Palestine - Ulpana Decision Answers Israel's Detractors

[Published 6 June 2012]


Israel has effectively answered its detractors in its measured response to a ruling by Israel’s High Court ordering the demolition of five stone structures in the West Bank settlement of Ulpana - erected on what the Court deemed to be private Palestinian land.

Firstly - in agreeing to remove these structures and relocate the 30 families affected to the nearby neighbourhood of Beit El - Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamim Netanyahu announced:

“Even though for some people the High Court decision over Ulpana is hard, we have to respect it,”

Israel’s respect for the rule of law stands in stark contrast to the defiance of the rule of law by the Palestinian Arabs - - as evidenced in Article 20 of the PLO Charter which states:

“The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate for Palestine, and everything that has been based upon them, are deemed null and void.”

The silence of the international community in demanding acceptance of this body of settled international law by the Palestinian Arabs has been one of the principal stumbling blocks to ending the 130 years old conflict between Arabs and Jews.

Israel’s stance also effectively exposes the failure of large parts of the international community itself to respect the law when admitting Palestine as a member state of UNESCO last October - contrary to the well established principles of customary international law as laid down in the Montevideo Convention 1933.

Many of those UNESCO member states cynically continue to claim that Israel’s settlements are illegal in international law. Such claim is no more than an opinion that has never been properly tested in any Court.

Such claim is countered by the claim that the settlements are legal in international law under article 6 of the Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the United Nations Charter. These two documents - read together - continue to this day to give the legal imprimatur to the Jewish people to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in the West Bank and Gaza on State land and waste land not required for public purposes.

Indeed Prime Minister Netanyahu has now indicated - following the Ulpana decision - that the pace of building activity will be increased in existing settlements built on state lands and waste lands in the West Bank.

The failure of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to consider the legal force of the Mandate and article 80 of the UN Charter in its non-binding advisory opinion on the legality of Israel’s security barrier being erected in parts of the West Bank - has exacerbated rather than defused the settlements issue.

Regrettably the ICJ decision was reached on the basis of a brief submitted to the Court for judicial advice by then Secretary General of the United Nations - Kofi Annan. Such brief failed to include any reference to the Mandate for Palestine or article 80 of the UN Charter.

The ICJ ignored the warning made by one of the 14 judges in the case - Justice Elaraby - who wrote in his judgement:

“The international legal status of the Palestinian Territory (paras. 70-71 of the Advisory Opinion), in my view, merits more comprehensive treatment. A historical survey is relevant to the question posed by the General Assembly, for it serves as the background to understanding the legal status of the Palestinian Territory on the one hand and underlines the special and continuing responsibility of the General Assembly on the other. This may appear as academic, without relevance to the present events. The present is however determined by the accumulation of past events and no reasonable and fair concern for the future can possibly disregard a firm grasp of past events. In particular, when on more than one occasion, the rule of law was consistently side-stepped. The point of departure, or one can say in legal jargon, the critical date, is the League of Nations Mandate which was entrusted to Great Britain.

Secondly - Israel has rejected the temptation following the Ulpana verdict to resort to retrospective legislation to legalize the construction of the Ulpana houses.

Retrospective legislation is a course of action seldom undertaken in democratic countries. Israel’s refusal to break with that principle in the Ulpana case is to be commended.

A bill to legitimize the Ulpana houses was roundly defeated in Israel’s Knesset by a vote of 69-22 - when the principle of Cabinet solidarity - another feature of flourishing democracies - was successfully imposed by Prime Minister Netanyahu.

One cannot however rule out a change of heart in the future if exceptional circumstances arise - particularly if the number of successful cases of illegal building activity are found by the Court to have occurred. Compensation - rather than demolition and resettlement of the residents affected - may become the only practical option.

Thirdly - the frequently heard claims of Palestinian victimhood and denial of legal and human rights were again effectively answered with the Ulpana decision. Israel’s legal system has always been available to Palestinian Arab litigants and has found in their favour in many cases. The Ulpana decision affirms that Israel’s legal system will continue to protect their rights when supported by the facts and the law.

