|
by Peter A. Belmont / 2009-01-15
© 2009 Peter Belmont
| |
The UN did not offer Israel the right to be a predominantly Jewish state forever. If Israel’s Arab (non-Jewish) population should grow to exceed its Jewish population, Israel would become a predominantly Muslim-Christian-Druse country.
|
|
Many writers appear to believe that Israel has a right to have a predominantly Jewish population forever. Nothing in history or international law confers such a right.
When, in 1947, the UN voted to partition Palestine into three parts—a Jewish state, an Arab state, and a separate Jerusalem enclave—it offered (or suggested) a territory for a Jewish state which, at the time, had a Jewish majority. The UN did not offer that (yet to be created) Jewish state permission to expel its Arab citizens either then or subsequently.
added 4-27-2010 with thanks to Annie who provides access to relevant UNGA resolutions and quite remarkable argument by Mr. C. Malik of Lebanon,, well worth reading.
UNGA 181 , the partition resolution, provides, in part, as to minorities:
1. Freedom of conscience and the free exercise of all forms of worship, subject only to the maintenance of public order and morals, shall be ensured to all.
2. No discrimination of any kind shall be made between the inhabitants on the ground of race, religion, language or sex.
3. All persons within the jurisdiction of the State shall be entitled to equal protection of the laws.
4. The family law and personal status of the various minorities and their religious interests, including endowments, shall be respected.
5. Except as may be required for the maintenance of public order and good government, no measure shall be taken to obstruct or interfere with the enterprise of religious or charitable bodies of all faiths or to discriminate against any representative or member of these bodies on the ground of his religion or nationality.
6. The State shall ensure adequate primary and secondary education for the Arab and Jewish minority, respectively, in its own language and its cultural traditions.
The right of each community to maintain its own schools for the education of its own members in its own language, while conforming to such educational requirements of a general nature as the State may impose, shall not be denied or impaired. Foreign educational establishments shall continue their activity on the basis of their existing rights.
7. No restriction shall be imposed on the free use by any citizen of the State of any language in private intercourse, in commerce, in religion, in the Press or in publications of any kind, or at public meetings.
8. No expropriation of land owned by an Arab in the Jewish State (by a Jew in the Arab State) shall be allowed except for public purposes. In all cases of expropriation full compensation as fixed by the Supreme Court shall be paid previous to dispossession.
Chapter 3
Citizenship, international conventions and financial obligations
1. Citizenship. Palestinian citizens residing in Palestine outside the City of Jerusalem, as well as Arabs and Jews who, not holding Palestinian citizenship, reside in Palestine outside the City of Jerusalem shall, upon the recognition of independence, become citizens of the State in which they are resident and enjoy full civil and political rights. Persons over the age of eighteen years may opt, within one year from the date of recognition of independence of the State in which they reside, for citizenship of the other State, providing that no Arab residing in the area of the proposed Arab State shall have the right to opt for citizenship in the proposed Jewish State and no Jew residing in the proposed Jewish State shall have the right to opt for citizenship in the proposed Arab State. The exercise of this right of option will be taken to include the wives and children under eighteen years of age of persons so opting.
Arabs residing in the area of the proposed Jewish State and Jews residing in the area of the proposed Arab State who have signed a notice of intention to opt for citizenship of the other State shall be eligible to vote in the elections to the Constituent Assembly of that State, but not in the elections to the Constituent Assembly of the State in which they reside.
In the war of 1948-1950, Israel seized and expelled most of the Arabs from a territory far larger than that contemplated by the UN and, far more significantly, refused to allow any Arab outside Israel’s pre-1967 territory after the war to return to his/her home there. Repeated UN resolutions made clear what the Universal Declaration of Human Rights also made clear, namely, that every person has a right to return to his/her home country, and that pre-1967 Israel was the home of the Palestinian refugees who had lived there before the 1948-1950 war.
In principle, Israel should have readmitted all the refugees in 1950. I believe it should do so today. Were all the refugees (and their progeny) to elect to return to their (ancestral) homes, Israel would immediately become a predominantly Arab country, just as it would likely have become had Israel not expelled (“ethnically cleansed”) 85% of its Arab population in 1948-1950.
While one can understand the desire of most Israeli Jews to live in a predominantly Jewish country, such a desire does not confer upon them a legal right to bring about this desired outcome. Nor does any legal source confer such a right.
Some Israelis predict, based on current populations and birth rates (see: here and see: Why Israel Feels Threatened (“If present trends persist, Arabs could constitute the majority of Israel’s citizens by 2040 or 2050”) that, perhaps within 40 years, Arabs may outnumber Jews within Israel’s population of citizens, without regard to Palestinians living in the occupied territories and without any “return” of Palestinian refugees from 1948-1950.
If and when this prediction should be borne out, Israel will no longer be a “predominantly Jewish state.” Israel might then elect to abandon democracy (a process already begun when Israel recently outlawed two Arab political parties, intending that, in effect, although its Arab citizens may vote, they cannot run for office on Arab “lists” wit5h Arab platforms). But unless Israel chooses to perform another “ethnic cleansing” by expelling some or all of its Arab citizens or by making life for them so miserable—as Israel has made life for Palestinians living in the occupied territories—that they elect to emigrate “voluntarily”, Israel may well become a predominantly Arab (Christian and Druse and Muslim) state. Israel’s army can prevent this, but not in compliance with law.
|
