The "Iron Swords" War imposed on us underscores the need to reexamine the legality of Jewish settlement across the entire Land of Israel according to international law.

Once again, it has become clear that Jewish settlement is our protective barrier. As Machiavelli wrote, territory cannot be held solely by military force. The army enters, operates, and exits; the moment it leaves (or even while it is present), the situation reverts to its original state. our hand to all neighboring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighborliness

In the Declaration of Independence, "amidst the onslaught," we declared, "We extend our hand to all neighboring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighborliness, and appeal to them to establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help with the sovereign Jewish people settled in its own land. The State of Israel is prepared to do its share in a common effort for the advancement of the entire Middle East". Have we not fulfilled this promise? We extended our hand for peace, purchasing peace with Egypt and Jordan at a full price, and did everything possible to secure peace with our immediate neighbors - the Palestinian Arabs. Thus came into existence the Oslo Accords, the Paris Agreement (Gaza–Jericho), and the Interim Agreements with the Palestinian Authority, including the destruction of settlements and the unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

International law did not compel us to sign these agreements or withdraw from Gaza; it was our hope that the establishment of the Palestinian Authority would end the conflict. "No more blood, no more tears," declared the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on the White House lawn during the signing with the PLO. However, the gates of Gaza remained heavy. Immediately upon returning from the signing ceremony in the USA, PLO leader Yasser Arafat declared in Gaza, amidst the roar of Kalashnikovs, "With our soul and blood we'll redeem Palestine." Since the signing, we have witnessed the worst violence since Israel's founding.

Instead of turning Gaza into a thriving, independent Singapore, we received the most severe blow to the Jewish people since the Holocaust. Moreover, the nations of the world did not stand by our right to self-defense, a right inherent to every state. Even our greatest friend, the United States, imposes restrictions aimed at preventing victory in the existential war and demands that we, with our own hands, establish a Palestinian terrorist state free of Jews (Judenrein) in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, which, in turn, continues to claim sovereignty from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.

Legality of Settlement in Old Jerusalem and Judea, Samaria, and Gaza

The legality of Jewish settlement in Old Jerusalem and Judea, Samaria, and Gaza stems from the status of these territories in international law, which recognizes the historical connection between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel as the basis for re-establishing our national home.

"If I forget you, Jerusalem, may my right hand cease to function," declared Lebanese representative Charles Malik immediately after the UN General Assembly adopted the partition plan on November 29, 1947. In response, Israeli representative Abba Eban replied, "If you keep saying this for two thousand years we shall start believing it."

The 2012 report by Supreme Court Justice (retired) Edmund Levy, Judge (retired) Tchia Shapira, and Ambassador Alan Baker, former legal adviser to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, confirmed Israel's position that the territories of Mandatory Israel are not "occupied territories" but "disputed territories." Israel has superior rights to these areas, and Israeli citizens are allowed to settle there. The term "occupation" in international law has a precise definition, different from its everyday usage. For a territory to be considered "occupied," Israel would have had to take it from a foreign sovereign, but no such sovereign existed.

The Jewish people are the only ones who have viewed the Land of Israel as their homeland throughout the generations. After losing sovereignty, the land was ruled by Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Crusaders, Mamluks, and Ottomans. The desolation and devastation of the land are well-documented. Under Muslim rule, many agricultural settlements were abandoned, the land was laid waste, and the area of cultivated lands shrank. The biblical curse came true: "And I will bring the land into desolation; and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it. And I will scatter you among the nations, and will draw out a sword after you: and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste." When the Muslims ruled Jerusalem, they did not make it their capital. Jewish settlement in the land never ceased for even one generation, and Jerusalem had a Jewish majority as early as the 19th century.

When the British Mandate for Palestine was confirmed by the League of Nations in 1922, it covered all the territories of the land and explicitly stated that it was based on the international recognition given "to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country." For the non-Jewish population, it was determined that their civil and religious rights would not be impaired. The Mandate did not refer to Arab national rights, as its purpose was to renew the political connection between the Jewish people and their land. The Jewish people's rights under the Mandate were reaffirmed in Article 80 of the UN Charter.