The case itself was funded and run by one of the many non-government organizations (NGO) in Israel- B’tselem - that act to protect the rights of the minority Palestinian Arab population. These NGO are financed by donations from foreign supporters such as the European Union and the Ford Foundation. Lack of finance to run cases for Palestinian Arabs residing in the West Bank is not a problem. They can - and do - hire top lawyers to present their cases.

Fourthly - the case highlighted the resilience of Israel’s democracy - as the press in Israel enjoyed free rein to criticise the Government’s policy in regard to Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

One of the leaders of the pack baying for the Government’s blood following the Ulpana decision was the daily paper Ha’aretz which propounded the following in one of its editorials:

“Promising to build new homes in the heart of the occupied territories, far beyond the 1967 lines, blatantly contradicts the commitment Israel made in the road map to freeze settlement construction and evacuate all the outposts built in the past decade.”

In fact no such commitments were ever made.

The Roadmap proposed by President Bush had expressly stated:

"Settlements
GOI (Government of Israel) immediately dismantles settlement outposts erected since March 2001.
Consistent with the Mitchell Report, GOI freezes all settlement activity (including natural growth of settlements)."

Israel however - made 14 reservations to the Roadmap - one of which provided:

“There will be no involvement with issues pertaining to the final settlement. Among issues not to be discussed: settlement in Judea, Samaria and Gaza (excluding a settlement freeze and illegal outposts); the status of the Palestinian Authority and its institutions in Jerusalem; and all other matters whose substance relates to the final settlement.”

An agreement to discuss a settlement freeze or illegal outposts is a far cry from a commitment to freeze settlement construction or illegal outposts.

The Ulpana decision once again established that there is no Government control of the media in Israel that prevents any claims or criticisms of Government policy - right or wrong - being made - that would threaten their newspaper offices being raided or closed down.

Fifthly - the unique role that Israel’s High Court plays in standing between the Government and its citizens and even non-citizens is bound to ensure that it will not be intimidated in dealing with future cases of illegal building - by either Jews or Arabs - on private lands,State lands or waste lands not required for public purposes.

Prime Minister Netanyahu confidently asserted:

“I have unequivocal legal opinions that say that the (Ulpana) verdict did not set any precedent and will not affect other cases.”

He may well find that the High Court will not agree with those opinions.

Israel’s Declaration of Independence proclaims:

”[The State of Israel] will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex;"

The High Court will be vigilant in ensuring this provision is scrupulously enforced.

The Ulpana decision has opened up a can of worms that will force it to review further claims of illegal building activities - not only by Jews but by Arabs as well.

It needs to act with fairness and impartiality to correct any infringements of the law - no matter who it is that is infringing.

As the international community grapples with its response to the slaughter and mayhem in Syria against every principle of international law - Israel stands tall in its respect for the law in contrast to those nations who only pay lip service to that principle - whilst ignoring it in practice..

It is about time those other nations followed Israel’s example.

Uprooting Jews Violates International Treaties

[Published June 2005]


Plans by the Israeli Government to forcibly remove Jews from their homes in the West Bank and Gaza breach the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 1966 [Covenant] as well as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989 [Convention], to both of which Israel is a signatory.

Article 17 of the Covenant provides that:

1. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence nor to unlawful attacks on his honour and reputation.

2. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Article 16 of the Convention expressly protects children and is a mirror image of Article 17.

The International Court of Justice determined last year that both the Covenant and the Convention are applicable in the West Bank and Gaza, which Israel had disputed.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan however also advised the International Court that Israel recognises that the Convention is intended to protect its citizens from their own Government in times of peace.

Israel's High Court of Justice acknowledged in its recent judgement on the disengagement law, that the forced evacuation of Israelis would undermine their human dignity.

The High Court nevertheless asserted that the disengagement law passed all constitutional tests because it "corresponds with the Zionist values of the State and is intended for a worthy purpose -- the political, national and security purposes on which the disengagement is based are designed to realize a vital and substantial need."

This viewpoint could not be successfully raised to negate article 17 since Article 4.1 of the Covenant states:

"In time of public emergency which threatens the life of the nation and the existence of which is officially proclaimed, the States Parties to the present Covenant may take measures derogating from their obligations under the present Covenant to the extent strictly required by the exigencies of the situation, provided that such measures are not inconsistent with their other obligations under international law and do not involve discrimination solely on the ground of race, colour, sex, language, religion or social origin."

