Give Peace a Chance

Soviet Union... yes. United Kingdom... abstain. United States... yes. The Resolution of the Ad Hoc Committee for Palestine... was adopted by 33 votes, 13 against, 10 abstentions. Resolution 181 in the United Nations General Assembly in 1947... paved the way for the rebirth of the State of Israel in 1948. However, did this give Israel legitimacy? The answer is no. General speaking, in International Law... General Assembly resolutions are not binding. It's a wide myth, there's absolutely no truth... that Israel's legal foundation is based on the UN partition resolution... of November 29, 1947. If the Jewish people and the Arabs had agreed to enter into a treaty... based on the terms of the resolution, then rights and obligations... could have been created in International Law. But that didn't happen. The legal foundation of modern Israel is initially traced back... to the period right after the First World War... when the great powers of the time and the League of Nations... the UN of that particular period... had decided what would happen to the various former enemy territories. Howard Grief began practising law in 1966. For many years, even before that, he had an interest in Middle East affairs. In the 1980s, he began to examine long hidden documents... in the British national archives about the San Remo Conference of 1920. As a result, he published the book The Legal Foundation... and the Borders of Israel under International Law. The San Remo Resolution is the basic constitutional document... of the state of Israel under International Law. San Remo, the villa Devachan This is the place where legal rights were granted... this is the place where legal rights were given to both... the Jewish people and the Arab people. Dr. Jacques Gauthier is an international human rights lawyer. For more than 25 years, his focus has been the legal status of Jerusalem... under International Law, which was the subject of his doctoral thesis. It's in this place, that the leaders with the power to make... binding dispositions with respect to the Ottoman territories... deliberated and made the decision, having heard claims from... the 1919 Paris Zionist Organisation during the Paris Peace Conference... having heard submissions from their delegation, in respect to... what they wanted in the Ottoman territories. Having heard these submissions, a group of them gathered here... and made binding decisions in International Law... as to who would get what. At San Remo, that what had been exclusively a British approach... receives the full backing of the international community. And in that sense, Israel's legitimacy... is linked to an international decision at San Remo... and not just a whim of British policy. In 1917, Lord Allenby conquered the Holy land and the Jews were promised... a national home in Palestine by the Earl of Balfour. A policy endorsed by Woodrow Wilson and the League of Nations... which made Palestine a British Mandate. In the 1922 Palestine Mandate, the League of Nations together voted... on a very special resolution. It decided that they would give recognition... to the historic rights of the Jewish people. To do what? To reconstitute their national home. If you look at that language, you see two things. You see they are recognizing a pre-existing right... and not creating a new right. In other words, the historical rights of the Jewish people to this land... were recognised by the great powers, the equivalent of the UN at the time. It was the Jewish people that were chosen... to be the beneficiaries of a trust, a mandate... under the care of the British government in respect to Palestine. It was the Arab inhabitants of the territories of Mesopotamia, Iraq now... Syria and Lebanon, that were chosen to be the beneficiaries... of a trust, or a mandate. Part of it under the trusteeship or mandate of the French -... Syria and Lebanon, part of it under British supervision - Mesopotamia. I want to underline that the primary objective... of the Mandate for Palestine was to grant political rights... in respect to Palestine, the Jewish people. The civil and religious rights of the Arabs as individuals... were fully protected in the Mandate Document. But in so far as the national and collective rights... and the collective political rights were concerned... these were reserved exclusively for the Jewish people... because the Arabs were given the same rights... not in Palestine, but in the neighbouring countries. And that's why today you have 21 Arab states and one Jewish state. The Second World War brought about the demise of the League of Nations. It was superseded by the United Nations, in 1945. The Charter of the United Nations, which you are now signing... is a solid structure upon which we can build for a better world. How does this affect the rights of the Jewish people under International Law? In their final resolution passed by the League in April of 1946... it is specified that the intent is that after the dissolution of the League... it is necessary to continue to look after the well-being... and the development of the people concerned in each mandate. For Palestine, that meant the Jewish people. So the rights that were recognised as inhering in the Jewish people... were preserved by Article 80. There's nothing in the Charter which is to be construed, in or by itself... as taking away or altering the