The Origins and
Evolution of the Palestine
Problem: 1917-1988
PART
I
1917-1947
INTRODUCTION
The question of Palestine was brought before the United
Nations shortly after the end of the Second World War.
The origins of the Palestine problem as an international
issue, however, lie in events occurring towards the end of the First World War.
These events led to a League of Nations decision to place Palestine under the
administration of Great Britain as the Mandatory Power under the Mandates System
adopted by the League. In principle, the Mandate was meant to be in the nature
of a transitory phase until Palestine attained the status of a fully independent
nation, a status provisionally recognized in the League's Covenant, but in fact
the Mandate's historical evolution did not result in the emergence of Palestine
as an independent nation.
The
decision on the Mandate did not take into account the wishes of the people of
Palestine, despite the Covenant's requirements that "the wishes of these
communities must be a principal consideration in the selection of the
Mandatory". This assumed special significance because, almost five years before
receiving the mandate from the League of Nations, the British Government had
given commitments to the Zionist Organization regarding the establishment of a
Jewish national home in Palestine, for which Zionist leaders had pressed a claim
of "historical connection" since their ancestors had lived in Palestine two
thousand years earlier before dispersing in the "Diaspora".
During the period of the Mandate, the Zionist
Organization worked to secure the establishment of a Jewish national home in
Palestine. The indigenous people of Palestine, whose forefathers had inhabited
the land for virtually the two preceding millennia felt this design to be a
violation of their natural and inalienable rights. They also viewed it as an
infringement of assurances of independence given by the Allied Powers to Arab
leaders in return for their support during the war. The result was mounting
resistance to the Mandate by Palestinian Arabs, followed by resort to violence
by the Jewish community as the Second World War drew to a
close.
After a quarter of a century
of the Mandate, Great Britain submitted what had become "the Palestine problem"
to the United Nations on the ground that the Mandatory Power was faced with
conflicting obligations that had proved irreconcilable. At this point, when the
United Nations itself was hardly two years old, violence ravaged Palestine.
After investigating various alternatives the United Nations proposed the
partitioning of Palestine into two independent States, one Palestinian Arab and
the other Jewish, with Jerusalem internationalized. The partition plan did not
bring peace to Palestine, and the prevailing violence spread into a Middle East
war halted only by United Nations action. One of the two States envisaged in the
partition plan proclaimed its independence as Israel and, in a series of
successive wars, its territorial control expanded to occupy all of Palestine.
The Palestinian Arab State envisaged in the partition plan never appeared on the
world's map and, over the following 30 years, the Palestinian people have
struggled for their lost rights.
The
Palestine problem quickly widened into the Middle East dispute between the Arab
States and Israel. From 1948 there have been wars and destruction, forcing
millions of Palestinians into exile, and engaging the United Nations in a
continuing search for a solution to a problem which came to possess the
potential of a major source of danger for world peace.
In the course of this search, a large majority of States
Members of the United Nations have recognized that the Palestine issue continues
to lie at the heart of the Middle East problem, the most serious threat to peace
with which the United Nations must contend. Recognition is spreading in world
opinion that the Palestinian people must be assured its inherent inalienable
right of national self-determination for peace to be restored.
In 1947 the United Nations accepted
the responsibility of finding a just solution for the Palestine issue, and still
grapples with this task today. Decades of strife and politico-legal arguments
have clouded the basic issues and have obscured the origins and evolution of the
Palestine problem, which this study attempts to clarify.
I. THE BEGINNINGS OF THE
PALESTINE ISSUE
The
disintegration of the Ottoman Empire
By the turn of the century, the "Eastern question" was a
predominant concern of European diplomacy, as the Great Powers manoeuvred to
establish control or spheres of influence over territories of the declining
Ottoman Empire. "The dynamics of the Eastern question thus lay in Europe"
1/ and the issue finally was resolved by the defeat of
Turkey in the First World War.
While
the war was at its height and the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire became
clearly imminent, the Entente Powers already were negotiating over rival
territorial ambitions. In 1916 negotiations between Britain, France and Russia,
later also including Italy, led to the secret Sykes-Picot agreement on the
allocation of Ottoman Arab territories to spheres of influence of the European
Powers (annex I). Since places sacred to three world religions were located
there, an international régime was initially envisaged for Palestine which,
however, eventually was to come under British control.
Although the European Powers sought to establish spheres
of influence, they recognized that sovereignty would rest with the rulers and
people of the Arab territories, and the Sykes-Picot agreement specified
recognition of an "independent Arab State" or "confederation of Arab States".
This reflected the recognition of regional realities, since the force of
emergent Arab nationalism constituted a major challenge to the supra-national
Ottoman Empire. Arab nationalism sought manifestation in the form of sovereign,
independent national States on the European model. Great Britain's aims in the
war linked with these Arab national aspirations and led to assurances of
sovereign independence for the Arab peoples after the defeat of the Axis Powers.
Anglo-Arab understandings on Arab
independence
These assurances
appear in correspondence 2/ during
1915-1916 between Sir Henry McMahon, British High Commissioner in Egypt, and
Sherif Husain, Emir of Mecca, who held the special status of the Keeper of
Islam's most holy cities. He thus acted as a representative of the Arab peoples,
although not exercising formal political suzerainty over them all.
In the course of the protracted
correspondence, the Sherif unequivocally demanded "independence of the Arab
countries", specifying in detail the boundaries of the territories in question,
which clearly included Palestine. McMahon confirmed that "Great Britain is
prepared to recognize and support the independence of the Arabs in all the
regions within the limits demanded by the Sherif of Mecca".
To assuage Arab apprehensions aroused by the revelation
of the Sykes-Picot agreement by the Soviet Government after the 1917 revolution,
and by certain conflicting statements of British policy (see sect. II below),
further assurances followed concerning the future of Arab territories.
A special message (of 4 January
1918) from the British Government, carried personally by Commander David George
Hogarth to Sherif Husain, stated that "the Entente Powers are determined that
the Arab race shall be given full opportunity of once again forming a nation in
the world ... So far as Palestine is concerned, we are determined that no people
shall be subject to another". 3/
Six months
after General Allenby's forces had occupied Jerusalem, another declaration,
referring to "areas formerly under Ottoman dominion, occupied by the Allied
Forces during the present war", announced "... the wish and desire of His
Majesty's Government that the future government of these regions should be based
upon the principle of the consent of the governed, and this policy has and will
continue to have support of His Majesty's Government". 4/
A joint
Anglo-French declaration (7 November 1918) was more exhaustive and specific,
affecting both British and French spheres of interest (the term "Syria" still
being considered to include Lebanon and Palestine):
"The object aimed at by France and Great Britain in
prosecuting in the East the War let loose by the ambition of Germany is the
complete and definite emancipation of the [Arab] peoples and the establishment
of national governments and administrations deriving their authority from the
initiative and free choice of the indigenous populations.
"In order to carry out these intentions,
France and Great Britain are at one in encouraging and assisting the
establishment of the indigenous governments and administrations in Syria and
Mesopotamia now liberated by the Allies, and in the territories the liberation
of which they are engaged in securing, and recognizing these as soon as they
are actually established." 5/
The
Committee on the Husain-McMahon correspondence
While these British assurances of independence to the
Arabs were in unequivocal terms, the British position, since the end of the war,
had been that Palestine had been excluded, an assertion contested by Palestinian
and Arab leaders.
During the
Husain-McMahon correspondence, the British made a determined effort to exclude
certain areas from the territories to achieve independence, on the grounds that
"the interests of our ally, France, are involved". Sherif Husain reluctantly
agreed to suspend, but not surrender, Arab claims for independence to that area,
stating that "the eminent minister should be sure that, at the first opportunity
after this war is finished, we shall ask you (from what we avert our eyes today)
for what we now leave to France in Beirut and its coasts".
The area in question had been described by McMahon as
"portions of Syria lying to the west of the districts of Damascus, Homs, Hama
and Aleppo". This would appear to correspond to the coastal areas of present-day
Syria and the northern part of Lebanon (map at annex II), where French interests
converge. Prima facie it does not appear to cover Palestine, a known,
identifiable land with an ancient history, sacred to the three great
monotheistic religions, and which, under the Ottomans, approximated to the
independent sanjak of Jerusalem and the sanjaks of Acre
and Balqa (map at annex III).
In
1939, shortly after the Husain-McMahon papers were made public, a committee
consisting of both British and Arab representatives was set up to consider this
specific issue. Both sides reiterated their respective interpretations of the
Husain-McMahon letters and were unable to reach an agreed view, but the British
delegation conceded that the Arab
"... contentions relating to the meaning of
the phrase 'portions of Syria lying to the west of the districts of Damascus,
Hama, Homs and Aleppo' have greater force than has appeared hitherto ... they
agree that Palestine was included in the area claimed by the Sherif of Mecca
in his letter of 14 July 1915, and that unless Palestine was excluded from
that area later in the correspondence it must be regarded as having been
included in the area which Great Britain was to recognize and support the
independence of the Arabs. They maintain that on a proper construction of the
correspondence Palestine was in fact excluded. But they agree that the
language in which its exclusion was expressed was not so specific and
unmistakable as it was thought to be at the time". 6/
Behind the
diplomatic language there appears recognition that Palestine was not
unequivocally excluded from the British pledges of independence. The report,
referring to the Husain-McMahon papers as well as the British and Anglo-French
declaration to the Arabs after the issue of the Balfour Declaration, concludes:
"In the opinion of the Committee it is,
however, evident from these statements that His Majesty's Government were not
free to dispose of Palestine without regard to the wishes and interests of the
inhabitants of Palestine, and that these statements must all be taken into
account in any attempt to estimate the responsibilities which - upon any
interpretation of the correspondence - His Majesty's Government have incurred
towards those inhabitants as a result of the correspondence". 7/
On 17 April
1974, The Times of London published excerpts from a secret memorandum
prepared by the Political Intelligence Department of the British Foreign Office
for the use of the British delegation to the Paris peace conference. The
reference to Palestine is as follows:
"With regard to Palestine, His Majesty's
Government are committed by Sir Henry McMahon's letter to the Sherif on
October 24, 1915, to its inclusion in the boundaries of Arab independence ...
but they have stated their policy regarding the Palestine Holy Place and
Zionist colonization in their message to him of January 4,
1918."
An appendix to the memorandum
notes:
"The whole of Palestine ... lies within the
limits which His Majesty's Government have pledged themselves to Sherif Husain
that they will recognize and uphold the independence of the Arabs."
Professor Arnold J. Toynbee, who
dealt with the Palestine question as a member of the British Foreign Office at
the time of the Peace Conference, wrote in 1968:
"... as I interpret the Hussein-McMahon
correspondence, Palestine had not been excepted by the British Government from
the area in which they had pledged themselves to King Hussein to recognize and
support Arab independence. The Palestinian Arabs could therefore reasonably
assume that Britain was pledged to prepare Palestine for becoming an
independent Arab state." 8/
These
acknowledgements that the British Government had not possessed the right "to
dispose of Palestine" appeared decades after the commitments to the Arabs not
only had been infringed by the Sykes-Picot agreement but, in disregard of the
inherent rights and the wishes of the Palestinian people, the British Government
had given Zionist leaders separate assurances regarding the establishment of a
"national home for the Jewish people in Palestine", an undertaking that sowed
the seeds of prolonged conflict in Palestine.
II. THE BALFOUR
DECLARATION
These undertakings
to the Zionist Organization were made known in a declaration issued by the
British Foreign Secretary, Sir Arthur James Balfour, (whose name it has borne
since):
"Foreign Office, 2 November 1917
"Dear Lord Rothschild,
I have much pleasure in conveying to you on behalf of
His Majesty's Government the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish
Zionist aspirations, which has been submitted to and approved by the Cabinet:
'His Majesty's Government view
with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish
people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of
this object, 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.'
I should be grateful if
you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.
Yours sincerely, Arthur James Balfour".
The pivotal role of the Balfour Declaration in virtually
every phase of the Palestinian issue cannot be exaggerated. The Declaration,
which determined the direction of subsequent developments in Palestine, was
incorporated in the Mandate. Its implementation brought Arab opposition and
revolt. It caused unending difficulties for the Mandatory in the last stages
pitting British, Jews and Arabs against each other. It ultimately led to
partition and to the problem as it exists today. Any understanding of the
Palestine issue, therefore, requires some examination of this Declaration which
can be considered the root of the problem of Palestine.
The historical background of the "Jewish national home"
concept
The Balfour Declaration
was the direct outcome of a sustained effort by the Zionist Organization to
establish a Jewish State in Palestine.
Moved by anti-Semitism and pogroms in Eastern Europe,
Theodor Herzl, founder of the Zionist movement, wrote in Der Judenstaat
(The Jewish State) in 1896:
"The Idea which I have developed in this
pamphlet is a very old one: it is the restoration of the Jewish
State.
...
Let the sovereignty be granted us over a portion of the
globe large enough to satisfy the rightful requirements of a nation, the rest
we shall manage for ourselves". 9/
Herzl
mentioned Palestine and Argentina but, the following year, the first Zionist
Congress held in Basle declared that the goal of zionism was to "create for the
Jewish people a home in Palestine secured by public law". Herzl
wrote:
"Were I to sum up the Basle Congress in a
word - which I shall guard against pronouncing publicly - it would be this: at
Basle I founded the Jewish State ... If I said this out loud today, I would be
answered by universal laughter. Perhaps in 5 years and certainly in 50
everyone will know it." 10/
Following
rejection by the Ottoman authorities of his ideas, Herzl approached the British,
German, Belgian and Italian Governments and such far-flung locations as Cyprus,
East Africa and the Congo were considered, but did not materialize. The creation
of a Jewish State in Palestine became the avowed aim of zionism, zealously
pressed by Dr. Chaim Weizmann when he came to head the movement.
Since Palestine was an integral part
of the Ottoman Empire, the Zionist Organization was cautious in declaring its
aims, particularly after the young Turk revolution. The term "State" was
avoided, "homeland" being used instead.
According to a Herzl associate, Max Nordau:
"I did my best to persuade the claimants of
the Jewish State in Palestine that we might find a circumlocution that would
express all we meant, but would say it in a way so as to avoid provoking the
Turkish rulers of the coveted land. I suggested "Heimstätte" as a synonym for
"State" ... This is the history of the much commented expression. It was
equivocal, but we all understood what it meant. To us it signified
"Judenstaat" then and it signifies the same now". 11/
In Herzl's
words:
"No need to worry [about the phraseology].
The people will read it as 'Jewish State' anyhow". 12/
Leonard
Stein, authoritative historian of zionism, writes:
"If their distrust of zionism was to be
dispelled, there must be no more talk of a Charter or, even worse, of an
international guarantee; still less must there be any room for the suspicion
that the real purpose of the Zionist movement was to detach Palestine from
Turkey and turn it into a Jewish State. However reluctant they might be to
acknowledge that Herzl's ideas were outmoded, even the 'political' Zionists
were forced to recognize that, without abandoning the essence of aspirations
the movement must change its tactics". 13/
The words
of another eminent Zionist historian, who participated in the drafting of the
Declaration, conform to this tactic:
"It has been said and is still being
obstinately repeated by anti-Zionists again and again, that zionism aims at
the creation of an independent 'Jewish State'. But this is wholly fallacious.
The 'Jewish State' was never part of the Zionist programme". 14/
But the
direction was clear - the goal of zionism from the start was the establishment
of a Jewish State in Palestine. The rights of the people of Palestine themselves
received no attention in these plans.
What the political concept of a Jewish State in Palestine
needed to give it reality was to transfer people to Palestine. The religious and
spiritual solidarity of the Jews in the Diaspora with the Holy Land had survived
over the centuries. Despite the anti-Semitism in Europe, only small groups had
emigrated to Palestine to settle in Palestine for purely religious sentiments.
They numbered perhaps 50,000 at the end of the nineteenth century, and
personified, or symbolized, the Jewish link to Palestine which was, in essence,
spiritual.
The Zionists drew on this
ancient spiritual potential to build a political movement. A stirring slogan was
spread abroad:
"A land without people for a
people without land"
ignoring the
fact that the Palestinians themselves, well over half a million at the turn of
the century, lived in Palestine, that it was their home. The great Zionist
humanist, Ahad Ha'am warned against the violation of the rights of the
Palestinian people, and his words are well known in the literature of Palestine.
"... Ahad Ha'am warned that the settlers must
under no circumstances arouse the wrath of the natives ... 'Yet what do our
brethren do in Palestine? Just the very opposite! Serfs they were in the lands
of the Diaspora and suddenly they find themselves in unrestricted freedom and
this change has awakened in them an inclination to despotism. They treat the
Arabs with hostility and cruelty, deprive them of their rights, offend them
without cause and even boast of these deeds; and nobody among us opposes this
despicable and dangerous inclination ...'
"... The same lack of understanding he found in the
boycott of Arab labour proclaimed by Jewish labour ... 'Apart from the
political danger, I can't put up with the idea that our brethren are morally
capable of behaving in such a way to humans of another people, and unwittingly
the thought comes to my mind: if it is so now, what will be our relation to
the others if in truth we shall achieve at the end of times power in Eretz
Yisrael? And if this be the "Messiah": I do not wish to see his
coming.'
"Ahad Ha'am returned to
the Arab problem ... in February 1914 ... '[the Zionists] wax angry towards
those who remind them that there is still another people in Eretz Yisrael that
has been living there and does not intend at all to leave its place. In a
future when this illusion will have been torn from their hearts and they will
look with open eyes upon the reality as it is, they will certainly understand
how important this question is and how great our duty to work for its
solution'." 15/
But Ahad
Ha'am's plea went unheeded as political zionism set about to realize its goal of
a Jewish State.
Zionist efforts
directed at the British Government
Dr. Weizmann's approaches to various Governments led him
to conclude that zionism's strongest hopes for a Jewish State in Palestine,
tentatively destined for internationalization under the Sykes-Picot agreement,
lay with Great Britain. Links with British leaders were established, notably
with Lloyd George, a future Prime Minister, Arthur Balfour, a future Foreign
Secretary, Herbert Samuel, a future High Commissioner of Palestine, and Mark
Sykes. In 1915, Samuel in a memorandum entitled The Future of Palestine, proposed:
"... the British annexation of Palestine
[where] we might plant 3 or 4 million European Jews". 16/
Weizmann
describes the links built up with British leaders, commenting in particular
that:
"One of our greatest finds was Sir Mark
Sykes, Chief Secretary of the War Cabinet ... I cannot say enough regarding
the services rendered us by Sykes. It was he who guided our work into more
official channels. He belonged to the secretariat of the War Cabinet, which
contained, among others, Leopold Amery, Ormsby-Gore and Ronald Storrs. If it
had not been for the counsel of men like Sykes we, with our inexperience in
delicate diplomatic negotiations, would undoubtedly have committed many
dangerous blunders. The need for such counsel will become evident [in] the
complications which already, at that time, surrounded the status of the Near
East." 17/
Zionist
leaders stressed the strategic advantages to Britain of a Jewish State in
Palestine. In a letter written in 1914 to a sympathizer, Weizmann said:
"... should Palestine fall within the British
sphere of influence, and should Britain encourage a Jewish settlement there,
as a British dependency, we could have in 20 to 30 years a million Jews out
there - perhaps more; they would ... form a very effective guard for the Suez
Canal." 18/
Another
Weizmann letter of 1916 reads:
"... The British Cabinet is not only
sympathetic toward the Palestinian aspirations of the Jews, but would like to
see these aspirations realized ...
"England ... would have in the Jews the best possible
friends, who would be the best national interpreters of ideas in the eastern
countries and would serve as a bridge between the two civilizations. That
again is not a material argument, but certainly it ought to carry great weight
with any politician who likes to look 50 years ahead." 19/
Sykes was
especially valuable in helping Weizmann and his colleagues, particularly Nahum
Sokolow, in trying to persuade France to renounce its residual claims in the
internationalized Jerusalem agreed upon in the Sykes-Picot accord. Original
French ambitions had embraced all of Syria, including Palestine, to whose
internationalization it had agreed only on strong British insistence. Sykes
advised that "the Zionists should approach M. Picot and convince the French"
20/ to relinquish their claims and accompanied Sokolow to
Paris, reporting progress of the mission to the Foreign Office. Sokolow told
Picot that "the Jews had long had in mind the sovereignty of the British
Government" 21/ but Picot demurred, pointing to the interests of other
Governments.
Stein recounts how the
French objections were countered:
"The plan of campaign now began to take
shape. Weizmann was to join Sykes in Egypt and go on with him to Palestine
when the time was ripe. Sokolow was to see what he could do to create a more
favourable atmosphere in Paris, where the Government had been disinclined to
take the Zionists seriously and the leading Jews for the most part openly
hostile. Sokolow's mission was in the end to take him to Rome as well as
Paris, but this was not originally planned or foreseen. An organized effort
was to be made to secure the support of the American and Russian Zionists,
and, if possible, of their Governments, for what was now to be put forward
openly as the Zionist programme - the building up of a Jewish Commonwealth in
Palestine under the aegis of Great Britain. Sykes, for his part, was getting
ready to break it to Picot that Great Britain meant to insist on some form of
British suzerainty in Palestine and that the French would have to reconcile
themselves to the relinquishment of their claims". 22/
Eventually
the French were persuaded to accept "the development of Jewish colonization in
Palestine" 23/ and let Palestine pass into the British sphere of
control.
The drafting of the
Declaration
Weizmann
writes:
"The time had come, therefore, to take
action, to press for a declaration of policy in regard to Palestine on the
part of the British Government; and toward the end of January 1917, I
submitted to Sir Mark Sykes the memorandum prepared by our committee, and had
several preliminary conferences with him ...
"The document was called: 'Outline of Programme for the
Jewish Resettlement of Palestine in accordance with the Aspirations of the
Zionist movement'. Its first point had to do with national
recognition:
"The Jewish population
of Palestine (which in the programme shall be taken to mean both present and
future Jewish population), shall be officially recognized by the Suzerain
Government as the Jewish Nation, and shall enjoy in that country full civic,
national and political rights. The Suzerain Government recognizes the
desirability and necessity of a Jewish resettlement of Palestine."
24/
Stein
describes the initiation of the consultations between the British Government and
the Zionist Organization:
"On 2 February 1917 a meeting of
representative Zionists in London was attended by Sir Mark Sykes ...
ostensibly present in his private capacity, but he occupied an influential
position at the Foreign Office, and was playing an important part in shaping
British policy in the Middle East. The conference of February 2nd was, in
fact, the starting point of a prolonged exchange of views between the Zionist
Organization and the British Government ... In July 1917, a formula for a
proposed declaration was submitted to the Government by the Zionist
representatives. This formula recognized Palestine as 'the national home of
the Jewish people' and provided for the establishment of a 'Jewish National
Colonising Corporation for the resettlement and economic development of the
country'. The Government replied with an alternative draft which formed the
basis of ... the Balfour Declaration." 25/
Actually
there were six drafts exchanged and discussed between the British Government and
the Zionist movement, United States assent also being obtained before the
British Foreign Secretary issued the final text of the Declaration in November
1917. The process has been described by more than one authority. 26/ There was no
thought of consulting the Palestinians.
