Israel's Legal System Is Acting Illegally?

Dr. Yoram Shifftan

ISRAEL COMPLICIT IN  DELEGITIMIZATION OF THE SETTLEMENTS

A judge who applies an irrelevant rule to a legal situation or who does not apply a relevant rule is acting illegally. The security fence illustrates a general situation in which  Israel's current legal system gives preference to the  irrelevant Fourth Geneva Convention at the expense of Jewish National Rights (JNR) according to the mandate of the League of Nations, rights which are still valid today. For brief summary of JNR see statements A and B in Israel’s Strangest Self-Defeating Paradox. The legality of a security fence anywhere in Western Palestine follows as a trivial by-product from JNR, see paradox 1 in that same article. Even on the basis of self-defense alone Israel is allowed to locate the security fence anywhere in the West Bank. Instead, Israel's Supreme Court has instructed the state to reroute the security fence closer to the 1949 armistice lines on the basis of the application of the Fourth Geneva Convention to the territories. And Israel's Attorney General and his specially appointed team, headed by Dr. Shavit Matias, Deputy Attorney General, propose to adopt de jure the Fourth Geneva Convention in the territories. According to some reports PM Sharon accepted Mazuz recommendations.

It is mind-boggling that professional jurists in the Ministry of Justice can even contemplate the proposition of a multiply irrelevant-and-therefore-illegal framework while ignoring the relevant one.  Cynics might say that this is an example of a symbiosis between the current government and the legal system. But there is no doubt that such an action will substantially contribute to the perception of illegality of Jewish presence beyond the green line and this delegitimization will in turn make it easier to freeze and uproot existing settlements and to avoid building new ones - building which is an urgent mandatory requirement  of current international  law (the Mandate for Palestine).

Indeed there is a method in the madness: Israel’s ruling classes whip up external pressure and then cite this pressure as a cause of freezing and dismantling Jewish settlement in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. This procedure, hitherto used by bodies such as Peace Now, has reached government circles.

Ariel Sharon  talked about the "Kibush" (occupation) and initiated/accepted the Road Map instead of pointing out that previous US administrations objected to another Arab state west of the Jordan. Such a state has never been a "vision" of an American administration. Ariel Sharon should have pointed out that such a state violates international law since according to this law Jews were given exclusive political rights in Western Palestine. Having failed to do that, he can now point out his obligation to the Road Map as an excuse to freeze and dismantle settlements. And the American administration keeps reminding him that this is what is expected: a White House spokesman said that the goal is the "end of settlement activity consistent with their [the Israelis] obligations under the Road Map" (the Jewish Chronicle, 27.8.04). In fact, even in the framework of the Road  Map, Sharon's eagerness to proceed with his proposed evacuation  is legally invalid since the Road Map does not call  for unilateral moves.

A large part of the fundamental work of the eminent Professor of international law Julius Stone, and other specialists, is devoted to showing that there is nothing in international law that requires Israel to accept and even facilitate the establishment of an additional Arab state in Western Palestine but, on the other hand, that   there is plenty in international law that require that at least all of Western Palestine is destined for a Jewish state. President George W. Bush is proud to say: "I'm the first President ever to have articulated a position that there ought to be a Palestinian State. I believe that Palestinian state will emerge." (Time, September 6, 2004, p. 39). But in  view of the fact that the strong men of his administration, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, were described as very loyal friends of Israel, and that rewarding terror with an illegal state is against the Bush doctrine of fighting terror, it is hard to imagine that the present American administration would have adopted the Road Map and the principle of the establishment of an  Arab state  in Western Palestine, without the enthusiastic support of the Sharon-Peres-dominated Israeli  government.

In a further move to deligitimize and weaken the Jewish presence in the territories,  Deputy Premier Ehud Olmert has agreed, reportedly against the advice of MFA and Silvan Shalom, to the European demand to mark the origin of products from  the territories and to the ensuing higher tariff on these products. Again there was no compelling need to do so and Israel could have continued to resist such demands. It is the same Deputy Prime Minister that has said: "There is no escape from the evacuation of settlements in order to prevent daily confrontation with the world" (Arutz 7 on 13.8.04).  PM Sharon too has said that the "hitnatkut" (disengagement: read retreat) will improve Israel's diplomatic position in the world. But to quote external pressure as a reason for uprooting Jewish settlements and at the same time to conceal the most relevant legal framework (JNR) is both illegal and hypocritical.

