The legal uncontested claim of Israel to the Jewish Land in the Mandate for Palestine

When the U.N. passes a resolution it is only a non-binding recommendation with no legal standing. If accepted by the parties it becomes a valid agreement and or Treaty.

In the case of Israel and the Arabs, the U.N. passed a non-binding resolution in 1947 for the creation of a Jewish State and an Arab State.  The Arabs did not accept the U.N. non-binding resolution of 1947 for a Jewish State and an Arab State. Thus the resolution is not binding and has no legal standing. As such Israel's rights to the land falls back to the terms in the San Remo Treaty of 1920 which delineated The Mandate for Palestine to the Jewish people with all its terms without any deviation.

If anyone is contesting the legitimacy and sovereignty of the territorial boundaries assigned based on the San Remo Treaty of 1920 and the Treaty of Sevres of 1920 Article 95. You now have to contest and question the legitimacy and sovereignty including the territorial boundaries of the 21 Arab State created by the same Allied powers including Transjordan (Jordan).

Therefore if you accept the 21 Arab State and Jordan as assigned by the Allied Powers after WWI, you must accept Israel's sovereignty and boundaries as stated by the Supreme Allied Powers in the San Remo Treaty, who took into consideration the January 1919 Faisal Weizmann Agreement. The San Remo Treaty of 1920 assigned the Mandate for Palestine entirely which includes Jerusalem to the Jewish people. The San Remo Treaty terms of 1920 are valid in perpetuity.

YJ Draiman

*https://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/San_Remo_conference.html

**https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/britman.htm

***http://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/Section_I,_Articles_1_-_260

Middle East Facts  ·  Posts  ›  All (112)    https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1681760633145942228#allposts

CLAIMS OF THE JEWISH AND ARAB PEOPLES UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW TO THE RIGHT OF POLITICAL SELF DETERMINATION IN PALESTINE

CLAIMS OF THE JEWISH AND RAB PEOPLES UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW TO THE

RIGHT OF POLITICAL SELF DETERMINATION IN ALESTINE

by Wallace Brand

Introduction

Most people don't understand that Palestine, or at least the alleged

"Palestinian People," has no right to be sovereign even though they

read UN Conventions dealing with the right of a “people” that

appear to say any "people" has the right to self-determination.

They haven't obeyed the scholar's imperative: "read on" to where

the Charter provides for "sovereign equality". These are the legal

code words guaranteeing the territorial integrity of sovereign

states.

CNH Long became the Dean of the Yale Medical School. When he

was a freshman at Oxford, one of his friends found in the 600 year

old rule book, a rule permitting the practice of archery in a certain

way between the hours of 2 and 6. In the intervening 550 years the

way had become a boulevard and then a major traffic artery. When

they practiced one day, they blocked traffic and caused a

considerable traffic jam.

They were haled before the Wardens who said they would be 2

punished. One of the students pointed to the rule, the Wardens

replied: “Read on.” and pointed to another rule two pages on that

provided: “When practicing archery one must be wearing

have read further.

By the 70s the natural law provision entitling a “people” to self determination

had become international law. But the international

lawyers drafting these provisions had inserted into the rules a

provision for “sovereign equality” — legal code words standing

for the proposition that a sovereign may not invade the boundary

of another sovereign’s territory. So while the law might provide for

the self-determination of a “people”, they could not unilaterally

secede from a preexisting state. That is the rule followed by the

European Union and NATO.

Most people also think that the basis for Israel's sovereignty was

the UN General Assembly's Resolution 181, the Partition

Resolution, not the 1920 San Remo Resolution and the

Balfour Declaration policy adopted by the Allies word-for-word at

San Remo.

People were persuaded as above because the UN Committee on the

Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People,

dominated by Arabs and Africans, got a law professor at George

Washington University W.T. Mallison (and his wife Sally) to write

a legal opinion to the effect that the occupation of Judea and

Samaria was illegal under international law. The Committee

published it in pamphlet form in 1979. It was entitled "An

International Law Analysis of the Major United Nations

Resolutions Concerning the Palestine Question". How many

people on the street know anything at all about international law? 3

Most people reading it assumed that the UN General Assembly

was like the Congress. They assumed that when the UN General

Assembly enacted a resolution, it became a part of international

law. That is not so and the Mallisons did nothing to disabuse them

of that assumption. These UN General Assembly resolutions are

only recommendations. If they are accepted by all parties to a

dispute, the parties may enter into a treaty. That becomes a part of

international law. See e.g. The Effect of Resolutions of the U.N.

General Assembly on Customary International Law by Stephen M.

Schwebel, deputy legal advisor to the US Department of State in

Proceedings of the Annual Meeting (American Society of

International Law), Vol. 73(APRIL 26-28, 1979), pp. 301-309.

He said:

"It is trite but no less true that the General Assembly of the United

Nations lacks legislative powers. Its resolutions are not, generally

speaking, binding on the States Members of the United Nations or

binding in international law at large. It could hardly be otherwise.

