FACT In International Law Jerusalem, & The West Bank (Judea & Samaria) Belongs To The Jewish Home-Land Settled In International Law For Over 90 Years - No annexation is required

FACT In International Law Jerusalem, & The West Bank (Judea & Samaria) Belongs To The Jewish Home-Land Settled In International Law For Over 90 Years - No annexation is required

It Is Settled FACT
In International Law
Jerusalem,
& The West Bank
(Judea & Samaria)
Belongs To The
Jewish Home

Settled In International Law
For Over 90 Years

Israel Should Have
OFFICIALLY ANNEXED
The West Bank in 1967
or in 1988And MUST NOW Officially Annex
The West Bank 
Since The Palestinians Violate
The Fundamental Necessary
Agreement By Refusing To Negotiate
With Israel & Recognize The Jewish State
And Going Directly To The UN
Thus Making The Entire
So-Called OSLO or Road Map
Peace Process AND
Every Agreement In It
NULL and VOID  Israel MUST NOW Officially Annex
The West Bank

Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria is Jewish territory - No annexation is required

If anything it may need to be re-incorporated or re-patriated.

Let me pose an interesting scenario. If you had a country and it was conquered by foreign powers over a period of time. After many years you have taken back you country and land in various defensive wars. Do you have to officially annex those territories. It was always your territory and by retaking control and possession of your territory it is again your original property and there is no need to annex it. The title to your property is valid today as it was many years before.
Annexation only applies when you are taking over territory that was never yours to begin with, just like some European countries annexed territories of other countries.

YJ Draiman

Jews hold title to the Land of Greater Israel even if outnumbered a million to one.

The fact that more foreigners than Jews occupied the Land ofIsrael during certain periods of time does not diminish true ownership. If my house is invaded by a family ten times larger that mine does that obviate my true ownership?  

---

Dr Jacques P Gauthier practices international law in Toronto.
He spent twenty years studying for and writing his PhD thesis
that Jerusalem legally belongs to the Jews.
The matter according to him is res judicata. i.e. LEGALLY DECIDED.
In this presentation he authoritatively explains why.
Jacques Gauthier is first and foremost loyal to the law.

Click Here For
The Best Explanation
From The Premier
Legal Expert
That Jerusalem belongs to Jews 
Settled In International Law

---

On This Page At the Bottom
You Will Find An Article - Why Palestine?
by David Solway - FrontPage Magazine, October 18th, 2011

This EXCELLENT Article by David Solway, IMHO is a MUST READ.
David Solway's Article Why Palestine?
really makes the point that this is an antichrist world and the majority of people obviously are at enmity with God.
The one and only True God identified Himself to the world as The God of Israel.
It was the Lord Jesus Christ who IS the I AM who gave torah to Moses and
was in that pillar of cloud by day and pillar of fire by night leading His people Israel from bondage in Egypt to their promised land.
Jesus Christ was crucified on a Roman cross for the official crime of being King of the Jews.

---

Let All Be Confirmed By 2 or More Witnesses The Following Analysis Is by my dear friend, Mark Rouleau.
IMHO Mark is the attorney with the best legal mind and understanding of Justice in America.
Beyond INTEGRITY, his mind is SHARP, regenerated, and renewed daily.
What a GREAT Difference a man like Mark could make if he were Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
Mark Rouleau has spent a great deal of time reviewing the historical legal documents
and history of the Region of the Middle East called Palestine.

I have been devoting a lot of time recently to reviewing the significant international documents regarding the "home for the Jewish people" and from the surface of the whole deal, the Arabs have kept snatching away more land to make it Juden Rein. First Trans-Jordan then Resolution 181 both are in violation of the Mandate for Palestine, the San Remo Accords, the Treaty of Sèvres (Section VII, Art 94-97); the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne. Winston Churchill and the English Monarchy violated both agreements when they gave all of the Trans-Jordan to the Hashemites after anointing the Saudis as the protectors of the oil fields as well as Mecca & Medina. The UN then violated it's charter that adopted all of the acts and agreements of the League of Nations which included both of those agreements.

Both the League of Nations and the United Nations are at their very core an anathema to God. They deny his sovereignty from the start by talking in terms of Human Rights instead of God given rights. Human rights are doled out by the collective to individuals. The very essence of the "collective" is as the possessor of these "Human" rights. In fact such "rights" are merely human "preferences" as they can and have changed over time. Despite what the UN or "international community" titles them they are neither "universal" or "immutable." If they are not from God by definition they are also subject to being corrupt because man's heart is evil from his youth, and his heart is wicked and deceitful above all things. This problem is even further compounded by the fact that the UN gives the fraudulent mirage of "democracy" when in fact the majority of its member nations don't even come close to being popular democracies.

If one is to trace this back through international law we learn that Great Britain obtained control of tribal lands through conquest from the Ottomans and placed the land under colonial rule. Under the Balfour Declaration which was basically ratified by the League of Nations (Principle Allied Powers at San Remo and again in the Treaty of Sevres) and the United Nations which adopted all of the decisions and actions of the League, created the "Mandate for Palestine" which was to cover all of what is now referred to as Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Without returning to the League of Nations or the British Parliament the MacDonald White Paper of 1938 (days just before WWII) states because the Arabs and the Jews could not agree on a partition plan (sound familiar) His Majesty's Government are free to formulate their own policy. Britain was never given such carte blanche authority to partition the land.

As originally and later contemplated there was to be one government over all of the land constituting the "mandate" and that both Arabs and Jews would participate together in most affairs of political and economic life and expressly sharing together the governance of the land. The MacDonald White paper states in part:
His Majesty's Government are unable at present to foresee the exact constitutional forms which government in Palestine will eventually take, but their objective is self government, and they desire to see established ultimately an independent Palestine State. It should be a State in which the two peoples in Palestine, Arabs and Jews, share authority in government in such a way that the essential interests of each are shared. * * *

His Majesty's Government regret the misunderstandings which have arisen as regards some of the phrases used. For their part they can only adhere, for the reasons given by their representatives in the Report, to the view that the whole of Palestine west of Jordan was excluded from Sir Henry McMahon's pledge, and they therefore cannot agree that the McMahon correspondence forms a just basis for the claim that Palestine should be converted into an Arab State. [But it was when Churchill created Trans-Jordan with the stroke of a pen] * * *

The proposal for the establishment of the independent State would involve consultation with the Council of the League of Nations with a view to the termination of the Mandate.

The independent State should be one in which Arabs and Jews share government in such a way as to ensure that the essential interests of each community are safeguarded. * * *

His Majesty's Government will do everything in their power to create conditions which will enable the independent Palestine State to come into being within 10 years. * * *

For each of the next five years a quota of 10,000 Jewish immigrants will be allowed on the understanding that a shortage one year may be added to the quotas for subsequent years, within the five year period, if economic absorptive capacity permits.
In addition, as a contribution towards the solution of the Jewish refugee problem, 25,000 refugees will be admitted as soon as the High Commissioner is satisfied that adequate provision for their maintenance is ensured, special consideration being given to refugee children and dependents. * * *

After the period of five years, no further Jewish immigration will be permitted unless the Arabs of Palestine are prepared to acquiesce in it. * * *
His Majesty's Government are satisfied that, when the immigration over five years which is now contemplated has taken place, they will not be justified in facilitating, nor will they be under any obligation to facilitate, the further development of the Jewish National Home by immigration regardless of the wishes of the Arab population."
 

