan's sovereignty over what they renamed the "West 

Bank".  All  of  Jordan's  territory  dating  back  to  before 

1948 was on the East Bank of the River Jordan. Perhaps 

they  renamed  the  area  the  Israelis  had  liberated  —

called  Judea, Samaria and East  Jerusalem since historic 

times — "The West Bank" because they would look silly 

claiming  that  the  Jews  were  illegally  occupying  Judea. 

(Hats off to Professor Steven Plaut)

The San Remo Resolution

Israel's roots in International Law start in the San Remo 

Resolution  of 1920 and not as most assume, in  the UN 

General Assembly Resolution  of 1947.  It was  the latter 

that  recommended  Partition  of  Palestine  into  an  Arab 

and a Jewish state. In that resolution Jerusalem and the 

nearby  holy  places  were  to  be  held  separately  as  a 

corpus separatum at least  temporarily under control  of 

the UN. It was a recommendation that had no force and 

no effect because one of the parties it was addressed to, 

the Arabs, rejected it and went to war.

What is International Law

International  Law  is  created  by  treaties  (also  called 

"conventions)  between  and  among  states  or  by  long 

standing  custom.  International  Law  cannot  be  created 

by the UN. The UN General Assembly does not have that 

authority;  nor  does  any  international  entity.  The 16

International Court of Justice has no authority to create 

International  law.  This  is  particularly  true  where 

International  Law  recognizes  sovereignty  over  areas

such  as  Palestine.  That  is  because  the  UN  Charter  in 

Article  80  says  in  pertinent  part,  "...nothing  in  this 

Chapter shall be construed in or of itself to alter in any 

manner  the  rights  whatsoever  of  any  states  or  any 

peoples  or  the  terms  of  existing  international 

instruments  to  which  Members  of  the  United  Nations 

may respectively be parties. [22]

Its  being  saved  is  also  the  consequence  of  the  legal 

doctrines of "acquired legal rights" and of "estoppel. As 

explained  by  Howard  Grief  "the  principle  of  'acquired 

legal  rights'  which,  as  applied  to  the  Jewish  people, 

means that the rights they acquired or were recognized 

as  belonging  to  them  when  Palestine  was  legally 

recognized  by  52  nations as  the  Jewish National Home

[as  a  prelude  to  a  reconstituted  Jewish  State]  are  not 

affected  by  the  termination  of  the  treaty  or  the  acts  of 

international law which were the source of those rights. 

This principle already existed when the Anglo‐American 

Convention  came  to  an  end  simultaneously  with  the 

termination of the Mandate for Palestine on May 14‐15, 

1948.  It  has  since  been  codified  in  Article  70(1)(b)  of 

the  1969  Vienna  Convention  on  the  Law  of  Treaties. 

This  principle  of international law would apply even if 

one  of  the  parties  to  the  treaty  failed  to  perform  the 

obligations  imposed  on  it,  as  was  the  case  with  the 

British  government  in  regard  to  the  Mandate  for 

Palestine.17

The reverse side of the principle of acquired legal rights 

is  the  doctrine  of  estoppel  which  is  also  of  great 

importance  in  preserving  Jewish  national  rights.  This 

doctrine  prohibits  any  state  from  denying  what  it 

previously  admitted  or  recognized in  a  treaty  or  other

international agreement. In the Convention of 1924, the 

United  States  recognized  all  the  rights  recognized  as 

belonging  to  the  Jewish  people  under  the  Mandate,  in 

particular  the  right  of  Jewish  settlement  anywhere  in 

Palestine  or  the  Land  of  Israel.  Therefore  the  US 

government is legally estopped today from denying the 

right of  Jews in  Israel to establish settlements in Judea, 

Samaria  and  Gaza,  which  have  been  approved  by  the 

government of Israel." [23]

Article  80  is  in  UN  Chapter  XII  that  gives  the  UN  the

authority  to  establish  and  administer  trust  territories. 

That is pertinent because  Israel once was a "mandate". 

The UN calls them "trusteeships". "Mandate" is what the 

League  of  Nations,  the  UN's  predecessor  in  world 

government  called  an  area  placed  in  trust  until  it  was 

capable of self government. Recognition of this political 

or  national  right  was  saved  by  Jews  concerned  about

the rights under the British Mandate for Palestine when 

the UN was given authority to deal with trusteeships as 

the  Mandate  was  a  trusteeship  under  the  League  of 

Nations name. [24]

The Paris Peace Talks and the decision at San Remo18

To  understand  the  San  Remo  Agreement  we  must  go 

back in time to WWI when the Turkish Ottoman Empire 

entered  the War on  the side of Germany. Germany and 

Turkey  lost  that  war.  They  entered  into  an  Armistice 

Agreement  on  November  11,  1918.  As  the  holder  of 

territory after  being  the winner  of a defensive war  the 

Principal  Allied  War  Powers  — The  British 

Commonwealth, France, the US, Italy and Japan — were 

entitled  under  International  Law  of  long  standing 

custom  to  occupy  the  Ottoman  Empire  until  a  peace 

treaty was signed that delineated boundaries agreed on 

by the parties. After the Paris Peace talks that were held 

commencing  January  4th,  1919  the  Principals 

determined  to  establish  a  world  government  to 

maintain peace to be entitled The League of Nations. Its 

Covenant  or  charter  was  Part  One  of  the  Treaty  of 

Versailles.  The  participants  to  the  Paris  Peace  talks 

included  the  Principal  War  Powers  and  European 

claimants  primarily interested in  territories in  Europe. 

Even before the end of the war, in November, 1917 the 

Lord  Balfour  Policy  had  been  established  as  British 

policy that World Jewry would be the beneficiary of the 

trust of the “political” or “national rights” to Palestine. 

These  are  the  rights  that  entitle  political  self‐

determination.    Both  Arabs  and  Jews  interested  in 

territories in  the  Middle  East  were  also  present  at  the 

Peace Talks in Paris and submitted their claims there.

The Arabs claims were made under the auspices of King 

Ibn  Hussayn,  however  they  were  presented  by 

Lawrence  of Arabia and also  through George Antonius. 19

Antonius brought up Arab and French claims conflicting 

with  the  Balfour  Declaration,  notably  claims  based  on 

the  Hussayn‐McMahon  correspondence  and  the  secret 

Sykes‐Picot  Agreement.  Antonius  had  made  a  careful 

study of these and his arguments initially seemed quite 

convincing  that  the  British  had  sold  the  same  horse 

three times.

The Zionist Organization made the following claim for a 

two‐step  process  in  which  the  territory  would  first 

become  a  Jewish  National  Home  and  then  would 

become a reconstituted Jewish state.

"Palestine  shall  be  placed  under  such  political, 

administrative  and  economic  conditions  as  will  secure 

the  establishment  there  of  the  Jewish  National 

Home and ultimately render possible the creation of 

an  autonomous  Commonwealth, it  being  clearly 

understood  that  nothing  shall  be  done  which  may 

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.

[emphasis added]

To this end the Mandatory Power shall inter alia:

Promote  Jewish  immigration  and  close  settlement  on 

the  land,  the  established  rights  of  the  present  non‐

Jewish population being equitably safeguarded.

Accept  the  cooperation  in  such  measures  of  a  Council

representative of the Jews of Palestine and of the world 

that  may  be  established  for  the  development  of  the 20

Jewish  National  Home  in  Palestine  and  entrust  the 

organization of Jewish education to such Council

On being satisfied  that  the constitution of such Council 

precludes  the  making  of  private  profit,  offer  to  the 

Council  in  priority  any  concession  for  public  works  or 

for the development of natural resources that it may be 

found  desirable  to  grant. The  Mandatory  Power  shall 

encourage  the  widest  measure  of  self‐government  for 

localities practicable in the conditions of the country

There  shall  be  forever  the  fullest  freedom  of  religious 

worship  for  all  creeds  in  Palestine.  There  shall  be  no 

discrimination  among  the  inhabitants  with  regard  to

citizenship  and  civil  rights,  on  the  grounds  of  religion, 

or of race" [25]

What the Zionist organization was asking for in Paris in 

1919 was essentially the already decided British policy 

in  the  1917 Balfour Declaration  that  the Principal War 

Powers  later  adopted  at  San  Remo  in  1920:  That  the 

Jews  wanted  essentially  a  protectorate  that  would 

ultimately transition into a reconstituted state was well 

known as even the small Jewish population in Palestine 

did not believe it was ready to exercise sovereignty. As

reported  in  the  Voltaire  Network,  a  somewhat  anti‐

semitic  news  network,  of  the  three  things  the  Jewish 

People wanted, one was "the establishment of a  Jewish 

National  Home  in  Palestine  as  a  prelude  to  a 

reconstituted Jewish state". [emphasis added] [26]21

The Principal War Powers were able  to  complete  their 

review  and  implement  its  action  on  the  claims  over 

European  territories  in  the  Paris  Peace  Talks.  The 

written  decision  is  within  part  II  of  the  Treaty  of

Versailles. They needed to extend their deliberations to 

decide  on  the  claims  on  what  had  been  Ottoman 

territory  in  the  Middle  East.  To  do  just  that,  they  met 

again  in  San  Remo,  Italy  in  April,  1920  and  dealt  with

the Arab and  Jewish  claims  on April  24th and  25th. At 

the  end  of  that  meeting,  the  claims  were  res  judicata. 

The  WWI  Principal  War  Powers  decided  to  recognize 

the  then  current  Arab  inhabitants  of  Syria  and 

Mesopotamia  as  the  beneficial  owners  of  the  political 

powers for those countries but adopt the British Balfour 

policy  and  recognize  World  Jewry  as  the  beneficial 

owner of the political rights to Palestine.

Three documents recorded the decision of the Principal 

War  Powers  on  Palestine:  the  Treaty  of  Sevres,  the 

Treaty  of  Lausanne,  and  the  San  Remo  Resolution. 

