1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Comprehensive, Concise, Accessible Summary of Jewish Rights, December 7, 2011
This review is from: The Jewish People's Rights to the Land of Israel (Kindle Edition)
Salomon Benzimra avoids the fantastical distractions of framing Israel's return to its ancestral land as a "biblical deed". Too many ignore the secular laws which give Israel a far more meaningful claim on this ancestral land. Many books are too long, take too many unnecessary deviations and lose the essential arguments needed to fully grasp the roots of the legitimate claim of Israel and the rightful return of all legitimate heirs of Judea, Samaria and Israel.
Salomon Benzimra has a remarkably lucid style that never loses sight of the readers' needs - be they erudite or people seeking merely to understand the basic foundations of Israel's legitimate claims. This is truly a triumph for Benzimra whose organization of the information does not merely present an inventory of facts, but he ties them together in an easy to follow progressive narrative and he provides excellent graphics and illustrations with credible attributions.
Reading Benzimra's book requires the open mind of an honest search for understanding. Anyone who approaches this concise text or a lengthy tome will never be convinced if their minds are closed to factual truths. But even for a Palestinian, such as myself, seeking truth can be a painful necessity. Thus, I feel a great debt of gratitude to Benzimra. He must have laboured with fastidious care to provide both objective intellectual substance and credible source support to demonstrate the rights of Jews to Israel.
Benzimra's style and disciplined rigorous objectivity, unmoved by emotion or bias but dedicated to facts, cannot leave a rational mind unaffected by its persuasive proof. I am in awe now that Benzimra has demonstrated that public dialogue suffers a near fatal absence of legal arguments substantiating Israelis rights to the Land of Israel that have so long been ignored. One must question Israel's failure to sufficiently make its legal case in the court of public opinion.
As an advocate for Israel, Benzimra stands high above the crowd and earns the respect rarely accorded to a champion who succeeds with such dispassionate persuasion to simply and irrefutably demonstrate the legitimate rights of Israel. In a world steeped in irrational, passionate distractions that too easily lead to bloodshed, understanding the essential recognition of Israel's foundational legitimacy as demonstrated in Benzimra's book is indispensable. It is focused, clear, legitimate and one I would highly recommend both to history classes or individuals in search of a better understanding of the Jewish People's Rights to the Land of Israel.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Calm and Logical Defence of Israel's Legal Rights, December 5, 2011
This review is from: The Jewish People's Rights to the Land of Israel (Kindle Edition)
I have attended a few of Mr. Benzimra's lectures on the legal rights of Israel. It's admirable that he decided to publish his findings in a book. Israel is the only country in the world, which is so mercilessly scrutinized and attacked to the point where many are against its very existence. Even many defenders of the country think that it was created after World War II as a "gift" to the Jews from the European nations, which felt guilty about the Holocaust. And I won't even go into the Arab idea of Israel as an evil Jewish conspiracy trying to destroy Islam.
The whole issue is so deeply emotionally charged that it is refreshing to see somebody like Mr. Benzimra chiming in. His background in engineering has helped him bypass all the emotions involved and present a cold factual account of the issue. The facts he presents are not new, but in order to get them you need to sift through thousands of pages of historical books, where the legal problems are buried under the descriptions of numerous events.
The author convincingly shows that the state of Israel was not a result of a guilty conscience or an invasion - the reasons for its existence are rooted deeply in the ancient history and many legal decisions made during the 20th century.
Israel has a claim to that land starting from the antiquity - there is abundant evidence of massive Jewish presence in historical documents and archaeological finds. Even after the Romans expelled the majority of the Israelites, there still have always been Jews living there. Even the name "Palestina" was invented by the Romans to confront Jews, by referring to a people that disappeared long time ago.
After the horrors of the medieval anti-Semitism and the creation of the Zionist movement in the late 1800's, in the 20th century the idea of allowing the Jews to return to their homeland found wider support. Mr. Benzimra takes us through the legal stages of the process, starting from the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which openly defended the need for "a national home of the Jewish people in Palestine".
It was followed by the creation of the Mandate of Palestine in 1919 by the League of Nations, which recognized the historic connection of the Jewish people to the land of Palestine and called for reconstitution of their national home. A major step ahead was the San Remo Conference in 1920 - for the first time after the Romans, it made Palestine a legal entity. The Jewish people acquired legal sovereignty in Palestine, they became the main beneficiaries of the Mandate. It was to be an indivisible entity, it also included the territories west of Jordan river (thus legitimizing Judea and Samaria). It also encouraged more settlements within those boundaries. (Here Mr. Benzimra makes a good point refuting the "illegal settlement" accusation - worth reading). The Arabs received two other mandates - Syria and Mesopotamia (under French control).
The Mandate of Palestine was placed under British jurisdiction. Although its purpose was to establish a Jewish state, Great Britain took the liberty of changing the borders to appease the Arabs - carving out Transjordan. Britain repeatedly violated the status of the Mandate - a treacherous role, the same one they played in other parts of the world. They did that without the consent of the League of Nations, as it was required in the Mandate. A series of white papers caused irreparable damage, like limiting the Jewish immigration and increasing the Arab immigration. They also came up with the idea to provide a large part of the Mandate to the Arabs. Especially devastating was the 1939 decision to limit the Jewish immigration to 75,000 over the next five years - it had a catastrophic effect on the European Jews during World War II.
From that legal point of view, the UN Partition Resolution 181 didn't annul the Mandate - it was accepted by the Jews under the constraint of the after-Holocaust period when hundreds of thousands of Jews were still in camps for displaced in Europe. UN General Assembly resolutions are not binding. The Arabs rejected the resolution by starting a war - and lost. The resolution is not valid anymore. Even its acceptance violated the provisions of the Mandate for Palestine, which was still in force at the time. It's ironic that the Palestinians are trying to resurrect it now.
Every event discussed by Mr. Benzimra is meticulously researched and analyzed from a legal point of view, considering all pros and cons, and its impact on the future of Israel. The short summary above was just an outline of the main stages in establishing the Jewish state. You really need to read the book in order to grasp the complexity of the real picture. Having done so, it would be really difficult to take seriously all lies and falsifications invented to make Israel look like an illegitimate state. I would highly recommend this book to everyone, whose purpose is to understand the truth about the Middle East.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Legal Rights to Judea and Samaria, November 25, 2011
This review is from: The Jewish People's Rights to the Land of Israel (Kindle Edition)
This is a well written and easy to read book setting out the truth
of the ownership of the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) under international law, and detailing how those rights have been ignored by the Arab world, the international forums, and Israel itself. It shows how good propaganda and fiction can override in the popular mind the factual truth of any situation and constitutes a warning to the Western world to look at the facts before making a political judgement or decision.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
