THINK-ISRAEL

FROM: Rabbis, intellectuals and community leaders from Jewish settlements of Samaria and Judea declared an "Independent Jewish Authority" independent of the state of Israel at Nofim, Israel on 8th September 2011.

If Israel Fails to Extend Sovereignty to Yesha...

by Professor Hillel Weiss
Published: Monday, August 15, 2011,
in Arutz-Sheva
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/ Articles/Article.aspx/10509#.TsH0gz8wuC1

(The author is a noted researcher in the Department of Literature of the Jewish People, Bar-llan University. He is an extra-party political activist and member of the board of the Neemanei Eretz Yisrael organization.)

The initiative led by groups on Israel's political Right to promote the application of the sovereignty of the State of Israel to Judea and Samaria is welcome as long as they do not intend just to "make right-wing noises" and to be content with extending Israel's sovereignty to the larger Jewish communities there and to some of the access roads — this, so as not to clash with the position adopted by the Prime Minister, according to which Jews outside those communities will either have to flee to the large blocs or live under Arab rule.

Every indication given by the Israeli government shows that it is still ready and even anxious for multi-lateral negotiations whose certain outcome will be the eventual dissolution of the State of Israel.

Netanyahu is going easy on the boycott sponsors and refuses to investigate the financial sources of their slander in order to remain "a liberal". He still defends the system of electing judges to the Supreme Court in its present format so as not to engage in open conflict with "the rule of law" spearheaded by the Left.

At the same time, U.S. President Obama is pressing for a resumption of negotiations in order to avoid a unilateral Arab declaration in September and the need for the US to cast a veto in the Security Council. The Quartet is indifferent towards the demand to recognize the Jewish state, and classic European anti-Semitism is bubbling up in this debate among the Russian leadership.

Even before the UN General Assembly 1947 Resolution, mention was made of the 'Jewish State' and certainly of the 'Jewish National Home' in all of the proceedings in the wake of World War I, beginning with the Balfour Declaration in 1917. However, the nations today wonder at their forebears' largesse and reserve their good will only for a secular Israeli state within the dimensions of a 'state of all its citizens', the kind that will ensure that the name of Israel is obliterated.

The Israeli government has never retracted its two-state program! It has not changed its mind about the Oslo Accords, either directly or by implication. Therefore any agreement to hold negotiations is still bound by that hardened psycho-political perspective. Promoting the illegal and unconstitutional act of abandoning the Jewish residents and territory to Arab rule is in effect renewing the exile for Jews who will be subject to pogroms from two artificial and illegitimate countries.

Therefore every Jew must know his rights under international law (in addition to having the love of the Almighty, the Lord of Hosts, who protects him by virtue of the Covenant), and understand that the State of Israel has no authority or representative ability to deny these rights.

In the letter of Iyar 5771 (May 2011) sent by the heads of the regional councils of Judea and Samaria to the Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-Moon, written at the initiative of the Land of Israel Loyalists and herewith attached, it was explained clearly why the national rights of the Jews to Judea, Samaria, and Gaza remain in effect and obligate the UN. The Prime Minster in his recent speech to Congress also said that we are not foreign conquerors in our own land.

Therefore, if the United Nations still presumes to act as an agent for peace and a responsible functionary, it must reaffirm the rights of the Jewish People and of its authorized representative — the State of Israel or other representative agency — to the entire territory to which the Mandate for Palestine once applied, on both sides of the Jordan River, as originally determined at the 1920 San Remo Peace Conference and confirmed two years later by the League of Nations.

Jordan is a state established by Great Britain illegally on part of the territory of the Jewish National Home, just as Syria and Lebanon themselves today occupy considerable parts of the mandated Land of Israel.

We demand that the United Nations Security Council and the President of that body confirm the receipt of this letter and declare their agreement with its contents and devote a session (before any deliberation of requests and demands made by Arabs under any name, or in support of such demands) to the positions taken in this letter.

We demand that provisional representatives of the citizens — to be elected in free, democratic elections to be explained below — who are residents of the areas of the land of Israel liberated from Arab occupation in 1967, be invited to that session.

We demand recognition the exclusive diplomatic entity established by those Jewish residents, to be known henceforth as "The Jewish Authority", until such time as the State of Israel consents to recognize its rights and obligations toward the Jewish people, in accordance with the resolutions of the League of Nations that were later re-recognized by the UN.

On this matter we challenge all nations and peoples to once again recognize — as the State of South Carolina did recently — the exclusive ownership and sovereignty of the Jewish people over the Land of Israel.

Therefore, any implied consent by the United Nations and its institutions or any other international organization to the establishment of an additional state in the Land of Israel, in addition to the Jewish state, is a fraudulent abuse of United Nations resolutions and a rebellion against the treaty between the Creator of the universe and His people, under which the Land of Israel was originally bestowed upon the people of Israel.

