As noted here at Jihad Watch an hour ago, the government of Israel has just given its approval for 2,800 new homes to be built in existing Jewish towns in Judea and Samaria, to accommodate the natural growth in population. The EU and France have condemned the announcement, calling such building “illegal.” The Bidenites have not gone that far, but still have deplored Israel’s plan to build more houses as contributing to “tensions” and as an obstacle to the “two-state solution.” A report on the Bidenites’ furious reaction to Israel’s approval of 2,800 houses is here: “Biden administration issues harshest critique yet on Israeli settlement building,” by Jacob Magid, Times of Israel, October 26, 2021:
The US on Tuesday gave what appeared to be its harshest public critique of Israeli plans to expand settlements in the West Bank since US President Joe Biden took office.
“We are deeply concerned about the Israeli government’s plan to advance thousands of settlement units on Wednesday, many of them deep in the West Bank,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said at a press briefing, four days after Israeli authorities published the agenda for an upcoming meeting of the Defense Ministry body that authorizes settlement building.
“We strongly oppose the expansion of settlements, which is completely inconsistent with efforts to lower tensions and restore calm. And it damages the prospects for a two-state solution.”
The Biden Administration seems to think that the way to “lower tensions” and “restore calm” between Israelis and Palestinians is to give the Palestinians whatever they want. And what they want is a complete halt to any further Israeli building in Judea and Samaria, and ultimately to pull down all the settlements, for the “two-state solution” the Palestinians envisage can only be achieved by pushing Israel back within what the PA describes as the “pre-1967 lines,” which is a more acceptable way of saying “within the 1949 armistice lines.” Those lines were not recognized borders; they merely reflected where the respective armies, of Israel and its Arab enemies, stood when the shooting stopped n 1949.
Let’s give the misinformed Biden Administration the necessary Short Course it clearly needs about Israel’s claim under international law to Judea and Samaria (a.k.a. the West Bank), its right to build new, and expand old, settlements, about the misnomer “occupied territories, ” and about what some call a “two-state solution.”
There are two sources for Israel’s claim to the West Bank. The first, and the most important, is the Mandate for Palestine, set up by the League of Nations in 1922, for the sole purpose of creating the Jewish National Home that in time, sympathetically nurtured by the holder of the Mandate, Great Britain, would become the Jewish state. The Arabs were well-provided for, too, by the League of Nations. They were given several mandates – for Iraq, for Syria, and Lebanon. Furthermore, all of Palestine east of the Jordan River “out to the desert,” which had originally been intended for inclusion in the Palestine Mandate, was closed to Jewish immigration by the British, and given to the Hashemite Emir Abdullah to rule over, as the Emirate of Transjordan.
The Mandate for Palestine – see the Preamble and Articles 4 and 6 — was meant to create “the national home for the Jewish people” by “encouraging Jewish immigration” and “close settlement by Jews on the land.” That was its only purpose: not “two states” but one. The Arabs were already well provided for, by the mandates, and would be even more provided for outside the mandates system. At present, the Arabs have twenty-two independent states, far more than any other people, while the Jews have exactly one, a tiny sliver so small that it can scarcely be discerned on a world map.
The Mandates system of the League of Nations was never thought to “flagrantly violate international law.” It became part and parcel of international law. It did not cease to be relevant, either, when the League dissolved, to be replaced by the United Nations. Article 80 of the U.N. Charter – known as “the Jewish people’s article” – committed the U.N. to bring to a successful conclusion any mandates that still remained.
The Mandate for Palestine is the indispensable document for comprehending the history of modern Israel, yet is too rarely discussed, even by many of Israel’s well-wishers, who may not comprehend its significance. Joe Biden, Tony Blinken, Jake Sullivan et al must take it upon themselves to study that document. And then they should look at the Mandate maps, that clearly show the territory included in the Mandate. Mandatory Palestine extended from the Golan Heights in the north, to the Red Sea in the south, and from the Jordan River in the east, to the Mediterranean Sea in the west. That was the territory assigned to the Jewish National Home. When Jordan seized almost all of Judea and Samaria during the 1948-1949 war, renaming them “the West Bank” in 1950, that did not extinguish Israel’s claim to that land. From 1949 to 1967, Jordan held the “West Bank” as military occupier. When Israel took possession of that territory after the Six-Day War, this did not create its claim but allowed that claim to be acted upon. Israel built a number of settlements throughout Judea and Samaria, where a half-million Jews now live. The Bennett government now wishes to build 2,800 new homes to accommodate the natural growth of that settlement population. And this exercise of its right – see the Mandate for Palestine, where “close Jewish settlement on the land” is to be encouraged –has incensed the Bidenites, who seem to think they have a right to dictate to Israel what it can and cannot do to ensure its survival, for ultimately, it is the settlements – their size, their permanence — that will determine Israel’s ability to keep control of Judea and Samaria, which in turn affects the Jewish state’s ability to defend itself against potential invaders from the east.
There is a second, independent claim that Israel has to the “West Bank” and the Golan Heights. This is U.N. Resolution 242, which was adopted unanimously by the General Assembly on November 22, 1967. It was intended to deal with the disposition of territories that Israel won in the Six-Day War.
