Debunking the Arab Narrative

by Ted Belman
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The high mark of the rights of the Jews to Palestine, formerly known as Judea for 1,000 years, was not the 1917 Balfour Declaration, it was just a declaration, but the San Remo Resolution of 1920.

In my article, Jordan is Palestine – A Legal Analysis, I wrote:

 The San Remo Resolution is the subject of research of international law scholar and lawyer, Jacques Gauthier, Ph.D.  Gauthier, who is Christian, spent a quarter-century researching and writing a 1,300-page thesis to investigate legal ownership rights of Jerusalem, the ancient-modern capital city.

Through San Remo, a legal document,  Gauthier explained“The Jewish people have been given the right to establish a home, based on the recognition of their historical connection and the grounds for reconstituting this national home,”.

The Palestine Mandate, passed in 1922 by the League of nations, included this recital.  “Whereas recognition has thereby [i.e. by the Treaty of Sèvres] been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine, and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country

I buttressed Gauthier’s opinion in Israel is the legal owner of all lands west of the Jordan R.

That’s it. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Thus, to establish the basis for the Arab claim to the land, they claim to be the indigenous people. But are they?

The Palestinian “Indigenous Population” Argument – Myths and Facts by Danny the Digger,

Perhaps the most powerful argument of the Palestinian-Arabs in the conflict over the land is that they are a “native” or “indigenous population,” while the Jewish-Zionists are a foreign population, who colonized their land.

In line with their claim of having been a ‘native population’, in the past the Arab Palestinians claimed to be descendants of the Philistines. But are they? For one thing the Philistines themselves were immigrants from Greece. They spoke a dialect of Greek and worshipped Philistine and Canaanite gods. Moreover, in western cultures, the Philistines are perceived as barbarians.

Realizing this, in recent years the Arab Palestinians changed their claim, and argue to be descendants of the Canaanites. However, the Canaanites also did not speak Arabic nor did they worship Allah. They spoke a Canaanite, which is close to Hebrew, and worshipped a pantheon of Gods.

According to the United Nations,

Indigenous peoples are the holders of unique languages, knowledge systems and beliefs and possess invaluable knowledge of practices for the sustainable management of natural resources. They have a special relation to and use of their traditional land. Their ancestral land has a fundamental importance for their collective physical and cultural survival as peoples. Indigenous peoples hold their own diverse concepts of development, based on their traditional values, visions, needs and priorities.

Back to Danny the Digger:

The cultural roots of Arab Palestinians, most of which are Muslims, are in the Arabian Peninsula. It is the source both of their language, and their religion. They originate in the Arabian Peninsula, and that is the only place where they can claim to be an ‘Indigenous population’.

 But the Jews fit this definition exactly.

In fact, the Palestine Mandate also recognized “the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine”

But what about their claim that the Jews are “occupiers” of Arab land? Such a claim is false on two accounts. It’s not “Arab land” and Jews are not in any way “occupiers”. It’s a myth.

How to defeat the Israel ‘occupation’ myth with facts

First, just because a preponderance of countries in the United Nations vote to condemn Israel’s “occupation” doesn’t make it illegal..

Second, citing the Fourth Geneva Convention (FGC) to prove Israel illegally “occupies” Judea and Samaria exposes equally serious flaws in the anti-Zionist argument.

But the FGC is not applicable here because the FGC only applies when a country takes over the sovereign territory of another country (Art 2). The land in question was never the land of another country. Jordan, nor any other country, ever had recognized sovereignty there.

The facts are otherwise. Jews have lived in the land continuously for at least 3000 years. The San Remo Resolution in 1920, gave the Jewish people legal title to the land and the Palestine Mandate of 1922 gave them the right to settle the land.

After the ’67 War, the United Nations Security Council passed Res 242.  It made no mention of the Palestinian people, because there was no such people.

  1. Affirms that the fulfilment of Charter principles requires the establishment of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East which should include the application of both the following principles:
  2. i) “Withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict;(ii) Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force;

Thus the Security Council; gave Israel the right to stay in possession of “territories occupied in the recent conflict” until she had a peace agreement with all states in the area which provided for “secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force”.  It did not require Israel to withdraw from “all territories” and allowed Israel to keep some of the land which it required for security.  So far, no such agreement has been attained but Israel has already withdrawn from 91% of the territories.

Israel considers the Jordan River to be its secure boundary and will not withdraw from it.

Yet, since 1999, the UN, EU and the PA refer to the remaining land as “occupied Palestinian territory”. This was due to the fact that the Oslo Accords gave the Palestinians autonomy over Area A, partial autonomy over Area B and no autonomy over Area C as delineated by the Accords. But even they recognize that these lands are not sovereign Palestinian territory.

The preamble to the Accords provides;

“Recognizing that the aim of the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations [..], leading to a permanent settlement based on Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338;

Reaffirming [..] that the negotiations on the permanent status, [..] will lead to the implementation of Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338,[,,]”

This is the bottom line. Res 242 rules, and the Oslo Accords is nothing more than a path to it.

And as I pointed out in “Israel should terminate the Oslo Accords”, such autonomy can be cancelled by Israel at any time.

In conclusion, these lands are not Palestinian lands and they are not illegally occupied by Israel.



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