By Ted Belman June 17/22
When the United Nations passed the Partition Plan in 1947, there were 630,000 Jews and 1,324,000 Arabs living in Palestine according to the Jewish Virtual Library. It should be asked, why weren’t the Jews in the majority after the 25 year mandate which was required, according to Eugene Rostow, “to facilitate Jewish immigration and “close settlement” in Palestine”.
Prior to the Balfour Declaration in 1917, there was a wave of Jewish emigration, between 1881 and 1903. Jews who migrated in this wave came mostly from Eastern Europe and from Yemen. An estimated 25,000 to 35,000 Jews emigrated. Only half remained. But they attracted many Arabs to the Palestine area of Ottoman Syria for economic reasons.
Another factor that probably influenced this non-Jewish immigration was the First Zionist Congress in 1897 which endorsed the establishment of a Jewish home in Palestine.
These influences led to the non-Jewish population almost doubling between 1882 and 1914.
The Balfour Declaration of 1917, no doubt, gave it further impetus.
The first question that comes to mind why did Britain believe it could successfully give these lands to the Jews who represented only about 10% of the population at the time of the Declaration? Normally, the residents of the land get to decide on independence. Britain flew in the face of this principle by creating a mandate system which gave Jews the time to make aliya and become the majority before independence. It believed that the Jews of the world would do so en masse during the mandate period resulting in a Jewish majority by the time it declared independence. So it declared in favour “a national home for the Jewish people” who numbered over 16 million in the world at that time.
In 1920, this declaration was elevated to a law by the San Remo Resolution. By this resolution, the Jews acquired the right to all the land known as Palestine. This resolution was passed in accordance with international law.
Sacred Trust
The resolution created a trust, under which the Mandatory Power, Britain, was the Trustee and the Jewish people, the beneficiary. This Trust came into being immediately, even before the Mandate itself was signed in 1922.
Section 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations provided;
“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 performance of this trust should be embodied in this Covenant.”
Shortly after the San Remo Resolution, Britain had a change of heart and began violating it. Rather than restrict Arab immigration and accept Jewish immigration, it did the opposite.
In 1922 Churchill produced a White Paper which limited Jewish immigration to the “absorptive capacity” of the land and thereafter acted on it.
In 1937, Britain’s Peel Commission Report recommended partition. Then, in 1939, Britain issued a White Paper which, according to the Virtual Jewish Library,
“rejected the Peel Commission’s partition plan on the grounds that it was not feasible. The document stated that Palestine would be neither a Jewish state nor an Arab one, but an independent state to be established within ten years. Jewish immigration to Palestine was limited to 75,000 for the first five years, subject to the country’s “economic absorptive capacity, and would later be contingent on Arab consent. Stringent restrictions were imposed on land acquisition by Jews.
“The Jewish Agency for Palestine issued a scathing response to the White Paper, saying the British were denying the Jewish people their rights in “darkest hour of Jewish history.”
And that was before Hitler began talking about the “Final Solution“ in 1941.
This recommendation was not endorsed by the League of Nations but it was followed by Britain anyway. She allowed in only 94,000 Jews between 1939 and 1946. Thereafter, till Israel’s Declaration of Independence, Britain allowed in only 176,000 Jews preferring to keep the vast majority of Jews in displaced persons camps throughout Europe.
Had Britain honoured its 1917 declaration and Its obligation under the San Remo Resolution, Israel would have had a population of at least 4 million, Jews, (assuming half of those that were killed in the Holocaust could have escaped) when it declared independence and would have included all of what is now Jordan. The Arab population would not have doubled from its then number of 600,000.
Furthermore had Britain allowed all Jews to emigrate prior to the Wannsee Conference on January 20, 1942, Hitler would have enabled their emigration. After all, Hitler at first just wanted a Juden Free Europe. He was open to their emigration. Israel could have declared independence three years earlier and Israel would have had a population of more like 7 million Jews at the time of independence.
The neighboring Arab countries would not have invaded Israel in 1948 and there would be no Arab refugee problem today, no Temple Mount violence and no Oslo Accords.
