Danny Ayalon recently posted a propaganda video to his YouTube channel regarding the "Truth of the West Bank". Ordinarily I'm not prone to producing videos for YouTube, partly because I have zero budget (it's just me and Powerpoint) and also because I hate the sound of my own voice.
But, given that I was looking at a YouTube video, I thought it fitting that any riposte should take the same form. In that guise, I offer up the following (apologising in advance for the lack of slick cartoon animations):
Part I:
Part II:
Truth and Facts are obvious to all of us, but the key here is that the Ayalon youtube video was produced as a easy to follow and even though all lies and distortion to the educated and informed. But the video was produced to the “common” masses, those who read the papers for their history and watch CNN for what is happening, not those who reasearch, read several history books and filter internet sites for realities. The common masses will believe Ayalon’s video, unfortuantely this poor video is not a response and the masses will shut it off after 1 minute. You need the Ayalon style to counteract the Ayalon message.
Hi Brad, thanks for your comment. I’m not a propagandist, I have neither the talent nor the budget to produce a slick video like Mr Ayalon’s. I’m more interested in the content and the techniques used.
I’m sorry that I could barely hear the video even though I had my volume turned to the highest setting.
I am literally BEGGING the moderators to let me have an uncensored debate on this topic.
I am an expert on international law and I can prove without a shadow of a doubt that the Jewish people are the legal sovereign of Judea and Samaria under international law.
Again, allow me, uncensored, to refute the claims made by this gentleman. I will comment strictly from a basis of international law, and I will in NO WAY violate the comments policy.
Max, months ago, Shmuel wrote a simple sentence in response to your San Remo nonsense: “The rights of the indigenous Jewish minority in Palestine prior to Zionist colonisation were no greater than those of the majority non-Jewish indigenous population.” He also talked about “the general preposterousness of one party giving a second party’s lands to a third party.” I assure you that in the minds of almost all MW readers, Shmuel’s common sense and decency trumps your expertise in international law, regardless of how impressed you are with yourself. The few who might agree with you are already there, and do not need further enlightenment from you. May I suggest your peddle your nonsense on frontpagemagazine, where you not only will not be censored, you will be recognized for the sophisticated genius you believe yourself to be.
Better still, I’m sure Pam Gellar will give you a column – though you might have to sex it up with copious Islamophobic bile.
max, if you want to say something just say it.
if by expert you mean completely ignorant of than yes you’d be correct. I have seen your arguments in the past and they are all based on circular reasoning and choosing an outcome and trying to interpt everything through that lens.
Hi, I’d be very surprised if your were being censored just for citing international law.
If you don’t feel you can comment freely here (which again, I doubt), I will post on my website in a day or so and you can explain why I’m wrong there :)
Annie,
The point is I am not allowed. I have to use a proxy even to post on here. When I make comments based on international law they are censored and not posted.
I will repeat. Secret agreements held by the British as mentioned in these videos hold no weight under international law.
I will also repeat:
The lynchpin of this mans argument is based on a a biased advisory and legally indefensible opinion.
You must understand that the ICC is bound by Article 38(1)(c) of the Statue of the International Court of Justice, which states that the Court in adjudicating a case shall apply “The general principles of law recognized by civilized nations.” One of these general principles of law is that of estoppel.
In the case of Palestine the principle of estoppel will debar or impede any nation which expressly recognized the Balfour Declaration and Mandate for Palestine as well as the Franco-British Boundary Convention of December 2, 1920 from denying Jewish legal rights and title of sovereignty over the ENTIRE of Mandated Palestine.
Concerning the United States it has signed a treaty with Great Britain on December 3, 1924 in London, the “Anglo-American Convention” respecting the Mandate for Palestine in which it assented to ALL of the mandate as the basis for the British administration of Palestine.
The U.S thereby expressly recognized in a treaty the right of the Jewish People, in conjunction with the obligation of the British Government to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in all of Mandated Palestine and the Land of Israel, which included every right associated with or incidental to that overarching right, in particular the twin rights of Jewish immigration and settlement in those areas of Palestine which are erroneously labeled the “West Bank” Judea and Samaria.
