In Defense of Israeli Law

Bill Mehlman

Simon the Righteous, the last of the "Men of the Great Assembly," famously proclaimed that the world stood on three legs: Torah, the service of God and the performance of good works.

The State of Israel may also be said to stand on three legal pillars. They are: the right of "close" Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel as set forth in Articles 6 and 11 of the Mandate for Palestine; the 1950 "Law of Return," which reinforces Articles 6 and 11 in addressing the universal Jewish right of settlement in "Eretz Israel," the "Land of Israel," not simply "Medinat Yisrael," the "State of Israel" as it existed in 1950, and Article 1 of the "Area of Jurisdiction and Powers Ordinance," embedded in the September 2, 1948 "Land of Israel Proclamation." It recognized all laws applicable to the State of Israel, as applicable with equal force to "any area of Palestine" falling within the authority of the IDF. That includes all of the territories, not included in the 1947 partition , that came under Israeli authority following the l948-49 War of Independence and the 1967 Six-Day War.

It is the considered view of Howard Grief, author,* attorney, constitutional scholar and adviser to the late Minister of Energy, Professor Yuval Ne'eman, that Jewish rights under all three of these statutory pillars have been gravely compromised by the Netanyahu government's "10-month freeze" on Israeli housing construction in Judea and Samaria.

In plain language, given that the exercise of Jewish rights of settlement in Eretz Yisrael is contingent on the availability of housing , the ban on housing construction in Judea and Samaria, the heartland of Eretz Yisrael, renders those rights and the laws that guarantee them essentially meaningless.

This crippling blow to Jewish national rights has been ascribed to "American pressure," or, as one observer put it, the need to "get Obama off our back." But isn't that what Prime Minister Netanyahu's shocking embrace of the "two-state solution" was supposed to accomplish? Where and at what point does this extortion process end?

Only the hopelessly naïve would believe that the demographic noose placed around the neck of 120 Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria will be loosened in 10 months. Israel's self-appointed masters in Washington will inevitably demand extension after extension of the "10-month" freeze and a weak-willed Israeli government will inevitably comply. The surrender of Jewish rights in Judea and Samaria will accomplish nothing beyond whetting the Obama administration's insatiable appetite for further surrender.

Prime Minister Netanyahu, you have set Israel on a slippery slope.

What is your plan - short of a "crash landing" -- for getting the Jewish State back on firm ground?

*TheLegal Foundation and Borders of Israel under International Law (Mazo Publishers, Jerusalem).

In Violation of American Law...

Bill Mehlman

America's ratification of the 1924 "Anglo-American Convention on Palestine" made the U.S. a "contracting party" to the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine. Assigned to Britain for administration, the Mandate was not only devoid of any provision for an Arab state within Palestine's borders, it specifically prohibited the partition of the land and its use for any purpose other than the creation of a National Jewish Home..

With President Calvin Coolidge's signature on the Anglo-American Convention, the terms of the Mandate for Palestine became incorporated into American law. The words of America's 29th president, in proclaiming the treaty, made it clear that this was no mere ceremonial act. "Now , therefore, be it known, " he declared, that "I, Calvin Coolidge, President of the United States of America, have caused the said Convention to be made public .to the end that the same and every article and clause thereof may be observed and fulfilled with good faith by the United States and the citizens thereof."

Coolidge wasn't plowing new American legal ground with these words. In fact,, he was simply reinforcing a unanimous joint resolution of the 67th Congress of the United States three years earlier, signed by his predecessor, President Warren G. Harding, recognizing a future Jewish state in "the whole of Palestine."

President Obama, what happened to the American "good faith" so proudly proclaimed by President Coolidge? Your insistence on the creation of a bogus , irredentist "Palestinian State" in Judea and Samaria and your unrelenting pressure on Israel to accede to that demand is nothing less than a repudiation of the signatures of two American Presidents and the expressed will of the Congress of the United States.

Sir, you have put yourself at legal and moral odds with the very law you took an oath to uphold. It is clearly time for a reversal of this tragic course.

There are no “occupied” territories.

There are no “disputed” territories.

There are no “unallocated” territories.

There is purely and simply Eretz Yisrael -- from the Hermon to the Red Sea, from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River.

While it constitutes a mere fraction of the historic Land of Israel, the “national home for the Jewish People” vouchsafed us under the Balfour Declaration, it is indisputably, unconditionally ours, by any interpretation of international law.

Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations of Jun, 1919 legalized the transfer of sovereignty over Palestine to the Jewish people by the Supreme Council of the Principal Allied Powers -- Great Britain, France, Italy and Japan.

The San Remo Peace Conference of April 1920 marked the official adoption of the Balfour Declaration by the Principal Allied Powers, confirming what constitutional lawyer and scholar Howard Grief has described as “the legal title of the Jewish People to the mandated territory of Palestine in all of its historical parts and dimensions … under international law.*”

The Franco-British Boundary Convention of December 1920 made it clear that those “historical parts and dimensions” included the Golan and Transjordan.

There is no mention of the words “Arab” or “Arab state” anywhere in the Mandate for Palestine entrusted to Great Britain by the San Remo Peace Conference. Indeed, that document is devoid of reference to the political or national rights of any community in Palestine other than those of the Jewish community.

The current attempt, 90 years after the fact, to impose a bogus ”Palestinian State” on the Jewish People within the borders of their national home is the most unmitigated contempt of international legal precedent in modern history.

To the supporters of this presumptive usurpation of our land an our rights in obeisance to the blood- lust of a jihadist Arab world , there can be only one national Jewish response: IT WILL NOT PASS!

*The Legal Foundation and Borders of Israel Under International Law (Mazo Publishers, Jerusalem).

Bill Mehlman represents AFSI in Israel and is co-editor of the Jerusalem-based internet magazine ZionNet (www.zionnet.net)

Fact: “Demilitarization” agreements aren’t worth the paper they’re written on. The “Palestinian Authority” could unilaterally nullify any demilitarization agreement signed with Israel the moment Palestinian sovereignty is granted. Moreover, as Purdue University international law expert, Professor Louis Rene Beres, has pointed out, a future “Palestinian State” would have the right not only to maintain military forces on its soil, but “to invite foreign armies or [disguised] terrorists to its territory …without violating international law.”

Fantasy: A “temporary” freeze

Fact: There is no such creature. Any agreement to freeze natural growth construction in Judea and Samaria will be permanent and irreversible -- tantamount to a sentence of death by slow strangulation for 120 Jewish communities. That is exactly what the Obama administration and the EU are angling for. One short sentence should suffice for our answer: No deal, No way!

Fantasy: A “viable” two-state solution

Fact: With 40 percent of its water resources gone, its Samarian invasion routes in the hands of Fatah, its coastal waistline reduced to nine miles, its only airport within shoulder-guided missile range and its repartitioned capital a stomping ground for the Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades, Israel’s “viability” will end the day it permits the creation of a jihadist “Palestine” of any size, anywhere between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. All other consideration aside, there is simply no room within the sliver of land separating those two bodies of water for a “viable” Israel and any other sovereign entity –be it friend or foe.

The people of Israel elected a government 100-and-some days ago that vowed to put their security and their rights to their land foremost above all other considerations, a government they believed capable of distinguishing fact from fantasy. They deserve and should accept nothing less!.

Bill Mehlman represents AFSI in Israel and is co-editor of the Jerusalem-based internet magazine ZionNet (www.zionnet.net)