The real issue!

"The real issue is not opposition to the “occupation”, but Arab-Islamic opposition to any Jewish right of presence in the West Bank."
For some time I have felt the need to review the legal aspects of Israel's claim to the so-called West Bank territory, otherwise known as Judea and Samaria, that was previously part of the Palestine Mandate handed to Britain as "Palestine" in 1922 by the League of Nations. Now, with the current battle over a building freeze/moratorium in the West Bank, seems like an appropriate time.
I think there is a need to review and establish this legal link for two reasons:
1. Many people have come to accept the Palestinian Arab contention that the land of the West Bank is "Arab territory" and that therefore Jews and the State of Israel by default have no legal, historical or other claim to any part of it.
2. From a propaganda viewpoint it is easy to point to the "occupation" of the territory by Israel following the 1967 Six-Day War as the origin of the current continuing crisis (as a kind of 'colonial' or 'apartheid' situation), rather than look back at the situation before the "occupation" and before 1967 and to forget previous legal and military conditions.
In order to carry out a review of the legal situation in fact requires a lawyer familiar with international relations and treaties. Fortunately, I came across a long article written by Gerald Adler, who has specifically researched this issue. [Professor Gerald M Adler, LLM, JSD, (Yale) qualified as a barrister in Canada (Ontario), an advocate in Israel , and a solicitor in England & Wales . He taught law at the University of Western Ontario and the Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa . Inter alia, he also served as senior assistant to the Israeli Attorney General and as the Chief Legal Advisor to The Israel Electric Corp. Ltd. Now retired from active practice, Dr Adler has spent the last five years researching “Legal Aspects of the Arab-Israel Conflict Within a Historical and Political Context”, part of which can be accessed on the Internet]
Rather than place the whole article here, I have taken a long excerpt from it (slightly modified), that I think contains the core of the issue, and have attached it as a file. I will also summarize here several items from that article.
Britain did not receive the Palestine Mandate in a vacuum. The legal aspects of the situation were defined by a series of international meetings and treaties that were signed prior to the provision of the Mandate to Britain. Here are some of them:
1. The League of Nations Covenant 1920, that gave the LoN the legal right to decide how to administer the territories conquered by the Allies of the defeated enemies after WWI, notably Turkey.
2. The San Remo resolutions 1920, taken by the Allied powers in respect to the disposition of the conquered territories. This envisaged the establishment of Mandates until the final disposition of sovereignty could be decided.
3. The Treaty of Sevres 1920, was the peace treaty concluding WWI between the Allies and Turkey, in which the Mandates were legally assigned. However, this treaty was never officially ratified.
4. The Treaty of Lausanne 1923, which became the legal treaty ending WWI, but this does not mention Palestine, since the LoN had already assigned the Palestine Mandate to Britain.
5. The Palestine Mandate 1922, assigned by the LoN to Britain. While the articles of this Mandate allow significant powers to the Mandatory power, they do not allow the British Government to arbitrarily abrogate any claim to the whole of Palestine by the Jewish minority, as envisaged in the Balfour Declaration of 1917.
6. UN GA Resolution 181, which recommended a two-state solution, did not change the legal situation of the "West Bank" of the Jordan river.
7. The Israel-Jordan Armistice Agreement 1949, did not result in international recognition of the Jordanian occupation of the "West Bank" as specifically "Arab" territory.
While no doubt other expert international lawyers could come up with different interpretations, the fact is that an Israeli claim of sovereignty to the whole of the West Bank is certainly legally based. That, however, does not mean that at this stage of development it is politically feasible. That a solution to the Arab-Israel conflict requires major compromises on both sides had been stated many times, and one of the concessions expected of Israel is to give up its claim to sovereignty on the West Bank in order to allow the Palestinian Arabs to satisfy their need for autonomy. Several Israeli Governments have declared themselves willing to make such concessions. However, this does not mean that Israel should accept in a racially segregated way the condition that no Jews have any right to remain on the West Bank, whatever its final disposition.
What are the compromises that the Palestinian Arabs would be expected to make to arrive at a peaceful resolution:
1. That Israel be allowed to retain areas of the West Bank (ca. 3-5%) where there is dense Jewish settlement (as envisaged in the official letter written by Pres. Bush to PM Sharon in June 2006),
2. That any Palestine State that is established on the West Bank and Gaza must reciprocally recognize the existence of Israel as a sovereign Jewish State.
Whether or not the Arab side is ready to make these compromises, or whether or not the Palestine Arab schism over Gaza can ever be healed, are serious questions for anyone to face who wants to see a peaceful resolution of the conflict.
(For further legal information see: "Law and Morality in Israel's War with the PLO," William V. O'Brien, Routledge, 1991; "One Palestine Complete," Tom Segev, Owl Books, 1999).