Article 80 and the UN Recognition of a “Palestinian State”

September 22, 2011 10:58 am 7 comments

The Signing of the United Nations Charter in 1945.

In the entire debate now taking place on whether the United Nations Security Council or General Assembly has the right to approve the application of the “Palestinian Authority” to be recognized as a new member state of the UN, almost no mention is made of the legal fact that the UN itself is barred by its own Charter from acting upon or approving such an application. The reference here is, of course, to Article 80 of the UN Charter, once known unofficially as the Jewish People’s clause, which preserves intact all the rights granted to Jews under the Mandate for Palestine, even after the Mandate’s expiry on May 14-15, 1948. Under this provision of international law (the Charter is an international treaty), Jewish rights to Palestine and the Land of Israel were not to be altered in any way unless there had been an intervening trusteeship agreement between the states or parties concerned, which would have converted the Mandate into a trusteeship or trust territory. The only period of time such an agreement could have been concluded under Chapter 12 of the UN Charter was during the three-year period from October 24, 1945, the date the Charter entered into force after appropriate ratifications, until May 14-15, 1948, the date the Mandate expired and the State of Israel was proclaimed. Since no agreement of this type was made during this relevant three-year period, in which Jewish rights to all of Palestine may conceivably have been altered had Palestine been converted into a trust territory, those Jewish rights that had existed under the Mandate remained in full force and effect, to which the UN is still committed by Article 80 to uphold, or is prohibited from altering.

As a direct result of Article 80, the UN cannot transfer these rights over any part of Palestine, vested as they are in the Jewish People, to any non-Jewish entity, such as the “Palestinian Authority.” Among the most important of these Jewish rights are those contained in Article 6 of the Mandate which recognized the right of Jews to immigrate freely to the Land of Israel and to establish settlements thereon, rights which are fully protected by Article 80 of the UN Charter.

It should be common knowledge that under the Mandate, all of Palestine was reserved exclusively for the establishment of the Jewish National Home and future independent Jewish State, as was previously decided at the San Remo Peace Conference that took place in April 1920. Or put another way, no part of Palestine was allotted for an Arab National Home or state, since Arab self-determination was being generously granted elsewhere – in Syria, Iraq, Arabia, Egypt and North Africa – which has led to the establishment of the 21 Arab states of today, over a vast land mass from the Persian Gulf to the Atlantic Ocean. There is thus no necessity for a new independent Arab State in the specific area of former Mandated Palestine reserved for Jewish self-determination, most particularly, in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. Creating such a state out of Jewish land would be blatantly illegal under Article 80 of the UN Charter and beyond the legal authority of the UN itself.

In this respect, neither the League of Nations nor its successor, the United Nations, ever had sovereign rights over the land we Jews call Eretz-Israel. As a non-sovereign, the UN has no power whatsoever to allot territory to the “Palestinian Authority” where the allotted territory already belongs to the Jewish People.

Moreover, there is no article in the UN Charter which gives either the Security Council or the General Assembly or even the Trusteeship Council the power to create a new independent state. If the UN had such power, then logically it would also have the inverse power to “de-create” or dismember an existing state, a power it certainly does not enjoy under the UN Charter. If, theoretically speaking, this power did exist, the UN would be in effect a world legislature that could make or unmake states by its own volition, a power that would put in jeopardy the present world order.

For the foregoing reasons, the bill introduced in the US Congress by Ileana Ros-Lehtinen is definitely the proper course of action to follow. UN illegality needs to be roundly condemned and stopped dead in its tracks by an appropriate punitive measure, exactly as Ros-Lehtinen has proposed. Her bill would be even more worthy if it were to include a direct reference to Article 80 and to the fact that the UN has no legal power to create a state or to allot another state’s territory for that purpose, accomplished through the devious or underhanded means of accepting the applicant’s request for membership in the world body.

7 Comments

  • Natasha Langman

    Dear Abraham Weizfeld,
    Jewish Rights spelled clearly!
    There is NO room for misinterpretation what “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people” other then creating of a Jewish Nation means!
    In Article 22 in the “Covenant of the League of Nations” it says:

    “Certain communities formerly belonging to the Turkish Empire have reached a stage of development where their existence as independent nations can be provisionally recognized subject to the rendering of administrative advice and assistance by a Mandatory until such time as they are able to stand alone. The wishes of these communities must be a principal consideration in the selection of the Mandatory.”

