ISRAEL AT A CROSSROAD: NURIT GREENGER
Israel at Crossroad, ‘To Be Or Not To Be’
January 9, 2011
By Nurit Greenger
No other sovereign country in the world has ever been negotiated so much as the Jewish State of Israel.
No other Nation – a People – in the world have ever been discussed –and dealt with – so much as the Jewish Nation, the Jewish People.
Today, close to 63 years to its establishment and recognition by the nations of the world, the State of Israel, still has no permanent borders and its existence is constantly challenged by its Arab neighbors and the international community.
We need to examine historical facts and ask what has Israel’s leadership, these past six decades, done – right or wrong – to arrive at its present predicaments.
It is obvious that hard facts, vital in making Israel’s case, have been deliberately omitted by most.
We need to go back to when the Jewish People lost control of their homeland; when the Roman Empire conqueror invaded Judea, enslaved and murdered many Jews, destroyed their Temple of Jerusalem and pillaged its contents, to eventually exile the Jews, lock, stock and barrel out of their Homeland. In addition to their domination of the Jews’ homeland, the Romans paid no respect for their religion, and expected the Jews to worship their pagan idols and their emperors as gods, which brought the Jews to rise against the Romans on various occasions – 70 AD, 114 AD, and finally in 135 AD.
In 135 A.D, after he had defeated the last Jewish revolt under Bar Kochba, the Roman Emperor Publius Aelius Hadrianus, known as Emperor Hadrian, changed the name of Judea to “Syria Palestina”. His goal was to eradicate all memory of the name Judea and Judaism and he also outlawed Judaism. Emperor Hadrian carried out his plan of building a temple of Jupiter Capitolinus on the site of the ruined Temple at Jerusalem and renamed Jerusalem Colonia Aelia Capitolina.
Since that time, “Palestine” became synonymous with “land of the Jews” or “the Holy Land.” Jesus being a Jew, the name “Palestinian” also became synonymous with “Jew.” That is why the Zionists wanted the “Palestine Mandate” and why, after World War I, Great Britain awarded the “Palestine Mandate” as the “homeland of the Jews.”
The famous Arch of Titus in Rome depicts the celebration of Titus’ quashing of the Jewish revolt of 70 AD, which brought to the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem, mourned by the Jewish People up till now. The Arch provides the only contemporary depiction of the cult objects taken by Roman soldiers from the Temple in Jerusalem, which were brought to Rome, such as the seven-branched menorah and trumpets, to have become a symbol of the Jewish People’s suffering. In a later era, Pope Paul IV made it the Arch a place of a yearly oath of submission. It is said that, still today, some of these sacred Jewish Icons are secretly lodged with the Vatican or Rome.
As a Jew, I consider it to be the Jewish Nation’s top priority to ferret out from Rome and/or the Vatican what was stolen from the Temple and is said to be kept away from the Jewish People. The State of Israel needs to ask, ‘where are the Jewish Holy treasure?’ If the consensus is right and they are in the Vatican’s vaults, demand the return the stolen Holy icons to their lawful owner, the Jewish People, demand RESPECT.
In 1799, the French armies, under Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, were camped outside of Acre (Akko). Napoleon issued a letter offering Palestine as a homeland to the Jews under French Protectorate. The project was stillborn because Napoleon was defeated and was forced to withdraw from the Near East. Already then, Bonaparte knew, that land is the Land to the Jewish People. He provided the first known recognition of the Jewish People rights to the land since the Romans invasion, destruction of the land and expulsion of its owners.
As the Land of Israel was conquered by different invaders, the Jewish People always maintained presence in their land. However, for 2000 years, the majority of Jews lived in all four corners of the world, while forever longing to return to their beloved Jerusalem.
The sequence of events that followed the end of WWI, in 1918, were most significant to the constitution of the State of Israel and its return to its rightful owners, the Jewish People.
In WWI four major imperial powers—the German, Russian, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires—had been militarily and politically defeated. At that time, the Ottoman Empire was the invading ruler of the Land of Israel.
In 1919, the Allied Powers gathered at the Paris Peace Conference and with signing the Treaty of Versailles there, on June 28, 1919, between Germany on the one side and France, Italy, Britain and other minor allied powers on the other side, they officially ended the war between those countries. The Treaty was registered by the Secretariat of the League of Nations on October 21, 1919, and was printed in The League of Nations’ Treaty Series.
