Boston University Law Professor Raphael Stern’s discussion about any contention that may exist about Israel’s borders as reported by Chava Thiell appears to  ignore the controlling international law concerning   Israel’s status:  Article 80 of the United Nations Charter, an international treaty, that supercedes any resolution of the Security Council or General Assembly that may conflict with it.  (“Making Israel’s Legal Space: Discussions About International Law”).

Also, Article 80 incorporates by reference the 1922 League of Nations Mandate  for Palestine and the 1920 San Remo Convention.

In fact, Article 80 declares that all of what is Israel including Judea, Samaria and Gaza to be the 3500 year old reconstituted indigenous homeland of the Jewish people and the land as sovereign Jewish territory.

Eugene Rostow, Dean of Yale Law School(1955-1965) and Under Secretary of State in a Democratic administrative ( 1965-1969) has written:

“Legally, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are unallocated parts of the Palestine Mandate...so far as the claim of the Arabs who live there goes, it must be remembered that, in contrast to other League of Nations Mandates, the Palestine Mandate was not established as a trust for the indigenous population of the area, to be terminated when that population was ready for self-government. It was set up under a different article of the League Covenant as a trust for the Jewish people, in recognition of their historic connection with the land, on condition that the civic and religious rights of the Muslims and Christians living in the territory be respected.

“Moreover, the right of the Jewish people to settle in the West Bank under the Mandate has never been terminated. The Jewish right of settlement was suspended by the British in 1921 only for the East Bank—that is, for what was then the Transjordanian province of the Palestine Mandate, and is now Jordan. Jewish settlement in the West Bank is therefore not an intrusion into alien territory held as a result of war, nor (as the State Department used to contend) a violation of the Geneva Convention. It is, rather, the exercise of a right protected by Article 80 of the United Nations Charter and hence necessarily part of the domestic law applicable in the West Bank. (“ A False Start in the Middle East”, Eugene Rostow, Commentary Magazine, October 1989).

Further,” those Jewish rights that had existed under the Mandate remain in full force and effect, to which the UN is still committed by Article 80 to uphold, or is prohibited from altering.

“As a direct result of Article 80, the UN cannot transfer these rights over any part of Palestine, vested as they are in the Jewish People, to any non-Jewish entity, such as the “Palestinian Authority.” Among the most important of these Jewish rights are those contained in Article 6 of the Mandate which recognized the right of Jews to immigrate freely to the Land of Israel and to establish settlements thereon, rights which are fully protected by Article 80 of the UN Charter.” (“Article 80 and the UN Recognition of a ‘Palestinian  State’ “, Howard Grief, “The Algemeiner”, 9/22/11).

Salomon Benzimra, author of “The Jewish People’s Rights to the Land of Israel. Canadians for Israel’s Legal Rights” (2018) has written that Article 80 is “relevant in preventing any action contemplated by the United Nations to alter existing Jewish rights and title to any part of the Land of Israel–Palestine, rights that are legally preserved under Article 80” (Page 70).

Undoubtedly as Professor Stern discusses there has been contention about Israel’s boundaries. However Article 80 of the United Nations Charter resolves all contention about Israel’s status by virtue of the signature of all those members of the United Nations who signed its enabling document.

Richard Sherman, POB 934853, Margate, Florida 33093(646)267-7904.