Annexing Judea and Samaria: That Energizes Me

The theme for today for NaBloPoMo is, 'at what time of the day do I have the most energy or feel the most productive?'  Well ("never begin a sentence with 'well'"), since I went to bed very late yesterday--Scrabble and Words with Friends can do that to you--I am not energetic today nor am I productive (read: my D. H. is preparing for Shabbat; he loves to cook, so no problemo).  Wait, I did carry the laundry which I did yesterday all the way up the stairs (3 flights) to the bedroom, where it now sits, crumpled up and unfolded, in a heap on the bed.  It's ok--mainly underwear, nobody sees it.

But generally, it's during the morning hours that I have more energy.  When I was a teenager--hard to remember that far back--I thought I was a "night person." that was probably baloney.  I just did what every other teenager does, stay up late either to study, or party.  Actually, I wasn't a party person, so the latter does not apply to moi. Seriously.

But, really seriously now, when I read a hopeful article about Israel, such as this one stating the case for annexation of Judea and Samaria, known to the ignorant world as "The West Bank," I feel a sense of hope, and that energizes me.

Such as the article by Arlene Kushner (hat tip to Daled Amot for reposting it on his blog. Yes, that's "Amot.").

I have, time and time again on this blog, repeated myself ad nauseum about the non-existence ever of a soverein nation called "Palestine." It was merely the name given to Judea and Samaria (Yehudah and Shomron, in Hebrew) after 70 C.E. by the conquering Romans, to add insult to injury by humiliating the Jews upon their defeat.  I am sprinkling here excerpts from her post on this subject.

  With the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, the Second Jewish Commonwealth came to an end.  From then until modern times, what had been Judah, and was renamed Palestina by the Romans, was only an appendage to one empire or another, never an independent country.

The area had been under Ottoman rule for centuries until after WWI when it was liberated by the Allies, who met in San Remo to decide on its division.  That was when it became part of the British Mandate, into which the Balfour Declaration--remember, including not only the area west of the Jordan river, but east of it as well--was incorporated (yellow highlight throughout, by me):

League of Nations Formalizes Mandate
In July 1922, the League of Nations, predecessor to the UN, formally adopted the British Mandate for Palestine -- a legally binding document that was approved by all 51 members of the League of Nations.
It agreed that:
"the Mandatory [Britain] should be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 2nd, 1917 [Balfour Declaration], by the Government of His Britannic Majesty, and adopted by the said Powers, in favor of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people..."
And it gave recognition to:
"the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country." 
The term "reconstituting" gave acknowledgement to the fact that there had been a Jewish nation in Palestine at an earlier time.

The intention was for the area to be managed by Britain until it could stand on its own two feet, and be established as a homeland for the Jewish People. But then, for political reasons, Britain excluded the trans-Jordan area (the east side of the Jordan river) from "Palestine" and established the country now called Jordan.  The Jews were to have the territory west of the Jordan river up to the Mediterranean Sea.

From the get-go, the Arabs objected violently to the establishment of a Jewish presence in the area.

Partition of Palestine
In 1947, the British, who no longer wished to contend with the situation, declared intention to pull out by mid-1948, and turned the Mandate back to the United Nations. A UN Commission considered the matter and recommended a partition of Palestine into one state for the Jews and one for the Arabs, with Jerusalem to be internationalized at first.

Credit: Wikipedia
This recommendation was placed before the General Assembly as Resolution 181, which was adopted on November 29, 1947 by a vote of 33 to 12, with 10 abstentions. The Arab nations voted as a bloc against.
It is imperative to note that General Assembly Resolutions carry no weight in international law.  This resolution was only a recommendation -- it was not binding and it did not supersede the Mandate for Palestine in international law.

Now here is the clincher: as I mentioned above, the Arabs did not want any Jewish presence in the area, regardless of it having been a Jewish state in the past:

Legally, this plan would have had binding force only as an agreement between the two parties, i.e., the Jews of Palestine and the Arabs of Palestine. 
However, while the Jewish population of Palestinian accepted the proposal, the Arab population did not: they rejected the entire resolution.  Thus the partition plan was aborted.

I would advise you to read Arlene's entire article explaining how the Arabs have perpetrated their lies - an accepted part of their culture - about their claims to the land, the history of a Jewish presence and sovereignty over the area, their claims of "occupation" - all false.  There was never a "Palestinian" nation, and you can't "occupy" a territory which never belonged to the other, and which was conquered in a defensive, not aggressive war (the Six-Day war of 1967).

I will end with the finality that there is no two-state solution, nor should there be one.  The Arabs have their states of Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, The Emirates, etc. -- numerous ones -- and Israel has its one, single, solitary Jewish state.  And it should be on all its land, from ancient times to the present.
(thank you, Latma.)