Typically, an extreme left winger such Miron Benvenisti salivates at the prospect of Israel adopting de jure the Fourth Geneva Convention. He feels vindicated that the "false" legal structure that Israel has built for decades to hide its human rights violations in connection with Jewish  settlement activity is now crumbling (Hebrew Haaretz of 26 August 2004). Indeed many of the organizations hostile to Israel, such as Amnesty International, have based their labeling of the settlements as illegal according to international law on the Fourth Geneva Convention.  In a rare recent occurrence, the ex-legal advisor of MFA Dr Meir Rosen objected on Israel Radio to Amnesty labeling the settlement as illegal. But this is a rearguard action of the old guard. It seems that increasingly, the long-held position of Israel MFA, faithfully represented in Julius Stone's book entitled Israel and Palestine: Assault on the law of Nations, published by The Johns Hopkins University Press in 1981, according to which Israel has a right to sovereignty and legal annexation of the territories, is giving way to what was the position of a lunatic fringe in Israel itself and the position of foreign hostile bodies.

If the position of the lunatic fringe will become mainstream the destruction of the Jewish state will advance by leaps  and bounds. The poet Nathan Alterman warned us that the loss of the belief in the justice of our cause is the main enemy of the Jewish state. It is therefore important to understand the traditional position of Israel about the multiple irrelevance and non-applicability de jure of the Fourth Geneva Convention to the territories. Discourse 2  (pp 177-181), in Julius Stone's book quoted above, is devoted to this. His words of more than 20 years ago are just as relevant now as then  plus ca change plus c'est la meme chose).

THE MULTIPLE IRRELEVANCE OF ARTICLE 49(6) of THE IV GENEVA CONVENTION TO THE TERRITORIES

Julius Stone writes as follows: "Perhaps the central current criticism against the government of Israel in relation to its administration of the territories occupied after the 1967 War concerns its alleged infractions of the final  paragraph (6) of Article 49, of the Fourth Geneva Convention, Relative to the protection of Civilian Persons in time of War, of August 12, 1949. The preceding paragraphs deal with deportation or transfer of a population out of the occupied territory. The final paragraph (6) reads as follows: "The occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies." Julius Stone shows that it is not correct to use this paragraph, as it is done by Israel's enemies, to conclude that Jewish settlement in the territories is illegal.

He writes: "It has been shown in Chapters 3 and 7 that there are solid grounds in international law for denying any sovereign title to Jordan in the West Bank, and therefore any rights as reversioner state under the law of belligerent occupation... Not only does Jordan lack any legal title to the territories concerned, but the Convention itself does not by its terms apply to these territories. For, under Article 2, that Convention applies "to cases of... occupation of the territory of a High Contracting Party," by another such Party. Insofar as the West Bank at present held by Israel does not belong to any other State, the Convention would not seem to apply to it at all."

He also negates the applicability of the Geneva Convention of 1949 to the West Bank  and Gaza under Israel control in a footnote to Discourse 2: "Thus, under Article 2 of that convention, the convention  applies only to occupation by one state of territory belonging to another High  Contracting Party. Insofar as Jordan has, by virtue of the principle ex iniuria non oritur ius no territorial rights in the territories concerned, the case would not fall within the convention". Jordan's sovereignty in the West Bank was not internationally recognized. Even Egypt did not recognize it. Since Egypt did not claim sovereignty on Gaza, the argument above applies even more forcefully to Gaza. Julius Stone further says: "It is also important to observe, however, that even if that point is set aside [i.e. that the convention applies only to the occupation of the territory of a High Contracting Party], the claim that Article 49 of the Convention forbids the settlement of Jews in the West Bank is difficult to sustain". He says: 

"It is clear that in its drafting history, Article 49 as whole was directed against the heinous practice of the Nazi regime during their occupation of Europe in World War II, of forcibly transporting populations of which it wished to rid itself, into or out of occupied territories for the purpose of "liquidating" them with minimum disturbance of its metropolitan territory, or to provide slave labor or for other inhumane purposes. The genocidal objectives, of which Article 49 was concerned to prevent future repetitions against other peoples, were in part conceived by the Nazi authorities as a means of ridding the Nazi occupant's metropolitan territory of Jews  — of making it, in Nazi terms, Judenrein". The language of Article 49, paragraph 6 too, makes it clear that it refers to forcible transfers, forbidding the occupying power to "deport or transfer parts of its own  civilian population into the territory it occupies." This language makes it clear that the voluntary settlement of the territories by Jews is another context altogether from the forcible transfer to which the Convention applies.

