Mandate for Palestine - July 24, 1922

Mandate for Palestine - July 24, 1922
Jordan is 77% of former Palestine - Israel, the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) and Gaza comprise 23%.

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Is Israel 78% - or only 17% - of historic and mandate Palestine?

[My letter published in The Indypendent - 9 March 2010]

Peaceful debate and conflict resolution can only succeed if those involved first agree on the problem that needs to be resolved.

The problem is the resolution of sovereignty in the West Bank between Jewish and Arab claimants.

The Jewish claimant is Israel and the Arab claimant is the Palestinian Authority. In determining a resolution to this problem there first needs to be agreement on the following facts:
1. Israel comprises 17% of the Mandate for Palestine
2. Jordan comprises 78% of the Mandate for Palestine
3. The West Bank comprises 4% of the Mandate for Palestine
4. Gaza comprises 1% of the Mandate for Palestine
5 Under Article 6 of the Mandate and article 80 of the UN Charter the Jewish people have acquired a vested right in international law to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in all or part of the West Bank and Gaza

Once these facts are agreed then possible solutions can be discussed.

No discussion can possibly begin to reach any agreement whilst Alex posits the following statement:
“Palestinians will not meet directly with Israel as long as Israel continues building illegal Jewish-only settlements on occupied Palestinian land, which is in direct violation of numerous United Nations resolutions and the Geneva Conventions ”

This statement rules out any hope of a settlement which would lead to the division of the West Bank between Arabs and Jews by denying the Jews any rights to claim sovereignty of at least part of the West Bank under their legal entitlement pursuant to the Mandate.

This is why any negotiations with the Palestinian Authority have failed and will continue to fail.

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