Article 95 of the Treaty of Sevres was confirmed by the 

later Treaty of Lausanne as by  that  time  the cession —

transfer  of  sovereignty to  the  mandatory  power, a 

formal  giving  up  of  rights,  especially  by  a  state  — in 

Asia  was  a fait accompli and  Articles  16  and  30  of  the 

latter  treaty  left  Turkey's  relinquishment  of  its 

sovereignty over territories in Asia unchanged. The San

Remo  Resolution  was  also  a  writing  that  incorporated 

the  decision  of  the  Principal  War  Powers  on  those 

competing  claims  to  Palestine  adopting  the  Balfour 22

Declaration in terms that were left to be further spelled 

out in the Mandate for Palestine. But the British Balfour 

Policy,  while  recognizing  the  Jews  ownership  of  the

political  rights  to  Palestine,  did  not  want  them  to

exercise  sovereignty  immediately.  Nor  did  the  Jews 

want  to  do  so.  That  is  because  as  of  1917  when  the 

Balfour Policy was being considered by  the British,  the 

Jews in all of Palestine were only 60,000 population out 

of  a  total  population  of  600,000  as  estimated  by  the

British  Foreign  Office  (BFO).  As  long  ago  as  1845,  the 

Jews had had a plurality of the population of  Jerusalem 

and in 1863 a majority of the population there. But in all 

of  Palestine,  as  of  1917,  the  BFO  estimated  Jewish 

population at only 10% of the total.

Critics  of  the  Balfour  Policy  had  argued  that  a 

government  ruled  by  a  "people"  that  was  only  a  10% 

minority  would  be  "antidemocratic".  The  British 

Foreign  Ooffice  (“BFO”) countered  this  argument  by 

saying  that  even  though  Britain  agreed  with  the 

"antidemocratic"  argument  in  principle,  as  applied  to 

the  proposed  Balfour  policy  the  argument  was 

"imaginary".  In a memorandum of September 19, 1917, 

Arnold  Toynbee  and  Lewis  Namier,  speaking  for  the 

BFO,  said  that  the  political  rights  would  initially  be 

placed in trust — the trustee likely being England or the 

United  States.  The  trustee  would  have  legal  dominion 

over  the  political  rights  and  although  the  Jews  would 

have  a  beneficial  interest,  the  legal  interest  would  not 

vest until such time as the Jews had attained a majority 23

population  in  Palestine and  were  as  fully  capable  of 

exercising  sovereignty  as  a  modern  European  state. 

Their  decision  was  later  incorporated  in  article  95  of 

the treaty of Sevres by a cession of Ottoman sovereignty

over  Palestine  to  that  trustee,  incorporated  in  the  San 

Remo Resolution and  to  be  defined in greater  detail in 

the Mandate for Palestine.[27]

This same recommendation  for a two step process was

incorporated in the discussion in the Briefing Document 

of  the U.S. Delegation  to  the Paris Peace Conference, in 

1919.

"3. It is recommended that the Jews be invited to return 

to  Palestine  and  settle  there,  being  assured  by  the

Conference of all proper assistance in so doing that may 

be  consistent  with  the  protection  of  the  personal 

(especially the religious) and the property rights of the 

non‐Jewish population, and being further assured that it 

will be the policy of the League of Nations to recognize 

Palestine as a Jewish state as soon as it is a Jewish state 

in fact.

"It is right that Palestine should become a  Jewish state, 

if the  Jews,  being  given  the  full  opportunity,  make  it 

such.  It  was  the  cradle  and  home  of  their  vital  race, 

which has made large spiritual contribution to mankind, 

and  is  the  only  land  in  which  they  can  hope  to  find  a 

home of their own; they being in this last respect unique 

among significant peoples.

"At present, however, the Jews form barely a sixth of the 

total  population  of  700,000  in  Palestine,  and  whether 24

they  are  to  form  a majority,  or  even  a  plurality,  of  the 

population  in  the  future  state  remains  uncertain. 

Palestine,  in  short,  is  far  from  being  a  Jewish  country 

now. England, as mandatory, can be relied on to give the 

Jews  the  privileged  position  they  should  have  without 

sacrificing the rights of non‐Jews." [Note #12, p. 113.]

Woodrow Wilson  had  stated  in  1919  "I  am  persuaded 

that  the  Allied  nations,  with  the  fullest  concurrence  of 

our  own  government  and  people,  are  agreed  that  in 

Palestine  shall  be  laid  the  foundations  of  a  Jewish

Commonwealth."

A Mandate is a trust

The term "Mandate" applied in this context is confusing. 

It seems to mean an "order". But construed in the light 

of Article 22 of the Covenant or Charter of the League of 

Nations, it is clear  that in  the case of Mandates created 

as  envisioned  by  Article  22  of  the  League  Covenant  or 

charter,  such  as  the  Mandates  for  Palestine,  Syria  and 

Mesopotamia,  it  means  a  device  which  was  created 

under  the  British  legal  concepts  of  trusts  and 

guardianships. This was the conclusion in May of 1921, 

about  one  year  after  San  Remo,  by  a  British  barrister 

and member of the NY bar Duncan Campbell Lee in his 

lecture at University College, London University entitled 

"The  Mandate  for  Mespotamia  and  the  Principle  of 

Trusteeship in English Law." [Note #24] If the Mandate 

is a trust, what is the trust res, the thing placed in trust? 

It  must  be  the  political  or  national  rights  to  Palestine. 25

The most important question is "Who is the beneficiary 

of  the  trust?  All  who  have  looked  at  the  trust  and 

compared it with trusts for Syria and Mesopotamia have 

concluded that it is World Jewry.

Compare it yourself with the Mandate for Syria and the 

Mandate for Mesopotamia. For the latter, "This Organic 

law  shall  be  formed  in  agreement  with  the  native 

authorities  and  shall  take  into  account  the  rights, 

interests and wishes of all the Population inhabiting 

the mandated  territory, (Article 1 of  the Mandate  for 

Syria and The Lebanon) For Mesopotamia, now Iraq, the

mandate provided: This Organic law shall be framed in 

consultation  with  the  native  authorities  and  shall 

take into account the rights, interests and wishes of 

all the population of the mandated territory. (Article 

1 of the Mespotamia [Iraq] Mandate. [emphasis added}

However in  the  Palestine Mandate,  Article  2  says  "The

Mandatory shall be responsible  for placing  the country 

under  such  political,  administrative  and  economic 

conditions  as  will  secure  the  establishment  of  the 

Jewish national home as laid down in the preamble

and  the  establishment  of  self  governing  institutions" 

[emphasis added].

And  the  preamble  states  "Whereas  the Principle Allied 

Powers have also agreed that the Mandatory should be 

responsible  for  putting  into  effect  the  declaration

originally  made  on  November  2,  1917,  by  the 

Government  of  His  Britannic  Majesty  [The  Balfour 

Declaration] and adopted by the said Powers in favor of 

the  establishment  in  Palestine  of  a  national  home  for 26

the  Jewish  people,  it  being  clearly  understood  that

nothing should be done which might prejudice the civil 

and  religious  rights  of  the  non‐Jewish  communities  in 

Palestine  ... and Whereas 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; ..."

Compare the Mandates

It  seems  clear  that  in  the  other  mandates,  the  rights, 

interests and wishes of the then current inhabitants are 

to be  taken into account but in Palestine Mandate  they 

were  ignored  in  favor  of  a  Jewish  National  Home  in 

which solely the advice of the Zionist Organization was 

to  be  taken  into  account  (Mandate  Article  4).  In  the 

Palestine  Mandate  only  Jewish  immigration  was 

expressly required  to be  facilitated with  the result  that 

eventually  a  Jewish  population  majority  would  have 

been attained.  (Mandate article  6)  It  therefore appears 

that the Jewish National Home was a beneficial interest 

in the political rights to Palestine, to mature into a later 

legal interest in  those  rights and  sovereignty  for  them. 

However  for  the non  Jews in  the existing population, it 

provided  only  protection  for  their  civil  and  religious 

rights  after  Jewish  sovereignty  was  achieved.  It  is

Jewish immigration  alone  that must  be  facilitated. It is 

the  Zionist  Organization  alone  reflecting  the  rights, 

interests  and  wishes  of  World  Jewry  that  was  the 27

appointed  advisor  to  the  Administration  set  up  by  the 

trustee to administer the Mandate.

Balfour resigned as foreign secretary following the Paris 

Conference in 1919, but continued in the Cabinet as lord 

president of the council. In a memorandum of August 11, 

1919 addressed to new Foreign Secretary Lord Curzon, 

he stated ...

"All  of  the  other  engagements  contained  pledges  that 

the Arab or Muslim populations could establish national 

governments  of  their  own  choosing  according  to  the 

principle of self‐determination. Balfour explained: "... in

Palestine  we  do  not  propose  to  even  go  through  the 

form of consulting the wishes of the present (majority) 

inhabitants of the country ..."

Balfour  stated  explicitly  to  Curzon: "The  Four  Great 

Powers [Britain, France, Italy and the United States] are 

committed to Zionism. And Zionism, be it right or wrong,

good or bad, is rooted in age‐long traditions, in present 

needs, and  future hopes, of  far profounder import  than 

the  desires  and  prejudices  of  the  700,000  Arabs  who

now  inhabit  that  ancient  land.  In  my  opinion  that  is 

right."  *  *  *  *  *    He  continued: "I  do  not  think  that 

Zionism will hurt the Arabs, but they will never say they 

want  it.  Whatever  be  the  future  of  Palestine  it  is  not 

now an 'independent nation', nor is it yet on the way to 

become one. Whatever deference should be paid to the 

views of those living there, the Powers in their selection 

of  a  mandatory  do  not  propose,  as  I  understand  the 

matter, to consult them."..."If Zionism is to influence the 28

Jewish  problem  throughout  the  world,  Palestine  must

be  made  available  for  the  largest  number  of  Jewish 

immigrants"[28]

Was  the  League  of  Nations  creator  or  settler  of  the

trust? No it was the Principal Allied Powers who met at 

San  Remo  according  to  Douglas  Feith  [Note  #14].  It  is

they  who  by  winning  the  war  had  the  authority  to 

dispose of the territories as they saw fit. It is also those 

Powers, not  the League who accepted Britain's offer  to 

serve as Mandatory Power or Trustee at San Remo.