At a meeting of the Zionist Congress, the supreme governing body of the Zionist Organization, held at Carlsbad in September, 1921, a resolution was passed expressing as the official statement of Zionist aims "the determination of the Jewish people to live with the Arab people on terms of unity and mutual respect, and together with them to make the common home into a flourishing community, the up building of which may assure to each of its peoples an undisturbed national development."

Contrary to the binding San Remo Accord in 1921 the portion of the mandate now known as Jordan was excised from the mandate to create a separate Palestinian Arab homeland and in 1947 the UN (Resolution 181) further partitioned the land.

Winston Churchill, visited the Middle East and endorsed an arrangement whereby Transjordan would be removed from the original territory of Palestine, with Abdullah as the emir under the authority of the High Commissioner, and with the condition that the Jewish National Home provisions of the (future) Palestine mandate would not apply there. Effectively, this removed about 78% of the original territory of Palestine and left about 22% where the application of the Balfour Declaration calling for a "Jewish" national home could be applied.

In 1925, "King Ali bin al-Hussein, the eldest brother of Abdullah and Faisal, lost the throne of the Kingdom of the Hijaz to Abdel Aziz bin Saud of Najd. The loss, which was brought about by a partnership between Ibn Saud and followers of the Wahhabi movement, led to the establishment of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and brought to an end over one thousand years of Hashemite rule in Mecca." (The Making of Transjordan)

For the price of Saudi Arabian Oil the Palestinian Arabs, under the Hashemite leaders, were given by Winston Churchill and the British Monarchy, about 78% of the land of Palestine that was approved by the League of Nations to be "a national home for the Jewish people." (San Remo Accord) This was done contrary to both the Mandate and the San Remo Accords.

Then an even further partition of this land took place in 1947. See UN (Resolution 181)

Interestingly the nations who most fervently press for the borders in Resolution 181 are the nations that voted against it. Afghanistan, Cuba, Egypt, Greece, India, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, Yemen.

From the charters and true talk (in Arabic to their people) of almost all of the Arab leaders do not truly believe in any partition. They are just using the process to keep whittling away at any Zionist Jewish presence in the land and to impose some version of Shariah on its inhabitants.

It is really too bad that the vision of the British Mandate could not have been effectuated. On the surface at least it seems that Israel grants full participation in political life to the Arabs who are its citizens allowing them seats in Parliament etc. I am convinced that this everlasting hatred against the Jews will only be resolved by the return of Yeshua and the recognition of the people living there and elsewhere of his Godship and right to rule and reign.

---

In the 1920s, among their final acts as the winners of the First World War, the British and French created the states that now define the Middle East. They created these Arab states out of the ashes of the empire of their defeated Turkish adversary. In a region that the Ottoman Turks had controlled for hundreds of years, Britain and France drew the boundaries of the new states, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq. Before this division of the lands, and establishment of new Arab states in the Middle East, the British had promised the Jewish Zionists that they could establish a national home in a portion of what remained of the area, which was known as the Palestine Mandate.

 

In 1921 the British separated 80 percent of the Palestine Mandate, east of the Jordan, and created the Arab kingdom of Transjordan. It was created for the Arabian monarch King Abdullah, who had been defeated in tribal warfare in the Arabian Peninsula, and lacked a seat of power. Abudllah’s tribe was Hashemites, while the vast majority of Abdullah’s subjects were Palestinian Arabs.

What was left of the original Palestine Mandate, between the west bank of the Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea, had been settled by Jews and Arabs. Jews, in fact, had lived in the area continuously for 3,700 years, even after the Romans destroyed their state in Judea in AD 70. Arabs became the dominant local population for the first time in the seventh century AD as a result of the Muslim invasions. The Palestinian Arabs were largely nomads who had no distinctive language or culture to distinguish them from other Arabs. In all the time since, they had made no attempt to create an independent Palestinian Arab state west or east of the Jordan, and none was ever established.

The idea of a Palestinian nation, or a movement to create one, did not exist. At the time of modern Israel’s birth as a state, Palestinian Arabs lived on roughly 90 percent of the original Palestine Mandate. However, some of the Palestinian Arabs also lived in the new state of Israel. There were 800,000 Arabs living in Israel alongside 1.2 million Jews. At that time, though it was accepted that Arabs could live in the new state of Israel, the Jews were NOT allowed, and were legally barred from settling in the 35,000 square miles of Palestinian Transjordan, which eventually was renamed Jordan.
The Arab population in the small pieces of land called Israel had actually more than tripled since the Zionists first began settling the region in significant numbers in the 1880s.The reason for the Arabs moving to this area was that the Jewish settlers had brought industrial and agricultural development with them. This attracted Arab immigrants to what had previously been a wilderness and economically destitute area.
IF the Palestinian Arabs had been willing to accept this arrangement, which gave them 90 percent of the land in the Palestine Mandate, and where they benefited from the industry, enterprise and political freedom the Jews brought to the region, there would have been no Middle East conflict. However, the Arab League, representing five neighboring Arab states, declared war on Israel on the day of its creation. Five Arab armies invaded the new little state of Israel. During the fighting an estimated 472,000 Arabs fled their homes to escape the dangers. REMEMBER THAT NUMBER 472,000, according to the UN observers who were stationed there in that place at that time. Those 472,000 planned on returning after an Arab victory and the destruction of the Jewish state. The Arab Muslim states which told them to leave would NOT allow them to settle in the countries in which the were ordered by their so-called Muslim brothers to flee. Their so-called Muslim Arab brothers have cruely used them as Political Pawn REFUGEES for over 60 years. THIS IS ONE OF THE GREAT EXAMPLES OF MUSLIM INHUMANITY TO MUSLIMS IN HISTORY. Few ever mention how that there was absolutely no such thing as a Palestinian, or no such talk of self-determination, or the need for another Muslim Arab state to be carved out of little Israel, until AFTER the Muslim Arabs lost the 1967, Six Days War. The Middle East Conflict is NOT about Land, NOT about self- determination. The Middle East Conflict is about the Muslim Arab determination to kill all Jews and Christians, and destroy the State of Israel.

The Following are Significant
Slides From Dr. Gauthier

---

The Balfour Declaration

The UN Violates Its Own Charter
By Entertaining the Palestinian Propaganda Stunt
To Inflame Violence
And By This Palestinian UNILATERAL Stunt
INVALIDATES The Entire So-Called OSLO or Roadmap
Peace Process

---

Why Palestine?
by David Solway - FrontPage Magazine, October 18th, 2011

The macabre prepossession of the international community with the “problem” of Israel is now so widespread that it has become like a cultural neurosis or even a fact of nature, that is, something that is habitual, taken for granted and rarely questioned. One drinks it in with the morning coffee, if not with one’s mother’s milk. It is treated as the central issue in the geopolitical world beside which every other consideration fades into comparative insignificance.