Israel's forced removal of Jewish residents of Gaza and the West Bank obviously involves discrimination solely on the ground of race and/or religion and so could not be relied on by Israel to escape its international obligations under the Covenant or the Convention.

Jews living in the West Bank and Gaza are legally entitled to reside there pursuant to the provisions of the Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the United Nations Charter in order to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in those areas as specifically stated in the Mandate document.

Many returned there after 1967 to reclaim land from which other Jews had been driven out in 1948 by six invading Arab armies.

Any attempt now to forcibly uproot Jews from their homes against their expressed will is therefore in breach of the inalienable rights conferred on them by the Covenant, the Convention, the Mandate and the United Nations Charter.

Choosing to stay will not be palatable to all 8000 Jews affected by the withdrawal of Israel's army and they will have the option of accepting the compensation packages that are being offered by the Israeli Government to those who voluntarily leave.

But one thing is certain -- the forced removal of Jews from the West Bank and Gaza is not permitted or authorised under international law and is in breach of international agreements in force since 1920 authorising Jews to live in those areas.

President Bush, President Putin, the European Union and the United Nations have publicly welcomed the forced uprooting, whilst Human Rights organisations are deafening in their silence toward such expulsions.

Would they all act differently if the Arabs residing in the West Bank and Gaza were subjected to such proposed action against their will?

Ariel Sharon needs to revise his thinking on this aspect of his proposed disengagement.

He should urgently seek the opinion of the High Court of Justice on this issue before embarking on a course of action that has the capacity to lead to the outbreak of civil insubordination and threatens to seriously undermine the ability of Israel to resist those who seek its' total annihilation.

International Ignorance Incites Injustice

[Published July 2004]

The failure of the 15 judges of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to fully examine the international legal status of the West Bank is an error of monumental proportions which has fatally flawed the advisory opinion it has given to the United Nations on Israel's right to erect a security fence in the West Bank.

The ICJ appears to have been totally ignorant of the existence of Jewish rights in the West Bank arising under international law created by Article 95 of the Treaty of Sevres 1920 and the Mandate for Palestine 1922, and preserved by article 80 of the United Nations Charter.

It is hard to believe that a Court composed of such eminent jurists could have acted in such an incompetent and reckless manner to the detriment of the Jewish people.

Israel's presence in the West Bank extends far beyond that of being a military occupier since 1967. Israel also has the right in international law to facilitate the settlement of Jews in the West Bank for the purpose of reconstituting the Jewish National Home in that area.

Any action taken by Israel in the West Bank must accordingly be considered from this dual perspective, which the ICJ has failed to do.

Ironically only Judge Elaraby, an Egyptian judge whose presence on the Court was unsuccessfully objected to by Israel, was prepared to state that "the international legal status of the Palestinian Territory merits more comprehensive treatment" than the Court gave to this fundamental issue.

Judge Elaraby identified the need for such a review saying:

"A historical survey is relevant to the question posed by the General Assembly, for it serves as the background to understanding the legal status of the Palestinian Territory on the one hand and underlines the special and continuing responsibility of the General Assembly on the other. This may appear as academic, without relevance to the present events. The present is however determined by the accumulation of past events and no reasonable and fair concern for the future can possibly disregard a firm grasp of past events. In particular, when on one or more than one occasion, the rule of law was consistently sidestepped."

The failure of the ICJ to adopt this principled stand before reaching its decision is inexplicable and is deserving of the strongest condemnation. Its judgement, as a result, is not worth the paper it is written on.

Judge Elaraby said: "The point of departure, or one can say in legal jargon, the critical date, is the League of Nations Mandate which was entrusted to Great Britain" by the League of Nations.

Rather than examining the terms of the Mandate document and articles 94 and 95 of the Treaty of Sevres, both the Court and Judge Elaraby incorrectly asserted that the Mandate for Palestine was established under paragraph 4 of Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations.

Paragraph 4 of the Covenant provided that "certain communities, formerly belonging to the Turkish Empire have reached a stage of development where their existence as independent nations can be provisionally recognized subject to rendering of administrative advice and assistance by a Mandatory until such time as they are able to stand alone".

