This paper discusses the establishment of Israel, the state of the Jewish people, west of the Jordan River. It shows that the Arab claim that there is a legal right to a separate Arab state to be established in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip (in Hebrew acronym – “Yesha”), whereas Jews are forbidden by public international law precepts from settling there, and the further claim that all Arabs who can trace their origins to pre-1967 Israel have a right to return to Israel, have no basis in international law. Nonetheless, Israel has been put under incessant international pressure calling on it to recognize the “rights” of the Arab people and to uproot the Jewish towns and villages in Yesha by deporting hundreds of thousands of Jews to the territory of tiny, pre-1967 Israel. The international pressure is supported by internal pressure coming from Israeli citizens, who had been educated to prefer international comradeship and universal values – even when those are shattered in the face of reality – over the basic needs of Jewish national existence. The pressures from within and outside Israel have caused part of the Israeli public to lose faith in their just cause. The Oslo Agreements and their difficult consequences are testimony to that.

Nonetheless, under public international law, Israel is not obliged to accept or support the establishment of a sovereign Arab state west of the Jordan River. Indeed, the dangers emanating from such an Arab state should make all peace lovers wary of such a “solution” to the Arab-Israeli conflict. This does not mean that there is no peaceful solution that both Israelis and Arabs would find desirable. But such a solution requires political will as well as a serious law reform, some major aspects of which will be mentioned.