The notion of an inherent "right to exist" in regards to Pakistan, India, and Israel

Pakistan is a Moslem country and India is a primary Hindu nation how is their the notion of an inherent "right to exist" different from that regarding Israel?

While the concept of a state's "right to exist" isn't explicitly codified in international law as a standalone right for any state, the circumstances of their formation and the subsequent international acceptance lead to different political and legal realities concerning their existence.

Here's how the situations of Pakistan, India, and Israel differ in terms of the "notion of an inherent right to exist":

India and Pakistan: Basis of Formation: 

India and Pakistan were formed in 1947 through the partition of British India upon its independence. 

This was a direct result of British colonial policy and the culmination of decades of independence movements, particularly the demand for a separate Muslim homeland (Pakistan) due to fears of Hindu majority dominance in a united India.

Self-Determination of Existing Communities: 

Their formation was largely seen as an act of self-determination for the Hindu-majority population of India and the Muslim-majority population of Pakistan (though with massive displacement and violence). 

The legitimacy of their existence stems from this decolonization process and the immediate, widespread international recognition as sovereign states.

Lack of Fundamental Challenge to Existence: 

While India and Pakistan have a deeply contentious relationship, marked by wars and ongoing disputes (especially over Kashmir), the fundamental right of either state to exist is generally not questioned by the international community as a whole. 

Their borders and sovereignty are recognized, and disputes revolve around territory and specific policies, not the legitimacy of their statehood itself. 

Even when relations are at their worst, the idea of one nation ceasing to exist is not typically part of the mainstream international discourse or a stated aim of either government (though some extremist elements might hold such views).

Israel: Basis of Formation: 

Israel's formation in 1948 was also rooted in a form of self-determination – that of the Jewish people to establish a national home in their ancestral land, Zionism. 

However, unlike India and Pakistan, it emerged from the British Mandate for Palestine, a territory also claimed by the Arab Palestinian population who also sought self-determination.

International Mandate and UN Resolution: 

Key to Israel's legal argument for its existence are the Balfour Declaration, the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine (which explicitly recognized the historical connection of the Jewish people to the land and the grounds for reconstituting their national home), and the 1947 UN Partition Plan (Resolution 181). The Partition Plan recommended the creation of both a Jewish and an Arab state. While the Jewish leadership accepted the plan, the Arab states and Palestinian leadership rejected it, leading to the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.

Contested Legitimacy from Neighboring States: 

Unlike India and Pakistan, Israel's very "right to exist" has been systematically denied by a significant number of its immediate neighbors and some other nations for decades. This denial often stems from the narrative that Israel's creation involved the displacement of Palestinians and the perceived injustice of a Jewish state being established on land also claimed by Arabs. While some Arab states have since recognized Israel (Egypt, Jordan, UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, Morocco), the foundational challenge to its legitimacy persists from many others and from significant portions of Palestinian society.

"Right to Exist" as a Political Assertion: For Israel, the assertion of its "right to exist" is not just a legal formality but a critical political and security statement. It is a demand for acceptance of its fundamental legitimacy as a sovereign nation-state of the Jewish people, especially in the face of movements and ideologies that seek its dissolution. This makes the "right to exist" a more highly charged and frequently invoked concept in the Israeli context than it is for India or Pakistan.

Key Differences Summarized:

Acceptance by Neighbors: India and Pakistan, despite their conflicts, generally accept each other's statehood. Israel, for many decades, faced fundamental rejection of its existence by a large bloc of its neighbors and the wider Arab/Muslim world.

Narrative of Formation: 

While all three involved complex historical processes and often violent partitions, the narrative surrounding Israel's formation is heavily intertwined with the ongoing Palestinian national aspirations, leading to a direct clash over land and legitimacy that doesn't exist in the same way between India and Pakistan.

Political vs. Legal Emphasis: 

For India and Pakistan, their existence is a given, legally and politically.

For Israel, while legally established and recognized by many, its "right to exist" remains a prominent political assertion due to continuous challenges to its fundamental legitimacy by some actors.