So what is to be done about Britain’s breach of trust and all the damage it did to the Jewish homeland? What’s to be done to make matters right so far as that is possible?
It should be noted that the US aided and abetted this breach of trust throughout the entire period.
At the end of WWII, the answer was clear.
After WWII and the crushing defeat of Germany and its allies, the victors changed borders and moved populations. It was their right.
Der Spiegel reported;
“But the people fleeing the Red Army were unaware that the Allies had already agreed with the Polish government-in-exile to hand over large parts of eastern Germany to Poland and resettle the Germans who were living there.
“All those who didn’t manage to escape in time fell victim to the frenzied expulsions that were carried out until July 1945. The organized resettlement of Germans and ethnic Germans from Germany’s former eastern areas and the Sudetenland began in January 1946. In all, some 14 million Germans lost their homes.
“These expulsions were often done in a brutal manner and were carried out as part of a broader programme of nation-building pursued by the new communist government between 1945 and 1949.
“The centre-piece of this programme was an attempt to achieve the ethnic homogenization of the state, to ensure as close a match as possible between its ethnic and political borders.”
At no time did the allies object to this “ethnic homogenization”.
In 1947, when Britain planned for India’s independence, it also redrew borders to achieve “ethnic homogenization.”
So it partitioned India into India and Pakistan and 15 million people voluntarily moved on foot from one to the other.
The United Nations also decided to follow Britain’s example in India and passed the 1947 Partition Plan of Palestine as it then was. Israel took advantage of this Plan and declared independence in 1948.
But there was no attempt to move Muslims. Just the opposite. The United Nations created UNRWA to preserve the status of the “refugees” as it newly defined them. The rest as they say is history.
Ethnic homogenization is intended to avoid creating “Cleft nations” which are inherently unstable.
“A cleft nation is one in which the major ethnic groups are so clearly separate from one another in terms of values that it is difficult to form a national culture. These groups tend to be insulated from one another, particularly if they do not share the same or similar religions and value systems.”
Yugoslavia was a prime example.
Israel is another.
The only way to bring stability to Israel is to remove the cleft and enable ethnic homogenization as far as it is possible.
“Related to this post-war policy of homogenization of nations, the Jewish expulsion from Arab nations should be called to mind. These expulsions evicted nearly a million Jews, dispossessing them of their home, property cumulatively in excess of 4X’s the size of Israel’s current borders, and at a loss of $15 trillion dollars in personal assets. This policy of Arab homogenization was most notably relevant in the Old City of Jerusalem where the Jordanian conquerors displaced the long standing residents, again, exclusively due to their Jewish heritage. Hence the double standard of policies pursuing homogenized state residents to remove the societal cleft has a much closer, and dare I say a much more relevant, model in pre- and post-’48 War Arabia, than even those to be found in Europe post-WW2 Europe.” [Comment by Peloni]
Palestine, as it existed in 1945 before Jordan’s independence should have been divided into two states, Israel and Jordan with the Jordan River separating them AND Muslims should have been moved from Israel to Jordan. This, essentially, is the Jordan Option.
It is not too late to do what needs to be done.
All Palestinians who are not Israeli citizens should be induced to move to Jordan and Israel should declare sovereignty over all lands to the west of the Jordan River..
***
Year Jews non-Jews
1882 24,000 276,000
1914 94,000 595.000
1918 60,000 600,000
1922 84,000 673,000
1936 384,000 983,000
1939 449,000
1946 543,000 1,267,000
1947 630,000 1,324,000
1948 May 716,000 156,000
1950 1,203,000 167,000
***
Comment:
Did anyone expect better from Perfidious Albion?
Britain’s word is know to be useless!
at the height of WW1,Britain wanted international Jewish Support for it’s war effort.
After the war was won the Jew Hating followers of Cecil Rhodes no longer needed the Jews & started to distance themselves from the vague Balfour Declaration.
In 1921 the British lopped off 80% of the new Palestine Mandate & gave that area to the Hashemite Clan from Arabia.
This left the 20% left over to be fought over by the Jews & Arabs.