Julius Stone emphasizes that the main intention of Article 49(6) is to prohibit the coerced movement of the population of the occupant's own territory for the purpose of genocidal and other inhumane acts of the occupant's government such as the "genocidal transfer of German Jews to Poland for destruction". As contrasted with this main  evil at which Article 49 was aimed, the revision of the meaning of paragraph 6 to justify prohibition of the voluntary settlement of Jews in Judea and Samaria (the West bank) carries an  irony bordering on the absurd. Ignoring the overall purpose of Article 49, which would inter alia protect the population of the state of Israel from being removed against their will into the occupied territory, it is now sought to be interpreted so as to impose on the Israel government a duty to prevent any Jewish individual from voluntarily taking up residence in that area. For not even the most blinkered adversary of Israel could suggest that the individual Jews who (for example) are members of the small Gush Emunim groups, are being in some way forced to settle in  Judea and Samaria (the West Bank)!. The issue is rather whether the government of Israel has any obligation under international law to use force to prevent the voluntary (often fanatically voluntary) movement of these individuals.

On that issue, the terms of Article 49(6), however they are interpreted, are submitted to be totally irrelevant. To render them relevant, we would have to say that the effect of Article 49(6) is to impose an obligation on the state of Israel to ensure (by force if necessary) that these areas, despite their millennial association with Jewish life, shall be forever judenrein. Irony would thus be pushed to the absurdity of claiming that Article 49(6), designed to prevent repetition of Nazi-type genocidal policies of rendering Nazi metropolitan territories Judenrein, has now come to mean that Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) must be made Judenrein and must be so maintained, if necessary by the use of force by the government of Israel against its own inhabitants.

Common sense as well as correct historical and functional context exclude so tyrannical a reading of Article 49(6). So does the consideration, discussed at the end of Chapter 7 [the section entitled  Continuing Obligations of the Mandate in pp 121-123 of his book], that Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) are residual areas of the original Palestine mandate. As such, in Eugene Rostow's cogent view there examined, they have to be regarded as still subject to the substantive obligations of  that Mandate. Among these, the establishment of Jewish national home, if not "the soul of the Mandate" (as stated in the Permanent Mandates Commission in 1935), was at least its "primary purpose." A demand that this territory be kept Judenrein would be a gross travesty of this legal position, turning international law on its head.

A government of Israel that adopts de jure the Fourth Geneva Convention will be committing such a "gross legal travesty turning international law on its head."

Julius Stone also says: "It is true that during its period of unlawful possession from 1948 to 1967, Jordan did apply a Nazi-type law of exclusion of Jews from Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria".  The removal by Israel of the Jordanian discriminatory laws against Jews was equally lawful to "the allies in Germany in 1944 [who] provided immediately for the abolition of the basic Nazi discriminatory legislation". The present government of Israel's intention to make part of Western Palestine Judenrein is doubly illegal. Because no part of the world should be made Judenrein. And also because Jews exclusively were given political rights in Western Palestine and JNR call for the encouragement of dense Jewish settlement in (at least) all of Western Palestine, i.e. international law is the opposite of the Road Map's prescription.