In international law, according to the principle of Uti possidetis, the borders of a new state are determined according to the borders it had when it was established. When the State of Israel was established, these were the borders set for the re-establishment of the national home for the Jewish people in the Land of Israel, as determined in the Mandate and reaffirmed in Article 80 of the UN Charter. This principle served as the basis for determining the border in the peace agreements between Israel and Egypt in 1979 and between Israel and Jordan in 1994, as well as for marking the blue line (the withdrawal line) between Israel and Lebanon, identified by the UN in 2000 as the de facto border, even though it is not an official border since a peace agreement between the countries has not been signed. As detailed below, no subsequent event has changed this determination.

The 1947 UN General Assembly partition resolution, like all Assembly resolutions, is a non-binding recommendation. The invasion of western Palestine by Jordan and Egypt, after rejecting the partition plan, was an illegal act of aggression. The 1949 Armistice Agreements between Israel and its neighbors stated that "no provision of this Agreement shall in any way prejudice the rights, claims and positions of either Party hereto in the ultimate peaceful settlement of the Palestine question." Jordan's attempt to annex the "West Bank" in 1950 was not internationally recognized. In June 1967, following the Six-Day War, Israel regained the territories originally intended for it, held by Jordan and Egypt from 1948 to 1967 in violation of international law. UN Security Council Resolution 242, formulated after the Six-Day War, required Israel to withdraw military forces "from territories," not from all territories, and this was reaffirmed in Resolution 338 during the Yom Kippur War. Both resolutions were non-binding recommendations within the Security Council's authority to make recommendations for peaceful dispute resolution. The Oslo Accords left the question of sovereignty to a permanent agreement that was not signed, and Hamas's takeover of Gaza did not grant the terrorist organization sovereignty.

The Jewish people yearn for true peace. Opponents of settlement who insist on calling the territories "occupied" do so out of an unfounded wish that Israel will bring peace closer this way, or because they believe the world will not accept otherwise. Heavy international pressure was exerted on Ben-Gurion not to declare Israel's independence, but once the state was declared, the world recognized it, and it became a fact. The Edmund Levy Committee Report expresses the same truth that the Declaration of Independence did in its time. Our demand for the right to settle in our land is genuine, and our leaders must proclaim and emphasize this loudly and clearly. As Alterman wrote ("A Contest for Experience," The Seventh Column, Vol. A), "Those who allow [distortion] to enter the field of competition, predetermine defeat for freedom."

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Israel is the only national state of the Jewish people. International law recognizes the Jewish people's right to a national home in the Land of Israel, the land of its forefathers from which they were forced out, as far back as 101 years ago at the San Remo Conference, and has approved it since then through the League of Nations as the United Nations.

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As stated in the introduction to the British Mandate to establish that same home here, international recognition was granted to "the historical connection of the Jewish people with the Land of Israel ["Palestine" in the language of the Mandate] and the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country."

In 2,000 years of exile, in which our people did not have a state of our own, we were subject to violence and persecution, and there is not enough room here to list them all.

The state of Israel was founded so that Jewish blood would no longer be forfeit, and so that every Jew would now that he or she has a home to which they can make aliyah, whether because they want to live a fully Jewish life in their ancestral land, or because they were forced to flee antisemitism that reared its head where they were living.

The Knesset expressed Israel's identity through the Law of Return, which states in its first article that "Every Jew has the right to come to this country as an oleh [immigrant]." However, in the past few decades the government has been forced to deal with constant waves of illegal migration. The laws passed by the Knesset each year never established clear rules about migration to Israel by non-Jews, and were full of holes, through which appellate courts and administrative courts and the Supreme Court used "family reunification" to bring into Israel anyone who wanted to implement "right" of return for Arabs inside the Green Line in a way that endangers the Jewish people's national home. This, in addition to the thousands of illegal infiltrators, mostly laborers, whose comfortable lives in Israel bewitch them even though the point of the country is foreign to them.

The Supreme Court has already expressed its opinion that it is inappropriate for the Knesset to set constitutional norms on a whim and that is certainly true when it comes to a subject as important as the country's identity.

And therefore, last Thursday, MK Simcha Rotman, along with other MKs from the entire national camp – Amir Ohana, Yinon Azoulay, Uriel Busso, Bezalel Smotrich, Yitzhak Pindrus, and Amichai Chikli – submitted a bill for the Basic Law: Immigration to Israel. It should be noted that former Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked supported passing a similar law, and her party's platform included a commitment to passing it Anyone to whom the country's identity, security, and ability to ensure the long-term existence of the Jewish people's national home in our country matter should support this basic law. It is a commandment for generations to come.

