UNHRC accidentally strengthens Israel's legal claim to the territories

The UN Human Rights Council issued a report in 2013, the "Report of the independent international factfinding mission to investigate the implications of the Israeli settlements on the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of the Palestinian people throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem."

It includes an annex that purports to provide a history of the "settlements" - a history that begins in 1948.

Its very first entry says:

1948: • The Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel‖ is issued. It equates Eretz-Israel (in Hebrew the Land of Israel) to the territory of British Mandate Palestine, in contrast to the provisions of 1947 United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 on the partition of the British Mandate of Palestine into two Independent Arab and Jewish States with a special international regime for the City of Jerusalem.

I don't read Israel's declaration of independence that way (it actually obliquely refers to UNGA 181 as proof that the UN accepts a Jewish state but it never accepts the partition plan borders), but if the UN does interpret the Declaration as saying that Israel claims the entire area, that actually strengthens Israel's legal position.

The UN calls the territories "occupied." Israel characterizes them as "disputed." If Israel's official claim to the entire British Mandate areas dates from 1948, and not 1967, that means that the territories were by the definition disputed even before the Six Day War, and Israel's claims to Judea and Samaria pre-dates any Arab nation's claims. It means that Israel staked a claim to the areas before the Green Line existed. Jordan only claimed them in 1949.

Unfortunately, the UN timeline is nonsense, but it proves that they will make up whatever they want as long as it fits their narrative of a expansionist Jewish state that salivated after Arab lands from the start.

---

---

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.