THE CONFUSION BETWEEN DE JURE AND DE FACTO ADOPTION OF THE CONVENTION

The enormity of the recommendation of the Ministry of Justice team that Israel adopts de jure the Fourth Geneva Convention is best seen by referring to Discourse 1 in Julius Stone's book (pp. 167-176). In the past Israel's Supreme Court applied the customary law of belligerent occupation in its adjudication of specific cases in the territories as if it was, as it were, de facto, the basis for Israel's presence there. This de facto application of the Convention's humanitarian provisions in administering the West Bank and Gaza, without de jure recognition of the convention,  is  somewhat analogous to the U.S. regarding persons held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as "enemy combatants", but nevertheless still endowing them with  Geneva Convention rights. Israel always wanted to improve the life of the inhabitants of the territories (which she indeed substantially did in all spheres of life including health and education) and also to disrupt their life the least possible. Also, the government of Israel, in  its great eagerness not to miss any opportunity for peace, was prepared not to "cash in" on its entitlements to the territories according to international law. It envisaged a future in  which Israel might gift away some of its entitlements in Western Palestine according to international law for the sake of peace (this is of course extraordinary in view of the fact that four fifths of its national  home in Palestine was already a Jew-free area). It did not to leave a stone unturned in its desperate attempts to get normal peace, i.e. one guaranteed by a piece of paper. But when adjudicating on specific cases, volitionally applying de facto the law of belligerent occupation to the territories as if it were the law, the judges always carefully reserved their judgment, so as to allow that Israel's territorial entitlements to these areas could be considered under other parts of international law  than the rules of belligerent occupation. But the legal matrix set voluntarily for the court by the authorities themselves -- namely, that the court must decide as if the governing law were solely that of belligerent occupation, created an irresistible temptation for incorrect versions of this legal matrix which was used as a weapon of political warfare against Israel. According to this falsified version used by Israel's enemies "the most learned justices of Israel's own Supreme Court unanimously held that Israel's only territorial standing in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and Gaza under international law is that of a belligerent occupant; and that settlement of Jews in these territories or even tolerance of this by the authorities of the state, and any other activities of Israel there,  are legally limited to those sanctioned by the astringent law of belligerent occupation." (p. 175 in Stone's book). In this context of Israel volitionally applying de facto the Convention, it was easier for Israel's enemies to invoke the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention, Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, Article 49(6), that forbids the belligerent occupant to settle its metropolitan population in occupied territories.

But Julius Stone is at pains to emphasize that Israel's territorial entitlements in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and Gaza are based on solid principles of international law. "They include (1) The rule that would attribute sovereign title in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and Gaza to Israel, by virtue of the fact that Israel is the state in lawful possession of territory affected by a "sovereignty vacuum" (view of E. Lauterpacht); (2) The rule that in a situation of disputed sovereignty that state is entitled that can establish the best title thereto, a rule well recognized by the International Court of Justice; (3) The rule that a state in lawful possession  of territory to which no other sovereign has a supportable claim of sovereignty is entitled to take the step of formal annexation; (4) The rule laid down  by the International Court of Justice, that territories subject to a League of Nations mandate whose disposition has not been otherwise determined remain subject to the obligations of the mandate, here the mandate for Palestine of which the primary obligation was the establishment of a Jewish national  home" (pp 168-169 there). He argues that the Supreme Court of Israel, far from dismissing such formidable bases of title, has carefully reserved the effects of such other rules  when applying de facto the law of belligerent occupation. But if Israel will adopt  de jure the applicability of the Fourth Geneva Convention in the territories, as suggested by the team in  the Justice Ministry, this might well be interpreted as gifting away the four bases enumerated above for Israel sovereignty in  the territories. Such a gifting could also be gathered from the change in Israel's long held position, a change that can  be interpreted  as the annulment of the former judges' reservation when they applied the law of belligerent occupation. It is hard to see how then Israel could resist the claim that Article 49(6) of the Convention that forbids the belligerent occupant to settle its metropolitan  population in occupied territories.

The departing legal advisor of MFA, Alan Baker, has given a wide-ranging interview to Haaretz about the legal status of Israel in the territories (Haaretz, 2 September 2004). Although he is cool about the Ministry of Justice recommendation to adopt de jure the IV Geneva Convention, JNR are totally absent from his presentation. This self-defeating omission is in sharp contrast to the position of Julius Stone who says for example that "interpreting the powers of belligerent occupants, it has no bearing, either one way or the other, on the more general and  important questions, central to the body of the present work, as to what title and powers the state of Israel may have over the territories in question when all the rules of international law  that bear on those matters are taken into consideration" (Discourse 1, p. 175). The omission of these rules by Israel’s own officials can explain not only the hatred of the outside world but Israeli and Jewish self-hatred too.

JNR ARE NOT RESCINDED IN VIEW OF  UN RESOLUTIONS

The UN has produced many resolutions which are not legally binding. They are merely recommendations (under Chapter 6 of the Charter, to distinguish from those resolutions which are, under Chapter 7, legally binding). A large part of Julius Stone's book is devoted to the refutation that these recommendations are a new kind of international law. The most basic  recommendation  is Resolution  242. According to the enemies of Israel Jewish settlements in the territories are illegal according to Resolution 242. But this is a falsification of the resolution and in no way Resolution 242 rescinds JNR. If this  resolution had rescinded JNR this would mean that the UN would transgress fundamental and constitutional principles of both the League of Nations and the UN. The Mandate for Palestine was the most fundamental declaration of the League of Nations, which is also enshrined in the charter of the UN.  It would also mean that Professor Eugene Rostow, the ex-dean of the best law school in the US (Yale), Under-secretary of State, and a formulator of Resolution 242, contradicted himself many times, when for many years after 242 was passed, he continued to write articles whose essence was the stressing of the continuing obligations of the Mandate, i.e. the continued validity of JNR.

