2 Friday, August 11, 1918
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Purely Commentary
`Legitimate Rights' as Political
Shibboleth Confusing the Truth
"Legitimate rights" has become a term for placating Is-
rael's enemies. Its use by heads of state and those seeking to
evade the need for meeting the Middle East problems with
frankness has merely added to delays in action and in
giving Israel's enemies added fodder for the flames of de-
struction.
Co-muddied with the "legitimate rights" bungling is the
over-all territorial aspect and the inconsistencies that ac-
company the diplomatic debates.
What are the basic facts dating back to the Palestine
Partition, the United Nations decisions and the originally
acknowledged territorial rights of Israel and the Arab
states? While the factual status of the area is a matter of
record, it needs emphasis to eliminate misunderstanding.
In an illuminating article on "Mideast: What is 'Occupied
Territory?" William M. Brinton in the San Francisco Sun-
day Examiner and Chronicle states:
Within the last few years since the 1973 war
between Israel and some of the Arab states, a
phrase has crept into the American political lexi-
con and picked up by the electronic and print
media.
Used in a pejorative sense, the phrase "oc-
cupied territories" now indiscriminately de-
scribes the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the
Golan Heights. As a direct result of its repetitive
use, the quoted phrase has been elevated to a level
of acceptance without legal foundation.
In fact, however, not one of these three areas
falls within any legally cognizable definition of
"occupied territories." Furthermore, any claim
that the West Bank, the Gaza Strip or both is a
Palestinian "homeland" to which it has a "legiti-
mate right" lacks substance and does not survive
legal analysis.
On Nov. 29, 1947, the United Nations General
Assembly passed Resolution No. 181 (H) creating
Jewish and Arab states within the boundaries of
the British Mandate. With insignificant excep-
tions, these boundaries include all of what is now
the state of Israel.
The British Mandate terminated on May 14,
1948, and the last British troops had departed.
They left piecemeal, area by area, making no al-
lowance for the orderly transition of power con-
templated by Resolution 181 (the Partition Resol-
ution).
On May 15, 1948, seven Arab states attacked
Israel in violation of the United Nations mandate
which treated ". . . as a threat to the peace .. . or
act of aggression . . . any attempt to alter by force
the settlement envisaged by this resolution (181)
When the results of the first phase of the 1948
war were reviewed, it was evident that the Israelis
had done well, even though they had lost the Old
City of Jerusalem.
On July 9, 1948, the Arabs struck again after the
Cease-Fire Agreement of June 11, 1948. The Is-
raelis counter-attacked, capturing Lydda, Ram-
leh and Nazareth as well as clearing Tiberias and
routing the Eyptians.
On Feb. 24, 1949, the Israelis and Egyptians
signed a cease-fire agreement. It was at this point
that Emir Abdullah of Transjordan (hereinafter
Jordan) seized the West Bank (Judea and
Samaria). Finally, in the north, Syria and Leba-
non struck again.
This last phase of the 1948 war was a disaster for
both. The Israelis overran all of Galilee and cros-
sed the Lebanese border. Faced with a disaster of
this magnitude, Syria and Lebanon joined with
the other Arab states in signing a cease-fire ag-
reement in July, 1949.
All of these cease-fire agreements shared a
common denominator except in the case of Leba-
non. The armistice demarcation lines were not
political boundaries and could be changed by the
parties when they moved from armistice to a state
of true peace.
They were all intended to freeze military posi-
tions without prejudice to further claims by any
party. However, in 1950, Jordan went further
than seizure of the West Bank and unilaterally
declared its annexation of the area. It was nearly
expelled from the Arab League for doing so.
As a result of its annexation of the West Bank,
Jordan became a belligerent occupant of the
area, acquiring no sovereign rights.
It was not until 1967 that Israel displaced Jor-
dan from the entire West Bank and recaptured the
Old City of Jerusalem.
