Howard Grief


Howard Grief was a Jerusalem-based attorney and notary born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He served as the adviser on Israel under international law to Yuval Ne'eman while Ne'eman was the Minister of Energy and Infrastructure in the Yitzhak Shamir Government.

Biography

Howard Grief was born and educated in Montreal, Quebec, Canada where he attended Baron Byng High School, McGill University, and McGill [University Faculty of Law|McGill Law School], obtaining degrees in Arts and Law. He became a member of the Bar of Quebec in 1966 and was a self-employed practicing attorney for 23 years, principally in the fields of civil and commercial law. In August 1989, Grief immigrated to Israel together with his Jerusalem-born wife and their two sons.

Legal career

In May 1991, Grief was admitted to the Israel Bar Association and became a notary. In December 1991, he was appointed by Yuval Ne'eman, then Minister of Energy and Infrastructure in the Yitzhak Shamir Government, to be his legal adviser in international law on matters pertaining to the Land of Israel.
He petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court to annul the Oslo Accords in 1999, and advanced the thesis that de jure sovereignty over all of Palestine was devolved upon the Jewish People at the 1920 San Remo Peace conference.

Views and opinions

In 1999, Grief presented the "Petition to Annul the Interim Agreement" to Israel's Supreme Court claiming that the agreements between Israel and the PLO were illegal both under constitutional and criminal Israeli law. The Supreme Court called the petition "a political position" and would not deal with it.
Grief drew attention to the wider scope of the 1920 San Remo conference, His thesis was that de jure sovereignty over the entire Land of Israel was vested in the Jewish People as a result of the reference to the Balfour Declaration, adopted at the San Remo Conference in April 1920. Grief maintained that Israeli politicians and jurists, including the authors of the 2012 Levy Report failed to grasp the full importance of the "San Remo Resolution", a term he coined to clarify his position, according to the Algemeiner.
Grief laid out his thesis in his 2008 book The Legal Foundation and Borders of Israel under International Law.

Published works

  • , September 2011, algemeiner.comThe Legal Foundation and Borders of Israel under International Law. Mazo Publishers, 2008
  • . ACPR Publications, 2008
  • . NATIV, 2008
  • . Office for Israeli Constitutional Law, 2007
  • , NATIV, Vol.20/2007
  • , ACPR Publications, 2005
  • , NATIV, Vol.8/2005
  • , NATIV, Vol.2/2004
  • . Zmora-Bitan Publishers and ACPR Publishers, 2001
  • . ACPR Publications, 1999
  • . ACPR Publications, 1999 Why Israel Needs an Independent Counsel. Sanhedrin Institute, 1998