Israel - ANNEXATION WINS HANDS DOWN OVER A TWO-STATE SOLUTION

ANNEXATION WINS HANDS DOWN OVER A TWO-STATE SOLUTION

by Matthew H. Hausman

History, Demographics, and Law Favor Israel's Annexation of Judea and Samaria, Not a Two-State Solution

It has become an article of political faith in the West that the creation of an independent Palestinian state will resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict. But the two-state paradigm is based on fictional assumptions — that an ancient Palestinian people occupied the land for thousands of years until its displacement by Israel, that the conflict is driven by this displacement, and that Israel usurped ancestral Arab soil. These false premises are used to obscure the true nature of the conflict, which is not really a dispute between Israelis and Palestinians over real estate, but rather is a war of annihilation being waged by the entire Arab-Muslim world. The establishment of an independent Palestine will not facilitate peace because the goal of this war is Israel's demise. A more rational resolution, and one that makes historical, legal and demographic sense, would be for Israel to annex some or all of Judea, Samaria and other areas that were part of the ancient Jewish commonwealth, which was the only sovereign nation ever to exist between the Jordan and the Mediterranean.

The western media relegates any discussion of annexation to the lunatic fringe, but there is nothing radical about the concept. Indeed, the San Remo Conference of 1920 and the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine of 1922 originally contemplated Jewish settlement throughout the traditional homeland, well before the term "Palestinian" entered common usage after 1967 as a dissimulative weapon in the propaganda war against the Jewish state. After Transjordan was created on the bulk of Mandate lands under British control, the goal for the remainder was unrestricted Jewish habitation west of the Jordan River. This objective was recognized long before the dialogue was hijacked by the myth of Palestine, a nation that never existed, and by the canard that Judea and Samaria were historically Arab lands. No amount of subterfuge can change the fact that Palestinian nationalism is an artificial construct or that Judea and Samaria were never lawfully part of any sovereign Arab nation.

Ironically, commentators who condemn any discussion of annexation as right-wing extremism conveniently ignore the singular role of Arab-Muslim rejectionism in perpetuating the state of war with Israel. The liberal media portrays the Palestinian Authority as moderate despite a charter that plainly calls for Israel's destruction and regardless of its reconciliation with Hamas, whose own charter screams for jihad and genocide. The Obama administration and European Union remain deaf, dumb and blind to Palestinian prevarications and incitement, even as they chastise Israel for not offering ever more unilateral concessions. Arab provocations are ignored or rewarded, while Israel is labeled obstructionist despite the unrequited compromises she has made in the naive search for peace with those who seek her destruction.

Examples of this inequitable treatment abound. Israel facilitated Palestinian autonomy in much of Judea and Samaria, permitted the PA to arm itself, and fueled a local economy that provides the highest standard of living in the Arab world, and yet she is accused of discrimination and economic suppression. She has afforded her Arab citizens the same political rights, economic opportunities and freedom of movement as Israeli Jews (indeed, many live in West Jerusalem and serve in the Knesset), but stands accused of apartheid. She compromised her own security by unilaterally disengaging from Gaza, and yet remains the target of rancorous attacks from a delusional left-wing that persists in portraying Gaza as occupied. She takes great pains to prevent or minimize civilian casualties when engaging in defensive military actions, only to be wrongfully accused of targeting noncombatants.

In contrast, the Palestinians are barely reprimanded as they reject Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state and continue to engage in systematic incitement and terrorism against Jewish men, women and children. Moreover, Palestinian national claims are validated uncritically in the West — even though there was no Palestinian nation at the time of Israel's independence and although there was no demand for Palestinian statehood when Egypt controlled Gaza and Jordan occupied Judea and Samaria from 1948 to 1967. If the Palestinians were truly a displaced, indigenous people, they presumably would have demanded statehood when the Arab powers who today claim only to support their cause actually controlled the territories to which they now claim historical title.

If these inequities show anything at all, it is that those who push the two-state agenda have no regard for Israeli sovereignty or Jewish historical rights. Rather, they are preoccupied with creating yet another Arab-Muslim state and in promoting the false narrative underlying Palestinian national claims. Absent any historical justification for a state of Palestine, such blind advocacy can only be explained by hatred for Israel and the growing tolerance of western progressive culture for political antisemitism and the devaluation of Jewish claims. Indeed, delegitimization of Israel has become de rigueur in liberal intellectual society, which provides safe harbor for the boycott, divestment and sanctions ("BDS") and anti-Israel "lawfare" movements. Given the disregard for Jewish sovereignty that lies at the heart of American and European efforts to impose a two-state solution, it is clear that Israel is at a crossroads: Either she can continue participating in a farcical "peace process" that is heavily weighted against her national interests, or she can proactively seize the day and craft a solution that makes sense historically, geographically and legally.

If the inclination of the Obama administration and EU to denigrate Israel, favor the Palestinians, and appease Arab-Muslim sensibilities is any indication, Israel must act on the latter impulse. That is, she needs to reclaim Judea and Samaria as ancestral Jewish lands and shake off all vestiges of the societal ambivalence that was engendered by the Israeli left when it cajoled the nation into the ill-fated Oslo process, which led only to increased terrorism and diplomatic isolation, two costly wars in Lebanon and Gaza, and the disenfranchisement of Israel's political center.

The Annexation of Judea and Samaria Makes Historical Sense

Israel has valid historical claims to Judea and Samaria because they were part of the Second Jewish Commonwealth. Jews lived there from ancient times through successive conquests, the Ottoman occupation, and the British Mandatory period until 1948, when they were attacked and expelled by combined Arab-Muslim forces that invaded from east of the Jordan. These lands were conquered by Transjordan (thereafter called Jordan) and dubbed the "West Bank," in much the same way that ancient Judea was renamed "Palestine" by the Romans in order to obscure the Jews' connection to their ancestral land by invoking the name of the ancient Philistines — a people who had long since been swallowed by the sands of time. Jordan's conquest of these territories violated international law and was recognized only by Great Britain and Pakistan, and its subsequent occupation could never be legitimized under established legal principles.

Despite Jordanian attempts to erase all memory of the Jews' presence from Judea and Samaria, the ancient provenance of these lands is evidenced by the treasure-trove of Jewish holy sites they contain, including, Joseph's Tomb in Nablus, the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hevron, and Ramat Rachel near Bethlehem. The pedigree of the land is also reflected by the numerous Arabic place names that are merely etymological renderings of the original Hebrew, which names evidence Jewish habitation dating from Biblical times. These towns include: Batir, which corresponds to Beitar, the seat of Bar Kochba's rebellion against Rome from 132 to 135 CE; Beit-Hur, an Arabic corruption of the name Beit Horon, where the Maccabees defeated the Assyrian Greeks; Beitin, corresponding to the town of Beit El, where the Prophet Shmuel held court and the Ark of the Covenant was kept before the Temple was built; and Tequa, the site of ancient Tekoa, where the Prophet Amos was born and received his prophesy.

