Defy those who tell Israelis they’re trespassers
The United Nations has long referred to Judea and Samaria as “occupied” Palestinian land, and the global body’s principal judicial arm, the International Court of Justice in The Hague, issued a non-binding ruling last Friday declaring that “occupation” to be “unlawful.”
French-Canadian attorney and scholar Jacques Gauthier said recently that the United Nations, countries, nonprofits and others that use the term “occupied territories” in this way misunderstand international law and legally recognized treaties.
“Never allow people to tell you that you’re trespassers. It’s your land,” Gauthier, who is not Jewish, told JNS. “It’s been given to you, in law.”
Gauthier, whose scholarly work focuses on the Jewish people’s legal rather than biblical claims to the modern State of Israel, thinks that the 1920 treaty that emerged from the conference in San Remo, Italy, ought to be as well-known as the Balfour Declaration.
Great Britain didn’t control the region of Palestine at the time, and its Balfour Declaration was just that — a declaration, not an international legal document.
But the 1920 San Remo agreement, which incorporated the principles of the declaration from three years prior, had the legal imprimatur of international support and “is the most momentous political event in the whole history of the Zionist movement,” Gauthier said.
Montreal-born and educated in Paris until elementary school, Gauthier didn’t know much about Jews as a child.
But when he sought a topic to study in his doctoral thesis, he wanted to work on “a good cause, on something that was bigger than me,” he told JNS. He settled on the legal claims to Jerusalem’s Old City.
“I chose that because I discovered the city of Jerusalem through different journeys with my family and I fell in love with it,” he said. “I could not have found a better cause. The Jewish people have dealt with injustice for so long.”
It took two decades to complete his 1,300-page thesis, titled “Sovereignty Over The Old City of Jerusalem: A Study of the Historical, Religious, Political and Legal Aspects Of the Question of The Old City.” He earned a doctorate in international law from the University of Geneva in 2007, under the supervision of Marcelo Kohen, an international law expert and Guggenheim award winner.
Gauthier has since presented his findings to the Canadian House of Commons, UK House of Lords, US Congress, Italian Senate, European Union and Japanese and Dutch parliaments. In 2000, French president Jacques Chirac knighted him.
• • •
The historical, archaeological and religious story of Israel dates back millennia, but the modern state’s legal story began after World War I with the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian, German, Ottoman and Russians empires.
The victors — the allied powers of Britain, France, Italy and Japan — convened to discuss how to divide the Ottoman territories after the war, with the US participating as an observer.
“What happens to property transferred in title in international law, very often, is a treaty between the victorious nations and the defeated nations,” Gauthier told JNS. “In that treaty, the defeated nation will cede title, totally recognized in international law.”
The Ottoman empire’s territories, which were administered by the allies, were eventually transferred to other owners.
Under the leadership of then US President Woodrow Wilson, the Covenant of the League of Nations was formalized in 1919. Its Article 22, which created a “sacred trust” setting aside territories for the benefit of the local inhabitants, played a key role in international mandates, according to Gauthier.
During the February 1920 peace conference in Paris, the allied powers heard the case for autonomy from representatives from both an Arab delegation, led by Faisal I — who would become king of Iraq the following year — and a Zionist delegation led by Chaim Weizmann, who would become Israel’s first president.
Previously, the two had agreed on the Jewish aspirations for Israel and on Arab control over several other parts of the Middle East.
“The bottom line is that they commit to support the national movement of the other,” Gauthier told JNS.
The conference in San Remo, Italy, would formalize what became known as Mandatory Palestine, bestowing legal title to the modern nation-state of the Jewish people, which was to include today’s Israel, Judea and Samaria and present-day Jordan.
At the Villa Castello Devachan in San Remo, the allied powers agreed to the Jewish historical claim, transforming it into a binding international legal right.
• • •
Signatories to the treaty on Apr. 25, 1920, were the British, French and Italian prime ministers, as well as representatives from Japan. The document referred to the “reconstitution” of the Jewish homeland — acknowledging in a single word that there had once been a sovereign Jewish state in the land.
“If you study the Mandate for Palestine, there’s only one reference to the Arabs. It’s a reference to the Arabic language; 15 references to the Jews and the Jewish people,” Gauthier said. “It includes the recognition of the connection between the land and people.”
The Treaty of Sèvres, signed in August 1920, finalized Turkey’s relinquishing control over their Middle Eastern territories to the allied powers, with Article 95 incorporating the Balfour Declaration into international law.
The allies “had the power of disposition by international law and judicial power to bestow title and sovereignty,” said Gauthier.
The League of Nations ratified that on July 24, 1922, and all of the agreements still hold and are honored by Article 80 of the UN Charter, which guarantees the legality of prior international treaties.
“No one is allowed to touch these rights,” said Gauthier. “All are legally relevant today.”
But Great Britain unlawfully gave away much of what lawfully belonged to the Jews, including Transjordan — later called Jordan — to the brother of the Hashemite sharif of Mecca. Gauthier believes a combination of Arab appeasement, oil and Jew-hatred led to that British decision.
The Council of the League of Nations approved the move on Sept. 23, 1922. “They didn’t have the right to do that,” Gauthier said. “In effect, they were acting outside of their powers, given the mandate.”
Today, world bodies and leaders from many countries “are determined to take away a substantial portion of what’s left” of the lands promised to Jews, he added.
If Judea and Samaria and Gaza were ever ceded to a Palestinian state, the Jewish people would only have about 18% of the land to which it is legally entitled, according to Gauthier.
The United Nations recently recognized “Palestine” as eligible for statehood. Many people “wouldn’t be following so many falsehoods if they knew the true narrative,” he said.
Looking ahead to the Jewish state’s negotiations for a potential Palestinian state, he advised that “whatever political solution you have in mind, at least agree that you have the rights to the land.”