We do not have a world legislature. If we had one, hopefully it

would not be composed as is the General Assembly on the basis of

the unrepresentative principle of the sovereign equality of states,

states which in turn are represented by governments so many of

which are themselves not representative of their peoples.

"As the [United States] Secretary of State recently put it: 'In

considering the decision making process in the United Nations, it

is important to bear in mind that while the one-state, one-vote

procedure for expressing the sense of the General Assembly is

from many points of view unsatisfactory, the incorporation of this

principle in the Charter was balanced by giving the Assembly only

recommendatory powers.'"

Schwebel went on to say there were some International Lawyers 4

that tried to fit recurring statements in UN Resolutions into the

category of long standing custom or practice between or among

states.

The Mallison legal opinion assumed that the UN Partition

Resolution was a part of International Law. It divided

Jews, one part to the Arabs, and one part was to become, at least

initially, a "corpus separatum" to be ruled by a Committee of the

UN. That was the Jerusalem area -- containing many religious sites

that were holy for all three major religions.

That the legal opinion was a gross distortion of international law

outraged Julius Stone, an Australian,world recognized international

lawyer. In response he wrote a book published in 1981 entitled

Israel and Palestine: Assault on the Law of Nations. In it he

showed that the Major UN General Assembly Resolutions were not

international law because Resolution 181, the Partition Resolution,

although accepted by the Jews was not accepted by the Arabs and

therefore it died at birth. For that reason the Jews were not limited

to the territory they were assigned in Resolution 181. Also, the

Jews were not illegally in the Jerusalem area because the corpus

separatum also died at birth along with Resolution 181.

Mallison's legal opinion also opined that Arabs residing in

Palestine had, under international law, a right to self-determination.

But that right has never been awarded under international law in

the case of attempted secession where its application would have

empowered the UN to redraw the boundaries of an existing

sovereign state. It has only been applied to cases of decolonization.

Mallison ignored that all of Palestine west of the Jordan River was

recognized by some 53 states in 1922 as being owned by the Jews

when they approved the Palestine Mandate. Some 52 were

members of the League of Nations that approved it as a treaty and

the United States that wasn't a member of the League approved it 5

by a Joint Resolution of Congress in 1922 and in a separate treaty,

the Anglo-American Convention of 1924.

The chronology is this. At the Paris Peace Talks in 1919, claims to

the European and Middle East territories that the Allies had won in

WWI, for them a defensive war, were the subject of claims by

European parties and also by the Arab people and the Jewish

People. The Arabs through King Hussein claimed Syria, Iraq and

Palestine — the Jews, through the World Zionist Organization

claimed only Palestine, both east and west of the Jordan River. The

Allies disposed of the claims to European territories at

they had reconvened at San Remo in 1920. There they placed the

political rights to Syria and Mesopotamia (now Iraq) in trust for

the Arab people who were in the majority in those areas when the

Arabs were capable of exercising sovereignty and placed the

political rights to Palestine in trust for the Jews in the light of their

historic association with Palestine. Why? At the time the Jewish

population in all of Palestine was only about 10% of the total, even

though the Jews had enjoyed a majority population in the

Jerusalem area since 1863 and a plurality since 1845. The British,

in their Balfour policy framed in November, 1917 had decided to

handle this by placing the political rights in trust not only until the

people in the territory were capable of exercising sovereignty but

also not until the Jews had attained a population majority by their

hard work to bring back to Palestine Jews from the diaspora to get

a population majority. This would avoid an "antidemocratic"

government, rule by a 10% minority — like the later French

recognition of the Alawites as sovereign over Syria that has

resulted in so much death and destruction. To award the Jewish

People only the equitable ownership of the political rights to

Palestine — the rights to self-determination, they would place

these political rights in trust, not to vest until the Jews had both a

population majority as well as the capability of exercising

sovereignty and would require the trustee to facilitate Jewish 6

immigration (but not Arab immigration) so as to obtain that

majority more quickly. However between 1920 and 1922 events in

Syria and in transJordan, Palestine east of the Jordan River had

motivated Britain to limit the area placed in trust for the Jews to

the territory of Palestine west of the Jordan. The Palestine Mandate

was drafted to specify in detail the new British Policy in Article 25,

a temporary limitation on Jewish settlement east of the Jordan.

In 1947 the British decided to abdicate their responsibilities as

trustee of the political rights to Palestine in 1948. The political

rights of the Jews matured in 1948 when the Jews attained a

population majority in the area within the Armistice boundary.