Such a consent is liable to result in terrible war world over, not confined to the Middle East, but also involving China, Korea, and Iran and the countries they now oppose, because it will accelerate the seizure of control by Islamist lies and the domination of a murderous political culture in every place that militant Islam has a foothold. This will be particularly true in the nations of Europe where the economy is failing and national identity is diluted.

In the Jewish Authority, non-Jewish residents will also be able to find their place, as long as they do not conduct themselves as a foreign and hostile element against the citizens of the autonomy, which exists as a Jewish state for the Jews, just as America exists for the American people.

One year after the receipt of this letter, independent and free elections will be held by those who consider themselves to be citizens of the Jewish Authority according to a census, and who demonstrate their loyalty to the Jewish Authority under the rules of Jewish Law.

The Jewish Authority will be loyal to the laws of the State of Israel and its institutions, as long as these do not clash with the sovereign existence of the residents of Judea and Samaria who faithfully hold these regions until such time as the State of Israel implements its sovereignty over them.

Foreign residents who continue to see themselves as expressions of Arab or Islamist nationalism, whose purpose is to expel the Jews from their land, as stated explicitly by the head of the 'Palestinian Authority' Abu Mazen and his supporters, are criminals cynically exploiting the tools given to them by the UN, as in the case of the Goldstone Report and the Turkish flotilla.

These people are subverting the proven national history of the Jewish people and its religion and consistently creating a fictitious and imitative history for themselves which never existed in reality. They are widely known as official Holocaust deniers.

It is fitting that international institutions have nothing to do with them and that they are given no foothold in the Jewish Authority, so that what they wished to do others, shall be done to hem.

The Temple Mount and the Temple

The jurisdiction of the Jewish Authority extends over every square meter of the land in danger of being surrendered to the enemy. Therefore the site of the Holy Temple, the Temple Mount, and the Old City of Jerusalem are the heart of the Jewish Authority.

The government of Jordan reneged on the agreements it had reached with the government of Israel regarding the Temple Mount and the Mughrabi Gate, demonstrating its lack of honor.

Since it adopted the false narrative as though the Temple of King Solomon never stood on the Temple Mount, Mount Moriah, the Mount of G-d, we demand, first and foremost, that UNESCO hold strictly monitored excavations conducted by the most prestigious scientific authorities in the field and under our supervision to verify and catalogue all previous archeological findings on the Temple Mount in order to bear out the facts on undeniable history. The Islamic organizations can present all of their own "findings".

At the end of the process, when the historical truth is proven regarding the exclusive rights of the Jewish people, UNESCO must censure all acts of destruction and vandalism that have been carried out on the Temple Mount, while the international, Israeli, and Arab agencies turned a blind eye — a maneuver that was wrongly conceived and evaluated, thus plunging the entire region into acceptance of the continuing Islamic conquest and violation of world peace.

May we be soon privileged to establish the Temple of the G-d of Israel on the Temple Mount, in its most proper role, a house of prayer for all the nations, just as the G-d of Israel is the God of the world and the Creator of heaven and earth Whom we worship and serve.

In order to promote and implement the ideas expressed in this document, we call upon the residents of Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria and everyone to whom the future of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel is important, to identify with the Jewish Authority and to come to the first Convention, which will take place, G-d willing, on the 9th of Elul [8.9.11] At Nofim, near the capital of Samaria, Ariel, may it speedily be built and strengthened.

From Zechariah 8:19: 'Thus saith the LORD of hosts: The fast of the fourth month, and the fast of the fifth, and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth, shall be to the house of Judah joy and gladness, and cheerful seasons; therefore love ye truth and peace.'

Contents of the letter sent by the Heads of Regional Councils to Ban Ki-Moon, United Nations Secretary-General

1 Iyar 5771, May 5, 2011

To: The Secretary-General of the UN Mr. Ban Ki-Moon

New York

Very Honorable Sir,

In this letter we wish to direct your attention to the repeated references by the UN to the areas of our country which were liberated by the State of Israel in the Six Day War as "conquered Palestinian territory".

These areas until that time had been occupied illegally by the Kingdom of Jordan.

For the latest instance when this expression was used, see the UN News Service of March 23, 2011, "UN Secretary-General condemns bombing in western Jerusalem".

In your referring repeatedly to "occupied Palestinian territories", you are concealing from the public the true legal status of the lands to which you refer; in addition, you are causing the Jewish people much grief and are doing them an injustice.

