Nasser Kandil
Albinaa’ Newspaper July 26, 2024
It is the right of any Palestinian, any Arab, or even any free individual grounded in the deep historical and legal principles of the establishment of nations, and the concept of the rights of peoples in their nations, and cognizant of colonial projects and their background, and the bearings of the Sykes-Picot agreement and the Balfour Declaration on casting the political geography of the natural and historical Syrian provinces in a form serving colonial designs, to unequivocally reject the presence of the occupying entity, and to deny the legitimacy of its existence, irrespective of its UN membership, and legal validity of international resolutions related to its existence. However, the exercise of such assumed rights, does not deprive the legitimate owner of the right to discuss the international political and legal contexts of settlement proposals for the Palestinian Cause entitled the two-state solution, which has become the headline for any search into what could bring back stability in a region exploding for the last 10 months in a manner threatening to stability worldwide, after the Deluge managed to put back the Palestinian cause on the list of international priorities.
The ICJ Advisory Opinion about the occupation’s practices in the territory occupied in 1967 opened discussion about the legal validity of the occupation’s behavior on Palestinian lands. Even though bound geographically to the territory occupied in 67 because it came in response to a question about that territory, the Advisory Opinion’s reliance on the concept of one nation and people which were determined to be decisively applicable to Palestine, makes the question about the state of Palestinians in the territories occupied in 48 as a natural part of that state and people a serious legal question. Does the occupying entity possess legitimacy over the territory occupied in 48 which it does not possess over the territory occupied in 67? The mere fact that political handling of the two-state solution starts with a political understanding that what it means is a Palestinian State on the area occupied in 67, in view of the certainty that politics do not bind the law and the legal system to anything not based on legitimate legal foundations, and in view of the absence of any legal document deciding the matter of the legitimacy of the presence of the occupation on the 1948 occupied territory.
It is interesting here that the declaration of the Palestinian factions from Beijing, stemming from the background of the shift in the balance of power effected by Al Aqsa Deluge, contains a clear reference to Resolutions 181 and 194, along with Resolution 2334 which divests legitimacy from West Bank settlements and settlement in Jerusalem. This is not an expression for opening the door for the geography of the two-state solution in a manner differing from what has been discussed and considered about the borders of 67 as the border dividing the two states, fundamentally rejected by the occupying entity. The legal discussion will arrive to the discovery that there is no legal ground for the borders of the two states except for what is contained in Resolution 181 which is known as the decision of the partition of Palestine in 1948, which is inseparable with the resolution which guarantees the right of return to the land occupied in 1948 of Palestinian refugees and of the right of their compensation. The issuance date of this resolution singlehandedly confirms what is meant by return, regardless of sophistries in settlement negotiations under the headline of the two-state solution, some of which have descended to the level of a great deal less than the territory occupied in 1967, and piercing through the rights of return and compensation by not tying the right of return to the 67 occupied territory on which the Palestinian state will be established.
Resolution 181 contains a minutely detailed discussion of all matters, and a precise border demarcation between the two presumed states, and tying recognition of both by the signature of each of their governments on a commitment to abide by the text of both Resolutions 181 and 194. This renders the entity’s legitimacy nonexistent because of its rejection of the two resolutions and their clear texts, whether it be in reference to the right of return to the 1948 occupied territory, or the border between the two states, or the future of Jerusalem, which will be placed under international oversight. As for borders, the resolution grants to the Jewish State almost half the territory occupied in 1948, the coastline up to almost the borders of Gaza with a depth of about 10 kms, retaining the entirety of Jerusalem and its surroundings within the boundaries of the Arab State,with Gaza extending on a wide southern line along the border with Egypt, while the Arab State extends along the border with Lebanon and includes the territory up to Acre, including Nazareth, with the Upper Galilee and the Western Galilee part of it with the exception of the Finger of the Galilee to the borders of Lake Tiberius. The Arab State thus becomes interconnected from north to south, the Galilee with the West Bank, and the West Bank with Gaza, with the right of movement guaranteed to the citizens of the other state between the unconnected areas of that second state where the coastline is separate from the Negev, and the Galilee Finger is unconnected to the coast.
The legal discussion here is not to legitimize the presence of the entity on part of the land of Palestine, theentity which rejects the establishment of a Palestinian state on any part of Palestine, let alone on three quarters of it. What this discussion aims at it is finding a legal framework for tearing away legitimacy from the entity, by tying the legitimacy of an acknowledgement of the entity’s government with both of Resolutions 181 and 194, and placing a ceiling on the concessions any Palestinian or Arab leadership could make under the pretext of a hypothetical demarcation not in line with international legal and legitimate rights, similar to what had occurred with the Arab Peace Initiative and the PLO decision calling for a Palestinian State on the territory occupied in 67, and its consideration that mere Israeli rejection indicates its correctness, which in fact is far from true.
