Palestine – European Union Drowns In Sea Of Inconsistencies
January 5, 2016 by David Singer
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The European Union (EU) has concluded an unhappy 2015 with the introduction of racist and discriminatory labelling laws for Jewish goods and products originating from Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and East Jerusalem…writes David Singer.
EU members Hungary, Greece and the Czech Republic have rejected these laws which have also been condemned in a bipartisan resolution presented to the US Congress.
The EU’s Ambassador to Israel – Lars Faaborg-Andersen – has attempted to justify these labelling laws as being simply an expression of the EU’s longstanding view that such designated territories are not part of Israel.
He omitted to state that EU policy will never support any part of these disputed territories becoming part of the State of Israel because the EU claims that Jewish settlement there since 1967 is illegal in international law.
However there is no binding legal decision in any Court that substantiates this EU claim.
Indeed there is territory-specific legislation to the contrary – article 6 of the Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the UN Charter – that confirms the legal right of Jews to settle in Judea and Samaria and East Jerusalem.
Jews lived in these areas for millennia prior to being driven out in 1948 by six invading Arab armies – facts which somehow appear to have escaped the EU’s notice.
Such EU policy also flies in the face of Security Council Resolution 242 calling for secure and recognised borders to be established in negotiations between Israel and her neighbours.
The EU’s anti-Israel stance no doubt encouraged the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) to reject offers by Israel in 2000/01 and 2008 to cede its claims in more than 90% of Judea and Samaria as part of any peace treaty to end the 100 years old Jewish-Arab conflict.
Why accept 90% when the EU is supporting the PLO’s demand for 100%?
The EU – in so acting – has repudiated the decisions adopted in 1922 by 23 of its current 28 members unanimously endorsing the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine – whose terms provided for:
1. Jewish self-determination in 22% of the territory of the Mandate including East Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria
2. Arab self-determination in the remaining 78% of the territory of the Mandate – today called Jordan.
Cyprus, Germany, Hungary, Ireland and Malta are the only current members of the EU that were not members of the League of Nations when these fateful decisions were taken.
The Jews had been short-changed by the League of Nations – which reduced the area within which the Jewish National Home was to be reconstituted to just 22% of that previously contemplated by the High Contracting Powers – Great Britain, France, Italy (all current EU members) and Japan – at the April 1920 San Remo Conference and the Treaty of Sevres signed in August of that year.
The Jews nevertheless reluctantly accepted these restrictions. The Arabs rejected them. The PLO deemed them “null and void” in 1968.
Fast forward to 2016 and the European Union continues to backtrack on these internationally-binding commitments to the Jewish people made by the overwhelming majority of EU members 94 years ago.
Conditions for entry into the EU require that each applicant:
1. Be democratic
2. Have a free market Government together with corresponding freedoms and institutions and
3. Respect for the rule of law.
The EU does not require the PLO to meet these criteria – yet opposes any claim to the historic and biblical heartland of the Jewish people by Israel – which shares these EU fundamental values.
The EU should hang its collective head in shame as it drowns in this sea of inconsistencies entirely of its own making.
David Singer is a Sydney Lawyer and Foundation Member of the International Analysts Network
Is it correct that these EU offences actually violate international trade laws of the World Trade Organisation?
There may be a place for Shurat haDin action in this matter.
Leon
There is a powerful legal opinion that supports your question – which can be read in detail here:
http://kohelet.org.il/uploads/file/KPF35_challenge%20EU_141015PublicElectronic%20november2015.pdf
It is an opinion that I hope the Government of Israel will act on if it cannot achieve some modicum of agreement with the EU – such as labelling any such goods as “Products of Judea and Samaria” which properly designates the origin of any such products.
This would test the sincerity and concern of the EU. If the EU refuses to agree to such wording then it should be taken to Court and the issue be legally dealt with.
If I read my history correctly, the League of Nations set up the mandates principle in 1919 and the Treaty of Sevres handed control of a part of the Ottoman Empire to the UK to set up the Jewish homeland in 1920. The Brits chopped of 74% of their mandate in 1921 and created their puppet state of Trans-Jordan in 1923. (They also handed over 1% of their mandate – the Golan where the JNF had established farms and still owns lands – to France). I cannot find anything in any of the treaties about East Jerusalem; treaties simply called for freedom of worship for all faiths.
The 1947 UN partition plan was a dog’s breakfast of Jewish and non-Jewish territories with Jerusalem (all of it) being a special excision whose residents would vote on its affiliation after 10 years.
The Jews accepted the bits that would make up their patchwork state while the Arabs rejected the plan and in defiance of the UN formally attacked the Jewish state a day after it was declared.
The Arabs have no rights. You cannot wage aggressive war or a terror campaign to get what you failed to get in court and then go to court as the plaintiff to get what you failed to get illegally through force of arms. The EU is acting immorally and illegally in ignoring UNSC 242.
Paul
Not totally correct.
The Brits chopped nothing off nor did they create their puppet state in 1923. They had no power to do so under article 5 of the Mandate which prevented any Palestine territory being ceded or leased to, or in any way place under the control of the Government of any foreign Power.
A fiction – an emirate of Transjordan was therefore created between 1923-1946 in about 78% of the land supposedly set aside for Jewish settlement – and Britain accepting full responsibility as Mandatory – made sure no Jews could settle in Transjordan – restricting their occupation to the remaining 22% between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River.
A sell out of the Jews had occurred – but the Jews reluctantly accepted those decisions and set about building their National Home in the 22% available to them.
Transjordan therefore remained part of the Mandate for Palestine until it became independent in 1946 in very dubious circumstances ( that is another story) but the provisions of the Mandate relating to the reconstitution of the Jewish National Home in Palestine were declared inapplicable under Article 25 of the Mandate on 23 September 1922.
So 78% of mandatory Palestine eventually became the independent Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan in 1946, 17% became the independent State of Israel in 1948, whilst the remaining 5%.- Gaza, Judea and Samaria and East Jerusalem were occupied by Egypt and Jordan between 1948-1967.
The EU apparently still supports the creation of a second Arab State in Mandatory Palestine – in addition to Jordan.
Can you imagine the world indignation if the Jews also demanded a second State in Mandatory Palestine – in addition to Israel?
I agree with Howard Levin
David Singer’s article puts the situation in an excellent and concise
summary
This should be read again and again at sessions of the EU. No-one should hold their breath waiting for any change in attitude, but hope spring eternal
This is a brilliant piece by David Singer.