Title: To Whom Was The Promised Land Promised?
Some Fundamental Truths About The Arab-Israeli Conflict
By Abraham Sion
Mazo Publishers
Paperback, 442 pages
Search the term “Arab-Israeli conflict” and close to 20,000,000 results are returned on Google. But even with so much information, making sense of it is not a trivial endeavor. Much of the literature on the topic is biased against Israel, using pejorative terms such as occupation, illegal settlements, and more.
So how does one make sense of it? In To Whom Was The Promised Land Promised?: Some Fundamental Truths About The Arab-Israeli Conflict Abraham Sion, professor at Ariel University, attempts to set the record straight about a topic that has vexed every U.S. presidential administration over the last 70 years.
The book’s purpose is to lay out the legal claim to the territory formerly known as Mandatory Palestine. Sion methodically goes through the countless treaties and agreements that led to Israel’s independence in 1948.
From the Balfour Declaration to the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916, to other international agreements, British cabinet and foreign office documents, and more, the book methodically lays out the compelling reasons why Israel has a right to the land it is on. As an attorney with expertise in international law, the author focuses on the legal aspects of the Arab-Israeli conflict and why Israel is in the right and has a complete legal claim and basis for being there.
The book focuses on the treaties and agreements that led up to 1948 but did not get into the land post-Independence, such as the Golan, Judea, and Samaria captured in the Six-Day War. Nor does Sion get into the often murky political waters. This is strictly about how Israel legally and completely is justified to the land, based on agreements related to the area of Mandatory Palestine.
The book is extensively researched, and at times can read as a bit of a dry legal tome. But this is an essential reference for those that want to get a handle on the topic.