DATE: Monday, March 17, 1997                TAG: 9703170046

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MARIE JOYCE, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   41 lines

SCHOLAR: ISRAEL HAS RIGHT TO JERUSALEM

A Jewish scholar who is an expert in international law says precedents favor Israel's claim to all of Jerusalem.

Harry Reicher made his points at a small gathering Sunday at Old Dominion University, part of the B'nai Israel Scholar-in-Residence Weekend, a three-day series of lectures and other events.

Control of Jerusalem, always a contentious issue, is particularly volatile these days.

Israel's government decided earlier this month to build housing for Jews on land in east Jerusalem. Palestinian leaders hope to establish their capital in east Jerusalem. They have said that Israel's leaders may end the peace process if they go ahead with the project.

Reicher traced the complex international legal history of the area from the end of World War I to the present.

A basic principal of international law, said Reicher, holds that an aggressor should not be rewarded, so an attacking state should not be allowed to keep territory gained in a war.

However, it is acceptable for the state which is defending itself to gain land in a war, since this punishes the aggressor and may discourage further attacks.

For this reason, among others, Israel has a valid claim to Jerusalem, Reicher said.

The city was under international control until 1948, when Jordan seized half of Jerusalem. Israel gained control of the whole city in the Six-Day War of 1967, which erupted after a long build-up of tensions between the nation and Mideast neighbors.

However, Reicher said, legal theories must be tempered with political realities. Israeli and Palestinian officials had agreed to talk further about the future of Jerusalem, but recent disagreements have slowed progress.

Reicher lives in New York and teaches at the University of Pennsylvania. Before coming to the United States, he lived in Australia, where he was involved in several prominent cases. He argued the first court case in that country in which an injunction was granted to prevent an autopsy on a Jew.

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