A Trustee has fiduciary obligations

Britain's  offer  and  the  Principal  Allied  Power's 

acceptance  of  Britain  as  Trustee  on  April  25,  1920 

created a  fiduciary  relationship  between  the  cestui que

trust, World Jewry, and the Trustee. This principle is so 

well recognized in British and American law it needs no 

citation.  It  created  a  duty  that  required  Britain  to  give 

priority  to  the  beneficiary's  interest  over  its  own

economic  and  political  interests.  The  agreement 

between  the  Grantor  and  the  Trustee  was  effective  in 

April, 1920 not 1922, the date when the parties agreed 

the Mandate  would  become  effective.  This  raises  a 

question  on  whether  Britain  violated  its  fiduciary 

responsibilities  when  it  eliminated  from  the  political 

rights being placed in  trust  those pertaining  to Eastern 

Palestine.29

What was the role of the League of Nations? Balfour saw 

it only as the instrument to carry out this policy. Balfour, 

on  presenting  the  Mandate  to  the  League  of  Nations 

stated:

"Remember that a mandate is a self‐imposed limitation 

by  the  conquerors  on  the  sovereignty  which  they 

obtained  over conquered  territories.  It  is  imposed  by 

the Allied and Associated Powers on  themselves in  the 

interests  of  what  they  conceived  to  be  the  general 

welfare of mankind...." "The League of Nations is not the 

author of the policy, but its instrument.... ".

Britain's role was that of the Mandatory or trustee. But 

the conquerors, the Principal Allied Powers, did not give 

the political rights to World Jewry as a gift. The political 

rights were recognized as belonging to the Jews because 

of  the  long  "historical  connection  of  the  Jewish  People 

with  Palestine"  a  history  extending  over  some  3,700 

years with a continuous presence of Jews during all that 

time.

Article 95, Treaty of Sevres — was it legally effective?

The  Turks  had  regrouped  and  fought  the  Allies  again

over territories in Europe. So the Treaty of Sevres which 

also  covered  those  areas  was  never  ratified  by  Turkey 

but was superseded by the Treaty of Lausanne. By that 

time the decisions pertaining to the Middle East were a 

fait  accompli.  By  not  changing  things  the  Treaty  of 

Lausanne, in Article 16 and 30 ratified Article 95 of the 

treaty of Sevres that was the ruling of the Principal War 30

Powers on the competing claims of the Arabs and Jews. 

That ended any claim of the Ottomans and left its status 

up to the other parties concerned. Article 95 had ceded 

Ottoman  sovereignty  over  Palestine  to  the  Mandatory 

Power in trust for the Jews. Nota bene that the Mandates 

for Syria and Mesopotamia were also established in that 

treaty.  The  Syrian  Mandate  was  subsequently  divided 

into two, a Syrian Mandate into which the Muslims were 

to be located, and Lebanon for the Christians.

The British truncated the Jewish Political Rights

But an interesting  thing happened between  the  time of 

the  meeting  in  San  Remo  and  the  confirmation of  the 

League  Mandate  for  Palestine.  The  language  of  the 

Mandate was changed to deal differently with Palestine 

east  of  the  Jordan  River  known  as  "transJordan'  in 

contrast  to  cisJordan  that  referred  to  Palestine west  of 

the  Jordan, between  the  Jordan and the Mediterranean 

Sea. An Article 25 had been inserted in paragraph 25 of 

the later 1922 draft, as it was presented  to  the League 

by  Britain.  Britain  had  on  April  25,  1920  agreed  to 

assume  the  responsibilities  of  a  fiduciary.  The  later 

draft  provided  for  temporarily  suspending  Jewish 

settlement in transJordan.

How did  this come about? King Hussayn who was  then 

ruler  in  the  Hedjaz  in  the  Arabian  Peninsula  had  four 

sons.  Believing  that  his  agreement  with  the  British 

resulting  from  his  correspondence  with  McMahon 31

would  give  him  a  wide  area  covering  Syria  and 

Mesopotamia  (now  Iraq)  as  well  as  the  Arabian 

peninsula,  he  told  his  son  Feisal  that  he  would  rule  in 

Syria and Abdullah to my recollection in Iraq. The third 

son would inherit Hussayn's  throne and  the  fourth one 

was  not interested in  positions  of  power.  In  the  secret 

Sykes‐Picot agreement, the Governments of Europe split 

up  the  former  Ottoman  territory  into  spheres  of 

influence.  England  was  to  get  Palestine  and 

Mesopotamia (now Iraq), and France would get Syria.

Immediately after the war, England had placed Feisal on 

the  throne  in  Syria.  When  he  asserted  independence,

France was offended and after the Battle of Maysalun, it 

deposed  Feisal.  Abdullah,  who  was  very  warlike, 

marched  his army into  transJordan and made  ready  to 

attack  Damascus.  Churchill  did  not  want  the  Arabs  to

war against the French so he gave the throne of Iraq to 

Feisal.  The  story  can  be  filled  in  from  the  Diary  of  Sir 

Alec  Kirkbride,  one  of  three  British  officers  who  were 

told  after  WWI  to  set  up  governments  in  transJordan. 

After he had set up a government Kirkbride was warned 

that  Abdullah  was  marching  his  army  toward  his  area

and wired  the  British  headquarters in  Jerusalem.  They 

wired  back  telling  Kirkbride  to  ignore  the  warning  as 

Abdullah would never invade a territory being ruled by 

His  Majesty's  government.  When  Abdullah  did,  in  fact,

show  up,  Kirkbride  had  only  a  few  policeman  to  help 

him and wisely decided not to fight. He wired Jerusalem 

once  again  and  this  time  His  Majesty's  government, 

decided that it was a fait accompli. At a meeting in Cairo 32

on March 21, 1921 Churchill decided the best way out of 

this problem was to limit the political rights of the Jews 

to Palestine west of the Jordan. Kirkbride then chuckles 

over  the  "remarkable discovery"  made  by  the 

government that the framers of the Balfour policy never 

really wanted to give all of Palestine to World Jewry for 

its  Jewish  National  Home.  Why  then  did  the  Toynbee‐

Namier  memorandum  predating  the  Balfour 

Declaration assume that the 600,000 total population of 

all  of  Palestine  would  be  under  Jewish  rule  but  for

putting the political rights in trust? [29]

As  for  the  Hussayn‐McMahon  correspondence,  George 

Antonius  claimed  that  the  British  had  promised  King

Ibn Hussayn  the  rule  of  Syria,  and  Palestine  as well  as 

the  Arabian  Peninsula  if  he  got  the  Arab  tribesmen  to 

revolt  against  the  Ottomans.  But  as  shown  by  Isaiah 

Friedman,  Hussayn  had  told  McMahon  that  he  would 

get  some  258,000  fighters  to  fight  on  behalf  of  the

British and at the most came up with about 5,000.[30] It 

appears  there  was  a  failure  of  consideration  for  any 

promise McMahon had made. There was a question on 

whether  Hussayn  was  promised  any  territory  that  his 

own fighters had not conquered. And in fact in Syria and 

Palestine  none  of  the  Arabs  fought  on  the  side  of  the 

British  and  many  fought  for  the  Ottomans.  Finally 

assuming these were not a problem there was a dispute 

over  the  territory  that  Hussayn  was  promised  even 

though his  fighters had conquered it. A line was drawn 

that would eliminate  territory  to  the west and south of 33

the  line  as  being  an  area  that  should  be  under  the 

control  of  others  and  Palestine  was  excluded  and 

according  to  the  British,  Hussayn  understood  that 

Palestine  was  excluded.  Moreover  the  British  also 

contended that the Hussayn‐McMahon Correspondence 

had never matured into a final agreement.

The  change in  the Mandate  decided  after  San  Remo in 

March,  1921  was  worded  only  to  be  a  temporary 

suspension  of  Jewish  settlement  in  transJordan  but 

transJordan  eventually  matured  into  the  country  of 

Jordan  and  was  eventually  ceded  to  Abdullah  and  his 

Hashemite  tribe  even  though  Abdullah  and  his  Tribe 

was  a  "foreign  power"  from  the Hedjaz  of  the  Arabian 

Peninsula,  expressly  prohibited  from  receiving  any  of 

the political rights in trust.

This,  the  1922  White  Paper  was  the  first  example  of 

England breaking its obligations to the Jews. It would do 

so  again  and  again  in  the  White  Papers  of  1930  and 

1939 even after the confirmation of the Mandate by the 

League of Nations in July, 1922. Britain had volunteered 

at  San  Remo  in  April  to  be  the  mandatory  power  or 

trustee of  the League of Nations Mandate  for Palestine. 

As a trustee it owed the beneficial owner of the trust res

the obligations of a  fiduciary. A  fiduciary's obligation is 

to prefer its beneficiary's interests over those of its own. 

Yet England in  July, 1922 had persuaded  the League to 

change the terms of the trust the Principals had agreed 

to  at  San  Remo,  to  solve  Britain's  own  political 

difficulties with France. This cost the beneficiary, World 

Jewry. some 40% of  the  territory extending east  to  the34

Hejaz Railway that had initially been recognized by the 

Principal  Allied  Powers  as  the  area  they  wanted 

recognized as Jewish.

Britain's retreat from the Balfour policy.

Through the meeting at San Remo, all the Principal War 

Powers  were  very  protective  of  the  rights  of  World 

Jewry. When at San Remo, the French wanted to amend 

the  "savings  clause"  saving  the  "civil  and  religious 

rights"  of  non  Jewish  communities  when  the  Jews 

ultimately  exercised  sovereignty  in  Palestine,  to  add 

"political rights" the British and the other Principal War 

Powers declined  to accept  the amendment. France was

satisfied with a "process verbal" a side agreement noted 

in the minutes explaining that the savings clause meant 

that  the  non‐Jews  would  not  have  to  surrender  any  of 

their rights. That was acceptable  to  the others because 

all knew that the Arabs in Palestine had never exercised 

sovereignty  there.  The  only  "people"  in  Palestine  that 

had exercised self government in Palestine was the Jews. 