The final version of the Declaration received the most
careful examination. The Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, is quoted as saying
that the Declaration "... was prepared after much consideration, not merely of
its policy but of its actual wording". 27/ Jeffries
says:
"... The first thing of all to be said of the
Balfour Declaration is that it was a pronouncement which was weighed to the
last pennyweight before it was issued. There was but sixty-seven words in it,
and each of these ... was considered at length before it was passed into the
text". 27/
This
meticulous drafting process assumes significance precisely because the result of
this lengthy and careful drafting was a statement remarkable for the ambiguities
it carried. To quote Stein:
"What were the Zionists being promised? The
language of the Declaration was studiously vague, and neither on the British
nor on the Zionist side was there any disposition, at that time, to probe
deeply into its meaning - still less was there any agreed interpretation."
28/
Although
the Declaration had fallen short of Zionist hopes, it was considered politic not
to press further. Dr. Weizmann writes:
"It is one of the 'ifs' of history whether we
should have been intransigent, and stood by our guns. Should we then have
obtained a better statement or would the Government have wearied of these
internal Jewish divisions and dropped the whole matter? Our judgement was to
accept". 29/
The
"safeguards" in the Declaration
Yet the British Government had exercised caution where
the original Zionist draft, sent to Balfour by Lord Rothschild, had proposed
that "His Majesty's Government accept(s) the principle that Palestine should be
reconstituted as the national home of the Jewish people", 30/ the official
statement stated that the Government view(s) with favour the establishment of a
national home for the Jewish people". There is a significant difference - it
would be a home, not the home, and
would be established not reconstituted, the latter term implying a legal right.
The original Zionist draft had
proposed that "His Majesty's Government will use its best endeavours to secure
the achievements of this object, and will discuss the necessary methods and
means with the Zionist Organization". 30/ The official
version stated that the Government "will use their best endeavours to facilitate
the achievement of this object". The formal recognition of the Zionist
Organization as an authority, implicit in the Zionist draft, had been dropped.
Weizmann was sensitive to these significant changes:
"A comparison of the two texts - the one
approved by the Foreign Office and the Prime Minister, and the one adopted on
4 October, after Montagu's attack - shows a painful recession from what the
Government itself was prepared to offer. The first declares that "Palestine
should be reconstituted as the national home of the Jewish people". The second
speaks of "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish
race". The first adds only that the "Government will use its best endeavours
to secure the achievement of this object and will discuss the necessary
methods with the Zionist Organization"; the second introduced the subject of
the "civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities" in
such a fashion as to impute possible oppressive intentions to the Jews, and
can be interpreted to mean such limitations on our work as completely to
cripple it". 31/
One of
Weizmann's concerns was over a "safeguard" clause concerning the interests of
the Palestinian people. Its wording is remarkable, particularly when the careful
drafting of the Declaration's language is recalled. This clause does not mention
the Palestinian or Arab people, whether Christian or Muslim, who compromised
over 90 per cent of the population of Palestine, and who owned about 97 per cent
of its land. Instead, the Declaration refers to them as the "existing non-Jewish
communities in Palestine", a formulation which has been likened to calling "the
multitude the non-few" or the British people "the non-Continental communities in
Great Britain". 32/
Further, at
a time when the principle of self-determination was being accorded recognition
it was being denied to the people of Palestine. The Declaration's language seeks
to prevent actions "which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of the
existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine", but is singularly silent on their
more fundamental political rights.
This is of particular interest because the concept of
political rights is present in the very next phrase, providing "... that nothing
shall be done which may prejudice ... the rights and political status enjoyed by
Jews in any other country". This second "safeguard" had not been proposed by the
Zionist Organization, and is believed to have been the outcome of Sir Edwin
Montagu's apprehensions over the repercussions of the Declaration on Jews who
chose to remain in their own countries.
The meaning of the Balfour
Declaration
An eminent authority
in international law, Professor W. T. Mallison, writes:
"There is no doubt concerning the centrality
of the Balfour Declaration in the Zionist-Israel juridical claims. The issue
of its accurate juridical interpretation is therefore, one of very substantial
importance. In view of these considerations, it is necessary to use the most
reliable evidence, the primary public law source materials, for
interpretational purposes. Among these sources, the negotiating history of the
Declaration including the various negotiating positions, as well as the final
official text, are essential". 33/
He then
summarizes the negotiating objectives of both the British Government and the
Zionist Organization.
"The British Government had two principal
political objectives during the period of the negotiations. The first was to
win the war, and the second was to maximize the British power position through
the ensuing peace settlement ...
"The consistent Zionist objectives before and during
the negotiations were to obtain public law authority for their territorial
ambitions ...
"The Zionists entered
the negotiations with the expectations of obtaining their full territorial
demands. These expectations, however, were necessarily limited by two
objective factors. The first was that the number of Jews in Palestine during
the World War was only a small fraction of the entire population of the
country. The second was that the Zionists could not expect anything from the
British Government which did not accord with its actual or supposed imperial
interests". 34/
Another
authority states that the fact that the Declaration was:
"A definite contract between the British
Government and Jewry represented by the Zionists is beyond question. In spirit
it is a pledge that in return for service to be rendered by Jewry, the British
Government would 'use their best endeavours' to secure the execution of a
certain definite policy in Palestine". 35/
The
reactions to the Declaration
The
Balfour Declaration became a highly controversial document. It disturbed those
Jewish circles who were not in favour of the Zionist aim of the creation of a
Jewish State (the "internal divisions" referred to by Weizmann). Many Jewish
communities of non-Zionist convictions regarded themselves as nationals of their
countries, and the concept of a "Jewish national home" created strong conflicts
of loyalties, notwithstanding the clause in the Declaration assuring retention
of their status in their respective countries.
Foremost among Jewish critics was Sir Edwin Montagu,
Secretary of State for India and the only Jewish member of the British Cabinet.
His dissent from the political nature of Zionist aims stemmed from conviction
that Judaism was a universal faith, distinct from nationality, and that in the
era of the modern nation-State the Jewish people did not constitute a nation. He
questioned the credentials of the Zionist Organization to speak for all Jews. In
secret memoranda (later made public) he wrote:
"Zionism has always seemed to me to be a
mischievous political creed, untenable by any patriotic citizen of the United
Kingdom ... I have always understood that those who indulged in this creed
were largely animated by the restrictions upon and refusal of liberty to Jews
in Russia. But at the very time when these Jews have been acknowledged as
Jewish Russians and given all liberties, it seems to be inconceivable that
zionism should be officially recognized by the British Government, and that
Mr. Balfour should be authorized to say that Palestine was to be reconstituted
as the 'national home of the Jewish people'. I do not know what this involves,
but I assume that it means that Mohammedans and Christians are to make way for
the Jews, and that the Jews should be put in all positions of preference and
should be peculiarly associated with Palestine in the same way that England is
with the English or France with the French, that Turks and other Mohammedans
in Palestine will be regarded as foreigners, just in the same way as Jews will
hereafter be treated as foreigners in every country but Palestine ... When the
Jews are told that Palestine is their national home, every country will
immediately desire to get rid of its Jewish citizens, and you will find a
population in Palestine driving out its present inhabitants, taking all the
best in the country ...
"I deny
that Palestine is today associated with the Jews or properly to be regarded as
a fit place for them to live in. The Ten Commandments were delivered to the
Jews on Sinai. It is quite true that Palestine plays a large part in Jewish
history, but so it does in modern Mohammedan history, and, after the time of
the Jews, surely it plays a larger part than any other country in Christian
history ...
"... When the Jew has a
national home, surely it follows that the impetus to deprive us of the rights
of British citizenship must be enormously increased. Palestine will become the
world's ghetto. Why should the Russian give the Jew equal rights? His national
home is Palestine". 36/
This was
very much a minority view in the British Government whose policy was summed up
by Prime Minister Lloyd George:
"There can be no doubt as to what the
[Imperial War] Cabinet then had in their minds. It was not their idea that a
Jewish State should be set up immediately by the Peace Treaty without
reference to the wishes of the majority of the inhabitants. On the other hand,
it was contemplated that, when the time arrived for according representative
institutions to Palestine, if the Jews had meanwhile responded to the
opportunity afforded them and had become a definite majority of the
inhabitants, then Palestine would thus become a Jewish Commonwealth. The
notion that Jewish immigration would have to be artificially restricted in
order that the Jews should be a permanent minority never entered the head of
anyone engaged in framing the policy. That would have been regarded as unjust
and as a fraud on the people to whom we were appealing". 37/
The
implication is clear - the achievement of a Jewish majority would assure the
establishment of a Jewish State. The fundamental question of the rights of the
Palestinians themselves did not enter into the picture.
The implications of the
Declaration
Three features of the
Balfour Declaration draw attention.
One is that evidently it was not in accordance with the
spirit of the pledges of independence given to the Arabs both before and after
it was issued. The second is that the disposition of Palestine was determined in
close consultation with a political organization whose declared aim was to
settle non-Palestinians in Palestine. Not only did this ignore the interests of
the native Palestinians, but it was a deliberate violation of their rights (see
sect. IV below). The third is that through the Declaration the British
Government made commitments to the Zionist Organization regarding the land of
the Palestinians at a moment when it was still formally part of the Ottoman
Empire.
One authority writes:
"The most significant and incontrovertible
fact is, however, that by itself the Declaration was legally impotent. For
Great Britain had no sovereign rights over Palestine, it had no proprietary
interest, it had no authority to dispose of the land. The Declaration was
merely a statement of British intentions and no more". 38/
Other
authorities in international law have also held the Declaration to be legally
invalid 39/ but this was not an issue in 1917, when the Balfour
Declaration became official British policy for the future of Palestine. The
ambiguities and contradictions within the Declaration contributed heavily
towards the conflict of goals and expectations that arose between the
Palestinian Arabs and the non-Palestinian Jews. The Zionist Organization was to
use the assurances for "a national home for the Jewish people" to press its
plans for the colonization of Palestine on the basis of the Balfour Declaration
and its implementation through the League of Nations Mandates System. The
Palestinian people were to resist these efforts, since their fundamental
political right to self-determination had been denied, and their land was to
become the object of colonization from abroad during the period it was under a
League of Nations Mandate.
III. THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS
MANDATES
Arab nationalism
and Great Power plans
Nationalist
aspirations in the Arab world, including Palestine, were ascendant when the war
ended. One of the foremost authorities on Middle Eastern affairs, Professor J.
C. Hurewitz, writes:
"The demise of the Ottoman Empire, in fact,
'resolved' the Eastern question. Yet while Britain and France inherited the
political controls they significantly did not annex Near and Middle East
territory outright. Mandates and preferential alliances were no more than
provisional arrangements, and the presence of the Western Powers in various
guises stimulated the growth of local nationalism dedicated to the early
realization of full sovereignty." 40/
A major
question facing the victorious European Powers was the political status of
territories and peoples formerly under Ottoman rule. Of President Wilson's
"Fourteen Points" outlining the framework of the peace agreements to be
negotiated, the one dealing with self-determination was directly applicable to
Palestine:
"The Turkish portions of the present Ottoman
Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities
which are now under Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted security of
life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development
..."
The Allied Powers, however,
decided at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 to bring these territories under
the mandates system introduced by the Covenant of the League of Nations, signed
on 28 June 1919, as an integral part of the Treaty of Versailles which concluded
peace with Germany.
The Covenant
of the League of Nations
The
League of Nations was a body sui
generis, established by an unprecedented
agreement by the victorious States of the post-war world to establish their
concept of order in international relations. The place of the colonies ruled by
the victorious States and the territories detached from the defeated States was
a special problem in this order.
Colonialism then was still part of the international
system, although President Wilson's programme, a liberal landmark in the
development of anti-colonialism, acknowledged that the concept of the right of
self-determination applied equally to the non-Western part of
humanity:
"A free, open-minded and absolutely impartial
adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the
principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests
of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims
of the Government whose title is to be determined."
The League of Nations, designed to respond to the
prevailing order, adopted the mandates concept, an innovation in the
international system, as a way to accommodate the demands of the colonial age
with the moral and political need to acknowledge the rights of the colonized.
Article 22 (full text at annex IV)
of the Covenant established the Mandates System, founded on the concept of the
development of such territories under the "tutelage ... of advanced nations"
formed "a sacred trust of civilization". The degree of tutelage was to depend on
the extent of political maturity of the territory concerned. The most developed
would be classified as 'A' Mandates, the less developed as 'B', and the least
developed as 'C'.
The character of
the Arab peoples, themselves inheritors of an ancient and advanced civilization,
could not but be recognized, and the clauses directly applied to Arab lands as
class 'A' Mandates read:
"Certain communities formerly belonging to
the Turkish Empire have reached a stage of development where their existence
as independent nations can be provisionally recognized subject to the
rendering of administrative advice and assistance by a Mandatory until such
time as they are able to stand alone. The wishes of these communities must be
a principal consideration in the selection of the
Mandatory."
Palestine was in no
manner excluded from these provisions.
The allocation of Arab
territories
Article 22 laid down
no rules for the selection of the Mandatory Powers or for the distribution of
mandates between them. Turkey and Germany were simply made to renounce their
claims to sovereignty over the territories whose distribution was to be decided
by the Allied Powers. Germany's divestiture of titles was codified in the Treaty
of Versailles (article 119). In the case of Turkey, such renunciation was
provided for in the Treaty of Sevres of 1920 (article 132) but, since that
treaty never came into force, the renunciation of Turkish claims over
non-Turkish territories was formalized in the Treaty of Lausanne. The treaties
of Versailles and of Lausanne contained explicit provisions empowering the
Allied Powers to apportion the "freed" territories as their mandates.
The former German territories were
allotted by a decision of the Supreme Council of the Allied Powers on 7 May
1919, shortly after the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. The former Turkish
territories, however, were divided at the Conference of San Remo on 25 April
1920, while a legal state of war with Turkey still existed, three years before
the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne. The administration of Syria and Lebanon
was awarded to France, and that of Palestine and Transjordan and of Mesopotamia
(Iraq) to Great Britain.
The
working of the Mandates System
All the mandates over Arab countries, including
Palestine, were treated as class 'A' Mandates, applicable to territories whose
independence had been provisionally recognized in the Covenant of the League of
Nations. The various mandate instruments were drafted by the Mandatory Powers
concerned but subject to the approval of the League of Nations.
The mandate for Iraq, while in the
process of being drafted, was amended to provide for the signature of a treaty
between Britain and Iraq, which was concluded in 1922. This was supplemented by
further agreements, all approved by the League as meeting with the requirements
of article 22 of the Covenant. Iraq obtained formal independence on 3 October
1932.
The Mandate for Syria and
Lebanon did not provide for any special treatment as in the case of Iraq. Both
territories were governed under the full control of France until the Mandate was
terminated. Lebanon achieved full independence on 22 November 1943 and Syria on
1 January 1944.
Palestine and
Transjordan (as it was then called) were included in the same Mandate but
treated as distinct territories. Article 25 of the Palestine Mandate empowered
Great Britain to withhold, with the League's approval, the implementation of any
provision of the Mandate in Transjordan. On the request of the British
Government the Council of the League, on 16 September 1922, passed a resolution
effectively approving a separate administration for Transjordan. This separate
administration continued until the territory attained independence as the
Kingdom of Jordan on 22 March 1946.
Only in the case of Palestine did the Mandate, with its
inherent contradictions, lead not to the independence provisionally recognized
in the Covenant, but towards conflict that was to continue six decades
later.
IV. PALESTINE
MANDATED
The contradictions
inherent in the Mandate for Palestine arose from the incorporation in it of the
Balfour Declaration. The importance of gaining international support for a
Jewish State was recognized from the outset for several reasons:
(a) To consolidate divergent Jewish opinion
behind Zionist policies;
(b) To
draw the support of European Powers to harmonize with British
policy;
(c) To obtain some form of
international approval for the enterprise.
Weizmann is
quoting as stating that the effort of zionism must be "... to make the Jewish
question an international one. It means going to the nations and saying, 'we
need your help to achieve our aim'". 41/
The
Zionist Commission
The first move
was the dispatch to Palestine in April 1918 of a Zionist Commission consisting
of Dr. Weizmann and Zionist representatives from France and Italy, accompanied
by British officials. The telegram to the British High Commission in Egypt
outlined its task:
"... object of Commission is to carry out ...
any steps required to give effect to government declaration in favour of the
establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people
...
"Among the most important
functions of the Commission will be the establishment of good relations with
the Arabs and other non-Jewish communities in Palestine, and to establish the
Commission as the link between the military authorities and the Jewish
population and Jewish interests in Palestine.
"It is most important that everything should be done to
obtain authority from the Commission in the eyes of the Jewish world, and at
the same time allay Arab suspicions regarding the true aims of zionism. ..."
42/
Although
formally still part of the Ottoman Empire, Palestine was under British military
occupation since December 1917. Palestinian apprehension over the intents of the
Balfour Declaration had been reported to London by the military authorities, and
when the Zionist Commission arrived in Jerusalem, Weizmann wrote the Foreign
Office:
"We were prepared to find a certain amount of
hostility on the part of the Arabs and Syrians, based largely on misconception
of our real aims, and we have always realized that one of our principal duties
would be to dispel misconceptions and to endeavour to arrive at an amicable
understanding with the non-Jewish elements of the population on the basis of
the declared policy of His Majesty's Government. But we find among the Arabs
and Syrians, or certain sections of them, a state of mind which seems to us to
make useful negotiations impossible at the present moment, and so far as we
are aware - though here our information may be incomplete - no official steps
have been taken to bring home to the Arabs and Syrians the fact that His
Majesty's Government has expressed a definite policy with regard to the future
of the Jews in Palestine". 43/
The
Military Governor, Colonel (later Sir) Ronald Storrs, commented:
"I cannot agree that, as Dr. Weizmann would
seem to suggest, it is the business of the military authorities to 'bring home
to the Arabs and Syrians the fact that His Majesty's Government has expressed
a definite policy with regard to the future of the Jews in Palestine'. This
has already been done by Mr. Balfour in London, and by the press throughout
the world. What is wanted is that the Zionists themselves should bring home to
the Arabs and Syrians an exposition at once as accurate and conciliatory as
possible of their real aims and policy in the country;...
"Speaking
myself as a convinced Zionist, I cannot help thinking that the Commission are
lacking in a sense of the dramatic actuality. Palestine, up to now a Moslem
country, has fallen into the hands of a Christian Power which on the eve of
its conquest announced that a considerable portion of its land is to be handed
over for colonization purposes to a nowhere very popular people. The dispatch
of a Commission of these people is subsequently announced ... From the
announcement in the British press until this moment there has been no sign of
a hostile demonstration public or private against a project which if we may
imagine England for Palestine can hardly open for the inhabitants the beatific
vision of a new heaven and a new earth. The Commission was warned in Cairo of
the numerous and grave misconceptions with which their enterprise was regarded
and strongly advised to make a public pronouncement to put an end to those
misconceptions. No such pronouncement has yet been made; ..." 43/
The
Commission completed its stay in Palestine, and the Zionist Organization
prepared itself for the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. Proposals were submitted
to the Foreign Office for consideration at the Conference. Lord Curzon (then
Foreign Secretary and formerly Viceroy of India and Lord President of the
Council) commented to Balfour on these proposals:
"... As for Weizmann and Palestine, I
entertain no doubt that he is out for a Jewish Government, if not at the
moment then in the near future ...
"What all this can mean except Government I do not see.
Indeed a Commonwealth as defined in my dictionary is a 'body politic' a
'State' an 'independent community' a 'republic'.
"I feel tolerably sure therefor that while Weizmann may
say one thing to you, or while you may mean one thing by a national home, he
is out for something quite different. He contemplates a Jewish State, a Jewish
nation, a subordinate population of Arabs, etc. ruled by Jews; the Jews in
possession of the fat of the land, and directing the
Administration.
"He is trying to
effect this behind the screen and under the shelter of British
trusteeship.
"I do not envy those
who wield the latter, when they realize the pressure to which they are certain
to be exposed. ..." 44/
The
Paris Peace Conference
The
delegation of the Hijaz (now Saudi Arabia), led by Sherif Husain's son, Emir
Feisal, was the only Arab delegation at the Conference, and presented the Arab
case for independence, although their credentials were not recognized by all
Arab leaders. Feisal relied heavily for guidance on the British Government,
which had sponsored his participation in the Conference. His position is
described by George Antonius:
"... the pressure to which he was being
subjected in London was telling on him. He felt keenly the insufficiency of
his equipment, his ignorance of English, his unfamiliarity with the methods of
European diplomacy ... It added to his sense of weakness and isolation that he
knew the French to be hostile to his person and to his mission: apart from the
scant courtesy with which he had been treated on his passage through France,
he had had a multitude of signs to show him that his own distrust of the
French was unfeignedly reciprocated. He allowed himself to be persuaded that
his chances of neutralizing the hostility of the French would be greater if he
could see his way to meeting Great Britain's wishes to the fullest possible
extent." 45/
Feisal
apparently did not fully appreciate the implications of Zionist aims. He could
play no significant role in the Conference and, influenced by British officials,
he presented a brief memorandum dated 1 January 1919 to the Paris Peace
Conference, outlining the case for the independence of Arab countries. The
paragraph relating to Palestine reads, in stilted and peculiar
language:
"In Palestine, the enormous majority of the
people are Arabs. The Jews are very close to the Arabs in blood, and there is
no conflict of character between the two races. In principles we are
absolutely at one. Nevertheless, the Arabs cannot risk assuming the
responsibility of holding level the scales in the clash of races and religions
that have, in this one province, so often involved the world in difficulties.
They would wish for the effective super-position of a great trustee, so long
as a representative local administration commended itself by actively
promoting the material prosperity of the country." 46/
It is
evident that although prompted to say that "there is no conflict of character
between the two races ... In principles we are absolutely at one", Feisal in no
manner consented to the establishment of a Jewish State in Palestine, but only
implied acceptance of a mandate.
The
ambiguity in the wording of Feisal's proposals might have stemmed not only from
his unfamiliarity with international diplomacy, but also from the need to retain
flexibility for the political ambitions of Sherif Husain and his sons to extend
their suzerainty over as wide an area as possible. Thus Feisal's claim to being
an interlocuteur valable has been questioned by Palestinian leaders. The
significant point is the absence of representation of the Palestinian principals
in decision on their fate, a characteristic also of subsequent rulings on
Palestine.
Both Weizmann and Sokolow
spoke before the Conference, where the Zionist Organization presented a detailed
memorandum (drafted by a Committee including Samuel and Sykes), whose
introductory portions, suggesting the alienation of Palestinian sovereignty,
read:
"The Zionist Organization respectfully
submits the following draft resolutions for the consideration of the Peace
Conference:
1. The High Contracting
Parties recognize the historic title of the Jewish people to Palestine and the
right of the Jews to reconstitute in Palestine their national home
...
