A brief response regarding Judea and Samaria (JEWISH GROUP)
I posted this elsewhere, but I cobbled this together regarding the common canard about Israel having illegal settlements. Now there are many kinds of settlements going on, but I picked Judea and Samaria as my example because it's the most common.
Here are the facts:
Let's talk about Judea and Samaria, commonly called the "West Bank" (as in, the west bank of the River Jordan) in the Western press.
Go back in time to the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire that accelerated after WWI, and the division of the stateless land into two states -- now Jordan (largely Arab) and Israel (largely Jewish).
At the time of initial division of this stateless land, the land on both sides of the river Jordan were to be part of the Jewish National Home by the 1920 San Remo Conference, including Judea and Samaria. This was confirmed by the League of Nations (predecessor to the United Nations) in the 1922 League of Nations Mandate to Britain, and affirmed by article 80 of the United Nations charter in 1945. When Israel’s leaders declared sovereignty in all territory relinquished by England on May 15, 1948 (including the land west of the Jordan river) it was recognized as the State of Israel by the General Assembly and Security Council by May1949.
At that point in time, Judea and Samaria (again the "West Bank " ) were legally Israel.
Well, the Arab homeland (again, Jordan, interestingly with an Army staffed with former Nazi officers) didn't like that much, so Jordan invaded (along with four other Arab states) and conquered Judea in 1949, annexed it in 1950.
Jordan's actions were illegal under Article 2 of the UN charter, which forbids the acquisition of territory through war, so no one recognized Jordan's occupation, except England (who was pissed off at the new Israel for a rather nasty war).
In 1967, Jordan again initiated war against Israel (along with two other Arab states) but Jordan was pushed out of the territory (back to Jordan’s recognized boundaries on the east bank of the Jordan river) by Israel. This re-acquisition of the territory by Israel was legal because article 51 of the U.N. charter permits a nation to defend itself from attack.
Given the fact that Israel had legal title to the territory that was recognized by the international community and Israel’s final control of Judea was a result of self-defense rather than aggression (while Jordan’s control of the territory was never recognized as legitimate by the international community), common sense shows that Israel merely won back territory that legitimately belonged to it in the first place.
Regardless, Jordan (the only potential claimant) relinquished all claims to Judea and Samaria in 1988 and recognized the territory as part of Israel in a peace treaty signed in 1994.
So, no, settlements in Judea and Samaria are not illegal occupation of Jordanian land.
The various proclamations by certain committees of the UN have no binding effect under international law. It's just like Senate resolutions from whomever condemning things. Lots of sound and fury, but they don't actually mean anything.