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The term "apartheid" was always unique to the policies of racial separation in South Africa, where a white minority gave itself an excess of rights and controlled most of the population, from whom basic rights were withheld based on their skin color. In recent years, the term has been expanded to be used in accusing Israel of treating the Palestinians as if the discrimination were based on race, rather than the result of the Palestinians' violent and ongoing struggle against the Zionist movement.

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Since the application of sovereignty under discussion addresses areas of the Land of Israel in which there is only very sparse Arab presence, the claim is incomprehensible, since most of the Arab residents of Judea and Samaria are clustered in Areas A and B, which are already under Palestinian Authority law, not Israeli law. If Israel is not currently an apartheid state, applying Israeli law to places of Jewish settlement will not change that.

But the apartheid claim, in its various formulations, is recycled at every seemingly opportune moment to question the Jewish people's right to a national home in the Land of Israel; a right that was recognized by the San Remo Conference 100 years ago – and includes the right to make aliyah, settle there, and manage the land in a manner that will facilitate that; a right that was also approved and ratified in Article 80 of the UN Charter.

The claim was raised in the past, when Israeli declared sovereignty over east Jerusalem and the Old City, when it applied Israeli law to the Golan Heights and when the Knesset amended the Basic Law: Citizenship to prevent family unification between Palestinians and Israeli Arabs. When the High Court challenges the policy of developing Jewish settlement in Israel; tramples the Basic Law: The Knesset, which disqualifies parties and candidates that reject Israel's existence as a Jewish state from participating in elections; and might soon do the same to the nation-state law, heaven forbid – it lends its voice to the claim that the fulfillment of Zionist values is inherently racist. That is what formed and still forms the base of the claims about apartheid.

But they are false. Israel works to develop the nation for the sake of all its citizens, but it is still the nation-state of the Jewish people alone.

The Palestinians, on the other hand, do not see self-definition for Arab residents of Judea and Samaria as the end of their national demands. The PLO charter determines that "the Palestinian people are an integral part of the Arab nation," and that "Palestine is the homeland of the Arab-Palestinian people and is inseparable from the greater Arab homeland." According to the charter, even Arab Israelis inside the Green Line have the right to self-determination in Palestine and outside it. The partition of the land and the establishment of Israel are fundamentally unacceptable, as is the Balfour Declaration and the rights given to the Jewish people under the Mandate. This is also the position of the Joint Arab List, whose members want to cancel the Law of Return.

Under international law, a state has the right to defend itself, not only from physical terrorism but also from existential threats. The dangers that a Palestinian state in the heart of the country would pose to Israel should deter those who love peace – true peace – and pursue it from supporting such a "solution" before conditions are right. The Trump administration's deal of the century stresses that there is no place for another failed state in the Middle East, and sets conditions that will allow a Palestinian state to be established only when Isaiah's prophecy is fulfilled.

The use of the term "apartheid" is designed to make Israel, a democracy fighting for its life while respecting the civil and religious rights of all its citizens, an outcast in the world, and paint it with the mark of Cain. It is a false accusation, and it's time to finally put an end to it.

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The statement reaffirms Israel's position that the area is not "occupied territory."

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The term occupation in international law has a very precise meaning. Judea and Samaria would have been considered occupied had Israel taken the area from a sovereign entity, but Jordan, which controlled it between 1949 until 1967, was never considered a legitimate sovereign there.

Thus, under international law, the area should be considered "disputed territory" or "contested territory" that lacks a recognized sovereign. In fact, for historical reasons, Israel has the edge when claiming to be the rightful sovereign there.

There is no disagreement that Jordan and Egypt launched an illegal invasion of Mandatory Palestine after the Partition Plan was rejected and Israel was founded.

Under international law, countries can start a war only for self-defense. But the two countries' invasion was an act of aggression.

Jordan's efforts to annex the West Bank in 1950 was not recognized by the international community, with the exception of the UK (which refused to recognize Jordan's hold on east Jerusalem) and Pakistan. Likewise, Egypt never claimed to be the sovereign power in the Gaza Strip.

The claim that the Green Line is Israel's international border is also wrong. An international border can only be formed by the consent of the two relevant countries, as was the case with Egypt and Jordan following the peace treaties with Israel.

The 1949 armistice agreements between Israel and its neighbors after the War of Independence, clearly stipulate that the lines drawn are not borders. Thus, the Green Line is not an international border and cannot be used to determine the fate of Judea and Samaria.