3. The sovereign possession of
Palestine shall be vested in the League of Nations and the Government
entrusted to Great Britain as Mandatory of the League ...
5. The Mandate shall be subject also to the following
special conditions:
(1) Palestine
shall be placed under such political, administrative and economic conditions
as will secure the establishment there of the Jewish national home and
ultimately render possible the creation of an autonomous Commonwealth ..."
47/
However,
during meetings on the mandates question of the Allied Supreme Council,
President Wilson declared that "one of the fundamental principles to which the
United States of America adhered was the consent of the governed" and proposed
the dispatch of an inter-allied commission "... to elucidate the state of
opinion and the soil to be worked on by any mandatory". This proposal
materialized in the "King-Crane" Commission, and it was agreed that its
jurisdiction would include Palestine. 48/
The
King-Crane Commission
For their
own reasons both Britain and France did not nominate members to the Commission.
According to Anthony Nutting, "Britain and France backed out rather than find
themselves confronted by recommendations from their own appointed delegates
which might conflict with their policies". 49/ President
Wilson appointed two Americans, Henry King and Charles
Crane.
Soon after the Commission
arrived in Damascus, Arab nationalists, meeting as the "General Syrian
Congress", including representatives from Lebanon and Palestine, adopted a
resolution to be presented to the Commission. The resolution asked for full
independence for Syria (including Lebanon and Palestine), rejecting any form of
foreign influence or control. The resolution included the first formal
declaration of Arab opposition to the plans being made for Palestine:
"We oppose the pretensions of the Zionists to
create a Jewish Commonwealth in the southern part of Syria, known as
Palestine, and oppose Zionist migration to any part of our country, for we do
not acknowledge their title but consider them a grave peril to our people from
the national, economical, and political points of view. Our Jewish compatriots
shall enjoy our common rights and assume the common responsibilities."
50/
The
Commission's report recommended that, in view of the opposition to French
influence, consideration be given to an American mandate over Syria. The
portions dealing with Palestine recommended:
"... serious modification of the extreme
Zionist programme for Palestine of unlimited immigration of Jews, looking
finally to making Palestine distinctly a Jewish State ..."
Referring to President Wilson's preparation of the
principle of self-determination, the Commission stated:
"If that principle is to rule, and so the
wishes of Palestine's population are to be decisive as to what is to be done
with Palestine, then it is to be remembered that the non-Jewish population of
Palestine - nearly nine-tenths of the whole - are emphatically against the
entire Zionist programme. The tables show that there was no one thing upon
which the population of Palestine were more agreed than upon this. To subject
a people so minded to unlimited Jewish immigration, and to steady financial
and social pressure to surrender the land, would be a gross violation of the
principle just quoted, and of the peoples' rights though it kept within the
forms of law;...
"The Peace Conference should not shut its
eyes to the fact that the anti-Zionist feeling in Palestine and Syria is
intense and not lightly to be flouted. No British Officer consulted by the
Commissioners believed that the Zionist programme could be carried out except
by force of arms. The officers generally thought that a force of not less than
50,000 soldiers would be required even to initiate the programme. That of
itself is evidence of a strong sense of the injustice of the Zionist
programme, on the part of the non-Jewish populations of Palestine and Syria.
Decisions, requiring armies to carry out, are sometimes necessary, but they
are surely not gratuitously to be taken in the interests of a serious
injustice. For the initial claim, often submitted by Zionist representatives,
that they have a "right" to Palestine, based on an occupation of two thousand
years ago, can hardly be seriously considered." 51/
Allied
policy on Palestine
The
Commission's recommendations received little attention and in any case were to
become moot with the United States' decision to stay out of the League.
Meanwhile, the actual policy for Palestine was being given final shape. Balfour
told Justice Brandeis, leader of the Zionist movement in the United
States:
"The situation is further complicated by an
agreement made early in November (1918) by the British and French, and brought
to the President's attention, telling the people of the East that their wishes
would be consulted in the disposition of their future;... Palestine should be
excluded from the terms of reference because the Powers had committed
themselves to the Zionist programme which inevitably excluded numerical
self-determination. Palestine presented a unique situation. We are dealing not
with the wishes of an existing community but are consciously seeking to
reconstitute a new community and definitely building for a numerical majority
in the future ..." 52/
In a
memorandum to Lord Curzon on 11 August 1919, Balfour candidly wrote:
"The contradiction between the letters of the
Covenant and the policy of the Allies is even more flagrant in the case of the
'independent nation' of Palestine than in that of the 'independent nation' of
Syria. For in Palestine we do not propose even to go through the form of
consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country, though the
American Commission has been going through the form of asking what they
are.
"The four Great Powers are committed to zionism. And
zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long traditions,
in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder import than the desires
and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient
land.
"In my opinion that is right.
What I have never been able to understand is how it can be harmonized with the
(Anglo-French) declaration of November 1918, the Covenant, or the instructions
to the Commission of Enquiry.
"I do
not think that zionism will hurt the Arabs, but they will never say they want
it. Whatever be the future of Palestine, it is not now an 'independent
nation', nor is it yet on the way to become one. Whatever deference should be
paid to the view of those living there, the Powers in their selection of a
mandatory do not propose, as I understand the matter, to consult them. In
short, so far as Palestine is concerned, the Powers have made no statement of
fact which is not admittedly wrong, and no declaration of policy which, at
least in the letter, they have not always intended to violate;..."
53/
The final
disposition of Palestine was decided by the Allied Supreme Council at the San
Remo Conference on 25 April 1920. The process has been described as
follows:
"The allocation of the Mandate was for
several reasons a slow process. In the first place, it hung upon the
Anglo-French agreement as to the validity of the Sykes-Picot arrangements for
the whole of the ex-Turkish territories, and this was held up by discord over
Syria and Mosul, involving discussions très vives de ton between Clemenceau and Mr. Lloyd George. As a result
of the compromise, Palestine, which had under the Sykes-Picot plan been
destined for international administration, in the end passed by mutual consent
into British tutelage." 54/
The
decision was taken without any heed to the requirement of article 22 of the
Covenant that "the wishes of these communities must be a principal consideration
in the selection of a Mandatory".
The
decision of the Allied Powers to support Zionist aims drew protest from
Palestinians. Citizens of Nazareth reminded the British Administrator in
Jerusalem:
"In view of the declaration of the decision
of the Peace Conference regarding the establishment of a Jewish national home
in Palestine, we hereby beg to declare that we are the owners of this country
and the land is our national home ..." 55/
The
drafting of the Palestine Mandate
Undeterred, the Zionist Organization pressed to obtain
international support for its aims by securing approval from the League of
Nations. Weizmann writes that his advisers:
"... fought the battle of the Mandate for
many months. Draft after draft was proposed, discussed and rejected, and I
sometimes wondered if we should ever reach a final text. The most serious
difficulty arose in connection with a paragraph in the Preamble - the phrase
which now reads: 'Recognizing the historic rights of the Jews to Palestine'.
But Curzon would have none of it, remarking dryly: 'If you word it like that,
I can see Weizmann coming to me every other day and saying he has a right to
do this, that, or the other in Palestine! I won't have it!' As a compromise,
Balfour suggested 'historial connection', and 'historical connection' it was."
56/
The wording
of the Mandate was the object of strong opinions within the British Government,
with Curzon strongly resisting formulations that would imply recognition of any
legal rights for the Zionist movement in Palestine. Excerpts from official
memoranda are informative:
On a draft
to the effect that the British Government would be:
"responsible for placing Palestine under such
political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the
establishment of a Jewish national home and the development of a
self-governing Commonwealth ..."
Curzon commented:
"... development of a self-governing
Commonwealth'. Surely most dangerous. It is an euphemism for a Jewish State,
the very thing they accepted and that we disallow;...
"The Zionists are after a Jewish State with the Arabs
as hewers of wood and drawers of water.
"So are many British sympathisers with the
Zionists.
"Whether you use the word
Commonwealth or State that is what it will be taken to
mean.
"That is not my view. I want
the Arabs to have a chance and I don't want a Hebrew
State.
"I have no idea how far the
case has been given away to the Zionists. If not I would prefer
'self-governing institutions'. I have never been consulted as to this Mandate
at an earlier stage, nor do I know from what negotiations it springs or on
what undertakings it is based ... I think the entire concept
wrong.
"Here is a country with
580,000 Arabs and 30,000 or is it 60,000 Jews (by no means all Zionists).
Acting upon the noble principles of self-determination and ending with a
splendid appeal to the League of Nations, we then proceed to draw up a
document which ... is an avowed constitution for a Jewish State. Even the poor
Arabs are only allowed to look through the keyhole as a non-Jewish community."
57/
The Zionist
Organization was being consulted in the drafting of the Mandate although Curzon
disapproved:
"I told Dr. Weizmann that I could not admit
the phrase (historical connection) in the preamble ... It is certain to be
made the basis of all sorts of claims in the future. I do not myself recognize
that the connection of the Jews with Palestine, which terminated 1,200 years
ago, gives them any claim whatsoever ... I would omit the phrase. I greatly
dislike giving the draft to the Zionists, but in view of the indiscretions
already committed, I suppose that this is inevitable ..." 58/
Balfour, by
then Lord President of the Council, continued to help Weizmann. In a memorandum
on the Mandate for the British Cabinet, Curzon wrote:
"... this Mandate ... has passed through
several revisions. When it was first shown to the French Government it at once
excited their vehement criticism on the ground of its almost exclusively
Zionist complexion and of the manner in which the interests and rights of the
Arab majority ... were ignored. The Italian Government expressed similar
apprehensions ... The Mandate, therefore, was largely rewritten, and finally
received their assent;...
"In the
course of these discussions strong objection was taken to a statement which
had been inserted in the Preamble of the first draft to the following
effect:
'Recognizing the historical
connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and the claim which this gives
them to reconstitute Palestine as their national home.'
"It was pointed out (1) that, while the Powers had
unquestionably recognized the historical connection of the Jews with Palestine
by their formal acceptance of the Balfour Declaration and their textual
incorporation of it in the Turkish Peace Treaty drafted at San Remo, this was
far from constituting anything in the nature of a legal claim, and that the
use of such words might be, and was, indeed, certain to be used as the basis
of all sorts of political claims by the Zionists for the control of
Palestinian administration in the future, and (2) that, while Mr. Balfour's
Declaration had provided for the establishment of a Jewish national home in
Palestine, this was not the same thing as the reconstitution of Palestine as a
Jewish national home - an extension of the phrase for which there was no
justification, and which was certain to be employed in the future as the basis
for claims of the character to which I have referred.
"On the other hand, the Zionists pleaded for the
insertion of some such phrase in the preamble, on the ground that it would
make all the difference to the money that they aspired to raise in foreign
countries for the development of Palestine.
"Mr. Balfour, who interested himself keenly in their
case, admitted, however, the force of the above contentions and, on the eve of
leaving for Geneva, suggested an alternative form of words which I am prepared
to recommend." 59/
When the
question of the British Mandate over Palestine was discussed in Parliament, it
became clear that opinion in the House of Lords was strongly opposed to the
Balfour policy, as illustrated by the words of Lord Sydenham in reply to Lord
Balfour:
"... the harm done by dumping down an alien
population upon an Arab country - Arab all around in the hinterland - may
never be remedied ... what we have done is, by concessions, not to the Jewish
people but to a Zionist extreme section, to start a running sore in the East,
and no one can tell how far that sore will extend." 60/
The House
of Lords voted to repeal the Balfour Declaration, but a similar motion was
defeated in the House of Commons and the British Government formally accepted
the Mandate.
The Zionist Organization
however, succeeded in having its formulation concerning "historical connection"
and "reconstitution" of the "national home" included in the final text of the
Mandate (annex V) which was approved by the League of Nations on 24 July 1922,
and came into formal effect in September 1923 when the Treaty of Lausanne with
Turkey came into force. It thus gave international sanction - which then meant
the sanction of the victorious Allied Powers - to the Balfour Declaration, and
determined the direction of developments in Palestine. The important clauses of
the Mandate read:
"Whereas the Principal Allied Powers have
also agreed that the Mandatory should be responsible for putting into effect
the declaration originally made on 2 November, 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;
"Article 1: The
Mandatory shall have full powers of legislation and of administration, save as
they may be limited by the terms of this Mandate.
"Article
2: 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.
"Article 4: An
appropriate Jewish agency shall be recognized as a public body for the purpose
of advising and co-operating with the Administration of Palestine in such
economic, social and other matters as may affect the establishment of the
Jewish national home and the interests of the Jewish population in Palestine,
and, subject always to the control of the Administration, to assist and take
part in the development of the country.
"The Zionist Organization, so long as its organization
and constitution are in the opinion of the Mandatory appropriate, shall be
recognized as such agency. It shall take steps in consultation with His
Britannic Majesty's Government to secure the co-operation of all Jews who are
willing to assist in the establishment of the Jewish national
home.
"Article
6: 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 co-operation 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."
The Mandate provided for
no body to serve the interests of the Palestinian people, similar to the Jewish
Agency given official status. Nor were the Palestinians ever consulted in the
choice of the mandatory, as required by article 22 of the Covenant. The only
move towards consultation had been the American King-Crane Commission, whose
views were ignored. The United States, however, had become associated with the
Balfour Declaration's policy through a joint
Congressional resolution incorporating the Declaration's language.
61/ Three years later the Anglo-American Convention of 1925
formalized United States' consent to the implementation of a Mandate
61/ embedded with conflicting obligations, and in which the
inherent political rights of the Palestinian people had been
overridden.
The borders of
Palestine
Zionist ambitions for
the national home had sought considerably more territory, extending into
Lebanon, Syria, Transjordan, and Egypt, than was actually assigned to the
Mandatory Power. The Zionist Organization's initial proposal asked that the
Jewish national home be established within the following borders:
"... In the north, the northern and southern
banks of the Litany River, as far north as latitude 33° 45'. Thence in a
south-easterly direction to a point just south of the Damascus territory and
close and west of the Hedjaz Railway.
"In the east, a line close to and west of the Hedjaz
Railway.
"In the south, a line from
a point in the neighbourhood of Akaba to El Arish.
"In the west, the Mediterranean
Sea.
"The details of the
delimitation should be decided by a Boundary Commission, one of the members of
which should be a representative of the Jewish Council for Palestine
hereinafter mentioned.
"There
should be a right of free access to and from the Red Sea, through Akaba, by
arrangement with the Arab Government ..."
The map covered by these proposed frontiers is shown in
the map at annex VI.
These Zionist
claims were not admitted, and the borders of Palestine enclosed a far more
restricted area (also shown in the map) within which Great Britain exercised its
mandate.
The question of the
validity of the Mandate
It is
clear that by failing to consult the Palestinian people in the decision on the
future of their country, the victorious Powers ignored not only the principle of
self-determination that they themselves had endorsed, but also the provisions of
Article 22 of the League's Covenant.
Even during the mandate, the Palestinians protested
against this denial of their fundamental rights. The report of the Royal
Commission (of 1937) records these protests:
"... though the Mandate was ostensibly based
on Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, its positive
injunctions were not directed to the 'well-being and development' of the
existing Arab population but to the promotion of Jewish interests. Complete
power over the legislation as well as administration was delegated to the
Mandatory, who undertook to place the country under such political,
administrative and economic conditions as would secure the establishment of
the Jewish national home ...
"... One member
of the Arab Higher Committee dealt more closely with the legal argument. He
remarked that the terms of the Mandate are inconsistent with the provisions of
Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations. Paragraph 4 of that
Article recognizes the existence of two juristic persons - one the community
which should govern independently and the other the foreigner who is to assist
and advise until the former is able to stand alone. But in Palestine there is
one person who governs and who assists himself. Your Majesty is the Mandatory
and Your Majesty's Government and their nominees are the Government of
Palestine and, while the Preamble speaks of a Mandate, article 1 denies the
existence of a Mandate in the proper sense by conferring upon what is called
'the Mandatory' full powers of legislation and administration. The community
which is to be provisionally recognized as independent has no existence ..."
62/
From among
the several authorities of international law who have questioned the validity of
the Mandate, the views of Professor Henry Cattan may be quoted:
"The Palestine Mandate was invalid on three
grounds set out hereinafter.
"1.
The first ground of invalidity of the Mandate is that by endorsing the Balfour
Declaration and accepting the concept of the establishment of a Jewish
national home in Palestine it violated the sovereignty of the people of
Palestine and their natural rights of independence and self-determination.
Palestine was the national home of the Palestinians from time immemorial. The
establishment of a national home for an alien people in that country was a
violation of the legitimate and fundamental rights of the inhabitants. The
League of Nations did not possess the power, any more than the British
Government did, to dispose of Palestine, or to grant to the Jews any political
or territorial rights in that country. In so far as the Mandate purported to
recognize any rights for alien Jews in Palestine, it was null and
void.
"2. The second ground of
invalidity of the Mandate is that it violated, in spirit and in letter,
Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, under the authority of
which it purported to be made. The Mandate violated Article 22 in three
respects:
"(a) The Covenant had
envisaged the Mandate as the best method of achieving its basic objective of
ensuring the well-being and development of the peoples inhabiting the Mandated
Territories.
"Was the Palestine
Mandate conceived for the well-being and development of the inhabitants of
Palestine? The answer is found in the provisions of the Mandate itself. The
Mandate sought the establishment in Palestine of a national home for another
people, contrary to the rights and wishes of the Palestinians ... It required
the Mandatory to place the country under such political, administrative and
economic conditions as would secure the establishment of a Jewish national
home. It required the Mandatory to facilitate Jewish immigration into
Palestine. It provided that a foreign body known as the Zionist Organization
should be recognized as a public body for the purpose of advising and
co-operating with the Administration of Palestine in matters affecting the
establishment of the Jewish national home. It is clear that, although the
Mandates System was conceived in the interest of the inhabitants of the
Mandated Territory, the Palestine Mandate was conceived in the interest of an
alien people originating from outside Palestine, and ran counter to the basic
concept of mandates. As Lord Islington observed when he opposed the inclusion
of the Balfour Declaration in the Palestine Mandate: "The Palestine Mandate is
a real distortion of the mandatory system". The same distinguished Lord added:
"When one sees in Article 22 ...
that the well-being and development of such peoples should form a sacred trust
of civilization, and when one takes that as the note of the mandatory system,
I think your Lordships will see that we are straying down a very far path when
we are postponing self-government in Palestine until such time as the
population is flooded with an alien race."
"(b) The Palestine Mandate also ran counter to the
specific concept of mandates envisaged by Article 22 for countries detached
from Turkey at the end of the First World War. In the case of those countries,
the intention was to limit the Mandate to the rendering of temporary advice
and assistance. It is doubtful whether the people of Palestine, as also other
Arab peoples detached from Turkey, were in need of administrative advice and
assistance from a Mandatory. Their level of culture was not inferior to that
existing at the time in many of the nations that were Members of the League of
Nations. Such Arab communities had actively participated with the Turks in the
government of their country. Their political maturity and administrative
experience were comparable to the political maturity and administrative
experience of the Turks, who were left to stand alone.
"Be that as it may, the framers of the Palestine
Mandate did not restrict the Mandatory's role to the rendering of
administrative advice and assistance, but granted the Mandatory 'full powers
of legislation and administration' (Article 1). Such 'full powers of
legislation and administration' were not laid down in the interest of the
inhabitants, but were intended to be used, and in fact were used, to establish
by force the Jewish national home in Palestine. Clearly this was an abuse of
the purpose of the Mandate under the Covenant and a perversion of its
raison d'être.
"The whole
concept of the Palestine Mandate stands in marked contrast to the Mandate for
Syria and Lebanon which was given to France on 24 July 1922. This Mandate
conformed to Article 22 of the Covenant ...
"... The third ground of invalidity of the Mandate lies
in the fact that its endorsement and implementation of the Balfour Declaration
conflicted with the assurances and pledges given to the Arabs during the First
World War by Great Britain and the Allied Powers. The denial to the Palestine
Arabs of their independence and the subjection of their country to the
immigration of a foreign people were a breach of those pledges."
63/
At the time
that the Mandate was established, however, the people of Palestine were unable
to question or to challenge it, and the process of establishing the "Jewish
national home" commenced.
V. MANDATED PALESTINE: THE
"JEWISH NATIONAL HOME"
The
course of the Mandate
While the
Mandate in principle required the development of self-governing institutions,
its preamble and operative articles left no doubt that the principal thrust
would be the implementation of the Balfour Declaration and the establishment of
the "Jewish national home". British policy in Palestine during the period of the
Mandate was directed to this end but, on facing strengthening Palestinian
resistance, from time to time was adjusted to the force of circumstance. The
basic policy was elaborated in 1922 (in the "Churchill Memorandum") and a
pattern developed, by which an outburst of violent Palestinian resistance would
be followed by an official inquiry Commission which would recommend
modifications, but pressure from the Zionist Organization would veer official
policy back to its main direction. This was the prevalent pattern in the 1920s
but, as the Palestinian resistance strengthened, British policy was obliged to
take into consideration the fact that the Palestinian people would not acquiesce
in the alienation of their rights. By the end of the 1930s, Palestine became the
scene of full-scale violence as the Palestinians rebelled for independence, the
Zionists retaliated to hold the ground they had gained, and the British
Government strove to control a situation, created by the Mandate, which was fast
sliding into war.
The start of the
Mandate
The British Mandate
acquired jurisdiction de
jure over Palestine in September 1923
following conclusion with Turkey of the Treaty of Lausanne. Before this, the
de facto administration was first in the form of a military
government from December 1917 to June 1920, with a civilian High Commissioner,
Sir Herbert Samuel, taking office on 1 July 1920. In March 1921, ministerial
responsibility for Palestine (along with other Mandated Territories), was
transferred from the Foreign Office to the Colonial Office under Sir Winston
Churchill.
The Balfour Declaration
was first officially made public in Palestine only in 1920 after the
installation of the civilian administration, having been kept officially
confidential until then to minimize the chances of disorder caused by the
protests that were anticipated from the Palestinians. Of course, the nature and
object of the Declaration and the policy it sought to introduce had quickly
become common knowledge. It had led quickly to violent conflict in Palestine. In
London, a delegation from the Moslem-Christian Association of Palestine tried in
1921 and 1922 to present the Palestinian case to counter the sustained influence
of the Zionist Organization on British authorities in both London and
Jerusalem.
The "Churchill
Memorandum"
The British Government moved to elaborate its policy in a
statement (referred to as the "Churchill Memorandum") of 1 July
1922:
This statement disclaimed any
intent to create "a wholly Jewish Palestine" or to effect "the subordination of
the Arab population, language or culture in Palestine". But, at the same time,
the statement, to assuage the Jewish community, made it clear that:
"... The Balfour Declaration, reaffirmed by
the Conference of the Principal Allied Powers at San Remo and again in the
Treaty of Sèvres, is not susceptible of change ... in order that this
community should have the best prospect of free development and provide a full
opportunity for the Jewish people to display its capacities, it is essential
that it should know that it is in Palestine as of right and not on sufferance.
That is the reason why it is necessary that the existence of a Jewish national
home in Palestine should be internationally guaranteed, and that it should be
formally recognized to rest upon ancient historic connection
...