In essence, while the legal framework for statehood (sovereignty, recognition, territorial integrity) applies to all three, the political and historical context of their formation and subsequent relations means that the "notion of an inherent 'right to exist'" plays out very differently. For Israel, it's a constant affirmation against denial, whereas for India and Pakistan, it's an accepted premise, even amidst severe bilateral disputes.

Why did the Arabs of Palestine not proclaim a "Palestinian State" in 1948

 Question: Why did the Arabs of Palestine who lost the war in 1948 not proclaim a "Palestinian State" in the territory left them? The West Bank and Gaza?

This is another critical question that highlights the complex and often tragic turns of Palestinian history after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. While the Arabs of Palestine undoubtedly aspired to self-determination, they did not proclaim a state in the West Bank and Gaza after 1948 for several significant reasons:

Mainly the occupation by neighboring Arab States: The "West Bank" which included the Old City and East Jerusalem was conquered by Transjordan: 

After the 1948 war, Transjordan (which became Jordan in 1949) who had conquered the area, renamed the area as "the West Bank". King Abdullah I had long harbored ambitions to expand his kingdom and integrate the previous Mandated Area. In 1950, Jordan formally annexed the disputed Mandated Areas and renamed it the "West Bank". This annexation was not widely recognized except for the United Kingdom and Pakistan. For nearly two decades (until 1967), the West Bank was administered as part of Jordan. Palestinians living there were granted Jordanian citizenship.

Gaza Strip by Egypt: The Gaza Strip came under Egyptian military administration after the 1948 war. Egypt maintained a military governor in Gaza but did not formally annex the territory. Palestinians in Gaza were not granted Egyptian citizenship and remained largely stateless, although they were allowed to attend Egyptian universities.

Pan-Arabism and the "Greater Arab" Cause:

At the time, the dominant political ideology in the Arab world was Pan-Arabism, which emphasized the unity of all Arab peoples. Many Arab leaders, including those in power in Egypt and Jordan, believed that the ultimate goal was the liberation of all of Palestine and the establishment of a single, unified Arab state, rather than a separate, smaller Palestinian state. Proclaiming a separate Palestinian state in the remaining territories might have been seen as legitimizing the partition and conceding the rest of Palestine to Israel.

The Arab League even attempted to establish an "All-Palestine Government" in Gaza in September 1948, headed by Haj Amin al-Husseini, but this was largely a symbolic entity without real power, seated in Cairo and entirely dependent on Egypt. It was short-lived and ultimately abolished by Nasser in 1959.

Lack of Unified Palestinian Leadership and Institutions:

The Palestinian leadership was fractured and weakened after the 1948 defeat and the displacement of a large portion of the population. Many key leaders went into exile.

There were no strong, independent Palestinian political institutions on the ground in the West Bank or Gaza that could effectively declare and govern a state in defiance of their powerful Arab occupiers.

Focus on the Right of Return and the "Liberation" of all Palestine:

For the vast majority of Palestinians who became refugees, and for the broader Arab world, the immediate focus after 1948 was not on establishing a state in the small remaining fragments of Palestine, but on securing the right of return for the refugees and ultimately "liberating" all of historic Palestine from Israeli control.

Accepting a state in the West Bank and Gaza might have been perceived as abandoning the rights of the refugees and legitimizing Israel's existence on the majority of the land.

External Control and Strategic Interests of Arab States:

Jordan and Egypt, as occupying powers, had their own strategic interests. 

Jordan aimed to consolidate its control over the West Bank, integrating it into its kingdom. 

Egypt found the Gaza Strip to be a burden, but it was strategically important as a buffer zone and a base for Palestinian fedayeen operations. Neither wanted to cede control to a fledgling Palestinian entity that might challenge their authority or draw them into further conflict.

In essence, the Palestinians in 1948-1967 were in a difficult position: their territory was controlled by powerful Arab neighbors who had their own agendas, their leadership was dispersed, and the overriding goal for many was the "liberation" of all of Palestine, not merely the creation of a mini-state in the remnants. It wasn't until after the 1967 Six-Day War, when Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza, that the idea of a distinct Palestinian state in those territories began to gain significant traction within the Palestinian national movement, largely through the rise of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

Judaea and Shomron -International Law and the "Occupied Territories"

As the treaty of Lausance IS international Law, the previous Mandated Area of Judaea and Shomron part of the "future Homeland of the Jewish people" refused by the Arabs of the Mandated Areas and conqured and illegally occupied by the Jordanians -who called the "Disputed territories" the West Bank. 

