How many times Jerusalem is mentioned in the Jewish Bible and how many times in the Qur'an?

1: How many times Jerusalem is mentioned in the Jewish Bible and how many times in the Qur'an?
-In the Old Testament Jerusalem is mentioned 457 times.
-In the Qur'an Jerusalem doesn’t exist at all.

2: Why the Jerusalem story was invented by the Damascus -based Umayyad Caliphs ?
Damascus rulers were so immoral that the Muslim leaders from Mecca forbidden the access of people under their rule to the Mecca. 
They invented the story about the Muhammad dream and Jerusalem (that doesn't exist in Quran) as a pilgrim replacement place to Mecca.
After the access to Mecca was possible, once again Jerusalem didn’t pay any role for Umayyas ruled Arabs.

3; To which direction of Muslims and Jews are praying worldwide?
-The Muslims face Mecca.
-The Jews face Jerusalem.

4; Do the Muslims and Jews pray for Jerusalem?
-Muslims ceremonies don’t include Jerusalem.
-The Israelis, for the last 2700 years pray, celebrate in ceremonies such weddings and bar mitzvah-""next year in Jerusalem"" 
No other capital worldwide has a parallel tradition.

5: How Jerusalem is covered by Islamic and Jewish literature?
“Unfortunately, there is no Islamic literature on the subject""
* Dr. Ismail Raji al-Faruqi referred to the absence of Jerusalem:
*Jerusalem, for the last 2700 years is covered in thousands of Jewish books, poems and songs"

6: Was Jerusalem ever being a capital of a Muslim country?
1,300 years of Muslim Arab rule, Jerusalem was never the capital of an Arab entity.

7: Did the Palestinians required Egypt and Jordan to form a Palestinian state in the West bank and Gaza with Jerusalem as the capital while the areas where conquered by them after the 1947 attack on the nesting Israel?
*No- they didn’t required!
Palestine Liberation Organization’s start the demand to control Jerusalem Israel regained control of East Jerusalem in 1967.

7: How Jerusalem was described by visiting Western writers?
Jerusalem had been so neglected by Islamic rulers that writers who visited Jerusalem were moved to write about it.
French writer Gustav Flaubert found “ruins everywhere” during his visit in 1850.
Mark Twain wrote in 1857 that Jerusalem had “become a pauper village.”

8: Population of Jerusalem until 1945 
Year ---- %Jews
1714 ---- 70:::
1844--- 45.9:::
1896 ---- 61.9:::
1931---- 56.6:::
1945 ---- 60.4:::

9: How Christians, Jews, Muslims of Jerusalem were treated
under Jordanian government?
*1948-1967, Jordan sought to alter the demographics and landscape of the city to enhance its Muslim character.
*All Jewish residents were expelled.
*Access of Jews to the holy welling wall was forbidden.
*Jewish holy sites were damaged. 58 synagogues were desecrated or demolished in the Old City.
* Jerusalem Mount olive cemetery used by Jews continuously
for the last 3000 years was badly damaged.
The Jordanians uprooted and damaged 38,000 tombstones some from the First Temple Period and four roads were paved through the cemeteries
* Jordan’s restrictive laws on Christian institutions led to
a dramatic decline in the holy city’s Christian population–31,330 in 1945 to 11,000 1967
(Under Israel government to Christian population grow from 11.000 in 1968 to 15.000 in 2013)

10:Conclusion:

Arabs Jerusalem story was born in sin, without any cultural connection to Arab culture, never was a capital of a Muslim state, totally negated and during the history it is used only as a temporary political tool)

Fact: Mohammad's well established date of death, 632AD, and Mohammad's date for his "ride" into heaven from Jerusalem, 650 or 670 something, I read the article the other day. The point is BOTH dates are well known to the mullahs, clerics, and MO could not have "flown" from Jerusalem if he was dead! This shows the very human origin of the Koran vs. the God-breathed words that form the Hebrew Holy Scriptures and the Bible. Islam is in direct and intentional opposition to God, Jews and Christians, AND, to anyone who takes God up on His Promise, through His Son, Jesus Christ. EVERYTHING ELSE is smoke and mirrors, purely collateral issues. ISIS has said that Israel is the "real target", and they would already be attacking, but not strong enough yet. Condensed?? The devil is fuming mad that Israel exists and has possession of Jerusalem. That fact was prophesied to come to pass thousands of years ago.

