Is there a simple answer to the question of who owns or has the legal right to Jerusalem? Dr. Jacques Gauthier, a Canadian lawyer who specializes in international law, answered that question on Wednesday with a resounding yes and suggested that if a theoretical court that was 100-percent objective were to study the legally relevant facts, ignoring politics, it would find unequivocally that only Israel possesses the exclusive title to Jerusalem.
Gauthier was interviewed by The Jerusalem Post during a trip he made to Israel for a June 11- 12 conference highlighting Jewish claims to Jerusalem. He has been studying international law for 30 years, focusing on a number of issues including human rights, and has not limited himself solely to the Middle East. He studied in Geneva under Dr. Marcelo Kohen in 2006.
Gauthier’s thesis is 1200 pages, weighs 10 pounds and contains over 3200 footnotes.
Gauthier has presented his findings to the Japanese parliament, the House of Commons in London, the European parliament in Brussels and a congressional committee in Washington.
Gauthier, who is Christian, said that he became interested in Jerusalem’s status after traveling to the city in 1982-1983.
Gauthier begins his overview of the issues with Theodore Herzl in 1896-1897 and the Balfour Declaration of 1917, but the core of his argument and its most original aspect is the emphasis he places on the San Remo Conference of April 24-25, 1920.
The conference was a continuation of earlier gatherings held by the victors of World War I to determine how to handle a vast array of issues, including setting national borders for new nation-states and mandates.
Gauthier says that the San Remo Conference was the “final hearing” of a “world court,” the council of the five leading nations and victors of World War I. The “case” before the “court” began at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, where both the Jews and the Arabs of the Middle East submitted claims to the council to obtain independence and control of various territories. Gauthier calls April 24-25 in San Remo the “key defining moment in history” on the issue of title to Jerusalem and says that Chaim Weizmann called the decision the “most important moment for the Jewish people since the exile.”
Gauthier is not the first scholar to cite these conferences as supporting Jewish rights to Jerusalem. However, what is distinct about Gauthier’s claim is the argument that the conference is a singular and decisive legal event that wipes out all competing legal events.
Like a real estate lawyer seeking to determine title, he contends that just because there are many claims to title, it does not mean that all events or claims are equal. He argues that it is possible to have one single legal event that ends the discussion, and that the San Remo decision was such an event.
The Jewish claim submitted to the world powers according to Gauthier was for: the Jews’ standing to be recognized as a people under the law of nations; the recognition of the Jewish historical connection to the area then known as “Palestine”; and the right to “reconstitute” Jewish historical rights in Palestine.
The Arabs also made substantial claims to Ottoman territory, but not specifically to Palestine or Jerusalem, says Gauthier.
The San Remo military and political leaders agreed to all of the Jewish representatives’ requests. According to Gauthier, the British were given a mandate over Palestine only until the Jews would be ready to take over running a country, which is confirmed, he says, by Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations.
According to Gauthier, the case and all arguments are basically over at this point. The Jewish people were given “title” to Jerusalem under international law.
Gauthier concludes his analysis by rejecting the idea that any later events – such as the UN Partition Plan, UN Resolution 242, or the Oslo Accords – superseded Israel’s “title” to Jerusalem. He notes that the UN charter and a famous International Court of Justice case about West Africa, or Namibia, specifically uphold earlier decisions of major conferences and of the League of Nations.
He argues that all Israel needs to do under UN Resolution 242 and the Oslo Accords is withdraw from some amount of West Bank territory, and that Jerusalem is not mentioned in the UN resolution. He said that the UN Partition Plan could have been binding, but since the Arab states did not accept it, it became merely a recommended solution by the UN General Assembly that was rejected.
Hooray for the voice of truth!
I only hope that the leaders of Israel themselves including Ehud Barak read this report and don't entertain any ideas of giving up parts of Jerusalem or any other parts of Israel for that matter as history has taught us some bitter lessons of appeasement. There never was a country called "Palestine" and there is no such nation as the "Palestinians" and Israel does not owe them anything.
I welcome the stressing of the importance of the San Remo Resolution and the legal rights of the Jewish people to the land of Israel, which this Resolution upholds. Dr. Gauthier should be commended for highlighting these matters.
However, I have a reservation with the last paragraph of this article.
The author says that “all Israel needs to do under UN Resolution 242 and the Oslo Accords is withdraw from some amount of West Bank territory, and that Jerusalem is not mentioned in the UN resolution.” There is nothing in UNSC Resolution 242 that refers, explicitly or implicitly, to any withdrawal from “West Bank territory.” Indeed, Jerusalem is not mentioned in that Resolution; neither is the “West Bank.” ….