Clearly, the Judenrein status of Judea and Samaria after 1948 did not reflect historical reality, but rather the slanted surreality created when the combined Arab-Muslim armies attempted to annihilate Israel and exterminate her people following the ill-fated U.N. partition vote. Considering that only the Jews had a continuous presence dating back to antiquity, it was clearly the Arab population that usurped traditional Jewish lands, not the other way around. The Arab-Muslim world, aided and abetted by the political left, rationalizes this usurpation of Jewish lands with propaganda grounded in taqiyya — religiously-mandated dissimulation — to promote the lie that there was no Jewish presence in these lands before 1967 and that all subsequent Jewish "settlements" are colonial enterprises.

Israel has Superior Legal Claims to Judea and Samaria

In addition to the Jews' historical connection to Judea and Samaria, Israel's claim to these lands is consistent with established legal precedent as recognized by the San Remo Convention of 1920. Regarding the lands liberated from Ottoman rule during the First World War, the San Remo Resolution resolved as follows:

The High Contracting Parties agree to entrust, by application of the provisions of Article 22, the administration of Palestine, within such boundaries as may be determined by the Principal Allied Powers, to a Mandatory, to be selected by the said Powers. The Mandatory will be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 8, 1917, by the British Government, and adopted by the other Allied Powers, in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.
(San Remo Convention Resolution, Paragraph (b).)

Underlying the San Remo Resolution's affirmation of the Balfour Declaration was the recognition that the Jews are defined by descent as well as religion, are indigenous to the Land of Israel, and are possessed of the inalienable right to political and national ascendancy in their homeland. The San Remo program was ratified by the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine in 1922, the preamble of which included the following passages:

Whereas the Principal Allied Powers have also agreed that the Mandatory should be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 2nd, 1917, by the Government of His Britannic Majesty, and adopted by the said Powers, in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing should be done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country; and

Whereas recognition has thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country...

Consistent with this language, Article 2 of the Mandate clearly set forth the British obligation to effectuate these goals in accordance with the San Remo Resolution thus:

The Mandatory shall be responsible for placing the country under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment of the Jewish national home, as laid down in the preamble, and the development of self-governing institutions, and also for safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of race and religion.
(League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, Article 2.)

Regarding the intended geographical scope of Jewish habitation and settlement, the Mandate specifically provided that:

The Administration of Palestine, while ensuring that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced, shall facilitate Jewish immigration under suitable conditions and shall encourage, in cooperation with the Jewish agency referred to in Article 4, close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes.
(League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, Article 6.)

The Mandate did not call for a Jewish state with indefensible borders (as did President Obama when he attempted in his recent State Department Speech to pressure Israel to accept the 1949 armistice lines as permanent boundaries). Rather, by recognizing the Jewish right of "close settlement," the Mandate contemplated a Jewish state that would incorporate some or all of Judea and Samaria — and for that matter Gaza. Indeed, the Mandate specifically recognized the Jews' connection to their entire homeland, which historically included these territories.

Certainly, there was international consensus that the Jews were entitled by right to a national home in Israel. Jewish rights under the Palestine Mandate were not recognized in a vacuum, and Arab self-determination was addressed by the establishment of the French Mandate in Lebanon and Syria and the British Mandate in Mesopotamia (Iraq) and Transjordan. There was no separate mandate for the "Palestinians" because they had no independent national existence, as evidenced by the lack of any historical record of an ancient Palestinian presence in the land and by the absence of any cultural or societal institutions that are the hallmarks of nationhood.

Palestinian nationality is a knowing contrivance, as even Yasser Arafat acknowledged in his authorized biography, wherein he stated: "The Palestinian people have no national identity. I, Yasser Arafat, man of destiny, will give them that identity through conflict with Israel." Or, in the words of the late Zahir Muhse'in, who said:

The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel. For our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of Palestinian people, since Arab national interest demand that we posit the existence of a distinct 'Palestinian people' to oppose Zionism.

In contrast, both San Remo and the Mandate for Palestine evidenced universal recognition of the Jews' historical rights in their homeland.

This recognition of Jewish national rights was ratified by the United States on June 30, 1922, when both Houses of Congress issued a joint resolution unanimously endorsing the Mandate and the goal of reestablishing the Jewish national home. The Congressional resolution stated in relevant part:

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled. That the United States of America favors the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which should prejudice the civil and religious rights of Christian and all other non-Jewish communities in Palestine, and that the holy places and religious buildings and sites in Palestine shall be adequately protected.
(Joint Congressional Resolution No. 360, the Lodge-Fish Resolution.)

Despite the Jews' willingness to accept an area comprising less than their traditional homeland, the Arab world refused to accept any expression of Jewish sovereignty and scorned all proposals providing for a modern Jewish state. The U.N. Partition Plan of 1947 was rejected by every Arab-Muslim nation simply because it provided for Jewish autonomy. There was no consideration of Palestinian claims because Palestinian nationality had not yet been invented. In fact, the Arabs altogether rejected the term "Palestine" to describe lands under mandatory control because, as stated by Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi to the Peel Commission in 1937: "There is no such country [as Palestine]. 'Palestine' is a term the Zionists invented. There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our country was for centuries part of Syria." This was the prevailing Arab view at the time.

In light of the resounding Arab-Muslim rejection of the 1947 partition plan, it cannot be relied on as legal precedent to validate Palestinian claims to Judea and Samaria, or for that matter to Jerusalem or Gaza. Moreover, Israel's right of ownership cannot be impugned simply because she came into modern possession of these lands during wartime. Under internationally recognized legal principles, the seizure of land from belligerent nations during wartime gives rise to legitimate and lawful ownership.

In weighing the lawfulness of land acquisitions during wartime, it is important to distinguish belligerent nations from their victims. The laws of war have long recognized that a country that seizes territory while defending itself from unprovoked aggression has legitimate claims of ownership to lands captured from the aggressor nation. There is no dispute that the Arab nations started the wars of 1948, 1967 and 1973 with the expressed goal of destroying Israel and committing genocide. There is likewise no dispute that in attacking Israel these nations violated Article 2, Section 4 of the U.N. Charter, which provides: "All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations." Consequently, Israel was acting within her legal rights when she captured Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem, Golan, Sinai, and Gaza during the Six-Day War.

Just as relevant is the fact that Judea and Samaria were never part of a sovereign nation at any time after the Roman conquest, but rather constituted unincorporated territories that ultimately were occupied by Jordan in derogation of international law. Furthermore, substantial portions of both had been designated under the Mandate for inclusion in the Jewish state. Thus, when Israel took control of these lands in 1967, she was not only liberating them from the illegal occupation of a belligerent nation that had attacked her without provocation, but was in fact enforcing Jewish national rights recognized under the Mandate. Israel's stewardship of Judea and Samaria is therefore legally defensible. Despite disingenuous attempts by the U.N. to render Israel's actions unlawful by the passage of ridiculously unbalanced resolutions ex post facto, Israel has legitimate grounds under recognized legal principles to support the annexation of Judea and Samaria and the expansion of so-called settlements.

