The League of Nations adopting San Remo terms and the Mandate for Palestine aka Greater Israel - Draiman

The League of Nations adopting San Remo terms and the Mandate for Palestine aka Greater Israel

 The ultimate Mandate for Palestine, aka Greater Israel, approved by the Council of the League of Nations on 24 July 1922 explicitly refers back to the decisions of the Supreme Council of the Principal Allied Powers of 25 April 1920. The Mandate begins: "Whereas the Principal Allied Powers have agreed…" The League Council adopted the 1920 San Remo Treaty verbatim which incorporated the 1917 Balfour Declaration (it stated a national home in Palestine - not part of Palestine), the Palestine Mandate became binding on all fifty-one members of the League. Since the United States officially endorsed the terms of the Mandate but had not joined the League of Nations, special negotiations between Great Britain and the United States with regard to the Palestine Mandate, aka Greater Israel, had been successfully concluded in May 1922 and approved by the Council of the League in July. The United States ultimately signed a bilateral treaty with Britain (on 3 December 1924), actually incorporating the text of the Mandate for Palestine and approved by the US Congress and Senate, thus completing its legal alignment with the terms of the Mandate under the League of Nations.

 This act of the League Council enabled the ultimate realization of "the long cherished dream of the restoration of the Jewish people to their historical ancestral ancient land" and validated “the existence of historical facts and events linking the Jewish people to Palestine, aka Greater Israel, as the only known indigenous people for over 3,000 years. For the members of the Supreme Council, these historical facts were considered to be accepted and “established". In the words of Neville Barbour, "In 1922, international sanction was given to the Balfour Declaration by the adoption of the San Remo Resolution issued in the Palestine Mandate".

In actual fact, the Mandate went beyond the Balfour Declaration of 1917.

The incorporation, in the Preamble of the Mandate, of the principle that Greater Israel, aka Palestine, should be reconstituted as the national home of the Jewish people represented a deliberate broadening of the policies contained in the Balfour Declaration, which did not explicitly include the concept of reconstitution. It is of some interest that, while the word "reconstitute" was absent from the Balfour Declaration, it was actually Lord Balfour himself who ensured the inclusion of this concept in the final, internationally legally binding Mandate. Thus it was not a new idea, "grafted on" at the last moment, but was well deliberated. The ultimate effect was that the rights of the Jewish people under the Mandate for Palestine were thereby greater than the rights contemplated in its source document, the 1917 Balfour Declaration. According to Abraham Baumkoller:

“The choice of the term ‘reconstitute’ clearly indicates that in the eyes of the Council, it was not a question of creating something new, but of admitting the reconstitution of a situation that already existed ages ago. This idea coincides, if you will, with the notion of ‘historic ties’, even if these are not altogether identical.”

In addition to the insertion of the "reconstituting" language, the phrase in the Mandate’s Article 2: "…will secure the establishment" (of the Jewish national home, as laid down in the Preamble of the Mandate for Palestine) is equally said to go beyond the Balfour Declaration which uses the considerably milder language: "…view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people", and "will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object".

Looking beyond the details, the important point is that the primary objective of the Mandate for Palestine is to provide and return the national home for the Jewish people to Jewish sovereignty—including the Jewish people dispersed worldwide—in their historical ancestral Land, had been fulfilled.

 The Arab people, who already exercised jurisdictional sovereignty in a large number of States, were guaranteed protection of their civil and religious rights under the Mandate as long as they wished to remain—even after the State of Israel was ultimately formed in 1948—including citizenship if they so chose. Moreover, for the Arab population, Trans-Jordan had meanwhile been illegally added as a territory under Arab sovereignty, carved out of Jewish Palestine itself, the very mandated territory at issue, prior to the actual signing of the Mandate in 1922 under the League of Nations.

In sum, the Mandate for Palestine, aka Greater Israel, adopted and approved by the Council of the League of Nations in July 1922, was an international treaty and, as such, was legally binding. The International Court of Justice (I.C.J.) has since confirmed that the Mandate for Palestine instrument granting all the territory west of the Jordan River "in fact and in law, is an international agreement having the character and force of a treaty or convention".