…. Resolution 242, passed after the Six-Day-War, only refers to “withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict.” Israel already complied with that Resolution in 1979 by entirely withdrawing from the Sinai Peninsula, which amounted to 90% of “territories occupied.” Any further withdrawal from the “West Bank” is not called for, as it would jeopardize the “secure borders” specifically required by Resolution 242.
Besides, such a withdrawal from the “West Bank” would negate the legal rights of Israel to this land, which were precisely entrenched in the San Remo Resolution and the subsequent Mandate for Palestine.
Jaax
There are several questions raised by Mr.. Gauthier's work. It certainly looks to be extensiveand apparently would have taken years to do. Who commissioned and paid him for all of that work? Why should the largely Arab residents for several centuries in the Palestine and in Jerusalem be bound by the decisions of occupiers and colonists, the disbanded League of Nations with money passing hands?
All the arguments about the Jews" ownership of Palestine and Jerusalem seem premised upon the idea that some foreigners can properly make decisions for the long time inhabitants that disposses them in favor of another group. Might makes rights is the underlying theory to that proposition.
This whole issue needs to be openly, transparently researched and discussed by interested parties and with people who have no special stake or bias in the eventual outcome of such a dialog..
It took Dr Gauthier more tan 20 years of study to get his phd on the subject and write his 1200 page thesis. He was not financed by anyone. He is an international lawyer and his own professional work helped defray the expenses involved.
As for your point about who had the right to make those decisions, Dr. Gauthier is not making judgment, rather, he is pointing out facts about what occurred and why it is still valid. The issue has been settled and that is what is important.
It is an historical fact, that many countries were divided up by their conquering powers, taking little or no notice of the demographics at the time of division.
This historical process, has been going on for hundreds of years.
Having been born in Africa, I lived with this on a daily basis, tribes that were sworn enemies were told (by the "retreating" colonialist powers) to share land which they had, for centuries, fought over.
To disregard, or call into question, the allocation of land by powerful nations, to those less powerful is to open a veritable "pandoras box" which will call into question, the legitimacy of many nations, maybe even the one in which you yourself reside…….
One missing point in all these notes is that Israel is NOT trying to throw any Arabs out of the land. Everyone is welcome to live in Israel, in PEACE. It is only some of the Arab population of the area that has decided they cannot live with the Jews. When you drive around Israel you'll see there are many many affluent Arab communities. I see them driving around in expensive cars and living in large villas. The issue is not land ownership. This is a Jihad, a "Holy War" against the Jews, and anyone who thinks any different has not experienced life here in Israel and is not facing the realities.
JAAX,
One tends to reflect t his own falcies onto others…
I guess what you are saying is if someone would have paid YOU for sucha study you are commited to to his point of view…
You might be surprised, but NOT everyone is like you.
This is in response to JAAX:
It will be edifying to look at a map of the Middle East. There is such a map at http://www.masada2000.org/geography.html. The Jews were given a tiny sliver of land. Arabs and Muslims have the rest. In addition to the British Mandate for Palestine, there was the British Mandate for Mesopotamia, which gave the Arabs what is now Iraq, and the French Mandate for Syria and Lebanon, which gave the Arabs these territories. The territory in Palestine east of the Jordan River was originally a part of the Mandate for Palestine set aside for the Jews. But the British lopped this off and gave it to a Hashemite Arab ruler, and it's now the Arab Kingdom of Jordan. Does your complaint about foreigners making decisions for other people in the Middle East extend to these territories too?
[...] Click here for the complete article, or copy and paste this link into your web browser: http://www.unitycoalitionforisrael.org/news/?p=8215 JUDEA & SAMARIA are clear and unquestionably JEWISH! Watch The Sword of Militant Islam here [...]
Israel must rid itself from the so called "elite leadership"who is so destructive and ineffective to the country. Peres with his medal from Hussein shows his total disconnect with reality. Ehud Barak must be removed as a defense minister, how do Israelis tolerate such an ignoranti anti-Israel "leader".
Remember he wanted to give away the Biblical Israel to the enemy. What a disgrace!
Shalom
Eva
Eva, we only see whats on the surface and the rehotric but there is a very different game being played out below the media veneer. I couldnt aggree more with you point of view on the reports we are seeing re Barak & company.
What kind of "international lawyer needed to replays the history? Read travel dairies of W. Collins and Mark Twain. Read the Bible, read history of Middle East, Assyria, Syria, wars between them. The Muslim idea of ownership of Jerusalem is next to Lenin World revolution, Hitler world ruling and "leader's" dream about rebuilding, reemployment/muslimizing of America.
