The end of the British Mandate created a vacuum. The Zionist leadership was better prepared and Britain betrayed its obligations under the mandate and disregarded the Palestinian quest for independence. The result was a free hand to the Zionist movement to carry out the ethnic cleansing of Palestine that led to the expulsion of half of its population and the destruction of half of its villages and most of its towns.

The beginning of the twentieth century saw the end of Ottoman rule in Palestine. It was also a period of urbanization and modernization cut for a while by the outbreak of the war. The war caused famine, expulsion by the Turkish governor but also brought hope for a different future under the new rulers. These hopes were shattered when the British gave the Balfour Declaration in November 1917. Such clear support gave a new focus to the already existing Palestinian national movement.

From my classroom at Haifa University, up on the Carmel Mountains, there is seldom a clear view of the city below. On a rare day, when smog and pollution are miraculously absent, I can see the Jewish and Palestinian neighbourhoods of Haifa. The city stretches from the seacoast to the Carmel Mountains. The Palestinians live below, in the areas adjacent to the harbour, but in recent years have moved up to the slopes of the mountains, to parts of the town in which they lived before 1948. In Haifa, the standard of living improves as one moves up the slopes; poverty decreases with altitude.

Socio-economic well-being is closely entwined with national and ethnic affiliations and topography. This forms a pyramid that encapsulates the stratification of Israeli society and, more importantly, the history of the land.

Politics are back in force and impacting people lives like never before. This is the time of the reawakening of the Palestinian national movement and the making of the mini-empire of Israel. The whole Palestine is now under Israel’s control. A false peace process will begin would lead to nowhere, and the Israeli military establishment and political leadership destroyed the PLO presence in Lebanon, and the resistance moved into the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

These were the years of Netanyahu’s reign in power. The Hamas took over the Gaza Strip. Israel went to another was in Lebanon in 2006 and assaulted repeatedly the Gaza Strip as a retaliation for the Hamas war of liberation. The West Bank was domiciled; the peace process dead; and the Knesset passed a number of racist laws against the Palestinian minority in Israel. Israel’s international image was damaged, but it still had the support of governments all around the world.

Demographic changes inside the Jewish society produced a new political force in Israel, defeating any chance of a liberal Zionist approach towards the Palestine Question. The last liberal Zionist bid was the Oslo Accord that dismally failed. The occupation after Oslo became much harsher as were the discriminatory policies towards the Palestinian minority inside Israel.

The Oslo Accords were signed between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) granting the Palestinians elements of self-government for an interim period leading to negotiations on the final status of the West bank and Gaza. The Accords have been subject to intense criticism. However, for the first time the Arab Palestinians had their own, freely elected, administration, albeit subject to restrictions. The word autonomy, implying that the area is part of an existing State, was used in the 1978 Camp David Accords but was omitted from the Oslo Accords. Jerusalem and Israel settlements were excluded from the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority but it was agreed that their status would be part of the negotiations on the final status of the West Bank. The Accords had very broad international support and, although there are mutual claims that the Accords have been violated, neither part has formally abrogated them.

This opening chapter examines whether international law is relevant to the Arab-Israel conflict. The conclusion reached is that although the dispute is political ideological and territorial; nevertheless, international law has played an important role, and will continue to do so. All parties desire that their positions be seen to be legally legitimate, such legitimacy is a political asset as regards both the other party and vis-à-vis third parties. The international language of international relations is, largely, the language of international law; this is particularly true as regards the United Nations and international organisations. Israel and the Palestinians are engaged in an intensive campaign to persuade world public opinion of the legitimacy of their respective cases. Legal precedents, although not binding, play a highly useful role in assisting the parties to reach agreement. The same is true for dispute settlement mechanisms of international law. Finally, the object of negotiations is to reach agreement. The principle that international agreements are binding is a principle of international law and lawyers, based on international law, will examine their validity and context.

The Israel Jordan peace treaty is an example of the role precedent can play in international law. Although precedents are not binding, nevertheless major parts of the Israel Jordan treaty are copied verbatim from the Egypt Israel treaty. This was done for a variety of reasons. Jordan was a far smaller and weaker State than Egypt, and it was convenient for Jordan to rely on text that had been agreed upon by the stronger brother Arab State. Diplomats and international lawyers are, mostly, a conservative group and are happy to follow a beaten path. The Egypt Israel treaty had been signed fifteen years before the treaty with Jordan and had proved itself as viable. An example of this viability is the settlement of disputes clause. The clause in the Egypt Israel Treaty had an element of ambiguity, and Jordan suggested changing it. The Jordanian negotiators agreed to accept the text of the clause in the treaty with Egypt after the Israel negotiators pointed out that the clause in the treaty with Egypt had enabled the parties to successfully submit the Taba dispute to arbitration.

The location of water resources played a role in determining the post-World War I Palestine–Syrian border and presumably will play a part in future negotiations with Syria. Although Syria and Lebanon are upstream riparians on the Jordan basin, the two countries have alternative water resources and are therefore less dependent on the Jordan basin for their water supply. For Israel, Jordan and the Palestinians, however, the Jordan basin offers a primary source of water. The Johnston Plan served as a basis of understanding between Jordan and Israel but without explicit references to international law. The Israel–Jordan peace treaty and the bilateral interim arrangements reached between Israel and the Palestinians deal with allocations of specified quantities of water and not with legal principles. Future negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians will have to find a compromise between two basic tenets of international law, the rule of not causing appreciable harm to existing uses and the inherently contradictory rule of equitable allocations.

In 1948, with the end of the British Mandate, Israel declared its independence. Israel based its declaration on the right of self-determination and the fact that the League of Nations and the UN had recognised this right. Israel’s legal position was not that these institutions had granted the right of self-determination of the Jewish people, but that they had recognised an existing right. The Declaration did not refer to the borders of the new State nor to its capital. Whether the Declaration created an independent State as from 14 May 1948 depends on an examination of whether Israel, at the time, fulfilled the Montevideo criteria for statehood.

In 1947, Britain decided to relinquish its Mandate over Palestine and refer the issue of the status of Palestine to the United Nations. The United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution recommending partitioning Palestine into Arab and Jewish States with economic union between them and that Jerusalem be a separate area to be administered by the United Nations for an initial period of ten years. The recommendation was not legally binding. The Arab population of Palestine and the Arab States rejected the partition plan. The Jewish population of Palestine accepted the plan, although with misgivings. The partition plan was not implemented.