At the end of the war, the Ottoman government in Istanbul collapsed. Though never ratified by the Turkish Sultan, the Treaty of Sèvres, a plan designed by the Allies to dismember the remaining Ottoman territories, was signed on August 10, 1920 by a representatives of the Ottoman Empire. The Treaty of Lausanne, signed in Lausanne, Switzerland, on July 24, 1923, superseded the Treaty of Sèvres, which formally ended all hostilities and led to the creation of the modern Turkish Republic. As a result, Turkey became the only power that was involved in WW I to overturn the terms of its defeat, and negotiate with the Allies as an equal.
The Lausanne Treaty formally acknowledged the new League of Nations’ mandates in the Middle East granting France mandates over Syria and Lebanon and the United Kingdom mandates over Iraq and Palestine, which comprised two autonomous regions: Palestine and Transjordan.
The San Remo Conference, held in Sanremo, Italy, from 19 to 26 April 1920, followed the Lausanne Treaty. It was an international meeting of the post World War I Principal Allied Powers who were represented by the prime ministers of Davis Lloyd George of Britain, Alexandre Millerand of France, Francesco Nitti of Italy and Ambassador K. Matsui of Japan. This Conference determined the allocation of the League of Nations’ mandates, among which assigning the administration of the former Ottoman-ruled lands of the Middle East, to include Palestine. The San Remo Conference gave birth to the “Mandate for Palestine.”
The [British] Mandate for Palestine, was the legal commission for the administration of Palestine, drafted and formally confirmed by the Council of the League of Nations on 24 July 1922, and came into effect on 26 September 1923. The British High Commissioner in Palestine, the most senior official of the Mandate, first Report on the Administration of Palestine (1920-1925), presented to the British Secretary of State for the Colonies and published in April 1925, underscored how international guarantees for the existence of a Jewish National Home in Palestine were achieved:
“The [Balfour] Declaration was endorsed at the time by several of the Allied Governments; it was reaffirmed by the Conference of the Principal Allied Powers at San Remo in 1920; it was subsequently endorsed by unanimous resolutions of both Houses of the Congress of the United States; it was embodied in the Mandate for Palestine approved by the League of Nations in 1922; it was declared, in a formal statement of policy issued by the Colonial Secretary in the same year, ‘not to be susceptible of change.’”
The Mandate survived the demise of the League of Nations. Article 80 of the United Nations (UN) Charter implicitly recognizes the “Mandate for Palestine” of the League of Nations. This Mandate granted Jews the irrevocable right to settle anywhere in Palestine, the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, a right unaltered in international law and valid to this day. Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria, i.e. the West Bank, Gaza and the whole of Jerusalem are legal.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) also reaffirmed the meaning and validity of UN Article 80. Neither the ICJ nor the UN General Assembly can arbitrarily change the status of Jewish settlement as set forth in the “Mandate for Palestine,” an international accord that has never been amended. All of western Palestine, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, including the West Bank and Gaza, remains open to Jewish settlement under international law.
Though there were futile efforts to challenge the “Mandate for Palestine,” the resurrection of the Jewish Nation in its ancient homeland of Israel is etched in stone under international law, and NOTHING has happened since then to have changed it or take away from its legality. However was high jacked by the Arabs, who cleverly changed the narrative, distorted Jewish history – ancient and modern – which, unfortunately, over the years, gas been largely accepted by the world and sadly was never properly defended by its owner, the sovereign State of Israel. Reference: “Mandate for Palestine” The Legal Aspects of Jewish Rights (http://www.mythsandfacts.com/conflict/mandate_for_palestine/mandate_for_palestine.htm)
In the charter governing the “Mandate for Palestine” there is a clause which allowed the UK to postpone or permanently withhold all of the provisions which related to the ‘Jewish National Home’ on lands which lay to the east of the Jordan River. In September 1922, the British government, lead by Churchill, agreed that the Jewish National Home be established west of the River Jordan only and the land east of the River Jordan, originally also dedicated to be part of the entire Jewish National Home, will be denied to the Jewish People and be given to the Arab Hashemite family, originally from Mecca, to rule. Subsequently, the entire land west of the River Jordan, as outlined in the “Mandate for Palestine” remained to belong to the Jewish People and is the Jewish National Homeland.