Concerning the United States it has signed a treaty with Great Britain on December 3, 1924 in London, the “Anglo-American Convention” respecting the Mandate for Palestine
that might mean more to me if either the US or britan had the authority to assign palestine to the jews. they didn’t.
In the case of Palestine the principle of estoppel will debar or impede any nation which expressly recognized the Balfour Declaration and Mandate for Palestine as well as the Franco-British Boundary Convention of December 2, 1920 from denying Jewish legal rights and title of sovereignty over the ENTIRE of Mandated Palestine.
Any argument based upon the doctrine of estoppel would encounter a number of insurmountable problems. For example:
*In the Post WWI era, the doctrine of estoppel had not yet been accepted as a general principle of international law. See I.C. MacGibbon, Estoppel in International Law, International and Comparative Law Quarterly (1958), 7: 468-513
link to journals.cambridge.org
*On October 31, 1917, when the Balfour Declaration came before the War Cabinet, Balfour summarized the arguments for and against it. He specifically addressed Curzon’s objections to the use of the vague term “national home” maintaining that it did not mean the establishment of an independent Jewish state. See Karl Ernest Meyer, Shareen Blair Brysac, Kingmakers: the invention of the modern Middle East, page 120
*The system of mandates was proposed by a member of the War Cabinet, Jan Christian Smuts. His son wrote:
*The related doctrines of waiver and estoppel only prevent forfeiture of a legal right. The British Foreign Office Palestine Committee responsible for drafting the mandate proposed, and it was agreed, that any reference to a Jewish claim to Palestine be omitted from the Preamble of the draft mandate because the Principal Allied Powers had merely recognized an historical Jewish connection to Palestine. The minutes explained:
*In 1919 the General Secretary and future President of the Zionist Organization, Nahum Sokolow represented the Zionist Organization at the Paris Peace Conference. That same year Longmans, Green, and Company published his “History of Zionism (1600–1918) Volume I”. On pages xxiv–xxv he explained:
*During the Versailles Peace Conference, US Secretary of State Lansing specifically asked Dr. Weizmann “to clear up some confusion which existed in his mind as to the correct meaning of the words “Jewish National Home”. Did that mean an autonomous Jewish Government?” Dr Weizmann” replied in the negative.” and provided an explanation which ruled-out any possibility of Jewish minority rule over the non-Jewish population under the terms of the proposed Mandate. See the “The Council of Ten: minutes of meetings February 15 to June 17, 1919, page 169 in Papers relating to the foreign relations of the United States, The Paris Peace Conference, 1919.
*The ‘Council of Four Conference Held in the Prime Minister’s Flat at 23 Rue Nitot, Paris, on Thursday, March 20, 1919, at 3 p.m. was attended by Prime Ministers Lloyd George, Clemenceau, and Orlando. President Wilson, Lord Balfour, and General Allenby also attended.
That meeting resulted in the dispatch of the King-Crane Commission to determine the wishes of the inhabitants after a discussion regarding the McMahon letters to King Hussein. Lloyd George explained that they were a binding treaty commitment. He said that the League of Nations Mandate (i.e. the Balfour Declaration) could not be used to put aside the bargain with King Hussein. link to digicoll.library.wisc.edu
Concerning the United States it has signed a treaty with Great Britain on December 3, 1924 in London, the “Anglo-American Convention” respecting the Mandate for Palestine in which it assented to ALL of the mandate as the basis for the British administration of Palestine. . . .The U.S thereby expressly recognized in a treaty the right of the Jewish People to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in all of Mandated Palestine and the Land of Israel
*The preamble of the Convention merely recited the articles of the League of Nations Palestine mandate. It made no mention of a Jewish National Home in “all of Mandated Palestine and the Land of Israel” or a legal “right” to reconstitute anything there. The UNSCOP Commission noted that the term “National Home” had no meaning in international law:
*The ILC has noted that the characteristic element of estoppel is not a State’s conduct, but the reliance of another State on that conduct. There was no US treaty agreement with a “Jewish Nation”. Even if there had been an agreement dealing with a “Jewish state” or the territorial scope of a “homeland” in Palestine, the customary US practice at the time allowed the government to unilaterally revise or completely abrogate any treaty with another Nation that it considered onerous or senescent. The doctrine of estoppel was simply inapplicable to treaties or statutes dealing with the territorial scope of the homelands of the Cherokee, Seminole, Choctaw, and other Nations.