So why after the '67 war - the second war the Muslim world tried to annihilate Israel totally - did Israelis give Muslims access and Waqf authority over the Temple Mount? That stupidly gave a measure of credence to the Muslim's absurd claims. IMO there needs to be research into a genetic suicide disorder in Jews.

Every bit of verbalized nonsense coming out of American leaders' mouths comes from their reprobate minds and lack of conscience. There exists a chorus of cognitive dissonance and sociapathic manipulation disguised as foreign policy towards Israel. Our president lies in the face of documented proof and spins a fool's tale. He's out to lie, steal and destroy. Hmm - who does that remind us of?

Are you also calling for Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade ( armed wing of the PA ) et al to also be brought in front of the International Criminal Court? Or do you in your perverted world view have no problem with Muslim terrorist organizations whose intent and desire is actual genocide? You must be perfectly comfortable with a group like Hamas whose charter declares their goal is the destruction of Israel and the death of all Jews. Likewise with Hezbollah. You are grossly ill informed as to the nature of the issues in the Middle East. You are also grossly uneducated in the nature of Islam.

You evidently have no problem with the fact that 56 Muslim countries are all in direct violation of the UN's Declaration of Human Rights as laid down in 1948 that all members are signatories. You must also not have a problem with the abomination of law known as Sharia, practiced in whole or in part in these same Muslim countries. The law that allows for the stoning of women to death, the hanging of gays, the misogynistic practices that deny women opportunities for work, free assembly and a legitimate equality within society. The same law that forces these women to be covered from head to toe in a canvas sack and prevents them from leaving the home unaccompanied except by a male relative.

You are an ignorant twerp whose mind is diseased from years of leftist indoctrination. You are no doubt an empty, angry bitter human being who seeks to find yourself in some cause like all leftists. Being a rabid anti-Semite fits the bill so you rally to support those that wish to exterminate others and would just as easily throw you into a Burka and force you into an arranged marriage with a man that would be authorized to beat you because Allah said so. You are pathetic.

Get over the Jew-hatred. 
It belongs on the ash heap on history along with the various ISM's that left piles of dead bodies and vast swaths of economic destruction in their wake.

Another Islamo-Nazi anti-Semite jihadi. Imach Shimech, sharamuta.

What crimes exactly - defending themselves against Hamas?
You are one sick puppy.

DUH! The West Bank and Jerusalem are NOT occupied by Jewish Israel. They are occupied by the "Palestinian" terrorists. What part of the evidence of truth do YOU not understand? Apparently, God has given you over to your reprobate mind and the only thing that comes from it is B.S. hate, troll.

The ICJ is a corrupt, wholly owned subsidiary of the Organization of Islamic Conference as is the United Nations.

You have it only partly correct.
These 2 corrupt organizations are majority owned by the NWO statists based in Brussels(EU),Switzerland (Bank of International Settlement), the Federal Reserve Bank in N.Y.C, the "City of London" financial district in England & the big money players who own Washington's politicians! The Moslems are merely their thugs, merely cut throats still living in the Dark Ages. They are nothing without the people who finance them, the bankers & oligarchs who own most of the worlds wealth! 

The O word you clowns like to use was never used until the Israelis won in 1967, 
The West Bank wasn't occupied by Jordan and Gaza wasn't occupied by Egypt. 
Only the Jew-haters began using this phrase after 1967 and the mentally conformed masses began repeating in uncritical stupor ever since. 
What does International Law have to say about the enslavement of the North Korean people in the largest concentration camp in the world? 
What does International Law have to say about the mass slaughter of the Sudanese, the Congo and Rwanda?