Instead of only an equitable interest, now, without formal

acclamation, the Jews now had a legal interest in the political

rights and the Jewish National Home had matured into a Jewish

reconstituted Commonwealth as originally conceived in the

framing of the Balfour Declaration. If those Arab people residing

in Palestine west of the Jordan had any right to self-determination,

the UN would have to redraw the boundary of the sovereign state

of Israel to exclude at least East Jerusalem from the sovereign

State of Israel, and also to exclude Judea and Samaria to which

Israel was entitled but to which Israel had not as yet asserted its

rights. This would violate Israel's territorial integrity that was

guaranteed by the UN Charter. My legal opinion to that effect can

be found at SSRN.com/abstract=2385304 and is shown below in

detail.

International Law is derived principally from treaties between or

among states, but also can be derived from long standing custom

between or among states. In 1984 those pushing Palestinian

statehood financed the publication of a scholarly appearing journal

entitled Palestinian Yearbook of International Law responding to

Professor Stone's treatise. In it, in an article entitled "The Juridical

Basis of Palestinian Self-Determination" the Mallisons attempted

to resurrect their legal opinion by trying to fit the UN's Partition 7

Resolution, that had died at birth, into the category of a

longstanding custom or practice of many states. That is hard to

accept because the Arab states that were a major part of the group

that dominated the UN and its Committee on the Exercise of the

Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, at the time of the

Partition Resolution had not accepted the Resolution as

international law but instead had rejected it so violently they had

gone to war.

PART I: "Roots Of Israel's Sovereignty And

Boundaries In International Law: In Defense Of

The Levy Report

Part I first examines the legal basis of the Levy report, which

concluded that Jewish settlements are legal. In fact, the legality of

Israel's presence in Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem was res

judicata as of April 25, 1920, when [at the San Remo Conference]

World Jewry received a beneficial interest in the political rights to

Palestine that was intended to mature into a legal interest. The

policy for the Arab States that were established at around the same

time by other Mandates was to bestow on the current Arab

inhabitants of those states an equitable interest in the political

rights to those states, but the beneficiary for Mandated Palestine

was not the Jews residing in Palestine but World Jewry. The

Mandate thus confirmed a living connection between the Jews and

their homeland, extending over some 3700 years. Modern

"Palestine was legally recognized as a Jewish National Home -- as

a prelude to [2] a reconstituted Jewish State," which would come

into being when the Jews in Palestine were in the majority. Part I

also discusses the sorry history of Britain’s role as trustee.

In sum, "the Mandate system provided in Article 22 of the League 8

of Nations’ Covenant was designed to help states that had been

subject to Ottoman occupation for 400 years, to become

independent after they learned democratic principles, formed

political parties and were able to self govern. An exception was the

Mandate for Palestine where the Jewish People who had largely

been driven out of Palestine and dispersed by the Romans, were

recognized as the equitable owners of the political rights." World

Jewry became the cestui que trust.

The  decision  on  whether  the  Arabs  or  the  Jews  have 

sovereignty  over  all  of  Palestine  west  of  the  Jordan 

River  under  International  Law  is  res  judicata,  lawyer 

talk for "the issue has already been decided".

We tell you below who the judges were, what gave them 

jurisdiction or authority to make the decision, when the 

competing  claims  were  received  and  when  they  were 

acted  upon,  how  the  Judges  communicated  their 

decision,  and  why  the  decision  was  to  provide  a  two‐

step  process,  first  a  Jewish  National  Home  and  then  a 

Jewish State.

The  recent  Levy  Report  is  one  of  a  series  of  legal 

opinions  by  several  people,  each  independently 

reaching  the  same  conclusion.  This  is  the  conclusion 

that World Jewry has had as of 1920, a Jewish National 

Home in  all  of  Palestine,  or  since  1922  at least in  that 

part of Palestine west of the Jordan River. That National 

Home  was  always  intended  to  be  a  prelude  to  a 

reconstituted  Jewish State in Palestine.  It was a part of 

the  mandate  system  provided  for  in  the  League  of 

Nations  Covenant  or  charter,  Article  22.  These 

mandated  areas  were  areas  ruled  from  afar  for  many 9

years  and  were  intended  to  be  helped  by  more 

established states to become self‐governing states when 

they  were  found  to  be  ready  for  it.  The  Mandate  for

Palestine  had  different standards  for  statehood.  It  was 

to  become  a  reconstituted  viable  Jewish  State  of  Israel 

when it met two standards originally established i.e.  to 

attain  a  majority  of  Jewish  population  in  the  area 

governed,  and  to  become  as  capable  of  exercising 

sovereignty as any modern European State.

Recent Levy Report on whether settlements  in Judea, 

Samaria and East Jerusalem are illegal

I started my own inquiry and analysis several years ago. 