Under principles of public international law,
Jordan never became the legitimate sovereign of
the West Bank, and its displacement by Israel in
What are 'Legitimate Rights'? . . . What Belongs
to Whom in Disputed Lands? ... Authoritative
Analysis Valuably Presented in Expert Studies
By Philip
Slomovitz
Echoes From Cairo: Scapegoating as Hate Vehicle
That love feast, when President Anwar Sadat of Egypt was feted in Jerusalem and hailed as a hero by the Israelis,
didn't last long. Soon thereafter, when it was apparent that the Egyptian was adamant about Israel's retreat as far as
possible away from the defense lines established after the 1967 Six-Day War, Cairo newspapers began to heap insults
on Israel Prime Minister Menahem Begin. They called him a Shylock.
Now the Cairo Radio calls him a Racist Zionist: shades of Yasir Arafat appealing to hatred against Israel and world
Jewry in the United Nations!
These are the simple ways of pursuing tongue-in-cheek diplomacy. The attack is on Menahem Begin who has become
a suitable scapegoat for all who would harm Israel, including misled and prejudiced in the United States and other
democratic countries. The main target is Israel and the Jewish people. Let there be no misunderstanding on that score.
The Approaching Camp David Conference
Epithets do not resolve disputes, whether they are of a domestic or international nature. There has to be mutual
respect in negotiations. This is especially urgent in a matter as serious as the Middle East problem.
The American role in seeking solutions may be escalating rather than declining, in spite of what had occurred until
now. Sadat recalled his negotiators more than once. On call from President Carter there will be a meeting of minds,
Carter conferring with Begin and Sadat, and then, without name calling or resort to abuses like Zionist-racist and
Shylock, there could be hope for an accord.
The expressed confidence that peace need not be stalemated has gained realism with the Carter call to action on Sept.
5 at Camp David. Perhaps there is an end to epithets and to the Sadat anti-Begin position.
The U.S. does not abandon responsibility in dealing with the Middle East issue. By making it possible for another
face-to-face meeting with both Begin and Sadat Mr. Carter may have saved what could have developed into a most
critical and dynamite-laden situation. Sept. 5 may become an historic date in the search for peace.
1967 under no circumstances entitled Jordan to
claim the reversionary rights of a legitimate
sovereign.
The legal standing of Israel there is that of a
state lawfully in control of territory because no
other state can show a better title.
Israel is sovereign in the Gaza Strip under
somewhat different circumstances. The British
Mandate included the Gaza Strip within its boun-
daries and Egypt seized this area in the 1948 war.
It administered the area but never claimed
sovereignty. Arab rejection of Resolution 181 was
no warrant for an attack by Egypt, among others,
against Israel, particularly when its occupation of
the Gaza Strip intruded beyond boundaries fixed
by the Partition Resolution and the boundaries
between Egypt and Britain fixed by agreement as
early as 1906.
Thus, its occupation of the Gaza Strip in 1948
could not vest in Egypt lawful, indefinite control
of the area, whether as an unlawful occupant or
as sovereign. Accordingly, acting in self-defense
in 1967, Israel displaced Egypt from the Gaza
Strip on the legal basis that no weight should be
given to aggressive conquest.
These same principles apply with equal force to
the Golan Heights. Originally assigned to the
Jews in the Partition Resolution, the Golan
Heights was seized and occupied by Syria in the
1948 war.
The Syrians used the Golan Heights as a for-
tified position from which to shell Israeli settle-
ments in Eastern Galilee.
Again acting in self-defense in 1967, the Israelis
displaced Syria, which was no more than a bel-
ligerent occupant unlawfully in possession of an
area over which it did not and could not claim
sovereign rights.
Palestinian Arab claims based on immemorial
possession simply do not apply here. They never
enjoyed unchallenged possession, and they were
never in possession as sovereign, either of the
West Bank or Palestine as a whole.
The need that arises to restate these facts is a source of
regret. Even more, it is cause for concern that the states-
men who deal with the issue will not face up to the truth
and keep ignoring the territorial aspects as outlined here.