The People’s Republic of China has overrun Tibet, resettled it with its own citizens and imposed autocratic rule? Not on the radar. Zimbabwe has forcefully dispossessed its white farmers and mercilessly persecuted its own people? Of no account. Hundreds of thousands of Egyptian Copts are fleeing the country to avoid killings, rapes, church burnings and forced conversions? A mere bagatelle. Islamist and Salafist factions are emerging in Egypt in the wake of the much-touted “Arab Spring,” promising renewed violence whether in Helwan, Imbaba, Tahrir Square or Alexandria? A tepid reproof by EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and so on to other things, mainly Israel. The Muslim Brotherhood is making inroads into the Islamic world and promulgating Sharia law in the West? Of little interest. Iran is brutally suppressing its own population and Syria is indiscriminately slaughtering its people? No flotillas. Russia is systematically murdering and imprisoning investigative journalists? It’s an internal Russian matter. Reports indicate that Venezuela and Cuba may construct missile emplacements targeting the U.S.? Forget about it. Libyan rebels are massacring black Africans? Nothing to worry about. Sudan is conducting an ethnic cleansing campaign in Darfur? It doesn’t register. Somalia is imploding owing to the bombings and depredations of the al-Shabaab terrorist network? Not our problem. Pakistan-sponsored terrorists wreak havoc in India? It merits a passing headline and is then dismissed. The Taliban is again turning Afghanistan into a killing field? Unfortunate, but there it is. Turkey refuses to acknowledge and apologize for the Armenian genocide it carried out? Well, that was long ago.
 

But when it comes to the Israeli/Palestinian nexus, the focus is unswerving. The UN debates the issue endlessly and propagates one denunciation of the Jewish state after another. The EU and the U.S. are fixated on a resolution to what they appear to consider a planetary imbroglio. Something called the “Quartet,” which has been aptly called a “chorus of jackals,” has been concocted to deal with the matter to the exclusion of far more pressing concerns. The media are pitching in with obscene insistence. NGOs, churches and labor unions have exceeded their mandates and competencies in engaging with a Levantine quarrel. And public opinion, especially in Europe, has been galvanized by what is in essence a parochial dispute and really none of its business.
 

The media and the political class are especially culpable. As James Fallows argues in Breaking the News, the media are busy practicing what is called predictive journalism and engaging in professional spin, disguising editorial opinion as impartial news coverage and thus adding political prejudice to the ostensibly neutral transmission of facts. The political class is given to what Michael Freund has dubbed “selective provocation syndrome,” that is, “when one deems Israel’s actions to be provocative while ignoring similar moves by the Palestinians.” The Palestinians, he points out, are building thirteen times the number of dwellings in Samaria and Judea as are being built by Jews, in order to establish facts on the ground in the disputed territories. “So why,” he asks, “is this too not regarded as a ‘provocation’ that undermines peace efforts?” And replies: “I guess not all ‘provocations’ are considered equal.”
 

Clearly, the debate is intensively weighted on the side of the Palestinians, which means that the Israelis are regularly condemned for defending themselves, for acting in accordance with historical and legal principles, and for their reluctance to sign away legitimate territory and, in effect, to jeopardize their very survival. There is little recognition of the fact that Israel has constantly signaled its willingness to embark upon realistic negotiations. As Barry Rubin writes, “So if the world isn’t going to listen to Israel’s proposals, won’t credit its eagerness to negotiate and won’t accept plans that also include Israel getting something for its troubles, there is no way Israel is ever going to satisfy it.”
The situation is frankly preposterous and provokes two salient questions: why such an unrelenting convergence of interest on this tiny slice of the world’s geography, so scarce in natural resources and constantly threatened with destruction, called Israel?; and in the context of consensual advocacy, why Palestine?
 

The world remains focused on Israel because Israel is a Jewish state, the Jewish family on the international block, a distinctive presence which activates the latent—as well as the manifest—content of a malingering and inexcisable anti-Semitism. For this is anti-Semitism pure and simple and it would be disingenuous to try and mitigate the truth by seeking for nuanced and textured evasions intended to downplay mankind’s longest hatred. Jews, the feeling goes, do not deserve their own state. They presumably form a collection of wandering tribes and disruptive social interlopers, justly scattered among the nations and deserving of marginalization, a historical “fossil” according to the celebrated historian Arnold Toynbee​ and, according to the anti-Zionist delator Tony Judt​, an “anachronism.” But such pronouncements and convictions are merely an attempt to launder one’s irrational bigotries or dissemble one’s innate aversions. The current situation makes this blatantly evident. The name of the game is Judeophobia.
 

For the disproportion between the world’s response to a healthy, robust, legitimate and embattled democratic state the size of New Jersey and the vast cesspools of tyranny, oppression, insurgence, violence and depredation that litter the globe is incommensurable. With only occasional exceptions, the world trains its gaze almost exclusively on Israel. “One wonders,” writes Matthew Hausman, “how they can be so consumed with Israel’s alleged indiscretions and yet ignore the totalitarian and theocratic tendencies of the nations comprising the Arab-Muslim world.” Good question.
 

World leaders inveigh against every defensive operation that Israel undertakes to protect its sovereignty and safeguard its people. They condemn normal domestic projects, like building apartments in a Jewish neighborhood in Jerusalem, a city which also happens to be the capital of the country. The blame for stalled “negotiations” is inevitably laid at Israel’s door, in defiance of Palestinian intransigence, bellicose chauvinism and unilateral actions. Material concessions are demanded of Israel: little is required of the other side, except for a few paper agreements of approximately the same value as UN assurances—that is to say, they are worth nothing. The historicity of the Jewish sanction to the Jewish homeland is ignored. The legal instruments that have validated the Jewish state are vacated or deliberately misinterpreted. The laws of war which entitle Israel to the territories it has conquered in a defensive struggle—and that are in any case part of its ancestral allodium—are brushed aside, though recognized in every other historical instance.
 

At the same time, the revisionist Palestinian narrative of indigenous rights and immemorial nationhood, which has no basis in reality and is demonstrably woven out of whole cloth, is vetted by the international community and accepted without question. The Palestinian program should be perfectly transparent. As Zahir Muhsein of the Palestinian National Council told the Dutch newspaper Trouw as far back as 1977, “The Palestinian people does not exist…Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people…to oppose Zionism.”
 

With regard to the Israelis and the Palestinians, the maxim is: to the losers go the spoils. The anti-Israel bias explains the spurious preoccupation, indeed the pathological obsession, with the Palestinian cause, the acceptance of the Palestinian fable of dispossession (the so-called Nakba), and the winking at the Palestinian terror franchises, the anti-Jewish incitement industry and the genocidal charters of both Fatah and Hamas. The declared goal of Hamas is the annihilation of Israel. Its mission statement reads in part: “There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad.” The cardinal purpose of the Fatah movement, according to its constitution, is the “complete liberation of Palestine, and eradication of Zionist economic, political, military and cultural existence,” to be effected by “armed struggle [which] will not cease unless the Zionist state is demolished.” Further, Article 19 of the PLO Covenant rejects the 1947 UN partition of Palestine and Article 20 denies the Jewish historical relationship to the Holy Land.
 

The most effective way, then, to shrink the Jewish state and render it increasingly vulnerable to successful attack by the surrounding Muslim nations is to support the claims, strategies and demands of the Palestinian leadership. Western leaders, the liberal political elite, Third World parasites and various autocratic regimes are not genuinely interested in the confection of a Palestinian state. A loose collection of mendicant clans calling themselves a “people” or a “nation,” with neither historical grounding nor political warrant and that offers nothing of value to the world at large, is, or should be, by any reasonable estimation of peripheral significance.
 