It was commenced before  the recent publication of  the 

report  of  the  Levy  Commission  [1]  finding  that  Jewish 

Settlements  in  Judea  and  Samaria  were  not  illegal  as 

Article 49 of the 4th Geneva Convention [2] prohibiting 

the  "deportation  or  transfer"  of  its  citizens  was  not 

applicable  to  decisions  of  individual  Israeli  citizens  to 

move their place of residence. Permitting them to do so 

or  even  facilitating  the  relocation  was  not  the 

proscribed  exercise  of  State  Power.  The  Levy  Report

held that the 4th Geneva Convention was directed solely 

at prohibiting the exercise of state power. Under Article 

2  of  the  Convention,  Any  occupation  must  be  of  the 

territory  of  another  party.    But  below  we  show  that

Palestine  west  of  the  Jordan  belonged  to  the  Jewish

People in 1967, not another party.  The report also held 

that the claim by Israel to the ownership of the political 10

rights  to  this  territory  was  a  good  claim  based  on  the 

1920 San Remo Resolution and on  the British Mandate 

for  Palestine  as  of  1922  [3]  because  The  San  Remo 

decision,  a  treaty  among  the  Principal  Allied  War 

Powers, had  adopted  the  1917  Balfour  Declaration  of 

British Policy [4] with the result that it had now become 

International Law. The 1922 League of Nations Mandate 

for  Palestine,  providing  detail  for  administering  the 

content of the Balfour Declaration [5] confirmed the San 

Remo  agreement  as  the  source  of  Jewish  political  or 

national  rights  to  Palestine,  with  a  new  Article  25

intended  to  limit  Jewish  settlement  East  of  the  Jordan 

River.

Other opinions reaching the same conclusion

In the course of my own inquiry, I learned that before I 

had  started,  Dr.  Jacques  Gauthier  had  compiled  a 

monumental  1400  page  doctoral  thesis,  [6]  Dr. 

Gauthier's  work  was  followed  by  a  legal  tome  of  732 

pages written by Howard Grief, Esq. a Canadian lawyer 

now residing in  Israel.[7] Grief's book was followed by 

that of a non‐lawyer, Mr. Salomon Benzimra of Toronto, 

who stated in a much shorter and more readable work

— with helpful maps — the factual premises leading to 

the  legal  conclusions  of  Gauthier  and  Grief.  His  book 

was published in Kindle by Amazon in November, 2011. 

[8]  My  own  view  was  initially  published  on‐line  in  a 

blog — Think‐Israel.org — but  thereafter, with greater 11

documentation,  in  a  two  part  op  ed  in  a  conservative 

newspaper in Israel known as Arutz Sheva. [9]

My  legal  opinion  was  followed  by  the  opinion  of  Dr. 

Cynthia  Wallace,[10]  who  had  been  retained  by  a 

Christian  Evangelical group.  Finally, a  recent  report  by 

the  Levy  Commission  authorized  by  the  current  Prime 

Minister  of  Israel  [English  translation  of  the  legal 

arguments in the Levy Report (updated) [11] contained 

the legal  opinions  of  three  distinguished  Israeli jurists. 

One  was  the  late  Justice  Edmund  Levy,  formerly  a 

Justice of the Supreme Court of Israel. These jurists, for 

the  first  time,  delivered  an  opinion  on  the  status  of 

Judea,  Samaria  and  East  Jerusalem  that  was  not 

dominated by an Israeli left wing Labour Government.

All  these  opinions  have  only  minor  differences  and 

reach  the  same  conclusion  — that  World  Jewry  owns 

the political or national rights to all of Palestine West of 

the Jordan, and possibly some of that east of the Jordan 

as well. Legal opinions reaching the same conclusion, to 

my knowledge, go back at least to 1993 [12] so it cannot 

be said to be a recent politically inspired  fabrication as 

some of its critics have charged. See especially, "Israel's 

Rights  to  Samaria"  [13]  and  excellent  articles  by 

Douglas  Feith  and  Elliott  A.  Green.[14]  Feith  was  later 

the  Deputy  Secretary  of  Defense  for  Policy  under 

Rumsfeld in  the George W Bush Administration; Elliott

Green is an Israeli researcher. The critics with this view

have responded ad hominem but few have raised issues 

of  fact  or  law.    More  recently  I  have  encountered  the 

opinion  of  the  acclaimed  international  lawyer,  the  late 12

Julius  Stone  of  Australia,  the  author  of  Israel  and 

Palestine: Assault on the Law of Nations. [15a]

The major points of the Levy Report

In  the  Levy  Report,  the  first issue was whether  Jewish 

settlements in Judea, Samaria, and East Jerusalem, three 

areas invaded by  the Arab Legion in 1948 and illegally 

occupied until 1967, were unlawful. The Israeli Labour 

Government  lawyer,  Theodor  Meron  [15b]  had 

suggested  the  proper  law  to  apply  was  the  law  of 

"belligerent  occupation." Belligerent occupation  occurs 

when a belligerent state invades the territory of another 

sovereign  state  with  the  intention  of  holding  the 

territory  at  least  temporarily.  That  law  is  based  on 

Article  43  of  the  4th  Hague  Convention  of  1907  that 

assumes  that  land  being  occupied  has  a  legitimate 

sovereign.  It  is  not  applicable  because  Jordan  was 

illegally  occupying  it  after  an  aggressive  invasion  in 

1948.  Another  Labour  Party lawyer,  Talia  Sasson,  [16] 

also  claimed  the  occupation  was  illegal,  also  assumed 

belligerent  occupation,  and  strongly  criticized  the 

settlements.  But  even  if  belligerent  occupation  were

found  applicable,  there  would  have  to  be  shown  that

under  the  Geneva  Convention  the  state  of  Israel  had

"deported or transferred" the "settlers". These "settlers" 