    The “Mandate for Palestine” was created on 24th April 1922 from the LEAGUE OF NATIONS and referring directly to Article 22 of the “Covenant of the League of Nations”. The Mandate was given over on 15th May 1948 to the modern State of Israel. Israel started to exist again. The intentions and International Law of the LEAGUE OF NATIONS to build a Nation “Eretz Israel” were fullfilled.

    Abraham Weizfeld wrote “A national home for the Jewish people is not a Nation-State.”

  • dr. abraham Weizfeld

    “A Pan-Syrian Congress, meeting in Damascus, had declared an independent state of Syria on 8 March 1920.[6] The new state included Syria, Palestine, Lebanon and portions of northern Mesopotamia which had been set aside under the Sykes-Picot Agreement for an independent Arab state, or confederation of states. King Faisal was declared the head of state. At the same time Prince Zeid, Faisal’s brother, was declared regent of Mesopotamia.
    The San Remo conference was hastily convened. Great Britain and France both agreed to recognize the provisional independence of Syria and Mesopotamia, while “reluctantly” claiming mandates for their administration. Palestine was composed of the Ottoman administrative districts of southern Syria. Under customary international law, premature recognition of its independence would be a gross affront to the government of the newly declared parent state. It could have been construed as a belligerent act of intervention without any League of Nations sanction.[7] In any event, its provisional independence was not mentioned although it continued to be designated as a Class A Mandate. … The decisions of the San Remo conference confirmed the mandate allocations of the First Conference of London (February 1920). The San Remo Resolution adopted on 25 April 1920 incorporated the Balfour Declaration of 1917. It and Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations were the basic documents upon which the Mandate for Palestine was constructed.[9] Britain received the mandate for Palestine and Iraq; France gained control of Syria including present-day Lebanon.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Remo_conference

    San Remo conference – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    en.wikipedia.org

    Abraham Weizfeld Evidently there is no mention of a “Jewish Israel”.

    Abraham Weizfeld: San Remo Resolution – April 25, 1920
    It was agreed –
    (a) To accept the terms of the Mandates Article as given below with reference to Palestine, on the understanding that there was inserted in the process-verbal an undertaking by the Mandatory Power that this would not involve the surrender of the rights hitherto enjoyed by the non-Jewish communities in Palestine … The Mandatory will be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 8, 1917, by the British Government, and adopted by the other Allied Powers, in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

    Abraham Weizfeld A national home for the Jewish people is not a Nation-State. Even under the provisions of the Partition Plan Resolution 181 of the UN GA, the self-proclaimed State of Israel violates the boundaries set forth under the resolution. As for the recognition of the Palestine State, now acknowledged, if the Palestine State is not to be considered legal then the State of Israel would also have to be considered illegal, under international law.

    Abraham Weizfeld: Furthermore what is called ‘Eretz-Israel’ is not a State in itself but quite specifically a Land, upon which there has always been multiple Nations co-existing.

  • Jehudah Ben-Israel

    Clearly, the fundamental elements of international law that were set, at first, to avoid a conflict between Arab and Jew and then to resolve the Arab Israeli conflict have been:

    San Remo Conference decisions, 1920
    League of Nations decision, 1922
    UN Charter, Article 80, 1945

    The way to implement these have been designed and presented to the UN which passed, at its Security Council unanimously, UN Security Council 242, 1967

    One only wonders, if the Muslim-Arabs are so adamant against these elements of international law, do they actually seek peace or rather Israel’s demise…??

  • yes u hit the nail on the head. Now add the fact that G-D gave this land, all of it, to us. It is in the bible.

    Also there is no such thing as a palestinian, only an arab who happens to be living in Israel. Tell it to Pres Obama.

    • dr. abraham Weizfeld

      For sure David Hanson has not actually read the Torah (part of the old testament of the Protestant Bible).
      The covenant with the prophet Abraham was for the descendents to live on the Land forever, and that includes the Arabs, since the first born Ishmael was of an Egyptian mother, Hajjar. Since polygamy was fashionable at the time, there is no priority to be given to the first wife Sarah, who was Sumarian in any case.

  • This historical facts is absolutely necesarry to release to those countries in favour of a Palestinian state. Even it is necesarry information for the general public especially regarding the Jewish land rights to their Biblical land.

  • renanah goldhar-gemeiner

    As I wrote to Howard upon receipt of this letter a few days ago: “Yeah Howard!”
    Thank you for publishing this! Thank you Barry!
    Renanah

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