"For the fulfilment of this
policy it is necessary that the Jewish community in Palestine should be able
to increase its numbers by immigration. This immigration cannot be so great in
volume as to exceed whatever may be the economic capacity of the country at
the time to absorb new arrivals". 64/
The
"Churchill Memorandum" thus reaffirmed the Balfour Declaration, and the
"historic connection" of the Jews with Palestine, asserting their presence was
"as of right and not as sufferance". Immigration was to be subject only to the
economic absorptive capacity of Palestine. Despite the assurances to the
Palestinians, there was no doubt left that the principal object of the
Churchill policy was to establish the "Jewish national
home".
That indeed this was the
intention was reiterated by Churchill several years afterwards, when he said
that the intention of the 1922 White Paper was "to make it clear that the
establishment of self-governing institutions in Palestine was to be subordinated
to the paramount pledge and obligation of establishing a Jewish national home in
Palestine". 65/ Faced with this determined effort concerted between a
Great Power and a Jewish organization that had demonstrated its strength and
influence, the Palestinian people refused to acquiesce in the scheme. They
refused to join in the Churchill plan of setting up a legislative council to
further these schemes, and they protested against the policy that strengthened
the drive towards a Jewish "national home" in Palestine despite the strong
opposition of the Palestinians, who declared:
"... We wish to point out here that the
Jewish population of Palestine who lived there before the War never had any
trouble with their Arab neighbours. They enjoyed the same rights and
privileges as their fellow Ottoman citizens, and never agitated for the
Declaration of November 1917. It is the Zionists outside Palestine who worked
for the Balfour Declaration ...
"We
therefore here once again repeat that nothing will safeguard Arab interests in
Palestine but the immediate creation of a national government which shall be
responsible to a Parliament of all whose members are elected by the people of
the country - Moslems, Christians and Jews ...
"... [Otherwise] we see division and tension between
Arabs and Zionists increasing day by day and resulting in general
retrogression. Because the immigrants dumped upon the country from different
parts of the world are ignorant of the language, customs and character of the
Arabs, and enter Palestine by the might of England against the will of the
people who are convinced that these have come to strangle them. Nature does
not allow the question of a spirit of co-operation between two peoples so
different, and it is not to be expected that the Arabs would bow to such a
great injustice, or that the Zionists would so easily succeed in realizing
their dreams ..." 66/
The
"Churchill policy" secured the road for the Zionist Organization towards its
goal of a Jewish State in Palestine made possible by the Balfour
Declaration.
Two of the principal
means advocated by the Zionist Organization for achieving the national home were
large-scale immigration and land purchase. A third was the denial of employment
to Palestinian labour.
The King-Crane
Commission had reported that Jewish colonists were planning a radical
transformation of Palestine:
"The fact came out repeatedly in the
Commission's conference with Jewish representatives, that the Zionists looked
forward to a practically complete dispossession of the present non-Jewish
inhabitants of Palestine, by various forms of purchase". 67/
Large scale
immigration had started under the aegis of the Balfour Declaration soon after
the war ended, and had already led to violent opposition by Palestinians in 1920
and 1921. With the endorsement of the Churchill policy, immigration accelerated,
reaching a peak in 1924-1926, but soon sharply declined. At this point, Weizmann
records:
"The Balfour Declaration of 1917 was built on
air ... every day and every hour of these last 10 years, when opening the
newspapers, I thought: Whence will the next blow come? I trembled lest the
British Government would call me and ask: 'Tell us, what is this Zionist
Organization? Where are they, your Zionists?' ... The Jews, they knew, were
against us; we stood alone on a little island, a tiny group of Jews with a
foreign past."
The table below shows
immigration figures during the 1920s.
Immigration into Palestine,
1920-192968/
Recorded immigration
Year
Jews
non-Jews
1920 (September-October)
5 514
202
1921
9 149
190
1922
7 844
284
1923
7 421
570
1924
12 856
697
1925
33 801
840
1926
13 081
829
1927
2 713
882
1928
2 178
908
1929
5 249
1 317
Thus during
the decade about 100,000 Jewish immigrants entered Palestine, far short of the
numbers envisaged by the Zionist Organization, but substantial enough to make a
marked impact in a country where the total population in 1922 was officially
estimated at about 750,000. 69/ In absolute
terms the Jewish population more than doubled, and in percentage terms rose from
below 10 per cent to over 17 per cent during this period.
Immigration was virtually under the control of Zionist
organizations, as described in the report of an official Commission:
"... We were informed by the Chief
Immigration Officer that in the allocation to individuals of the certificates
which are supplied in blank to the General Federation of Jewish Labour, it is
the practice of that body to have regard to the political creed of the several
possible immigrants rather than to their particular qualifications for
admission to Palestine. It is clearly the duty of the responsible Jewish
authorities to select for admission to Palestine those of the prospective
immigrants who are best qualified on personal grounds to assist in the
establishment of a Jewish national home in that country: that political creed
should be a deciding factor in the choice between applicants is open to the
strongest exception". 70/
Similarly,
a number of Jewish organizations such as the Colonisation Department of the
Zionist Organization, financed by the Keren ha-Yesod,
were actively engaged in acquisition of land both for individual immigrant
families as well as for the Yishuv or Jewish
settlements. Several of these organizations had been operating since the
nineteenth century, notably the Palestine Jewish Colonisation Association
(PICA)*. With the British occupation of Palestine in 1918 all land transactions
were suspended. The registers were reopened in 1920, at which time it was
estimated that Jewish land acquisitions stood at about 650,000 dunums** or 2.5
per cent of the total land area of 26 million dunums). 71/ By the end of
the decade this figure had nearly doubled to 1,200,000 dunums, just below 5 per
cent. 72/
______________
* PICA was the Palestinian section of ICA (Jewish
Colonisation Association) led by Baron Maurice de Hirsch. The aim of ICA was to
support Jewish emigration from Europe and Asia to other parts of the world; to
create agricultural settlements in North and South America; and to obtain
authorization and autonomy for these settlements.
A strict policy of what in today's terms would be
described as racial discrimination was maintained by the Zionist Organization in
this rapid advance towards the "national home". Only Jewish labour could service
Jewish farms and settlements. The eventual outcome of this trend was a major
outbreak of violence with unprecedented loss of life in 1929, which was
investigated by the Shaw Commission. Another commission headed by Sir John Hope
Simpson followed to investigate questions of immigration and land transfers.
Certain observations of the Hope Simpson Commission are of interest,
particularly on labour and employment policies.
The Commission went into great detail in its report,
dividing Palestine into areas according to cultivability, and estimating total
cultivable land at about 6.5 million dunums of which about a sixth was in Jewish
hands. 73/
The report
described in some detail the employment policies of the Zionist agencies quoting
some of their provisions:
"The effect of the Jewish colonization in
Palestine on the existing population is very intimately affected by the
conditions on which the various Jewish bodies hold, sell and lease their
land.
"The Constitution of the Jewish Agency: Land Holding and
Employment Clauses
...
"(d) Land is to be acquired as
Jewish property and ... the same shall be held as the inalienable property of
the Jewish people.
"(e) The Agency
shall promote agricultural colonization based on Jewish labour ... it shall be
deemed to be a matter of principle that Jewish labour shall be employed
..."
"Keren Kayemet draft lease: Employment of Jewish labour
only
"... The lessee undertakes
to execute all works connected with the cultivation of the holding only with
Jewish labour. Failure to comply with this duty by the employment of
non-Jewish labour shall render the lessee liable to the payment of
compensation ..."
"The lease also
provides that the holding shall never be held by any but a Jew
..."
"Keren ha-Yesod agreements: Employment of
labour
The following provisions
are included:
'Article 7 - The settler hereby undertakes
that ... if and whenever he may be obliged to hire help, he will hire Jewish
workmen only.'
"In the similar agreement for the Emek
colonies, there is a provision as follows:
'Article 11 - The settler undertakes ...
not to hire any outside labour except Jewish labourers.'" 74/
Commenting on the Zionist attitude towards the
Palestinians, the report noted the Zionist policy of allaying Arab
suspicions:
"Zionist policy in regard to Arabs in their
colonies. The above-quoted provisions
sufficiently illustrate the Zionist policy with regard to the Arabs in their
colonies. Attempts are constantly being made to establish the advantage which
Jewish settlement has brought to the Arab. The most lofty sentiments are
ventilated at public meetings and in Zionist propaganda. At the time of the
Zionist Congress in 1931 a resolution was passed which 'solemnly declared the
desire of the Jewish people to live with the Arab people, to develop the
homeland common to both into a prosperous community which would ensure the
growth of the peoples'. This resolution is frequently quoted in proof of the
excellent sentiments which zionism cherishes towards the people of Palestine.
The provisions quoted above, which are included in legal documents binding on
every settler in a Zionist colony, are not compatible with the sentiments
publicly expressed." 75/
At the same
time, the Commission, rejecting Zionist arguments in support of their
discriminatory policies, considered that they violated the Mandate:
"Policy contrary to article 6 of Mandate ... The principle of the persistent and deliberate
boycott of Arab labour in the Zionist colonies is not only contrary to the
provisions of that article of the Mandate, but it is in addition a constant
and increasing source of danger to the country." 76/
The report
noted in the strongest terms the effect on indigenous Palestinians of Zionist
policies.
"The effect of the Zionist colonization
policy on the Arab. Actually the result of the purchase of land in Palestine
by the Jewish National Fund has been that land has been extraterritorialized.
It ceases to be land from which the Arab can gain any advantage either now or
at any time in the future. Not only can he never hope to lease or to cultivate
it, but, by the stringent provisions of the lease of the Jewish National Fund,
he is deprived for ever from employment on that land. Nor can anyone help him
by purchasing the land and restoring it to common use. The land is in mortmain
and inalienable. It is for this reason that Arabs discount the professions of
friendship and goodwill on the part of the Zionists in view of the policy
which the Zionist Organization deliberately adopted." 75/
"Land
available for settlement. It has
emerged quite definitely that there is at the present time and with the
present methods of Arab cultivation no margin of land available for
agricultural settlement by new immigrants with the exception of such
undeveloped land as the various Jewish agencies hold in reserve."
77/
These
developments in Palestine at the end of the 1920s - the 1929 Palestinian revolt
and the reports of the Shaw and Hope Simpson Commissions - heightened awareness
of the dangerous situation in Palestine as the Zionist drive towards a Jewish
State met increasing Palestinian opposition. While reinforcing its military
strength in Palestine, Great Britain issued a new statement of policy, called
the Passfield White Paper of October 1930, in an effort to control the pressures
that were building.* While criticizing both
Jewish leaders for exerting pressure to obtain official compliance with Zionist
wishes in matters of immigration and land transfers, and Palestinians for
demanding self-determination which "... would render it impossible;... to carry
out, in the fullest sense, the double undertaking", 78/ the 1930
policy, attempted to introduce an important change in emphasis from the
Churchill paper which gave first priority to establishing the Jewish State. The
Passfield paper commented:
______________
* Named after the then Colonial Secretary Lord
Passfield.
"... attempts have been made to argue, in
support of Zionist claims, that the principal feature of the Mandate is the
passages regarding the Jewish national home, and that the passages designed to
safeguard the rights of the non-Jewish community are merely secondary
considerations qualifying, to some extent, what is claimed to be the primary
object for which the Mandate has been framed ...
"It is a difficult and delicate task of His Majesty's
Government to devise means whereby, in the execution of its policy in
Palestine, equal weight shall at all times be given to the obligations laid
down with regard to the two sections of the population and to reconcile those
two obligations where, inevitably, conflicting interests are involved".
79/
The paper
announced a renewed attempt to establish a legislative council. Further it gave
notice of intent to reassert authority over the vital issues of immigration and
land transfers, which had been dominated by the Jewish Agency, working heavily
against Palestinian interests. 80/ Reflecting
awareness of the intensifying conflict the paper concludes with a suggestion of
realization that Palestinian grievances had justification, but were faced with
inimical circumstance:
"To the Arabs His Majesty's Government would
appeal for a recognition of the facts of the situation, and for a sustained
effort at co-operation in obtaining that prosperity for the country as a whole
by which all will benefit. From the Jewish leaders, His Majesty's Government
ask a recognition of the necessity for making some concessions on their side
in regard to the independent and separatist ideals which have been developed
in some quarters in connection with the Jewish national home ..."
81/
The
Passfield White Paper drew strong criticism from the Zionist Organization and
its supporters, and soon was virtually negated by a letter written in 1931 by
the British Prime Minister to Dr. Weizmann, again giving paramountcy to the
goals of Zionism rather than "equal weight" to the rights of the people of
Palestine. Stating that the letter was meant "to meet certain criticisms put
forward by the Jewish Agency", the letter reasserted that "the undertaking of
the Mandate is an undertaking to the Jewish people and not only to the Jewish
population of Palestine". 82/
The
"MacDonald letter" made clear that Palestine would be governed in accordance
with the Churchill policy of 1922, and that the restrictions suggested by Lord
Passfield on Jewish immigration and land transfers would not be
applied.
Dr. Weizmann's words on
these developments are of interest:
"... The Passfield White Paper may be
regarded as the most concerted effort - until the White Paper of 1939 - on the
part of a British Government to retract the promise made to the Jewish people
in the Balfour Declaration. That attack, too, was successfully
repulsed.
"... On February 13,
1931, there was an official reversal of policy. It did not take the form of a
retraction of the White Paper - that would have meant a loss of face - but of
a letter addressed to me by the Prime Minister, read in the House of Commons
and printed in Hansard. I considered that the letter rectified the situation -
the form was unimportant - and I so indicated to the Prime
Minister.
"I was to be bitterly
attacked in the Zionist Congress of that year for accepting a letter in place
of another White Paper. But whether I was right or not in my acceptance may be
judged by a simple fact: it was under MacDonald's letter to me that the change
came about in the Government's attitude, and in the attitude of the Palestine
administration, which enabled us to make the magnificent gains of the ensuing
years. It was under MacDonald's letter that Jewish immigration into Palestine
was permitted to reach figures like 40,000 for 1934 and 62,000 for 1935,
figures undreamed of in 1930". 83/
This sudden
reversal of British policy, coming as it did after Palestinian hopes for fair
play had been raised by the Passfield White Paper, did little to improve the
deteriorating situation in Palestine.
The start of the notorious Nazi persecution of Jews in
Europe brought repercussions to Palestine which were to exacerbate the mounting
tensions. While the majority of European Jews fleeing the Nazi terror chose the
United States and Britain, large numbers sought refuge in Palestine. Immigration
thus sharply increased, as shown by the following figures:
Immigration into Palestine
1930-193984/
1930
4 944
1931
4 075
1932
9 553
1933
30 327
1934
42 359
1935
61 854
1936
29 727
1937
10 536
1938
12 868
1939
16 405
Compared to
the 100,000 in the 1920s, Palestine received about 232,000 legal immigrants in
the 1930s. The Jewish population in 1939 numbered over 445,000 out of a total of
about 1,500,000 - nearly 30 per cent compared to the less than 10 per cent 20
years before. Similarly, by the end of 1939, Jewish holdings of land had risen
to almost 1.5 million dunums compared to the 650,000, of the total area of 26
million dunums, held at the start of the Mandate.
Between 1930 and 1936, the British Administration tried
to initiate measures, such as the establishment of elected municipal councils,
and later, a legislative council (with a large majority of appointed members) in
an attempt to reduce political friction. These measures were ineffective. The
drive of political zionism to establish a settler State in Palestine was met by
violent resistance from the Palestinians, and this situation simmered until it
boiled over in 1936.
VI. MANDATED PALESTINE -
PALESTINIAN RESISTANCE
The
start of Palestinian resistance
Throughout the period of the mandate, Palestinian
resentment against the denial of their inherent right of national
self-determination, and against the colonization of their land by
non-Palestinians, manifested itself in a series of outbreaks of violence which,
becoming virtually endemic in Palestinian politics, mounted in intensity as the
mandate prolonged. The British Government regularly appointed a Commission of
Inquiry to investigate the "disturbances" and to present recommendations. But as
long as the inherently conflicting lines of policy in the mandate were
implemented, violence and resistance continued.
On 2 November 1918, non-violent protests marked the first
anniversary of the Balfour Declaration. As early as April 1920, while Palestine
was still under military government, anti-Jewish riots broke out just as the San
Remo Conference was finalizing the allocation of the Palestine Mandate to Great
Britain. The report of the military commission of inquiry was not published at
the time, but was referred to in the report of the Royal Commission in 1937. The
underlying causes of the riots were cited as:
"The Arabs' disappointment at the non-fulfilment of the
promises of independence which they believed to have been given them in the
War.
"The Arabs' belief that the
Balfour Declaration implied a denial of the right of self-determination and
their fear that the establishment of a national home would mean a great increase
of Jewish immigration and would lead to their economic and political subjection
to the Jews." 85/
Within a
year of Palestine's coming under civil administration, riots again broke out in
May 1921, spreading from a clash between Jewish factions. There were 95 dead and
220 injured. A formal inquiry commission, headed by Sir Thomas Haycraft, Chief
Justice of Palestine, found:
"The fundamental cause of the Jaffa riots and
the subsequent acts of violence was a feeling among the Arabs of discontent
with, and hostility to, the Jews, due to political and economic causes, and
connected with Jewish immigration, and with their conception of Zionist policy
as derived from Jewish exponents.
"The immediate cause of the Jaffa riots on the 1st May
was an unauthorized demonstration of Bolshevik Jews, followed by its clash
with an authorized demonstration of the Jewish Labour
Party.
"The racial strife was begun
by Arabs, and rapidly developed into a conflict of great violence between
Arabs and Jews, in which the Arab majority, who were generally the aggressors,
inflicted most of the casualties.
"The outbreak was not premeditated or expected, nor was
either side prepared for it; but the state of popular feeling made a conflict
likely to occur on any provocation by any Jews ..." 86/
The
revolt of 1929
The "Churchill
Memorandum" reaffirmed the "national home" policy, and Palestinian resentment
again broke out into violence in August 1929, sparked by a dispute over the
Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. The clashes between Palestinians and Jews left 220
dead and 520 injured on both sides, and British reinforcements, including
aircraft, naval vessels and armoured cars, had to be called in from outside
Palestine before the situation was brought under control.
A special Commission, headed by Sir Walter Shaw, a
retired Chief Justice of the Straits Settlements, investigated this outbreak.
The Shaw Commission observed:
"In less than 10 years three serious attacks
have been made by Arabs on Jews. For 80 years before the first of these
attacks there is no recorded instance of any similar incidents. It is obvious
then that the relations between the two races during the past decade must have
differed in some material respect from those which previously obtained. Of
this we found ample evidence. The reports of the Military Court and of the
local Commission which, in 1920 and in 1921 respectively, enquired into the
disturbances of those years, drew attention to the change in the attitude of
the Arab population towards the Jews in Palestine. This was borne out by the
evidence tendered during our inquiry when representatives of all parties told
us that before the War the Jews and Arabs lived side by side if not in amity,
at least with tolerance, a quality which to-day is almost unknown in
Palestine". 87/
The
Commission's findings on the causes of the violence:
"... If there was in Palestine in August last
a widespread feeling of resentment amongst the Arabs at the failure of His
Majesty's Government to grant them some measure of self-government, it is at
least probable that this resentment would show itself against the Jews, whose
presence in Palestine would be regarded by the Arabs as the obstacle to the
fulfilment of their aspirations".
"That such a feeling existed among the
leaders of the Arabs and the official and educated classes there can be no
question ...
"... The Arab people
of Palestine are today united in their demand for representative government.
This unity of purpose may weaken but it is liable to be revived in full force
by any large issues which involve racial interests. It is our belief that a
feeling of resentment among the Arab people of Palestine consequent upon their
disappointment at the continued failure to obtain any measure of
self-government ... was a contributory cause to the recent outbreak and is a
factor which cannot be ignored in the consideration of the steps to be taken
to avoid such outbreaks in the future". 88/
The Shaw
Commission's report was a major factor in the issue of the Passfield White Paper
towards redressing these grievances, but it proved abortive, and the people of
Palestine were soon to resort to violence again.
The riots of 1933
In 1933, the Nazis took power in Germany, and their
imminent infamous persecution of Jewry brought an exodus of Jews from Germany
and other European countries. Large numbers came to Palestine, exciting the
already simmering resentment again into violence. No formal commission was
appointed to inquire into this new outbreak in 1933, which was surveyed in the
Peel Report of 1937.
Examining the
effects of the sudden increase in immigration, the report comments:
"The Arab reaction to this sudden and
striking development was quite natural. All that the Arab leaders had felt in
1929 they now felt more bitterly ... the greater the Jewish inflow, the
greater the obstacle to their attainment of national independence. And now,
for the first time, a worse fate seemed to threaten them than the withholding
of their freedom and the continuance of Mandatory rule. Hitherto, with the
high rate of natural increase among the Arabs, it has seemed impossible that
the Jews could become a majority in Palestine within measurable time. But what
if the new flood of immigration were to rise still higher? That question gave
a very different colour to the idea of self-government in Palestine as Arab
nationalists had hitherto conceived it. It opened up the intolerable prospect
of a Jewish State - of Palestinian Arabs being ruled by Jews. It is not
surprising, therefore, to find ... the old antagonism growing hotter and
hotter, till it bursts again into flames." 89/
Clashes
erupted mainly in Jerusalem and Jaffa, with considerable casualties, although
not as heavy as those of 1929. The report continues:
"So one more page of the history of Palestine
under the Mandate had been written in blood. And there was one feature of this
last outbreak of Arab violence which was as unprecedented as it was
significant. In 1920, 1921 and 1929 the Arabs had attacked the Jews. In 1933
they attacked the Government. The idea that the British authorities in London
or Jerusalem were trying to hold the balance even between Arab and Jews was
now openly scouted. They were allies of the Jews, it was said, and the enemies
of the Arabs. The Mandate was merely a cynical device for promoting British
'imperialism' under a mask of human consideration for the Jews ...
"It was thus becoming clear that
the crux of the situation in Palestine was not growing less formidable with
the passing of time. On the contrary, the longer the Mandate operated, the
stronger and more bitter Arab antagonism to it became".90/
This
Palestinian antagonism and resistance to the Mandate from then on gathered
strength. By 1933, the various Palestinian political parties and groupings had
united to form an Arab Executive Committee, and showed more inclination to
co-operate with the British authorities. At this stage the Jews, still in a
minority despite massive immigration, were the party to feel apprehension over
representative government, and a new move in 1936 to set up a legislative
council was defeated in Parliament after the Zionist Congress had:
"... expressed its categorical rejection of
the scheme ... as contrary to the spirit of the Mandate".91/
The
Palestinian rebellion against the British Mandate
In 1936, the Palestinian resistance to foreign rule and
to foreign colonization broke out into a major rebellion that lasted virtually
until the outbreak of the Second World War. Palestinian demands for independence
drew impetus from the simultaneous nationalist agitations in Egypt and Syria
which had forced Great Britain and France to open treaty negotiations with those
two Arab countries neighbouring Palestine.