Security Council Resolution 242 does not Require Israel to Surrender Judea and Samaria

Although U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 is often invoked to demand that Israel withdraw and accept borders based on the 1949 armistice lines, it actually says nothing of the kind. Resolution 242 specifically recognizes that Israel was attacked by Jordan, Egypt and Syria in 1967, and calls on the parties to that conflict to negotiate a "just and lasting peace" based on "secure and recognized borders." Implicit in this language is the recognition that Israel's capture of Judea and Samaria, and also Golan, Gaza and Sinai, was legal under international law. If it were not, the resolution simply would have demanded that Israel return all lands captured from her attackers. That is, there would be nothing to negotiate and no imperative for deviating from the 1949 armistice demarcations known as the "Green Line." It is significant that Resolution 242 does not characterize the Green Line as permanent.

Perhaps even more significantly, nowhere does Resolution 242 require Israel to withdraw from "all" of "the" territories captured from Jordan, Egypt and Syria. As was explained by the late Eugene Rostow, a former U.S. Undersecretary of State who participated in the drafting of Resolution 242, the exclusion of the adjective "all" and the definite article "the" was intentional and indicative of the essential meaning.

Resolution 242, which as undersecretary of state for political affairs between 1966 and 1969 I helped produce, calls on the parties to make peace and allows Israel to administer the territories it occupied in 1967 until 'a just and lasting peace in the Middle East' is achieved. When such a peace is made, Israel is required to withdraw its armed forces 'from territories' it occupied during the Six-Day War — not from 'the' territories nor from 'all' the territories, but from some of the territories, which included the Sinai Desert, the West Bank, the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.

. . .

Five-and-a-half months of vehement public diplomacy in 1967 made it perfectly clear what the missing definite article in Resolution 242 means. Ingeniously drafted resolutions calling for withdrawals from 'all' the territories were defeated in the Security Council and the General Assembly. Speaker after speaker made it explicit that Israel was not to be forced back to the 'fragile' and 'vulnerable' Armistice Demarcation Lines ['Green Line'], but should retire once peace was made to what Resolution 242 called 'secure and recognized' boundaries ...
("The Future of Palestine," Rostow, Eugene V., Institute for National Strategic Studies, November 1993.)

Furthermore, the black letter of Resolution 242 applies only to incorporated "states," not to amorphous groups of people known as "Palestinians," who did not constitute a state involved in the conflict and who, thus, were not mentioned in the resolution. Although Resolution 242 does mention the issue of refugees, the term as used therein refers to individual Jews and Arabs who lost their homes during the war in 1948, not to a displaced Palestinian nationality that never existed. The Palestinians as a group had no national interest in the land; and to the extent that Jordan conveyed to the Palestinians its interest in Judea and Samaria as part of the Oslo process, it must be remembered that Jordan never possessed lawful title in the first place.

.

Demographic Reality Favors Annexation

Nearly 60% of Judea and Samaria rests within "Area C," which has a Jewish population exceeding 300,000 and is currently under Israeli control. (The Oslo Accords established three administrative divisions, known as Areas A, B and C.) In contrast, the Arab population there is calculated only in the tens of thousands. There are also more than 200,000 Jews living in greater Jerusalem neighborhoods beyond the Green Line. Consequently, despite Arab-Muslim and left-wing propaganda warning of an Arab demographic time bomb, Jews actually comprise the majority in the territories under Israeli control and are not likely to be dispossessed. There is no doubt that these territories were historically Jewish, and that the Arab-Muslim population accrued largely through immigration during the late Nineteenth Century and the British Mandatory period.

There is a two-thirds Jewish majority when Israel and the territories she controls are combined; and based on increasing Jewish and declining Arab population trends, the Jewish majority is likely only to increase in the future. Moreover, the Jewish population in Israel proper is growing as well. As noted by demographer Bennett Zimmerman in a Jerusalem Post interview back in 2007: "for the first time since 1967, Israel has a stable 2-1 Jewish majority . . . [and] a two-thirds Jewish majority in Jerusalem." The demographic threat appears therefore to be nothing more than politically motivated propaganda, particularly as it relies on conjecture, surmise and doubtful census statistics that overstate the Palestinian population by as much as half.

In addition, analysis of the Arab population shows that it is not composed of a uniform cultural group with common roots in the land. The population in Gaza, for example, is largely Bedouin in origin with no long-standing, sedentary history in the land. In contrast, the population in Judea and Samaria was always more village- or town-centered and is descended from immigrants from other parts of Arab world and the former Ottoman Empire. Thus, the Palestinians do not comprise a singular cultural stock, but rather reflect the heterogeneous make-up of the wider Arab-Muslim world, which is home to disparate and often clashing, religious, ethnic, and cultural groups and minorities.

Indeed, the Arab world is a diverse hodgepodge containing various ethnic groups, such as Arabs, Copts, Kurds, Berbers, Turks, Maronites, Armenians, and Circassians, as well as assorted religious groups, including Sunnis, Shiites, Alawites, Christians and Zoroastrians. Though these groups are often at odds, they have been forced together into modern states that were arbitrarily created by the European mandatory powers. The boundaries of Jordan, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon, for example, were drawn to include ethnic and religious groups that have been enemies for generations and who continue to persecute and slaughter one another. The European powers never understood the ethnic and religious complexities of Mideast society during the mandatory era, and today attempt to enforce a dysfunctional dynamic on Israel without regard for the ethnic, cultural and religious differences among those who now call themselves Palestinians.

Considering the irreconcilable intricacies of Mideast culture, and the suspect motivations of the progressive west in attempting to force the creation of a Palestinian state, Israel would be better served by annexing those territories that are integral to her security and continuity as a Jewish state. That is the only reality that will insure her survival.

Formal or Passive Annexation

Although the subject of annexation was made taboo by the political left in Israel and abroad, it has recently become an acceptable topic for discussion. This should not be surprising because Israel has already annexed some of the territory — i.e., Jerusalem and the Golan — that she liberated while defending herself in a war started by Egypt, Jordan and Syria. Jerusalem was formally annexed shortly after the 1967 War, while the Golan was informally incorporated through the extension of Israeli civil law there in 1981.

The concept of incorporating land by either method, or a combination of the two, has been the subject of growing interest — and not only from the settler movement. Those favoring formal annexation believe it would manifest the reality that Israel already controls those territories that are necessary for her survival. Others advocate the formal integration of Judea and Samaria and the extension of Israeli law to the Jordan Valley. Still others advocate de facto annexation by the extension of Israeli civil law throughout Judea and Samaria and the institution of economic incentive programs to integrate the Israeli and territorial economies.

Issues to be determined would include whether to provide Arab inhabitants of the territories with the opportunity for citizenship, grant them permanent resident status, or compensate them for moving elsewhere. However, given that the original intent of San Remo and the Mandate was to restore to the Jews their ancestral homeland, and that an Arab state in Jordan was created on three-quarters of the territory under the Mandate, Israel arguably has no legal or ethical obligation to extend any citizenship benefits, particularly to those who reject her right to exist as a Jewish state.

Regardless of the methods to be employed, Israel certainly has valid historical and legal claims to Judea and Samaria. How she chooses to express those claims are matters to be determined by her and her alone. The international community has shown that it has no intention of supporting Israel's historical rights or legal interests, but seeks instead to force the creation of a Palestinian state at the expense of those very rights and interests. Therefore, Israel can rely only on herself to craft a solution that makes legal, historical and moral sense, and which assures her security and continuity as a democratic, Jewish state.