Recommendation  242 calls for retreat "from territories." Despite Arab and Soviet pressures (Julius Stone p. 53), the versions "from THE territories", or "from All the territories" were not accepted. But at the hand of the enemies of Israel the "THE" is always added and the resolution is thus falsified. It is also often ignored that Israel has already more than fulfilled her part of the agreement; it has retreated from more than 90% of the territories. It is frequently ignored that resolution 242 referred to the Sinai too. It is also often ignored that the resolution calls for retreat to "secure and recognized boundaries", i.e. the resolution refers to a retreat in a context of peace with all its neighbors and not to a unilateral a priori retreat. It should also be clear to everyone  that "secure boundaries" mean retaining Judea, Samaria, Gaza and the Golan. That this is the meaning of  the term "Secure boundaries" in this context  was also the opinion of the report of the Chief of Staff of the American army to president Lyndon  Johnson in 1968. The security value of these territories has only increased since then, also as a deterrent of the use of WMD.

Julius Stone also completely refutes (Chapter 4, pp. 59-66, pp. 127-128) that the Resolution of November 29, 1947, Resolution 181(II) ("Partition Plan" of 1947) is still legally binding on Israel, requiring her to accept or even facilitate the establishment of an additional Arab State (in addition to Israel and Jordan) within the borders of Mandated Palestine west of the Jordan (Cis-Jordan). He argues that that resolution never came into legal force at all. "The Arab states not only rejected it, but committed armed aggression against it and against Israel, and thus wholly aborted it. They deliberately destroyed it, as it were in utero, before it entered the world, of legal effectiveness...To propose that Resolution 181 (II) can be treated as if it has binding force in 1981, for the benefit of the same Arab states, who by their aggression destroyed it ab initio, also violates "general principles of law," such as those requiring claimants to equity to come "with clean hands," and forbidding a party who has unlawfully repudiated a transaction from holding the other party to terms that suit the later expediencies of the repudiating party (Chapter 4)." The legal rule that action has consequences seems to have completely escaped the attention of recent Israeli leaders since  the beginning  of Oslo. Thus even the great enunciator of reciprocity, PM Benjamin Netanyahu , strangely declared his 'reluctant' obligation to carry on with the  Oslo obligations that he inherited, ignoring that he was  not obliged at  all to continue in  view of the many infractions  of Oslo committed by the  other side.

NO TERRITORIAL CONTINUITY REQUIRED AND NO DEMOGRAPHIC PROBLEM

The complete citation of E. Olmert in Arutz 7 mentioned above reads: "There is no escape from the evacuation of settlements in order to prevent daily confrontation with the world; if we will not so act we will pay a high price and also lose the identity of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state." But a situation in which a resident of Gush Katif votes for a parliament in Jerusalem and short distance from him an Arab resident votes for a parliament in Amman, or Gaza City for example,  is exactly analogous to a resident of Northern Ireland voting to a parliament in London (across the water) and a short distance from him a resident votes for a parliament in Dublin. In both cases the national voting is not necessarily determined by what is expected from consideration  of geographical continuity. One can multiply such examples to show that there can be a Jewish and democratic country without the uprooting of Jews if we do not insist on territorial continuity.  Recall too, that in the 19 years of the illegal Jordanian rule in the West Bank, Mount Scopus was encircled by "Jordanian" territory but it was still a part of Israel.

The ONE and only (as the Arabs themselves say) Arab Nation has plenty of land, states and natural resources. Miniscule Israel has also to think of future Jewish generations that will require space. Therefore the empty spaces in the territories should be reserved for future Jewish generations and not for Arabs. This also corresponds to the fact that according  to international law  (i.e. the Mandate obligations which are still valid) Jews exclusively have been given political rights in Western Palestine. It should also be noted that in the past Arabs have voluntarily moved from Western Palestine to Eastern Palestine when the West Bank was under Arab control: "During the Jordanian occupation of the West Bank there was considerable migration from the West Bank to the East, so that the West Bank sank from 62 percent to 38 percent of the whole Jordanian population; 400,000 Palestinian Arabs voluntarily migrated from the West to the East bank. Since 1967 Jordanian passports are also grantable to stateless Palestinians of Gaza" (p.187, Julius Stone's Book). Israel certainly cannot be blamed for this voluntary migration to the East Bank.