In April 1936, what started as minor Arab-Jewish clashes
quickly flared into a widespread revolt. A new union of Palestinian political
parties was formed, the Arab Higher Committee, headed by the Mufti of Jerusalem,
Al Hajj Amin al-Husseini. The Committee called for a general strike to support
the demand for national government. Despite strong Palestinian resistance to
Jewish immigration, the British Government issued permits for several thousand
new immigrants, offering further provocation to Palestinian nationalists. An
unprecedented feature of this nationalist movement was the open identification
with it by senior Arab officials of the Palestine administration who protested
to the High Commissioner that Palestinians had been forced to violence because
of loss of faith in British pledges and alarm at the extent to which Britain was
susceptible to Zionist pressure.
As
the strike prolonged, violence increased. There were attacks on British troops
and police posts as well as on Jewish settlements, sabotage of roads, railways,
pipelines and so on. The British administration imposed curfews, called in troop
reinforcements from Britain, Egypt and Malta, and resorted to mass arrests,
collective fines, and internments in concentration camps and other emergency
measures. Large parts of the Arab quarter in the town of Jaffa were demolished
by the authorities on the grounds of urban improvement - in the midst of the
revolt - but order could not be restored.
During earlier Palestinian Arab uprisings, Jewish
settlers often had restrained retaliation under the doctrine of the
Havlaga, or restraint. But now, not unexpectedly, there were
Jewish reprisals. The principal vehicle was the Haganah, a covert
paramilitary force formed early in the mandate years (and which was to play a
leading role in later events in Palestine). The Jewish settlers also benefited
from 2,800 of their number being enrolled in the police forces as
supernumeraries.
The failure of the
Palestine authorities to suppress the revolt by military means led to political
measures. The British Government announced the appointment of a Royal Commission
to investigate the causes of the "disturbances" and turned to the rulers of
other Arab States for the mediation that eventually led to the calling off of
the strike in October 1936. The official count of casualties was 275 dead and
1,112 wounded, but the Royal Commission's estimate was 1,000 deaths.
92/
The end of
the strike was to prove a lull in the rebellion. The issue of the Royal
Commission's report brought an almost immediate renewal of violence, starting
with the assassination of a British District Commissioner. Although it was not
conclusively established that the assassins were Arab, the High Commissioner
declared the Arab Higher Committee proscribed, arresting its prominent leaders
and deporting them to the Seychelles Islands, while the Mufti of Jerusalem was
able to escape to Lebanon, from where he continued to direct the
rebellion.
Military courts were
established, awarding 58 death sentences by the end of 1938, apart from numerous
life imprisonments. 93/ To interdict support for the guerrillas, a barbed-wire
fence, called the "Teggert line" was set up along portions of the Syrian,
Transjordanian and Lebanese borders.
"Throughout 1937 British armed forces in
Palestine had amounted to no more than two infantry brigades. In July 1938,
two additional infantry battalions, two squadrons of the Royal Air Force, an
armoured car and cavalry unit, and a battle cruiser were endeavouring to
suppress terrorism which, since April, had become open rebellion. By the end
of October there were in the country eighteen infantry battalions, two cavalry
regiments, a battery of howitzers, and armoured car units, or a total of
18,000 to 20,000 troops, while some 2,930 additional British police were
recruited during the year. A virtual military reoccupation of the country
proved necessary to deal with the explosion of bombs and land mines, the
murder and snipings which were almost daily occurrences. Heavy military
concentrations alone preserved a semblance of order in the northern and
central parts of the country, while the Jerusalem and southern districts were
entirely out of hand ... The main military campaign culminated during the
first weeks of October, when troops peacefully occupied the old city - or Arab
quarter - of Jerusalem. This operation, which might have been dangerous owing
to the narrow streets, was accomplished without serious loss, and by the end
of that month all Palestine was under military control ...
"The nature and extent of the Arab rebellion of 1938
can be gauged not only from the figures given above of British armed forces in
the country, but also from the fact that casualties during the year reached a
total of 3,717, as against 246 in 1937 ..." 94/
As in the
first phase of the rebellion, the Jewish side also conducted its own
retaliations and reprisals. In addition to the Haganah, another
organization, the Irgun Tzeva'i
Leumi was active, as were "special night
squads", trained by Major Orde Wingate, a serving British officer. According to
Christopher Sykes, "the SNS gradually became what Wingate secretly intended, the
beginnings of a Jewish army". 95/
By 1939, the
large-scale military operations by the British Government against the
Palestinian nationalist guerrillas were showing success. Meanwhile, Palestinian
grievances were at last being heard in London at a conference attended by other
Arab States. As war approached, Britain again turned to these friendly Arab
States to intercede in Palestine, and the rebellion was ended after three and a
half years.
The rebellion of
1936-1939 culminated 15 years of Palestinian resistance to the Mandate, and was
to bring far-reaching consequences in Palestine. It left no doubt that the
Palestinians would not acquiesce in the loss of their country under the Balfour
Declaration and disproved the Churchill policy's insistence that the "dual
obligations" undertaken could be reconciled and would not disturb the peace in
Palestine. The response of the British Government had been to propose, in place
of the independence pledged two decades earlier, a plan to partition
Palestine.
VII. MANDATED PALESTINE: THE
PARTITION PLANS
The Peel
Commission Report
The Royal
Commission to inquire into the "disturbances" was headed by a former Secretary
of State for India, Lord Robert Peel, and presented a 400-page report, a
document of major importance in any examination of the Palestine problem. While
defending the British Government's record in Palestine and standing by the
Balfour Declaration, it recognized the force and justice of the demands by the
Palestinian people for independence. It acknowledged that, contrary to the
previous official position, Palestinian resistance to the Mandate had shown that
the "dual obligations" were not reconcilable. Faced with this dilemma it
recommended, in Solomonian fashion, the partition of
Palestine.
Because of its importance
as a major turning point, after the Balfour Declaration, in British policy in
Palestine, the Royal Commission's report is quoted below at some
length.
Commenting on the assumption
that the "dual obligations" were reconcilable:
"It must have been obvious from the outset
that a very awkward situation would arise if that basic assumption should
prove false. It would evidently make the operation of the Mandate at every
point more difficult, and it would greatly complicate the question of its
termination. To foster Jewish immigration in the hope that it might ultimately
lead to the creation of a Jewish majority and the establishment of a Jewish
State with the consent or at least the acquiescence of the Arabs was one
thing. It was quite another thing to contemplate, however remotely, the
forcible conversion of Palestine into a Jewish State against the will of the
Arabs. For that would clearly violate the spirit and intention of the Mandates
System. It would mean that national self-determination had been withheld when
the Arabs were a majority in Palestine and only conceded when the Jews were a
majority. It would mean that the Arabs had been denied the opportunity of
standing by themselves; that they had, in fact, after an interval of conflict,
been bartered about from Turkish sovereignty to Jewish sovereignty.
96/
"... the
crux was plain enough to Arab eyes. It was the Balfour Declaration and its
embodiment in the draft Mandate and nothing else which seemingly prevented
their attaining a similar measure of independence to that which other Arab
communities already enjoyed. And their reaction to this crux was logical. They
repudiated the Balfour Declaration. They protested against its implementation
in the draft Mandate. 'The people of Palestine,' they said, 'cannot accept the
creation of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine.' And they
refused to co-operate in any form of government other than a national
government responsible to the Palestinian people. 97/
"...
Nowhere, as it happened, was the spirit of nationalism more acute after the
War than in this area of the Near and Middle East. In all of its constituent
territories, except Transjordan, there were serious disturbances, and in all
of them, except Palestine, there was a marked advance towards
self-government." 98/
On the
rebellion:
"... One other feature of the 'disturbances'
of last year had likewise appeared before. It has been pointed out that the
outbreak of 1933 was not only, or even mainly, an attack on the Jews, but an
attack on the Palestine Government. In 1936 this was still clearer. Jewish
lives were taken and Jewish property destroyed; but the outbreak was chiefly
and directly aimed at the Government. The word 'disturbances' gives a
misleading impression of what happened. It was an open rebellion of the
Palestinian Arabs, assisted by fellow-Arabs from other countries, against
British Mandatory rule." 99/
On its
causes:
"... After examining this and other evidence
and studying the course of events in Palestine since the War, we have no doubt
as to what were 'the underlying causes of the disturbances' of last year. They
were:
"(i) The desire of the Arabs for national
independence.
"(ii) Their hatred
and fear of the establishment of the Jewish National
Home.
'We make the following
comments on these two causes:
"(i) They were the same underlying causes
as those which brought about the 'disturbances' of 1920, 1921, 1929 and
1933.
"(ii) They were, and always
have been, inextricably linked together. The Balfour Declaration and the
Mandate under which it was to be implemented involved the denial of national
independence at the outset. The subsequent growth of the national home
created a practical obstacle, and the only serious one, to the concession
later of national independence. It was believed that its further growth
might mean the political as well as economic subjection of the Arabs to the
Jews, so that if, ultimately, the Mandate should terminate and Palestine
become independent, it would not be a national independence in the Arab
sense but self-government by a Jewish majority.
"(iii) They were the only 'underlying' causes. All
the other factors were complementary or subsidiary, aggravating the two
causes or helping to determine the time at which the disturbances broke
out." 100/
On the new Arab
hostility towards the Jews:
"... It is indeed, one of the most unhappy
aspects of the present situation - this opening of a breach between Jewry and
the Arab world. We believe that not in Palestine only but in all the Middle
East the Arabs might profit from the capital and enterprise which the Jews are
ready enough to provide; and we believe that in ordinary circumstances the
various Arab Governments would be ready enough on their side to permit a
measure of Jewish immigration under their own conditions and control. But the
creation of the national home has been neither conditioned nor controlled by
the Arabs of Palestine. It has been established directly against their will.
And that hard fact has had its natural reaction on Arab minds elsewhere. The
Jews were fully entitled to enter the door forced open for them into
Palestine. They did it with the sanction and encouragement of the League of
Nations and the United States of America. But by doing it they have closed the
other doors of the Arab World against them. And in certain circumstances this
antagonism might become dangerously aggressive." 101/
On the
Arab-Jewish relationship:
"An irrepressible conflict has arisen between
two national communities within the narrow bounds of one small country. About
1,000,000 Arabs are in strife, open or latent, with some 400,000 Jews. There
is no common ground between them. The Arab community is predominantly Asian in
character, the Jewish community predominantly European. They differ in
religion and in language. Their cultural and social life, their ways of
thought and conduct, are as incompatible as their national aspirations. These
last are the greatest bar to peace." 102/
On Palestinian
demands for independence:
"... When at last they came before us, headed
by the Mufti of Jerusalem, the first words of the prepared statement he made
to us, were these: 'The Arab cause in Palestine is one which aims at national
independence. In its essence it does not differ from similar movements amongst
the Arabs in all other Arab territories.' And at the close of his statement he
stated that the first cause of the 'disturbances' was 'the fact that the Arabs
in Palestine were deprived of their natural and political rights'; and he
summed up the Arab demands as (1) 'the abandonment of the experiment of the
Jewish national home', (2) 'the immediate and complete stoppage of Jewish
immigration', (3) 'the immediate and complete prohibition of the sale of Arab
land to Jews', and (4) 'the solution of the Palestine problem on the same
basis as that on which were solved the problems in Iraq, Syria and the
Lebanon, namely by the termination of the Mandate and by the conclusion of a
treaty between Great Britain and Palestine by virtue of which a national and
independent government in constitutional form will be
established'.
"Thus it is clear
that the standpoint of the Arab leaders has not shifted by an inch from that
which they adopted when first they understood the implications of the Balfour
Declaration. The events of 17 years have only served to stiffen and embitter
their resistance and, as they argue, to strengthen their case. And the core of
their case, it must be stressed again, is political.
"... Nor is the conflict in its essence an interracial
conflict, arising from any old instinctive antipathy of Arabs towards Jews.
There was little or no friction, as we have seen, between Arab and Jews in the
rest of the Arab world until the strife in Palestine engendered it. And there
has been precisely the same political trouble in Iraq, Syria and Egypt -
agitation, rebellion and bloodshed - where there are no 'national homes'.
Quite obviously, then, the problem of Palestine is political. It is, as
elsewhere, the problem of insurgent nationalism. The only difference is that
in Palestine Arab nationalism is inextricably interwoven with antagonism to
the Jews. And the reasons for that, it is worth repeating, are equally
obvious. In the first place, the establishment of the national home involved
at the outset a blank negation of the rights implied in the principle of
national self-government. Secondly, it soon proved to be not merely an
obstacle to the development of national self-government, but apparently the
only serious obstacle. Thirdly, as the home has grown, the fear has grown with
it that, if and when self-government is conceded, it may not be national in
the Arab sense, but government by a Jewish majority. That is why it is
difficult to be an Arab patriot and not to hate the Jews.
"... The story of the last 17 years is proof that this
Arab nationalism with its anti-Jewish spearhead is not a new or transient
phenomenon. It was there at the beginning; its strength and range have
steadily increased; and it seems evident to us from what we saw and heard that
it has not yet reached its climax." 103/
Before
making its recommendations, the Royal Commission recapitulated the political
situation in Palestine in a chapter entitled "The Force of Circumstance",
recognizing that the terms of the Mandate, with its inclusion of the Balfour
Declaration, could only be implemented by force; and with no assurance of
success:
"... The moral objections to maintaining a
system of government by constant repression are self-evident. Nor is there any
need to emphasize the undesirable reactions of such a course of policy on
opinion outside Palestine.
"And the
worst of it is that such a policy leads nowhere. However vigorously and
consistently maintained, it will not solve the problem. It will not allay, it
will exacerbate the quarrel between the Arabs and the Jews. The establishment
of a single self-governing Palestine will remain just as impracticable as it
is now. It is not easy to pursue the dark path of repression without seeing
daylight at the end of it." 104/
The Royal
Commission then made its recommendations:
"... Manifestly the problem cannot be solved
by giving either the Arabs or the Jews all they want. The answer to the
question, 'Which of them in the end will govern Palestine?' must surely be
'neither' ...
"... Partition seems
to offer at least a chance of ultimate peace. We can see none in any other
plan." 105/
This public
recognition that the irreconcilable terms of the Mandate had made it unworkable
signalled its imminent end. The radical recommendation of partition was accepted
by the British Government in a White Paper in July 1937:
"In spite of many discouraging experiences
during the past seventeen years, His Majesty's Government have based their
policy on this expectation, and have taken every opportunity of encouraging
co-operation between Arabs and Jews. In the light of experience and of the
arguments adduced by the Commission, they are driven to the conclusion that
there is an irreconcilable conflict between the aspirations of Arabs and Jews
in Palestine, that these aspirations cannot be satisfied under the terms of
the present Mandate, and that a scheme of partition on the general lines
recommended by the Commission represents the best and most hopeful solution of
the deadlock ...
"In supporting a
solution of the Palestine problem by means of partition, His Majesty's
Government are much impressed by the advantages which it offers both to the
Arabs and the Jews. The Arabs would obtain their national independence, and
thus be enabled to co-operate on an equal footing with the Arabs of
neighbouring countries in the cause of Arab unity and progress. They would be
finally delivered from all fear of Jewish domination ... On the other hand,
partition would secure the establishment of the Jewish national home and
relieve it from any possibility of its being subject in the future to Arab
rule. It would convert the Jewish national home into a Jewish State;..."
106/
Partition
was unacceptable to the Palestinians, whose struggle for self-determination had
brought the British Government to admit the unworkability of the Mandate. The
rebellion flared up again, lasting until 1939. The Arab Higher Committee
formally reasserted the right of Palestinians to full independence in the whole
of Palestine, and the replacement of the Mandate by a treaty between Great
Britain and an independent Palestine.
The Royal Commission's report was the subject of intense
debate at the twentieth Zionist Congress in Zurich in August 1937. Dr. Weizmann
urged acceptance of the partition plan (with fundamental modifications) since
the world was now viewing the problem in terms of a Jewish State. However, the
Congress apparently did not consider that the time had come to accept a Jewish
State in only part of Palestine. It was too early - the ultimate aim was to
establish the Jewish State in all of Palestine, and at this point the numbers of
immigrants were too small and, in Zionist eyes, the mission of the Mandate was
unfulfilled. The Congress declared that it:
"... rejects the assertion of the Palestine
Royal Commission that the Mandate has proved unworkable, and demands its
fulfillment. The Congress directs the Executive to resist any infringement of
the rights of the Jewish people internationally guaranteed by the Balfour
Declaration and the Mandate.
"The
Congress declares that the scheme of partition put forward by the Royal
Commission is unacceptable.
"The
Congress empowers the Executive to enter into negotiations with a view to
ascertaining the precise terms of His Majesty's Government for the proposed
establishment of a Jewish State." 107/
The Royal
Commission's partition plan (which, the Commission emphasized, was not a final
or definitive proposal) allotted roughly the northern quarter of Palestine and
the major part of the western coastal plain to the Jewish state, about a third
of the country's area. Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Nazareth, with a corridor to the
sea at Jaffa, would continue under a British Mandate (map at annex
VII).
The British Government then
dispatched another "technical" commission, known as the "Woodhead Commission" to
examine the practicability of partition. This Commission, which held its
inquiries in Palestine from April to August 1938, concluded that the Royal
Commission's plan was unworkable since almost half of the population of the
proposed Jewish State would be Palestinian Arab, and raise the danger of mass
population transfers. The Commission proposed two other plans. One amended the
Royal Commission's plan by placing Galilee under mandate instead of allotting it
to the Jewish State (annex VIII). The other proposed that virtually the southern
half of Palestine, the Jerusalem enclave, and a large area in the north remain
under mandate, the Jewish State occupying the coastal plain north of Jaffa, with
the Arab state being allotted the remainder of the territory (annex
IX).
The Commission itself expressed
reservations over the viability of any partition scheme, and with the resurgence
of the Palestinian rebellion, the British Government abandoned the idea of
partitioning Palestine, announcing in a new statement of policy that:
"... further examination has shown that the
political, administrative and financial difficulties involved in the proposal
to create independent Arab and Jewish States inside Palestine are so great
that this solution of the problem is impracticable." 108/
The
London Conference, 1939
To
discuss alternatives, a round-table conference in London was held to which the
British Government invited representatives of Palestinians (excluding those held
responsible for violence), Jews (who could select whichever representatives they
wished) and Arab States. If the Conference could not produce an agreement, the
British Government announced, it would decide and implement its own
policy.
The London Conference turned
out to be parallel but separate Anglo-Arab and Anglo-Jewish conferences in
February-March 1939, since the Arabs refused to formally recognize the Jewish
Agency. All the independent Arab States participated: Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia,
Transjordan and the Yemen. It was for this conference, which reached to the
roots of the Palestine issue, that the British Government made public the
Husain-McMahon correspondence, which was examined by the Anglo-Arab
Committee.
The Arabs were determined
to secure the inherent right of the Palestinians to their independence, which
had been pledged 20 years earlier and for which the Palestinians had risen up in
arms. The Jews, backed by the Balfour Declaration and its incorporation in the
Mandate, were determined to achieve a Jewish State, particularly at a time when
Nazi persecution of Jewry in Europe was inflicting its notorious excesses and
his people were facing what Dr. Weizmann described as "this, the blackest hour
of Jewish history". Although meetings between all three sides took place towards
the end of the London Conference, British proposals for an agreement were first
rejected by the Jewish side and, after revision to partially meet the Jewish
objections, by both sides.
The
"MacDonald White Paper"
The end of
this attempt to reach an agreement left the British Government facing the
situation which its policies of two decades had created in Palestine, and now it
presented its unilateral policy. A new White Paper was issued in May 1939,
disclaiming any intention to create a Jewish State, rejecting Arab demands that
Palestine become independent as an Arab State, and envisaging the termination of
the mandate by 1949 with independence for Palestine in which both Palestinians
and Jews would share in government. Immigration would end, after the admission
of 75,000 new immigrants over the first five years. The Government would
strictly regulate transfer of land.
Important excerpts from this last major British policy
statement on Palestine before the Second World War deserve note:
"... His Majesty's Government do not read
either the Statement of Policy of 1922 or the letter of 1931 as implying that
the Mandate requires them, for all time and in all circumstances, to
facilitate the immigration of Jews into Palestine subject only to
consideration of the country's economic absorptive capacity. Nor do they find
anything in the Mandate or in subsequent Statements of Policy to support the
view that the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine cannot be
effected unless immigration is allowed to continue indefinitely. If
immigration has an adverse effect on the economic position in the country, it
should clearly be restricted; and, equally, if it has a seriously damaging
effect on the political position in the country, that is a factor that should
not be ignored ... it cannot be denied that fear of indefinite Jewish
immigration is widespread amongst the Arab population and that this fear has
made possible disturbances which have given a serious setback to economic
progress, depleted the Palestine exchequer, rendered life and property
insecure, and produced a bitterness between the Arab and Jewish populations
which is deplorable between citizens of the same country. If in these
circumstances immigration is continued up to the economic absorptive capacity
of the country, regardless of all other considerations, a fatal enmity between
the two peoples will be perpetuated, and the situation in Palestine may become
a permanent source of friction amongst all peoples in the Near and Middle East
...
"... His Majesty's Government
are convinced that in the interests of the peace and well-being of the whole
people of Palestine, a clear definition of policy and objectives is essential.
The proposal of participation recommended by the Royal Commission would have
afforded such clarity, but the establishment of self-supporting independent
Arab and Jewish States within Palestine has been found to be impracticable. It
has therefore been necessary for His Majesty's Government to devise an
alternative policy which will, consistently with their obligations to Arabs
and Jews, meet the needs of the situation in Palestine ...
"... It has been urged that the expression 'a national
home for the Jewish people' offered a prospect that Palestine might in due
course become a Jewish State or Commonwealth. His Majesty's Government do not
wish to contest the view, which has been expressed by the Royal Commission,
that the Zionist leaders at the time of the issue of the Balfour Declaration
recognized that an ultimate Jewish State was not precluded by the terms of the
Declaration. But, with the Royal Commission, His Majesty's Government believe
that the framers of the Mandate in which the Balfour Declaration was embodied
could not have intended that Palestine should be converted into a Jewish State
against the will of the Arab population of the country ...
"... and His Majesty's Government therefore now declare
unequivocally that it is not part of their policy that Palestine should become
a Jewish State. They would indeed regard it as contrary to their obligations
to the Arabs under the Mandate, as well as to the assurances which have been
given to the Arab people in the past, that the Arab population of Palestine
should be made the subjects of a Jewish State against their will ..."
109/
"... The
objective of His Majesty's Government is the establishment within 10 years of
an independent Palestine State in ... treaty relations with the United
Kingdom.
"... the independent State
should be one in which Arabs and Jews share in government in such a way as to
ensure that the essential interests of each community are safeguarded ..."