Perhaps it is because the basic truth is being ignored that
the Middle East is steeped in agony. And if facts are ignored
there remains the danger that those denying territorial
recognition to Israel would go even farther in pushing Is-
rael to the sea. Is it any wonder that the Menahem Begin
government insists on the right to self-protection based on
territorial security?
The Shcharansky Canard
Exposed by Prof. Pipes
It should have been front page copy, but it was written as
a letter to the editor of the New York Times and was
published as such.
Dr. Richard Pipes, Frank Baird Professor of History at
Harvard, had been referred to as a contact man with
Anatoly Shcharansky and the occasion was drummed up as
an involvement with the CIA. Dr. Pipes exposes the non-
sense in this letter:
I understand from the report of your Moscow
correspondent (July 17) and from other sources
that my name has come up in connection with the
Soviet Government's charges against Anatoly
Shcharansky. I am said by the prosecutor and one
of his witnesses to have met the accused at the
Hotel Sovetskaya in Moscow for the purpose of
passing on to him "Zionist" instructions and ad-
vice on how to carry out anti-Soviet propaganda.
Had the Soviet authorities taken the trouble to
obtain my testimony, they would have quickly
ascertained that this alleged "event" is the fig-
ment of someone's imagination. When living in
Moscow in the summer of 1975 as a visiting scho-
lar and the guest of the Soviet Academy of Sci-
ences, I met Mr. Shcharansky once at a casual
social occasion. On July 4, following a reception
at the U.S. Embassy, my wife and I dropped in at
Prof. Vitaly Rubin's.
Professor Rubin, a Sinologist who has since
migrated to Israel and teaches at Hebrew Univer-
sity, introduced us to several guests. One of them
was a young man who we were told had been
cruelly separated from his wife immediately after
their wedding, when he was denied an exit visa to
go with her to Israel.
We stayed at the Rubins' for about an hour,
mostly listening to gossip about "refusenik" af-
fairs which the Russians exchanged with one
another. As we were about to leave, I told
Shcharansky that I expected to visit Israel before
long and that if he wished I would be glad to call
up his wife and pass on his greetings.
Such are the prosaic facts. Why the Soviet pro-
secutor chose to spin a yarn about secret encoun-
ters in hotels and sinister messages is a matter
between him and his conscience. That he and his
employers needed to resort to such fabrications
tells volumes about the nature of their case
against this young man.
The White House and the State Department branded all
charges against Shcharansky as having been a spy for the
U.S. as an absolute untruth. The Pipes letter substantiates
the denials.
Will Shcharansky be spared the miseries of a Siberian
exile? Will he have an opportunity to join his wife and other
members of his family in Israel? The battle in his behalf
gained the deserved American, in fact worldwide, support.
The New York. Times editorially derided the USSR
schemes as the "Famous Last Words at the Kremlin," by
stating:
The Soviet government has distributed a mor-
bidly engrossing "anatomy of treason" to justify
its most brutal persecution of a recent dissenter-
Anatoly Shcharansky. The trouble began it tells
its people, when "he decided long ago to leave his
homeland for the West." There is no mention that
the "West" is Israel, and there is no mention that
the world would never have heard of him had he
been allowed to leave. The pivotal lie in the moun-
tain of lies on which this case rests is to be that he
was not content to leave:
"But who needs (in the West) a 'green' specialist
with an engineer's diploma when there are
thousands and thousands of qualified engineers
without jobs there? Shcharansky was not so silly
as not to see this. The West needed a 'public figure'
and the traitor was trying hard to appear such a
figure before his foreign masters. The logic of bet-
rayal threw this 'public figure' and 'champion of
human rights' into the arms of special services,
turned him into an ordinary spy . . ."
Mr. Shcharansky's crime, it is now plain, was
that he refused to accept in silence the arbitrary
rules that denied him exit from the Soviet Union
but also denied him a livelihood for the sin of
applying to leave.
Perhaps the Kremlin will learn that all the people can
not be fooled all of the time. Perhaps the lesson also will be
applied to the Olympics. It is all an interesting anticipation
of what time will do to solve some of the incredulities in
diplomacy and human decencies.