by Dr.Thomas Ice
Executive Director of Pre-Trib Research Center
Printed in Jan/Feb 2013 Issue of Israel, My Glory
You can download this article in PDF HERE.
(This article is a rare find. SEE BONUS ARTICLE BELOW)
The San Remo Resolution and Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations,
adopted at the Paris Peace Conference, were the basic documents upon which the
British Mandate for the stewardship of Palestine was constructed. It was at San
Remo that the Balfour Declaration went from being merely a statement of British
foreign policy to international law. 3
Executive Director of Pre-Trib Research Center
Printed in Jan/Feb 2013 Issue of Israel, My Glory
You can download this article in PDF HERE.
(This article is a rare find. SEE BONUS ARTICLE BELOW)
Based
on international law, April 24, 1920, was when modern Israel was given the
legal right to become a nation. As Bible-believing Christians, we all believe
that, at the end of the day, it only matters what the Lord has promised in
Scripture.
The
Bible teaches God gave the Jewish people the land of Israel. This fact is
repeated many times throughout the Bible. But what is the true history of the
rise and development of modern Israel among the community of nations? And what
is its standing based on international law?
The Balfour Declaration
The
Balfour Declaration issued by Great Britain on November 2, 1917, expressed
British foreign policy: “His Majesty’s Government view with favour the
establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will
use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object.” 1
Britain
backed up its stated policy when General Edmund Allenby and the British
military took control of Jerusalem on December 11, 1917, toward the end of
World War I. This conquest set the stage for the postwar division of what had
been the Ottoman Empire.
After
the First World War, the British controlled the area because they had captured
it militarily. Wrote British historian Jonathan Schneer, “The Paris Peace
Conference in 1919 and the San Remo Conference in 1920 ratified her rule and
extended it indefinitely within the mandate system established by the League of
Nations.” 2
The
Balfour Declaration merely stated the official policy of the British government
but did not have the status of international law. The Paris Peace Conference
ended without a final solution concerning the status of Palestine, even though
there was much discussion about it.
The San Remo Resolution
A
meeting to deal specifically with the unfinished business of Palestine, which
was to be seen as an extension of the Paris Peace Conference, convened on April
19, 1920, in San Remo, Italy. Present at the San Remo Conference were the four
principal Allied Powers of World War I, represented by the prime ministers of
Britain (David Lloyd George), France (Alexandre Millerand), and Italy
(Francesco Nitti) and by Japan’s Ambassador K. Matsui. The San Remo Resolution
adopted on April 25, 1920, incorporated the Balfour Declaration of 1917 issued
by the British government.
The
British Mandate was fully implemented upon approval by the Council of the
League of Nations in 1922. However, when the parties had left San Remo, the
future State of Israel was to be made up of what now constitutes the Kingdom of
Jordan, as well as all the land west of the Jordan River. At San Remo, Israel
was given the legal right, based on international law, to become a sovereign
nation under the oversight of Great Britain.
The
San Remo Resolution was later approved by the entire 52-member League of
Nations in 1922, further entrenching it as international law. In addition, a
third instrument legally entrenched Palestine as a Jewish state at the 1924
Anglo-American Convention on Palestine. Howard Grief noted, “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 their national
home in all of Mandated Palestine and the Land of Israel.” 4
The Mandate
On
July 1, 1920, the British military administration that had controlled Palestine
since December 1917 was replaced by a British civil administration covering all
of Palestine on both sides of the Jordan River, with its headquarters in
Jerusalem.
The
Mandate instructed Great Britain to oversee Palestine with the goal of
establishing a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine. Thus Great
Britain was told to oversee the immigration of Jews to the land; and when there
were enough to constitute a sovereign nation, Palestine would become the
national homeland for the Jewish people.
A
similar arrangement was made for Britain to oversee Mesopotamia (Iraq) and
Transjordan (Jordan); France was chosen as the Mandatory authority for Syria. 5
Britain
granted independence to Iraq in 1932 and to Transjordan in 1946; France gave
independence to Syria in 1936. But Israel never received a grant of indepen -
dence from Britain, even though this was the specific goal of British
oversight.
Why Britain Failed
Great
Britain failed to fulfill its obligations under the Mandate to shepherd the
Jewish people into a Jewish state. The complicated and difficult 30-year period
should have resulted in a peaceful recognition of what was legally established
on April 24, 1920. But it did not.
First, the Treaty of Sèvres (1920) was the legal document that
originally governed the carving up of the remains of the Ottoman Empire. Sèvres
recognized Palestine was for the Jewish people, but it was superseded by the
Treaty of Lausanne (1923) after Kemal Ataturk of Turkey overthrew the last
Ottoman sultan and did not recognize San Remo. Thus the Treaty of Lausanne
confused many as to whom really was given certain territories. 6
Second,
Arab opposition to Jewish immigration to Palestine began in April 1920 and
continued for much of the next two decades, creating an obstacle to Israeli
autonomy. The leader of these pogroms against the Jewish people was Haj Amin
al-Husseini (1893–1974) who became the grand mufti of Jerusalem and the father
of modern Arab terrorism.