*Even the Israeli Supreme Court has ruled that any rights and claims under the Mandate ended when the UN and Great Britain terminated the Mandate. See for example CApp 41/49 Simshon Palestine Portland Cement Factory LTD. v. Attorney-General
*On March 28, 1949 President Truman wrote to King Abdullah “I desire to recall to Your Majesty that the policy of the United States Government as regards a final territorial settlement in Palestine and as stated in the General Assembly on Nov 30, 1948 by Dr. Philip Jessup, the American representative, is that Israel is entitled to the territory allotted to her by the General Assembly Resolution of November 29, 1947, but that if Israel desires additions, i.e., territory allotted to, the Arabs by the November 29 Resolution, it should offer territorial compensation. See the FRUS Volume VI 1949, pages 878-879.
link to digicoll.library.wisc.edu
*A cable dated April 8, 1968 from Johnson administration Secretary of State, Dean Rusk was published in 2000 by the GPO as part of the US State Department FRUS series, Volume XX, Arab-Israeli Dispute, 1967–68. It said that the US Government had explained its views to the Government of Israel (GOI) that “the transfer of civilians to occupied areas, whether or not in settlements which are under military control, is contrary to Article 49 of the Geneva Convention”. The cable mentions resolution 242 in Rusk’s concluding remarks:
Brilliant as always Hostage.
Thank you once again for illstrating what a real expert in international law looks like.
!!!!
i second that shingo. thanks hostage.
Thanks annie and shingo. Tim’s video and replies were spot-on. I just thought I’d provide some links and material to follow-up Calm’s request for additional info about the issues of secret treaties and the doctrine of estoppel.
I’ve run out of superlatives to describe how invaluable and informative all your posts are Hostage.
I ‘third’ that, Hostage. Jesus, you’re good, and I am sure I speak for so many here who value the extraordinary amount of time you put into your sourced responses. Thank you.
Hi! maximalistNarrative
I follow this issue rather closely and I would really like to read your “complete” assertions.
I don’t know, (nor do I care) as to whether you can post here or not, and I’m not into the politics of the problems you face as a member of this website.
However; I’d really like to read your whole trip and then I would be able to make a reasoned view afterwards.
How about going to my website and post it all here as a reply to my post which I readied for you?
Sign In As:
Guest1
Password:
Guest-1
link to silencescreams.com
I’m not trying to entice you to join my website. I’m keenly interested in this topic. You can view my personal database if yuh like. I normally don’t have it open for public viewing because of copyright issues.
So, I hide my database from the Google Robots
I will split the URL.
http://www.pair-annoyed.com:9090
And add this:
/TheNewz-Forum/forumdisplay.php?f=23
Calm
He can probably post here just fine and just puts on the censorship martyr act to get some cheap points.
Calm, he’s posted lots of stuff on this. Click on his name and read his archive.
MaxNarr’s been banging this same can for months. Here’s one exchange:
link to mondoweiss.net
And if you want facts and stuff for your database, click on Hostage’s name and lose yourself for a week going through his cited sources.
“I will repeat. Secret agreements held by the British as mentioned in these videos hold no weight under international law.”
Secret treaties were binding under international law. They’re not a great idea for other, mostly obvious reasons, but are legally binding, and they have been around from time immemorial.
They fell out of favour a few years later.
Absolute rubbish.
