Deceptive progress with new proposals

[Dubitante]

But also no established denial of innocent passage.

Exactly, it was controversial, no clear legal picture existed, precisely why it can't be used as a casus belli.

[Doktor]

If you're trying to make me jealous, it's working.

Not even on vacation. Yet!

[Officer of Engineers]

Exactly, it was controversial, no clear legal picture existed, precisely why it can't be used as a casus belli.

Of course it can. It is not illegal to demand and to enforce innocent passage.

[Parihaka]

Easy tiger, apologies, I thought you were contending that Transjordan was part of Palestine.

Trolling. 24 hours.

[Parihaka]

Exactly, it was controversial, no clear legal picture existed, precisely why it can't be used as a casus belli.

It wasn't controversial, it was international waters and 242 ruled so. Trolling.

[Double Edge]

The Times leader on May 27 1967 said..

Law and the Gulf

Egypt's claim to control shipping passing through the Strait of Tiran touches one of Israel's most sensitive nerves as an established nation state. At the northernmost point of the Gulf of Aqaba is Eilat, Israel's only point of access to the east and thus to her main sources of oil. The gulf itself is bordered by Egyptian territory on the west and Saudi Arabia on the east save for the northern shores, where both Jordan and Israel have access. A hundred miles long, it varies in width from seventeen to twenty miles. The narrow strait of Tiran, further blocked by islands, allows Egypt to control shipping by asserting rights over territorial waters at the entrance to the gulf.

Such control exerted over the vital lifeline of another state has long been an issue secured by internaitonal law. Its best known and geographically most classic case is the access to the Black Sea through the Dardanelles and the Bosporous. These famous straits fell under sole Turkish control with the capture of Constantinople in 1453, but it was not until 1774, when Catherine the Great brought the northern shores of the Black Sea under Russian rule, that an agreement was reached giving free use of the straits to Russian ships. Thereafter, the debate went on over the conditions of such use, notably in the question of warships. A succession of treaties all through the nineteenth century, coloured by the interests of the major signatories, broadened the principles of free navigation and ended any possibilty that one state should ever be allowed to dominate another purely by such accidents of geography. With the fall of the Ottoman Empire, an international commission took charge, to be followed by the Lausanne Treaty of 1923 and the Montreux Convention of 1936, which still holds.

The Strait of Tiran and the Gulf of Aqaba fall precisely into this pattern and call forth the same cause of international freedom in navigation. That this freedom is and should be internationally acknowledged was the purpose of the Convention of the Territorial Sea and Contiguous Zone reached at Geneva in 1958 after the discussion among all interested powers. One article in that convention declares that there shall be 'no suspension of the innocent passage of foreign ships through the straits which are used for international navigation between one point of the high seas and another point of the high seas or the territorial sea of a soverign state'.

The Egyptians contest this provision in several ways.
- Another article in the convention defines innocent passage as 'not prejudicial to the peace, good order, or security of the coastal state', which the Egyptians might argue is the case with Israel's traffic up this waterway in strategic goods.
- Alternatively there is the argument that albeit a participant at Geneva, Egypt has not ratified the agreement.
- A third argument claims that the gulf itself - given the now accepted limit of twelve miles for territorial waters - falls wholly into this category and cannot be regarded as the high seas for the purpose of the 1958 convention.
- Finally there is the argument to embrace all others that Egypt is at war with Isreal and is no longer bound by any such agreements over rights of passage.

Some of these arguments are untenable in law : all of them run against the accepted international principle of rights of access which needs to be upheld whatever other opinions may be held of the crisis. The argument over the gulf as itself territorial waters is not accepted in international law where several littoral states exist - what applies to the Jordanian port of Aqaba must apply equally to its neighbour Eilat. Egypt's claim to be at war runs against the Security council resolution recording the progress of the Isreal-Egypt armstice and establishing its permananence as an end to the war even if no settlement were possible. Egypt is not attempting to to maintain belligerent rights at any other port or in any other way. Finally the case for the agreed convention has the ratification of twenty-two interested countries among them, US, Russia and Britian as well as the force of two centuries of internaitonal evolutoin.

To allow Egypt's rights in the Tiran strait would depart from the accepted principle. There is not only the example of Turkey and access to the Mediterranean by Russia, Romania and Bulgaria. The Baltic is a sea that could be closed if Sweden and Denmark choose to apply the geographical arguments that Egypt uses at Tiran. In asserting the freedom of navigation of the gulf Israel, and Britain and the US, have the merit of international law behind them.

The author of the 6 day war by churchill also says this

It is idle, however to deny that the Egyptians has a strong juridical case in the matter of the Striats of Tiran. it is unfortunate that no impartial international tribunal existed before whom the matter could be settled.

The Egyptian case was well put by Mr. Talib El-Shibib, the representative of the League of Arab States, in a letter to the The Times on May 29, in which he set out four points which certainly have a plausible ring to them:

1. The existence of an Israeli coast line on the Gulf of Aqaba is a direct result of an act of force by Israel contrary to the 1947 UN Partition Plan of Palestine. Israel's occupation of the Port of Eilat and that part of the coast line are an example of Israeli military expansionist policy in defiance of the UN rule.

2. The entrance of the Gulf of Aqaba is less than nine miles wide and its is therefore within the 12 mile limit legally allowed for territorial waters. Due to the state of war between Israel and Egypt the passage of Israeli ships through the Tiran Straits was denied until 1956 on legally accepted grounds. Their passage since 1956 was a result of the Suez aggression against Egypt which was resoundingly condemmed by the UN and whose final traces had to be liquidated. Surely it is not the rule of law to allow an aggressor to retain the fruits of his aggression.

3. Israel has continuously flouted UN resolutions and hindered UN peacekeeping efforts. It has refused to accept UN troops on its side of the borders in 1957 and had since boycotted the UN mixed armistice commission with the UAR.

4. The military attacks by Israel against a number of neighbouring countries for which Israel was six times condemmed by the the UNSC are examples of the rule of the jungle Israel pursues. Its claim for sympathy on the basis of legality and international law are manifestations of extreme cynicism.

Who is more right

[Parihaka]

Who is more right

242 asserted it, Peace Treaty Between Israel and Egypt March 26, 1979 confirmed it.

Article V

1.
Ships of Israel, and cargoes destined for or coming from Israel, shall enjoy the right of free passage through the Suez Canal and its approaches through the Gulf of Suez and the Mediterranean Sea on the basis of the Constantinople Convention of 1888, applying to all nations, Israeli nationals, vessels and cargoes, as well as persons, vessels and cargoes destined for or coming from Israel, shall be accorded non- discriminatory treatment in all matters connected with usage of the canal.
2.
The Parties consider the Strait of Tiran and the Gulf of Aqaba to be international waterways open to all nations for unimpeded and non-suspendable freedom of navigation and overflight. The parties will respect each other's right to navigation and overflight for access to either country through the Strait of Tiran and the Gulf of Aqaba.

[Double Edge]

242 asserted it, Peace Treaty Between Israel and Egypt March 26, 1979 confirmed it.

But in '67 it was still up in the air. Best man wins.

[Parihaka]

But in '67 it was still up in the air. Best man wins.

Israel and the US claimed that it was, the UNSC affirmed it should be and the peace treaty confirmed it with both nations.