United Nations (UN), European Union (EU) and Arab propaganda has perverted the history of the Arab-Jewish conflict. Their heinous conduct enables them to falsely claim that Jews have no legal right to live in Judea and Samaria (West Bank). Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) has seemingly swallowed parts of their disingenuous narrative hook line and sinker.
Achieving this triumvirate’s sinister agenda has been amazingly simple: Start with the year 1967 —instead of 1920 — when talking about resolving a conflict that has in fact been raging for more than 100 years.
Doing so has seen the UN, EU and Arab propagandists:
- Term the conflict: The “Israel-Arab conflict” or the “Israeli-Palestinian conflict” —instead of what it has always been — the “Jewish-Arab conflict”.
- Ignore that Arabs living in Palestine in 1922 were only regarded as part of the “existing non-Jewish communities” — that “Israelis” and “Palestinians” did not then exist.
- Paper over that the San Remo Conference and Treaty of Sevres in 1920 decided that:
(i) Arab self-determination was to occur in 99.99% of the territory captured from the Ottoman Empire in World War 1 — including those territories designated under the Mandate for Syria and Lebanon and the Mandate for Mesopotamia (now Iraq)
(ii) Jewish self-determination was to occur in the remaining 0.01% — “Palestine” — under the Mandate for Palestine (Mandate) — unanimously adopted by all 51 member states of the League of Nations in 1922
- Avoid any consideration or discussion that under the Mandate:
(i) The territory of Palestine encompassed what is today called Jordan (78%), Israel (17%), and the West Bank and Gaza (5%)
(ii) Jews were prevented from reconstituting the Jewish National Home in Jordan under article 25 of the Mandate – but “close settlement by Jews” in Judea and Samaria was to be encouraged under article 6 and that the right of Jews to do so was expressly reserved under article 80 of the UN Charter notwithstanding the subsequent demise of the League of Nations in 1946.
(iii) Self-determination for the Palestinian Arabs was achieved in 78% of Palestine in 1946 when Jordan (then called Transjordan) was granted its independence by Great Britain.
- Not condemn the ethnic cleansing of every Jew living in Judea and Samaria and East Jerusalem between 1948 and 1967.
- Use the 1950 Arab-coined name “West Bank” to replace the 3000 years old UN-recognised name “Judea and Samaria”
- Cover up that the “Palestinians” were not identified or defined until 1964 under article 6 of the PLO Charter and that they made no claim to regional sovereignty under article 24 to “the West Bank of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan” or “on the Gaza Strip”.
- Disregard that Transjordan was unified with Judea and Samaria between 1950 and 1967 to form a single Palestinian Arab state — renamed Jordan — and that all its residents were Jordanian citizens.
Falsely claiming Jews have no legal right to live in Judea and Samaria reeks of Jew-hatred.
Israel’s MFA website has given some of this revisionist rewrite of history unwarranted credibility:
“Israel’s territory according to the agreed 1949 Armistice Demarcation Line encompassed about 78% of the Mandate area, while the other parts, namely the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, were occupied by Jordan and Egypt respectively.”
Israel’s territory only encompassed about 17% — not 78% — of the Mandate Area. The remaining 83% comprised Jordan (78%) - and Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and the Gaza Strip (5%).
Using the stand-alone term “West Bank” expunges recognition of that territory’s Jewish identity as “Judea and Samaria” — part of the Jewish People’s ancient biblical and historic homeland.
Words count.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry needs to correct these monumental gaffes.
Author’s note: The cartoon — commissioned exclusively for this article — is by Yaakov Kirschen aka “Dry Bones”- one of Israel’s foremost political and social commentators — whose cartoons have graced the columns of Israeli and international media publications for decades.
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