I recently critiqued an interview of Columbia University's Prof. Jeffrey Sachs by Judge Andrew Napolitano on U.S. policy on Gaza.

The judge started out by referring to "the slaughter that was going on in Gaza.”

How can he be so ignorant? It has been proven repeatedly that there is no slaughter or genocide in Gaza. In fact Israel has the lowest kill ratio of any war previously by a factor of at least five.

Surprisingly he spoke respectfully about Ben Gvir, who is Israel's minister of national security, and Bezalel Smotrich, Israel's minister of finance.

The Saudi foreign minister said on May 27, 2024:

“Israel doesn’t get to decide if the Palestinians have a right to self-determination”

“This is something that is enshrined in the UN Charter.”

“It is something that is enshrined in international law.”

“It is also a founding principle in the UN decision to found Israel”

The judge called it “an accurate presentation of history” and Sachs added “What he said was absolutely correct.”

I got news for all of them, none of it is true. Why so?

Start with self-determination.

UN Charter Article 1 (2) establishes that “one of the main purposes of the United Nations, and thus the Security Council, is to develop friendly international relations based on respect for the “principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples.”

This is a principle only and does not guarantee the Palestinians/Arabs, the right of self-determination.

But the PLO/Palestinian Authority has bound itself by signing the Oslo Accords.

The Oslo Accords, Article XXX, paragraphs 7 and 8 provide:

The two Parties view the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as a single territorial unit, the integrity and status of which will be preserved during the interim period.

Neither side shall initiate or take any step that will change the status of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip pending the outcome of the permanent status negotiations.

Now let's look at the UN Charter.

It does nothing more than “respect the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples.”

But it does provide in Article 80 that “nothing in this Chapter shall be construed in or of itself to alter in any manner the rights whatsoever of any states or any peoples or the terms of existing international instruments to which Members of the United Nations may respectively be parties.” 

This makes Jewish rights acquired previously, inviolable.

This Article takes precedence over the principle above stated.

Now let's move on to international law.

There is no universally accepted agreement as to the content of the right to self-determination, it is agreed that at a minimum, it entails the entitlement of peoples to have control over their destiny and to be treated respectfully.

The UN acts in violation of International Law while claiming to uphold it

International law and the State of Israel 

Israel is the legal owner of all lands west of the Jordan R.

Israel’s rights are rooted in the Balfour Declaration, San Remo Resolution and the British Mandate, all of which gave the land west of the Jordan to Israel.  The Arabs refused to accept this. Many in Europe refused to accept it also. They didn’t want to be bound by the law. Instead they ignored the law and got the UN to do so, too.

The conspiracy to shrink Israel

Founding principle:

Resolution 181 of the UNGA simply recommended a two state solution which also violated Israel’s right to all of it.

It did not create the state of Israel, David Ben Gurion’s Declaration of Independence did.

Throughout their whole discussion neither referenced Oct. 7 nor questioned whether a TSS would bring peace. The latter was a given or irrelevant.

They don’t know that Israel also favors a TSS, Israel and Palestine (formerly Jordan) living peacefully with the Jordan River separating them.

This, in essence, is the Jordan Option.

I discussed the above with a strong Zionist with a Ph.D. She was unaware of the San Remo Resolution. This stunned me. Then she argued that the solution to the Palestinian problem can’t not depend on rights acquired 100 years ago. In other words, she wants to ignore our rights and create a Palestinian state on our land. Just like everyone else.

I asked her if it will bring peace. “No” she said and argued that the current situation is also not peaceful, either.

She favors not finishing off Hamas because it will mean we have to go into occupation, and who wants that, she argued.

In The conspiracy to shrink Israel, I included a commitment made by Henry Kissinger in 1975 to an Arab diplomat:

“I think the Palestinian identity has to be recognized in some form.“

“No solution is possible without it.”

It referred also to Dr Paul Eidelburg’s synopsis of Eurabia:

In the same year, according to Eurabia and Prof. Eidelberg’s synopsis of it, the Euro-Arab Dialogue commenced and the Arabs set the conditions for this Euro-Arab symbiosis:

1) European policy would be independent from, and opposed to that of the United States;
2) recognition by Europe of a “Palestinian people,” and the creation of a “Palestinian” state;
3) European support for the PLO;
4) the designation of Arafat as the sole and exclusive representative of that so-called Palestinian people;
5) the de-legitimizing of the State of Israel, both historically and politically, its shrinking into non-viable borders, and the Arabization of Jerusalem.

This became European policy.

In Since when did the Palestinians become entitled to a state?  I pointed out that the Rogers Plan in 1969 started the process of supporting the Palestinian cause and every administration since then did likewise.  This culminated with President Clinton ramming Arafat down Israel’s throat. Only Trump went his own way.

In The UN acts in violation of International Law while claiming to uphold it, I gave many examples of where it ignored International Law.

What more can I say?

What ever happened to the rule of law?

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