Matthew Hausman is an attorney living in Connecticut. We are reprinting one of his articles that appeared August 8, 2011 in IsraPundit and was a feature article in the Think-Israel September-October 2011 Issue.

Two states for two people, Jordan must contribute 

In the most extensive remarks to date on his proposed Middle East agreement, U.S. President Bill Clinton made a plea Sunday  for peace, telling U.S. Jewish leaders their land also is the Palestinians' homeland and "there is no choice but for you to divide this land into two states for two people." --  Speech to the Israel Policy Forum, Jan 7, 2001

Yet Jordan is also Palestine.  Here are two Jordanian State Stamps one from 1964, bearing the likeness of King Hussein and pictures Mandated Palestine as an undivided territory [All of Israel of today plus Jordan of today]..., the other a 1949 stamp pictures King Abdullah of the kingdom of Jordan and bears the label of Palestine in English and Arabic.
 

The land on which Israel was located contained only a fraction of the Palestine Mandate originally dedicated to the Jews as their homeland, incorporating the Balfour Declaration.¹ The League of Nations and the British had designated the land called "Palestine" for the "Jewish National Home" -- east and west of the Jordan River from the Mediterranean to Arabia and Iraq, and north and south from Egypt to Lebanon and Syria.²Historian Arnold Toynbee observed in 1918 that the "desolate" land "which lies east of the Jordan stream,"³ was

capable of supporting a large population if irrigated and cultivated scientifically. ... The Zionists have as much right to this no-man's land as the Arabs, or more.

Thus, the territory known variously as "Palestine," as "South Syria," as "Eastern and Western Palestine," or as part of "Turkey" had been designated by international mandate as a "Jewish National Home," concerning which the United States declared,

That there be established a separate state of Palestine.... placed under Great Britain as a mandatory of the League of Nations ... that the Jews be invited to return to Palestine and settle there.... and being further assured that it will be the policy of the League of Nations to recognize Palestine as a Jewish state as soon as it is a Jewish state in fact. . . . England, as mandatory, can be relied on to give the Jews the privileged position they should have without sacrificing the [religious and property] rights of non-Jews.⁴

The Arabs of that day achieved independent Arab statehood in various lands around Palestine but not within Palestine itself Sovereignty was granted after World War I to the Arabs in Syria and Iraq; in addition, Saudi Arabia consisted of approximately 865,000 square miles of territory that was designated as "purely Arab"⁵

Considering all the "territories" that had been given to the Arabs, Lord Balfour "hoped" that the "small notch" of Palestine east and west of the Jordan River, which was "being given" to the Jewish people, would not be "grudged" to them by Arab leaders .⁶

But, in a strategic move, the British Government apparently felt "the need to assuage the Emir's [Abdullah's] feelings."⁷ As one of the royal sons of the Hejaz (Saudi Arabia), Abdullah was a recipient of British gratitude; the Arabians of the Hejaz had been, among all the Arab world, of singular assistance to England against the Turks⁸

The insertion of Abdullah and his emirate into mandated Palestine, in the area east of the Jordan River that was part of the land allocated to the "Jewish National Home," might be partially traced to a suggestion received by Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill from T. E. Lawrence. In a letter of January 1921, Lawrence informed Churchill that Emir Feisal (Abdullah's brother, and Lawrence "of Arabia's" choice to lead the Arab revolt)⁹ had "agreed to abandon all claim of his father to [Western] Palestine," if Feisal got in return Iraq and Eastern Palestine as Arab territories. [See Feisal-Weizmann agreement]

Further explanation was found in a "secret dispatch from Chief British Representative at Amman" later in 1921. He cautioned that the local "Transjordanian Cabinet" had been replaced by a "Board of Secretaries,"

responsible for all internal affairs, referring to his highness Abdullah for a decision in the event of any disagreement....

All the "Board" members, according to the Eastern Palestine envoy, were

Syrian exiles, who with perhaps one exception, are more interested in designs on the French in Syria than in developing Trans-Jordania.... In his Highness' opinion, the allies had not dealt fairly with the Arab nation and Great Britain had not treated him as he deserved. He was one of the most chiefly instrumental in bringing about the Arab revolution and when Feisal, during the war, was inclined to accept the overtures of the Turks he had opposed that policy.... When he came to Trans-Jordania "with the consent of the British", he had agreed to act in accordance with Mr. Churchill's wishes and with British policy, as he did not wish to be the cause of any friction between the British and their allies, the French.

... The allies had not dealt fairly with the Arabs because, whereas they had agreed to form one Arab nation, forming different Arab states, and even in Syria, as small as it is, they had divided that country into six or seven states. He had come to Trans-Jordania hoping for great things and now he realized that he had no hope either north or east. If he went back from here to the Hejaz, he would look ridiculous.¹⁰

Winston Churchill proposed his plan for Transjordan to Prime Minister Lloyd George in March 1921:

We do not expect or particularly desire, indeed, Abdullah himself to undertake the Governorship. He will, as the Cabinet rightly apprehend, almost certainly think it too small.... The actual solution which we have always had in mind and for which I shall work is that which you described as follows: while preserving Arab character of area and administration to treat it as an Arab province or adjunct of Palestine.¹¹

It was a British Jew, Palestine High Commissioner Sir Herbert Samuel, who supported and even extended Winston Churchill's formulations. Samuel sent a telegram to Churchill in July 1921; while discouraging Churchill from submitting to Abdullah's predicted eventual "demand" for "attachment of Trans-Jordania to, the Hejaz," as being "contrary to Article V of the Mandate and open to much objection in relation to future development," High Commissioner Samuel suggested the following:

I concur in proposal that Abdullah should visit London and had writtcn to you suggesting it.... At the end of six months, the following settlement might be arranged: (1) the Arab governor mutually agreed upon by his majesty's government and Abdullah or King Hussein. (2) British officer(s) to have real control. (3) Reserve force commanded by British officer(s), Air Force and armored cars as at present. (4) A small British garrison to be stationed in District temporarily. (5) A declaration in accordance with new article to be inserted in mandate that Jewish National Home provisions do not apply east of Jordan. This would not prevent such Jewish immigration as political and economic conditions allowed but without special encouragement by Government. ¹²

Feisal got his wishes and became King of Iraq;¹³ his brother Abdullah was installed in the British mandatory area as ruler of the "temporary" emirate on the land of eastern Palestine, which became known as the "Kingdom of Transjordan."