After  the  Churchill  White  Paper  of  1922  diminished 

Jewish rights East of the Jordan River, Perfidious Albion 

continued  to abuse its position as Mandatory Power or 

trustee in the British Passfield White Paper of 1930 and 

the MacDonald White Paper of 1939. In 1939 it adopted 

a  British  White  paper  blocking  further  Jewish 

immigration  into  Palestine  West  of  the  Jordan  at  the 

request  of  the  Arabs.  It  did  this  despite  an  express

requirement  of  the  Mandate  or  trust  that  the  trustee 35

should "facilitate" Jewish immigration" into Palestine so 

that  the  Jews  would  ultimately  become  the  majority 

population and the Jewish National Home could change

into a reconstituted Jewish state. The 1939 White Paper 

would  freeze  Jewish  population  at  about  a  one  third 

minority. It contemplated a grant of self government to 

the  population  of  Palestine  in  1949  but  with  Jewish

immigration  blocked,  there  would  still  be  an  Arab 

majority.

Many  of  those  who  had  participated  in  the  original 

deliberations  on  the  Balfour  policy  that  had  been 

adopted  at  San  Remo  strongly  objected.  David  Lloyd‐

George  who  had  been  the  Prime  Minister  of  England 

then,  characterized  this  action  as  "an  act  of  national 

perfidy which will bring dishonor  to  the British name." 

Winston  Churchill,  in  the  House  of  Commons, 

condemned  the  Paper  as  "plainly  a  breach  and 

repudiation of the Balfour Declaration" and he referred 

to  it  as  "another  Munich"  (Neville  Chamberlain  was 

Prime  Minister  in  1939).  Harry  Truman,  then  a  U.S. 

Senator  also criticized  the  1939  White  Paper  as  a 

"repudiation  of  British  obligations"  and  President 

Franklin  Roosevelt  expressed  his  "dismay  [at]  the 

decisions  of  the  British  Government  regarding  its 

Palestine Policy". That 1939 White Paper even blocked 

the sale of property in Palestine to the Jews.36

The MacDonald 1939 White Paper was Illegal

But  even  more  importantly,  the  League  of  Nations 

Permanent Mandates Commission whose duty it was to 

oversee  the Mandatories appointed by  the League, was 

unanimous  that  the  interpretation  on  which  the  1939 

White  Paper  was  based  was  inconsistent  with  the 

interpretation previously placed on it by the Mandatory. 

That  Commission,  by  a  majority,  ruled  that  the 

interpretation  was  inconsistent  with  the  express 

obligations  of  the  Mandate,  i.e.  to  facilitate  Jewish 

immigration  into  Palestine  so  that  the  Jews  would 

become  a  majority  and  could  become  a  reconstituted 

Jewish State.

Under the terms of the 1939 White Paper a single Arab 

majority  state  was  contemplated  by  1949,  completely 

abandoning  the  objective  of  the  Balfour  Agreement. 

This was a unilateral measure without the prior consent 

of  the  Council  of  the  League  of  Nations,  therefore 

violating  Article  27  of  the  Mandate  that  required  its 

approval  before  any  modification.  A  meeting  of  that 

Council was  scheduled  for  September  8,  1939  but was 

never  held  because  of  the  outbreak  of  WWII. 

Nevertheless  the  British,  for  the  next  ten  years  from 

1939  until  May,  1948  viciously  enforced  an  illegal 

blockade  preventing  Jews  from  fleeing  death  in  Nazi

extermination  camps  and  later  blocking  Holocaust 

survivors from reaching sanctuary in Israel even though

the  blockade  had  been  determined  to  be illegal  by  the 37

Permanent  Mandates  Commission  authorized  to  make 

that  determination.  Its  enforcement  contributed to  the 

death of some six million  Jews who were  trying  to  flee 

from  the  European Holocaust.  It lasted,  because  of  the 

obsessed  Ernest  Bevin,  even  after  the  war,  blocking

Holocaust  survivors  from  entering  a  place  where  they 

could  received  help  from  others  of  their  people.[31] 

[32]

In 1947 the British after seeking monetary and military 

aid  from  the United States  that was denied, announced 

its  proposed  abandonment  in  1948  of  its  trusteeship

that  it  said  it  could  no  longer  afford.  The  UN,  had

replaced  the  League  of  Nations  as  world  government, 

and  this  new  world  government  included  the  United 

States as a member.  It  had as Article  80  of its  Charter, 

preserved  the  recognition  by  its  51‐state  membership 

of the Jews ownership of the political rights to Palestine, 

now reduced to Palestine west of the Jordan River. The 

UN  formed  a  special  committee  to  determine  what 

should  be  done,  because  of  the  threatened  violence  of 

the Arabs. [33]

The UN Partition Recommendation

The UN General Assembly, after  the Special Committee 

completed  its  deliberations,  enacted  a  resolution, 

Resolution 181 [34] recommending that Palestine West

of  the  Jordan  should  be  divided  into  Arab  and  Jewish

states and a Corpus Separatum encompassing Jerusalem 38

and  surrounding  religious  holy  sites.  Such a 

recommendation  is  of  no  continuing  force  and  effect

unless  both  parties  to  it  accept  the  recommendation. 

One  party,  the  Jews,  did.  They  were  willing  to  give  up 

much of  their political rights in exchange  for an end  to 

the  threats  of  violence  and  so  they  could  aid  in  the 

immigration of Holocaust survivors.

The  Secretary  General  of  the  Arab  League  had 

threatened  war.  He  said:  "This  war  will  be  a  war  of

extermination  and  a  momentous  massacre  which  will 

be  spoken  of  like  the  Mongol  massacre  and  the 

Crusades." The  Arabs  declined  to  accept  the 

compromise  and  went  to  war.  The  Arab  warfare  was 

initially  conducted  by  Arabs local  to  Palestine  but  was 

soon joined by seven armies of surrounding Arab States. 

Some  450,000  to  700,000  Arabs  fled  without  seeing  a 

single Jewish soldier although a few at Ramle and Lydda 

were  removed  by  the  Jewish  forces  because  after 

agreeing to an armistice they had resumed fighting and 

the Jews did not want them in back of their lines. As to 

almost all  the  rest,  the  rich left  first,  followed by many 

more at  the  urging  of  the Arab Higher  Committee who 

asked them to get out of the way of the invading armies. 

It  predicted  the  defeat  of  the  Jews in  some  two  weeks 

and  assured  them  that  the  Arabs  could  then  return. 

Mahmoud  Abbas  (Abu  Mazen)  wrote  an  article  in  the 

official organ of the PLO, "Filastin", complaining of this, 

and  that when  the Arab armies lost,  the  refugees were 

imprisoned  in  camps  in  the  neighboring  Arab  states 

[35].  Hazam  Nusseibeh,  who  worked  for  the  Palestine 39

Broadcasting  Service  in  1948,  admitted  being  told  by 

Hussein  Khalidi,  a  Palestinian  Arab leader,  to  fabricate 

the atrocity claims. Abu Mahmud, a Deir Yassin resident 

in  1948  told  Khalidi  "there  was  no  rape,"  but  Khalidi 

replied,  "We  have  to  say  this,  so  the  Arab  armies  will 

come  to  liberate  Palestine  from  the  Jews."  Nusseibeh 

told  the  BBC  50  years  later,  "This  was  our  biggest 

mistake. We did not realize how our people would react. 

As  soon  as  they  heard  that  women  had  been  raped  at 

Deir  Yassin,  Palestinians  fled  in  terror."  [36] This 

massacre rumor was also a major contributing factor in 

the  exodus  of  Arabs  from  Palestine.  Those  who  fled 

were  not invited  back  by  the  Jews who won. No  peace

treaty  was  signed  until  many  years  later  and  the  Jews 

did not want to have a Fifth Column in their midst. The 

treaties that were signed with Egypt did not reestablish 

normal  relations.  It  has  been  a  cold  peace.  The  peace 

with Jordan has perhaps been a little better.

In  the  1948 War  the  Jews  weren't  100%  successful  in

repelling  the invasion  of  the  surrounding  Arab  armies. 

Jordan,  at  the  time,  had  for  its  armed  forces  The  Arab 

Legion,  supplied  by  the  British  and  led  by  British 

Officers.  At  the  same  time  the  Jews were  subject  to  an 

arms  embargo.  The  Arab  Legion  was  therefore 

successful  in  invading  westward  from  Jordan,  to  and 

including  East  Jerusalem.  The  Egyptian  forces  moved 

north  and  got  as  far  as  the  Gaza  strip.  Under 

International Law this territory, having been won in an 

aggressive war, the capture of this land did not gain the 40

invaders  the  political  rights  to  it.  Only  Britain  and 

Pakistan recognized Jordan as holding sovereignty over it.

Israeli  liberation  of  Judea,  Samaria  and  East Jerusalem

In 1967,  once again Arabs  threatened  to annihilate the 

Jews. Egypt blocked Israeli shipping through the Straits 

of Tiran and massed tanks and troops on its border with 

Israel.  It  ordered  the  UN  buffer  force,  established  in 

1956,  to  leave  and  the  UN  buffer  forces  left  without 

even  seeking  UN  approval.  Nasser  threatened 

annihilation  of  the  Jews  or  driving  them  into  the  sea. 

Israel struck back at Egypt but even after being shelled 

by  Jordanian  artillery,  sent  a  note  to  King  of  Jordan 

saying that if they stopped the shelling they need not be 

a part of the war. Jordan declined and its army in Judea, 

Samaria  and East  Jerusalem  was  driven  back  to  the 

Jordan River by the Jews.

CONCLUSION

The  Mandate  system  was  designed  to  help  states  that 

had been subject  to Ottoman occupation  for 400 years, 

to  become  independent  after  they  learned  democratic 

principles, formed political parties and were able to self 

govern. An exception was the Mandate for Israel where 

the Jewish People who had been driven out of Palestine 

and dispersed by the Romans, were recognized by  first 41

the  British,  next  the  Allied  Principal  War  Powers,  and 

finally,  the  members  of  the  League  of  Nations  as  the 

owners  of  the  political  rights because  of  their  historic 

association with Palestine but initially were to be solely 

a  cestui  que  trust with  regard  to  Palestine’s  political 

rights. There, the tacit standard for ending the Mandate 

by the vesting of the trust res was to be the attainment 

of a Jewish population majority in the area they were to 

govern and their capability to exercise sovereignty. 

Although  now  people  point  to  the  designation  “Jewish 

National  Home”  to  bolster  their  argument  that  the 

British  Balfour  Policy  was  never  intended  to  create  a 

state,  there  was  little  doubt  in  the  British  newspapers 

when  the Balfour Declaration was published.  “That  the 

Declaration paved  the way  for a  Jewish State seems  to, 

judging from the press, to have been taken for granted.  