Article 94 of the Treaty of Sevres clearly indicated that Paragraph 4 did apply to the Arab inhabitants living within the areas covered by the Mandates for Syria and Mesopotamia, which were created at the same time as the Mandate for Palestine.

Article 95 of the Treaty of Sevres however made it abundantly clear that paragraph 4 was not to apply to the Arab inhabitants living within the area covered by the Mandate for Palestine. This Mandate was to be of a unique character and nature unlike any other Mandate established by the League of Nations.

Unlike the Mandates for Syria and Mesopotamia, the Mandate for Palestine

1. was not established under paragraph 4 of Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations
2. did not consider the Arab inhabitants as an independent nation that could be provisionally recognized
3. At best promised local autonomy to the Arab inhabitants if circumstances permitted

What the Mandate for Palestine recognised in clearly expressed terms was

1. the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting the Jewish National Home in that country provided that nothing should be done which might 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.

2. the authority of the Administration of Palestine to facilitate Jewish immigration and to encourage close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes, whilst ensuring that the rights and position of other sections of the population were not prejudiced.

Yet the Court makes not one mention at all of these Jewish rights to settle in the West Bank created by an international instrument to which Members of the United Nations were parties and of the obligation of the United Nations to ensure that these rights were preserved for the benefit of the Jewish people in accordance with the obligations imposed on member States by Article 80 of its own Charter.

Who within the ICJ undertook the legal research, which resulted in the ICJ delivering a judgement which failed to identify and consider the existence of those Jewish rights in the West Bank and their relevance to the issues before the Court?

Was such researcher influenced by unsubstantiated material appearing on sites such as palestinefacts.org or palestinerembered.com, which contain similar erroneous statements that the Mandate for Palestine was created under paragraph 4 of Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations?

The ICJ urgently needs to disclose who carried out the research to enable its judgement to be so formulated and the facts justifying it to come to such an unrealistic conclusion.

Had the Court been aware of and considered such Jewish rights in international law, it would have been patently clear that the United Nations General Assembly had consistently sidestepped the rule of law in the many resolutions it had passed on the illegality of settlements established by Israel in the West Bank and on Israel's right to build a security fence in the West Bank.

Why too did United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan, omit to include copies of the Treaty of Sevres and the Mandate for Palestine in the extensive dossier of documents given by him to the Court? Was he guilty of misleading the Court by withholding material documents bearing on the issues relating to the advisory opinion being sought? Did he have an obligation to highlight Article 80 of his own Charter and seek the Court's opinion on the relevance of that Article to the legal opinion being sought by the United Nations?

The ICJ's failure to properly consider the legal status of the West Bank in international law has amounted to a gross miscarriage of justice, which will have serious repercussions for resolving the ongoing struggle between Jews and Arabs over the sovereignty of, and the rights of Jews to reside in, the West Bank.

The decision will give credence to the perception of a biased and anti-Israel United Nations and a Court that cannot be trusted to properly consider legal issues referred to it by the United Nations in a fair and impartial manner.

The decision will certainly encourage those web sites continually proclaiming that Jews have no legal rights to settle in let alone claim sovereignty in any part of the West Bank to continue their campaign of vilification and hatred against Jews.

The Jewish People has since 1922 consistently indicated its preparedness to forego its legal rights in part of Palestine but the Arabs have always rejected such overtures. For the Arabs it has always been all or nothing at all.

The ICJ's decision will only encourage the hardening of such a view and weaken those voices within the Arab community who want to see an end to the murder and killing visited on both Jews and Arabs in the last 120 years.

No amount of disinformation, lies or propaganda can change the legal right of the Jewish people to live in the West Bank and to take all reasonable measures to protect their lives from deadly attacks involving ambushes, drive by shootings, home invasion and suicide bombings carried out by their Arab neighbours contrary to the right to life of every human being.

The fact that the ICJ failed to spell out that message loudly and clearly because of its own perceived incompetence and failure to consider the legal status of the West Bank in international law, will be the lasting legacy of a decision which binds no one yet has the power to affect so many.

The fence is on whose land?

