The "Iron Swords" War imposed on us underscores the need to reexamine the legality of Jewish settlement across the entire Land of Israel according to international law.
Once again, it has become clear that Jewish settlement is our protective barrier. As Machiavelli wrote, territory cannot be held solely by military force. The army enters, operates, and exits; the moment it leaves (or even while it is present), the situation reverts to its original state. our hand to all neighboring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighborliness
In the Declaration of Independence, "amidst the onslaught," we declared, "We extend our hand to all neighboring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighborliness, and appeal to them to establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help with the sovereign Jewish people settled in its own land. The State of Israel is prepared to do its share in a common effort for the advancement of the entire Middle East". Have we not fulfilled this promise? We extended our hand for peace, purchasing peace with Egypt and Jordan at a full price, and did everything possible to secure peace with our immediate neighbors - the Palestinian Arabs. Thus came into existence the Oslo Accords, the Paris Agreement (Gaza–Jericho), and the Interim Agreements with the Palestinian Authority, including the destruction of settlements and the unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
International law did not compel us to sign these agreements or withdraw from Gaza; it was our hope that the establishment of the Palestinian Authority would end the conflict. "No more blood, no more tears," declared the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on the White House lawn during the signing with the PLO. However, the gates of Gaza remained heavy. Immediately upon returning from the signing ceremony in the USA, PLO leader Yasser Arafat declared in Gaza, amidst the roar of Kalashnikovs, "With our soul and blood we'll redeem Palestine." Since the signing, we have witnessed the worst violence since Israel's founding.
Instead of turning Gaza into a thriving, independent Singapore, we received the most severe blow to the Jewish people since the Holocaust. Moreover, the nations of the world did not stand by our right to self-defense, a right inherent to every state. Even our greatest friend, the United States, imposes restrictions aimed at preventing victory in the existential war and demands that we, with our own hands, establish a Palestinian terrorist state free of Jews (Judenrein) in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, which, in turn, continues to claim sovereignty from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.
Legality of Settlement in Old Jerusalem and Judea, Samaria, and Gaza
The legality of Jewish settlement in Old Jerusalem and Judea, Samaria, and Gaza stems from the status of these territories in international law, which recognizes the historical connection between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel as the basis for re-establishing our national home.
"If I forget you, Jerusalem, may my right hand cease to function," declared Lebanese representative Charles Malik immediately after the UN General Assembly adopted the partition plan on November 29, 1947. In response, Israeli representative Abba Eban replied, "If you keep saying this for two thousand years we shall start believing it."
The 2012 report by Supreme Court Justice (retired) Edmund Levy, Judge (retired) Tchia Shapira, and Ambassador Alan Baker, former legal adviser to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, confirmed Israel's position that the territories of Mandatory Israel are not "occupied territories" but "disputed territories." Israel has superior rights to these areas, and Israeli citizens are allowed to settle there. The term "occupation" in international law has a precise definition, different from its everyday usage. For a territory to be considered "occupied," Israel would have had to take it from a foreign sovereign, but no such sovereign existed.
The Jewish people are the only ones who have viewed the Land of Israel as their homeland throughout the generations. After losing sovereignty, the land was ruled by Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Crusaders, Mamluks, and Ottomans. The desolation and devastation of the land are well-documented. Under Muslim rule, many agricultural settlements were abandoned, the land was laid waste, and the area of cultivated lands shrank. The biblical curse came true: "And I will bring the land into desolation; and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it. And I will scatter you among the nations, and will draw out a sword after you: and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste." When the Muslims ruled Jerusalem, they did not make it their capital. Jewish settlement in the land never ceased for even one generation, and Jerusalem had a Jewish majority as early as the 19th century.
When the British Mandate for Palestine was confirmed by the League of Nations in 1922, it covered all the territories of the land and explicitly stated that it was based on the international recognition given "to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country." For the non-Jewish population, it was determined that their civil and religious rights would not be impaired. The Mandate did not refer to Arab national rights, as its purpose was to renew the political connection between the Jewish people and their land. The Jewish people's rights under the Mandate were reaffirmed in Article 80 of the UN Charter.
In international law, according to the principle of Uti possidetis, the borders of a new state are determined according to the borders it had when it was established. When the State of Israel was established, these were the borders set for the re-establishment of the national home for the Jewish people in the Land of Israel, as determined in the Mandate and reaffirmed in Article 80 of the UN Charter. This principle served as the basis for determining the border in the peace agreements between Israel and Egypt in 1979 and between Israel and Jordan in 1994, as well as for marking the blue line (the withdrawal line) between Israel and Lebanon, identified by the UN in 2000 as the de facto border, even though it is not an official border since a peace agreement between the countries has not been signed. As detailed below, no subsequent event has changed this determination.
The 1947 UN General Assembly partition resolution, like all Assembly resolutions, is a non-binding recommendation. The invasion of western Palestine by Jordan and Egypt, after rejecting the partition plan, was an illegal act of aggression. The 1949 Armistice Agreements between Israel and its neighbors stated that "no provision of this Agreement shall in any way prejudice the rights, claims and positions of either Party hereto in the ultimate peaceful settlement of the Palestine question." Jordan's attempt to annex the "West Bank" in 1950 was not internationally recognized. In June 1967, following the Six-Day War, Israel regained the territories originally intended for it, held by Jordan and Egypt from 1948 to 1967 in violation of international law. UN Security Council Resolution 242, formulated after the Six-Day War, required Israel to withdraw military forces "from territories," not from all territories, and this was reaffirmed in Resolution 338 during the Yom Kippur War. Both resolutions were non-binding recommendations within the Security Council's authority to make recommendations for peaceful dispute resolution. The Oslo Accords left the question of sovereignty to a permanent agreement that was not signed, and Hamas's takeover of Gaza did not grant the terrorist organization sovereignty.
The Jewish people yearn for true peace. Opponents of settlement who insist on calling the territories "occupied" do so out of an unfounded wish that Israel will bring peace closer this way, or because they believe the world will not accept otherwise. Heavy international pressure was exerted on Ben-Gurion not to declare Israel's independence, but once the state was declared, the world recognized it, and it became a fact. The Edmund Levy Committee Report expresses the same truth that the Declaration of Independence did in its time. Our demand for the right to settle in our land is genuine, and our leaders must proclaim and emphasize this loudly and clearly. As Alterman wrote ("A Contest for Experience," The Seventh Column, Vol. A), "Those who allow [distortion] to enter the field of competition, predetermine defeat for freedom."