This is not new. Immediately following the Six-Day War, experts on international law agreed that Israel had a more legitimate claim on Judea and Samaria and the Gaza Strip than its adversaries, including Prof. Stephen M. Schwebel, who later became the president of the International Court of Justice.

But in today's geopolitical climate, anyone who sides with Israel will be banished from international forums. Thus, political constraints are preventing a real debate.

Judea and Samaria were designated to be part of the Jewish national home as envisioned by the League of Nations when it created the British mandate, confirming the age-old bond of our people to its land.

This has been reaffirmed in the UN Charter. Thus, there is no need for Israel to annex Judea and Samaria if it wants to apply Israeli law there – it already has that right because of the laws dating back to the British era.

Some have claimed that Pompeo's statement has undermined the chances for peace. Thus, according to that rationale, if you speak the truth on the status of Judea and Samaria, you are precluding the chance for peace. Does peace have to rely on a lie?

We all want real peace, but those who insist on calling Judea and Samaria "occupied territory" are engaged in wishful thinking, hoping this will bring Israel closer to peace.

President Donald Trump, Pompeo, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should be commended for their work toward a real peace that is based on the truth.

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In the Israeli press, as expected, there was little excitement over the article. Here and there it was actively downplayed. Several political and foreign affairs pundits stressed the criticism throughout the article itself, despite the seemingly positive headline.

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I read the piece, and this is true. There's quite a bit of criticism in the article. Most if not all of it reflects bias and unchecked figures. It's important to respond to these things because, with all due respect to Time and its fans in Israel, criticism that isn't based on truth-seeking isn't sacrosanct.

The article claims that Israel's prosperity has come at the expense of the 3 million Palestinians in Judea and Samaria and the 2 million in Gaza. These demographic figures are severely exaggerated. Sans any official census, these figures are only based on numbers provided by organizations that make a living off of exaggerating population numbers and perpetuating refugeehood. More importantly – the suffering of Palestinians stems from the illegitimate and corrupt government ruling over the Arabs in Judea and Samaria (the Palestinian Authority) and Gaza (Hamas). Billions of dollars funneled by donor countries (the United States, the European Union, Japan) and Israel haven't improved the lives of Palestinians. Upon Israel's withdrawal from Gaza, the coastal enclave's situation began deteriorating after the Erez industrial zone was destroyed. The settlement enterprise in Judea and Samaria, meanwhile, which creates cooperation and jobs, contributes to the welfare of the territory's residents.

The article further claimed that the US, by rejecting the two-state solution, has become an impartial mediator. The American epiphany that the two-state solution is simply a recipe for disaster for both sides opens the door for outside-the-box solutions. The Oslo Accords and withdrawal from Gaza triggered waves of terror, missiles and incendiary balloons launched across the Green Line. Another disengagement from Judea and Samaria could be calamitous.

And as for the argument that Netanyahu is emphasizing the Iran issue to obscure the Palestinian one – Time's infatuation with the nuclear deal with Iran and its love for countries that supported it obscures a far more troubling reality. Just as prior to the Second World War the world ignored Hitler, Nazism and the danger these posed to the entire world, now as well there are those who prefer to elegantly turn a blind eye to the ayatollah regime. Now, just like then, the Jewish people are simply the appetizer. The dogged persistence of US President Donald Trump and Netanyahu to identify these processes could force the countries of the free world to pull their heads out of the sand, recognize the harsh reality and fall in line with the imposition of necessary sanctions.

Time's assertion that the nation-state law infringes on the civil rights of all non-Jews in Israel, is baseless. The nation-state law simply stipulates that the State of Israel is the national home of the Jewish people. It also recognizes the blue and white flag with the Star of David as the national flag and Hebrew as the national language (with special status for Arabic). The law's roots are found in the Declaration of Independence, which calls Israel a "Jewish state" six times, and in the Law of Return. The law does not violate the basic rights of any of the country's citizens.

Time's criticism recycles the same mundane claims employed by Netanyahu's rivals. On the eve of another general election, however, which as usual are critical for the fate of the people of Israel in their homeland, we should instead focus on the headline of the article. Strength is not a divine gift; it is built with the wisdom, effort and perseverance of leaders over time. When we go vote, we'll remember that "only the strong survive." Even Time said so.

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