Israel’s origins the most legislated

AHMED Iqbal Bhigjee questions me in his letter, “Shapiro’s letter has selective arguments”, as to whose home Israel really is.

Jews have lived in what is today known as Israel since about 2000BC. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob lived in, among others, cities such as Hebron, Beersheba and Shechem.

Jesus Christ, himself a Jew, was born in Bethlehem. There has been an uninterrupted Jewish presence in Safed, Tiberius, Jerusalem and Hebron, the four holy cities of Judaism, since biblical times.

King David, of the Bible, made Jerusalem his capital city long before the city of London was even a thought.

After the fall of the Ottoman Empire in the early twentieth century, Palestine (both sides of the Jordan River) became a British mandate.

The Balfour Declaration of 1917, acknowledging the right to a Jewish homeland in the whole of Mandatory Palestine, was accepted in its entirety at the San Remo conference of 1920.

It was at this conference that the mandate system for the Middle East countries (all part of the fallen Ottoman Empire) was decided upon.

Britain was given the mandate over Palestine and the obligation to reconstitute the Jewish homeland in the whole of British Mandatory Palestine. In 1922 the League of Nations (the precursor to the United Nations Security Council) ratified the Balfour Declaration.

Britain reneged on the Balfour Declaration and gave the land east of the Jordan to the Hashemite Kingdom for the creation of Transjordan – modern day Jordan.

In 1947, in terms of United Nations Resolution 181, the rest of Mandatory Palestine was divided into a land for the Jews and a land for the Arabs. The Jewish land was to be 13% of the original mandate. The Jews accepted the division. The Arabs did not.

There can be no question, therefore, as to the legality of the establishment of Israel as a Jewish state, the origins of which are the most legislated of any country in history.

And today, irrespective of all the above, or perhaps because of all the above, Israel is recognised as an independent, sovereign state.

And as with any sovereign state, she is entitled to protect her borders from those who wish her harm.