Far too often, people who lack the requisite knowledge to speak intelligently about both international history and international law nevertheless feel free to offer uninformed and inaccurate commentary about Israel's actions in Gaza, Lebanon, and elsewhere. UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) is an association of lawyers advancing legal education about Israel and providing legal support to victims of antisemitism. The UKLFI website includes a wealth of detailed information about what international law stipulates regarding Israel, Gaza, Lebanon, and the Mideast in general.
A good starting point for anyone who wishes to understand the legal status of Israel's borders and the territory commonly referred to as the "West Bank" but properly called Judea and Samaria is Outline of the History and Status of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank). It is important to understand how mendacious it is for anyone to make the assertion "Israeli settlements are the primary obstacle to peace"; the settlements are not even illegal, let alone an obstacle to peace! It should be noted that the above article--while excellent in most respects--glosses over the dubious legality (at best) of Great Britain's decision to create Transjordan (which became the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan) out of the eastern 80% of the Palestine Mandate, a topic that is discussed in an Arizona Law Review article by Abraham Bell and Eugene Kontorovich (see below).
In the wake of Hamas' October 7, 2023 mass casualty terrorist attack against Israel, media outlets and even the UN uncritically accepted as factual the
unverified Gaza casualty numbers released by the Hamas-controlled Gazan
health ministry, but UKLFI did a detailed analysis demonstrating that
the widely accepted numbers are likely wildly exaggerated numbers: Palestinian casualty figures fabricated (August 12, 2024). Here is the summary of what UKLFI found:
UKLFI CT estimates that by 29 February 2024, about 19,000 Palestinians had been killed in the Gaza Strip, of which 9,000 were combatants and 10,000 were civilians; and that by 31 July 2024, 27,000 Palestinians had been killed of which 12,000 were combatants and 15,000 were civilians. On these estimates, the civilian: combatant ratio in the current war in the Gaza Strip was 1.1:1 in the period to 29 February 2024 and at 1.3:1 in the period to 31 July 2024.
Although every civilian death is a tragedy, UKLFI CT points out that these ratios are an order of magnitude lower than the average civilian: combatant casualty ratio in urban armed conflict worldwide in 2021 (over 8:1) and half of the ratio in the Mosul battle of 2016-2017 by Iraqi and allied forces against ISIS (2.5:1), despite the exceptional difficulty of operating in the Gaza Strip.
Jonathan Turner, Executive Director of UKLFI CT, commented: "It might have been justified for media organisations to avoid coverage of any of the figures on the ground that they are unreliable. However, since the Gaza Ministries' figures for the total numbers of Palestinians allegedly killed have been repeatedly stated in media coverage, it is unbalanced and misleading not to state with similar regularity the figures provided by the IDF of the Palestinian combatants killed. This unbalanced and misleading media coverage is likely to be a major cause of rising antisemitism in the UK and around the world.
A must-read article from a different source than UKLFI is PALESTINE, UTI POSSIDETIS JURIS, AND THE BORDERS OF ISRAEL by Abraham Bell and Eugene Kontorovich. Bell and Kontorovich explain that the international law concept uti possidetis juris (a Latin phrase meaning "as [you] possess under law") "is widely acknowledged as the doctrine of customary international law that is central to determining territorial sovereignty in the era of decolonization. The doctrine provides that emerging states presumptively inherit their pre-independence administrative boundaries."
They then describe how this is relevant to any discussion of Israel's current borders:
Applied to the case of Israel, uti possidetis juris would dictate that Israel inherit the boundaries of the Mandate of Palestine as they existed in May, 1948. The doctrine would thus support Israeli claims to any or all of the currently hotly disputed areas of Jerusalem (including East Jerusalem), the West Bank, and even potentially the Gaza Strip (though not the Golan Heights).
Uti possidetis juris is the international law concept that was applied to determine the borders of the states created in the wake of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia.
As mentioned above, Bell and Kontorovich point out that a strong argument can be made that the creation of Transjordan (which later became the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan) from the eastern portion of the Palestine Mandate was illegal (footnotes omitted):
While the British were clearly intent on establishing Transjordan as a separate, Hashemite-ruled state, the Mandate did not authorize the removal of any territory from the Mandate of Palestine; it only allowed for the nonapplication of certain provisions. Thus, while it allowed for the separate administration of eastern Palestine, it did not allow for partition; rather, Article 5 stated that "no Palestine territory shall be ceded or leased to, or in any way placed under the control of, the government of any Foreign Power." The French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon contained an identical Article 5, but also had clear language providing for the establishment of two distinct states in the Mandated area, making clear that Syria and the Lebanon were viewed as two Mandates. Moreover, Article 5 was not included among the provisions of the Palestine Mandate suspended by Britain pursuant to Article 25. Zionist groups pushed this argument quite strongly in the 1930s and 1940s, and insisted on independence for the complete Palestine, including Transjordan. And the British seemed to be aware of the force of this argument, formally insisting throughout the period that the territories were under a single Mandate.
Having withheld the applicability of certain provisions of the Mandate in 1922 and granting Jordan autonomy in 1928, Britain went the rest of the way in 1946, recognizing the independence of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, and the termination of the Palestine Mandate there, in 1946. At this point, arguments about the violation of the Mandate could no longer be glossed over. For the last two years of the Palestine Mandate (until May 1948), it did not include Transjordan. Upon the independence of Transjordan, the administrative boundary between it and Palestine became the new international boundary, consistent with the doctrine of uti possidetis juris. This is despite very strong legal arguments against the severance of the territory from Palestine. Thus, while Jewish nationalist parties continued to claim Transjordan throughout the 1940s and 1950s, and Transjordan (and later Jordan) claimed legal rights to territory in Palestine that it captured during its 1948 invasion, neither set of claims received any serious recognition. Indeed, the Jewish authorities of Palestine recognized Transjordan's borders despite any scruple they may have had about its formation.
The entire 60 page Arizona Law Review article is worth reading/studying carefully by anyone who wishes to avoid sounding foolish when talking about Israel, Jordan, the Palestine Mandate, and how international borders are properly determined.
Further Reading:
Nasrallah's Victims Rejoice at His Demise, While Western Media Outlets Display Their Distorted Moral Compasses (October 1, 2024)
Anti-Zionism is Antisemitism (September 18, 2024)
Anti-Zionism is Indistinguishable From Antisemitism Because Israel is the Jewish Homeland (January 5, 2024)
Israel, Hamas, and the Islamic Concepts Dar al-Islam Versus Dar al-harb (October 11, 2023)
Israel's Ongoing Oslo Accords Folly (September 28, 2023)
Who Are the Invaders, and Who are the Invaded? An Analysis of Inversions of Truth (January 12, 2022)
The Fear and Shame at the Heart of Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism (February 17, 2021)
No comments:
Post a Comment