The headlines in  the London newspapers – ‘A state  for 

the  Jews’  (Daily Express) – ‘Palestine  for  the  Jews’  (The 

Times, Morning Post, Daily News).   The Spectator wrote 

of ‘the proposal  for  the establishment of a  Jewish State 

in  Palestine.’    The  Manchester  Guardian saw  the 

Declaration as leading to ‘the ultimate establishment of 

a  Jewish State.’ The Observer wrote: ‘It is no idle dream 

that  by  the  close  of  another  generation  the  new  Zion 

may become a state.’ Leonard Stein at 562, 63   [42]

Before enacting the Partition Resolution of 1947, the UN 

in  effect  found  the  Jews  were  capable  of  exercising

sovereignty.  The  resolution  itself  became only  a  failed 42

recommendation  when  rejected  by  the  Arabs  and  the 

partition resolution had no continuing  force and effect. 

When  the  trustee,  Britain,  abandoned  its  trust  in  May, 

1948,  the cestui que trust, World  Jewry, was  the logical 

entity  to  get  legal  dominion  of  the  political  rights  that 

theretofore had been held in trust. Had the UN thought 

the  Jews  were  still  incapable  of  the  exercise  of 

sovereignty,  in  1948  they  would  have  appointed 

another  trustee.  In  any  event,  by  1948,  coincidentally 

the  Jews  had  attained  a  majority  of  the  population  of 

Palestine,  at  least  within the  area  of  Palestine  west  of 

the Jordan within the Armistice line where they were to 

rule.

In  doing  my  research  I  learned  of  Woodrow  Wilson’s 

stand  on  the  natural law  concept  of  self‐determination 

of peoples and wondered how he would have evaluated

giving the Jewish People, a small minority in Palestine at 

the  time of  the Paris  Peace  Talks in  1919,  the  political 

rights  to  that  territory.  In doing my research  I learned 

that Lord Balfour had the same doubts

.  

“When  Balfour  met  Brandeis  in  Paris  in  June  1919,  he 

remarked  .  .  .  .  that  Palestine  represented  a  unique 

situation.    We  are  dealing  not  with  the  wishes  of  an 

existing  community  but  are  consciously  seeking  to  re‐

constitute a new community and definitely building  for 

a numerical majority in the future’ . He had, he went on, 

great  difficulty  in  seeing  how  President  Wilson  could 

reconcile his adherence to Zionism with the doctrine of 43

self‐determination,  to  which  Brandeis  replied  that  ‘the 

whole conception of Zionism as a Jewish homeland was

a  definite  building  up  for  the  future  as  the  means  of 

dealing with a world problem and not merely with  the 

disposition of an existing community. ‘ Balfour gave the 

argument a slightly different  turn at his interview with 

Meinertzhagen a few weeks later. ‘ [Meinertzhagen was 

also  very  pro‐Zionist.]  He  agreed  .  .  .  in  principle, 

Meinertzhagen wrote in his diary (30 July 1919), in the 

principle  of  self‐determination,  but  it  could  not  be 

indiscriminately  applied  to  the  whole  world,  and 

Palestine  was  a  case  in  point  .  .  .  In  any  Palestinian 

plebiscite  the  Jews  of  the  world  must  be  consulted  in 

which case he sincerely believed that an overwhelming 

majority  would  declare  for  Zionism  under  a  British 

mandate.’  Leonard Stein at p. 649

Leopold Amery, one of the Secretaries to the British 

War Cabinet of 1917‐1918 testified under oath to the 

Anglo‐American Committee of Inquiry in January, 1946 

from his personal knowledge  [Tr. 1/30/46, p 112] that:

1. He believed that the Jewish National Home was an 

experiment to determine whether there would 

eventually be a Jewish majority over the whole of 

Palestine.

2. He believed that the territory for which political 

rights were to be recognized was intended to 

include all of Palestine both east and west of the 

Jordan River.44

3. He had always assumed that the particular

reference to not infringing the civil or

religious liberties of Arab population was not

so much a safeguard against the British

Government infringing those liberties . . ., but a

Jewish state infringing those liberties. Therefore,

at the time that possibility of a Jewish majority

over the whole of the larger Palestine was, he

thought envisaged.

4. The phrase “the establishment in Palestine of a

National Home for the Jewish people” was

intended and understood by all concerned to

mean at the time of the Balfour Declaration that

Palestine would ultimately become a “Jewish

Commonwealth” or a “Jewish State”, if only Jews

came and settled there in sufficient numbers.

5. Recalled that Lloyd-George had testified earlier

[likely in 1939 at the time of the 1939 White

Paper]:

“...There could be no doubt as to what the

Cabinet then had in mind. It was not their idea

that a Jewish State should be set up immediately

by the Peace Treaty…. On the other hand, it was

contemplated that when the time arrived for

according representative institutions to Palestine,

if the Jews had meanwhile responded to the

opportunity afforded them … and had become a

definite majority of the inhabitants, then Palestine45

would thus become a Jewish

Commonwealth. The notion that the Jews should

be a permanent minority never entered into the

heads of anyone engaged in framing the

policy. That would have been regarded as unjust,

and as a fraud on the people to whom we were

appealing.”

 Presenting in 1946 the Arab Case Against a

Jewish State in Palestine, Albert Hourani described

his understanding of what was being considered:

“. ‘ ‘ speaking as a member of the Arab Office—and I 

believe as the last witness who will appear on the Arab 

side—I think it is right to emphasize, without 

elaborating what needs no further elaboration, the 

unalterable opposition of the Arab nation to the attempt 

to impose a Jewish State upon it.  This opposition is 

based upon the unwavering conviction of unshakeable 

rights and a conviction of the injustice of forcing a long‐

settled population to accept immigrants without its

consent being asked and against its known and 

expressed will; the injustice of turning a majority into a 

minority in its own country; the injustice of withholding 

self‐government until the Zionists are in the majority 

and able to profit by it.  P. 80 [43]

The late Professor Julius Stone was recognised as one of 

the twentieth century's leading authorities on the 

International law.  His “Israel and Palestine, Assault on 46

the Law of Nations” which appeared in 1980, presented 

a detailed analysis of the central principles of 

international law governing the issues raised by the 

Arab‐Israel conflict.”  Building on principles of 

International Law, he  showed that the Jewish 

settlements were not illegal.  Based on that opinion the 

US Department of State changed the view it had 

provided President Carter.  But Stone’s view did not 

take into account the principles of equity jurisprudence 

made applicable by Article 22 referred to in the 

preamble of the Palestine Mandate.  [44] He does point 

out that “Not only does Jordan lack any legal title to the 

territories concerned, but the [Geneva]  Convention 

itself does not by its terms apply to these territories. For, 

under Article 2, the [4th Geneva ] Convention applies "to 

cases of … occupation of the territory of a High 

Contracting Party, by another such Party". Insofar as the 

West Bank at present held by Israel does not belong to 

any other State, the Convention would not seem to 

apply to it at all.” He doesn’t point out that in fact it 

belongs to the Jewish People as does the State of Israel 

that is not “another party” so that the correct 

characterization is not only  “occupied” as in military 

occupation.    Rather since “occupied”carries  the 

pejorative meaning of belligerent occupation, a better 

descriptive would be “liberated.”

Politics and the Jewish political rights to Palestine 47

Under  the  left  wing  Labour  government,  Israel  has 

never  directly  made  a  claim  under  the  political  or 

national  rights  that  its  principal,  World  Jewry,  had 

under International Law that had been recognized, first 

by the Principal War Powers, and then by most   states. 

Even  with  the  change  of  Paragraph  25  suspending  the

right  to settle East Palestine,  there remained  for World 

Jewry a  right  to Palestine west  of  the  Jordan approved 

by the 51 countries in the League of Nations and by the 

US,  who  had  declined  membership  — a  total  of  52 

countries.  But  the  thrust  of  the  Labour  Government 

claim was not the San Remo Agreement but under facts 

occurring  in  1948  and  thereafter.  The  Israeli 

Government  said  that  Jordan's  aggression  in  1948 

resulted  in  Jordan  never  obtaining  sovereignty  over 

Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem. So when in 1967 in a 

defensive war, it drove the Jordanians out of that area, it 

was thereafter not engaged in a belligerent occupation. 

Jordan was not a legitimate sovereign but was illegally 

occupying  an  area  that  was  disputed  and in  which  the 

Jews  had  the  better  claim.  The  Government  of  Israel 

never  directly made  the  claim  based  on  the  competing 

Arab  and  Jewish  claims  made  at  the  Paris  Peace  talks 

and the disposition of them in the Treaty of Sevres, the 

San Remo Resolution and  the Mandate  for Palestine.  It 

only hinted at it.

Now,  Douglas  Feith,  Jacques  Gauthier,  Howard  Grief,

Salomon  Benzimra,  Cynthia  Wallace,  former  Israel 

Supreme  Court  Justice  Levy  and  his  two  distinguished 

colleagues,  Alan  Baker,  Tshia  Shapira, the  late  Julius 48

Stone  and  I  are  directly  making  that  claim.  By  now  it 

should be perfectly clear that the claim is not based on 

the UN  General  Assembly  partition  resolution  of  1947, 

nor  is  it  based  only  on  facts  occurring  in  1948  and

thereafter.  It is  based  on  facts  commencing as early as 

1917 when the British adopted its Balfour policy and it 

became  International  Law  on  the  agreement  of  the 

Principal  War  Powers  at  San  Remo  in  1920  after 

consideration of both the claims of the Arabs and that of 

the Jews to the political or national rights to Palestine. It 

was  confirmed  by  the  League's  action  on  at  least 

Palestine  West  of  the  Jordan  River  by  the  51  nations 

that were its members.  It is  based  on  the  presentation 

of  the  competing  claims  of  the  Arabs  and  Jews 

submitted  to  the  Principal  War  Powers  at  the  Paris 

Peace  Conference  and  the  adjudication  and  ruling  on

those claims at San Remo in detail in the order that was 

called the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine. It is 

based  on  the  legal  doctrines  of  "acquired rights"  and 

"estoppel" that prohibits any state from denying what it 

previously  admitted  or  recognized in  a  treaty  or  other

international agreement. It is based on Article 80 of the 

UN Charter that preserves political rights that had been 

recognized  by  the  United  States  and  Principal  Allied 

Powers in the 1920s. While Chaim Weizmann and some 

of  the  Zionist Organization had been willing  to give up 

those  rights, many  had  never  agreed  to it  and  split  off 

into another organization headed by Jabotinsky.

