WHY was Israel allowed to colonize the Palestinian West Bank with so called "settlements"

PART 2

Like it or not, there are valid legal arguments for exempting the territories disputed between Israel and the Palestinian Authority from Article 49.

One of the first arguments is the fact that, unlike the Yishuv (Jewish shadow government under the Mandate), the Higher Arab Commitee for Palestine (Arab shadow government under the Mandate) did not declare establishment of an Arab state as mentioned in the resolution terra nullius (land without sovereign). The very definition of 'occupied territories' defined that they must have been acquired through belligerent sctions between the two sovereign nations. Since 'Palestine' was not declared by the PLO until 1988, the Jordanian occupation of eastern Jerusalem and the 'West Bank' was at least illegal as the claims against Israel. The same goes for the Gaza strip, but that's a totally separate issue, since Gaza is ruled exclusively by Hamas not the PA, and there is not one single Israeli there, other than a few Israeli Defense forces corpses and a few hundred imprisoned civilians Hamas is attempting to trade for thousands of convicted terrorists in Israeli prisons.

Had the Higher Arab Committee for Palestine taken this simple step, the situation would be radically different. It's quite relevant to note that the Committee didn't declare the establishment of the "Arab State" because they believed the Arab League promises that Israel wouldn't last a month and the Jews would be thrown into the sea. Now generations of Arabs whose families lived in the Palestine Mandate are paying the price for the short-sightness and arrogance of the Arab League.

Proof of the illegality of Jordan's occupation is given by the UN's rejection of Jordan's 1950 attempt to annex the "West Bank" and eastern Jerusalem. Only Pakistan and Great Britain recognized the attempt, and Great Britain rescinded it's recognition after the UN rejected it. Egypt never attempted to annex the Gaza strip.

The so called Israel's 'occupation' of the "West Bank" in 1967 has a different legal basis for several reasons, the main one being that the area was acquired in a defensive war, not a war of aggression.

The drafters of the UN resolution 242 had some very consistent arguments, (The resolution calls for the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the occupied territories, acknowledges the claim of sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every state in the region and calls on the UN Secretary-General to appoint an Envoy to facilitate an acceptable solution to the conflict), none of which did or will satisfy pro-Palestinians.

Actually, it doesn't really matter what UN 242 says because the Arab League rejected it with the Khartoum Accord: "No recognition of Israel; no negotiations with Israel; no peace with Israel", a declaration that Yasser Arafat claims was 'the greatest diplomatic achievement of my career' in his official biography.

Basically, as the only remaining recognized legal entity and sovereign state (remember, the PLO declared its claim to establishing a Palestinian state only 21 years after the US Resolution 242 was written), has the best legal claim to those territories under the existing international law. At this point, it's important to note that at the time of the US Resolution 242, the PLO had waived all claims to the "West Bank", eastern Jerusalem and the Gaza strip in its 1964 Palestinian National Charter (which it has gone to great lengths to eradicate from the Internet):

"Article 24: This Organization does not exercise any territorial sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, on the Gaza Strip or in the Himmah (Jerusalem) Area. Its activities will be on the national popular level in the liberational, organizational, political and financial fields."

(Final part to be continued...)