by Wallace Brand
"It is right that Palestine should become a Jewish state, if the Jews, being given the full opportunity, make it such. It was the cradle and home of their vital race, which has made large spiritual contributions to mankind, and is the only land in which they can hope to find a home of their own;"
David, King of the united Kingdom of
Israel and Judea following the civil war with Saul, created a strong and
unified Israelite monarchy, reigning from c. 1000–961 BCE. Solomon, David's successor, maintained the unified monarchy,
c. 961-922.
David established Jerusalem as its national capital in 1006 BCE.
Following Solomon's death in c.
926 BCE, tensions between the northern part of Israel containing the ten
northern tribes, and the southern section dominated by Jerusalem and the
southern tribes reached a boiling point. Solomon's successor dealt tactlessly with economic complaints of
the northern tribes. In about 930 BCE
(there are difference of opinion as to the actual year) the united Kingdom of Israel
and Judah split into two kingdoms: the northern Kingdom of Israel, which
included the cities of Shechem and Samaria, and the southern Kingdom of Judah,
which contained Jerusalem; with most of the non-Israelite provinces achieving
independence. The Kingdom of Israel (or
Northern Kingdom, or Samaria) existed as an independent state until 722 BCE
when it was conquered by the Assyrian Empire, while the Kingdom of Judah (or
Southern Kingdom) existed as an independent state until 586 BCE when it was
conquered by the Babylonian Empire. (From Wikipedia - Biblical version)
In that initial period the Jewish
People had absolute political self-determination except for the rule of YHWH duly
noted in the Decalogue. Later, under the
rule of Herod, Rome was Judea’s suzerain.
Others occupying the role of suzerain over the Jewish People’s state included
the Greeks, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Assyrians.
Suzerainty is a situation in which a region or people controls the foreign policy and international
relations of a tributary vassal state while allowing the subservient nation
internal autonomy. The dominant
entity in the suzerainty relationship, or the more powerful entity itself, is
called a suzerain. The term suzerainty was originally used to refer to
the relationship between the Ottoman Empire and its surrounding regions. It differs from sovereignty in that the tributary enjoys only some self-rule,
often limited.
A vassal state would have been
the status of Palestine if it had internal autonomy, but it did not. Prior to 1964, none of the Arabs in the
Palestine territory had ever claimed statehood, even the status of a vassal
state. At the beginning of the 17th
century the Ottoman Empire contained 32 provinces and numerous vassal states. The
territory of Palestine was simply land in one of these provinces.
So Palestine was not even a vassal
state. If there was any self-rule it
was limited to tribal rule. The Arabs in
Palestine were not a unique “people” but an indistinguishable part of the Arab
People. They did not claim a capital in
Palestine. In comparison, The Jewish
People had a sovereign state with a capital located within it for at least 400
years and governed as a vassal state for many more with its capital in
Jerusalem.
This was the history faced by
“The Inquiry”, a group of academics, assembled in 1917 by Col. House to help
Woodrow Wilson in the Paris Peace Talks.
The same was found 50 years later
by Count Folke Bernadotte, investigating for the UN Special Committee on
Palestine in 1947 who wrote in his diary “The Arabs in Palestine have no
interest in nationalism and never had.”
In the Hussein–McMahon correspondence, King Hussein Ibn Ali, the Sharif
of Mecca, claimed he had been offered the entire Levant if he fought on the
side of the British in WWI. He had
proposed a Pan Arab uprising to help the Allies in return for independence from
the Ottomans. Whether or not the British
proposal included Palestine later became in dispute. According to Winston
Churchill while Arabs in the Arabian Peninsula helped the British, the Arabs in
Palestine and Syria did not. Many Arabs fought
for the Ottomans, including the infamous Haj Amin al-Husseini who later became
a friend of Adolph Hitler and had suggested in November, 1941 that genocide for
the Jews would be better alternative than deporting them to Palestine. King Hussein had predicted a general
uprising of Arabs throughout the Levant but never recruited more than about
5,000 regulars.
The so-called “Palestinians” were
never a unique “people”. Palestine was
never a state, not even a vassal state.
That they were not a unique
people was admitted by Zahir Muhsein, a member of the Executive Board of the
PLO in 1977 who said
“There is no such thing as the
Palestinian People”. He referred to the
term “Palestinian People” as a political ploy.
You can find this in his interview by the Dutch newspaper Trouw in 1977.