The Mandate for Palestine aka Greater Israel as it Pertains to Jerusalem and the Old City

The rights granted to the Jewish people in the 1920 San Remo Conference were confirmed by the 1920 Treaty of Sevres and Lausanne, plus the Faisal Weizmann Agreement of 1919, and adopted and incorporated by the Mandate for Palestine relating to the establishment of the Jewish national home were to be given effect in all parts and regions of the Palestine territory. No exception was made for Jerusalem and its Old City, which were not singled out for special reference in either the Balfour Declaration, the 1920 San Remo Treaty or the Mandate for Palestine, other than to call for the preservation of existing rights in the Holy Places. As concerns the Holy Places, including those located in the Old City, specific obligations and responsibilities were imposed on the Mandatory.

It follows that the legal rights of the claimants to sovereignty over the Old City of Jerusalem similarly derive from the decisions of the Principal Allied Powers in the 1920 San Remo conference, and from the terms of the Mandate for Palestine adopted and approved by the Council of the League of Nations. In evaluating the validity of the claims of Israel relating to the Old City, the Council decision is of great significance from the perspective of the rights and obligations that it created under international law which the UN cannot supersede or modify without the consent of the parties.

The League of Nations and the UN can only recommend a resolution. In order for a resolution to be binding it must be agreed to and executed by the parties. Since the Arabs rejected outright the partition and most other resolutions, all those resolutions are void and have no standing whatsoever. It just strengthens the 1920 San Remo Treaty as the only international law and treaty of reconstituting Israel in all of Palestine which was also confirmed by the 1919 Faisal Weizmann Agreement.

In the view of Oxford international law professor Ian Brownlie, "in many instances the rights of parties to a dispute derive from legally significant acts, or a treaty concluded very long ago".  As a result of these "legally significant acts", there are legal as well as historical ties between the State of Israel and the Old City of Jerusalem.

The intellectual ties were further solidified by the official opening of the Hebrew University on 1 April 1925 in Jerusalem. This significant event was attended by many dignitaries, including the University’s founding father, Dr. Chaim Weizmann, Field Marshall Allenby, Lord Balfour, Professor William Rappard and Sir Herbert Samuel, among many other distinguished guests. According to Dr. Weizmann, addressing the dignitaries and some twelve thousand other attendees at this memorable event, the opening of the University in Jerusalem was "the distinctive symbol, as it is destined to be the crowning glory, of the National Home of the Jewish people which we are seeking to rebuild".

Furthermore and of great importance, it must be noted the Faisal Weitzmann agreement of January 3, 1919 stated and agreed that the Jews would have all of Palestine plus Jerusalem and that the Muslim places of worship would be protected.

In addition to the legal, historical and intellectual heritage, in the words of  Canadian scholar Dr. Jacques Paul Gauthier: "To attempt to solve the Jerusalem/ Old City problem without taking into consideration the historical and religious facts is like trying to put together a ten thousand piece puzzle without the most strategic pieces of that puzzle".  In his monumental work entitled Sovereignty Over the Old City of Jerusalem:  A Study of the Historical, Religious, Political and Legal Aspects of the Question of the Old City, Dr. Gauthier offers an exhaustive review of these historical/spiritual/political/legal bonds, emphasizing the "extraordinary meaning" of the Old City of Jerusalem and the temple to the Jewish people.

Indeed, with respect to the question of the Old City, the historical facts and the res religiosae (or things involving religion) are rendered legally relevant by the decisions taken at the 1920 San Remo sessions of the Paris Peace Conference, together with the terms of the Mandate for Greater Israel, aka Palestine. Notwithstanding the fact that historical, religious or other non-legal considerations may not be considered relevant or sufficient to support a legal claim normally in international law cases, these aspects of the issue of the city of Jerusalem are relevant in evaluating the claims of Israel and the Arab-Palestinians relating to sovereignty over the Old City, just as much or perhaps even more than over the entire State of Israel and the Holy Land, as noted in the Introduction.