109/
After two
decades of Mandatory rule and colonization from abroad, the inherent rights of
the Palestinians finally had been acknowledged. But the independence now being
pledged was to a country where population and land patterns had been so
transformed while it had been a territory under a League of Nations mandate,
that the road to independence was full of pits and obstructions. For the Zionist
movement the White Paper was a severe setback to their plans, and a new strategy
was to be devised outside the framework of the Mandate of the League of Nations
which, in any event, was nearing its end.
VIII. PALESTINE AND THE
LEAGUE OF NATIONS
The
international sanction for Great Britain to implement the Balfour Declaration's
policy in Palestine had formally derived from the League of Nations, which
conferred the legal title, and in whose name the Mandatory Power had governed.
The question of where the ultimate sovereignty of a Mandated Territory lay has
been the subject of varying interpretations, which need not be examined in this
study. Several authorities, basing their views on the wording of Article 22 of
the Covenant, and stressing that the League was founded on the principle of
non-annexation of territories and that the mandates prohibited the alienation of
territory (article 5 of the Palestine Mandate), have ruled that sovereignty
rested with the people of a Mandated Territory, albeit in suspense since they
could not exercise it. One representative view may be
quoted:
"The drafters of the Treaty
of Versailles, bearing in mind above all the right of peoples to
self-determination, formally declared that Mandated Territories were not to be
annexed by any Power, be it the community of States known as the League of
Nations that was based at Geneva or any individual State. To all intents and
purposes, these Territories belong to the indigenous inhabitants and
communities, which the League has set out to defend and on whose behalf it acts
as a kind of family council". 110/
The view
taken by the International Court of Justice in the question of the status of
South-West Africa is that sovereignty was not transferred to the Mandatory
Power:
"The terms of this Mandate, as well as the
provisions of Article 22 of the Covenant and the principles embodied therein,
show that the creation of this new international institution [the Mandate] did
not involve any cession of territory or transfer of sovereignty to the Union
of South Africa. The Union Government was to exercise an international
function of administration on behalf of the League, with the object of
promoting the well-being and development of the inhabitants". 111/
According
to Professor Quincy Wright:
"Communities under 'A' Mandates doubtless
approach very close to sovereignty". 112/
Since
Palestine as an "A" Mandate whose sovereignty could not be alienated either by
the Mandatory Power or by the League, it is of interest to glance briefly at the
supervisory responsibility of the League of Nations, as exercised through the
Permanent Mandates Commission (PMC), during the life of the Palestine
Mandate.
In a report to the League
Assembly the Council noted:
"With regard to the responsibility of the
League for securing the observance of the terms of the Mandates, the Council
interprets its duties in this connection in the widest
manner.
"Nevertheless the League
will obviously have to display extreme prudence, so that the exercise of its
rights of control should not in any way increase the difficulties of the task
undertaken by the Mandatory Powers". 113/
In practice
this meant that the PMC required annual reports from the Mandatory Power and
offered comment on policies and developments in the mandated territory. Only
when there was a major outbreak of violence, as in 1929 or in 1936, did the PMC
exercise the functions in any wider manner.
In its very first meeting after the Palestine mandate
came into effect in 1923, the PMC noted its sui generis
nature and recorded its concern over its inherent contradictions,
observing:
"Whereas all the other mandates the
application of which it has hitherto examined were only intended to give
effect to the general principles laid down in Article 22 of the Covenant, the
Palestine Mandate is of a more complex nature. As is expressly stated in the
preamble of the Mandate, and as is clearly shown by several of the clauses of
this document, the Council, in drawing up its terms, desired, while giving
effect to the provisions of Article 22 of the Covenant, to carry out also the
plan of establishing in Palestine a national home for the Jewish people, as
stated in the historic Declaration of 2 November, 1917, with which Lord
Balfour's name is associated - a Declaration which the Principal Allied Powers
adopted. According to the fundamental principle of Article 22 of the Covenant
the paramount duty of the Mandatory Power is to ensure the development of the
mandated territories by administering them in conformity with the interests of
their inhabitants. On the other hand, in the terms of the Declaration of 2
November 1917, the Mandatory Power is instructed to assist 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'.
"It is not in any way for
the Commission, whose duty it is, according to Article 22 of the Covenant, 'to
advise the Council on all matters relating to the observance of the Mandate',
to offer any observations whatever concerning the actual contents of the
Mandates, the application of which it is called upon to examine, or to
contrast the two principles which the Council sought to embody in the terms of
the Mandate for Palestine. But, as this Mandate of necessity reflects the dual
nature of its inspiration, and as its application has given rise to complaints
by persons basing their case on one or other of these principles to the
exclusion of the other, the Commission would not be fulfilling its task if it
refrained from making any reference to the facts which have come to its notice
in this connection ..." 114/
In the
following years the reports from the Mandatory Power were treated in a routine
fashion. In 1929, however, the PMC expressed sharp criticism of the Shaw report
on the "disturbances" that year, expressing the opinion that the violence arose
from direct opposition to British policies that the Palestinian Arabs considered
as a denial of their inherent natural rights.
"The Mandates Commission considers that the
Palestine disorders cannot justly be regarded as an unexpected disturbance in
the midst of political calm, like those sudden explosions of popular passion
which have so often been witnessed in the East. They were preceded during the
last four months of 1928 and in the early part of 1929 by a number of
premonitory incidents which were usually connected with the Wailing Wall
...
"The conclusion, that the
outbreak was not directed against British authority, seems to be expressed too
categorically.
"Doubtless the Arab
attacks were directed only against the Jews, but the resentment which caused
the Arabs to commit these excesses was ultimately due to political
disappointments which they attributed to the parties concerned in the mandate,
and primarily to the British Government. All the declarations by persons and
organizations representing the Arab section tend to emphasize the fact that
the Arab movement was a movement of resistance to the policy of the Mandatory
Power solely in its capacity as mandatory. This has never been more clearly
stated than in a letter from the Palestinian Arab delegation, and in a
telegram from the Arab Executive, both received by the members of the
Permanent Mandates Commission during the extraordinary session. The first
reads as follows:
"We believe that
the main cause of the disturbances which have led to continual bloodshed in
Palestine for the last 12 years is the persistence of the British Government
in depriving the Arabs of their natural rights. We feel that there can be no
security in future against the recurrence of disturbances such as those which
have taken place, or perhaps of an even more serious nature, unless the
British Government promptly and radically changes its policies ..."
115/
Yet,
paradoxically, the principle of self-determination was not upheld by the
Commission. While it expressed understanding of the Palestinian desire for
self-government, it warned that this was contrary to the terms of the Mandate,
and that therefore the Commission could not support those
aspirations:
"The claim for self-government is in no way
surprising in a people who can watch the operation of representative
institutions in some of its neighbours of the same race and civilization; it
is an expression of a sentiment - pride of race - which certainly commands
respect and can be justified to some extent by the terms of the Covenant and
of the mandate itself. If those responsible for the agitation hoped by its
means to secure the triumph of their opposition to the League of Nations as a
party to the mandate, they will find no encouragement from the Mandates
Commission ...
"To all the sections
of the population which are rebelling against the mandate, whether they object
to it on principle or wish to retain only those of its provisions which favour
their particular cause, the Mandatory Power must obviously return a definite
and categorical refusal. As long as the leaders of a community persist in
repudiating what is at once the fundamental charter of the country and, as far
as the Mandatory Power is concerned, an international obligation, which it is
not free to set aside, the negotiations would only unduly enhance their
prestige and raise dangerous hopes among their partisans and apprehensions
amongst their opponents ... 116/
This
session of the PMC had heard statements on the "dual obligation", asserting
that:
"... It was the duty of the Mandatory Power
to establish the national Jewish home, and to develop self-governing
institutions so far as was compatible with such establishment
..."
The view of the Chairman
was:
"... In considering the two parts of the
mandate, it was necessary to bear in mind the fundamental principle of all the
mandates. The purpose of the mandates as described in Article 22 of the
Covenant was the development and welfare of the inhabitants of the mandated
territory ... It was necessary to insist that the establishment of the
national home for the Jews must be made compatible with the introduction of
autonomous institutions. That was the Arab view and it was consistent with the
fundamental purpose of the mandate ..." 117/
However in
its report, the PMC made clear that in its view the dual obligations were of
equal weight and were not irreconcilable.
(On this occasion, the League Council, on the request of
the British Government, dispatched a League Commission to investigate Jewish and
Muslim claims concerning the Wailing Wall. Their recommendations in 1931 in
general confirmed the status
quo and were implemented by the
Palestine authorities.)
For the
following five years the reports on the Palestine Mandate again received routine
comments, until the outbreak of the Palestinian rebellion in 1936, when the
League Council called the PMC to formulate a "Preliminary Opinion" on the Royal
Commission's proposal for terminating the Palestine Mandate by partition rather
than independence, a radical proposal with weighty implications for the Mandates
system. The PMC elaborated on the contradictions inherent in the mandate, and
the problems raised by the British proposal:
"By these communications, the Permanent
Mandates Commission was given a task that was entirely new to it. It was no
longer a question of examining the annual reports of the Mandatories and
advising the Council on all matters relating to the observance of the
mandates, as its mission is defined in the Covenant itself; nor was it a duty
such as that assigned to it by the Council in 1931, of determining whether a
mandated territory had reached a degree of maturity justifying its
emancipation.
"The Commission's
task today is to express a preliminary opinion on the intentions of a
Mandatory Power which proposes to the Council the termination of the mandate
it has been carrying out for 15 years, and which, in support of this proposal,
adduces not so much the attainment of maturity by the ward as the difficulties
of guardianship.
"This opinion, it
is true, was expressly requested by the Council and the Mandatory Power
itself. But the Commission could not turn for guidance either to the mandate,
which had been challenged, or to the Covenant, which is wholly silent on this
subject.
"In the light of what
principles, therefore, should it consider the question submitted to it? And,
first of all, what exactly was that question itself? ...
"Although the question at issue was its revision, the
Palestine mandate remained the centre of the whole of the deliberations. The
mandate defines the obligations assumed by the Mandatory Power towards the
League of Nations, on whose behalf the territory is administered. These
obligations themselves are derived from the Balfour Declaration of 2 November
1917, and from the provisions of Article 22 of the Covenant, to which the
United Kingdom Government, in accepting the mandate, undertook to give
effect.
"The Commission has never
imagined that the Mandatory Power might desire to withdraw from these
obligations. The very idea of changing the existing régime was, in fact, the
outcome of the difficulties experienced by the Mandatory in carrying out its
obligations and of its desire to adapt its policy more closely to the
requirements of its mission ...
"The first question to which the Commission has to give
a reply to the Council is therefore that of the maintenance of the existing
mandate. Although the obligations of the mandate have not appeared to be
irreconcilable, the aspirations of Arabs and Jews in Palestine have constantly
clashed ever since the mandate was established. What people could be expected
to agree wholeheartedly that its country should be used for the establishment
of a national home for another people, even if it were thereby to reap
appreciable material benefits? And again, it is surprising that a people
which, for nearly two thousand years, has been scattered over the face of the
earth should have hastened to welcome an offer made to it to reconstruct a
national home in the land of his forefathers, under the protection of a mighty
empire? It was inevitable from the outset that there would be a conflict
between the aspirations of the Arabs of Palestine, desirous of remaining or
rather of becoming complete masters in their own house, and the Jews, desirous
of constituting or rather reconstituting a national home in Palestine. The
very wording of the Balfour Declaration and of the Palestine mandate clearly
shows that this inevitable antagonism had been realised by the authors of
those documents ...
"The
disturbances of 1936 showed how widespread and intense was the hostility of
the Arabs to Jewish immigration, and the repressive measures perforce taken by
the mandatory Power only added to its doubts of the possibility of applying
the mandate without resorting to the constant use of force." 118/
The
Commission noted the repercussion of the Peel report on the mandate and
expressed reservations on the partition proposal:
"The present mandate became almost unworkable
once it was publicly declared to be so by a British Royal Commission speaking
with the two-fold authority conferred on it by its impartiality and its
unanimity, and by the Government of the Mandatory Power itself
...
"While declaring itself
favourable in principle to an examination of a solution involving the
partition of Palestine, the Commission is nevertheless opposed to the idea of
the immediate creation of two new independent States ...
"The Commission therefore considers that a prolongation
of the period of political apprenticeship constituted by the mandate would be
absolutely essential both to the new Arab State and to the new Jewish State."
119/
The PMC
proposed alternate forms of "apprenticeship", and the Council authorized Great
Britain to prepare a partition plan for the League's
consideration.
The situation remained
fluid as the rebellion in Palestine continued, the PMC commenting in
1938:
"The Royal Commission considered that, during
that period, the present mandate would continue to be the governing instrument
of the administration of Palestine. In actual fact, however, the Mandates
Commission cannot but recognize that the application of the mandate is
partially suspended now, as events have prevented some of its essential
objects from being pursued." 120/
The 1939
White Paper's reversal from immediate termination of the Mandate by partition to
its prolongation with eventual independence for a united Palestine created a new
situation for the PMC which, faced with fluctuations in British policy, was
unable to make any definite recommendations:
"From the first, one fact forced itself to
the notice of the Commission - namely, that the policy set out in the White
Paper was not in accordance with the interpretation which, in agreement with
the Mandatory Power and the Council, the Commission had always placed upon the
Palestine mandate.
"In order to
prove this, it will be enough to say that, only two years ago, the Government
of the Mandatory Power declared, in the Statement of Policy which accompanied
the report published by the Royal Commission, that the present mandate was
unworkable. In view of this, the Mandates Commission communicated to the
Council its opinion that a mandate which was declared unworkable by the
Mandatory Power almost became so by that very fact.
"In 1937, there was already a conflict between Jewish
and Arab aspirations, which the United Kingdom Government admitted its
inability to reconcile; that conflict was the principal obstacle to
Palestine's being administered in accordance with the mandate. Since that
time, the conflict has become more and more intense. In 1937, the United
Kingdom Government, feeling itself unable equitably to administer Palestine
under the present mandate, believed that the possibility of so doing was to be
found in a territorial partition for which no provision was made therein,
while today it considers its new policy to be in accordance with the mandate.
Does this not show that that instrument had at that time a different meaning
in the eyes of the Mandatory Power than that which it has
today?
"The Commission did not,
however, confine itself to establishing this single fact. It went on to
consider whether the Palestine mandate might not perhaps be open to a new
interpretation which, while still respecting its main principles, would be
sufficiently flexible for the policy of the White Paper not to appear at
variance with it. The Commission was all the less reluctant to raise this
question since, according to the Mandatory Power, no such contradiction
existed. The Commission learned from the Secretary of State for the Colonies
that the Mandatory Power considered, on the strength of the opinion expressed
by its legal advisers that, in view of the changed situation, the policy which
it proposed to pursue was in agreement with the mandate, itself based on
Article 22 of the Covenant and on the Balfour Declaration." 121/
There was
no consensus in the PMC, but its comment that the 1939 White Paper was not in
accordance with the accepted interpretation of the Mandate - with the
establishment of the Jewish National Home as its principal objective - was
further to complicate the controversy, though any further interest or activity
by the League of Nations in the problem of Palestine was precluded by the
outbreak of war in September 1939.
IX. THE ENDING OF THE
MANDATE
Palestine in
1939
By 1939 the situation in
Palestine had reached a crucial point. The Royal Commission had declared the
Mandate unworkable. The Commission's own partition proposals had proved equally
unworkable. The 1939 White Paper had postulated an independent unified
Palestine, with a Palestinian Arab majority, in 10 years, but the League of
Nations had expressed reservations on this new policy declaration. Yet the
League itself had proved incapable of playing any effective role in arresting
the deteriorating situation in Palestine. The Palestinians had sensed that only
through violence could they force recognition of their inherent rights. The
Zionists in turn had reacted with violence to hold the ground they had gained
and to press towards their ultimate aspirations of a Jewish State in Palestine.
The monstrous Nazi crimes against the Jewish people led them to look to the
"national home" in Palestine as a refuge. The Second World War was to act as a
catalyst in the interplay of these forces, and the pace of events
accelerated.
Shortly before the war
broke out, both the Jewish Agency as well as Palestinian Arab leaders declared
their support of the Allies. The Mufti, still in exile, eventually aligned
himself with the Axis powers. Violence subsided as the leaders of both sides
observed a political truce. Jewish and Arab battalions were formed in Palestine,
the Jewish units ultimately forming a Jewish Brigade.
The implementation of the 1939 White
Paper
Despite the demands of the
war effort, the British Government, disturbed by the dangerous situation in
Palestine, proceeded with the policy of the 1939 White Paper in an effort to
diminish the political tension. In February 1940, the Palestine authorities
issued the Land Transfer regulations, dividing Palestine into three zones. In
the largest zone, any transfer of land to a person who was not a "Palestinian
Arab" was prohibited, exceptions being permitted only under specific conditions
and with the High Commissioner's permission. In the second zone "Palestinian
Arabs" were permitted to transfer land only between themselves. In the third
zone there were not restrictions on land transfers.
The clauses of the 1939 White Paper relating to
immigration were also implemented, but at the end of the five-year period in
1944, only 51,000 of the 75,000 immigration certificates provided for had been
utilized. In circumstances where Jewish refugees from Europe were fleeing
violence and persecution, the White Paper's limits were relaxed and legal
immigration was permitted to continue indefinitely at the rate of 18,000 a
year.
The Jewish
response
The Palestinian
rebellion, the Royal Commission's report and the 1939 White Paper's policies
constituted a series of reversals to the aim of political Zionism to establish a
settler state in Palestine. It had become evident that the Mandatory Power was
re-interpreting its earlier commitment to the Balfour Declaration. Three
features of the response by some Zionist groups were illegal immigration,
terrorism and an attempt to obtain support from the United
States.
Illegal immigration was not a
wartime phenomenon. The Hope-Simpson Report of 1930 had recorded that "some
thousands each year" of unauthorized immigrants settled in Palestine, either
having evaded frontier controls or having arrived as "pseudo travellers" and
then staying on. 122/ This type of immigration was bound to increase with the
conditions prevailing in Europe, and it is estimated that between April 1939 and
December 1943, over 20,000 illegal immigrants arrived in Palestine.
123/ The conditions under which this immigration was
swelling were politically exploited by Jewish organizations to exert pressure on
the British Government, as described in an official document:
"The regulation of Jewish immigration into
Palestine has been greatly complicated, since before the outbreak of war, by
attempts to organize the unauthorized entry of large bodies of immigrants.
During the war it was more than ever imperative that the Administration should
resist this threat to its authority, since the shiploads of refugees came from
inside Axis-controlled Europe and offered an opportunity for the infiltration
of enemy agents. In November 1940, it was decided that illegal immigrants
would be deported to an alternative place of refuge in the Colonial Empire.
The first contingent of deportees under this policy was assembled on board the
s.s. Patria in Haifa Harbour. The Patria,
however, was scuttled at her moorings on 25 November, as a result of sabotage
by Jewish sympathizers ashore, with the loss of 252 lives. Numbers of illegal
immigrants were subsequently deported to Mauritius; they were admitted to
Palestine in 1945 and an equivalent number was deducted from the quota
provided for in the White Paper". 124/
The Jewish
immigrants claimed to have practised often the doctrine of Havlaga, or
restraint and non-violence, in the face of the various uprisings by Palestinian
Arabs, culminating in the rebellion. During the war years, the Jewish community
also resorted to violence. The recourse to terrorism is described in an official
British document as follows:
"The lull in terrorist activity did not
continue throughout the war years. The Jewish community resented the Land
Transfers Regulations and the measures taken against unauthorized immigration.
In 1942, a small group of Zionist extremists, led by Abraham Stern, came into
prominence with a series of politically motivated murders and robberies in the
Tel Aviv area. In the following year there came to light a widespread
conspiracy, connected with Haganah (an illegal military formation controlled
by the Jewish Agency), for stealing arms and ammunition from the British
forces in the Middle East. In August 1944, the High Commissioner narrowly
escaped death in an ambush outside Jerusalem. Three months later, on the 6th
November, the British Minister of State in the Middle East (Lord Moyne) was
assassinated in Cairo by two members of the Stern group. A third illegal
Jewish organization, the Irgun Tzeva'i Leumi, was responsible for much
destruction of Government property during 1944. The outrages perpetrated by
the Stern group and the Irgun Zvei Leumi were condemned by the official
spokesmen of the Jewish community;...
"On the 22nd July 1946, the campaign conducted by
terrorist organizations reached a new climax with an explosion which wrecked a
wing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, containing the offices of the
Government Secretariat as well as part of military headquarters, and killed 86
public servants, Arab, Jewish and British, as well as five members of the
public. Later terrorist activities have included the kidnapping of a British
judge and of British officers, sabotage of the railway system and of oil
installations at Haifa, and the blowing up of a British Officers' Club in
Jerusalem with considerable loss of life. In order that the administration of
the country might proceed unhampered by terrorist reprisals against the
British community as threatened, non-essential British civilians and military
families were evacuated from Palestine and the remaining members of the
British community were concentrated in security zones at the beginning of
February 1947. In the same month 'statutory martial law' was imposed for a
limited period (in specified areas);..." 125/
Notwithstanding formal disclaimers of its responsibility,
there appears to be some evidence of involvement of the Jewish Agency, as
indicated in an official report:
"The information which was in the possession
of His Majesty's Government when they undertook their recent action in
Palestine led them to draw the following conclusions:
(1) That the Haganah and its associated force the
Palmach (working under the political control of prominent members of the
Jewish Agency) have been engaging in carefully planned movements of sabotage
and violence under the guise of 'the Jewish Resistance
Movement';
(2) That the Irgun
Tzeva'i Leumi and the Stern Group have worked since last autumn in
co-operation with the Haganah High Command on certain of these
operations;...
(3) That the
broadcasting station 'Kol Israel' which claims to be "the Voice of the
Resistance Movement" and which has been working under the general direction of
the Jewish Agency has been supporting these organizations." 126/
This
campaign of terror against Palestinian Arabs and the British reached such
proportions that Churchill, a strong supporter of Zionist aims and at that time
Prime Minister, stated in the House of Commons:
"If our dreams for zionism are to end in the
smoke of assassins' pistols and our labours for its future are to produce a
new set of gangsters worthy of Nazi Germany, many like myself will have to
reconsider the position we have maintained so consistently and so long in the
past. If there is to be any hope of a peaceful and successful future for
zionism, these wicked activities must cease and those responsible for them
must be destroyed, root and branch;...
Referring to the appeal of the Jewish Agency to the
Jewish community '... to cast out the members of this destructive band, to
deprive them of all refuge and shelter, to resist their threats and to render
all necessary assistance to the authorities in the prevention of terrorist acts
and in the eradication of the terrorist organization', he said:
"These are strong words but we must wait for
these words to be translated into deeds. We must wait to see that not only the
leaders but every man, woman and child of the Jewish community does his or her
best to bring this terrorism to a speedy end." 127/
The
"Biltmore Programme"
The Zionist Organization sought to strengthen its
position by drawing support from the United States to substitute for that loss
from Great Britain. In May 1942 the Jewish Agency Executive, meeting in New
York, formally made public in what is known as the "Biltmore Programme", the
long-standing aim of the creation of a Jewish State in Palestine through
unlimited immigration, declaring that:
"The Conference affirms its unalterable
rejection of the White Paper of May 1939 and denies its moral or legal
validity. The White Paper seeks to limit, and in fact to nullify Jewish rights
to immigration and settlement in Palestine, and, as stated by Mr. Winston
Churchill in the House of Commons in May 1939, constitutes "a breach and
repudiation of the Balfour Declaration;...