[Published July 2004]

The construction of Israel's security fence on land within the West Bank has aroused the ire of 90 of the 191 members of the General Assembly of the United Nations, who claim such land is "Occupied Palestinian Territory".

Is this true or is this land in fact "Jewish National Home Territory" in international law?

Are those 90 members of the United Nations and their legal advisors aware of the terms of the Mandate for Palestine and Article 80 of the United Nations Charter, which confer on Israel the right to construct the fence on its present location?

Why has the Secretary General, Kofi Annan, submitted to the International Court of Justice, a dossier purporting to set out the relevant documents relating to the case, yet has excluded the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, which is the definitive legal document on who is entitled to build on West Bank land?

The West Bank is an area of land comprising about 5% of the territory once called Palestine administered by Great Britain from 1920 to 1948 pursuant to the Mandate for Palestine created by the League of Nations.

The West Bank was called Judea and Samaria in the Bible and had been continuously so described since then right up to the British War Maps of the 1940's and in the Mandate documents themselves.

The change of name from Judea and Samaria to the West Bank in 1950 was an attempt by Jordan to blot out the Jewish connection with this land, matching that of the Romans who changed the name of the country from its Hebrew name "Eretz Yisrael" (the land of Israel) to "Palestina" about 2000 years earlier so as to erase any recognition of Jewish sovereignty, which had finally succumbed to the might of the invading Roman Legions.

This semantic obsession is mirrored once again in the description of the land as "Occupied Palestinian Territory" in the brief presented to the International Court of Justice by the 90 United Nations members and their front man, Kofi Annan.

Again as in the past, this pathetic attempt to propagandise the status of this area will backfire on those who rely on it to assert land rights to the total exclusion of the principal beneficiary recognized in international law - the Jewish people.

I will however use the term "West Bank" to describe the area so as not to be accused of necessarily favoring the use of a name with obvious Jewish connotations and connections to advance Jewish rights in that area.

This is not necessary since international law has expressly recognized that Jewish rights do exist and still remain unfulfilled in the West Bank, irrespective of what name that area is given.

The Mandate for Palestine was the legally binding expression of the International Community of Nations - the League of Nations.

The Mandate document:

1.recognized the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and the grounds for "reconstituting" their national home in that country;
2.created for the first time an identifiable territory called "Palestine" with defined territorial boundaries which incorporated today�s Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, and Jordan
3.safeguarded the civil and religious rights (but not any political rights as none were intended to be conferred) of the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine;
facilitated Jewish immigration and encouraged "close settlement by Jews on the lands, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes" (Article 6);

All this might have been ancient history but for the occurrence of six subsequent events between 1945-1967, which together form the legal basis for Israel's construction of its present security fence in the West Bank.

The six events were the birth of the United Nations in 1945, the demise of the League of Nations in 1946, the United Nations Partition Plan of 1947, Israel's War of Independence in 1948, the decision of the International Court of Justice in 1950 in the South West Africa case, and the Six Day War in 1967.

Jordan (then called Transjordan), which had comprised 75% of the Mandate for Palestine, was granted its independence in 1946 at the last session before the League of Nations was dissolved. Although originally designated as part of the proposed site for the Jewish National Home, not one Jew then or until today has been allowed to live in this part of former Palestine.

The Arab inhabitants of Palestine were thus granted a sovereign State in 75% of Palestine, without a shot having to be fired in anger. Not a bad result, considering the Arabs had initially been granted no political rights there in 1920.

Arab political rights had been secured in other vast tracts of the former Ottoman Empire that today bear such names as Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Iraq - areas hundreds of times larger and far richer than the pitiful area designated as the site for the reconstitution of the Jewish National Home.

The remaining 25% of Palestine, however, still remained under the League of Nations Mandates System, as did a number of other territories around the world, where the terms of those Mandates were yet to be completed at the time of the demise of the League of Nations.

To deal with these continuing Mandates, Article 80 was introduced into the United Nations Charter.

Article 80 provided that nothing in the International Trusteeship System set up under the United Nations Charter should be construed in or of itself to alter in any manner the rights whatsoever of any states or peoples or the terms of existing International Instruments to which members of the United Nations might respectively be parties.