The agenda in play is something quite different, in part an effort to curry favor with the Islamic umma and, allied with this concern, the intent to siphon the lifeblood of the troublesome Zionist upstart. Israel represents the collective Jew who must be put in his place, not treated as an equal, but, at best, superciliously tolerated and, at worst, deprived of status or erased from the book of the living. This is where Palestine comes in. As others have remarked, Palestine is the Trojan Horse the councils of the nations wheel up to the gates of Jerusalem; “their forces join/To invade the town,” as Virgil writes in The Aeneid. Troy must fall to the ruses of its enemies. The invention of Palestine has no other purpose, whether for the Arabs, “progressive” political society or the rabble of confrontation states and rogue regimes, than the reduction of the Jewish state, on which the world’s baleful attention has fastened since at least the 1967 war.
Why Palestine? The answer is obvious. The answer is: Israel.

The Arabs have Jordan, which was Jewish territory. The Arabs persecuted and expelled over a million Jewish families (who lived there for over 2500 years), from their countries and confiscated all their assets, businesses, homes and Real estate property 6 times the size of Israel - 120,440 sq. km. and valued in the trillions of dollars. Most of the expelled Jewish families from Arab countries were resettled in Israel, today over half the population in Israel are the families of the million Jewish families expelled from Arab countries. Let the Arab-Palestinians relocate to those lands and solve the Arab Israeli conflict and the Arab-Palestinian refugee problem.
YJ Draiman.
 

Back to GJiGT Home Index Page

Israel it is time to re-establish complete Sovereignty over Judea and Samaria! - Draiman

Israel it is time to re-establish complete Sovereignty over Judea and Samaria!

When is enough really enough? For the State of Israel and its elected officials, apparently, still not yet! Every delay is detrimental to Israel.

Israeli military occupation/liberation over Judea and Samaria aka “West Bank” is a 45-year-old mistake and must now end with Israel’s official annexation of the Jewish heartland, if annexation is needed at all, since returning to your own property does not need annexation; physical possession and control is enough. There should also be a withdrawal, not from any land but from the biased and prejudiced United Nations.

For the sake of Jewish identity, heritage, tradition and history – and of Israeli security and survivability, must be first and foremost – Israel should immediately assert sovereignty over Judea and Samaria (Judah, Benjamin, Ephraim, and west Menasheh), granting Palestinian Arabs the dignified options of permanent residency status or emigration with compensation.

Those Arabs who wish to remain should be allowed to do so and enjoy the rights of permanent residents while fulfilling the attendant responsibilities. Those who wish to leave should be paid fair market value for their property, plus a reasonable sum to cover moving expenses to Jordan (Palestine which is also Jewish land), or to the homes and 120,000 sq. km. of land (owned by the Jews for over 2,300 years) the Arab countries confiscated when they terrorized and expelled over a million Jewish families and their children, who today reside in Israel and comprise over half the population or elsewhere. Those who insist on violence should be dealt with accordingly with severe punishment and a death sentence to terrorists.

Israel should also withdraw immediately from the United Nations (whose full name seems more accurately to be UNAI, the United Nations Against Israel and is a parasitic criminal organization) and help found a robust league of democracies, a new body where human rights violators and criminals don’t preside over human rights councils and where blocs of Islamists, terrorists, murderers and communists don’t dictate to progressive republics. The UN might have arguably been the greatest endeavor man ever embarked upon; instead, it is a tiresome farce run by malevolent criminals and circus clowns. This is one club to which the Jew, and the Jewish State, should not belong and not wish to belong.

These are no extreme measures; rather, they are reasonable and moderate propositions representing nothing more than common sense. Such steps ought to have been taken long ago, and every day they delay its implementation, makes the situation worse.

Whatever Israel does or does not do, it will face global condemnation, like always. The world throughout history stood idle while Jews were persecuted, killed and demonized. As our sages taught us "If I am not for myself who is". Therefore, it only stands to reason that it should do what is necessary and proper for its fundamental needs as the Jewish national home and its people, and act both domestically and internationally with self-respect and determination on behalf of all its citizens and residents, Jewish or otherwise. Acting with halfheartedness and trepidation invites the world’s contempt like nothing else. Stop and overcome the Ghetto mentality, thus proceed to defend the Jewish people with no inhibition whatsoever and no restraint.  

Israel, you are not the world’s punching bag; end the masochism. It’s enough already. NEVER AGAIN must be action, not just words. Stop bickering among yourselves. It is time to unify our people and face adversity as a unified Nation, that will be our ultimate victory and the key to our survival.

"A Unified Israel is a strong Israel"

DISPUTED TERRITORIES: Forgotten Facts About the West Bank and Gaza Strip February 2003

DISPUTED TERRITORIES:
Forgotten Facts About the West Bank
and Gaza Strip

February 2003

Introduction

In 1967, Israel fought a desperate war of self-defense and despite dire odds, won. As a result, the Jewish State not only survived, it also came into possession of additional lands, including territory that is of vital importance to its security.
The Six Day War and its consequences still affect the Middle East today. A clear understanding of how and why the territories came into Israels possession in 1967 and an awareness of Israel's connection to these areas are essential components of any fair and balanced discussion of their current status. This information has taken on particular importance in light of the current situation and Palestinian attempts to reduce a complex conflict to a single issue - Israel's presence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The Palestinians and their supporters are attempting to promote their cause by channeling every event through the prism of the disputed territories. In doing so, they have succeeded in diverting the discussion away from the relevant facts, rewriting or ignoring history and reinventing international law to suit their aims. These facts must not be forgotten.

Facts
By focusing exclusively on "the occupation," Palestinian spokespersons are obscuring some of the basic facts of the conflict. They never mention why Israel's presence in the disputed territories began or the reasons for the continuation of the conflict, and ignore the historical and legal context of Israel's presence there. Following are four key issues that the Palestinians deliberately and consistently try to conceal:
Disputed, not "Occupied", Territory

The West Bank and Gaza Strip are disputed territories whose status can only be determined through negotiations. Occupied territories are territories captured in war from an established and recognized sovereign. As the West Bank and Gaza Strip were not under the legitimate and recognized sovereignty of any state prior to the Six Day War, they should not be considered occupied territories.

The people of Israel have ancient ties to the territories, as well as a continuous centuries-old presence there. These areas were the cradle of Jewish civilization. Israel has rights in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, rights that the Palestinians deliberately disregard.
Legality of Israel's Presence in the Territories

Despite persistent claims by the Palestinians and their supporters,occupation is not, in and of itself, illegal. It does not violate international law.Rather, international law attempts to regulate situations of occupation through the application of pertinent international conventions and agreements. Therefore, political motivations lie behind the claim that Israel's presence in the territories is illegal. Israel's presence in the territories is not illegal.

Israel's presence in the territories began in 1967 as a direct result of the aggressive actions of Israel's neighbors that forced Israel into a war of self-defense.

UN Security Council Resolution 242, which was adopted following the Six Day War, places obligations on both sides (as does Resolution 338, adopted following the 1973 Yom Kippur War). 242 does not call for unilateral withdrawal from the territories. Despite this, the Palestinians focus exclusively on the call for an Israeli withdrawal, ignoring those clauses that place responsibilities on the other parties to the conflict.