Even  despite  accepting  the  later  loss  of  transJordan, 

Chaim Weizmann, instrumental in obtaining the Balfour 49

Declaration, was delighted with what was left. Gauthier 

has  paraphrased[37]  Weizmann's  reactions  to  the  San 

Remo  decision,  which  gave  Jews  their  rights  under 

international law: "This is the most momentous political 

event in  the  whole  history  of  the  Zionist movement,  and 

it's  no  exaggeration  to  say,  in  the  whole  history  of  our

people since the Exile."

What  importance  do  the  Arabs  place  on  the  Balfour 

Declaration? A reviewer of  "The Iron Cage: The Story of 

the  Palestinian  Struggle  for  Statehood" [38]  a  book  by 

Columbia Professor Rashid Khalidi who formerly was a 

spokesman  for  the PLO, says "Khalidi has his own set of 

external culprits, beyond the blame he is willing to accept 

for the Arabs for the nabka or catastrophe as they call it."

The  very  first  of  the  three  listed  is  "British  colonial 

masters  like  Lord  Balfour,  who  refused  to  recognize  the 

national [political] rights of non‐Jews; ..." [39]

What  then  is  the  rule  under  International  Law?  It  is 

"There  is  no  legal  claim  to  national  self‐determination 

for  Palestinian  Arabs  west  of  the  Jordan  River  other 

than  as  peaceful  citizens  in  a  democratic  structure

covering the area as a whole." [40]

Israel's Legitimacy in Law and History, note #12 supra, 

pp. 55,56.

Part II: Where There is a Tension Between the

Right of a "People" to Self-determination and

the Right of a Sovereign State to Territorial

Integrity, the Right of the State is Paramount50

The Jewish People's State — Eretz Yisrael

International Law on the question of the Jewish People's

sovereignty over Palestine between the River Jordan and the Sea

can be summed up in two parts. This following summary was

prepared by the late Eugene Rostow, an acclaimed International

Lawyer, Dean of the Yale Law School and Under Secretary for

Political Affairs in the State Department in the Lyndon Johnson

Administration. It was written in 1991, just after the OSLO

Agreement was signed.

[Part 1.] "The 1920 mandate [for Palestine] implicitly denies Arab

claims to national political rights in the area in favour of the Jews;

the mandated territory was in effect reserved to the Jewish people

for their self-determination and political development, in

acknowledgment of the historic connection of the Jewish people to

the land.

[Part 2.] There remains simply the theory that the Arab inhabitants

of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip have an inherent "natural law"

claim to the area.

Neither customary international law nor the United Nations

Charter acknowledges that every group of people claiming to be a

nation has the right to a state of its own." Eugene Rostow, The

Future of Palestine, Institute for Strategic Studies, November

1993, [bracketed numbers added]

I found the foregoing summary after I had completed my own

research and had written a more detailed version. The only

difference between Rostow's view and mine is that I sprinkled a

little equity jurisprudence in mine making it a little easier to

understand. The law of trusts is incorporated in the body of equity 51

jurisprudence and helps explain Part I. The Palestine Mandate was

in effect a trust agreement in which Britain held in trust the

political rights recognized in 1920 to belong to the Jewish People.

It therefore had legal dominion over them so long as it was trustee

— see below. The Jewish people owned only a beneficial interest

in these political rights when Britain was trustee. It was not until

1948 that the World Jewry met the tacit standards for vesting of the

trust res.

They met those standards by attaining a population majority in the

defined territory (inside an Armistice boundary) that was under

their rule, and by having the capability of exercising sovereignty

by their unified control over the population inside that boundary

and control over their borders. The standards for exercising

sovereignty were restated in 1933 in the Montivideo Convention on

the Rights and Duties of States. Now that 20 years have gone by

and the "peace talks" and renunciation of violence have been

proven to be a charade, it is time to contemplate what will come

next. One alternative that hasn't been given a forum is a one lawful

Jewish majority state from the River to the Sea. But two myths

need correcting and a chimera must be dispelled. One myth is that

Jewish sovereignty had its roots in the 1947 UNGA Partition

Resolution 181 and success in battle in 1948, but does not include

Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem that were liberated in 1967. A

history lost in the sands of time shows the roots of the Jewish

People's sovereignty was actually in 1920, not 1947. It is outlined

in the San Remo Resolution -- word for word the Balfour

Declaration — and detailed in the Palestine Mandate. This

beneficial interest, awaiting a Jewish population majority in the

area to be ruled, and Jewish capability to exercise sovereignty, was

recognized by 52 states in 1922. One of those was the United

States. These political rights vested in the Jewish People in 1948

under the principles of the law of trusts without any fanfare in

fulfillment of the trust set up by the Mandate..

The second myth is that the "Palestinian People" is a real rather

than an invented "people" and that they want a right to self-52

determination under International Law. This is also not correct.

Part II corrects this myth. I wrote two articles on these questions

that were published by the Think-Israel blog under a non-exclusive

license. They are entitled

Soviet Russia, the Creators of the PLO and the Palestinian People

( http://www.think-israel.org/brand.russiatheenemy.html ).

: "Was there a Palestine Arab National Movement at the End of the

Ottoman Period?"

( http://www.think-israel.org/brand.palnationalism.html ).

The view that a single Jewish state from the Jordan River to the

Mediterranean Sea would involve giving up on a majority of

Jewish citizenry in Israel is only a chimera. Annexation of Judea

and Samaria would lower the existing Jewish population majority

from 80% to only 66% -- as found by former Ambassador Yoram

Ettinger based on a study of the Begin‐Sadat Center, but that much

only if every Arab in those territories swore fealty to the Jewish

State to obtain citizenship. He also said that the Jewish birthrate is

significantly greater than the Arab birthrate and is supplemented by

significant Jewish immigration from the diaspora. If it becomes

necessary to retake Gaza, that territory could be given internal

autonomy (like Home Rule) until the Jewish majority in the entire

area grows such that adding Gaza would not jeopardize a Jewish

population majority. Internal autonomy is much like the current

proposals of Netanyahu to the Palestinian Authority.

Palestinian Self-Determination under natural law

and International Law

In President Obama's recent trip to Israel, he told the students there

[having excluded students from outside the Green Line] that the

Palestinian People had an inalienable right to self-determination.

But he also repeated to Americans many times that if they liked

their health care policies, under ObamaCare they could keep them.

Neither is correct. The UN General Assembly made the same error 53

on Palestinian self-determination in its Resolution 3236. This

might be true under natural law, but is it the rule under

International Law?

Does every "people" have a unilateral right to self‐determination

under International Law? Not the Kurds, nor the Basques. If not,

why should the Arab people living in Palestine have that right?

One of the two major arguments the alleged "Palestinian People"

make to justify their claim is that under International Law they are

a "people" and are therefore entitled to self-determination under

International Law. In order to exercise self-determination,

according to this logic, international law gives them the right to

their own state. Of course Arabs residing in Palestine are not a

genuine "people". As noted herein they were invented in 1964 in

Moscow by the Soviet dezinformatsiya. Zahir Muhsein, a member

of the PLO Executive Board admitted in 1977, there is no such

thing as a unique "Palestinian People". He said, and we agree,

they are no different from the Arabs in surrounding countries. The

term "Palestinian People" he has admitted, is used only as a

political ploy. In 1920 there was no "Palestinian People" that made

a claim on any of the territory relinquished by the Ottoman Empire

in the Treaty of Lausanne -- only an Arab People. TheArab People

did make a claim that was rejected.

There never had been a "Palestinian" language, never a

"Palestinian" nation ruling themselves from a capital in Palestine,

never a "Palestinian" coinage. That is because a "Palestinian

People" didn't exist then any more than it does now. Even if they

were now a genuine people, they have no unilateral right under

international law, to become a state with territory taken from a

preexisting state. 54

But before we examine the basis for any current claim of a

genuine "people" let us look at the claim for statehood for the

Jewish People based on the right of the Jewish People to selfdetermination

as it looked to the Allied Principal Powers who

considered it in 1920.

According to the late Julius Stone, the widely acclaimed

Australian international lawyer, "That the provision for a Jewish

national home in Palestine was an application of the principle of

self-determination is manifest from the earliest seminal beginning

of the principle. The Enquiry Commission, established by

President Wilson in order to draft a map of the world based on the

Fourteen Points, affirmed the right of the Jewish people that

Palestine should become a Jewish State clearly on this ground.

Palestine, the Commission said, was 'the cradle and home of their

vital race', 'the basis of the Jewish spiritual contribution', and the

Jews were 'the only people whose only home was in Palestine'…"

[44]

In any event, we show below that even if the Arab people currently

residing in Palestine were a genuine "people", they would have no

right under international law to secede from the territory of a pre

existing state.

Many believe that Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points speech in

1918 was the first mention of a right of self--‐ determination of a

people since the time of John Locke. But Woodrow Wilson's

Fourteen Points speech focused on three colonies of Turkey, 55

namely Syria, Mesopotamia and Palestine. It was aimed at their

decolonization. It was not meant to deal with open ended

secession. Only 53 years before, the United States had suffered

combat casualties of 215,000 and total casualties of 625,000 in the

American Civil War in denying to the Southern Confederacy the

right of secession. The American Revolutionary War, on the other

hand, was a war to obtain American self--‐determination by

decolonization. So American history itself supports selfdetermination

obtained by decolonization but not when sought by

secession where the territorial integrity of a sovereign state is at

issue.

Territorial integrity of the sovereign state had been the mainstay of

the new world order established after the Peace of Westphalia in

1648. It is considered inviolable. Under the current rule of

International Law "Without the consent of the existing state, the

international community will not recognize secessionist territories

as sovereign and independent States.* * * There is no general right

of secession in international law. The principle of sovereign

equality of States includes the recognition that the territorial

integrity of the State is 'inviolable'." Wheatley, Democracy,

Minorities and International Law. [emphasis added] And there is

an existing Jewish People's state whether or not the Government of

Israel adopts the Levy Report and annexes Judea and Samaria -as I

discuss below.