The importance and relevance of this clause for the West Bank was not to become fully evident until 1950. A lot was to happen within the next three years to bring Article 80 into play in the West Bank.

The United Nations Partition Plan of 1947 had attempted to resolve the issue of sovereignty in that part of Palestine then still subject to the Mandate. The proposal was accepted by the Jews and rejected by the Arabs.

Had the Arabs accepted that proposal, Article 80 of the UN Charter would not need to be discussed today, and the proceedings before the International Court of Justice would not be happening.

After rejecting that proposal, six invading Arab armies marched into Palestine in May 1948 in a war to wipe out the newly declared State of Israel and replace it with Arab sovereignty in the entire 25% of the remaining Mandate.

The Arabs failed in this attempt, leaving Israel in sovereign control of the entire area with the exception of the West Bank, which came under the control of Jordan, and Gaza, which came under Egyptian control.

Israel was then recognized by the United Nations as the sovereign authority in 19% of the original Mandate for Palestine, whilst Transjordan continued to enjoy sovereignty in 75% of the original Mandate granted to it in 1946 and additionally it had gained control of another 5% - the West Bank - at the conclusion of the 1948 war.

There was no recognized international border between Israel and the West Bank, only an armistice line delineating the positions of the warring parties at the time of cessation of hostilities. This position still exists today.

The West Bank and Gaza - in total just 6% of Palestine - then remained the only territories of the Mandate in which sovereignty was unallocated between Arabs and Jews.

In 1950, when Transjordan changed its name to Jordan, it attempted to annex the West Bank but only Britain and Pakistan recognized the annexation.

In the same year the International Court of Justice in an advisory opinion on South West Africa (1950 I.C.J.Reports 128) decided that the substantive obligations of the Mandate over that territory continued in force despite the dissolution of the League of Nations. The Court affirmed that these obligations remained the essence of "the sacred trust of civilization" despite the dissolution of the League of Nations.

The ramifications of this case as applied to the mandated area of the West Bank, are, of course, highly significant

This case confirmed that Israel's right to closely settle and reconstitute the Jewish National Home on land within the West Bank was not extinguished by the demise of the League of Nations.

The Mandate continues to have important legal significance until this very day, because of the provisions of Article 80 of the United Nations Charter - something that has been consistently overlooked and ignored by the world body and those of its members who have taken their case to the International Court of Justice this week.

Jordan continued to occupy and administer the West Bank from 1948 until 1967 when Israel then gained control as a result of the 6-Day War. No mention was ever made during those 19 years of this land being "Occupied Palestinian Territory", nor was Palestinian Statehood in the area, with Jerusalem as its capitol, ever raised or demanded.

When control of the West Bank came back into Jewish hands in 1967 for the first time since its loss to the Roman Legions almost 2000 years before, Jews then began returning and settling in these areas as they were permitted and encouraged to do under Article 6 of the Mandate, in some cases returning to places from where they had been driven out in the 1948 War.

These six events and the Mandate itself have now become of the utmost importance in 2004 because they establish that:

1. The West Bank and Gaza are not "Occupied Palestinian Territory" but rather "Jewish National Home Territory" designated as such in the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine and Article 80 of the United Nations Charter.
2. Jewish settlements presently established in the West Bank and Gaza accord with the objectives of the Mandate which encouraged close settlement of these areas by the Jews. They are not illegal in International Law;

The Arab States have never accepted the legality of the Mandate for Palestine or anything subsequently flowing from it. They seem to have convinced Kofi Annan, that he can ignore it as well.

They have now run off to the International Court asking it to set aside a considerable volume of international law, as though it never existed, and have sought to make their own prejudgment as to who is entitled to build and what can be built on the land in the West Bank where the security fence is located.

International law clearly supports Israel's right to build that security fence in the West Bank providing it is either State land , waste lands not required for public purposes, or privately owned land if agreed with the owner of that land.

This situation will continue until sovereignty of the West Bank is determined between Israel and its Arab neighbours.

The United Nations endorsement of the Road Map can be seen as a positive step by the United Nations to bring the Mandate to a final resolution.

But it does not and cannot stop Israel's construction of its security fence until the provisions of the Road Map have been fully implemented and a Peace Treaty signed