According to International Law does this area NOT legally belong to Israel?

This is a complex question with deeply contested legal and political interpretations. 

While the Treaty of Lausanne is indeed international law, its direct application to the current status of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank ) is not straightforward and is subject to significant debate among international legal scholars and political actors.

Here's a breakdown of the key arguments and considerations:

1. The Treaty of Lausanne and the Mandate for Palestine:

The Treaty of Lausanne (1923) formally ended the war between the Allied Powers and the Ottoman Empire. Crucially, it meant Turkey relinquished all claims to its former territories outside its new borders, including those that would become the British Mandate for Palestine.

The Mandate for Palestine, assigned to Britain by the League of Nations in 1922, explicitly incorporated the Balfour Declaration, which called for the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in British Mandated Territory known as "Palestine".

The Mandate recognized the historical connection of the Jewish people to the land and aimed to facilitate Jewish immigration and close settlement on the land.

Proponents of Israel's claim often argue that the Mandate, with its emphasis on a Jewish national home, provided an international legal basis for Jewish self-determination in the territory. 

They contend that the areas west of the Jordan River, including Judea and Samaria, were part of this designated "future Homeland of the Jewish people."

2. The Jordanian Occupation and "Disputed Territories":

After the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Jordan occupied and later annexed the West Bank (which it called the "West Bank"), including East Jerusalem. This annexation was largely not recognized internationally (except by a few states like the UK and Pakistan).

Israel argues that because Jordan's annexation was illegal, the West Bank was not sovereign Jordanian territory when Israel captured it in the 1967 Six-Day War. Therefore, Israel views the territory as "disputed" or "unallocated" rather than "occupied" in the traditional sense of occupying another sovereign state's land.

3. International Law and the "Occupied Territories" Consensus:

The prevailing international legal consensus, supported by the United Nations, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), and most states, regards the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) as occupied Palestinian territory.

This view rests on the principle of "inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war," enshrined in UN Security Council Resolution 242 (1967) and other international legal instruments.

The Fourth Geneva Convention, which regulates the conduct of an occupying power, is widely considered applicable to Israel's presence in the West Bank by the international community. 

Article 49(6) of this convention prohibits an occupying power from transferring parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies. 

This is the basis for the pro-Arab (Balestinian Point of View) biased international community's view that Israeli "settlements" in the West Bank are illegal.

Recent rulings by the ICJ based SOLELY on the pro-Arab (Balestinian Point of View), including its advisory opinion in July 2024, have reaffirmed the illegality of Israel's "occupation" of the Palestinian territories, its settlement regime, and its policies, stating that they violate international law.

Conclusion:

This framework, while universally applied to other occupations, is selectively and unfairly applied to Israel, effectively ignoring historical Jewish claims and security concerns.

While historical documents like the Treaty of Lausanne and the Mandate for Palestine are part of the complex historical and legal background, the dominant, pro-Arab (Balestinian) Point of  view, in international law regarding the "Disputed Territories" aka the West Bank, is that it is "occupied" territory.

Therefore, according to the prevailing pro-Arab (Balestinian) false narration the interpretation of international law in the international community, the area does not legally belong to Israel in the sense of sovereign annexation. 

Its final status is considered a matter for negotiations between the parties involved, aiming for a resolution that respects the right to self-determination of the Palestinian people but blithely ignores that of the Jews and Israel!

It's important to acknowledge that Israel disputes this pro-Arab (Balestinian) false narration interpretation, by presenting its own legal arguments based on historical claims, security needs, and the lack of a recognized prior sovereign over the territory. 

However, this Israeli position remains a minority view within the international legal framework.

The "prevailing international legal view" tends to emphasize Palestinian self-determination while seemingly downplaying or overlooking the historical and national rights of the Jewish people, which were indeed recognized in earlier international instruments.