Franklin Roosevelt's and Winston Churchill's wartime discussion

of the subject of political self‐determination, framed on a battleship

in the Atlantic Ocean appeared to be open ended. It was stated as

natural law in the 1941 "Atlantic Charter." But when the right of

self-determination is open ended, there will be a tension between

that right of self-determination of "peoples" with the right of

territorial integrity of sovereign states except when the right of

self-determination of peoples can be met by a decolonization. A

decolonization can be carried out without affecting the boundaries 56

of a state.

The first evolution of this natural law on the "god given"

inalienable right of self- determination into International Law was

its mention in the UN Charter adopted in June, 1945 in Article 1

Section 2 provides as one purpose: "To develop friendly relations

among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights

and self-determination of peoples..." But Article 2 (1) preserved

the territorial integrity of the sovereign state: "The [UN]

Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of

all its Members."

The next mention of the right of self-determination clearly focused

on decolonization. Declaration on the Granting of Independence to

Colonial Countries and Peoples Adopted by General Assembly

resolution 1514 of 14 December 1960 provided "2. All peoples

have the right to self-determination. . . ."

The next two International Conventions were not clearly focused

on decolonization but did certainly retain the rights of territorial

integrity of the sovereign state. These were enacted in 1966 to

become effective in 1976. They were The International Covenant

on Civil and Political Rights, and The International Covenant on

Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights Article 1.1. in each,

provides: "All peoples have the right of self-determination." But

each covenant also reserves the territorial integrity of the sovereign

state. Article 1.3. of each provides: "The States Parties to the

present Covenant, including those having responsibility for the

administration of Non-Self-Governing and Trust Territories, shall

promote the realization of the right of self‐determination, and shall

respect that right, in conformity with the provisions of the Charter

of the United Nations. [emphasis added] The Charter requires

sovereign equality and hence the inviolability of territorial

integrity.57

In 1970, the UN General Assembly spoke again on selfdetermination

in the Declaration On Principles Of International

Law Concerning Friendly Relations And Co-Operation Among

States In Accordance With The Charter Of The United Nations.

This provided: "By virtue of the principle of equal rights and selfdetermination

of peoples enshrined in the Charter of the United

Nations, all peoples have the right freely to determine, without

external interference, their political status . . ." But it also said: "

Every State shall refrain from any action aimed at the partial or

total disruption of the national unity and territorial integrity of any

other State or country." [emphasis added] The most serious

problem facing Israel today is the split in unity of its people. That

split is being fostered by the current action of the United States on

the question of Arab self-determination in Palestine west of the

Jordan River.

Under International Law, the clear rule is that International Law

supports the self-determination of a "people" when it can be

attained without affecting the boundary of a sovereign state as is

the case in a decolonization. Political scientists, philosophers and

those in the discipline of public administration have been

suggesting that the right of self-determination should be available

unilaterally even under secession. The theory attracting the most

followers appears to be that of Allen Buchanan a philosopher at the

University of Wisconsin. He would preserve the strong priority of

territorial integrity of sovereign states over the right of a people to

self-determination but permit secession only as a remedy of last

resort for a "people" when a majority in a state is badly oppressing

a minority with the threat of genocide or cultural extinction. See:

Buchanan, The International Institutional Dimension of Secession

in Lehning, Theories of Secession at pp. 241-247, justifying the

need for a priority for territorial integrity. Other non-lawyers would

not even require that an entire "people" want to secede but would

permit it for any cohesive group nor would they require it to be a

last resort. They do require that it be fair to the minority in the 58

territory removed as well as not removing anything vital to the

continued existence of those in the remaining territory.

How do these principles apply to the Arab‐Israeli

conflict?

First, that conflict is res judicata under International Law and has

been since 1920. In 1919 the Arab and Jewish People brought to

the Paris Peace Talks their competing claims for Palestine. King

Hussein, the initial representative of the Arab People, also claimed

Syria (now Syria and Lebanon) and Mesopotamia (now called

Iraq). The World Zionist Organization sought only Palestine,

asking only in effect for what the British Balfour Declaration

policy had promised them. That was recognition initially of an

equitable interest in the political rights to Palestine but when the

Jews attained a population majority in the area to be governed and

had the capability of exercising sovereignty, it was the intention to

have the rights vest so they could reconstitute a Jewish

Commonwealth. Until that time the British as trustees or

mandatory, were to have legal dominion over these rights with the

authority in the mandate or trust agreement of legislation,

administration and adjudication. That was a precaution taken to

avoid an antidemocratic government according to a memo

(9/17/1917) of the British Foreign Office written by Arnold

Toynbee and Lewis Namier. The same intention was noted in the

briefing documents the American diplomats carried with them to

the Paris Peace Talks. That the mandate was simply a trust

agreement was early recognized by a British barrister in 1921, Lee,

The Mandate for Mesopotamia and the Principle of Trusteeship in

English Law, (1921) League of Nations Union, Forgotten Books

Critical Reprint Series (2012). The International Court of Justice

later followed the same view in its decision on Namibia "Legal

Consequences for States of the Continued Presence of South Africa 59

in Namibia (South‐West Africa) Notwithstanding Security Council

Resolution 276 (1970) Advisory Opinion of 21 June 1971" some 50

years later.

The mandatory or trustee was to facilitate Jewish immigration. It

was expected that Jewish immigration from the diaspora would

take a long time to effect a majority Jewish population, therefore

the mandatory power was prohibited from ceding any of the land

to any foreign party in the interim. The mandatory or trustee was to

facilitate Jewish immigration.

At the Paris Peace Talks in 1919 the focus was on the European

claimants of territories in Europe but when the Allies reconvened

in San Remo in April, 1920, they recognized the Jewish People as

the owners of the political rights to Palestine due to its long history

of association with that area. On April 25th they adopted the

Balfour Declaration word for word as their decision on the

competing claims to Palestine of the Jewish People and Arab

people. They rejected a French proposal to amend the Balfour

Declaration to include "political rights" in the savings clause which

saved for the non‐Jewish communities only their "civil" and

"religious rights". The Arab then current majority inhabitants of

Syria and Mesopotamia were awarded a beneficial interest in the

political rights to those territories and eventually became

sovereigns of those states.

The Ottomans (Turkey) ceded their sovereign rights to Palestine in

the Treaty of Sevres to the Mandatory Power. That treaty was

never ratified but in the later Treaty of Lausanne, Turkey released

any claim to these territories, the disposition of which by that time

as a British Mandate, was a fait accompli. In 1922 the 52 members

of the League of Nations and the US had approved the terms of the

Palestine Mandate except for truncating the territory to the that part

of Palestine west of the Jordan River, reducing its area by about

40%.60

By 1948 the Jews had unified control and a population majority of

the area they governed within the Armistice Boundary (The Green

Line) and Britain had abdicated its responsibilities as trustee in

1948. In 1967 the Jews drove out Jordan and Egypt from the areas

they were illegally occupying based on their aggressive war in

1948. So-- do the "Palestinian People" have the unilateral right , to

secede from the Jewish People's State? The Government of Israel,

the agent of the Jewish People has so far not asserted sovereignty

over the territories of Judea and Samaria. This was likely because

the lawyers under the former labor government had held the Jews

held the land liberated in 1967 in "belligerent occupation". But

they were mistaken. That is because a belligerent occupier is one

who has captured the land from a legitimate sovereign. That is

assumed in Article 43 of the 1907 Hague Convention: "Art. 43.

The authority of the legitimate power having in fact passed into the

hands of the occupant, the latter shall take all the measures in his

power to restore, and ensure, as far as possible, public order and

safety, while respecting, unless absolutely prevented, the laws in

force in the country."

Jordan never gained sovereignty over any land west of the Jordan

River because it had captured it in an aggressive war. No Arab

state recognized Jordan as the sovereign of this territory. In the

whole world only two states recognized Jordan as sovereign over

territory in the West Bank because to do so would violate

International Law of long standing custom as well as the UN

Charter.

Eretz Yisrael, the Jewish People's Sovereign State

The Government of Israel, the agent of World Jewry has asserted

sovereignty over East Jerusalem but not over Judea and Samaria.

But those areas also meet the tacit test of the Mandate for vesting 61

of a legal interest in the political rights to those territories. Israel

has already asserted its sovereignty over East Jerusalem. And

whether the Government of Israel asserts sovereignty or not, 1, The

Jewish People have control over Judea and Samaria subject only to

the OSLO agreement — an agreement that neither Israel nor its

principal need continue to observe because of its material breach

by the Arabs, and 2. The Government of Isreal has asserted

sovereignty over East Jerusalem that the so called Palestinians

claim. That means that the Israel territorial boundaries would have

to be redrawn to accommodate the territory the Palestinian

Authority demands.

Russia's Role

Since 1950 the Soviet Union has sought domination of the Middle

East as a stepping stone to hegemony over Western Europe

according to the late Eugene Rostow, Dean of the Yale Law School

and Professor of International Law in Palestinian SelfDetermination:

Possible Futures for the Unallocated Territories of

the Palestine Mandate (1980)

"For nearly thirty turbulent years, the Soviet Union has sought

control of this geo‐political nerve center in order to bring Western

Europe into its sphere. Even if Soviet ambitions were confined to

Europe, Soviet hegemony in the Middle East would profoundly

change the world balance of power. But Soviet control of the

Middle East would lead inevitably to further accretions of Soviet

power if China, Japan, and many smaller and more vulnerable

countries should conclude that the United States had lost the will

or the capacity to defend its vital interests, . . ."62

* * *

"The exploitation of Arab hostility to the Balfour Declaration, the

Palestine Mandate, and the existence of Israel has been a major

weapon in the Soviet campaign to dominate the Middle East." * *

* ". . .the Soviet Union invited Arafat to Moscow, supported his

appearance before the United Nations in November, 1974, and

increased its pressure for General Assembly resolutions supporting

claims of self-determination for the Palestinian Arabs and

denouncing Zionism as "racism'"

Even if philosopher Allen Buchanan's last resort theory instead of

International Law were to be applied, the only evidence of the

peoplehood of the so called Palestinian People and their claim to a

desire for self-determination can be found in the preamble of the

1964 Charter of the PLO drafted in Moscow and corroborated only

by the first 422 members of the Palestinian National Council, each

hand‐picked by the KGB. In WWI the Palestininan Arabs were

offered self‐government if they fought on the side of the Allies --

they didn't; some fought for the Ottomans. In 1947 Count Folke

Bernadotte found the Palestinian Arabs were not interested in

nationalism and never had been. And in 1973 Zahir Muhsein, a

member of the Executive Board of the PLO admitted to a Dutch

newspaper that there was no Palestinian "People" -- it was only a

political ploy and that once the Jews were annihilated, the PLO

would merge with Jordan. The circumstances surrounding the

drafting of the 1964 PLO Charter and its corroboration we have

from the personal knowledge of Major‐General Ion Pacepa, the

highest ranking defector from the Soviet bloc during the Cold War.