On 29 November 1947 the United Nations General Assembly adopted United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, General Assembly Resolution 181 (II) Future Government of Palestine. The resolution recommended the termination of the British Mandate for Palestine and the partition of the territory – West of the Jordan River – into two states, one Jewish and one Arab, with the Jerusalem-Bethlehem area being under special international protection, administered by the United Nations. The resolution also contained a plan for an economic union between the proposed states, and a plan for the protection of religious and minority rights. The resolution sought to address the conflicting objectives and claims to the Mandate territory of two competing nationalist movements, Jewish nationalism-Zionism and Arab nationalism. The resolution called for the withdrawal of British forces and termination of the Mandate by 1 August 1948, and establishment of the new independent states by 1 October 1948. A transitional period under United Nations auspices was to begin with the adoption of the resolution, and lasting until the establishment of the two states. However, the Arabs nations declared a war on the nascent Jewish State, never accepted this partition plan, thus is was never implemented by the Security Council. The war in known to be Israel’s War of Independence.
Israel’s War Of Independence ended in1949 when it signed separate armistices with Egypt on 24 February, Lebanon on 23 March, Jordan on 3 April, and Syria on 20 July, 1949. The new borders of Israel, as set by the agreements, encompassed about 78% of Mandatory Palestine as it stood after the independence of Jordan in 1946. This was about 18% more than the UN Partition Plan proposal allotted it. These ceasefire lines were known afterwards as the “Green Line” because it was drawn with a green pen. The Gaza Strip and what has become known as the “West Bank” ended up occupied by Egypt and Jordan, respectively.
Once the armistices were signed, the Jewish People went on the build their Homeland, while the Arabs’ main goal remained to destroy it. In spite of it all, the resilience and courageous Jewish People successfully [re]constitutionalized in their Land of Israel. But now, there is no more wiggling room from what legally belongs to the Jewish People.
Because since its birth the Arabs have been at war with Israel, the Israelis had and still have no option but defending their lives and Homeland. As painful as it is, but part of real life, Jewish-Israeli soldiers and civilians died, and will die in defending their lives and Land.
No Nation ever survived without credible force needed to defend its people and Heritage. Israel have never gone to war based on an individual or group’s self interests, only to defend itself and its National Heritage that were, and are, at risk!
Until the Arabs are defeated and brought to their knees, as Germany and Japan in WWII, this war will never end. The Arabs have one goal in mind, which is their Final Solution of Israel; they want to bring the State of Israel to its total demise, wipe it off the geographic maps and if they could, extinguish the Jewish People too, thus complete that circle of the Roman Emperor Hadrian and the Nazis.
Israeli governments, come and gone, are the most guilty party. By ignoring the lies and not repeatedly stating the facts, Israel has made itself defenseless. The world has very little sympathy for moronic behavior. It is clear it much rather allow Israel to obtain some sort of “platitude peace,” signed on a meaningless piece of paper, than allow the Israeli-Jews the power to hold on to what is legally theirs. Israel’s governments, mostly since Oslo – to large extend have been going along with this destructive path. More sadly, even today, with the miserable record of the Arabs, Israel continues to “negotiate” away chunks of its Legal Land on the West Bank of River Jordan.
Throughout the history of the world, Israel and its Capital Jerusalem was the Homeland of the Jewish People ONLY and NEVER, EVER the homeland of any other people’s nation, not even an Arab or Moslem one.
There is nothing remotely conservative, “Right Wingish,” nationalistic, patriotic or Zionistic about standing up to truth against lies, justice against injustice, freedom against those who snuff out freedom and human rights. Referencing Melanie Phillips interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4dksiRW-Yg&feature=player_embedded
The truth must be made known to the entire world. The deliberate process, created to bypass these so vital important, documented facts, under international law, of Israel’s legitimacy, must be brought to the lime light and discourse of public diplomacy, unfortunately, now urgently needed to defend Israel’s existence.
Reality and truth, are reality and truth that must me said, over and over again, until it fully replaces the narratives of lies and deception the Arab world and the anti-Israel camp so well formulated and embedded in the minds of people and nations.
Islam will always reject the State of Israel, it will never accept it. There is nothing to negotiate about and with whoever. Israel needs to finally accept that regardless to what it does, mostly sacrificing its own existence, by its appeasement of the Arabs, its ongoing sacrificing of its own land, with the hope peace will be the outcome, there will be anther war. In that war surrender of the enemy – for EVER – is the only option it has.
All of the land of Israel – from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea – is the State of Israel, the home of the Jewish People. The partition between the Arabs and the Jews is the River Jordan, on its other side is Jordan.
The State of Israel-Eretz Yisrael must never be negotiated away. The longer Israel keeps on its self delusion the less chance it has to exist!
The Israeli government has got its work cut out for them; so do we!
Comments are closed.