This voluntary eastwards migration is one among the many points where the Arabs use the "Palestinian refugees" as political weapons against Israel. This corresponds to the fact that the Israeli authorities begged the Arabs to stay but they were threatened by their leaders to leave. Also, it is the case that "Palestinian Arabs who moved from Cis-Jordan to Trans-Jordan [in 1948 for example] were in  fact only migrating from one part of Palestine to another, over relatively short distances, averaging perhaps 50 to 100 miles. They continue to live within a similar cultural, demographic, linguistic, religious, and even climatic environment." (Julius Stone's book, p. 25). Most Palestinian "refugees" are already living in Palestine. Many live in the four fifths of Palestine that was meant to be part of the Jewish state according to JNR, i.e. in present-day Jordan. Those not currently living in Palestine can be accommodated in this greater part of Palestine too or in other Arab states. The real refugees were Jews from Arab countries that were forcibly thrown from Arab countries leaving behind their property. Their number and property far exceeded that of the "Palestinian refugees". They were displaced over long distances from places where they often preceded the Arabs. But little Israel, unlike the Arabs, has absorbed them without international aid.

There is an internal contradiction in Ariel Sharon's pretence that retreat from part of Western Palestine will strengthen Jewish hold in  other parts. The opposite is true. The UK, for example,  has not given up on Cambridge and Oxford in order to strengthen its hold in  London. It has not even given up on the far-away Falklands Islands. JNR refers to Jewish rights in (at least) all of  Western Palestine. Partial retreat from any part of Palestine will be  interpreted as an admission  of the illegality of the right for Jewish sovereignty in any other parts of Western Palestine. Significantly, after the government passed its "disengagement" plan, the acting ambassador in London  was told by the presenter of  the major  BBC radio program that Israel should now quickly follow with the evacuation of all the other settlements since by accepting this partial evacuation Israel has admitted that all the other settlements are illegal. Indeed, nobody can  imagine that a nation will uproot its own citizens from part of its homeland if it is legally entitled to all its homeland. Furthermore, since from the point of view of international law there is no difference in the legality of Jewish settlements on both sides of the green line, any retreat in Western Palestine contributes to the view that a Jewish state anywhere in Western Palestine is illegal.

CONCLUSION: THE STATE COMPTROLLER SHOULD INQUIRE WHY JNR ARE NOT ASSERTED

In conclusion, the claims of Sharon, Olmert and their followers that the proposed retreat is important to avoid daily confrontation with the world cannot be sustained in  view of the Israeli government's banning of all public enunciation of JNR,  and the claim that the demographic problem involved in the maintenance of a democratic and Jewish state requires the proposed retreat cannot be sustained if we do not insist on  unnecessary territorial continuity.

It is also hard to avoid the conclusion that the proposition of the Attorney General and his team to adopt de jure an irrelevant principle, Fourth Geneva Convention, and to ignore a relevant principle, JNR, in the context of the security fence and in general, is both objectively illegal and destructive to Israel's interests.  It contributes to the delegitimization of the settlements and Israel itself. This proposition is in line with the banning of Israeli diplomats from MFA and the PM’s office to publicly assert JNR.

It is also to be noted that Israel's official representatives are not even seen in public invoking the principle ex iniuria non oritur ius, the principle that an aggressor shall not benefit from the fruits of its aggression. Indeed if an aggressor was assured in advance of automatically getting back his own lost territory, this will be an absurdity since it will encourage all prospective aggressors since they will know that they have nothing to lose in committing their aggression (Julius Stone's book, pp 51-56). Thus when Julius Stone says that "many international lawyers of standing concluded that international law presented no obstacles even to formal annexation [of the territories] by Israel if she were so minded" (p. 52), this can be based on that part alone of international law (and the many examples that fulfil this principle)  that does not require the  "handing back of territory even to an aggressor who was the former sovereign." But of course Jordan and Egypt were not former sovereigns in the West Bank and Gaza but their presence in these places  "was only by virtue their illegal entry in 1948". On the other hand Israel has the sovereign rights by virtue of JNR, in addition to her rights to retain the territories because they were obtained in  self-defence. So Israel's rights for sovereignty in the territories are multiple, and it is to be hoped that the state comptroller will urgently look as to why these multiple rights are not openly and publicly asserted by Israel's official representatives.