Palestine High Commissioner Harold MacMichael later offered some evidence -- of the original "temporary" nature of British intentions in a "private, personal and most secret" cipher; MacMichael reported in 1941 that Abdullah now harbored greater ambitions, because of

the part he [Abdullah] played in the last war, his position in the Arab world as a senior member of a royal house, [and] the purely temporaryarrangements whereby in 1921 having narrowly missed being made King (a) of Iraq and (b) of Syria in turn, he was left to look after Trans-Jordan .... ¹⁴

Britain nevertheless quietly gouged out roughly three-fourths of the Palestine territory mandated for the Jewish homeland¹⁵into an Arab emirate, Transjordan,¹⁶ while the Mandate ostensibly remained in force but in violation of its terms.¹⁷Historians and official government documents concerned with the area continued to call it "Eastern Palestine," despite the new appellation. That seventy-five percent of the Palestine mandate was described by England's envoy to Eastern Palestine:¹⁸ "a reserve of land for use in the resettlement of Arabs [from Western Palestine], once the National Home for the Jews in Palestine"* resulted in the "Jewish independent state."

The League of Nations Mandate for Palestine remained unchanged even though Britain had unilaterally altered its map and its purpose.¹⁹ The Mandate included Transjordan until 1946, when that land was declared an independent state.²⁰Transjordan had finally become the de jure Arab state in Palestine just two years before Israel gained its Jewish statehood in the remaining one-quarter of Palestine; Transjordan comprised nearly 38,000 square miles; Israel, less than 8,000 square miles.

[* As the next chapters will illustrate, instead, Arabs poured from Eastern Palestine as well as from Arab areas within Western Palestine -- into the Jewish -- settled areas in Western Palestine. The course of action which followed from that unrecognized population movement brought ramifications which are as critical to the question of political "justice" as they are unknown or disregarded today.]

Thus, about seventy-five percent of Palestine's "native soil," east of the Jordan River, called Jordan, is literally an independent Palestinian-Arab state located on the majority of the land of Palestine; it contains a majority of Palestinian Arabs in its army as well as its population. In April 1948,²¹ just before the formal hostilities were launched against Israel's statehood, Abdullah of Transjordan²²  declared: "Palestine and Transjordan are one, for Palestine is the coastline and Transjordan the hinterland of the same country." Abdullah's policy was defended against "Arab challengers" by Prime Minister Hazza al-Majali:

We are the army of Palestine.... the overwhelming majority of the Palestine Arabs ... are living in Jordan.²³

Although Abdullah's acknowledgment of Palestinian identity was not in keeping with the policy of his grandson, the present King Hussein, Jordan is nonetheless undeniably Palestine, protecting a predominantly Arab Palestinian population with an army containing a majority of Arab Palestinians, and often governed by them as well. Jordan remains an independent Arab Palestinian state where a Palestinian Arab "law of return" applies: its nationality code states categorically that all Palestinians are entitled to citizenship by right unless they are Jews.²⁴ In most demographic studies, and wherever peoples are designated, including contemporary Arab studies, the term applied to citizens of Jordan is "Palestinian/Jordanian." In 1966 PLO spokesman Ahmed Shukeiry declared that²⁵

The Kingdom of Palestine must become the Palestinian Republic....

Yasser Arafat has stated that Jordan is Palestine. Other Arab leaders, even King Hussein and Prince Hassan of Jordan, from time to time have affirmed that "Palestine is Jordan and Jordan is Palestine." Moreover, in 1970-1971, later called the "Black September" period, when King Hussein waged war against Yasser Arafat's Arab PLO forces, who had been operating freely in Jordan until then, it was considered not an invasion of foreign terrorists but a civil war. It was "a final crackdown" against those of "his people"²⁶ whom he accused of trying to establish a separate Palestinian state, under Arab Palestinian rule instead of his own, "criminals and conspirators who use the commando movement to disguise their treasonable plots," to "destroy the unity of the Jordanian and Palestinian people."²⁷

Indeed, the "native soil" of Arab and Jewish "Palestines" each gained independence within the same two-year period, Transjordan in 1946 and Israel in 1948. Yet today, in references to the "Palestine" conflict, even the most serious expositions of the problem refer to Palestine as though it consisted only of Israel -- as in the statement, "In 1948 Palestine became Israel."²⁸ The term "Israel" is commonly used as if it were the sum total of "Palestine."

However, within what Lord Balfour had referred to as that "small notch" sometimes called Palestine, the "Jewish National Home" had been split into two separate unequal Palestines: Eastern Palestine-or the Arab emirate of Transjordan-and Western Palestine, which comprised less than one-fourth of the League of Nations Mandate. The portion of the "notch" of land on which the Jews settlod and in which most Jews actually lived -- from the 1870s and 1880s through the 1940s -- was in fact only a segment of the area of Western Palestine.

The East Bank and the West Bank, same situation

If Israel must give up a portion, or all of WEST BANK land, which was part of the British Mandated "Palestine" or Jewish National Home, it is only logical that Jordan must give up a proportiately large amount of EAST BANK land which was also part of the British Mandated "Palestine" or Jewish National Home.

Each country, Israel and Jordan should contribute land according to the number of Palestinians residing in their country.  (Most Palestinians in Jordan live on the EAST BANK)
 

Area	Population	Percentage of total Palestinian population
Jordan	2,272,000	30.7%
West Bank	1,572,000	21.3%
Gaza	963,000	13.0%
Israel	1,095,000	14.8%
Lebanon	356,000	4.8%
Syria	325,000	4.3%
Egypt	54,000	0.7%
Iraq	33,000	0.4%
Libya	38,000	0.4%
Rest of Arab Countries	319,000	4.3%
United State of America	159,000	2.2%
Other Countries	209,000	2.8%
Total	7,395,000	100%
SOURCE: Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics for Palestinians in WB/Gaza  (http://www.pcbs.org/english/pop1.htm) and other countries (http://www.pcbs.org/english/t7.htm);  Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics estimates of Palestinians in Israel (http://www.cbs.gov.il/shnaton/st02-01.gif). Table: Estimated Palestinian Population Worldwide, mid-1996

Palestinians are by law guaranteed the RIGHT OF RETURN to Jordan, where they are entitled to citizenship, "unless they are Jews."

Jordan is very much afraid that it will be declared THE PALESTINIAN STATE, Jordan has NEVER allowed publication of the percentage of Palestinians in its population. Jordan is also afraid that someone might suggest to take a portion of its territory for a Palestinian state.  MORE THAN TWICE the number of Palestinians live on the EAST BANK of the Jordan River in Jordanian territory, than live on the WEST BANK.
 
 

1. The Old Testament indicates that historic Palestine included land on both sides of the Jordan River, east bank as well as west bank, including the territory now known as Jordan. The portion of historic Palestine east of the Jordan River equaled or exceeded in area the portion west of Palestine. In biblical times the tribe of Manasseh occupied more territory to the east of the Jordan River than to the west, the entire tribe of Reuben dwelled east of the Jordan, and the land called Gad was east of the Jordan. Mount Gilead and Ramoudh Gilead all were east of the Jordan, as were other biblical places and people. (See map, page 12, Literary and Historical Atlas of Asia, prepared by J. G. Bartholomew for the Everyman Library.) Even in the time of the New Testament (as shown by the map in Appendix 1). the land included territory on the east side of the Jordan River as well as the west. The New Testament city of Philadelphia was well east of the Jordan River, as was the city of Golan, which was part of Palestine, according to the Old Testament as well as the New. For an additional example, see Rand McNally Atlas of World History, ed. R.R. Palmer, Chicago, 1957, p. 25.