Resolution 242 does not require Israel to withdraw from all the territoriesgained as a result of the 1967 war, as the Arab regimes claim. Instead, the resolution deliberately restricts itself to calling for Israel's withdrawal "from territories" while recognizing the right to live within secure and recognized boundaries.
Terrorism Cannot be Justified

Incessant references by Palestinian spokespersons to "the occupation" are used to delegitimize not only Israel's presence in the territories, but also to justify terrorism.

Terrorism - the intentional, politically motivated use of violence against civilians and other non-combatants - is clearly beyond the pale of international law. Suicide bombings are a crime against humanity, and no political goal can ever justify the use of terrorism.

Palestinian terrorism preceded Israel's presence in the territories. Indeed, the PLO (the Palestinian Liberation Organization) was founded in 1964, three years before the 1967 Six Day War.
Israel's Pursuit of Peace

Israel's presence in the territories continued after 1967 as the Arab regimes refused to negotiate with Israel despite continuous and genuine Israeli offers of peace. For close to a quarter century, the Palestinians refused to abandon terrorism and conduct peaceful negotiations.

Even after the Palestinians decided to join the peace process in the early 1990s, no permanent resolution of the dispute could be reached due to Palestinian terrorism and their unwillingness to reach reasonable compromises.

Israel, as a democracy, has no desire to control the lives or future of the Palestinians. Israel - which has made extensive territorial concessions to the Palestinians since 1993 - has always been willing to make great sacrifices in the name of peace.
The omission of historical facts allows the Palestinians to avoid responsibility for their role both in creating and perpetuating the situation in the territories. Distortions of international law are part and parcel of Palestinian attempts to delegitimize Israel while justifying the unjustifiable - terrorism.

Territories in DisputeInternational Law and Occupation
Palestinian spokespersons and their supporters have expended great efforts to advance their claim that a state of occupation is - by definition - illegal. This ingenuous claim not only ignores international law, but also by its very repetition at every opportunity, attempts to create new international norms.
The claim that any occupation - no matter the reasons for its establishment or its continued existence - is illegal is not consistent with the principles of international law. The international legal system does not outlaw occupation. Rather it uses international conventions and agreements to regulate such situations.
Many states hold onto territory taken in a war - particularly a war of self-defense - until a peace treaty is negotiated. In fact, many situations of dispute exist today around the world in which one side continues to hold territory that another claims. A key difference in the situation regarding the West Bank and Gaza Strip is that Israel has attempted to negotiate a peaceful resolution to the status of these disputed territories ever since they came into Israel's possession.
Claims of illegality are politically motivated as neither international law nor the agreements between Israel and the Palestinian Authority support this baseless allegation.
Jewish Ties to the Territories

	Jewish communities in the Land of   Israel from ancient to modern times

Jews have lived in Judea-Samaria (the West Bank) and Gaza Strip continuously for 4000 years since Biblical times and throughout the centuries since then. Jewish sovereignty there spanned 1000 years and those areas were the cradle of Jewish civilization. Many of the most ancient and holy Jewish sites, including the Cave of the Patriarchs (the burial site of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob), are located in these areas. Jewish communities grew in Gaza during the 11th century and other areas, such as Hebron (where Jews lived until they were massacred in 1929), were inhabited by Jews throughout the four hundred years of Ottoman rule and much before. Additional Jewish communities flourished under the British Mandatory administration that replaced the Ottoman Empire in 1918.
The Palestinians often contend that the Jews are foreign colonizers in territory to which they had no previous connection. Indeed, much of the Arab world considers all of Israel - and not just the disputed territories - as a foreign entity in the region. Such claims disregard the continuous ties of the Jewish people with their age-old homeland and the deep bond of the people of Israel to its land, both in biblical and later periods.
These claims also serve to perpetuate the myth that a Palestinian state existed in the area prior to the establishment of the State of Israel. In fact, no independent Arab or Palestinian state ever existed in the area known as Palestine.
The Jordanian and Egyptian Occupations
The Jewish presence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip ended only with the 1948 War of Independence. Conquering these territories in a war of aggression aimed at destroying the nascent State of Israel, the Jordanians and Egyptians totally eliminated the Jewish presence in the West Bank and Gaza, forbidding Jews to live there and declaring the sale of land to Jews in those areas a capital offense.
It is worth noting that Jordanian and Egyptian rule came about as the result of their illegal invasion of 1948, in open contempt and rejection of UN General Assembly Resolution 181, which would have partitioned the British Mandate territory into a Jewish State and an Arab State. For this reason, the Egyptian and Jordanian seizures of the territories were never recognized by the international community.
The Status of the Territories
The status of the West Bank and Gaza Strip can only be decided by agreement between the parties. During the 1990s, Israel and the Palestinians agreed that the final status of the West Bank and Gaza Strip is not yet resolved and should be decided in peaceful negotiations.
Furthermore, the fact that there were no established sovereigns in the West Bank or Gaza Strip prior to the Six Day War means that the territories should not be viewed as "occupied" by Israel. When territory without an established sovereign comes into the possession of a state with a competing claim - particularly during a war of self-defense - that territory can be considered disputed.

A War of Self-Defense

©GPO  High school students digging air raid trenches in a Tel Aviv suburb (May 1967) in view of Arab calls to annihilate Israel on the eve of the Six Day War.

The fact that Israel fought a war of self-defense in the Six Day War in June 1967 was recognized by the world's democracies at the time. It was that defensive war against Arab aggression that resulted in Israel's taking control of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Calls for Annihilation
Prior to the start of the Six Day War, a continuous flow of statements by Arab leaders and official media sources left no doubt as to their intentions - not only did the Arab states intend to attack Israel, they meant to destroy it.

"We intend to open a general assault against Israel. This will be total war. Our basic aim will be to destroy Israel." (Egyptian President Gamel Abdel Nasser, 26 May 1967)

"The sole method we shall apply against Israel is total war, which will result in the extermination of Zionist existence." (Egyptian Radio, "Voice of the Arabs", 18 May 1967)

"I, as a military man, believe that the time has come to enter into a battle of annihilation." (Syrian Defense Minister Hafez al-Assad, 20 May 1967)

