Mahmoud Abbas Tries to Take Israel’s Legitimacy to Court https://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/israel-zionism/2016/07/mahmoud-abbas-tries-to-take-israels-legitimacy-to-court/

July 27, 2016 | Dan Margalit
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In the latest move in his campaign to obtain a Palestinian state (or make a pretense of doing so) without negotiating with Israel, Mahmoud Abbas has declared his intention to sue Great Britain in the International Criminal Court (ICC) for the damage allegedly inflicted on the Palestinian people by the Balfour Declaration. Dan Margalit comments:

But the Balfour Declaration didn’t exist in a vacuum. The world supported it. Even King Faisal of Iraq, whose family originated in [what is now] Saudi Arabia, reached an agreement with [the Zionist leader Chaim] Weizmann on its terms. The declaration was approved in 1920 by an international conference that met in San Remo after World War I. The approval of the mandate by the Council of the League of Nations in 1922 gave the Balfour Declaration international validity, almost like the 1947 UN resolution to establish a Jewish state in part of the land of Israel. . . .

If the ICC discusses the matter, it will have to address the question of whether Israel’s existence is legitimate in the eyes of the world, while ignoring the world’s decisions on that subject thus far.

It might be that Abbas . . . is hoping that if he can put Britain on trial for the 1917 document, the justice of Zionism will be called into question hereafter. That approach certainly doesn’t fall into line with his pretense of supporting a two-state solution.

Read more on Israel Hayom: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=16785