2. For map of Palestine, east, see 0. R. Conder, The Survey of Eastern Palestine, Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund, London, 1889; also see J. Stoyanovsky, The Mandate for Palestine (London, New York, Toronto, 1928), pp. 66, 204---210. Arthur Balfour's memorandum of August 11, 1919, stated: "Palestine should extend into the lands lying east of the Jordan." Balfour, who led the British delegation to the Paris Peace conference (in 1919) "determined the frontiers" Of Palestine in a memorandum to Prime Minister Lloyd George, June 26, 1919: "In determining the Palestinian frontiers, the main thing to keep in mind is to make a Zionist policy possible by giving the fullest scope to economic development in Palestine. Thus, the Northern frontier should give to Palestine a full command of the water power which geographically belongs to Palestine and not to Syria; while the Eastern frontier should be so drawn as to give the widest scope to agricultural development on the left bank of the Jordan, consistent with leaving the Hedjaz Railway completely in Arab possession."

3. December 2, 1918-Toynbee minute: Foreign Office Papers; 371/3398-Amold Toynbee agreed with the Mandate: "It might be equitable [to include in Palestine] that part ... which lies east of the Jordan stream ... at present desolate, but capable of supporting a large population if irrigated and cultivated scientifically ... The Zionists have as much right to this no-man's land as the Arabs, or more," cited in Martin Gilbert, Exile and Return, p. 115. See also David Lloyd George, The Truth About the Peace Treaties (vol. 1), pp. 1144-1145.

4. United States recommendation at the Paris Peace Conference, January 21, 1919. See also U.S. Congressional Resolution, June 30, 1922, in Survey of Palestine, p. 21.

5. In Arabia itself, largely equivalent to present Saudi Arabia, Jews had been present and had developed towns such as Medina and Khaibar, where they thrived from Roman days and before, until the conquest by Muhammad and subsequent directions from Omar. Then the Jews were slaughtered or their land expropriated and Jews were forced to flee for their lives if they did not convert to Islam. Many of those Jews in the seventh century fled as refugees back to "Palestine," where Jewish inhabitants could even then be found in most towns referred to today as purely Arab areas. Into the twentieth century, between 3,000 and 5,000 Jews lived in "purely Arab towns," such as Jenin, Tyre, Sidon, and Nablus during the Turkish domination; roughly 1,500 held on under the British Mandate; and in 1944-1947, zero. Those towns had been rendered judenrein by Arab pogroms; see Chapter 9.

6. Lord Balfour speech, July 12, 1920, cited in Palestine Royal Commission Reporl, para. 27, p. 27, 1937; see maps in this chapter and Appendix 1. See n. 15 here.

7.High Commissioner Harold MacMichael to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, regarding Transjordan, cipher telegram, private, personal and most secret, 1941, PRO C0733/27137.

8. David Lloyd George, The Truth About the Peace Treaties, pp. 1119, 1140. Also see Esco, Palestine, vol. 1, pp. 641

9. Gilbert, Exile, p. 132; see T.E. Lawrence, Revolt in the Desert, about Abdullah, particularly pp. 1-7. Feisal's role is woven throughout Lawrence's account. Also see King Abdullah of Jordan, My Memoirs Completed (Washington, D.C., 1954).

10. August 1, 1921, Secret dispatch #2301/pol., C0733/41683, Enclosure "A," Report No. 6.

11. PRO FO 371/6342, March 23, 1921.

12. July 4, 1921, telegram to Secretary of State for the Colonies, C0733/35186; response to "Very Confidential" memo "from the Civil Secretary after his recent tour in Trans-Jordania," Churchill to Samuel, July 2, 1921, C0733/36252.

13.Churchill Papers 17/14, January 17,1921; cited in Gilbert, ExileandReturn, p. 132; the British chose Feisal to be King in March 192 1, at the Cairo Conference. See Esco, Palestine, pp. 121-126.

14.MacMichael hoped in 1941 to offer Abdullah a "consolation prize" of "Trans Jordan" when the country gained independence of the Mandate, and after Abdullah "has realized that his hopes ... for Syria ... are vain. We simply cannot have recrimination of these pledges to the Arabs until we are absolutely clear how and when they are to be converted into practice. The smaller the time gap between any promise and its implementation, the better. . . . " MacMichael to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, PRO C0733/27137.

15.According to the 1937 Palestine Royal Commission Report, "Trans-Jordan was cut away from that field [in which the Jewish National Home was understood to be established at the time of the Balfour Declaration.... the whole of historic Palestine]." The reason given was the later claim of the Arabs that a letter, called the McMahon pledge, from Sir Henry McMahon on October 24, 1915, had included Palestine in the territory that Britain promised to the Arabs. A formal Arab protest, called "The Holyland. The Muslim-Christian Case Against Zionist Aggression," was not declared until November 1921, six years after the date of the McMahon letter and four years after the Balfour Declaration. The fact that McMahon had excluded Palestine from his promise-as had the Emir Feisal excluded it from his request at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, ignoring the McMahon letter-was conspicuously absent. The British government's failure to publish the complete correspondence gave credence to what otherwise would have been a quickly squelched, rather obvious ploy, until 1939, when a committee of British and Arab delegates scrutinized the correspondence; the British then determined that, in the words of one delegate, the Lord High Chancellor, Lord Maugham, "The correspondence as a whole, and particularly ... Sir Henry McMahon's letter of the 24th October, 1915, not only did exclude Palestine but should have been understood to do so. . . ." Similar testimony came from many eminent British government officials. Most notably, from Sir Henry McMahon himself. in The Times of London, July 23,1937, McMahon wrote, "I feel it my duty to state, and I do so definitely and emphatically, that it was not intended by me in giving this pledge to King Hussein to include Palestine in the area in which Arab independence was promised. I also had every reason to believe at the time that the fact that Palestine was not included in my pledge was well understood by King Hussein." The British case supporting McMahon was strengthened even further by the fact that Feisal waited until January 29, 1921-nearly six years later-to bring up the subject, and then he was quoted by Winston Churchill as being "prepared to accept" the exclusion of Palestine. The logical deduction to be made from the plethora of evidence seems clear: Palestine was indeed excluded-and in any case, the Balfour Declaration was incorporated by the Council of the League of Nations and was thus binding upon its trustee, England as Mandatory power, while no British letter of pledge could have been binding even if one had been given. Nevertheless, Arabs and their supporters have continued to attempt to cast doubt, as though the written documents didn't exist. Significantly, however, the 1937 Palestine Royal Commission Report, which was issued the same year that McMahon published his Times rejoinder, made the recommendation that "Transjordan should be opened to Jewish immigration." It never was. Palestine Royal Commission Report, pp. 22-38; for texts of several British witnesses and full McMahon text: Esco, Palestine, vol. 1, p. 1811 Great Britain, Correspondence, Cmd. #5957; Churchill White Paper, June 3, 1922, Statement of British policy in Palestine, Cmd. # 1700, p. 20; Lloyd George, The Truth About the Peace Treaties, vol. 11, pp. 1042, 1140-1155; D.H. Miller, Diary, vol. XIV, pp. 227-234 and 414, vol. 11, pp. 188-189, vol. XVII, p. 456; H.F. Frischwasser-Ra'anan, The Frontiers of a Nation (London: Batchworth Press, 1955), pp. 104-107. Frischwasser-Ra'anan writes of the statement by British Foreign Office expert on the Near East, Lord Robert Cecil: " 'Our wish is that the Arab country shall be for the Arabs, Armenia for the Armenians and Judea for the Jews,"' pp. 104-105; Antonius, Arab Awakening, pp. 390-392; The Letters of TE. Lawrence, David Garnett, ed. (Doubleday, Doran, 1939), pp. 281-282; for international legal interpretation, see J. Stoyanovsky, The Mandatefor Palestine (London, New York, Toronto: Longmans, Green & Co., 1928), pp. 66, 205-223; Parliamentary Debates, Commons, vol. 113, col.115-116, May 23,1939, for the views of the Archbishop of Canterbury; for examples of discussion of the McMahon-Hussein matter that omit available evidence described or referred to above, and suggest support of the Arab protestations, see William B. Quandt, Fuad Jabber, Ann Mosely Lesch, The Politics of Palestinian Nationalism (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1973), pp. 8-11; John S. Badeau, East and West ofSuez (New York: The Foreign Policy Association, 1943), p. 45.