According to Professor Efraim Karsh,
“As far back as 1978, Arafat told his close friend and collaborator, Romanian
dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, that the Palestinians lacked the traditions,
unity, and discipline to have a successful state.” Dr. Karsh also concluded: “…it was the total lack of communal
solidarity — the willingness to subordinate personal interest to the
collective good — that accounted for the collapse and dispersion of
Palestinian Arab society as its leaders tried to subvert partition.”
The Inquiry academics accompanied
Wilson to Paris in 1919. For Palestine, they recommended that the dispersed
Jewish People settle there and later, rule in Palestine. Initial rule was to be carried out by a
trustee.
American
Proposal for Jewish Homeland, January 21, 1919
An
excerpt from the Tentative Report and Recommendations of the Intelligence
Section of the American Delegation to the Peace Conference, in accordance with
instructions, for the President and the Plenipotentiaries, January 21, 1919*
[--]
It
is recommended:
1)
That there be established a separate state of Palestine.
2)
That this state be placed under Great Britain as a mandatory of the League of
Nations.
3)
That the Jews be invited to return to Palestine and settle there being assured
by the Conference of all proper assistance in so doing that may be consistent
with the protection of the personal (especially the religious) and the property
rights of the non-Jewish population, and being further assured that it will be
the policy of the League of Nations to recognise Palestine as a Jewish state as
soon as it is a Jewish state in fact.
4)
That the holy places and religious rights of all creeds in Palestine be placed
under the protection of the League of Nations and its mandatory.
Discussion.
1)
It is recommended that there be established a separate state of Palestine.
The
separation of the Palestinian area from Syria finds justification in the
religious experience of mankind. The Jewish and Christian churches were born in
Palestine, and Jerusalem was for long years, at different periods, the capital
of each. And while the relation of the Mohammedans to Palestine is not so
intimate, from the beginning they have regarded Jerusalem as a holy place. Only
by establishing Palestine as a separate state can justice be done to these
great facts.
As
drawn upon the map, the new state would control its own source of water power
and irrigation, on Mount Hermon in the east to the Jordan; a feature of great
importance since the success of the new state would depend upon the
possibilities of agricultural development.
2)
It is recommended that this state be placed under Great Britain as a mandatory
of the League of Nations.
Palestine
would obviously need wise and firm guidance. Its population is without
political experience, is racially composite, and could easily become distracted
by fanaticism and bitter religious differences.
The
success of Great Britain in dealing with similar situations, her relation to
Egypt, and her administrative achievements since General Allenby freed
Palestine from the Turk, all indicate her as the logical mandatory.
3)
It is recommended that the Jews be invited to return to Palestine and settle
there, being assured by the Conference of all proper assistance in so doing
that may be consistent with the protection of the personal (especially the
religious) and the property rights of the non-Jewish population, and being
further assured that it will be the policy of the League of Nations to
recognise Palestine as a Jewish state as soon as it is a Jewish state in fact.
It
is right that Palestine should become a Jewish state, if the Jews, being given
the full opportunity, make it such. It was the cradle and home of their vital
race, which has made large spiritual contributions to mankind, and is the only
land in which they can hope to find a home of their own; they being in this
last respect unique among significant peoples.
At
present, however, the Jews form barely a sixth of the total population of
700,000 in Palestine, and whether they are to form a majority, or even a
plurality, of the population in the future state remains uncertain. Palestine,
in short, is far from being a Jewish country now. England, as mandatory, can be relied on to
give the Jews the privileged position they should have without sacrificing the
rights of non-Jews.
4)
It is recommended that the holy places and religious rights of all creeds in
Palestine be placed under the protection of the League of Nations and its
mandatory.
The
basis for this recommendation is self-evident.
--------------------------------------------------------
1. David Hunter Miller, My Diary at the Conference
of
Paris, Vol. iv, pp. 263-264. Full text.
Scroll down to DOCUMENT 246 263 ♦26.
PALESTINE. *78
2. J.C. Hurewitz (ed.), The Middle East and North
Africa in World Politics: A Documentary Record,
Vol.
2, British-French Supremacy, 1914-1945 (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1979), p. 103.
It is clear from the San Remo Resolution, and the
Palestine Mandate that the Allied Principal War Powers followed this view at
San Remo. SSRN.com/abstract=2679399
Wallace Edward Brand, JD Harvard 1957
Source:
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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