NO, you need to acquaint yourself with the facts, Vinegar and Water Douche. All peace negotiations are predicated on the idea of a "just and lasting peace". From San Remo to Oslo to the Road Map. It is predicated likewise on the PLO/PA renunciation of terrorism, which they have only paid lip service to. The 2000 agreements were a sham, and exposed as such when Arafat launched the Second Intifada. Full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza achieved what? The election of Hamas, whose charter calls for the annihilation of Israel and death to the Jews, all based on Islamic doctrine.

Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria comprise 1.7 percent of the total land. "Palestinians" control 96%, and 98% live in 40% of that, mostly in Urban areas like Nablus and Hebron. The PA has been in de facto control of the West Bank since 1996. There have been no new Israeli settlements, only extensions of those already existing, none of which are against agreements signed by both Israel and the PA.

There is no obligation under UN Resolution 242 for Israel to withdraw from this land. And it is NOT occupied but disputed land to be resolved through negotiation and a final settlement between Israel and the PA. Again a final resolution is contingent on the PA renouncing their violence, gross vilification of Jews in their schools and media, and incitement to terrorism and glorifying suicide bombers as Martyrs. To date the PA has failed to do so. Like Arafat before him, Abu Mazen speaks with forked tongue. Declaring one thing to a gullible western audience, while in Arabic media and to his cabal, maintaining the goal of the destruction of Israel.

As for the International Court of Justice you speak of, it is worthless organization, much like the UN a kangaroo court of leftist tools, whose morality is so warped, and world view so distorted by Marxism in their search for "justice". They and the UN have done, and do nothing to improve the human condition. Filled with rogue dictators, Islamic supremacists that vote as one bloc, and other assorted 3rd world scoundrels, the UN is as morally bankrupt as you are.

Sanctimonious radical leftist one world government types, they sit on their hands as member states impose Sharia law in contradiction and violation of their very own vaunted declarations. They sit by while millions are oppressed, persecuted, and outright slaughtered around the world, but only look up to pass yet another resolution condemning Israel. This is what you support. You and your pseudo intellectual half wit leftist friends make yourselves feel better by damning the only democracy in a sea of tyranny. You condemn a nation that actually has an open judiciary and government, including Arabs, yet give a free pass to the despots and mullahs that rule with the barbarity of Islamic Sharia. A nation that has respect for differences including women and homosexuals and allows them opportunity to contribute to their own prosperity. Yet you say nothing about the 22 Arab states that restrict women unequally before the law, and outright kill people for being gay. Your inverted twisted ethics and morality should disturb you. But alas it does not. Just as it never bothered your past ilk, that tacitly or vocally supported and endorsed the tyrannies of Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro, Ho Chi Minh, Daniel Ortega et al.

The UN institutions, the ICJ and the ICC are renowned and respected international organizations dealing with conflicts where resolutions are to be found based on international law. I assume your critical comments stem from your fear of what might be concluded if the Israeli Palestinian conflict were to be resolved in this manner.
Regarding UN Res 242, it is binding and Israel has to withdraw from the territories occupied in the six day war. The occupation is illegal. You need to read what the judges of the ICJ have to say regarding the matter.

Looks like someone just cleaned you clock.
As the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America states:

[While many sources correctly describe the wording and intent of Resolution 242, others have misrepresented it as requiring Israel to return to the pre-1967 lines -- the armistice lines established after Israel’s War of Independence. Such an interpretation was explicitly not the intention of the framers of 242, nor does the language of the resolution include any such requirement.”

Below are statements by the main drafters of Resolution 242, in which the document’s meaning and history are explained:

George A. Brown, who served as British Foreign Secretary from 1966 to 1968, and helped draft Resolution 242, said:

“The phrasing of the Resolution was very carefully worked out, and it was a difficult and complicated exercise to get it accepted by the UN Security Council. I formulated the Security Council Resolution. Before we submitted it to the Council, we showed it to Arab leaders. The proposal said ‘Israel will withdraw from territories that were occupied,’ and not from ‘the’ territories, which means that Israel will not withdraw from all the territories.”