The
attacks of Arabs against Jews in Palestine occurred periodically until April
1937 when near civil-war conditions broke out for about a year and a half,
prompting the British to do something about it. British authorities attempted
to arrest al-Husseini, but he escaped the country.
Even
while exiled in Beirut, al-Husseini was able to direct many terrorist
operations in Palestine for another year and a half, ending in 1939.
Al-Husseini’s Arab revolt, wrote American journalist Chuck Morse, “would result
in the deaths of 2,652 Jews, 618 British and 6,953 Arabs.” 7 The British became
weary of the conflict and developed the view that fulfilling their mandate of
forming an autonomous Jewish state was impossible.
Third,
in addition to the difficulties of managing the Mandate in Palestine for Great
Britain after the Lloyd George government passed from the scene in October
1922, the new governments that followed were increasingly less supportive of
the Jews. Britain had made promises to the Arabs that sometimes conflicted with
their mandate responsibilities, and too often they did not provide protection
for the Jewish inhabitants in Palestine.
Over
time Britain changed the San Remo Resolution and their Mandate over Palestine
with the issuance of The White Paper of 1939, which recommended partitioning
Palestine into Jewish and Arab sectors. However, The White Paper did not change
the constraints of international law since it was merely a statement of British
policy. The British shift of policy had the effect of causing the international
community and even Israel herself to forget her legal rights as the great storm
cloud of World War II loomed on the horizon.
Conclusion
In
the last decade, such legal scholars as Israeli Howard Grief and Canadian
lawyer Jacques Paul Gauthier have demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that
the modern State of Israel possesses the legal right to its land based on clear
international law. “The establishment of a Jewish homeland meant eventual
statehood and hence the transfer to the Jewish people of sovereignty to all
parts of the homeland including Judea, Samaria and Gaza,”concluded Grief. 8
“After
our examination of the principles of international law pertaining to belligerent
occupation,” declared Gauthier, “we have concluded that Israel has the right to
occupy the territories under its control since 1967, including East Jerusalem
and its Old City, until a peace treaty is concluded.” 9
In
Israel during July 2012, a panel of judges headed by former Israeli Supreme
Court Justice Edmond Levy issued a report. The Levy Report “did not present
anything new in saying Judea and Samaria are not occupied territory according
to international law.” 10
The
report recognized that Israel’s right to its land was founded on the San Remo
Resolution. Current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu commissioned the
panel “to investigate the international legal status of these towns and
villages and to provide the government with guidance relating to future
construction of Israeli communities beyond the armistice lines.” 11
It
is exciting to see in the last year or two, in the Israeli discourse about the
legality of the Jewish state, a growing awareness of its status beginning in
1920. Wrote Israeli-American journalist Caroline Glick,
The international legal basis for the establishment of the Jewish
state in 1948 was the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine. That
document gave the Jewish people the legal right to sovereignty over Judea,
Samaria and Jerusalem, as well as all the land Israel took control over during
the 1948–49 War of Independence. Not only did the Mandate give the Jewish
people the legal right to the areas, it enjoined the British Mandatory
authorities to “facilitate . . . close settlement by Jews on the land,
including state lands and waste lands not required for public purposes.” 12
Israel
has the legal right to its land based on international law. It also has the
divine right on the basis of God’s promise to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their
descendants. Future history will bear this fact out, but not without great pain
and suffering in the process. Maranatha!
Thomas Ice is world renowned for his expertise
in theology and Bible prophecy. He is a professor, writer, and editor, and
executive director of the Pre-Trib Research Center in Lynchburg, Virginia.
ENDNOTES
1
“The Balfour Declaration,” cited in Jonathan Schneer, The Balfour Declaration:
The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict (New York: Random House, 2010),
341.
2
Schneer, 374.
3
Jacques Paul Gauthier, “Sovereignty Over The Old City of Jerusalem: A Study of
the Historical, Religious, Political and Legal Aspects of the Question of the
Old City” (PhD thesis, University of Geneva International Law School, 2007),
423–24.
4
Howard Grief, The Legal Foundation and Borders of Israel Under International
Law (Jerusalem: Mazzo Publishers, 2008), 195.
5
Gauthier, 369.
6
Grief, 268–69.
7
Chuck Morse, The Nazi Connection to Islamic Terrorism: Adolf Hitler and Haj
Amin al-Husseini (New York: iUniverse, 2003), 49.
8
Grief, 10.
9
Gauthier, 848.
10
Tzipi Hotovely, “Time to Apply Israeli Law Over Judea and Samaria,” The Jerusalem
Post, July 11, 2012 < jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.
aspx?id=277141>.
11
Caroline Glick, “Column One: Obama’s Spectacular Failure,” The Jerusalem
Post, July 12, 2012 .aspx?id=277318>.
12
Ibid.
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