1. The words “all of Palestine” or “ENTIRE of Mandated Palestine” appear in no agreements, or treaties or declarations.
2. The International Court of Justice was established is 1945
3. You mentioned that one of the general principles of law is that of estoppel. What you failed to mention (or deliberately ignored) is that the other is equity
4. The Jewish Agency had backed a pair of lawsuits against the King of England (1940) and the Secretary of State (1950) in an unsuccessful effort to establish that Palestine had not been an independent state. The Agency had considered similar initiatives in the past (see Lauterpacht below).
The lawsuit failed.
5. Under US and international law, “sovereignty” is strictly a jurisdictional consideration that extends to all foreign states, subdivisions, agencies or instrumentality of a foreign state after it has been “recognized” by another state. For example, the short title of Pubic Law 94-583 is the “Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976″(link to uscode.house.gov) . It is codified in Title 28 – Judiciary And Judicial Procedure, Part IV – Jurisdiction And Venue, Chapter 97 – Jurisdictional Immunities Of Foreign States. See the definition of “foreign state” in § 1603. Definitions (http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/uscode28/usc_sec_28_00001603—-000-.html) . Title 8, Chapter 12, § 1101 requires that all trusteeships and mandates be treated as separate foreign states. In 2004, the Supreme Court held in Republic of Austria v. Altmann, 541 U.S. 677 (2004) that the FSIA applies retroactively. So, the suggestion that the United States did not internationally recognize Palestine as a sovereign state is completely without merit. The United States treats all foreign states on the basis of sovereign equality.
Prof. Hersh Lauterpacht wrote an advisory opinion in his capacity as counsel to the Jewish Agency for Palestine which cited a 1932 decision of the British Law Lords, Simon and Erleigh. Lauterpacht noted that the British government had already reached the conclusion that Palestine was a “third independent State” for the purposes of the most favored nation clause in it own treaties. He suggested that the matter might be tested in the British and International courts. The UK High Court of Justice ruled that Palestine was a separate foreign state when Kletter was arrested and deported. See the cite to R v. Ketter [aka Kletter] 1940, 1 KB 787 in Kletter v Dulles.
6. The US has NEVER expressly recognized in a treaty the right of the Jewish People, which is why the Truman (who pushed for Israel’s recognition at the UN) deliberately scratched out the referecne to Jewish State in the letter he signed, and replaced it with the name Israel.
You clearly have no idea what you are talknig about MN, and you are certainly no expert on international law.
Well put.
Very good vide BTW Tim.
A few more things you left out, though I imagine you already know this stuff:
1. There never was a Jordanian “occupation” because the government of the new state was composed of the legal representatives of the inhabitants of the Arab portions of the former Palestine mandate. You can’t “occupy” yourself with your own armed forces.
2. Israel and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (not Transjordan) signed an armistice agreement formally recognizing the belligerent rights of the other party. Both sides acknowledged the legal competence of the other party to conclude a final settlement regarding their boundaries. Note: In the case of a King the legal principle of sovereignty is not abstracted. So, Israel and the United Nations recognized the government of Jordan when they negotiated, accepted, and endorsed those armistice agreements with it. See for example Security Council resolution 73
3. Under customary international law “Once the decision has been taken to recognize an insurgent government as belligerent, the legal consequences of the decision are not limited to its concession of belligerent rights. So long as it maintains an independent existence, the insurgent government is considered to have all the normal rights and liabilities of a State. Its legal position is not merely that of a military occupant as defined by the Hague Convention No. IV, of 1907. — See Ti-chiang Chen, “The international law of recognition, with special reference to practice in Great Britain and the United States”, Nabu Press, 2010, page 307-308.
All of this information BTW I obtained from our resident legal expert, Hostage, who posts here often. You and he should seriously team up to rip the Zionist propaganda to shreds.
Very good vide BTW Tim.
Yes. Tim’s authored this video and another article on propaganda. I thoroughly enjoyed both of them.
“I will repeat. Secret agreements held by the British as mentioned in these videos hold no weight under international law.”