Lord Caradon, who was the permanent representative of the United Kingdom to the United Nations from 1964-1970, and was the chief drafter of Resolution 242, said:

"It would have been wrong to demand that Israel return to its positions of 4 June 1967 because those positions were undesirable and artificial. After all, they were just the places the soldiers of each side happened to be the day the fighting stopped in 1948. They were just armistice lines. That's why we didn't demand that the Israelis return to them and I think we were right not to ..."

Eugene Rostow was a former dean of Yale Law School who served as U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs from 1966-1969, and helped draft Resolution 242. He said:

“Five-and-a-half months of vehement public diplomacy in 1967 made it perfectly clear what the missing definite article in Resolution 242 means. Ingeniously drafted resolutions calling for withdrawals from ‘all’ the territories were defeated in the Security Council and the General Assembly. Speaker after speaker made it explicit that Israel was not to be forced back to the ‘fragile’ and ‘vulnerable’ Armistice Demarcation Lines, but should retire once peace was made to what Resolution 242 called ‘secure and recognized’ boundaries, agreed to by the parties. In negotiating such agreements, the parties should take into account, among other factors, security considerations, access to the international waterways of the region, and, of course, their respective legal claims.”

Arthur J. Goldberg was the U.S. representative to the United Nations from 1965-1968, and before that was a Supreme Court Justice. He too helped draft Resolution 242 and said::

"The resolution does not explicitly require that Israel withdraw to the lines that it occupied on June 5, 1967, before the outbreak of the war. The Arab states urged such language; the Soviet Union proposed such a resolution to the Security Council in June 1967, and Yugoslavia and other nations made a similar proposal to the special session of the General Assembly that followed the adjournment of the Security Council. But those views were rejected. Instead, Resolution 242 endorses the principle of the ‘withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict’ and juxtaposes the principle that every state in the area is entitled to live in peace within 'secure and recognized boundaries.'"

In your very first sentence you state "the Right-wing Israeli interpretation (sic)"
So according to you 
1. The British Foreign Secretary from 1966 to 1968, and helped draft Resolution 242, George A. Brown, is a right wing Israeli.
2. The permanent representative of the United Kingdom to the United Nations from 1964-1970, and was the chief drafter of Resolution 242, Lord Caradon, is a right wing Israeli.
3. The former dean of Yale Law School who served as U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs from 1966-1969, and helped draft Resolution 242, Eugene Rostow, is a right wing Israeli.
4. The U.S. representative to the United Nations from 1965-1968, and before that was a Supreme Court Justice. He too helped draft Resolution 242, Arthur J. Goldberg, is a right wing Israeli.
If you insist on rewriting history and the law at least make it somewhat believable.

http://www.israelnationalnews....

Ten Basic Points: Israel’s Rights to Judea and Samaria

1. Upon Israel’s taking control of the area in 1967, the 1907 Hague Rules on Land Warfare and the Fourth Geneva Convention (1949) were not considered applicable to the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) territory, as the Kingdom of Jordan, prior to 1967, was never the prior legal sovereign, and in any event has since renounced any claim to sovereign rights via-a-vis the territory.

2. Israel, as administering power pending a negotiated final determination as to the fate of the territory, nevertheless chose to implement the humanitarian provisions of the Geneva convention and other norms of international humanitarian law in order to ensure the basic day-to-day rights of the local population as well as Israel’s own rights to protect its forces and to utilize those parts of land that were not under local private ownership.

3. Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, prohibiting the mass transfer of population into occupied territory as practiced by Germany during the second world war, was neither relevant nor was ever intended to apply to Israelis choosing to reside in Judea and Samaria.

4. Accordingly, claims by the UN, European capitals, organizations and individuals that Israeli settlement activity is in violation of international law therefore have no legal basis whatsoever.

5. Similarly, the oft-used term “occupied Palestinian territories” is totally inaccurate and false. The territories are neither occupied nor Palestinian. No legal instrument has ever determined that the Palestinians have sovereignty or that the territories belong to them.

6. The territories of Judea and Samaria remain in dispute between Israel and the Palestinians, subject only to the outcome of permanent status negotiations between them.