"The Conference urges that the gates of Palestine be
opened; that the Jewish Agency be vested with control of immigration into
Palestine and with the necessary authority for upbuilding the country,
including the development of its unoccupied and uncultivated lands; and that
Palestine be established as a Jewish Commonwealth integrated in the structure
of the new democratic world;..." 128/
The Jewish
Agency formally presented its demands to the British Government in May 1945 as
follows:
"(1) That an immediate decision be announced
to establish Palestine as a Jewish State.
"(2) That the Jewish Agency be invested with all
necessary authority to bring to Palestine as many Jews as it may be found
necessary and possible to settle, and to develop, fully and speedily, all the
resources of the country - especially land and power
resources.
"(3) That an
international loan and other help be given for the transfer of the first
million of Jews to Palestine, and for the economic development of the
country.
"(4) That reparations in
kind from Germany be granted to the Jewish people for the rebuilding of
Palestine, and - as a first instalment - that all German property in Palestine
be used for the resettlement of Jews from Europe.
"(5) That international facilities be provided for the
exit and transit of all Jews who wish to settle in Palestine." 129/
The Zionist
Organization formally endorsed the programme as its declared policy and
concentrated its efforts in the United States:
"By November 1945, however, a new chapter in
the history of Palestine was about to open. Zionist pressure in the United
States, which the Government of that country had resisted during the course of
the war, again made itself felt on the restoration of peace, taking as its
text reports of American Congressmen ... on the plight of Jews in camps for
displaced persons.
"President
Truman responded to it in a letter to Mr. Attlee, in which he called on the
British Government to open the gates of Palestine to an additional 100,000 of
the homeless Jews in Europe." 130/
As the war
ended, the outcome of United States involvement was the appointment of an
Anglo-American Committee of Enquiry to make recommendations on Palestine to both
Governments. The Foreign Secretary of the new Labour Government in Great
Britain, prevented by circumstance from implementing the 1939 White Paper, and
faced with a situation where the League of Nations had been extinguished by the
war, and succeeded by the United Nations, indicated future policy on the
following lines:
"His Majesty's Government cannot divest
themselves of their duties and responsibilities under the Mandate while the
Mandate continues ... that is, until arrangements can be made - arrangements
which it is hoped will be facilitated by the Report of the Committee of
Enquiry - for placing Palestine under Trusteeship. The British Government ...
will prepare a permanent solution for submission to the United Nations and, if
possible, an agreed one." 131/
The
Anglo-American Enquiry Committee
The 12-member Committee began work in January 1946 with a
120-day time-limit and finalized its report in April. As in the case of previous
British Commissions, it surveyed the history of Palestine over the years since
the Balfour Declaration, but concluded with a set of recommendations that
virtually negated those by the British Commission.
Describing the Jewish view, the report
observed:
"The Jews in Palestine are convinced that
Arab violence paid. Throughout the Arab rising, the Jews in the national home,
despite every provocation, obeyed the orders of their leaders and exercised a
remarkable self-discipline. They shot, but only in self-defence; they rarely
took reprisals on the Arab population. They state bitterly that the reward for
this restraint was the Conference and the White Paper of 1939
...
"An immediate result of the
success of Arab terrorism was the beginning of Jewish terrorism and, even more
significant, a closing of the ranks, a tightening of the discipline, and a
general militarization of Jewish life in Palestine. The Agency became the
political headquarters of a citizen army which felt that at any moment it
might have to fight for its very existence. Deprived, as he believed, both of
his natural and of his legal rights, the Palestinian Jews began to lose faith
in the Mandatory Power. The dangerous belief was spread that not patience but
violence was needed to achieve justice. The position of the moderates who
urged self-restraint and a reliance on Britain's pledged word was
progressively undermined; the position of the extremists, eager to borrow a
leaf from the Arab copy book, was progressively strengthened ...
132/
"The State
within the State:
"The Jews have
developed under the aegis of the Jewish Agency and the Vaad Leumi, a strong
and tightly-woven community. There thus exists a virtual Jewish
non-territorial State with its own executive and legislative organs,
paralleled in many respects to the Mandatory Administration, and serving as
the concrete symbol of the Jewish National Home. This Jewish shadow government
has ceased to co-operate with the Administration in the maintenance of law and
order, and in the suppression of terrorism ..." 133/
"A
sinister aspect of recent years is the development of large illegal armed
forces. The following is the structure as stated to us by the military
authorities.
"The general organization is the 'Haganah'. It is an
illegal development of the former organization, in the days of Turkish rule,
of armed watchmen who protected Jewish settlements. Today, it is completely
organized, under a central control and with subsidiary territorial commands,
in three branches, each of which includes women, viz:
. "A static force composed of settlers and townfolk,
with an estimated strength of 40,000;
. "A field army, based on the Jewish Settlement Police
and trained in more mobile operations, with an estimated strength of
16,000;
. "A full-time force
(Palmach), permanently mobilized and provided with transport, with an
estimated peace establishment of 2,000 and war establishment of some
6,000.
"It is known that the
Haganah has been procuring arms over a period of years. Vast quantities have
been obtained from the residue of the campaigns in the Middle East. Arms and
ammunition are kept and concealed in specially constructed caches in
settlements and towns ...
"Apart
from the Haganah, two further illegal armed organizations exist, both having
cut away from the parent body. One is the 'Irgun Tzeva'i Leumi', which was
formed in 1935 by dissident members of the Haganah. The other is the 'Stern
Group' which broke away from the Irgun early in the war when the latter
announced an 'armistice'. The Irgun operated under its own secret command
mainly in sabotage and terrorism against the Mandatory; its strength is
estimated at from 3,000 to 5,000. The Stern Group engages in terrorism; its
strength is said to be between 200 and 300 ... (The British Government
commented that these estimates were 'on the conservative
side'.)
"All three organizations to
which reference has been made are illegal ..."134/
The
Palestinian Arab view was summed up as follows:
"... Stripped to the bare essentials, the
Arab case is based upon the fact that Palestine is a country which the Arabs
have occupied for more than a thousand years, and a denial of the Jewish
historical claims to Palestine. In issuing the Balfour Declaration, the Arabs
maintain, the British Government were giving away something that did not
belong to Britain, and they have consistently argued that the Mandate
conflicted with the Covenant of the League of Nations from which it derived
its authority. The Arabs deny that the part played by the British in freeing
them from the Turks gave Great Britain a right to dispose of their country.
Indeed, they assert that Turkish was preferable to British rule, if the latter
involves their eventual subjection to the Jews. They consider the Mandate a
violation of their right of self-determination since it is forcing upon them
an immigration which they do not desire and will not tolerate - an invasion of
Palestine by the Jews ...
"The
suggestion that self-government should be withheld from Palestine until the
Jews have acquired a majority seems outrageous to the Arabs. They wish to be
masters in their own house. The Arabs were opposed to the idea of a Jewish
national home even before the Biltmore Programme and the demand for a Jewish
State. Needless to say, however, their opposition has become more intense and
more bitter since that programme was adopted ..." 135/
The
Anglo-American Committee rejected the idea of early independence for Palestine,
whether partitioned or unified, considering that Palestinian Arab-Jewish
hostility "would result in civil strife as might threaten the peace of the
world" ... The Committee appeared to anticipate that the hostility would
eventually disappear (it did not elaborate how this would happen) and that until
such time Palestine should become a United Nations trusteeship, pending which
the Mandate should continue. It also appeared to anticipate that unity would
somehow be maintained and recommended a declaration.
"That Jews shall not dominate Arab and Arab
shall not dominate Jew in Palestine; that Palestine shall be neither a Jewish
State nor an Arab State". 136/
and that
the future government would be internationally guaranteed.
Among immediate measures the Committee recommended the
rescinding of the 1940 Land Transfer Regulations so as to allow free transfers
of land, and the immediate issue of 100,000 immigration certificates to the
victims of Nazi persecution. It also recommended a declaration that terrorism
would be suppressed, and called on the Jewish Agency to co-operate with the
authorities to this end.
In effect
the Committee recommended the continuation of a Mandate that the Mandatory Power
had found unworkable. Immediately on publication of the Committee's report, the
United States President issued a statement in which, inter alia, he
said:
"I am very happy that the request which I
made for the immediate admission of 100,000 Jews into Palestine has been
unanimously endorsed by the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry. The
transference of these unfortunate people should now be accomplished with the
greatest despatch ... I am also pleased that the Committee recommends in
effect the abrogation of the White Paper of 1939 including existing
restrictions on immigration and land acquisition to permit the further
development of the Jewish national home. It is also gratifying that the report
envisages the carrying out of large scale economic development projects in
Palestine which would facilitate further immigration and be of benefit to the
entire population. In addition to those immediate objectives, the report deals
with many other questions of long-range political policies and questions of
international law which require careful study and which I will take under
advisement". 137/
However,
the British Government stated that it could not accept the Committee's
recommendations immediately, and they would be examined further. In the course
of this examination by British and American officials, a scheme was produced for
two autonomous provinces in a Palestine that continued to be governed under a
British High Commissioner. This scheme received the approval of the British
Government, but not of the United States Government, and the issue remained
unresolved.
Both Governments then
requested the views of the independent Arab Governments which, in the meantime,
had formed the Arab League in March 1945, envisioning the future membership of
an eventually independent Palestine. Since the Palestinian Arabs could not
present their own views, the Arab Governments actively advocated their case, and
obtained assurances from the United States Government of consultation on any
formula for Palestine. They now proposed a conference to discuss the Palestine
problem.
The London
Conference
The new London
Conference met from September 1946 to February 1947, starting in the absence of
representatives of either the Palestinian Arabs or Jews both of whom had refused
the invitation. The Arab countries attending opposed the provincial scheme, and
presented to the British Government their own proposals, with the following
principal features:
(a) Palestine
would be a unitary State with a permanent Arab majority, and would attain its
independence as such after a short period of transition (two or three years)
under British Mandate;
(b) Within
this unitary State, Jews who had acquired Palestinian citizenship (for which the
qualification would be 10 years' residence in the country) would have full civil
rights, equally with all other citizens of Palestine;
(c) Special safeguards would be provided to protect the
religious and cultural rights of the Jewish community;
(d) The Jewish community would be entitled to a number of
seats in the Legislative Assembly proportionate to the number of Jewish citizens
(as defined) in Palestine, subject to the proviso that in no case would the
number of Jewish representatives exceed one third of the total number of
members;
(e) All legislation
concerning immigration and the transfer of land would require the consent of the
Arabs in Palestine as expressed by a majority of the Arab members of the
Legislative Assembly; and the safeguards provided for the Jewish community would
be alterable only with the consent of a majority of the Jewish members of the
Legislative Assembly". 138/
On its side
the Zionist Congress, meeting in Basle in 1947 five decades after the Basle
Declaration, rejected the provincial autonomy scheme as "a travesty of Britain's
obligation under the Mandate", also rejecting any form of trusteeship and
demanding:
"(a) That Palestine be established as a
Jewish Commonwealth integrated in the structure of the democratic
world;
"(b) That the gates of
Palestine be opened to Jewish immigration;
"(c) That the Jewish Agency be vested with the control
of immigration into Palestine and with the necessary authority for the
upbuilding of the country". 139/
In February
1947, the British Government then presented its own proposals to the Arab
representatives, by then joined by representatives of the Palestinian Arab
Higher Executive, and to the Jewish Agency, which had entered into unofficial
negotiations with the British Government. Both sides rejected the proposals. The
Zionist Organization, fortified by new large-scale immigration, legal and
illegal, well equipped forces, with the Jewish Brigade providing the nucleus,
and powerful foreign support, was unprepared to compromise on its long-standing
objective towards which it had advanced so close - a Jewish State in Palestine.
The Palestinian Arabs, with the support of other Arab peoples, were determined
to guard and hold their country, and to prevent it from being dominated further
by continued Jewish immigration. The impasse was total, and large-scale violence
was imminent in Palestine.
Faced with
this situation, Great Britain decided to relinquish its mandatory role and to
hand over the Palestine problem, created over three decades by the Balfour
Declaration and the Palestine Mandate, to the United Nations. On 18 February
1947, the Foreign Secretary stated in the House of Commons:
"His Majesty's Government have ... been faced
with an irreconcilable conflict of principles. There are in Palestine about
1,200,000 Arabs and 600,000 Jews. For the Jews, the essential point of
principle is the creation of a sovereign Jewish State. For the Arabs, the
essential point of principle is to resist to the last the establishment of
Jewish sovereignty in any part of Palestine. The discussions of the last month
have quite clearly shown that there is no prospect of resolving this conflict
by any settlement negotiated between the parties. But if the conflict has to
be resolved by an arbitrary decision, that is not a decision which His
Majesty's Government are empowered, as "Mandatory", to take. His Majesty's
Government have of themselves no power, under the terms of the Mandate, to
award the country either to the Arabs or to the Jews, or even to partition it
between them.
"It is in these
circumstances that we have decided that we are unable to accept the scheme put
forward either by the Arabs or by the Jews, or to impose ourselves a solution
of our own. We have, therefore, reached the conclusion that the only course
now open to us is to submit the problem to the judgement of the United
Nations. We intend to place before them an historical account of the way in
which His Majesty's Government have discharged their trust in Palestine over
the last 25 years. We shall explain that the Mandate has proved to be
unworkable in practice, and that the obligations undertaken by the two
communities in Palestine have been shown to be irreconcilable. We shall
describe the various proposals which have been put forward for dealing with
the situation, namely, the Arab Plan, the Zionists' aspirations, so far as we
have been able to ascertain them, the proposals of the Anglo-American
Committee and the various proposals which we ourselves have put forward. We
shall then ask the United Nations to consider our report, and to recommend a
settlement of the problem. We do not intend ourselves to recommend any
particular solution". 140/
The
transformation of Mandated Palestine
At the culmination of a quarter century of Mandatory
rule, Palestine had been radically transformed in demographic terms. The
population of Palestine had increased tremendously - from the 750,000 of the
1922 census to almost 1,850,000 at the end of 1946 - an increase of nearly 250
per cent. During this period the Jewish population had soared from 56,000 after
the First World War to 84,000 in 1922 to 608,000 in 1946, an increase of about
725 per cent. 141/ From constituting less than a tenth of the population
in Palestine after the First World War, the Jewish community in 1947 constituted
nearly a third. A good part of this was due to births within Palestine but legal
immigration alone accounted for over 376,000, with illegal immigration being
estimated at another 65,000 - a total of 440,000. 142/ This Jewish
population was primarily urban - about 70 per cent to 75 per cent in and around
the cities of Jerusalem, Jaffa-Tel Aviv and Haifa. 143/
Land holding
patterns had also changed considerably. From the 650,000 dunums held by Jewish
organizations in 1920, of the total land area of 26 million dunums, the figure
at the end of 1946 had reached 1,625,000 dunums - an increase of about 250 per
cent 144/ and Jewish settlement had displaced large numbers of
Palestinian Arab peasants. Even so, this area represented only 6.2 per cent of
the total area of Palestine and 12 per cent of the cultivable land.
145/
Ironically,
the Palestinian Arabs were to suffer an experience similar to the Jews - a
diaspora. That the Jews deserved sympathy was unquestionable. Even before the
Nazi terror, this sympathy existed for the Jewish people among the Palestinian
Arabs. The absence of racial rancour before the Balfour Declaration received
emphasis in virtually every official report. Even as late as 1937, during the
Palestinian rebellion for independence, the Royal Commission on Palestine
said:
"An able Arab exponent of the Arab case told
us that the Arabs throughout their history have not only been free from
anti-Jewish sentiment but have also shown that the spirit of compromise is
deeply rooted in their life. There is no decent-minded person, he said, who
would not want to do everything humanly possible to relieve the distress of
those persons, provided that it was not at the cost of inflicting a
corresponding distress on another people." 146/
Arnold J.
Toynbee who, before becoming recognized as an eminent world historian had dealt
directly with the Palestine Mandate in the British Foreign Office, wrote in
1968:
"All through those 30 years, Britain
(admitted) into Palestine, year by year, a quota of Jewish immigrants that
varied according to the strength of the respective pressures of the Arabs and
Jews at the time. These immigrants could not have come in if they had not been
shielded by a British chevaux-de-frise. If Palestine had remained under Ottoman Turkish rule,
or if it had become an independent Arab state in 1918, Jewish immigrants would
never have been admitted into Palestine in large enough numbers to enable them
to overwhelm the Palestinian Arabs in this Arab people's own country. The
reason why the State of Israel exists today and why today 1,500,000
Palestinian Arabs are refugees is that, for 30 years, Jewish immigration was
imposed on the Palestinian Arabs by British military power until the
immigrants were sufficiently numerous and sufficiently well-armed to be able
to fend for themselves with tanks and planes of their own. The tragedy in
Palestine is not just a local one; it is a tragedy for the world, because it
is an injustice that is a menace to the world's peace." 147/
Notes
1/ Hurewitz, J. C., Diplomacy in the Near and Middle East (Princeton: Van Nostrand, 1956), vol. II, p.
xvi.
2/ British
Government, Correspondence between Sir
Henry McMahon and the SherifHussein of Mecca, Parliamentary Papers - Cmd. 5957
(1939).
3/
Ibid., Report of a
Committee on Correspondence between Sir Henry McMahon andthe Sherif of
Mecca, Parliamentary Papers - Cmd. 5974
(1939), p. 48.
4/
Ibid., p. 49.
5/ Ibid., pp. 50 and
51.
6/
Ibid., p. 11.
7/ Ibid., p. 11. A
historical footnote to the Anglo-Arab understandings appeared in the "Feisal
Documents", consisting of correspondence exchanges in 1919 between Sherif
Husain's son and Weizmann. It has been asserted that this correpondence (in
English, which was unknown to Feisal) invalidated the preceding
understandings.
However, it is
evident that this later correspondence was not official, and the opinion of the
United Nations Special Committee on Palestine is conclusive:
"The Feisal-Weizmann agreement did not acquire validity,
since the condition attached (i.e. Arab independence) was not fulfilled at the
time". United Nations document A/364, report of the Special Committee on
Palestine to the General Assembly, 3 September 1947, p. 35).
The question of the validity of these documents has been
examined by an authority who possesses the original of the document. See
Jeffries, J. M. N.: Palestine:
TheReality (London,
Longmans Green, 1939), pp. 248-257.
8/ Robert John and Sami Hadawi, The Palestine Diary, vol. I (1914-1945), (New World Press, New York, 1970),
p. xiv.
9/ Laqueur,
Walter, The Israel Arab
Reader (New York, Bantam Books, 1976),
pp. 6-11.
10/ Herzl,
Theodor, The Complete Diaries of Theodor
Herzl (New York, Herzl Press and Thomas
Yosecoff, 1960), vol. I, p. 343.
11/ Sykes, Christopher, Crossroads to Israel (London, Collins, 1965), p. 24.
12/ Esco Foundation for Palestine, Palestine: A Study of Jewish, Arab andBritish
Policies (New Haven, Yale University
Press, 1947), vol. I, p. 41.
13/ Stein, Leonard, The Balfour Declaration (New York, Simon and Schuster, 1961), p.
64.
14/ Sokolow,
Nahum, History of Zionism,
1600-1918 (London, Loggmans, Green,
1919), vol. I, p. xxi.
15/ Kohn, Hans, "Ahad Ha'am: Nationalist with a Difference"
in Smith, Gary (ed.): Zionism: The Dream
and the Reality (New York, Harper and
Row, 1974), pp. 31-32.
16/ Weisgal, Meyer (ed.), Chaim Weizmann
(New York, Dial Press, 1944), p. 131.
17/ Weizmann, Chaim, Trial and Error
(New York, Harper, 1949), p. 149.
18/ Ibid., pp.
177-178.
19/
Ibid., p. 181.
20/ Ibid., p.
374.
21/
Ibid., p. 375.
22/ Ibid., p.
386.
23/
Ibid., p. 416.
24/ Ibid., p.
186.
25/ Stein,
Zionism (London, Ernest Benn, 1925), pp.
113-115.
26/ Stein,
op. cit., chapters 31, 34 and 35; Jeffries, J. M. N.,
Palestine:TheReality (London, Longman, 1939), pp. 163-171; and Robert John
and Sami Hadawi, op. cit., pp. 75-91.
27/ Jeffries, op.
cit., p. 172.
28/ Stein, op.
cit., p. 552.
29/ Weizmann, op.
cit., pp. 207-208.
30/ Stein, op.
cit., p. 470.
31/ Weizmann, op.
cit., p. 207.
32/ Jeffries, op.
cit., p. 178.
33/ Mallison, W. T., "The Balfour Declaration: An Appraisal
in International Law" in Abu Lughod, Ibrahim: The Transformation of Palestine (Evanston, Northwestern University Press, 1971), p.
6.
34/
Ibid., p. 67-69.
35/ Temperley, Harold (ed.), A History of the Peace Conference at
Paris, vol. VI (London, Hodder and
Stoughton, 1924), p. 173.
36/ British Government, British Public Record Office,
Cabinet No. 24/24 (August 1917).
37/ Weizmann, op.
cit., p. 212.
38/ Linowitz, Sol M., "The Legal Basis for the State of
Israel" American BarAssociation
Journal, vol. 43, 1957, p.
522.
39/ Cattan,
Henry, Palestine and International
Law (London, Longman, 1973), Mallison,
op. cit.
40/ Hurewitz, Op.
cit., pp. xvi-xvii.
41/ Weisga, Op.
cit., p. 297.
42/ British Government, Public Record Office
Cabinet No. 27/23 (1918) (as reproduced in Ingrams, Doreen,
The Palestinian Papers, London, John Murray, 1972).
45/ Antonius, George, The Arab Awakening (New York, Putnam, 1946), p. 283.
46/ Hurewitz, op.
cit., p. 39.
47/ Ibid., p.
45.
48/ United States
Government, Foreign Relations of the
United States: the ParisPeace Conference
(Washington, 1944), vol. I, pp. 1-14.
49/ Nutting, Anthony, The Arabs
(London, Hollis and Carter, 1964), p. 68.
50/ United States Government, op. cit., vol.
XII, pp. 780-781.
51/
Ibid., vol. XII, pp. 793 ff.
52/ British Government, op. cit.,
Foreign Office No.
800/217 (1919).
53/ Ibid.,
Foreign Office No.
371/4183 (1919).
54/ Royal Institute of International Affairs,
Great Britain and
Palestine (London, Chatham House, 1946),
p. 13.
55/ British
Government, op. cit., Foreign Office
No. 371/5114.
56/ Weizmann, op.
cit., pp. 279-280.
57/ British Government, op. cit.,
Foreign Office No.
371/5199.
58/ Ibid.,
Foreign Office No.