The initial formal boundaries of Palestine were established in-line with the Sykes Picot agreement. The last time that you commented on this topic was when the Yesha Council ignorantly bragged that it could take the Secretary General to the ICJ for calling the West Bank occupied territory. I supplied you with links at that time to the official US State Department copy of the “Aide-memoire in regard to the occupation of Syria, Palestine and Mesopotamia pending the decision in regard to Mandates, 13 September 1919″. It formally established the initial boundaries of Palestine. It cited the Sykes-Picot agreement and established the three OETA zones on the basis of the Sykes-Picot lines. Transjordan lay beyond the British-occupied territory in the Arab zone under King Faisal in Damascus. That was still the case during the subsequent San Remo Conference. The text in the applicable War Cabinet files explained that the Jordan River and the Dead Sea were the proposed eastern boundary of Palestine (after the Balfour Declaration) in 1918. See:
Former Reference: GT 6506A
Title: Maps illustrating the Settlement of Turkey and the Arabian Peninsula.
Author: Political Intelligence Department, Foreign Office
Date 21 November 1918
Catalogue reference CAB 24/72
link to nationalarchives.gov.uk
Here is a direct link to the 1918 map contained in CAB 24/72 GT 6506A which illustrates that Transjordan was not considered part of Palestine: link to flickr.com
A month before the Aide–memoire was submitted Balfour wrote his infamous memo from the Paris Peace Conference which addressed the fact that Transjordan was not yet part of Palestine. He suggested that: “Palestine should extend into the lands lying east of the Jordan. It should not, however, be allowed to include the Hedjaz Railway, which is too distinctly bound up with exclusively Arab interests.” His suggestion was not adopted — See Nº. 242 Memorandum by Mr. Balfour (Paris) respecting Syria, Palestine, and Mesopotamia’ [132187/2117/44A]
link to scribd.com
Secret negotiations and treaty agreements were, and still are, routinely concluded during armed conflicts. They aren’t enforceable through modern international intergovernmental organizations unless, or until, they are registered, but the UN does not prohibit them. The public learned about many of the secret WWI treaties following the Russian Revolution, when the Bolsheviks published them. Far from revealing plans to make the World “Safe for Democracy”, they indicated that the parties were prolonging the conflict in order to enlarge their empires. President Wilson called for an end to secret treaties as item #1 of his 14 Points:
Article 18 of the Covenant of the League of Nations was the first attempt to prevent members of any intergovernmental organization from entering into secret treaties. Of course many countries, including the US, did not become members of the League and were under no such obligation. The requirement wasn’t retroactive. In March of 1923 former Foreign Secretary Lord Grey told the House of Lords that many of the treaties had not been officially made public by the Government, or become public through other sources. He urged the government to publish them all.
link to hansard.millbanksystems.com
The Covenant represented a conventional, not a customary obligation. Article102 of the UN Charter has similar intent and legal effects. See also the discussion on “Registration of Treaties” starting at the lower right side of page 173 and continuing on 174 in Charles Howard Ellis, The origin, structure & working of the League of Nations, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1929. (Reprinted 2003 by The Lawbook Exchange), Ltd.
And of course, if we were to use the principle of estoppel, your argument is self defeating.
The Balfour Delcaration was just a letter, from a minister, to a private British citizen, and carried precisely zero legal weight until it was incorporated into the mandate a few years later.
And this happened AFTER the formation of the treaty promising Palestine for Arab independence.
LOL. Nothing in the Balfour Declaration, the Mandate nor the Boundary Convention gave the Jews anything, let alone title and sovereignty to all of Mandate Palestine. Anyone who suggests they did is either ignorant, crazy or a liar. It tinfoil-hats-and-flying-saucer talk.
Indeed, a better case can be made that whatever the Jews were intended to be given, it was definitely something other than a state and certainly not title and sovereignty and definitely nothing East of the Jordan. While I disagree with that assessment in some respects (i.e., it is clear that the “national home for the Jewish people” – whatever that was supposed to be — was clearly to be limited to the Western part of the Mandate), it is more in keeping with history than the Irgun fantasy you’re spinning here.