7. The legality of the presence of Israel’s communities in the area stems from the historic, indigenous and legal rights of the Jewish people to settle in the area, granted pursuant to valid and binding international legal instruments recognized and accepted by the international community. These rights cannot be denied or placed in question.

8. The Palestinian leadership, in the still valid 1995 Interim Agreement (Oslo 2), agreed to, and accepted Israel’s continued presence in Judea and Samaria pending the outcome of the permanent status negotiations, without any restriction on either side regarding planning, zoning or construction of homes and communities. Hence, claims that Israel’s presence in the area is illegal have no basis.

9. The Palestinian leadership undertook in the Oslo Accords, to settle all outstanding issues, including borders, settlements, security, Jerusalem and refugees, by negotiation only and not through unilateral measures. The Palestinian call for a freeze on settlement activity as a precondition for returning to negotiation is a violation of the agreements.

10. Any attempt, through the UN or otherwise, to unilaterally change the status of the territory would violate Palestinian commitments set out in the Oslo Accords and prejudice the integrity and continued validity of the various agreements with Israel, thereby opening up the situation to possible reciprocal unilateral action by Israel.

Again, nice job. Those with a seemingly irrational and visceral hatred for Israel believe they can hide their actual Jew hatred behind such innocuous phrasing such as justice. They will not accept anything other than "Palestinian" as victim, and thus excuse every despicable act committed against Israel. They need to delegitimize the entire concept of Zionism, to disregard the historical connection of the Jewish people and to condemn all Jews that emigrated to Palestine going as far back as the late 1800s. It is a mystery to me, however, what these people have to personally gain from such vilification, derogation and denigration of both Jews and Israel. Whatever drives them though, it certainly always betrays them as the enemy of the very ideals they say they champion.

It is a continuation of their modus operandi dating from their origin:

"To justify to the world their ruthless murder of Israeli civilians and their undying hatred of the West, these leaders needed to invent a narrative depicting Israel as a racist, war-mongering, oppressive, apartheid state that was illegally occupying Arab land and carrying out the genocide of an indigenous people that had a stronger claim to the land of Israel than did Israel itself.

Thus the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), under the tutelage of the Soviet KGB, invented “The Palestinian People” who allegedly had been forced to wage a war of national liberation against imperialism.

To justify this notion, Yasser Arafat, shortly after taking over as leader of the PLO, sent his adjutant, Abu Jihad (later the leader of the PLO’s military operations), to North Vietnam to study the strategy and tactics of guerrilla warfare in the hopes that the PLO could emulate Ho Chi Minh’s success with left-wing sympathizers in the United States and Europe. Ho’s chief strategist, General Giap, offered advice that changed the PLO’s identity and future:

“Stop talking about annihilating Israel and instead turn your terror war into a struggle for human rights. Then you will have the American people eating out of your hand.”
Giap’s counsel was simple but profound: the PLO needed to work in a way that concealed its real goals, permitted strategic deception, and gave the appearance of moderation. And the key to all this was creating an image that would help Arafat manipulate the American and Western news media.

Arafat developed the images of the “illegal occupation” and “Palestinian national self-determination,” both of which lent his terrorism the mantle of a legitimate peoples’ resistance."

The reason why a post these comments is to stop injustices being carried out against the Palestinian people.
There are too many myths regarding the birth of Israel and what followed, and many of these wrongs need to be righted. The only thing I will gain will be that soon I will see justice for an oppressed people.....the Palestinians.

So your problem is with the actual "birth of Israel", it the existence of this country which offends you and that you hope that your posting will hasten the coming of a 2nd holocaust. Is your obsession with the indefensible '67 armistice line part of the Palestinian Phase Plan adopted at the 12th Session of the Palestinian National Council Cairo, June 9, 1974:

Phase 1: Through the “armed struggle”, establish an “independent combatant national authority” over any territory that is “liberated” from Israeli rule. (Article 2)

Phase 2: To continue the struggle against Israel, using the territory of the national authority as a base of operations (Article 4).

Phase 3: To “liberate all Palestinian territory” by provoking Israel into an all-out war in which its Arab neighbors destroy it entirely (Article 8).

