Israel and The Delegitimization Oxymoron

Israel and The “Delegitimization” Oxymoron
By Alan Hart
5 April 2010
Alan Hart argues that in law the foundations upon which Israel claims legitimacy do not actually exist
and that “only the Palestinians could give it the legitimacy it craved”. He says that “what
delegitimizes Israel is the truth of history”, which is why “Zionism has worked so hard … to have the
truth suppressed”.
For readers who may not be intimately familiar with English terminology, an oxymoron is a figure of
speech by which contradictory terms are combined to form an expressive phrase or epithet such as
cruel kindness and falsely true. (It’s derived from the Greek word oxymoros, meaning pointedly
foolish).
Here, I’m going to confine myself to one question and answer.
The question is: How can you delegitimize something (in this case the Zionist state) when it is
NOT legitimate?
Leaving aside the fairy story of God’s promise, (which even if true would have no bearing on the
matter because the Jews who “returned” in answer to Zionism’s call had no biological connection to the
ancient Hebrews), the Zionist state’s assertion of legitimacy rests on the Balfour Declaration of 1917
and the UN General Assembly’s partition plan resolution of 1947.
The only real relevance of the Balfour Declaration is in the fact that it was an expression of both the
willingness of a British government to use Jews for imperial purposes and the willingness of Zionist
Jews to be used. The truth is that Britain had no right whatsoever to promise Zionism a place in
Palestine, territory the British do not possess. (Palestine at the time was controlled and effectively
owned by Ottoman Turkey). The Balfour Declaration did allow Zionism to say that its claim to
Palestine had been recognized by a major power, and then to assert that the Zionist enterprise was
therefore a legitimate one. But the legitimacy Britain conveyed by implication was entirely spurious,
meaning not genuine, false, a sham.
Zionism’s assertion that Israel was given its birth certificate and thus legitimacy by the UN General
Assembly partition resolution of 29 November 1947 is pure propaganda nonsense, as demonstrated by
an honest examination of the record of what actually happened.
In the first place the UN without the consent of the majority of the people of Palestine did not have the
right to decide to partition Palestine or assign any part of its territory to a minority of alien immigrants
in order for them to establish a state of their own.
Despite that, by the narrowest of margins, and only after a rigged vote, the UN General Assembly did
pass a resolution to partition Palestine and create two states, one Arab, one Jewish, with Jerusalem not
part of either. But the General Assembly resolution was only a non-binding proposal – meaning that it
could have no effect, would not become binding, until and unless it was approved by the Security
Council.
The truth is that the General Assembly’s partition proposal never went to the Security Council for
consideration. Why not? Because the US knew that, if approved, and because of Arab and other
Muslim opposition, it could only be implemented by force, and President Truman was not prepared to
use force to partition Palestine.
So the partition plan was vitiated (became invalid) and the question of what the hell to do about
Palestine – after Britain had made a mess of it and walked away – was taken back to the General
Assembly for more discussion. The option favoured and proposed by the US was temporary UN
Trusteeship. It was while the General Assembly was debating what do that Israel unilaterally
declared itself to be in existence – actually in defiance of the will of the organized international
community, including the Truman administration.
The truth of the time was that Israel, which came into being mainly as a consequence of Zionist
terrorism and pre-planned ethnic cleansing, had no right to exist and, more to the point, could have
no right to exist unless it was recognized and legitimized by those who were dispossessed of their
land and their rights during the creation of the Zionist state. In international law only the Palestinians
could give Israel the legitimacy it craved.
As it was put to me many years ago by Khalid al-Hassan, Fatah’s intellectual giant on the right, that
legitimacy was “the only thing the Zionists could not take from us by force”.
The truth of history as summarized briefly above is the explanation of why, really, Zionism has always
insisted that its absolute pre-condition for negotiations with more than a snowball’s chance in hell of a
successful outcome (an acceptable measure of justice for the Palestinians and peace for all) is
recognition of Israel’s right to exist. A right, it knows, it does not have and will never have unless the
Palestinians grant it.
It can be said without fear of contradiction (except by Zionists) that what delegitimizes Israel is the
truth of history. And that is why Zionism has worked so hard, today with less success than in the past
and therefore with increasing desperation, to have the truth suppressed.
Alan Hart is a former ITN and BBC "Panorama" foreign correspondent and a Middle East specialist.
His Latest book Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews, is a three-volume epic in its American edition.
He blogs at www.alanhart.net and tweets at www.twitter.com/alanauthor.

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Israel and The “Delegitimization” Oxymoron

Here, I’m going to confine myself to one question and answer.

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