16.In the Anglo-American Committee's "Historical Summary of Principal Political Events in Palestine Since the British Occupation in 1917," a chronological summary beginning in 1917, no mention at all is made of the gift of Transjordan to the Arabs by the British-neither in the 1922 summary nor in 1928, when an "organic Law" was enforced, nor in 1929 when the ratification of the "Agreement" took place. See Summary in Survey of Palestine, vol. 1, pp. 15-25. Yet that act, which severed roughly seventy-five percent of the Mandate of Palestine, is ignored as a "principal political event"-the de facto creation of an Arab state on seventy-five percent of what had been deemed the "Jewish National Home," and which had been specifically set aside by the British and Arabs alike as an area "not purely Arab," as compared to Iraq and Syria. In the chapter preceding the "Summary," the Arabs' acquisition of an Arab-Palestinian state-a Palestinian state surely no less than Israel became-is presented as afait accompli. "Prior to the 12th August, 1927, the High Commissioners for Palestine included within their jurisdiction the entire Mandatory area without separate mention of Transjordan. Since that date, however, the High Commissioners have received separate commissions for Palestine and Trans-Jordan respectively. " See Survey ofPalestine, p. 14. (Emphasis added.) In the Summary, however, exhaustive attention is drawn to the Balfour Declaration and its ramifications upon the Arab community in Palestine; on the rioting- "The hostility shown towards the Jews [which was] ... shared by Arabs of all classes; Moslem and Christian Arabs, whose relations had hitherto been uneasy, were for once united. Intense excitement was aroused by the wild anti-Jewish rumors which were spread during the course of the riots." See Haycraft Inquiry, October 192 1, in Survey of Palestine, pp. 18, 19.

17.The only proposal Britain as Mandatory power submitted to the League of Nations "during the lifetime of the League. . ." was a 1922 memorandum citing Article 25 of the Mandate; Article 25 allowed the Mandatory power "with the consent of the Council of the League of Nations, to postpone or withhold application of such provisions of the mandate as he may consider suitable to those conditions, provided that no action ... is inconsistent with ... Article 15, 16 and 18." The article referred to "the territories lying between the Jordan and the Eastern boundary ofPalestine ...... the eastern boundary being the Hejaz (Saudi Arabia). In Dr. Paul S. Riebenfeld, "Israel, Jordan and Palestine," (unpublished manuscript), pp. 10-18ff, exhaustive study of documentation concerning TransJordan and the Mandate. In fact it appears that, to humor Emir Abdullah, the British gave the appearance of a severance, with the real consequences of a severance from Palestine upon the Jewish National Home, and the de facto creation of the Palestinian Arab state, while the British never attempted to legalize their actions, only to record them; "the only legal action ever taken by the British Government" was taken under Article 25: the Resolution of September 16, 1922. League of Nations Official Journal, November 1922, pp. 1390-1391; Riebenfeld, ibid., p. 18. For an absorbing account of "what exactly happened on September 16, 1922" see Dr. Riebenfeld's "Integrity of Palestine," Midstream, August/September, 1975, p. 12ff; also see Ernest Frankenstein, Justice for My People.

18. Alec Kirkbride, A Crackle of Thorns (1956), pp. 19-20. Kirkbride goes on to say, however, that "There was no intention" in 1920 "of forming the territory east of the river Jordan into an independent Arab state." Also see Palestine Royal Commission Report, suggesting that Transjordan-Eastem Palestine-"if fully developed could hold a much larger population than it does at present," p. 308.

19.When Britain -entered into an agreement to transfer the exercise of administration on February 20, 1928, the League of Nations Permanent Mandates Commission challenged the agreement as a "conflict with the Mandate for Palestine." Quincy Wright, Mandates Under the League of Nations (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1930), p. 458. The statement of the Commission (in part) was: "Since the Commission is charged with the duty of seeing that the mandate is fully and literally carried out, it considers it necessary to point out in particular, Article 2 of the Agreement, which reads as follows: "'The powers of legislation and administration entrusted to His Britannic Majesty as mandatory for Palestine shall be exercised in that part of the area under Mandate known as Transjordan by His Highness the Amir . . .' does not seem compatible with the stipulation of the Mandate of which Article I provides that: 'The mandatory shall have full powers of legislation and of administration, save as they may be limited by the terms of this mandate."' League of Nations, Official Journal, Oct. 1928, p. 1574; also see pp. 1451-1453; also in Riebenfeld, Israel, Jordan and Palestine, pp. 24-25; ... At that point Britain's Council member "explained that Great Britain still regarded itself as responsible for the ... mandate in TransJordan and the Council was satisfied." Quincy Wright, Mandates Under the League ofNations (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1930), p. 458; as another example, in 1937 the Permanent Mandates Commission, at the 32nd Session, insisted that no obstacle should "prevent that Jewish National Home being established." Minutes of the 32nd Session, p. 90.

20. May 1946. See Chapter 17.

21. April 12, 1948, Arab League Resolution: No partition would be acceptable, and a Palestine must be liberated from the Zionists; on April 16, 1948, Abdullah abolished the Jordan Senate and appointed 20 new Senators: 7 Senators were Palestinian Arabs; on April 24, 1948, Jordan's House of Delegates and House of Notables, in joint session of Parliament, adopted a resolution: ". . . basing itself on the right of self-determination and on the existing de facto position between Jordan and Palestine and their national, natural and geographic unity and their common interests and living space. . . ." The parliament supported the "unity between the two sides of the Jordan Cited in "Jordan Annexes Arab Palestine," by Benjamin Schwadran, Middle Eastern Affairs; vol. 1, no. 4, April 1950.

