Headlines and coffee

Broken promises notwithstanding, it seems that POTUS will first evaluate the move when he makes peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

By LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Letters (photo credit: REUTERS)
Letters
(photo credit: REUTERS)
Headlines and coffee
Your lead headline “Politicians bash Trump for delaying embassy move” (October 9) didn’t go down well with my morning coffee.
This is not a prize to be given for good behavior. I, personally, would have much preferred to read that US President Donald Trump will proceed – when the Messiah comes! Broken promises notwithstanding, it seems that POTUS will first evaluate the move when he makes peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Still, what a mockery for the Israeli people not to have the embassy in their capital, as all other nations do. In any case, whatever develops at some later date, west Jerusalem will always be Israeli.
While he’s thinking and evaluating, though, President Trump can right another injustice: Let Jonathan Pollard come home to Israel.
NAOMI FEINSTEIN Nordiya
Pejorative connotation
With regard to “Israel to advance plans for over 3,000 settler homes next week” (October 9), it is disturbing that The Jerusalem Post uses the word “settler” as a pejorative connotation to the outside world. The word connotes that people are like squatters who do not belong.
Israel is our land. We deserve to live here. You should have said “housing units for our citizens.”
MYRNA HIRSCHHORN Jerusalem
One China
I am happy to see a growing interest in China in the Israeli media. The Jerusalem Post, a very popular media outlet, publishes more and more reports and comments on China. Yet it is also true that due to a lack of understanding, there are mistakes in some of these reports.
“From Tel Aviv to Taipei” (Travel Trends, October 8) is quite misleading, and I would like to clarify: 1. There is but one China in the world, and Taiwan is an inalienable part of China. The government of the People’s Republic of China is the sole legitimate government representing the whole of China.
One-hundred-and-seventy-five countries, including Israel, have diplomatic relations with China and accept and recognize the “One China” principle.
2. As early as 230 CE, China began to develop Taiwan Island. In 1335, China set up an effective administration in Taiwan. In the early 17th century, some European colonists briefly got hold of Taiwan while China was suffering from wars of dynastic changes, but Taiwan was soon taken back by China. At the end of the 19th century, China lost a war against the Japanese imperialist invasion and had to cede Taiwan to Japan. In 1945, China won the Second World War and took back Taiwan from Japan. In 1949, the People’s Republic of China was founded after China’s civil war, and the defeated Nationalist regime fled to Taiwan. From then on, the historical status of the Republic of China ended.
3. Since 1949, the People’s Republic of China has been the only lawful representative of China in the international community.
It certainly has sovereignty over all of China, including Taiwan. The Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Tel Aviv, as its very name manifests, is a non-governmental organization that can function only in economic and cultural affairs. It has absolutely no right to carry out diplomatic activities. Needless to say, its staff are not diplomats, let alone anyone who is an “ambassador.”
Recent years have witnessed fast development in the relations between China and Israel, which brings benefits to both peoples. It is the result of joint efforts from the governments and various sectors on both sides.
The Chinese Embassy in Israel attaches great importance to the influence of the media in enhancing the mutual understanding of both peoples.
Since objectivity and truth-seeding are the basis for a responsible media, I hope that the above clarifications are published in your newspaper so as to help your readers better understand the Taiwan issue.
FU LIHUA Tel Aviv The writer is spokesperson of the Chinese Embassy in Israel.
Israel’s rights
With regard to reader Shlomo Slonim’s letter “Israel’s rights” (October 8), I agree with everything, but he neglected one very important document, the Mandate for Palestine.
Why is this piece of paper left to gather dust in some shelf in a corner basement of the United Nations? Why is our government not bringing this document, which is still in force, to the fore when discussing the legality of building in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank)? Why are the younger generations now studying in our schools ignorant of the fact that not only the West Bank, but all of Jordan was and is Jewish land? Jordan is lost to us now, but we should be shouting from the rooftops that we have every right to build anywhere in Judea and Samaria (apart from privately owned land).
This is also what reader James Adler (“Kicking the can,” Letters, October 8) conveniently ignores.
Why does he believe Israel would become either a bi-national or an apartheid state? Has he never heard of autonomous areas? We don’t want to rule over the Palestinians, but they don’t want to make peace with us.
The so-called Palestinians (a bogus nation if ever there was one) are not satisfied with just the West Bank; their eyes are on the whole of Israel. To that end, they teach hate to little kids and train older kids to become “martyrs” to fight and die fighting against the Jewish state. They lionize terrorists and reward them and their families with large stipends if they murder Jews. They distribute sweets when innocent victims of the Jewish state are murdered.
UN Security Council Resolution 242 is non-binding, whether or not it is to evacuate all or part of the West Bank. The UN already gave all that land to the Jewish people via the Mandate for Palestine, which is the only legally binding document. It’s time to make this abundantly clear to the world and to our own children.
EDMUND JONAH Rishon Lezion
Shlomo Slonim’s defense of Israel’s inalienable right to the territories, thus refuting Asher Maoz’s genuflection to PC groupthink as expressed in his “Have we lost our senses?” (Comment & Features, October 3), could have also included the January 2013 French Appeal Court of Versailles’s landmark ruling that Israel is the legal occupant of the West Bank.
Further, Stephen Schwebel’s 1970 judgment that Israel has better title to the entire city of Jerusalem actually referred to the whole of the West Bank: “Where the prior holder of territory [Jordan] had seized that territory unlawfully, the state which subsequently takes that territory in the lawful exercise of self-defense [Israel] has, against that prior holder, better title.”
Israel’s legal rights are most strongly invoked by referring to the binding agreements of San Remo (1920) and the Mandate for Palestine (1922), which have never been abrogated and are protected by Article 80 of the UN Charter, rather than referring to the 1967 departure point. These enshrine in international law all the provisions of the mandate for the upbuilding of the Jewish national home to be exercised in the entire land west of the Jordan River.
Maoz’s assertion that “the consensus view of the international community is that Israel could not annex the territories” has nothing to do with real international law, and everything to do with the perceived interests of its constituent parts.
ROSLYN PINE London