Anti-Semitic Legality of the UN Court
by Steven Shamrak
December 2022 the UN General Assembly passed a resolution in which 87 states voted to seek the ICJ’s non-binding opinion on the legality of Israel’s occupation since 1967. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) then began hearings into the legality of Israel’s occupation of ‘Palestinian territories’ since 1967. This is the highest participation in the ICJ hearings. Many international anti-Semites are so eager to participate in this Kangaroo court. It is the first time the world’s top court was asked to give an opinion on such a matter.
“Palestinian territories”: Through the history of humanity, there has never been a Palestinian kingdom or state. Until 1964 there were no Palestinian people. The term was invented, with the help of the Soviet KGB during the Cold War with the West, to undermine the legitimacy of the Jewish state.
Some 52 states and three organizations - the Arab League, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, and African Union – will present their arguments related to Israel’s open-ended control over ‘the occupied territories’ of Judea and Samaria (West Bank), Gaza, and annexed East Jerusalem to the UN’s court. Why not the Golan Hights? Israel freed them from the occupation by Syria at the same time, during the Six Days war in 1967!
The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) rejected the ICJ’s legitimacy to discuss the “legality of the occupation,” viewing it as an attack on Israel’s right to defend itself against existential threats. In a written statement, the office emphasized: “Israel does not recognize the legitimacy of the discussion at the International Court of Justice in the Hague regarding the ‘legality of the occupation’ – a move designed to harm Israel’s right to defend itself against existential threats.”
Members of the United Nations, world leaders and the ICJ are highly educated people. They do know the history and all the facts related to the Israeli-Arab conflict, and true letter of the international law - not the anti-Semitic interpretations of it. If they are not anti-Semites, why would they let this ‘Kangaroo Court” to smear the name of the Jewish state again?
“The occupied territories”: At the end of the War of Independence, Egypt, Jordan and Syria occupied the Jewish land - Judea, Samaria, the Golan Hights, Gaza, and East Jerusalem, from 1948 to 1967, in accordance with the Customary International law of Captured territories. They made no attempt to create a Palestinian state. No inquiries were conducted by the UN into the legality of this occupation. No international condemnations or protests were made by most NGOs or countries.
The Customary international Law allows the retention of land taken in war. Such retention has been accepted as legitimate throughout history. Many territories, previously conquered lands, are still owned (occupied) by many countries. This includes vast parts of Africa and Asia occupied during Arab Islamic expansion.
In 1967, Israel won the Six Day War. It was a defensive war, because the enemies were planning to destroy the Jewish state again. At the end of the war, Israel took control over the Jewish land previously occupied by enemies, under the same Customary International law, which clearly states:
“Sometimes, occupying forces do not succeed in establishing or exercising authority over a certain territory - for instance, because of hostile acts committed against them by combatants of the occupied territory. In such cases, humanitarian law does not consider these areas as occupied territories but instead as invaded territories. In other words, they are battlefields, and the rules that apply to them are the general rules of armed conflict.”
Fact #1 – On July 24, 1922, the Council of the League of Nations appointed Britain as the Mandatory entrusted with the administration of the Land of Israel. The territory of the Mandate included land on both sides of the Jordan River - the present-day countries of Jordan and Israel, including Judea, Samaria and Gaza. The Mandate clearly stated:
“Whereas the Principal Allied Powers have also agreed that the Mandatory should be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 2nd, 1917, by the Government of His Britannic Majesty, and adopted by the said Powers, in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”
In ARTICLE 2. “The Mandatory shall be responsible for placing the country under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment of the Jewish national home.”
In ARTICLE 5 of “The Mandatory shall be responsible for seeing that no Palestine territory shall be ceded or leased to, or in any way placed under the control of the Government of any foreign Power.”
Just two months later - in September 1922, Britain ceded Transjordan to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and the Golan Heights to Syria, 82% of the Mandate. This was an illegal act, in violation of the original spirit and letter of the Mandate!
Fact #2 – On 29 November 1947, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 181 as the Partition Plan for remaining land of the Mandate. The resolution called for the establishment of Jewish and Arab states between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, denying the Jewish people the right to a state of their own, and dividing the land into six territories, creating an absurd and unworkable political map.
In desperation, after trauma of the Holocaust, Jews accepted this ridiculous partition. The resolution was flatly rejected by the local Arab population and the Arab States. Seven Arab and Muslim states immediately declared war against Israel. They lost the war - therefore, they have no rights and legitimacy to claim the land “from the river to the sea” as their own. This is the Jewish land – it always been and will be!
Newspapers and TV reporters, as well as the UN and many politicians, present the enemies of Israel as victims, knowing that Hamas and Fatah and a number of other terrorist organisations, including Hezbollah and Huties, initiate and commit terror attacks on the Jewish state. News presenters deliberately and hypocritically call Hamas terrorists “militants” or “combatants”, at the same time, they acknowledge that Hamas is designated as a foreign terrorist organization by their own countries.
Historically, Israel - including Judea, Samaria and Gaza – always was the land of the Jews, with Jerusalem as the spiritual capital. No one has the right to question this fact!