"The existence of Israel is an error which must be rectified... Our goal is clear - to wipe Israel off the map." (Iraqi President Abdur Rahman Aref, 31 May 1967)The Arab threats to destroy Israel in the period preceding the war were made when Israel did not control the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The Threat to Israel's Existence
Given the strength of the opposing armies and the physical size of the country in 1967, Israel had every reason to fear these threats. It was a small state, surrounded by heavily armed and hostile neighbors. In its pre-1967 boundaries, Israel was only 15 kilometers (9 miles) wide at some places. The armies of Israel's enemies in the West Bank and Gaza were stationed a mere 18 km. (11 miles) from Tel Aviv, 35 km. (21 miles) from Haifa, 11 km. (7 miles) from Ashkelon and only meters from Israeli neighborhoods in Jerusalem.
These threats were not empty rhetoric. Hostile actions by Israel's neighbors left little doubt as to either the seriousness of their intent or their ability to carry out a massive assault on Israel.
In the weeks before the war, a coalition of Arab states - including Egypt, Syria, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, Iraq, Algeria and Kuwait - united against Israel. As Egyptian President Nasser said on 30 May 1967, "The armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon are poised on the borders of Israel...to face the challenge, while standing behind us are the armies of Iraq, Algeria, Kuwait, Sudan and the whole Arab nation.... the critical hour has arrived." War frenzy was sweeping through the Arab world.
Egypt Tightens the Noose
On 15 May 1967, the Egyptians began to move large numbers of troops and armored vehicles into the Sinai Peninsula, ending a ten-year period during which the Sinai was free of hostile forces. While Egyptian troops massed along Israel's border in the south, the Syrian army prepared for war on the Golan Heights in the north. Nasser demanded that the UN Secretary-General withdraw UNEF - the United Nations Emergency Force peacekeepers - from the Sinai, where they had been stationed since 1956. Secretary-General U Thant complied with considerable haste, thus breaking an international promise to Israel. UNEF ceased to function on 19 May, removing the last barrier to the Egyptian war machine. The State of Israel was alone and encircled by armies whose leaders had vowed to bring about its annihilation.
Israel's Defensive Response
In response, Israel began to call up its reserve forces. Having only a small standing army, Israel had to rely on its reservists to repulse any attack. This mobilization of Israel's doctors and teachers, farmers and shopkeepers carried a heavy economic and social burden. Israelis began digging trenches in preparation for aerial attacks and shelling. Yet Israel's leaders chose to wait three long weeks before reacting militarily, in the hope that war could be avoided and a peaceful solution to the crisis could be found.
The Blockade
The situation continued to deteriorate sharply. On 22 May, Egypt blocked the Straits of Tiran, closing off Eilat, Israel's only Red Sea port, to Israeli ships and Israel-bound foreign vessels. Israel was now cut off from trade with Asia and East Africa. Most significantly, Israel was denied access to its main supplier of oil. President Nasser was fully aware that Israel would regard the closure as an act of aggression.
This move violated the right of innocent maritime passage, in clear contradiction of international law. Traditionally, under international law, a blockade is considered an act of war. Moreover, Egypt's actions violated the 1957 declaration of 17 maritime powers at the UN, that stated that Israel had the right of transit through the Straits of Tiran, as well as the 1958 Convention on the Territorial Sea and Contiguous Zone.
The blockade of the Straits of Tiran was a clear-cut act of aggression. No country can stand by while a major port has been arbitrarily and maliciously blockaded, in violation of international law, particularly when vital shipments - including oil - are at stake. Had Israel responded by attacking Egypt immediately after the imposition of the blockade, this measure could only have been regarded as a justified reaction to Egypt's act of war.
Israel Searches for a Diplomatic Solution...
However, despite the blockade, the daily diet of threats and the hostile military activity, Israel continued to wait. Israel's leadership wanted to exhaust every prospect for a diplomatic solution before reacting. Unfortunately, while there was a great deal of international sympathy for Israel's plight, there was little tangible assistance.
...But is Forced to Respond Militarily
Israel was left with few options. It had been surrounded by approximately 465,000 enemy troops, more than 2880 tanks and 810 aircraft. Given its small geographical size and the relative strength of the opposing armies, had Israel waited for the expected invasion to begin before acting, the results could have been catastrophic for its very survival.
Invoking its inherent right of self-defense, a basic tenet of international law that is enshrined in Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, Israel launched a preemptive strike against Egypt on 5 June 1967.
Israel's Message of Peace
Israel had no desire to see the fighting spread to its eastern or northern fronts. Prime Minister Levi Eshkol sent out a message of peace to Israel's neighbors: "We shall not attack any country unless it opens war on us. Even now, when the mortars speak, we have not given up our quest for peace. We strive to repel all menace of terrorism and any danger of aggression to ensure our security and our legitimate rights."
Further Arab Aggression
The Syrians responded by bombardments with artillery fire and with long-range guns.
In the east, Jordan was convinced by Egypt that the planes appearing on the radar screens were Egyptian aircraft on their way to attack Israel, and not Israeli planes returning from a strike on the Egyptian Air Force. On 5 June, Jordan began ground movements and shelling across the armistice lines, including in Jerusalem and on Israel's main airport near Tel Aviv. Despite the attack, Israel sent another message of peace, this time through representatives of the UN. Still, the Jordanian attack persisted.
This may have been one of the most crucial decisions of the war. Had Jordan listened to Israel's messages of peace instead of Egypt's lies, the Hashemite Kingdom could have remained neutral in the conflict, and eastern Jerusalem and the West Bank would have remained in Jordan's possession. However, when the attack on western Jerusalem continued, Israel defended itself and united its capital, divided since 1949. The capture of the Old City of Jerusalem gave Jews access to their holiest sites for the first time in 19 years, while freedom of worship and access to holy sites were now guaranteed to all.

The Post-War Period and Resolution 242Defensible Borders
On 10 June 1967, at the end of six days of fierce fighting in which 776 Israeli soldiers lost their lives, a cease-fire was reached. Previous cease-fire lines were now replaced by new ones - the West Bank of the Jordan River, the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula and a large part of the Golan Heights had come under Israel's control as a result of the war. Syria could no longer use the Golan Heights to launch artillery bombardments on Israeli homes below. The passage of ships to Israel through the Straits of Tiran was ensured. Israel now had defensible borders, and the imminent threat to its very existence was no longer.
Hopes for Peace
When the Six Day War ended, Israelis believed that a new era was beginning, one that would bring peace to the region. Hoping to translate military gains into a permanent peace, Israel sent out a clear message that it would exchange almost all the territory gained in the war for peace with its neighbors.
Furthermore, Israel gave strong indications of its deep desire to negotiate a solution, including through territorial compromise, by deciding not to annex the West Bank or Gaza Strip. This is important evidence of Israel's intent given both the strategic depth these areas offered and the Jewish people's age-old ties to numerous religious and historical sites, especially in the West Bank.
Arab rejectionism
But Israel's hope for peace was quickly dashed. The Arab states began to rearm and, at the August 1967 Arab League meeting in the Sudan, adopted as their political position "the three nos," principles by which the Arab states were to abide, namely, "no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it." The Khartoum Summit's hard-line position forestalled all chances for peace for years. As Israel's then Foreign Minister Abba Eban said, "This is the first war in history which has ended with the victors suing for peace and the vanquished calling for unconditional surrender."
242: A Misrepresented Resolution
Since 1967, United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 has played a central role in the peace process. It may well be one of the most important UN resolutions regarding the conflict - however, it is also one of the most misrepresented.
The Palestinians often depict the resolution as a simple document whose principal goal is a unilateral and complete Israeli withdrawal from the territories as a precondition for ending the conflict. In reality, the resolution is a balanced and measured instrument whose goal is "the fulfillment of Charter principles" by the "establishment of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East."
"Territories" vs. "The Territories"
As a rule, the Palestinians and their supporters misstate the resolution by claiming that 242 calls for Israel's withdrawal from "all" the territories, although this is neither the language used in the resolution nor the intent of its framers.
Resolution 242 calls upon Israel to withdraw "from territories" occupied in the recent conflict", not "from all the territories" or even "from the territories". The use of the phrase "from territories" was deliberately chosen by the members of the Security Council after extensive study and months of consultations, this despite considerable pressure from the Arab States to include the word "all". As then US Ambassador Arthur Goldberg would explain in 1973, these notable omissions "were not accidental.... the resolution speaks of withdrawal from occupied territories without defining the extent of the withdrawal."
Secure Borders According to 242
It should be noted that Resolution 242 recognizes the need, indeed the right, for "secure and recognized boundaries." By declining to call upon Israel to withdraw to the pre-war lines, the Security Council recognized that the previous borders were indefensible, and that, at the very least, Israel would be justified in retaining those parts of the territories necessary to establish secure borders. As then UK Ambassador Lord Caradon would later state, "It would have been wrong to demand that Israel return to its positions of June 4, 1967, because those positions were undesirable and artificial."
Joint Obligations
The principal UN Security Council resolutions, including 242 (and 338, adopted after the 1973 Yom Kippur War), address all sides of the conflict, and not just Israel. Despite this, Palestinian spokespersons only refer to Israel's responsibilities under the resolution, ignoring joint responsibilities as well as obligations incumbent on the Arab side, although these clauses form an integral part of the resolution. Among the clauses of 242 clearly aimed at the Arab states, or expressing joint obligations, are:

