Opinion: Boris Johnson, We Don’t Need Your Recognition

JERUSALEM (VINnews) — Dear Boris,                                                                                                                                    You portray yourself in an article published yesterday in Israel’s Yediot Aharonot as a “passionate defender of Israel.” I believe you. I imagine that if you had to passionately defend your true friend for actions you found questionable, you would leave no stone untouched in an attempt to understand those actions. However in the case of Israel I am not convinced that you fully appreciate Israel’s moral, historic and legal rights to Judea and Samaria.

I need not invoke the Bible, a book accepted by all three religions which stresses that the entire land of Israel is given forever to the children of Abraham and Isaac. You might claim that the children of Ishmael are also descended from Abraham, even though the Jewish Bible specifies that they will not inherit with Isaac. I will however also cite the inalienable connection between the Jewish nation and Judea and Samaria over thousands of years, even after they were uprooted twice from their homeland and thrown into exile. Every Jew worldwide dreamed for 2000 years of Jerusalem, Hebron and Shechem. Three times a day a Jew prays “let our eyes see when You return to Zion in mercy”, three times he mentions Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who are buried in Hebron.

In the Koran Hebron is not mentioned once. Nor is Shechem. The Arabs called it Nablus because they couldn’t pronounce the Roman name for it- Neapolis- but they never had their own name for the town since it didn’t belong to them. The Bible says that it was granted to the sons of Joseph who in turn allowed the Levites to live there, adjacent to the burial site of Joseph which still exists inside Nablus.

In 1920 at the San Remo conference the Arab leaders knew all of this. They had no aspirations on Palestine and only wished to establish an Arab State in Jordan, Syria and Iraq. This was formalized in the Feisal-Weitzman agreement of 1919 regarding Palestine in which Feisal withdrew any Arab claims to the region. The resolutions of the San Remo conference were included as part of the Treaty of Sèvres (August 1920), which led to the League of Nations recognizing in 1922 the Land of Israel (then Palestine) as the homeland of the Jewish people. Fifty-one member countries – the entire League of Nations – unanimously declared on July 24, 1922:

“Whereas recognition has been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country.”

At the time Palestine included all of the lands west of the Jordan river, and the decision also recognized the rights of Arab minorities within the Jewish state. The Faisal-Weizmann agreement states that “In taking such measures (to establish a Jewish state) the Arab peasants and tenant farmers shall be protected in their rights, and shall be assisted in forwarding their economic development.”

This then is the model envisaged by the international leaders both Arab and Jewish – a Jewish state over the entire area of Palestine supporting minority rights within it. The Arab minority within Israel enjoys the highest standards of living in the Middle East (excluding the oil-rich states) and the most democratic rights (not excluding the oil-rich states). This is indeed the model of the modern Jewish state and could be the model for annexation if the Palestinians (a nation which obviously never existed before 1920) would accept it. They could live as residents within the state with full rights and could vote for their own autonomous leadership.

The fact that they consistently refused to accept these internationally ratified agreements and tried to use later UN resolutions to promote their claims while ignoring all of the moral, historic and legal arguments presented above testifies to their utter distortion of history. The Palestinian nation never existed, they are all part of the Arab peoples in the region and most migrated to Israel (which was almost deserted in 1900) looking for opportunities to work for Zionists building the Jewish state.

Just take a look at this 1932 picture. It captures a biblical site of great importance- the site of King Saul’s capital, called Givah in the Bible, just north of Jerusalem. Note how empty and desolate all the hills are around the site. That’s right- this is part of Judea and Samaria which the Arabs claim to have occupied for centuries. Today there are six new neighborhoods adjacent to the site- three Arab and three Jewish. Why should the Arabs have more of a claim to what were deserted hills than the Jews? By what right do they arrogate to themselves all of this land? Are they descended from King Saul?

Despite this, Israel was constantly willing to compromise and share. Israel did not prevent the development of Arab neighborhoods after 1967 on what was technically land allocated to Israel in 1920, and even made efforts to promote the Palestinian economy and to establish a moderate leadership. The Oslo accords generously offered the Palestinians autonomy and self-determination over large parts of Judea and Samaria and despite endemic terror attacks supported and even funded by the PA, Israel was willing to negotiate a settlement and evacuated large parts of Judea and Samaria. However at no point did Israel relinquish its legal rights to these regions so intimately associated with the Jewish people’s history. The current annexation is merely a continuation of the Jewish presence in a land where they existed before any of the European nations had laid claim to their own lands.

Yet you have the temerity to claim that “annexation would represent a violation of international law.” What law could prevent a nation returning to its birthright?

Your other arguments are equally flawed. You claim that “annexation would put in jeopardy the progress that Israel has made in improving relationships with the Arab and Muslim world.” The only ones who could lose from this are the Arab and Muslim moderate countries. They realize the obvious economic and strategic gains from having an ally like Israel. They initiated contacts with Israelis and cooperated with Israeli firms on numerous regional initiatives. They may pay lip-service to the Palestinians but you can be sure that they will do nothing to prevent Israel from declaring its rights to its historic homelands.

You wish Israel to return to the negotiating table. There is no such table, the Palestinians threw it away. They refuse any compromise, they ignore history, they support convicted terrorists, they deny Israel’s right to exist. It’s time you realized, Boris, that the only possible solution is the one-state solution, the same one envisaged by Faisal, Weitzman and the League of Nations. A hundred years ago people already had the answer.