[17] were individuals who had decided on their own for 

economic or religious reasons to move to a new place to 

live  outside  the  1949  Armistice  "Green  Line".  Some  of 

them  were  re‐settlers,  who  just  wanted  to  return  to 13

their homes — after the area had been liberated. Their 

homes were in a place  that had been illegally occupied 

by Jordan and they had been expelled by Jordan in 1948 

or  thereafter.  They  clearly  were  not  "deported"  by 

Israel and if they relocated under their own motivation 

for patriotic reasons, religious reasons or just to go back 

to the home from which they were expelled in 1948, no 

state  had  "transferred"  them.  They  simply  moved  for 

their own reasons.

The  term  "transfer" must  be  distorted  to  be applied  to 

situations it simply was not intended to cover such as a 

movement  of  that  kind.  The  4th  Geneva  Convention  is 

directed  at  state  action,  not  the  action  of  individuals. 

The  earlier  opinions  of  Labour  Government  lawyers 

took  a  Convention  that  was  directed  at  states  and 

attempted  to  apply  it  to  individuals  by  holding  that  it 

meant  that  the  State  of  Israel  was  required  to  prevent 

its Jewish  citizens  from  moving  where  they  wanted  to 

even  though  preventing  them from  doing  so  would 

violate  the  UN  Universal  Declaration  of Human  Rights, 

Articles  13  and  15(2).[18]  One  of  the  authors  of  the 

Levy  Report  had  in  2011  written  about  the 

interpretation that distorted the word "transfer".[19]

After finding that the Geneva Convention did not apply, 

the Levy Commission looked to determine the state that

did  have  sovereignty  over  the  area  conquered  by  the

Arab Legion in 1948.[20]

In  1948,  the  Arab  Legion,  acting  as  the  army  of 

transJordan that later became the Nation State of Jordan, 

invaded  the  area  that  had  been  ruled  by  the  British14

Mandatory  government  for  Palestine  as  the  trustee 

under  the Mandate  for  Palestine.  It  was  soon  after the 

Mandate  or  trust  had  been  abandoned  by  its  trustee,

Great  Britain.  Israel  had  announced  its  independence 

and  was  ruling  as  the  reconstituted  State  of  Israel  as 

had  been  recommended  by  the  UN  General  Assembly 

Resolution 181.[21]

The Arab Legion was an Army consisting in the main of 

Arab  transJordanian  soldiers  but  they  were  supplied 

with  arms  by  the  British  and  led  by  British  Officers 

under  the  command  of  British  General  Glubb,  (Glubb 

Pasha)  even  though  Britain  the  US  and  many  other 

countries  had  embargoed  arms  to  Israel.  For  some  19 

years,  from  1948  to  1967,  Jordan  illegally  occupied 

what  had  been Judea,  Samaria  and  East  Jerusalem. 

Under its rule all the 58 synagogues in the area but one 

were  destroyed;  some  38,000  tombstones  from  the 

Jewish Cemetery on the Mount of Olives were broken or 

defaced;  all  Jews  were  expelled  from  the  area  it 

acquired.  Jordan's  promises  in  the  1948  Armistice 

Agreement  to  permit  visits  by  Christians  and  Jews  to 

their holy places were not kept.  In 1967, when  the IDF 

reached  the  Western  Wall  of  the  Temple  Mount,  they 

found a latrine had been built against it.

While  the  former leftist  Labour  Government  lawyers 

had  held  after  1967  that  Israeli  was  holding  the 

territory under  the  Law  of Belligerent Occupation, it is 

hard  to  see  how  they  arrived  at  that  conclusion.  That 

doctrine only applies to belligerent occupation against a 

lawful  sovereign  in  an  area.  Only  two  countries  in  the15

whole  world,  Britain  and  Pakistan  had  recognized 

Jordan's sovereignty over what they renamed the "West 

Bank".  All  of  Jordan's  territory  dating  back  to  before 

1948 was on the East Bank of the River Jordan. Perhaps 

they  renamed  the  area  the  Israelis  had  liberated  —

called  Judea, Samaria and East  Jerusalem since historic 

times — "The West Bank" because they would look silly 

claiming  that  the  Jews  were  illegally  occupying  Judea. 