• "a just and lasting peace in which every State in the area can live in security;"
• "termination of all claims or states of belligerency;"
• "respect and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area;"
• respect and acknowledgement of "their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force;"
• "freedom of navigation through international waterways in the area;"
• "guaranteeing the territorial inviolability and political independence of every State in the area, through measures including the establishment of demilitarized zones."

Clearly Israel was not expected to withdraw without the Arab regimes fulfilling their obligations - principally to renounce the use of force and make peace with Israel - and Israel's withdrawal is certainly not a prerequisite to its fundamental right to live in peace.
Additionally, Resolution 338 - which is invariably coupled with 242 - calls upon the parties to begin negotiations aimed at "establishing a just and durable peace in the Middle East". Taken together, these two resolutions express the Security Council's determination that peace should be reached through non-violent negotiations between the parties.

Terrorism and "the Occupation" Excuse
Palestinian Manipulation of the Term "Occupation"
"Whoever thinks that the intifada broke out because of the despised Sharon's visit to the al-Aqsa Mosque, is wrong.... This intifada was planned in advance, ever since President Arafat's return from the Camp David negotiations, where he turned the table upside down on President Clinton."
   In March 2001, Imad al-Faluji PA Minister of Communications, spoke
   publicly in Lebanon about the premeditated nature of the violence.

Palestinian Terrorism - before 1967 and during the peace process in the mid-90s ©GPO  Ambushed bus from Eilat to Be'er Sheva (17 March 1954) ©GPO  The charred remains of a No. 18 Jerusalem bus after it was blown up by a suicide terrorist bomber at the intersection of Sarei Yisrael and Jaffa Streets (25 February 1996) ©GPO  Jerusalem's Mahane Yehuda Market after the bombing by two Palestinian terrorists (30 July 1997)

The Palestinians are trying to portray the current wave of violence and terrorism as the spontaneous reaction of a frustrated people to the Israeli "occupation" of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. This misrepresentation of the situation ignores the strategic decision made by the Palestinian leadership to abandon negotiations and concentrate on the armed struggle against Israel. It also omits the fact that the Palestinians began to orchestrate the violence that started in September 2000 immediately after they caused the failure of the Camp David peace summit in July of that year.
The claim that "the occupation" caused the wave of violence and terrorism that began in September 2000 soon become the central Palestinian theme. The methodology of Palestinian spokespersons was simple: Answer every question with "the occupation is responsible," say "the occupation caused it" after every act of terrorism. "Occupation" provided them with a simple buzzword that could be used to condemn Israel at every turn and to absolve the Palestinians of responsibility for their every action. But repeating a lie hundreds of times does not make it true.
Incessant Palestinian references to "the occupation" are aimed, in part, at delegitimization of Israel's presence in the territories. Palestinian calls to "end the occupation" are being used to mobilize the international community against Israel. Palestinian leaders have long believed that the application of international pressure on Israel is an important component of their strategy to defeat Israel. They believe they can force Israel, through terrorism, to leave the territories without ending the conflict and without achieving a negotiated peace.
The Palestinians Justify Terrorism
Most abhorrently, the Palestinians use "the occupation" as a justification for the unjustifiable - terrorism. No goal - including ending the so-called occupation - can ever excuse the deliberate slaughter of innocent civilians. Suicide bombings cannot become an acceptable means to induce political change. Targeting children cannot ever be justified.
Palestinian attempts to excuse terrorism by blaming it on "the occupation" are not only morally repugnant, they attempt to corrode the precept that suicide bombings are a crime against humanity. To accept the lie that "the occupation" caused the terrorism helps encourage terrorism itself, while condoning its use is not only immoral but contributes to the perpetuation of the conflict.
The Roots of Palestinian Terrorism
It is not Israel's presence in the territories that caused terrorism. Rather, the violence is fostered by the hatred of Israel, and nurtured by incessant incitement from Palestinian officials and religious leaders.
It should be remembered that Palestinian terrorism predates Israel's presence in the territories. Not only were there endless terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians during the two decades that preceded the Six Day War, they even occurred prior to the 1948 establishment of the State of Israel.
The claim that the 1967 "occupation" of the territories caused Palestinian terrorism is particularly specious coming from PLO members, as the Palestine Liberation Organization was created in 1964, three years before the Six Day War, when the West Bank and Gaza Strip were not under Israeli rule.
Terrorism vs. Efforts for Peace
History demonstrates that Palestinian terrorism is not caused by frustration or the absence of hope for a peaceful solution. Horrific waves of attacks have occurred during periods of major advances in the peace process. Terrorist strikes have often peaked during those times - such as the mid-1990s - when the process has been at its most active and thereby most likely to bring an end to the so-called "occupation."
Claims that Israel's presence in the territories causes terrorism are misleading, as they ignore the history of terrorist attacks against Israel and the countless Israeli offers of peace that were rejected by the Palestinians.
The Palestinians Reject Peace at Camp David

©GPO  Sbarro Restaurant in Jerusalem, after it was blown up by a Palestinian suicide bomber (9 August 2001) ©GPO  Bus No. 960 after it was blown up by a Palestinian suicide bomber, near Yagur junction, Haifa (10 April 2002) ©GPO  The remains of the busblown up by a Palestinian suicide bomber, at Patt junction in Jerusalem (18 June 2002)

In July 2000, the United States hosted a Middle East peace summit designed to address the remaining final-status issues of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Israel's willingness to make unprecedented compromises for peace was based on the conviction that only a negotiated settlement could resolve the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
Unfortunately, the Palestinian leadership was not willing to end the conflict. Not only was it unwilling to compromise on any of the difficult and complicated issues, it was not prepared to present any reasonable proposals of its own.
International Criticism of the Palestinians
The Palestinian leadership came under international criticism for the failure of the Camp David summit, particularly after the US blamed the Palestinians directly. The international community could not comprehend the Palestinians' reasons for rejecting a most sweeping peace offer, that would have given the Palestinians virtually all that they had been ostensibly demanding.
Violence as a Strategy
After "analyzing the political positions following the Camp David summit, and in accordance with what brother Abu Amar [Arafat] said, it became clear to the Fatah movement that the next stage necessitates preparation for confrontation."
    Fatah Central Committee member Sakhr Habash told the PA daily
    newspaper Al-Hayat al-Jadida on 7 December 2000."The only way to impose our conditions is inevitably through our blood...the power of the intifada is our only weapon. We should not toss this weapon away until the Arab emergency summit is convened and until we gain international protection."
    Hassan al-Kashef, Director-General of the PA Ministry of Information,
    wrote in his Al-Ayyam column of 3 October 2000