Even if they were a real People, the Palestinians in the Jewish

People's State are not threatened with genocide nor cultural

extinction. Each year the Palestinian population grows larger.

Arabic is a second official language of Israel. The Arabs control

their own schools and use them to incite against the Jews.63

If the no‐priority-for-Sovereign‐State‐territorial-integrity theory

were to be applied, what of the plight of the minority in the

territory to be removed, and the plight of the majority of those

remaining which those theorists say must be fair? The loss of the

Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem would mean the loss to the

Jewish People 1. of defensible borders, 2, their cultural heritage

including the Western Wall of the Temple Mount, and 3. the civil

rights of those in the territory removed as the Arabs are clear that

all Jews would be expelled from the territory removed from the

Jewish People's state.

Further facts and law on the above are available in Benzimra, The

Jewish People's Rights to Israel under International Law,

published by Amazon on Kindle in 2011 and Part I of the present

paper.

Vietnam Redux

Of the two biggest threats to Israel, one is a nuclear Iran. The other

is the split in the unity of the Jewish People in Israel and the

diaspora over Judea and Samaria.

It was Brezhnev who pushed Arafat to drop the slogan that the

PLO was going to annihilate the Jews or push them into the sea,

and instead claim they were liberating the Palestinian People; to

pretend to renounce violence and pretend to seek peace. The

Vietnamese General Giap also counseled him to do this to split the

unity of the American people — it had worked so well for North

Vietnam.

(http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=46)

When Netanyahu approves the Levy Report and asserts Jewish

sovereignty over Judea and Samaria, the question of statehood for 64

the so called Palestinian People becomes an internal matter of the

sovereign state of Israel as well as the Jewish People's state, Eretz

Yisrael, and the UN requires that other states not disrupt that unity.

" Every State shall refrain from any action aimed at the partial or

total disruption of the national unity and territorial integrity of any

other State or country." Declaration On Principles Of Operation

Among States In Accordance With The Charter Of The United

Nations (1970)

END NOTES

1. Levy Report, English Translation, 

http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2012/07/english‐

translation‐of‐ legal‐

arguments.html?goback=%2Egde_3188536_member_1

34228375

2. Fourth Geneva Convention, Article 49, 

http://www.refworld.org/cgi‐

bin/texis/vtx/rwmain?docid=3ae6b36d2

3. San Remo Resolution, 

http://www.cfr.org/israel/san‐remo‐

resolution/p15248

4. Balfour Declaration, 

http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/E210CA73E38

D9E1D052565FA00705C61

5. British Mandate for Palestine, (1922)

See Hertz, "Mandate for Palestine," Appendix A, 

http://www.mythsandfacts.org/conflict/mandate_for_p

alestine/mandate_for_palestine.htm or 

http://www.think‐israel.org/hertz.palestinemandate‐65

html.html. Both versions include maps and additional

material.

6. Sovereignty Over the Old City of Jerusalem; A Study of 

the Historical, Religious, Political and Legal Aspects of the 

Question of the Old City, submitted by Dr. Jacques 

Gauthier as a thesis to the University of Geneva in 2007.

7. Howard Grief, Legal Foundations and Boundaries of 

Israel under International Law

8. Salomon Benzimra, The Jewish Peoples' Rights to the 

Land of Israel

9. Wallace Brand, op ed, Part 1: 

http://www.irsraelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.

aspx/11408. Part 2: 

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.a

spx/11412.

10. Cynthia Wallace, "Foundations of the International 

Legal Rights of the Jewish People and the State of Israel 

and the Implications for the Proposed New Palestinian 

State."

11. 

http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2012/07/english‐

translation‐of‐legal‐

arguments.html?goback=%2Egde_3188536_member_1

34228375

12. Israel's Legitimacy in Law and History, edited by 

Edward M. Siegel, Esq., Center for Near East Policy

Research, New York (1993). pp 113.

13."Israel's Legal Right to Samaria," 

 http://shomroncentral.blogspot.com/p/5‐legal‐rights‐

to‐samaria.html66

14. Douglas Feith, "A Mandate for Palestine," 

http://www.zionismontheweb.org/middle_east/Israel

/Israel_and_palestine_mandate_for_israel.htm. Elliott A. 

Green, "International Law regarding the State of Israel 

and Jerusalem," Think‐Israel.org,  http://www.think‐

israel.org/green.sanremo.html

15a.  Israel and Palestine: Assault on the Law of Nations 

(1981) Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and 

London 

http://www.aijac.org.au/news/article/international‐

law‐and‐the‐arab‐israel‐conflict#2

15b. Theodor Meron legal opinion: 

 http://www.soas.ac.uk/lawpeacemideast/resources/fil

e48485.pdf

16. Talia Sasson report:  http://rt.com/news/sasson‐

israel‐settlement‐money‐089/

17. 

http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2012/07/english‐

translation‐of‐legal‐

arguments.html?goback=%2Egde_3188536_member_1

34228375

18. http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/

19. Alan Baker, "The Settlements Issue: Distorting the 

Geneva Convention and the Oslo Accords," 

 http://jcpa.org/article/the‐settlements‐issue‐

distorting‐the‐geneva‐convention‐and‐the‐oslo‐

accords/

20. Levy Report, English Translation, supra. Note #1.67

21. UNGA Resolution 181, 1947 Partition 

Recommendation 

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/un/res181.htm

22.http://www.un.org/en/documents/charter/chapter

12.shtml

23.Howard Grief "Legal Rights and Title of Sovereignty of 

the Jewish People to the Land of Israel and Palestine 

under International Law" 

http://www.acpr.org.il/ENGLISH‐NATIV/02‐

issue/grief‐2.htm [bracketed material added]

24. Lee, The Mandate for Mesopotamia and the Principle 

of Trusteeship in English Law, (1921) League of Nations 

Union, Forgotten Books Critical Reprint Series (2012). 

See also the International Court of Justice decision in 

the Namibia case, LEGAL CONSEQUENCES FOR STATES 

OF THE CONTINUED PRESENCE OF SOUTH AFRICA IN 

NAMIBIA (SOUTH‐WEST AFRICA) NOTWITHSTANDING 

SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTION 276 (1970) Advisory 

Opinion of 21 June 1971

25.http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisd

ay/big/1111.html#article

26. http://www.mideastweb.org/zionistborders.htm

27. Treaty of Sevres Article 95, 

http://www.hri.org/docs/sevres/part3.html

28 Memorandum from Lord Balfour to Lord Curzon, 

August 11, 1919, Document number 242 from: EL 

Woodward and Rohan Butler, Documents on British 

Foreign Policy, 1919‐1939. (London: HM Stationery 

Office, 1952), 340‐348.

29. Kirkbride, A Crackle of Thorns, Chapter 368

30. Friedman, Palestine: A Twice‐Promised Land, Vol. 1: 

The British, the Arabs, and Zionism, 1915‐1920. (2000)

31. Sacher, The Establishment of a Jewish State, London 

(1952), Hyperion Reprint edition, 1976

32. Benzimra, The Jewish Peoples Rights to the Land of 

Israel., note #8

33. See: "Acts of Aggression Provoked, Committed, and 

Prepared by Arab States in Concert with the Palestine 

Arab Higher Committee against the Jewish Population of 

Palestine in an Attempt to Alter by Force the Settlement 

Envisaged by the General Assembly's Resolution on the 

Future Government of Palestine," memorandum 

submitted by the Jewish Agency for Palestine to the 

United Nations Palestine Commission, Feb. 2, 1948; 

Moshe Shertok, "Letter from the Jewish Agency for 

Palestine Dated 29 March 1948, Addressed to the 

Secretary‐General Transmitting a Memorandum on Acts 

of Arab Aggression," UNSC, S/710, Apr. 5, 1948. 

 http://domino.un.org/pdfs/AAC21JA12.pdf

34. UNGA Res 181, Recommending Partition, note #21, 

supra.

35. Wall St. Journal, 

 http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/du

board.php?az=view_all&address=124x352032

36.Myth and Fact 

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths3/

MFrefugees.html

37. http://jhvonline.com/jerusalem‐our‐redeemable‐

right‐jews‐hold‐legal‐sovereignty‐over‐israels‐p10173‐

96.htm69

38. The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle 

for Statehood by Rashid Khalidi (Oct 15, 2006) 

[bracketed material added]

39. "Assessing the Role Palestinians Have Played in the 

Failed Bid for Statehood," Steven Erlanger, NY Times, 

Oct. 7, 2006.

40.  Riebenfeld,  "The  Legitimacy  of Jewish  Settlement  in 

Judea,  Samaria  and  Gaza,"  in  Edward  M.  Siegel,  ed.,41. 

41.  Tulin,  Book  of  Documents  submitted  to  the  United 

Nations General Assembly Relating to the National Home 

for  the  Jewish  People,  The  Jewish  Agency,  New  York, 

1947, Tr. 1/30/46 at p. 112.   

42. Leonard Stein, The Balfour Declaration. Pp. 562, 63. 

649.

43.  Public  Hearings  Before  the  Anglo‐American 

Committee of Inquiry, Jerusalem (Palestine) March, 

1946,  Albert Hourani, The  Case Against a  Jewish State 

in  Palestine.    Statement  to  the  Anglo‐American 

Committee of Enquiry of 1946 Transcript at P. 80

44. 

http://www.aijac.org.au/news/article/international‐

law‐and‐the‐arab‐israel‐conflict