(Hats off to Professor Steven Plaut)

The 1920 San Remo Resolution

Israel's roots in International Law start in the San Remo 

Resolution  of 1920 and not as most assume, in  the UN 

General Assembly Resolution  of 1947.  It was  the latter 

that  recommended  Partition  of  Palestine  into  an  Arab 

and a Jewish state. In that resolution Jerusalem and the 

nearby  holy  places  were  to  be  held  separately  as  a 

corpus separatum at least  temporarily under control  of 

the UN. It was a recommendation that had no force and 

no effect because one of the parties it was addressed to, 

the Arabs, rejected it and went to war.

What is International Law

International  Law  is  created  by  treaties  (also  called 

"conventions)  between  and  among  states  or  by  long 

standing  custom.  International  Law  cannot  be  created 

by the UN. The UN General Assembly does not have that 

authority;  nor  does  any  international  entity.  The 16

International Court of Justice has no authority to create 

International  law.  This  is  particularly  true  where 

International  Law  recognizes  sovereignty  over  areas

such  as  Palestine.  That  is  because  the  UN  Charter  in 

Article  80  says  in  pertinent  part,  "...nothing  in  this 

Chapter shall be construed in or of itself to alter in any 

manner  the  rights  whatsoever  of  any  states  or  any 

peoples  or  the  terms  of  existing  international 

instruments  to  which  Members  of  the  United  Nations 

may respectively be parties. [22]

Its  being  saved  is  also  the  consequence  of  the  legal 

doctrines of "acquired legal rights" and of "estoppel. As 

explained  by  Howard  Grief  "the  principle  of  'acquired 

legal  rights'  which,  as  applied  to  the  Jewish  people, 

means that the rights they acquired or were recognized 

as  belonging  to  them  when  Palestine  was  legally 

recognized  by  52  nations as  the  Jewish National Home

[as  a  prelude  to  a  reconstituted  Jewish  State]  are  not 

affected  by  the  termination  of  the  treaty  or  the  acts  of 

international law which were the source of those rights. 

This principle already existed when the Anglo‐American 

Convention  came  to  an  end  simultaneously  with  the 

termination of the Mandate for Palestine on May 14‐15, 

1948.  It  has  since  been  codified  in  Article  70(1)(b)  of 

the  1969  Vienna  Convention  on  the  Law  of  Treaties. 

This  principle  of international law would apply even if 

one  of  the  parties  to  the  treaty  failed  to  perform  the 

obligations  imposed  on  it,  as  was  the  case  with  the 

British  government  in  regard  to  the  Mandate  for 

Palestine.17

The reverse side of the principle of acquired legal rights 

is  the  doctrine  of  estoppel  which  is  also  of  great 

importance  in  preserving  Jewish  national  rights.  This 

doctrine  prohibits  any  state  from  denying  what  it 

previously  admitted  or  recognized in  a  treaty  or  other

international agreement. In the Convention of 1924, the 

United  States  recognized  all  the  rights  recognized  as 

belonging  to  the  Jewish  people  under  the  Mandate,  in 

particular  the  right  of  Jewish  settlement  anywhere  in 

Palestine  or  the  Land  of  Israel.  Therefore  the  US 

government is legally estopped today from denying the 

right of  Jews in  Israel to establish settlements in Judea, 

Samaria  and  Gaza,  which  have  been  approved  by  the 

government of Israel." [23]

Article  80  is  in  UN  Chapter  XII  that  gives  the  UN  the

authority  to  establish  and  administer  trust  territories. 

That is pertinent because  Israel once was a "mandate". 

The UN calls them "trusteeships". "Mandate" is what the 

League  of  Nations,  the  UN's  predecessor  in  world 

government  called  an  area  placed  in  trust  until  it  was 

capable of self government. Recognition of this political 

or  national  right  was  saved  by  Jews  concerned  about

the rights under the British Mandate for Palestine when 

the UN was given authority to deal with trusteeships as 

the  Mandate  was  a  trusteeship  under  the  League  of 

Nations name. [24]

The Paris Peace Talks and the decision at San Remo18

To  understand  the  San  Remo  Agreement  we  must  go 

back in time to WWI when the Turkish Ottoman Empire 

entered  the War on  the side of Germany. Germany and 

Turkey  lost  that  war.  They  entered  into  an  Armistice 

Agreement  on  November  11,  1918.  As  the  holder  of 

territory after  being  the winner  of a defensive war  the 

Principal  Allied  War  Powers  — The  British 

Commonwealth, France, the US, Italy and Japan — were 

entitled  under  International  Law  of  long  standing 

custom  to  occupy  the  Ottoman  Empire  until  a  peace 

treaty was signed that delineated boundaries agreed on 

by the parties. After the Paris Peace talks that were held 

commencing  January  4th,  1919  the  Principals 

determined  to  establish  a  world  government  to 

maintain peace to be entitled The League of Nations. Its 

Covenant  or  charter  was  Part  One  of  the  Treaty  of 

Versailles.  The  participants  to  the  Paris  Peace  talks 

included  the  Principal  War  Powers  and  European 

claimants  primarily interested in  territories in  Europe. 