Let us summarize the basic facts here:

The lands were liberated in 1967 from illegal Jordanian occupation which began in 1949 and continued until June 1967. These lands belong eternally, legally and unequivocally to the Jewish people, as shall be demonstrated clearly:

The entire Land of Israel was promised and granted in perpetuity by the Creator of the Universe to the Jewish people, the offspring of the forefathers of the nation of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as written again and again in the first Five Books of the Bible (for example: Gen. 15:21; Deut. 1:8, and so forth).

This promise is also accepted by those who believe in Christianity and whose sacred canon includes these books as well and was corroborated in various places in the Quran, the scared book of the Moslems (for example, in Sura 2, and others). This basic principle of Jewish faith is supported in the daily prayers of the Jewish people from time immemorial up to and including the present day.

Despite the destruction of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem and the violent exiling of the Jewish people from its land by the Roman Empire at the beginning of the Common Era, after 1000 years of uninterrupted Jewish habitation in the land, the various Jewish communities throughout the world maintained their spiritual and historical connection to their Holy Land.

This connection earned official recognition by Great Britain in November 1917 (in the Balfour Declaration), and then again by the entire international community in 1920, when Great Britain was entrusted with implementing the Balfour Declaration by a mandate over the Land of Israel, again in 1922 (when the League of Nations confirmed the granting the mandate to Great Britain), and later in December 1925 (when the Anglo-American Convention Regarding the Mandate over the Land of Israel, which had been signed one year previously by US President Coolidge).

In this way, the granting of de jure sovereignty of the Jewish people over the land of Israel was acknowledged - on both sides of the Jordan River — as determined by the Allies in the Resolution adopted at San Remo in 1920 and as formulated officially in the mandate over the Land of Israel .

During the entire mandatory period, Great Britain devoted its efforts to thwart the implementation of the instructions it was given in the mandate by issuing a series of "White Papers" which distorted beyond recognition the original intention of the mandate.

As the League of Nations began to crumble, the founders of the UN, which you now head, Mr. Secretary-General, promised the continuation of the legal rights of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel through article 80 of the founding Charter of the UN.

The General Assembly of the UN did recommend the partition of the Land of Israel (1947), but it was a still-born recommendation in any event because it was rejected out of hand by the Arabs of the Land of Israel and the leaders of the Arab countries who refused to accept the Jewish people who were returning to their homeland.

This resolution of the General Assembly was never legal, was never binding, and died 63 years ago.

The war that was forced upon Israel (1947-1949) by the invasion of the armies of five Arab states ended with the signing of armistice agreement which eternalized — until the coming of real peace — the military lines which the parties had reached when the cease-fire went into effect. These agreements stated explicitly that these lines should not be seen as final borders and must not be allowed to influence in any way the permanent borders when they are determined in peace agreements.

That — Mr. Secretary-General — is the infamous "green line" which it now seems that the UN considers — totally unreasonably — to be the permanent border ('67 borders) between Israel and the Arabs of Judea and Samaria.

These Arabs were not a party to any cease-fire agreement and did not see themselves as a separate nation that would demand even the theoretical right to self-determination. This can be easily learned by their thundering silence during the over 18 years of illegal Jordanian occupation and annexation (1949-1967). Their silence reverberates to this very day.

In 1967, war was again forced upon tiny Israel — the "Six Day War" — by four Arab states — Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq, as an inevitable outcome of the UN removing its small force which had preserved the cease-fire between Israel and Egypt; of the blockade that Egypt imposed on international shipping to and from the Israeli port of Eilat; of the unwillingness of the international community to intervene and of the uniting of Egyptian, Syrian, and Jordanian military forces under a single command.

One of the amazing results of this war was to expel the Jordanian military forces from Judea and Samaria (what Jordan had called its "West Bank"), and put an end to the illegal Jordanian occupation that had lasted 19 years.

Naively and unwisely, Israel refrained from annexing Judea and Samaria to the State of Israel — as it was legally obliged to do under Israeli constitutional law. For humanitarian reasons — Israel voluntarily extended to these areas the limitations of the laws of war.

This, Mr. Secretary-General, was a measure taken by Israel that it was not required by law to do (as it would have been, had this land been seized in war from a recognized sovereign power). This facts show how absurd it is to consider these areas held by the Jewish people as "occupied territory" — even if there are jurists in Israel who worked and are working against the rights of the Jewish people for reasons too convoluted to fathom.

As even a first year student of Middle East history knows, the Arabs have responded with resounding Nos to peace with Israel, to negotiations with Israel and even to the possibility of Arab recognition of the State of Israel.

It was only in 1979 that Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel, and much later in 1994, Jordan followed.