22. April 12, 1948, cited in Paul Riebenfeld, "The Integrity of Palestine", in Midstream, August-September 1975, p. 22.

23. Ibid.

24. Jordanian Nationality Law, Official Gazette, No. 1171, Article 3 (3) of Law No. 6, 1954, February 16, 1954, p. 105.

25. Ahmed Shukeiry to the Council of the Arab League, November 1966, cited in Riebenfeld, "The Integrity," Midstream, p. 23.

26.Mohamed Heikal, Road to Ramadan (New York: Ballantine Books, 1975), p. 96. See Heikal's account of a meeting between Arab heads of state, including King Faisal, Ghadaffl, and President Nasser; according to Heikal, King Hussein's war ended September 27, 1970, with the signed agreement between Hussein and Yasser Arafat, and the "withdrawal of all ... forces from every city in the country" (p. 99). According to another source, the ceasefire took place September 25, but fighting continued well into 1971. Political Terrorism, edited by Lester Sobel (New York: Facts on File, Inc., 1975), cited in Hashemite Kingdom ofJordan and the West Bank edited by Anne Sinai and Allen Pollack (New York: American Academic Association for Peace in the Middle East, 1977), p. 60.

27. June 2, 1971: Hussein's orders to Jordanian Premier Wasfi Tel, cited in Hashemite Kingdom, p. 61.

This page was produced by Joseph E. Katz Middle Eastern Political and Religious History Analyst  Brooklyn, New York 

E-mail to a friend

Source: "From Time Immemorial" by Joan Peters, 1984
SPECIAL OFFER Purchase this national bestseller available at WorldNetDaily  http://www.shopnetdaily.com/store/item.asp?ITEM_ID=36 

WHY IS THE SAN REMO CONFERENCE SO IMPORTANT?

by: Canadians for Israel's Legal Rights

The San Remo Conference of 1920 was built upon a series of events which occurred before, during and immediately after World War One, and which are summarized below:

• The birth of modern Zionism under Theodor Herzl in 1897.
• The Balfour Declaration of 1917, where Britain "views with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people." (expression of British foreign policy).
• The defeat of the Turks in Palestine, in 1917
• The Fourteen Points of U.S. President Wilson (1918), which called for an end to secret treaties between nations; emphasized the interests of the populations concerned; and advocated for the creation of a "general association of nations."
• The Paris Peace Conference and the birth of the League of Nations, in 1919.
• The adoption of Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, instituting the Mandates System in the post-war period.

The adoption of a legal mechanism for the dispossession of Turkey of their formerly held lands in the Middle East.

This sequence of events led to the San Remo Conference (April, 1920) where the map of the Middle East was redrawn, and a major Resolution was adopted by the Supreme Council of the Principal Allied Powers (Britain, France, Italy, Japan), with the United States acting as an observer[*]:

• For the first time in history, Palestine became a legal entity.
• All prior agreements concerning the region were terminated, including the Sykes-Picot Agreement between France and Britain.
• The Balfour Declaration was incorporated in the Resolution and its implementation was required; it became an act of international law.
• Palestine was placed under a British Mandate, with Britain acting as a trustee, and required to put into force the provisions of the Balfour Declaration.
• The legal title to Palestine was transferred from the Allied Powers to the Jewish people. The title on Palestine is non-revocable.
• The Jewish people became the national beneficiary of the Mandate for Palestine, on the grounds of their historical connection to the land. The de jure sovereignty of Palestine was vested in the Jewish people.
• The San Remo Resolution was adopted and later included in the Treaty of Sèvres (Art. 94-97). These provisions remain in force, even though the Treaty of Sèvres was not ratified by the later Turkish government of Kemal Ataturk.
• The Arabs received equivalent national rights in Syria/Lebanon, Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq). For different reasons, Jordan became also an exclusively Arab country.
• The San Remo Conference also marks the end of the longest period of foreign occupation/colonization in history (1,850 years of dispossession of the Jewish people in their ancestral Land of Israel).

[*] The United States was not a member, hence had no voting power. It did endorse the Mandate for Palestine. As Eli E. Hertz writes:

On June 30, 1922, a joint resolution of both Houses of Congress of the United States unanimously endorsed the "Mandate for Palestine," confirming the irrevocable right of Jews to settle in the area of Palestine — anywhere between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. [... On September 21, 1922, the then President Warren G. Harding signed the joint resolution of approval to establish a Jewish National Home in Palestine.
(http://www.mythsandfacts.com/article_view.asp?articleID=100)

RECLAIM JEWISH LAND; REJECT THE TWO-STATE SOLUTION

The notion of a 2-state solution stays alive, first, because it is coercively presented as the only possible solution: "Give away Biblical Israel to those nice Palestinians OR the bogie man will make you accept a 1-state solution where those nasty Palestinians will outnumber you.." Secondly, the diplomats have put some effort into twisting Israel's arm to accept belligerent neighbors and they believe they are making headway. They haven't really considered alternatives. Bloggers and think-tankers have. Solutions proposed and available on Think-Israel have considered some sort of union with — or transformation of — Jordan; a return to the original Mandate formulation where everyone has human rights protection but only the Jews have voting rights; and a population transfer, where the first stage occurred in the 1940s and '50s when the Jews were driven out of the Arab countries where they had been living even before the Arab invasions in the 7th Century C.E. Think-Israel has formulated a 2-state solution where Israel takes possession of all of its land and the Palestinian state is placed where it belongs — somewhere inside the enormously large Arab land holdings (See here.)

In the present set of essays, Barbara Lerner is convincing in her insight that the best way we have to fight specious Muslim proposals for stealing Jewish land is to begin by appreciating our own Jewish and Christian Biblical roots in Biblical Israel. Several article conclude that the best way to end the refugee problem is to get rid of UNRWA. Martin Sherman suggests helping the individual Arab families relocate.

Any viable solution must recognize that the so-called Palestinians have no valid claim on any part of the Land of Israel — Howard Grief's essay provides the legal substructure that protects Jewish rights in the land — and that Israel would be negligent if it didn't defend its borders and protect its citizens from Arab predators. The best way to do this, as Martin Hausman's article suggests, is to annex the Territories formally.

Thanks to the U.N., there exists a large — and growing — group of stateless Arabs, rejected by the Arab states, regarded as throwaways in the Arab War against the West and a constant source of budding terrorists and terrorist activity. The Palestiniansare (not politically) correctly described in several essays below. It would benefit the West to rid the region of this constant irritant by (1) by urging that Arab states where the refugee camps are located to give the refugees citizenship status; or (2) by breaking up the collection of Arabs referred to as Palestinians/Arab refugees into family units, each individually supplied with the means to negotiate for immigrant status in countries that will accept them; or (3) declaring Jordan with its Palestinian arab majority the state of Palestine. Professor Mordechai Nisan of Hebrew University argued the case for this solution in Front Page Magazine. or (4) by giving the Arabs now living in the Territories and in refugee camps a fixed space in some part of the enormous Arab land holdings that is isolated from population centers and where they can determine their own future. They can decide to learn to develop the infrastructure for becoming a state or they can continue to kill each other. It's their choice, providing it doesn't involve harming other people. "An Alternative 2-State Solution" is such a proposal and is available HERE.These and variants should be considered singly and in possible combination.

Return to Feature Menu