Even before the end of the war, in November, 1917 the 

Lord  Balfour  Policy  had  been  established  as  British 

policy that World Jewry would be the beneficiary of the 

trust of the “political” or “national rights” to Palestine. 

These  are  the  rights  that  entitle  political  self‐

determination.    Both  Arabs  and  Jews  interested  in 

territories in  the  Middle  East  were  also  present  at  the 

Peace Talks in Paris and submitted their claims there.

The Arabs claims were made under the auspices of King 

Ibn  Hussayn,  however  they  were  presented  by 

Lawrence  of Arabia and also  through George Antonius. 19

Antonius brought up Arab and French claims conflicting 

with  the  Balfour  Declaration,  notably  claims  based  on 

the  Hussayn‐McMahon  correspondence  and  the  secret 

Sykes‐Picot  Agreement.  Antonius  had  made  a  careful 

study of these and his arguments initially seemed quite 

convincing  that  the  British  had  sold  the  same  horse 

three times.

The Zionist Organization made the following claim for a 

two‐step  process  in  which  the  territory  would  first 

become  a  Jewish  National  Home  and  then  would 

become a reconstituted Jewish state.

"Palestine  shall  be  placed  under  such  political, 

administrative  and  economic  conditions  as  will  secure 

the  establishment  there  of  the  Jewish  National 

Home and ultimately render possible the creation of 

an  autonomous  Commonwealth, it  being  clearly 

understood  that  nothing  shall  be  done  which  may 

prejudice  the  civil  and  religious  rights  of  existing  non‐

Jewish  communities  in  Palestine  or  the  rights  and 

political  status  enjoyed  by  Jews  in  any  other  country.

[emphasis added]

To this end the Mandatory Power shall inter alia:

Promote  Jewish  immigration  and  close  settlement  on 

the  land,  the  established  rights  of  the  present  non‐

Jewish population being equitably safeguarded.

Accept  the  cooperation  in  such  measures  of  a  Council

representative of the Jews of Palestine and of the world 

that  may  be  established  for  the  development  of  the 20

Jewish  National  Home  in  Palestine  and  entrust  the 

organization of Jewish education to such Council

On being satisfied  that  the constitution of such Council 

precludes  the  making  of  private  profit,  offer  to  the 

Council  in  priority  any  concession  for  public  works  or 

for the development of natural resources that it may be 

found  desirable  to  grant. The  Mandatory  Power  shall 

encourage  the  widest  measure  of  self‐government  for 

localities practicable in the conditions of the country

There  shall  be  forever  the  fullest  freedom  of  religious 

worship  for  all  creeds  in  Palestine.  There  shall  be  no 

discrimination  among  the  inhabitants  with  regard  to

citizenship  and  civil  rights,  on  the  grounds  of  religion, 

or of race" [25]

What the Zionist organization was asking for in Paris in 

1919 was essentially the already decided British policy 

in  the  1917 Balfour Declaration  that  the Principal War 

Powers  later  adopted  at  San  Remo  in  1920:  That  the 

Jews  wanted  essentially  a  protectorate  that  would 

ultimately transition into a reconstituted state was well 

known as even the small Jewish population in Palestine 

did not believe it was ready to exercise sovereignty. As

reported  in  the  Voltaire  Network,  a  somewhat  anti‐

semitic  news  network,  of  the  three  things  the  Jewish 

People wanted, one was "the establishment of a  Jewish 

National  Home  in  Palestine  as  a  prelude  to  a 

reconstituted Jewish state". [emphasis added] [26]21

The Principal War Powers were able  to  complete  their 

review  and  implement  its  action  on  the  claims  over 

European  territories  in  the  Paris  Peace  Talks.  The 

written  decision  is  within  part  II  of  the  Treaty  of

Versailles. They needed to extend their deliberations to 

decide  on  the  claims  on  what  had  been  Ottoman 

territory  in  the  Middle  East.  To  do  just  that,  they  met 

again  in  San  Remo,  Italy  in  April,  1920  and  dealt  with

the Arab and  Jewish  claims  on April  24th and  25th. At 

the  end  of  that  meeting,  the  claims  were  res  judicata. 

The  WWI  Principal  War  Powers  decided  to  recognize 

the  then  current  Arab  inhabitants  of  Syria  and 

Mesopotamia  as  the  beneficial  owners  of  the  political 

powers for those countries but adopt the British Balfour 

policy  and  recognize  World  Jewry  as  the  beneficial 

owner of the political rights to Palestine.

Three documents recorded the decision of the Principal 

War  Powers  on  Palestine:  the  Treaty  of  Sevres,  the 

Treaty  of  Lausanne,  and  the  San  Remo  Resolution. 