rights given to any people... prior to the establishment of the United Nations. I refer, for instance, to Article 80 of the Charter. Following Israel's statehood in 1948, the country was invaded... by five Arab armies intending to destroy the Jewish State. The eastern part of Jerusalem was annexed by Jordan. The city was divided for 19 years. Jordan's sovereignty over the West bank and Jerusalem... was never recognised by the United Nations. In 1967, Israel recaptured East Jerusalem in a war of defence... and later annexed it. The Security Council Resolution 242 of November 22, 1967... is often referred to as the source of rights and obligations... for the parties in the Middle East. If I focus on Jerusalem, I take the position that, again... rights have been granted based on the recognition of historical rights... based on the principle of reconstituting... what the Jewish people used to have. The Jewish State and the Jewish people have done nothing... to relinquish, to surrender the rights that were given... in respect to that territory. Anyone who looks at the census data back in the 19th century... when the Ottoman Empire was here... will realise that the Jewish people already in the 19th century... had restored a majority in Jerusalem, in the Old City of Jerusalem. In 1864, the British Consulate in Jerusalem... actually provided some census data. They said, out of 15,000 residents in Jerusalem in 1863... 8,000 were Jewish. So we're speaking about a city that has been a Jewish city... since Ottoman times, since the mid 19th century. The Old City is, without doubt, the most controversial... the most sought after, the most contentious issue... when one speaks of the question of Jerusalem. You have to remember that until the middle of the 19th century... Jerusalem was the Old City. Many who tell Israel to re-divide Jerusalem... along the '67 lines and therefore placing the whole Old City... on the Palestinian Arab side, forget what happened in 1948. 1948 - Jerusalem was invaded by five Arab armies. There were UN guarantees that there would be an international city... but the UN didn't do anything. Finally, all the Jews of the Old City of Jerusalem... were ethnically cleansed and forced to leave. The Arab Legion, along with Palestinian locals destroyed... 55 synagogues and Talmudic academies. They're blown up. Anyone who says to Israel, give up on Jerusalem... has to explain how that will avoid history repeating itself? Remember, from 1948 till 1967, when Israel reunited Jerusalem... Jews were not allowed to visit the Western Wall. And that is something that Israel is determined to avoid. After 18 years of a failed peace process and no agreement in sight... the Palestinian Authority's indicated that it unilaterally seeks recognition... from the UN General Assembly for a Palestinian State... within the pre-1967 Green Line, and with East Jerusalem as its capital. The Green Line is simply an armistice line. This is the line chosen between Israel, the Jewish people... and the Jordanians when they stopped fighting in 1948-49. That line - it was specified in the treaty in the armistice agreement... between Israel and Jordan - was never intended to be, for anyone... the source of rights and obligations. The original Oslo agreements, the first one in 1993... the big Oslo Agreement in 1995 known as the Interim agreement... had a clause in them. It was called Article 31. It said that neither side shall change the status... of the West bank and the Gaza Strip, prior to the completion... of the permanent status negotiations. If the Palestinians try to change the status of the territory... without negotiating with Israel... that is a unilateral act which violates this commitment. Why is this particularly important for Europe? Because when the Interim Agreement was signed with that critical clause... at the White House in the presence of President Clinton... the European Union signed the agreement as well, as a witness. If EU countries decide to support the Palestinian move in the UN... in contravention of that Palestinian commitment in Oslo... what they're doing is lending a hand to a violation... of a written agreement to which they are also signatories. So the immediate question in Israel will be: Who would ever rely on the EU again to be involved in the peace process... if it violates the very agreements that itself signed? The whole world is saying to Israel... why don't you recognise the rights of Palestinians to a Palestinian state? It seems elementary. Israelis hear this all the time. But put the shoe on the other foot. Do you see anybody telling the Palestinians... you must recognise the rights of the Jewish people to a state of their own? Whose roots are in international legitimacy and proposals going back... to San Remo and to the British Mandate by the League of Nations? Unfortunately, that same demand is not made on the other side... and perhaps it exposes its real intent. Many gathered, here in Rome. Senators, Members of Parliament to discuss issues of the Peace Process. Many are concerned about decisions that the nations could be making... in the coming weeks and months on the rights of the Jewish people... the rights of the State of Israel, Jerusalem and disputed territories. To give peace a chance, it's necessary to honour the solemn pledges... made under the law of nations to the Jewish people and the State of Israel.