The Arabs who live in the Land of Israel refuse to this day to put an end to their hostilities, incitement, and crimes of terror toward the Jewish people and the Jewish state. It is true that several "Palestinian" factions have started to negotiate with Israel but have never shown any willingness to bring these negotiations to a successful conclusion — despite the many and painful concessions that Israel has offered in order to achieve peace.

The time has come for the international community represented by the UN to recognize the fact that the Arabs of Land of Israel do not want to achieve genuine peace with the State of Israel. Their sole desire is to destroy Israel. The time has certainly come to renew international recognition of the eternal rights of the Jewish people over its historic homeland.

Two cases in modern history should be examined, Mr. Secretary-General, (1) the case of Namibia; (2) the case of Jordan.

[1] Just as the Allies after World War I at San Remo gave the mandate over the Land of Israel to Great Britain, so did the Union of South Africa receive a similar mandate over Southwest Africa. Unlike the British, South Africa refused to give up the mandate it had been entrusted with.

Then when the UN General Assembly was recommending the illegal partition of the land of Israel — in contravention of the explicit terms of the mandate and with a gross violation of the rights of the national beneficiary of the mandate, the Jewish people — in the case of Namibia, the UN increased its pressure on South Africa until it ceded its mandatory power and the new Republic of Namibia was finally established in 1990.

Mr. Secretary-General, there is a flagrant injustice in the UN's position toward Israel which is particularly marked in contrast to its attitude toward Namibia. In the case of the Land of Israel /Palestine, the rights of the national beneficiary — the Jewish people — were denied by force, while in the case of Namibia, the UN exercised military force to ensure that the goals of the mandate were accomplished in full. It is no wonder, Mr. Secretary-General, that the UN is considered by many to be a biased, unfair, and even anti-Semitic organization.

[2] The kingdom of Jordan occupies 75% of mandatory Land of Israel. The ruling elite there, the Hashemite Family supported by Bedouin tribes, represent no more than 30% of the population of the kingdom. The remaining 70% of the population are members of the Arab "Palestinian" people, of which the Arabs of the Land of Israel see themselves as a part.

Therefore it is false to claim that the Arabs of the Land of Israel are stateless; on the contrary, in the neighboring kingdom of Jordan, they are a solid majority and they live there on the soil of "Palestine". If the Arabs who currently live in the Land of Israel prefer to live in their own country, and not in a Jewish state, they are free to join their brothers on the eastern bank of the Jordan River, where they can live in peace and tranquility among their own flesh and blood and more importantly — people of their own culture.

We must also consider the ramifications of establishing an additional Arab state in the very heart of the Land of Israel , Mr. Secretary-General. One can learn from the speeches of the Hizbullah leader in Lebanon and the Hamas leader in Gaza what fate awaits more than half a million Jews living completely legally in Judea and Samaria and eastern Jerusalem, if G-d forbid Israel were to withdraw from these areas.

But we need not go there to see: the representatives of the Palestinian Authority make it clear that they aspire to a territory they will rule in the future which has no Jews — Judenrein. The Palestinian Authority even passed a law that imposes the death penalty on any of their people who dares to sell real estate to a Jew.

Do you understand, Mr. Secretary-General, what it means to uproot a half a million people, men, women, and children? The State of Israel finds it hard to supply housing to the eight or nine thousand Jewish people it expelled from their homes and made jobless, when Israel withdrew from Gaza. Is the UN also prepared to expel all of the Arabs who live in the tiny state of Israel into a new state that the UN hopes to establish for them — at the expense of the Jewish people?

In addition, it is clear how the new Palestinian state would relate to the State of Israel, which until the present day it refuses to recognize as a Jewish state. The demand that Israel hand over its land to the Arabs is dooming the Middle East to more wars of barbaric Arab aggression whose possible consequences we do not even dare utter. Is this your intention, Mr. Secretary-General?

These are the historical and legal facts. The demand that Israel hand over to the Arabs land that belongs to the Jewish people both by virtue of the Biblical promise and by international law is nothing more than a demand that Israel commit national suicide and cancel all of the Jewish people's territorial and legal rights to its homeland.

Therefore, the responsibility is upon you to advise and instruct your organization to renew the international recognition of the international community for the legal rights of the Jewish people subject to article 80 of the UN founding charter and at the same time, to allow the Arabs living on Jewish land this solution for their aspiration to self-determination in their own state — in the kingdom of Jordan.

If you choose, Mr. Secretary-General, to ignore the historical and legal facts included in this letter and continue the present unjust and illegal policy of the UN, we will see ourselves as free to act according to the clear interest of the Jewish people, and this includes — at the very least — appeal to an appropriate international judiciary to sue for damages against those responsible for these illegal actions.

Sincerely,
Gershon Mesika, Attorney-at-L,
Head of the Shomron (Samaria) Regional Council