Jews shall be extremely active in any related to Israel question, including dangers if not fatal possibilities of Obama reelection. Tell to everybody you can about Jews, whites then Christian lines by his teachers, White and Farrakane consequences for termination.
Israel shall be most active in self-preservation. One good morning drones should deliver "Molotov cocktails" to every house hiding rockets and firearms. What a hell of fan would be in Lebanon!!
Do you think Kurds have forgotten Husein's poison gas? Train Iranian and Turkish kurds to stand against oppressors! Let them have a hell of their own cooking on their "own" lands!
Jaax
Good, there is a bit of discussion on my points. I will try to answer the responses.
MARJORIE R.: Factually I think it is a bit different than drawing a map and plunking peoples down where the lines were drawn. I am not a historian or a Middle Eastern expert. My knowledge, if you will, comes from education through post graduate studies and following current events.
Here is some OF what I have learned. Let's go back to pre-Balfour Declaration days of the 20th century. Is it not correct that most of the population in the area of Palestine, Syria, Iraq were Arabs of Sunni, Shiite persuasions and some offshoots and then small minorities of some Christians, some Jews and Kurds? Then came this agreement of the colonial foreigners to put lines on the surface of the land telling the various inhabitants, "you are Syrians, Iraqis, Jordanians, Palestinians now." But there was no essential change in the ethnic or religious identity of the inhabitants at that time.
But then due to the ideas incorporated in the Balfour Declaration and other decisions Jews from outside that area in general were encouraged to move to "Palestine" whatever that means legally. Next comes the UN effort to help all Jews who were willing to move to the place newly and again called Israel.
Based on these facts I do not have a complaint about the foreigners drawing the new countries' identities because it did not cause wholesale shifts in populations of the existing inhabitants for, as I understand it, it left them where they were already established. On the other hand, the re-population by Jewish foreigners of the area called Israel (whatever its dimensions) is of a different order of things. If the if the Jewish re-population of Israel had little hostile consequences we would not be having this discussion today.
Look at what is has caused! Continuous hostilities between two religions, and two or more ethnic groups for over 60 years with no end in sight and what looks like a death spiral of mass destruction with WMDs
being created and stockpiled all around the area and a race to get nuclear arms by many Middle East countries and those surrounding the area. What insanity!
What purpose then is Mr. Gauthier serving in declaring that the San Remo conference estblished Jewish ownership of Jerusalem? Who were those people and what real and moral authority do they or their governments have? Who is Gauthier now to give it the imprintur of law and finality? Just another foreigner.
IRA CURTIS:
You mis-judge me. I would have a very clear understanding with that supposed employer about what I was being hired for. If it was for me to do independent research and report then I would do so without regard to who the employer might be and the employer's point of view. If I was being hired to write a report justifying a point of view regardless of the facts I am not sure I would take such an assignment. I know about that as a retired lawyer who practice law for some 40 years.
BARRY: How do you know Gauthier was not paid to do his work on the issue of the ownership of Jersulam? What Phd did Gauthier obtain with his work?
Your statement Gauthier "is not making judgment," seems a little dubious in view of the articles claims [quote]:
Gauthier says that the San Remo Conference was the “final hearing” of a “world court,” the council of the five leading nations and victors of World War I. The “case” before the “court” began at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, where both the Jews and the Arabs of the Middle East submitted claims to the council to obtain independence and control of various territories. Gauthier calls April 24-25 in San Remo the “key defining moment in history” on the issue of title to Jerusalem and says that Chaim Weizmann called the decision the “most important moment for the Jewish people since the exile.”
Do you know the five leading victors of WWI were declared and fighting enemies of the Ottoman Caliphate they were dividing up? And that was a legimate "world court"?
I see no reason why the issue is settled. At best San Remo seems like a kangaroo court with the only thing being settled is the assurance of continued conflict in the area as long as Israel makes its dubious territorial claims to Jerusalem and "Palestine."
GAVIN: Your point is might makes right? The Native Americans have made those claims, but now with a fair amout of" going along to get along," with casinos and tourist destination development and other commericalization on tribal lands (reservations) there is little to no overt hostiity.
The pandora's box has been cracked open and there is no reason not to open it wider if fairness and justice will be served.
The decisions made at San Remo concerning the Jews and Palestine were not arbitrary. Those decisions were for the most part based on objective unimpeachable historical fact. It is history itself (along with biblical text) which makes it absolutely clear that the Jewish people were, are, and should always be sovereign over the Land of Israel, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.