Peloni: Prof. of Law Eugene Kontorovich is one of the world’s preeminent experts on universal jurisdiction and maritime piracy, as well as international law and the Israel-Arab conflict. Below, Kontorovich discusses Israel’s real borders and exposes many false narratives which defy reality and truth about those borders.
Key points
- Israel was not created by the UN: The United Nations lacks authority to create states; its 1947 partition plan was both non-binding and rejected by Arab states.
- The Holocaust did not create Israel: The reconstitution of the Jewish state was accepted and planned decades before the Shoah; the Holocaust actually weakened Jewish capacity to establish it.
- The League of Nations Mandate for Palestine is the key legal foundation: It was a binding international instrument recognizing the Jewish national home.
- Borders follow prior administrative boundaries: Under the doctrine of uti possidetis juris, new states inherit borders of previous top-level administrative unit.
- Israel legally inherited Mandatory Palestine’s territory: This included all land west of the Jordan River at the time of independence.
- Arab occupation did not create sovereignty: Jordanian and Egyptian control of the West Bank and Gaza (1948–1967) had no legal effect on sovereignty.
- Israel became a state through self-declaration and defense: Effective governance and survival against invasion meet international law criteria for statehood.
- Israel is held to no special legal standard: The same international law rules applied to Israel apply to every modern state worldwide.
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A truly excellent presentation of an important matter. Unfortunately, the people who should watch it won’t. Politicians in the West are cowards; that’s why you see them appeasing Moslems. The only way forward is for Israel to cut its military dependence on the US and to advance its own interests without having to consider the views of people more interested in building golf course resorts and tawdry imitations of Disneyland than in defending the Judaeo-Christian values and the heritage of the West. Once Israel has achieved true military independence, there will be time enough to discuss the law.
This is excellent, but I do have a problem with:
“Borders follow prior administrative boundaries: Under the doctrine of uti possidetis juris, new states inherit borders of previous top-level administrative unit.”
As I read this I ask what constitutes a “previous top-level administrative unit”. Are we thinking of the UK, the French, etc.? If you look at ancient maps, those who drew up the modern maps seem to be somewhat lacking. An example could be the changing of Mesapotamia to Iraq. What were the borders of Mesapotamia. And if these were changed, by whom were they changed and why?
Now I may be off on this, but I figure that the former state of Israel may have been much larger than it is now, even including the “West Bank”.
Wonderful!!!