Woody, check out my comment here:
link to mondoweiss.net
It’s in black and white from the British White Paper of 1939.
Or, if you prefer the original, click on this link and start reading from “Section I. ‘The Constitution’.” Couldn’t be clearer, and it references the Mandate, the Balfour Declaration, and the Command Paper of 1922 specifically. But MaxNarr never bothered to read this in his international law career.
link to avalon.law.yale.edu
Hi! timhaughton
So, exactly when did “secret treaties” fall out of favor?
And, can yuh link me to info on the statement as to “secret treaties” being legal?
I’m not questioning your truthfullness, I need it for my own information or my own database on the topic.
I just thought you would have it handy.
Calm
If I was going to point to a specific moment, I would probably point you to the Treaty of Versailles, but even that wasn’t successful in ridding the world of secret treaties.
Today, secret treaties would be (for most examples I can think of) be illegal, in the sense that they are not admissible under article 102 of the UN charter.
But at that time, a secret treaty was no different in its legal strength. c.f. The Sykes Picot Agreement.
Most books on treaty law, or large volumes on International Law would provide you with that you need.
At its essence, “The British said we could have your land” is not any more persuasive than “God said we could have your land.” While the question of precisely what the British said is of considerable historical significance, it’s significance in the 21st century is little or none. The argument that Britain promised a “Jewish State” in the entire Mandate, including what became Transjordan, is not only factually wrong, but morally wrong as well.
And Tim, thanks for doing some necessary heavy lifting.
Couldn’t we just get around the technicalities by emphasizing the word used in the Balfour Declaration: homeland, not state (even if the writer had statehood in mind).
Couldn’t we just get around the technicalities by emphasizing the word used in the Balfour Declaration: homeland, not state (even if the writer had statehood in mind).
The authors of the Balfour Declaration employed the circumlocution “national home for the Jewish people”, not “homeland”. Many, if not most, Jews (including several Cabinet Ministers) were non-Zionists who did not fancy Palestine as their homeland. They insisted that the Declaration contain a safeguarding clause with respect to the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country. The supporters of the Declaration noted that there were six to seven million Jews in Russia alone and that there was only room for an increase of four to five million people in Palestine, without encroaching on the legitimate interests of the people already living there. See Dr. Weizmann’s remarks on pages 164-165 of “Papers relating to the foreign relations of the United States, The Paris Peace Conference, 1919.
Other supporters claimed that “a national home” didn’t mean a state or autonomous government. For example, Lord Cromer thought it would only be a symbolic spiritual center and a reservoir of Jewish culture.
A week before the Balfour Declaration was released, Privy Council President Lord Curzon, War Cabinet Secretary Hankey, and Secretary of State for India Montagu wrote memorandums explaining that the term “Jewish National Home” had no agreed upon meaning to Jews or supporters of the Zionist movement. See CAB 24/30, “The Future of Palestine” (Former Reference: GT 2406), 26 October 1917; CAB 24/4, “The Zionist Movement”(Former Reference: G 164), 17 October 1917; and CAB 24/28 (Former Reference: GT 2263) “Zionism, 9 October 1917.
I think that it is much more accurate to claim that South Africa Act of 1909 gave South Africa to white citizens then to claim that any treaty gave Palestine Mandate to Jews.
Also, unlike South Africa, United Kingdom was never in possession of the Mandate, so a unilateral British document has no force of law anyway (or French-British declarations).
Unwitnessed statements of burning bushes etc. have a similar low legal weight.
I just wanted to thank you people for posting all this “Legalize” stuff. It is very helpful to people like me.
And, if maximalistNarrative attempted to visit my website, well I apologize because it was down all day while I replaced my modem. (I host my websites on my own server in my home.) It is not necessary now anyways because Shingo and Tim Haughton spelled it all out quite well for me.
Calm