Yes, you're quite right. I agree that Israel's rights date back to San Remo. I suppose it's a question of how far back do you want to go? I wouldn't want to give the impression that Israel's rights started in '48. I think they started with Abraham, personally!!

I think Mike adds some good thoughts too! I still have much to learn!

Yes, you're quite right. I agree that Israel's rights date back to San Remo. I suppose it's a question of how far back do you want to go? I wouldn't want to give the impression that Israel's rights started in '48. I think they started with Abraham, personally!!

I think Mike adds some good thoughts too! I still have much to learn!

A PRE-EXISTING RIGHT OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE TO ITS ABORIGINAL HOMELAND refers to a right that was already binding in conscience even before the First World War, and prior to the series of declarations, resolutions, and treaties (1917-1922), that gave international legal recognition to the "national home for the Jewish People." And, make no mistake, that "national home for the Jewish People" was in 1922 internationally specified as stretching all the way from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.

With the specific name "Yehudim," the Jewish People was born in Eretz Israel some time around the 6th century BCE. From that time until today, there has never been a single day when Jews were entirely absent from their aboriginal homeland. For about 26 centuries a human population called "the Jewish People" has continuously maintained and renewed some real demographic and cultural ties to Eretz Israel. Across the many centuries — some Jews left; others came; while still other Jews never departed. And at all times, the cult of Eretz Israel remained a central feature in the religion of Judaism.

The aboriginal right of the Jewish People to Eretz Israel is conceptually identical to the right of the Greek People to Greece and the rights of the Aboriginal Peoples of North America to their tribal lands. Upon the outbreak of the 1821 Greek Revolution against Ottoman rule, Greeks were probably still a minority inside the borders of what is today Greece. Greek history in the last 200 years has been the story of Greeks fighting Muslims to recapture the Greek aboriginal homeland. It is also the story of wave after wave of Diaspora Greeks gradually returning to their native land. The history of the Jewish People and of the Greek People is in this respect virtually identical.

The Aboriginal Peoples of Canada are fiercely proud that the 1982 Canadian Constitution specifically recognizes their aboriginal and treaty rights. However, the Aboriginal Peoples of Canada would never allow you to say that their rights to the land originally flow from White man's law. They will tell you that their right to the land arose at the beginning of time and has endured as long as the sun has shined and the rivers have run.

In the same way, the Jewish People's right to its aboriginal homeland comes from history, from natural law, from the culture of the aboriginal Jewish People. Together with the Jewish People, "the Lord God of Israel" is the central protagonist in the religion of Judaism. And, this last point would be of special interest to the Supreme Court of Canada were the Holy Land located in Canada and were the Jewish People one of the Aboriginal Peoples of Canada. For the Supreme Court of Canada, the Jewish People's enduring belief that God promised the Holy Land to Abraham and his descendants would be understood as very powerful anthropological and historical evidence of the key importance of that particular land (Eretz Israel) in the civilization and culture of that specific tribe (the Jewish People). Go to http://www.allenzhertz.com to read an October 2011 posting entitled "Jewish Aboriginal Rights to Israel." There you will also find some juridical advice about how to reconcile the subsequent self-determination rights of the newborn Palestinian People with the aboriginal, treaty and self-determination rights of the ancient Jewish People.

International law is akin to an ongoing discussion about rights. Do not imagine that Jews enter that discussion without something meaningful and persuasive to say. And always remember that Jews are not like Englishmen upon their first arrival in America. Jews at many times across the centuries, returning to join other Jews already living in Eretz Israel, are never to be confused with the 17th-century "Pilgrim Fathers" who, without native kin or ancestors, arrived aboard The Mayflower to begin their English "settlements" beyond the Green Line in America. Of all extant Peoples, the Jewish People has the strongest claim to be aboriginal to Eretz Israel.

It is a mistake to extend Israel's legal legitimacy to the San Remo Resolution. The reason for this is that San Remo rights are far more general rights that apply to the Jewish people as a whole. San Remo affirms the Jewish people's right of return to Palestine; this return, in turns, creates a public that is entitled to self-determination, same as any people in a given territory they control would. These are two distinct constructs and should not be intermixed, because mixing them allows antizionists to claim that as Israel is "an" implementation of San Remo rights, any further settlement beyond Israel's borders (which happen to be, at every occasion, least extensive ones) is therefore illegitimate. This is not true. Creation of Israel does not abolish the Jewish right to settle in the remainder of Palestine (sans Jordan, where a sovereign state exists).

It was the Brits that tried to make sure the nascient country had no weapons to protect itself.
It was the Brits that made sure the grand mufti – close ally of hitler – was fully armed and well informed as to Jewish movements.
It was the Brits that had their navy routinely sink boatloads of Jewish refugees.
It was the Brits that had already prepared (prior to Independence) a relationship with a post-colonial entity with Jerusalem as its capital that had no Jewish residents.

The author is NOT debunking the 'myths'. He is simply attempting to obfuscate the truth.

It was the Brits that tried to make sure the nascient country had no weapons to protect itself.
It was the Brits that made sure the grand mufti – close ally of hitler – was fully armed and well informed as to Jewish movements.
It was the Brits that had their navy routinely sink boatloads of Jewish refugees.
It was the Brits that had already prepared (prior to Independence) a relationship with a post-colonial entity with Jerusalem as its capital that had no Jewish residents.

The author is NOT debunking the 'myths'. He is simply attempting to obfuscate the truth.