The chief drafter of Resolution 242 was Lord Caradon (Hugh M. Foot), the permanent representative of the United Kingdom to the United Nations from 1964 to 1970. At the time of the Resolution’s discussion and subsequent unanimous adoption, and on many occasions since, Lord Caradon always insisted that the phrase “from the territories” quite deliberately did not mean “all the territories,” but merely some of the territories:
His discussion of Resolution 242 follows:
Much play has been made of the fact that we didn’t say “the” territories or “all the” territories. But that was deliberate. I myself knew very well the 1967 boundaries and if we had put in the “the” or “all the” that could only have meant that we wished to see the 1967 boundaries perpetuated in the form of a permanent frontier. This I was certainly not prepared to recommend.
On another occasion, to an interviewer from the Journal of Palestine Studies (Spring-Summer 1976), he again insisted on the deliberateness of the wording. Lord Caradon was asked:
The basis for any settlement will be United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, of which you were the architect. Would you say there is a contradiction between the part of the resolution that stresses the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war and that which calls for Israeli withdrawal from “occupied territories,” but not from “the occupied territories”?
Nota bene: “from territories occupied” is not the same thing as “from occupied territories” – the first is neutral, the second a loaded description. And UNSC Resolution 242 refers only to “territories occupied in the recent conflict.”
Lord Caradon answered:
I defend the resolution as it stands. What it states, as you know, is first the general principle of inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war. That means that you can’t justify holding onto territory merely because you conquered it. We could have said: well, you go back to the 1967 line. But I know the 1967 line, and it’s a rotten line. You couldn’t have a worse line for a permanent international boundary. It’s where the troops happened to be on a certain night in 1948. It’s got no relation to the needs of the situation.
Had we said that you must go back to the 1967 line, which would have resulted if we had specified a retreat from all the occupied territories, we would have been wrong.
Note, too, how Lord Caradon says that “you can’t justify holding onto territory merely because you conquered it,” with that “merely” applying to Jordan, but not to Israel, because of the Mandate’s explicit provisions allocating the territory known now as the “West Bank” to the Jewish state. Note, too, the firmness of his dismissal of the 1967 lines as nothing more than “where the troops happened to be on a certain night in 1948,” that is, nothing more than armistice lines and not internationally recognized borders.
Nothing could be clearer than Caradon: Israel has a right to hold onto territories that it requires if it was to have, as the key phrase in Resolution 242 puts it, “secure [i.e. defensible] and recognized boundaries.” That would require, at the very least, the annexation of both the Golan Heights and of the Jordan Valley. This is not the opinion only of Israeli military men, but also that of the American officers who, in 1967, were sent by the Chief of the General Staff to Israel, at the direction of President Johnson, to see what territories Israel would have to retain. Their report made clear that the Golan Heights needed to be kept by Israel to prevent Syrian forces from once again using those looming heights to fire on Jewish farmers far below, and that the Jordan Valley needed to remain in Israel’s hands in order to thwart or slow down potential invaders from the east, who might otherwise send armored columns able to slice Israel in two at its pre-1967 nine-miles-wide waist.
The Biden Administration should stop expressing its displeasure with Israel when Jerusalem chooses to build or expand settlements , as it has every right to do, according to Article 4 of the Mandate for Palestine. Those settlements help to strengthen Israel’s hold on Judea and Samaria, and make it less likely that Israel will surrender territory in the West Bank to the P.A.
What, after all, is the best way to keep the peace between Israel and Palestinians, or Israel and the Arab States? It is through deterrence. Palestinian and Arab aggression can be held in check If Israel remains overwhelmingly stronger than its enemies. That strength depends, in part, on Israel maintaining control of the Jordan Valley and the five large settlement blocs in the West Bank. Israel will not allow itself to be squeezed back within the 1949 armistice lines, once described by Abba Eban as “the lines of Auschwitz,” with a nine-mile-wide waist from Qalqiya to the sea.. Those 2,800 houses Israel has just approved for building will make clear that Israel is in Judea and Samaria, the cradle of Jewish history, to stay. And that will make it more, not less likely, that the Palestinians will in the end be willing to negotiate with the Jewish state. There is no permanent “solution” to the Muslim Arab war on Israel, unless Islam itself were to be transformed. But there is the possibility of “managing the conflict” through deterrence, and that requires Israel to do whatever it can to keep control in the West Bank, which is exactly what those 2,800 homes, newly approved, will help to accomplish.
leonard Dunnet says
Good on them its their land they can do what they like. Victotory to Isreal.
Robert_k says
Israel must be forBiden to go build new
settlements, or a Ned Price must be payed for the Obamanation.
Fitna says
Two state solution, that ol’ chestnut which became laughably irrelevant ages ago since it’s run by terrorists and their fanboys/girls?
I got a few names that could fit the shiny, new, avante-garde, modern, utopian paradise which is currently known as “Palestine.”
How about “Islamic Terror State number 57.” Too long? Ok how about “Bombistan,” or “BurningHostages,” or Jihad_R_Us or Laugh’n’Killistan, “DeathtoIsrael.”?