Article 95 of the Treaty of Sevres was confirmed by the 

later Treaty of Lausanne as by  that  time  the cession —

transfer  of  sovereignty to  the  mandatory  power, a 

formal  giving  up  of  rights,  especially  by  a  state  — in 

Asia  was  a fait accompli and  Articles  16  and  30  of  the 

latter  treaty  left  Turkey's  relinquishment  of  its 

sovereignty over territories in Asia unchanged. The San

Remo  Resolution  was  also  a  writing  that  incorporated 

the  decision  of  the  Principal  War  Powers  on  those 

competing  claims  to  Palestine  adopting  the  Balfour 22

Declaration in terms that were left to be further spelled 

out in the Mandate for Palestine. But the British Balfour 

Policy,  while  recognizing  the  Jews  ownership  of  the

political  rights  to  Palestine,  did  not  want  them  to

exercise  sovereignty  immediately.  Nor  did  the  Jews 

want  to  do  so.  That  is  because  as  of  1917  when  the 

Balfour Policy was being considered by  the British,  the 

Jews in all of Palestine were only 60,000 population out 

of  a  total  population  of  600,000  as  estimated  by  the

British  Foreign  Office  (BFO).  As  long  ago  as  1845,  the 

Jews had had a plurality of the population of  Jerusalem 

and in 1863 a majority of the population there. But in all 

of  Palestine,  as  of  1917,  the  BFO  estimated  Jewish 

population at only 10% of the total.

Critics  of  the  Balfour  Policy  had  argued  that  a 

government  ruled  by  a  "people"  that  was  only  a  10% 

minority  would  be  "antidemocratic".  The  British 

Foreign  Ooffice  (“BFO”) countered  this  argument  by 

saying  that  even  though  Britain  agreed  with  the 

"antidemocratic"  argument  in  principle,  as  applied  to 

the  proposed  Balfour  policy  the  argument  was 

"imaginary".  In a memorandum of September 19, 1917, 

Arnold  Toynbee  and  Lewis  Namier,  speaking  for  the 

BFO,  said  that  the  political  rights  would  initially  be 

placed in trust — the trustee likely being England or the 

United  States.  The  trustee  would  have  legal  dominion 

over  the  political  rights  and  although  the  Jews  would 

have  a  beneficial  interest,  the  legal  interest  would  not 

vest until such time as the Jews had attained a majority 23

population  in  Palestine and  were  as  fully  capable  of 

exercising  sovereignty  as  a  modern  European  state. 

Their  decision  was  later  incorporated  in  article  95  of 

the treaty of Sevres by a cession of Ottoman sovereignty

over  Palestine  to  that  trustee,  incorporated  in  the  San 

Remo Resolution and  to  be  defined in greater  detail in 

the Mandate for Palestine.[27]

This same recommendation  for a two step process was

incorporated in the discussion in the Briefing Document 

of  the U.S. Delegation  to  the Paris Peace Conference, in 

1919.

"3. It is recommended that the Jews be invited to return 

to  Palestine  and  settle  there,  being  assured  by  the

Conference of all proper assistance in so doing that may 

be  consistent  with  the  protection  of  the  personal 

(especially the religious) and the property rights of the 

non‐Jewish population, and being further assured that it 

will be the policy of the League of Nations to recognize 

Palestine as a Jewish state as soon as it is a Jewish state 

in fact.

"It is right that Palestine should become a  Jewish state, 

if the  Jews,  being  given  the  full  opportunity,  make  it 

such.  It  was  the  cradle  and  home  of  their  vital  race, 

which has made large spiritual contribution to mankind, 

and  is  the  only  land  in  which  they  can  hope  to  find  a 

home of their own; they being in this last respect unique 

among significant peoples.

"At present, however, the Jews form barely a sixth of the 

total  population  of  700,000  in  Palestine,  and  whether 24

they  are  to  form  a majority,  or  even  a  plurality,  of  the 

population  in  the  future  state  remains  uncertain. 

Palestine,  in  short,  is  far  from  being  a  Jewish  country 

now. England, as mandatory, can be relied on to give the 

Jews  the  privileged  position  they  should  have  without 

sacrificing the rights of non‐Jews." [Note #12, p. 113.]

Woodrow Wilson  had  stated  in  1919  "I  am  persuaded 

that  the  Allied  nations,  with  the  fullest  concurrence  of 

our  own  government  and  people,  are  agreed  that  in 

Palestine  shall  be  laid  the  foundations  of  a  Jewish

Commonwealth."

A Mandate is a trust

The term "Mandate" applied in this context is confusing. 

It seems to mean an "order". But construed in the light 

of Article 22 of the Covenant or Charter of the League of 

Nations, it is clear  that in  the case of Mandates created 

as  envisioned  by  Article  22  of  the  League  Covenant  or 

charter,  such  as  the  Mandates  for  Palestine,  Syria  and 

Mesopotamia,  it  means  a  device  which  was  created 

under  the  British  legal  concepts  of  trusts  and 

guardianships. This was the conclusion in May of 1921, 

about  one  year  after  San  Remo,  by  a  British  barrister