The Palestinians have actually had numerous opportunities to create an independent state, but have repeatedly rejected the offers:

1. In 1937, the Peel Commission proposed the partition of Palestine and the creation of an Arab state.
3. In 1939, the British White Paper proposed the creation of a unitary Arab state.
2. In 1947, the UN would have created an even larger Arab state as part of its partition plan.
3. The 1979 Egypt-Israel peace negotiations offered the Palestinians autonomy, which would almost certainly have led to full independence.
4. The Oslo agreements of the 1990s laid out a path for Palestinian independence, but the process was derailed by terrorism.
5. In 2000, Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered to create a Palestinian state in all of Gaza and 97 percent of the West Bank.
6. In 2008, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered to withdraw from almost the entire West Bank and partition Jerusalem on a demographic basis.

In addition, from 1948 to 1967, Israel did not control the West Bank. The Palestinians could have demanded an independent state from the Jordanians.

Unfortunately, the Palestinians are not interested in the creation of a state only the destruction of a State.

As Israel's Foreign Minister, Abba Eban, famously said of the Palestinians, " they never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity." 
You see, no amount of facts or reason persuade people like this. Being hit over the head with them has no effect. Much like the "Palestinians" and their fellow Arabs. Nearly a century of terrorism against Jews has not produced the results, yet they persist.

You would think they would have had enough. But one would be wrong. As your post indicates, there are two sides of the same coin when seeking Israel's destruction. The veneer of respectable diplomats that the PA has adopted, is just the sheep's clothing necessary for their duping of gullible western leaders. Underneath of course are the same rabid wolves they have always been with the same goal of devouring Israel.

There is Justice for oppressive Pal-e-SWINE.

Nakba.

Eternal Nakba.

Like the Nakba that the Nazis experienced on May 7, 1945.

Your first 4 points are totally out of context! The view that you presented is the Israeli Right-wing view and it uses the references that you referred to. You have the cart before the horse!
I notice that you did not answer any of the points I made and I assume you can't.
Regarding you attempt to distract from your inability to reply I will, however, respond to some of your tangents.
In particular your interpretation of the 4th GC:
This is erroneous. It has been incorrectly argued by Israel that the West Bank did not come within the compass of the phrase ‘territory of a High Contracting Party’ appearing in the second paragraph of Article 2. The Israeli argument along these lines is sterile. The second paragraph of Article 2, hinging on the words ‘shall also apply’, comes immediately after the opening paragraph. The general rule is stated in the first paragraph, which does not include the words ‘territory of a High Contracting Party’, and the second paragraph, which does, relates only to the exceptional scenario of an occupation that meets with no armed resistance.
The IDF Judge M. Shamgar, along with the ICJ pronouncement on the "Wall", recognized that the settlements were in violation of Article 49 (6) of the 4th GC. The Court declared that this provision prohibits not only forcible transfers, ‘but also any measures taken by an occupying Power in order to organize or encourage transfers of parts of its own population into the occupied territory’.
This dictum of the Court is unassailable
The judges of the ICJ have "Confirmed the illegality of settlements under 49 (6) of the 4th Geneva Convention... where it covers forced transfers and measures by the occupying power to organize or encourage its civilian population to move to occupied territories."
The IDF Judge M. Shamgar, along with the ICJ pronouncement on the "Wall", recognized that 
the settlements were in violation of Article 49.

I use as my sources the ICJ, Judge M. Shamgar and Yoram Dinstein.....and you?

"Out of context" what a load of BS, it addressed the very first line in your bloviated post, now you want to act like you never stated the ridiculous comment. If the first comment you made is such a falsehood why bother with the rest of your convoluted mental gymnastics you go through to falsely vilify Israel. When the comedian Prof. Corry strung together random words to give the impression of a pseudo-intellect it was humorous but your reenactment is pathetic.

