JUDEA AND SAMARIA IS ISRAEL - Draiman

JUDEA AND SAMARIA IS ISRAEL

The indisputable facts of the so-called delusion of "disputed territories."

Judea and Samaria (aka the West Bank) belong to Israel for over 3,700 years.

Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) indisputably belong to Israel.  These areas are Jewish areas of the State of Israel and historically part of the Land of Israel period.  While U.S. and others pressure Israel to cede these so-called disputed territories, which is contrary to international law and treaties, the reality is that the conflict in the Middle East is about the fact that the Arabs cannot accept a Jewish state.  (And even if Israel did cede these territories, there wouldn’t be peace – for the Arabs who could not win any war with Israel, they want to use their false peace efforts to destroy Israel piece by piece.) The past has shown that the Arabs gained more ground playing the peace pretense than any war.

The world at large must understand and recognize that our people are called Jews because we come from Judea. The fact remains that these territories west of the Jordan River are an integral part of the State of Israel, and have always been connected to the Jewish people since time immemorial.

Ten great quotes affirming beyond a doubt that this region belongs to Israel:

Archeological excavations throughout Israel confirm and substantiate the Jewish history in the Land of Israel for thousands of years and that includes territories east of the Jordan River.

• Yoram Ettinger, a consultant at the Ariel Center for Policy Research: “Many world-renowned travelers, historians and archeologists of earlier centuries refer to 'Judea and Samaria,' while the term 'West Bank' was coined only 60 years ago. Jordan which is on Jewish territory gave the region this name when it occupied it after Israel’s 1948 War of Independence. No nation on earth other than Britain and Pakistan recognized Jordan’s claim to Judea and Samaria. … Even the Encyclopedia Britannica, as well as official British and Ottoman records until 1950, used the term Judea and Samaria, and not the West Bank.” 

• The San Remo Resolution of 1920 “recognized the exclusive national Jewish rights to the Land of Israel under international law, on the strength of the historical connection of the Jewish people to the territory previously known as Palestine. The outcome of this declaration gave birth to the 'Mandate for Palestine,' an historical League of Nations document that carried out the implementation and while violating agreements by allocating over 77% of Jewish territory east of the Jordan River to the Arabs and laid down the Jewish legal right to settle anywhere in western Palestine, between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.” (This document clearly establishes that Israeli settlements are completely legal.)

• Books and history which detailed Judea and Samaria include “H. B. Tristram (The Land of Israel, 1865); Mark Twain (Innocents Abroad, 1867); R.A. MacAlister and Masterman (“Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly”); A.P. Stanley (Sinai and Palestine, 1887); E. Robinson and E. Smith (Biblical Researches in Palestine, 1841); C.W. Van de Velde (Peise durch Syrien und Paletsinea, 1861); and Felix Bovet (Voyage en Taire Sainte, 1864)."

• “Israel's days without Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria are gone and will not return.” Yitzchak Shamir, former Prime Minister of the State of Israel

• “Israel won the war – after they were attacked by Arab nations. In the real world, winners win – and even when the Jews win, they keep the land.” Ronn Torossian to the winner goes the spoils and possession is nine tenths of the law.

• "Since the territories of Judea and Samaria were Jewish territory for over 3,000 years and was never a legitimate part of any Arab state or any other nation, including the Kingdom of Jordan, it is impossible to determine that Israel is an occupier in Judea and Samaria and is inconceivable in the accepted legal definition. What's more is that the Jewish people have a historic, legal, and physical link to Judea and Samaria."  -- Col. (res.) Daniel Reisner, former head of the international law department in the Military Advocate General's Corps

• “Israel's presence in the West Bank is its liberated territory and not occupation, the Israeli communities and settlements are legal under international law[.]" -- The 2012 Edmund Levy Report

• “We must operate out of a sense of advancing our rights, the rights of the Jewish people as an indigenous nation in its land. The Jews are the oldest nation here, but the State of Israel rarely mentioned this. It has rarely mentioned the fact that these are territories where we have had rights from time immemorial. It has rarely mentioned international documents like the Balfour Declaration, the 1920 San Remo Declaration, the U.N. Charter, and the British Mandate as approved by the League of Nations, all of which are very relevant as they relate to our Jewish rights here. ... That what we are dealing with is liberation and not occupation ... It is inconceivable that the entire world will repeat the false mantra about Judea and Samaria being occupied territory when from a factual standpoint there is no legal basis for this. ... When the U.S. claims erroneously, even before the negotiations ended, that we have no rights in our historical Jewish territories over which negotiations are being held and where Jewish communities and settlements are falsely considered illegitimate, they are in essence adopting the Arab-Palestinian position and harming the negotiations. If the negotiations are intended to determine the fate of the Jewish communities and settlements, then by all means. Even if you are the representative of the U.S. government, don't prejudice the negotiations by stating beforehand that they are illegitimate." -- Alan Baker, an attorney & former Israel Ambassador to Canada 

• “If Judea and Samaria should ever be ceded up to the Arabs (which is not likely) by any irrationally imposed Mid-east peace settlement, Jerusalem the eternal capital of Israel, Tel Aviv and the Coastal Plain would be in jeopardy.” -- Dani Dayan, Council of Jewish Settlers

• “The connection between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel has lasted for more than 3,700 years. Judea and Samaria, the places where Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, David and Solomon, and Isaiah and Jeremiah lived are not alien to us. This is the land of our forefathers.” -- Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu

Indeed, what Israel should remember always is that the Jewish right to Israel is eternal and non-negotiable.  Politics – and politicians – too shall come and go. 

As the Zionist leader Ze’ev Jabotinsky said many years ago: “Do not say, so what if we concede Hebron, Nablus and beyond the Jordan — this concession is not comprised of words devoid of meaning, and everyone will understand this to be the case. Do not underestimate the power of a concession! … Do not underestimate the power of a right, and don’t exaggerate the value of a building that is being built. I, too, respect the construction of a building, but woe upon us if we extract the basis of our right to exist from it.”

Zionism and Israel is moral and just and the Jewish right to the entire Land of Israel is eternal and not negotiable.

P.S. Historically “The Land of Israel” is Jewish Land for about four thousand years and any foreign power that was there, was an occupier and treated the land as occupied territory abused its resources and turned it into a desolate land. The Jewish people who were there for thousands of years were joined by the Jewish people from the Diaspora and turned the Land of Israel into green pastures and a marvel of innovations in technology and medicine. The Arab/Muslims after WWI received over 12 million sq. km. of territory with a wealth of oil reserves and no-one is questioning their territorial borders. The Jewish people were allocated the territory known as Palestine.

The Arabs expelled over a million Jewish families and confiscated all their assets including homes and over 120,000 sq. km of Jewish owned Real Estate plus Jordan which is Jewish territory. Most of the Jewish families expelled from Arab/Muslim countries were resettled in the Land of Israel.