©GPO  Prime Minister Ariel Sharon touching the body of 5 month- old Yehuda Haim Shoham, who was murdered in a terrorist attack near Shilo (11 June 2001) ©GPO  Weapons, rockets and mortars seized on the ship Karine A in the Red Sea that was on its way to the Palestinian Authority for use by Palestinian terrorist organizations (6 January 2002)

The Palestinian leadership realized that it must act in order to regain international support. The Palestinians adopted a strategy whereby violence would be the primary instrument to divert the world's attention away from Palestinian intransigence at Camp David and put pressure on Israel. The Palestinians hoped that the resulting bloodshed would restore their image as victims and bolster their calls for international intervention, leading to a unilateral Israeli withdrawal while the conflict continues.
A Fundamental Breach
The Palestinian decision to use violence contradicted two core commitments that they made prior to Oslo. Yasser Arafat broke his own pledge by which "the PLO renounces the use of terrorism and other acts of violence" and the PLO commits itself "to a peaceful resolution of the conflict between the two sides and declares that all outstanding issues relating to permanent status will be resolved through negotiations."These two core commitments, stipulated in Arafat's 9 September 1993 letter to the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, were the basis of Rabin's decision to sign the Oslo Accords.

September 9, 1993

Mr. Prime Minister,

The signing of the Declaration of Principles marks a new era in the history of the Middle East. In firm conviction thereof, I would like to confirm the following PLO commitments:
The PLO recognizes the right of the State of Israel to exist in peace and security.
The PLO accepts United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338.
The PLO commits itself to the Middle East peace process, and to a peaceful resolution of the conflict between the two sides and declares that all outstanding issues relating to permanent status will be resolved through negotiations.
The PLO considers that the signing of the Declaration of Principles constitutes a historic event, inaugurating a new epoch of peaceful coexistence, free from violence and all other acts which endanger peace and stability. Accordingly, the PLO renounces the use of terrorism and other acts of violence and will assume responsibility over all PLO elements and personnel in order to assure their compliance, prevent violations and discipline violators.
In view of the promise of a new era and the signing of the Declaration of Principles and based on Palestinian acceptance of Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, the PLO affirms that those articles of the Palestinian Covenant which deny Israel's right to exist, and the provisions of the Covenant which are inconsistent with the commitments of this letter are now inoperative and no longer valid. Consequently, the PLO undertakes to submit to the Palestinian National Council for formal approval the necessary changes in regard to the Palestinian Covenant.
Sincerely,
Yasser Arafat
Chairman
The Palestine Liberation Organization
Yitzhak Rabin
Prime Minister of Israel
The Peace ProcessThe Palestinian Path of Violence
Since before the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 and to this day, the Palestinians have refused to take advantage of the many opportunities to reach a negotiated resolution of the conflict. Instead, the Palestinian leadership chose the path of violence, rejecting Israel's every offer of peace. The Palestinians have never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity, as the late Foreign Minister Abba Eban said.
The Road to Peace

©GPO  President Sadat and Prime Minister Menachem Begin in conversation (19 November 1977)

The pattern of Israeli appeals for peace being met with Arab rejection and hostile actions continued unabated for more than a decade after the 1967 war. This was first broken in November 1977, when Egyptian President Anwar Sadat visited Jerusalem. The subsequent negotiations resulted in the Camp David Accords of September 1978 and the March 1979 peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. Israel pulled out of the entire Sinai Peninsula. The thirty-year-old state of war between the two countries ended and internationally recognized boundaries were established. It should be noted that every time Israel met an Arab leader, like President Sadat of Egypt and King Hussein of Jordan, who were ready to make peace and who spoke the language of peace to their own people, Israel made peace with them.
The Camp David Accords of 1978 contained a framework for establishing a comprehensive peace in the Middle East, including a detailed proposal for self-government for Fthe Palestinians in the territories as a stipulated prelude to negotiations over the final status of the territories. Sadly, the Palestinians, supported by other Arab leaders, rejected this opportunity. This Palestinian intransigence persisted for some time despite the model of peaceful resolution represented by the Israeli-Egyptian treaty and despite the numerous initiatives put forward by Israel and others.
Only after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Gulf War and the subsequent changes in the international system and the Middle East did the Palestinians offer to abandon violence and negotiate peace with Israel. In 1991 - 43 years after the establishment of the State of Israel - the Palestinians finally agreed to join the peace process and participate in the 1991 Madrid Peace Conferenceand the 1993 Oslo Accords. Sadly, the Palestinian leadership has not lived up to its commitments to refrain from terror, destroy the terrorist infrastructure and end the incessant incitement to hatred and violence. On the contrary, the Palestinian Authority has aided, abetted and fomented terrorism. Forces directly accountable to Arafat have perpetrated countless acts of terrorism. Palestinian Authority-controlled media has incited the terrorism which has taken so many innocent lives and has greatly damaged the prospects for achieving a negotiated peace.

©GPO		©GPO		©GPO
©GPO		©GPO		©GPO

Photos clockwise:

The governor of Port Said presenting the plaque of the city to Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, passing through the town on his return from an official visit to Egypt (21 January 1982)

Prime Minister Shamir and Deputy Foreign Minister Netanyahu head the Israeli delegation at the Madrid Peace Conference (October 1991)

Senior IDF and Jordanian army officers shake hands at the Israel-Jordan peace treaty signing ceremony (26 October 1994)

Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin meeting in Cairo with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak (2 February 1995)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu conferring with King Hussein of Jordan on the steps of the Royal Palace in Amman (5 August 1996)

Prime Minister Ehud Barak (l.)and Foreign Minister David Levy (r.), meeting Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Foreign Minister Amr Moussa at the presidential palace in Alexandria, Egypt (29 July 1999)
Israel's Willingness to Compromise
The disputed status of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, combined with the refusal of the Palestinians to sign peace agreements with Israel that would define the final borders, means that the precise status of the territories has yet to be determined. And in the negotiations to determine the future status of these disputed territories, Israel's legitimate claims, and not just the Palestinian positions, must be taken into account.
Despite the Jewish people's historic and religious connection to these territories, in order to achieve peace Israel has always been willing to compromise. Israel has no desire to rule over the Palestinians in the territories and Israel's yearning for peace is so strong that all Israeli governments have been willing to make major sacrifices to achieve this goal. Still, the ongoing terrorism has caused many Israelis to doubt whether the Palestinians are truly interested in peace and whether some of the concessions that Israel was prepared to make two years ago are possible.
For negotiations to succeed, a responsible and moderate Palestinian leadership must emerge, one that has abandoned for all time the goal of destroying Israel and one that actively fights terrorism. Until that happens, Palestinian terrorism will continue to destroy innocent lives and Palestinian extremism will undermine the chance of peace for both Palestinians and Israelis.