371/5245.
59/ Ibid.,
Foreign Office No.
371/5248.
60/ British Government, Hansard's Reports, House of Lords, 21 June 1922, p.
1025.
61/ Esco
Foundation, op. cit., vol. I, p. 252.
62/ British Government, Palestine Royal Commission: Report - Cmd. 5479 (1937), p. 108.
63/ Cattan, op.
cit., pp. 30-33.
64/ British Government, Palestine: Statement of Policy - Cmd. 1700 (1922), pp. 19-20.
65/ Report of United
Nations Special Committee on Palestine
(A/648), p. 21.
66/ Moore, John
Norton, The Arab-Israeli
Conflict (Princeton, University Press,
1974), pp. 22 ff.
67/ British
Government, The Political History of
Palestine under the BritishAdministration (Memorandum to the United Nations Special Committee on
Palestine), Jerusalem, 1947, p. 3.
68/ Ibid.,
Palestine Royal Commission
Report - Cmd. 5479 (1937), p.
279.
69/
Ibid., Report and
General Statement of the Census of 1922,
Jerusalem, 1922, p. 3.
70/ Ibid.,
Report of the Commission on the Palestine
Disturbances - Cmd. 3530 (1930), pp.
104-105.
71/ Palestine,
Government of, A Survey of
Palestine, Jerusalem, 1946, vol. I, p.
244.
72/ British
Government, Palestine: Report on
Immigration, Land Settlement and Development - Cmd. 3686, p. 39.
73/ Ibid., p.
23.
74/
Ibid., pp. 52-53.
75/ Ibid., p.
54.
76/
Ibid., p. 55.
77/ Ibid., pp.
141-142.
78/
Ibid., Palestine:
Statement of Policy, Parliamentary
Papers - Cmd. 3692 (1930), pp. 4-5.
79/ Ibid., pp.
10-11.
80/
Ibid., pp. 18-21.
81/ Ibid., pp.
22-23.
82/ Moore,
op. cit., pp. 143-149 (text of letter).
83/ Weizmann, Trial
and Error, p. 335.
84/ RIIA, Great
Britain and Palestine, p.
61.
85/ British
Government, Palestine Royal Commission:
Report, Cmd. 5479 (1937), p.
50.
86/
Ibid., Palestine:
Disturbances in May 1921, Report of the Commission ofInquiry, Cmd.
1540 (1921), p. 59.
87/
Ibid., Report of the
Commission on the Palestine Disturbances of August 1929, Cmd. 3530 (1930), p. 150.
88/ Ibid., pp.
124-131.
89/ British
Government, Palestine Royal Commission:
Report, Cmd. 5479 (1937), p.
82.
90/
Ibid., pp. 84-87.
91/ Ibid., pp.
91-92.
92/
Ibid., p. 105. An account of the revolt can be found in this
report at pp. 96-106. See also RIIA Great
Britain and Palestine, pp.
88-97.
93/ RIIA,
op. cit., p. 115.
94/ Ibid., pp.
116-118.
95/
The Sunday Times (London), 12 April 1959.
96/ British Government, Palestine Royal Commission: Report - Cmd. 5479 (1937), pp. 41-42.
97/ Ibid., pp.
55-56.
98/
Ibid., p. 58.
99/ Ibid., p.
104.
100/
Ibid., pp. 110-111.
101/
Ibid., p. 124.
102/
Ibid, p. 370.
103/
Ibid., pp. 130-132.
104/
Ibid., p. 373.
105/
Ibid., pp. 375-376.
106/ British
Government, Palestine Partition
Commission: Report, Cmd. 5854
(1938).
107/ Esco
Foundation, op. cit., vol. II, pp. 855-856.
108/ British
Government, Statement of
Policy, Cmd. 5893
(1938).
109/
Ibid., Statement of
Policy, Cmd. 6019
(1939).
110/ Translated from Pic, Pierre, "Le Régime du Mandat
d'après le Traité de Versailles": Revue
générale de Droit International Public,
vol. XXX, p. 334.
111/
International Court of Justice, "Advisory Opinion regarding the Status of
South-West Africa", ICJ
Reports. (1950), p.
132.
112/ Wright,
Quincy, "Sovereignty of the Mandates" American Journalof International Law, vol. 17 (1923), p. 696.
113/ League of
Nations, Responsibilities of the League
arising outof Article 22
(Mandates), Doc. No. 20/48/161, Geneva, 1920, p.
3.
114/
Report to Council on the 5th
Extraordinary Session of the PMC, Doc.
No. C. 661. 1924 VI, Geneva, 1924, p. 4.
115/
Report to the Council on the 17th
Extraordinary Session of thePMC, Doc. No. C.355 (1) M.147 (1), 1930, VI, Geneva, 1930,
pp. 139-140.
116/
Ibid., p. 143.
117/
Minutes of the 17th Extraordinary Session
of the PMC, Doc. No. C.355 M.147, 1930
(VI), p. 49.
118/
Report to the Council on the 32nd
Extraordinary Session of thePMC, Doc. No. C.330 M.222, 1937 (VI), Geneva, 1937, pp.
226-228.
119/
Ibid., pp. 229-230.
120/
Report to the Council on the 34th Session
of the PMC, Doc. No. C.216 M.219, 1938,
VI, Geneva, 1938, p. 228.
121/
Report to the Council on the 36th Session
of the PMC, Doc. No. C.170 M.100, 1939,
VI, Geneva, 1939, p. 275.
122/ British
Government, Report on Immigration, Land
Settlement andDevelopment, Cmd.
3686 (1930), pp. 120, 125-126.
123/ RIIA.
Great Britain and
Palestine, p. 132,
fn.
124/ British Government, The Political History of Palestine (Memorandum to the United Nations Special Committee on
Palestine) (Jerusalem, 1947), p. 30.
125/
Ibid., pp. 31-32.
126/ British
Government, Palestine: Statement Relating
to Acts ofViolence, Cmd.
6873 (1946), p. 3.
127/ British
Government, Survey of
Palestine, vol. I, p.
73.
128/ Laqueur,
op. cit., pp. 78-79.
129/ RIIA,
op. cit., pp. 139-140.
130/
Ibid., p. 139.
131/
Ibid., p. 142.
132/ British
Government, Report of the Anglo-American
Committee ofEnquiry, Cmd.
6808 (1946), pp. 26-28.
133/
Ibid., p. 34.
134/
Ibid., pp. 39-41.
135/
Ibid., pp. 29-30.
136/
Ibid., pp. 1-10.
137/ British
Government, The Political History of
Palestine, p. 35.
138/
Ibid., p. 38.
139/
Ibid., p. 39.
140/
Ibid., p. 40.
141/ Government
of Palestine, A Survey of Palestine -
Supplement, Jerusalem (1947), p.
10.
142/
Ibid., pp. 17, 23.
143/ Abu Lughod,
Janet, "The Demographic Transformation of Palestine" in Abu-Lughod,
op. cit., p. 153.
144/ Government
of Palestine, A Survey of Palestine -
Supplement, p. 30.
145/ Ruedy, John,
"Dynamics of Land Alienation" in Abu-Lughod, op.cit., p. 134.
146/ British
Government, Palestine Royal Commission -
Report, Cmd. 5479 (1937), p.
395.
147/ Robert John
and Sami Hadawi, op. cit., pp. xiv-xv.
ANNEXES
Annex
Page
I.
Sykes-Picot Agreement -
Extract and Map
81
II.
"Excluded areas" under
Hussein-McMahon Correspondence Map
82
III.
Ottoman Administrative
Districts - Map
83
IV.
Article 22 of Covenant of the
League of Nations - Text
84
V.
The Palestine Mandate -
Text
86
VI.
Zionist Claims for Palestine
- Map
93
VII.
Royal Commission's Partition
Plan "A" - Map
94
VIII.
Palestine Partition
Commission Plan "B" - Map
95
IX.
Palestine Partition
Commission Plan "C" - Map
96
ANNEX I
The Sykes-Picot Agreement of 16 May
1916
(Extract)
"It is accordingly understood between the French and
British Governments -
1. That France
and Great Britain are prepared to recognize and protect an independent Arab
State or a Confederation of Arab States in the areas (A) and (B) marked on the
annexed map, under the suzerainty of an Arab chief. That in area (A) France, and
area (B) Great Britain, shall have priority of right of enterprise and local
loans. That in area (A) France, and in area (B) Great Britain, shall alone
supply advisers or foreign functionaries at the request of the Arab State or
Confederation of Arab States.
2. That
in the blue area France, and the red area Great Britain, shall be allowed to
establish such direct or indirect administration or control as they desire and
as they may think fit to arrange with the Arab State or Confederation of Arab
States.
3. That in the brown area
there shall be established in an international administration, the form of which
is to be decided upon after consultation with Russia, and subsequently in
consultation with the other Allies, and the representatives of the Shereef of
Mecca."
Annex II
The areas "reserved" under
the Hussein-McMahon correspondence (Source: Jeffries:
Palestine - The Reality)
ANNEX
III
PALESTINE AND SYRIA IN
1915 (Showing Ottoman administrative
units) (Based on maps in Cmd. 5957,
1939)
ANNEX IV
Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, 28
June 1919
Article 22.
To those colonies and territories which as a consequence of the late war have
ceased to be under the sovereignty of the States which formerly governed them
and which are inhabited by peoples not yet able to stand by themselves under the
strenuous conditions of the modern world, there should be applied the principle
that the well-being and development of such peoples form a sacred trust of
civilization and that securities for the formance of this trust should be
embodied in this Covenant.
The best
method of giving practical effect to this principle is that the tutelage of such
peoples should be entrusted to advanced nations who by reason of their
resources, their experience or their geographical position can best undertake
this responsibility, and who are willing to accept it, and that this tutelage
should be exercised by them as Mandatories on behalf of the
League.
The character of the mandate
must differ according to the stage of the development of the people, the
geographical situation of the territory, its economic conditions and other
similar circumstances.
Certain
communities formerly belonging to the Turkish empire have reached a stage of
development where their existence as independent nations can be provisionally
recognized subject to the rendering of administrative advice and assistance by a
Mandatory until such time as they are able to stand alone. The wishes of these
communities must be a principal consideration in the selection of the
Mandatory.
Other peoples, especially
those of Central Africa, are at such a stage that the Mandatory must be
responsible for the administration of the territory under conditions which will
guarantee freedom of conscience and religion, subject only to the maintenance of
public order and morals, the prohibition of abuses such as the slave trade, the
arms traffic and the liquor traffic, and the prevention of the establishment of
fortifications or military and naval bases and of military training of the
natives for other than police purposes and the defence of territory, and will
also secure equal opportunities for the trade and commerce of other Members of
the League.
There are territories,
such as South-West Africa and certain of the South Pacific Islands, which, owing
to the sparseness of their population, or their small size, or their remoteness
from the centres of civilization, or their geographical contiguity to the
territory of the Mandatory, and other circumstances, can be best administered
under the laws of the Mandatory as integral portions of its territory, subject
to the safeguards above-mentioned in the interests of the indigenous
population.
In every case of Mandate,
the Mandatory shall render to the Council an annual report in reference to the
territory committed to its charge.
The degree of authority, control or administration to be
exercised by the Mandatory shall, if not previously agreed upon by the Members
of the League, be explicitly defined in each case by the
Council.
A permanent Commission shall
be constituted to receive and examine the annual reports of the Mandatories and
to advise the Council on all matters relating to the observance of the
mandates.
ANNEX V The Mandate for Palestine, 24 July
1922
"The Council of
the League of Nations:
Whereas the
Principal Allied Powers have agreed, for the purpose of giving effect to the
provisions of Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, to entrust to
a Mandatory selected by the said Powers the administration of the territory of
Palestine, which formerly belonged to the Turkish Empire, within such boundaries
as may be fixed by them; and
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 connexion of the Jewish
people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home
in that country; and
Whereas the
Principal Allied Powers have selected His Britannic Majesty as the Mandatory for
Palestine; and
Whereas the mandate in
respect of Palestine has been formulated in the following terms and submitted to
the Council of the League for approval; and
Whereas His Britannic Majesty has accepted the mandate in
respect of Palestine and undertaken to exercise it on behalf of the League of
Nations in conformity with the following provisions; and
Whereas by the aforementioned Article 22 (paragraph 8),
it is provided that the degree of authority, control or administration to be
exercised by the Mandatory, not having been previously agreed upon by the
Members of the League, shall be explicitly defined by the Council of the League
of Nations;
Confirming the said
Mandate, defines its terms as follows:
Article
1
The Mandatory shall have full
powers of legislation and of administration, save as they may be limited by the
terms of this mandate.
Article
2
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.
Article
3
The Mandatory shall, so far
as circumstances permit, encourage local autonomy.
Article
4
An appropriate Jewish agency
shall be recognized as a public body for the purpose of advising and
co-operating with the Administration of Palestine in such economic, social and
other matters as may affect the establishment of the Jewish national home and
the interests of the Jewish population in Palestine, and, subject always to the
control of the Administration, to assist and take part in the development of the
country.
The Zionist Organization, so
long as its organization and constitution are in the opinion of the Mandatory
appropriate, shall be recognized as such agency. It shall take steps in
consultation with His Britannic Majesty's Government to secure the co-operation
of all Jews who are willing to assist in the establishment of the Jewish
national home.
Article
5
The Mandatory shall be
responsible for seeing that no Palestine territory shall be ceded or leased to,
or in any way placed under the control of, the Government of any foreign
Power.
Article
6
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 co-operation 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.
Article
7
The Administration of
Palestine shall be responsible for enacting a nationality law. There shall be
included in this law provisions framed so as to facilitate the acquisition of
Palestinian citizenship by Jews who take up their permanent residence in
Palestine.
Article
8
The privileges and immunities
of foreigners, including the benefits of consular jurisdiction and protection as
formerly enjoyed by Capitulation or usage in the Ottoman Empire shall not be
applicable in Palestine.
Unless the
Powers whose nationals enjoyed the aforementioned privileges and immunities on
August 1st, 1914, shall have previously renounced the right to their
re-establishment, or shall have agreed to their non-application for a specified
period, these privileges and immunities shall, at the expiration of the mandate,
be immediately re-established in their entirety or with such modifications as
may have been agreed upon between the Powers concerned.
Article
9
The Mandatory shall be
responsible for seeing that the judicial system established in Palestine shall
assure to foreigners, as well as to natives, a complete guarantee of their
rights.
Respect for the personal
status of the various peoples and communities and for their religious interests
shall be fully guaranteed. In particular, the control and administration of
Waqfs shall be exercised in accordance with religious law and the dispositions
of the founders.
Article
10
Pending the making of
special extradition agreements relating to Palestine, the extradition treaties
in force between the Mandatory and other foreign Powers shall apply to
Palestine.
Article
11
The Administration of
Palestine shall take all necessary measures to safeguard the interests of the
community in connection with the development of the country, and, subject to any
international obligations accepted by the Mandatory, shall have full powers to
provide for public ownership or control of any of the natural resources of the
country or of the public works, services and utilities established or to be
established therein. It shall introduce a land system appropriate to the needs
of the country having regard, among other things, to the desirability of
promoting the close settlement and intensive cultivation of the
land.
The Administration may arrange
with the Jewish agency mentioned in Article 4 to construct or operate, upon fair
and equitable terms, any public works, services and utilities, and to develop
any of the natural resources of the country, in so far as these matters are not
directly undertaken by the Administration. Any such arrangements shall provide
that no profits distributed by such agency, directly or indirectly, shall exceed
a reasonable rate of interest on the capital, and any further profits shall be
utilized by it for the benefit of the country in a manner approved by the
Administration.
Article
12
The Mandatory shall be
entrusted with the control of the foreign relations of Palestine, and the right
to issue exequaturs to consuls appointed by foreign Powers. He shall also be
entitled to afford diplomatic and consular protection to citizens of Palestine
when outside its territorial limits.
Article
13
All responsibility in
connexion with the Holy Places and religious buildings or sites in Palestine,
including that of preserving existing rights and of securing free access to the
Holy Places, religious buildings and sites and the free exercise of worship,
while ensuring the requirements of public order and decorum, is assumed by the
Mandatory, who shall be responsible solely to the League of Nations in all
matters connected herewith, provided that nothing in this article shall prevent
the Mandatory from entering into such arrangements as he may deem reasonable
with the Administration for the purpose of carrying the provisions of this
article into effect; and provided also that nothing in this Mandate shall be
construed as conferring upon the Mandatory authority to interfere with the
fabric or the management of purely Moslem sacred shrines, the immunities of
which are guaranteed.
Article
14
A special Commission shall
be appointed by the Mandatory to study, define and determine the rights and
claims in connection with the Holy Places and the rights and claims relating to
the different religious communities in Palestine. The method of nomination, the
composition and the functions of this Commission shall be submitted to the
Council of the League for its approval, and the Commission shall not be
appointed or enter upon its functions without the approval of the Council.
Article
15
The Mandatory shall see that
complete freedom of conscience and the free exercise of all forms of worship,
subject only to the maintenance of public order and morals, are ensured to all.
No discrimination of any kind shall be made between the inhabitants of Palestine
on the ground of race, religion or language. No person shall be excluded from
Palestine on the sole ground of his religious belief.
The right of each community to maintain its own schools
for the education of its own members in its own language, while conforming to
such educational requirements of a general nature as the Administration may
impose, shall not be denied or impaired.
Article
16
The Mandatory shall be
responsible for exercising such supervision over religious or eleemosynary
bodies of all faiths in Palestine as may be required for the maintenance of
public order and good government. Subject to such supervision, no measures shall
be taken in Palestine to obstruct or interfere with the enterprise of such bodies or to discriminate against any
representative or member of them on the ground of his religion or
nationality.
Article
17
The Administration of
Palestine may organize on a voluntary basis the forces necessary for the
preservation of peace and order, and also for the defence of the country,
subject, however, to the supervision of the Mandatory, but shall not use them
for purposes other than those above specified save with the consent of the
Mandatory. Except for such purposes, no military, naval or air forces shall be
raised or maintained by the Administration of Palestine.
Nothing in this article shall preclude the Administration
of Palestine from contributing to the cost of the maintenance of the forces of
the Mandatory in Palestine.
The
Mandatory shall be entitled at all times to use the roads, railways and ports of
Palestine for the movement of armed forces and the carriage of fuel and
supplies.
Article
18
The Mandatory shall see that
there is no discrimination in Palestine against the nationals of any State
Member of the League of Nations (including companies incorporated under its
laws) as compared with those of the Mandatory or of any foreign State in matters
concerning taxation, commerce or navigation, the exercise of industries or
professions, or in the treatment of merchant vessels or civil aircraft.
Similarly, there shall be no discrimination in Palestine against goods
originating in or destined for any of the said States, and there shall be
freedom of transit under equitable conditions across the mandated
area.
Subject as aforesaid and to the
other provisions of this mandate, the Administration of Palestine may, on the
advice of the Mandatory, impose such taxes and customs duties as it may consider
necessary, and take such steps as it may think best to promote the development
of the natural resources of the country and to safeguard the interests of the
population. It may also, on the advice of the Mandatory, conclude a special
customs agreement with any State territory of which in 1914 was wholly included
in Asiatic Turkey or Arabia.
Article
19
The Mandatory shall adhere
on behalf of the Administration of Palestine to any general international
conventions already existing, or which may be concluded hereafter with the
approval of the League of Nations, respecting the slave traffic, the traffic in
arms and ammunition, or the traffic in drugs, or relating to commercial
equality, freedom of transit and navigation, aerial navigation and postal,
telegraphic and wireless communication or literary, artistic or industrial
property.
Article
20
The Mandatory shall
co-operate on behalf of the Administration of Palestine, so far as religious,
social and other conditions may permit, in the execution of any common policy
adopted by the League of Nations for preventing and combating disease, including
diseases of plants and animals.
Article
21
The Mandatory shall secure
the enactment within twelve months from this date, and shall ensure the
execution of a Law of Antiquities based on the following rules. This law shall
ensure equality of treatment in the matter of excavations and archaeological
research to the nationals of all States Members of the League of
Nations;...
Article
22
English, Arabic and Hebrew
shall be the official languages of Palestine. Any statement or inscription in
Arabic on stamps or money in Palestine shall be repeated in Hebrew and any
statement or inscription in Hebrew shall be repeated in Arabic.
Article
23
The Administration of
Palestine shall recognize the holy days of the respective communities in
Palestine as legal days of rest for the members of such
communities.
Article
24
The Mandatory shall make to
the Council of the League of Nations an annual report to the satisfaction of the
Council as to the measures taken during the year to carry out the provisions of
the mandate. Copies of all laws and regulations promulgated or issued during the
year shall be communicated with the report.
Article
25
In the territories lying
between the Jordan and the eastern boundary of Palestine as ultimately
determined, the Mandatory shall be entitled, with the consent of the Council of
the League of Nations, to postpone or withhold application of such provisions of
this mandate as he may consider inapplicable to the existing local conditions,
and to make such provision for the administration of the territories as he may
consider suitable to those conditions, provided that no action shall be taken
which is inconsistent with the provisions of Articles 15, 16 and
18.
Article
26
The Mandatory agrees that if
any dispute whatever should arise between the Mandatory and another Member of
the League of Nations relating to the interpretation or the application of the
provisions of the mandate, such dispute, if it cannot be settled by negotiation,
shall be submitted to the Permanent Court of International Justice provided for
by Article 14 of the Covenant of the League of Nations.
Article
27
The consent of the Council
of the League of Nations is required for any modification of the terms of this
mandate.
Article
28
In the event of the
termination of the mandate hereby conferred upon the Mandatory, the Council of
the League of Nations shall make such arrangements as may be deemed necessary
for safeguarding in perpetuity, under guarantee of the League, the rights
secured by Articles 13 and 14, and shall use its influence for securing, under
the guarantee of the League, that the Government of Palestine will fully honour
the financial obligations legitimately incurred by the Administration of
Palestine during the period of the mandate, including the rights of public
servants to pensions or gratuities.
The present instrument shall be deposited in original in
the archives of the League of Nations and certified copies shall be forwarded by
the Secretary-General of the League of Nations to all Members of the
League.
DONE AT LONDON the
twenty-fourth day of July, one thousand nine hundred and twenty-two."
1/
______
1/ The
Palestine mandate came into force on 29 September 1922.
ANNEX
VI
"Palestine" claimed by World Zionist Organization,
1919
(Source: Alan R.
Taylor, in Abu-Lughod, The Transformation
of Palestine)
ANNEX
VII
PALESTINE PARTITION PLAN A,
1937 (Royal Commission's Partition Plan,
1937, as elaborated by Palestine Partition Commission, 1938)
(Based on map in Cmd. 5854,
1938)
ANNEX
VIII
PALESTINE PARTITION PLAN B,
1938 (Proposed by Palestine Partition
Commission, 1938) (Based on map in Cmd.
5854, 1938)
ANNEX
IX
PALESTINE PARTITION PLAN C,
1938 (Proposed by Palestine Partition
Commission, 1938) (Based on map in Cmd.
5854, 1938)