The solution is simple, tell Egypt and Jordan they’ve had their fun, time to take their people back as they’re not Israel’s responsibility. Also Israel needs to exterminate all the terrorists in these enclaves first.
gravenimage says
+1
Kesselman says
The Bidenites can do what they want, Biden and his cohorts aren’t all of America and the EU can go f**K themselves it’s a union without stamina. Only the European national states count in that picture.
Walter Sieruk says
The above picture of those sinister two evil men ,Biden and Abbas, joining hands together with their evil scheming. They ,along with that photograph of them are a visual reflection of the truth revealed in the Bible. Which informs the reads “Though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not go unpunished.”
Proverbs 11:21. [K.J.V.]
Walter Sieruk says
In all to the both Biden and Abbas, they together to make a fitting political match, they truly deserve each other . In fact , they may even rightly be seen ,as a group of two, as the epitome of what is known as the “Red/ Green Alliance.”
So Biden and Abbas to belong together . As the Bible reads ” Can two walk together, expect they be agreed ?”
Walter Sieruk says
A better improved and error free posting than the one I just posted above is as followers below.
In all fairness to both, Biden and Abbas, they together to make a fitting political match, they truly deserve each other. In fact, they may even rightly be seen, as a group of two, as the epitome of what is known as the “Red/ Green Alliance.”
So Biden and Abbas to belong together. As the Bible reads” Can two walk together, expect they be agreed ?”
Amos 3:3. [K.J.V.]
·
mortimer says
The Pallies have also built apartments in Judea and Samaria with foreign aid money, but those ‘Pally’ apartments are empty, because the Pally birth rate is plummeting and half of Pallies have left the region to find stable homes in mostly Western countries with less corruption and repression.
gravenimage says
The Bidenites are Angry That Israel is Building New Apartments in Judea and Samaria
……………..
That Biden is telling Israel they cannot build on their own land is grotesque. I miss President Trump.
Infidel says
בוא נלך ברנדון!
Clifford Fodor says
Do the Israelis have to ask for permission to build in their own country? Incredible!
Hugh Fitzgerald says
I’d just possibly like to reply but I forgot to learn Hebrew. What we have here is a failure to communicate. Please translate.
Infidel says
Hugh
I typed ‘Let’s go, Brandon’ into the English box in Google Translate, picked Hebrew as the target language, and pasted the output here!
And viola….
Walter Sieruk says
Joe Biden is very anti-Israel but very pro-Islamic that he schemes with Abbas and other jihad -minded Muslims to divide the land. Which be the first large step for ,in time , a plot of a total Islamic takeover of the State of Israel.
Walter Sieruk says
Bogus President Biden had revealed his total lack of wisdom about the State of Israel when he said that “We still need a two-state solution. It is the only answer.” Biden had by saying that fool statement has shown what an ignorant man he actually is
For the “two state solution” is not really a valid idea and not a genuine solution. It will definitely not stop this awful Israeli –Muslim land conflict.
Thus a “two state solution” is out of the question. This is actually just right and fine .This is because a “two state solution” not really a “solution” but an Islamic ploy of deception , a smokescreen and hoax and a fraud.
For example those recent Hamas rocket attacks in to Israel from Gaza reveals that even the idea of some people of dividing Jerusalem as well as other parts of the State of Israel between the Jewish people of the Muslim/ Arabs is nothing but folly. To engage the madness of such “talks” is a hoax and a farce .
This is because in the so called “negotiations” between the heads of the Jewish nation of Israel and the leaders of the “Palestinians” the Muslim /Arabs the “Palestinian” leaders will speak the truth only when in happens to fit their agenda. The rest of the time the will be speaking half-truths and outright lies. For their goal is to obtain all of the land of the State of Israel. Even in it takes much time and it means getting the land piece by piece. So those “peace talks” are a hoax.
For the “Palestinian” leaders are employing what is the Islamic doctrine of Taqiyya . Which is the Islamic dogma that lying and deception are good things to do as long as it’s done for the cause of the advancement of Islam. The insidious scheme is part of the stealth jihad .Otherwise known as “Islamic Gradualism.”
This sly and something subtle strategy of disingenuous speech, lying deception of achieving the goal of all the land of Israel a war ploy that will be a disaster if the heads of the State of Israel are foolish enough to agree to divide the land of Israel with Muslim /Arabs ,the “Palestinians.” For if such a “peace dialogue” results in a divided land, the outcome will literally be murder. For “Palestinian” leader will allow the jihadists use that land as a base to launch murderous rocket attacks in to Israel. As for example, Hamas of Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Such false hopes for peace which are based on the foundation of lies are nothing new when it comes to Israel. For example, the Bible in Psalm 55:20, 21. Reads “Such men do violence to those at peace with them and break their promised word; their speech is smoother the butter but their thoughts are of war.” [N.E.B.]
Walter Sieruk says
Jesus taught “If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.” Mark 3:24. [N.E.B.]
James Lincoln says
Israel should have never withdrawn from Gaza.
An unpardonable strategic error of its architect, Ariel Sharon…