Excerpt from Are critics of Israeli occupation getting nervous? by David Suissa Former Israeli Supreme Court Justice Edmond Levy, led a commission that concluded that “Israeli settlements are legal under international law.” The report concludes that the laws of belligerent occupation do not apply de jute to Israel’s presence in the West Bank. Is that reasonable? As Avi Bell, professor at the University of San Diego School of Law, notes: “One of the sine quibus non of belligerent occupation, as reaffirmed recently in an expert conference organized by the International Committee of the Red Cross, is that the occupation take place on foreign territory,” adding that “considerable state practice supports the traditional view that captured territory is ‘foreign’ only when another state has sovereignty.” Bell asserts that the Levy commission “is on solid ground in observing that neither Jordan nor any other foreign state had territorial sovereignty over the West Bank in 1967 and that the territory cannot therefore be ‘foreign’ for purposes of the law of belligerent occupation.” In fact, one could persuasively argue that Israel itself was already the lawful sovereign over the West Bank in 1967. Individuals such as yourself ignore the binding League of Nations agreements which laid down the Jewish legal right to settle anywhere in western Palestine, the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, an entitlement unaltered in international law. This “Mandate for Palestine” was fully embraced by the international community. Fifty-one member countries — the entire League of Nations — unanimously declared on July 24, 1922: “Whereas recognition has been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country.” As Eli Hertz and other experts have pointed out, political rights to self-determination as a polity for Arabs were guaranteed by the same League of Nations in four other mandates — in Lebanon and Syria [The French Mandate], Iraq, and later Trans-Jordan [The British Mandate]. Arab entity called Palestine never existed; the term Palestine referred only to the Jews.

Moreover, the Arabs never established a Palestinian state when the UN in 1947 recommended to partition Palestine, and to establish “an Arab and a Jewish state” (not a Palestinian state, it should be noted).

Nor did the Arabs recognize or establish a Palestinian state during the two decades prior to the Six-Day War when the West Bank was under Jordanian control and the Gaza Strip was under Egyptian control; nor did the Palestinian Arabs clamor for autonomy or independence during those years under Jordanian and Egyptian rule. It’s a fact, not an opinion, that the Arab Palestinian movement came of age only after the Arabs lost the Six Day War and the hated Zionists took over the West Bank.

Resolutions 242 and 338 never branded Israel as an “unlawful occupier” or an “aggressor.” The fact is, the resolution never called on Israel to withdraw from all the “territories,” while the wording of the resolutions themselves clearly reflect Israel’s contention that none of the territories were occupied land taken by force in an unjust war. In contrast, the revisionist International Court of Justice, like to quote, repeatedly talks of the “… illegality of [Israel’s] territorial acquisition,” misleading readers by ignoring Arab aggression and concealing “the provisions of the Charter concerning cases in which the use of force is lawful,” as was the case of the 1967 Six-Day War. In fact, if you study the minutes of the six month ‘debate’ over the wording of Resolution 242, you’ll see that draft resolution proposals that speak of “occupied territories,” “aggression” and called on Israel to “withdraw immediately all its forces to the positions they held prior to 5 June 1967,” were all defeated. As is well documented, one can easily trace the General Assembly’s attempts to change the status of the Territories, doctoring the definition of their status from “territories” to “Occupied Territories” to “Arab territories” to “occupied Palestinian territories” to “Occupied Palestinian Territory” and finally to “occupied Palestinian territory, including Jerusalem.” All of the above has been documented in detail by legal expert Eli Hertz. Ibish doesn't get into all those details, and who can blame him? They would severely undermine his “black and white” case.

As if all that weren’t enough to show that this is hardly a slam dunk case, Professor Bell notes an additional reason for questioning the de jure application of the laws of belligerent occupation to the West Bank: Israel’s peace agreement with Jordan.

He quotes expert Yoram Dinstein on this point: “The rules of belligerent occupation cannot be applied to Israel’s presence in the West Bank in light of the combined effect of ... the Jordanian-Israeli Treaty of Peace of 1994 and the series of agreements with the Palestinians. There is simply no room for belligerent occupation in the absence of belligerence, namely, war.” On the issue of settlements, Bell continues, “the Levy report likewise adduces several strong arguments to the effect that even if the laws of belligerent occupation applied to Israel’s presence in the West Bank, the Fourth Geneva Convention poses no bar to the kinds of actions that are subsumed under the term ‘settlement activities.’”

