Jim Harb writes:
Phil, the United Nations did not create Israel. I've noticed that you mention this from time to time, but it's simply, historically, and factually inaccurate. This is not only a misstatement of historical fact, it is an important and misleading one in the continuing discussion of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The reality of the matter is this: The United Nations does not appropriate to itself the authority to create states. The United Nations only authorizes itself to recognize states for membership, states that are formed or proclaimed by the people of said state. The State of Israel was created by the Jewish leaders of the area that became Israel. Period. The United Nations recognized that creation and subsequently admitted Israel to UN membership. While this may seem to be a small distinction, it is salient.
Yes, it's true that prior to the formation of the state by the local Jewish leaders then living in Palestine that the United Nations had recommended that the former British Mandate of Palestine be bifurcated into two distinct areas, but this was only a recommendation, and did not carry the weight of international law, and certainly did not create the State of Israel.
The reality of the matter is this: The United Nations does not appropriate to itself the authority to create states. The United Nations only authorizes itself to recognize states for membership, states that are formed or proclaimed by the people of said state. The State of Israel was created by the Jewish leaders of the area that became Israel. Period. The United Nations recognized that creation and subsequently admitted Israel to UN membership. While this may seem to be a small distinction, it is salient.
Yes, it's true that prior to the formation of the state by the local Jewish leaders then living in Palestine that the United Nations had recommended that the former British Mandate of Palestine be bifurcated into two distinct areas, but this was only a recommendation, and did not carry the weight of international law, and certainly did not create the State of Israel.
You may think that I am splitting hairs, or parsing words. While that may be true, this distinction that I am making is considered to be an important one for many people of the world, not the least of whom are the Palestinians. As you can readily see, this changes the situation from one that implies that the State of Israel enjoys the blessing and moral authority of the United Nations for its creation to one in which the Jewish leaders of then-Palestine were the locus of the authority in the creation of the state. Many people, particularly in the U.S., are misled to think that the UN created Israel, and this misunderstanding helps to confuse and cloud the issue, but of course heaven knows that there is so much confusion over this conflict that we'll never make it all clear anyway. We do what we can.
Israel is. It exists as a state. Recognizing that the United Nations did not create Israel does not change the current reality, or diminish the standing of Israel. However, when we talk about this continuingly vexing conflict, it is important to put the situation in its accurate historical and factual context. Otherwise, people — including your readers — continue to be somewhat misled about the current situation and how it all came to be.
Israel is. It exists as a state. Recognizing that the United Nations did not create Israel does not change the current reality, or diminish the standing of Israel. However, when we talk about this continuingly vexing conflict, it is important to put the situation in its accurate historical and factual context. Otherwise, people — including your readers — continue to be somewhat misled about the current situation and how it all came to be.
Uh-oh. I asked my resident Chomsky, Jeff Blankfort, for some backup here:
Harb is correct. The UN General Assembly which did not and still doesn't have the power to make decisions, that power being reserved to the Security Council, voted to partition the remaining area of the British Mandate into two states on November 29, 1947, one Jewish and one Arab, but that did not create the state. That was done unilaterally by David Ben-Gurion on May 14, 1948 after the British speeded up their scheduled August departure and pulled their troops out of Palestine. The newly declared state was recognized by Truman, de facto right away but not de jure until January 31, 1949. The USSR was the first to recognize it de jure. UN membership came later. What is rarely mentioned is that the Security Council chose not to act on the General Assembly vote. November 29, 1947, is memorialized by Palestinians and their supporters because of the UN partition vote but, in fact, it had no legal standing and the Jews in Palestine would have done what they did to the Palestinians if the UN had not existed. They had already begun the ethnic cleansing before that with the massacre at Deir Yassin on April 8, being just one example.
I'm no international law scholar. It sure looks like I'm wrong, and these guys are much better informed than me. I'll watch myself in future. But I will say that the Partition resolution is not meaningless, was not meaningless as a motion of international will (lobbied though it was), and has resonance for me because Israel derives some sustenance from it to this day even as it has flouted countless subsequent resolutions of the same body.