Again, you chooses to ignore the crucial fact that while The Fourth Geneva Convention forbids “transfers” and “deportations” by the occupying state of parts of its population into occupied territory, it does not forbid “settlements.” As Bell explains, officials of the state of Israel have provided services to settlers and sometimes encouraged them, but the state of Israel has not transferred any Israeli to the West Bank against his or her will. In fact, as even anti-settlement activists like Talia Sasson acknowledge, “there was never a considered, ordered decision by the state of Israel, by any Israeli government” on settlements. “There is no precedent,” Bell writes, “for any other state being adjudged to have violated the Fourth Geneva Convention simply on the basis of permitting or facilitating private preferences in the way Israel has done.” In a worst case scenario, even if facilitating private Jewish residential preferences in the West Bank were otherwise suspect “transfers,” the Levy report notes that sui generis rules apply to the area: “Article 6 of the Mandate of Palestine demands ‘encourage[ment], in cooperation with the Jewish Agency ... [of] close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands ...’”

Bell quotes the late Yale professor and international law expert Eugene Rostow as asserting that “this command is preserved by article 80 of the UN Charter, and, if the West Bank is under belligerent occupation, by article 43 of the Hague Regulations.” I could go on, but you get the picture: The deeper you investigate the accusation that Israel is an “illegal occupier,” the more you realize that this is hardly an open and shut case. What would happen if this “alternative” view ever gained traction? Well, for one thing, the global movement to make Israel the most hated nation on the planet would definitely stall. Deprived of their cherished “illegal Israeli occupation” lightning rod, what would the Israel haters do then? Would they be forced to finally confront the unpublicized and miserable conditions of Palestinians living in Lebanon and Jordan, who are much worse off than Palestinians living in the West Bank? Would they be forced to admit that the Arabs with the most human rights, the most freedom and the most economic opportunities in the Middle East live in that hated Zionist state, Israel? Would they also have to admit that Israel has offered to end the occupation three times, and that the Palestinians refused each time? What would happen if the mainstream media ever got hold of the narrative that the Israel occupation may not be so illegal after all? As shocking as it may sound, one can make a case that it might benefit the peace process. How so? Because Israel can’t credibly negotiate “land for peace” if it is seen as having no rights to the land in the first place.

As I wrote in my original column, one of the reasons negotiations with the Palestinians have gone nowhere is that, since Palestinians believe the land is already theirs, they have no incentive to negotiate, let alone compromise. Until they realize that Israel does, in fact, have rights to the land, why should they compromise? What is there to negotiate? Of course, don’t bet on any of these “alternate” views gaining traction any time soon. Ibish and his ilk know that there’s a better chance of convincing the world media that Ahmadinejad is a peacenik than convincing them that the Israeli occupation is not illegal. Truisms against Israel die hard. But cynicism is no excuse. The “disputed, not illegal” position is a fair and reasonable one. This debate has nothing to do, it must be noted, with whether one thinks the occupation is a good or moral idea or even in Israel’s interest. Those issues have dominated the dialogue up until now. The debate ignited by the Levy report is about legal rights. This is an important debate that is long overdue. If Israel can credibly assert its rights, this could have positive implications for the peace process and put the ills of the Middle East in a fresh perspective. The pervasive propaganda that for decades has made Israel the Middle East’s favorite scapegoat — because of its “illegal occupation”— has only hurt the people of the Middle East. No matter what people like Ibish tell you, this should be the beginning of a great debate, not the end of one.

Some key References: Former Israeli Supreme Court Justice Edmond Levy, Avi Bell, professor at the University of San Diego School of Law Talia Sasson

High Contracting Party?

The TORAH is that you damn fool!

The Land of Canaan was given to Abraham, huge boundaries from the Nile in Egypt into Mesopotamia....a huge loss for Israel, they have already given up enough land for peace which never satisfied their enemies.