The British did everything they could to destroy the Jews after ww2.They armed the Arabs & trained them & led them by John Glubb who was later knighted for his efforts in killing Jews!
If not for surplus arms from the Communist block Israel would have gone down in a sea of blood because of the British
That was a well-written and well researched article. Thank you. It seems to me that if African Americans have a leg to stand on with regard to reparations for the historical wrongs that were perpetrated on their ancestors as slaves brought to America, then Jews and the state of Israel have a right to reparations from Britain and the other nations which violated international norms and laws and led to the deaths of millions of Jews and to the historical reality that we now face.
Britain is responsible for the Holocaust; it was perpetrated intentionally. There are no conceivable excuses that can apply.
@Peloni@retired
Your comments from a year ago are very informative and should be read by all.
@Peloni
Your referencing the expulsion of Jews from Arab lands and Jerusalem clearly fit the description of “ethnic cleansing.” I am going to amend my article to include it.
And let’s not forget the 1938 Evian conference that denied entry anywhere for German Jews to emigrate to escape Hitler’s Fascists..
Did anyone expect better from Perfidious Albion?
Britain’s word is know to be useless!
at the height of WW1,Britain wanted international Jewish Support for it’s war effort.
After the war was won the Jew Hating followers of Cecil Rhodes no longer needed the Jews & started to distance themselves from the vague Balfour Declaration.
In 1921 the British lopped off 80% of the new Palestine Mandate & gave that area to the Hashemite Clan from Arabia.
This left the 20% left over to be fought over by the Jews & Arabs.
The British did everything they could to destroy the Jews after ww2.They armed the Arabs & trained them & led them by John Glubb who was later knighted for his efforts in killing Jews!
If not for surplus arms from the Communist block Israel would have gone down in a sea of blood because of the British
Related to this post-war policy of homogenization of nations, the Jewish expulsion from Arab nations should be called to mind. These expulsions evicted nearly a million Jews, dispossessing them of their home, property cumulatively in excess of 4X’s the size of Israel’s current borders, and at a loss of $15 trillion dollars in personal assets. This policy of Arab homogenization was most notably relevant in the Old City of Jerusalem where the Jordanian conquerors displaced the long standing residents, again, exclusively due to their Jewish heritage. Hence the double standard of policies pursuing homogenized state residents to remove the societal cleft has a much closer, and dare I say a much more relevant, model in pre- and post-’48 War Arabia, than even those to be found in Europe post-WW2 Europe.
Reposting my comment which was “disappeared” by the system:
Reader
June 3, 2022 at 5:43 pm
@Edfar G.
You are contradicting yourself and Encyclopedia Britannica:
Maybe Encyclopedia Britannica publishes “yarn”, I don’t know.
The fact remains that the British fought in various ways for every inch of the ME, no matter how you may call it or its parts, and that they made sure that the French got the least of it, and no amount of hairsplitting will change this fact.
@Reader What Edgar said.
READER_
You are one stubborn guy..
There was NO “large Syria”. It comsidted of, for Ottoman ADMINISTRATIVE convenience, the present Syria, Lebanon and Palestine. Palestine was also separate, cut off from Syria proper by the Golan Heights, a natural boundary. .
Lebanon had been a separate country for many centuries. Sykes Picot arbitrarily re-divided the area into Lebanon and Syria (French) and Palestine which included the Golan.,(British) . But by a further, later agreement, The Golan was transferred to France, and became part of Syria when the French Mandate ended.
So it really looks as if the Golan was “biffed” INTO Syria instead of “out” as you claim. I nowhere find that Britain got any part of Syria.
It stayed Syrian, (great spot to shell Israeli farmers and fishermen from) until Israel captured it in 1967.
Much documentary and historical evidence to prove exactly what I’ve posted again…and again.
FINIS…..
@Edgar
Well, I don’t have dozens of books on the matter like you do but the fact remains that the British took the large Syria, divided it into several pieces, gave a small piece (or) two to the French, and kept the rest.
So they did “biff” or “diddle” the French out of the larger Syria.
READER-
I know that quote well. Meinertzhagen also mentions it. The point remains that they didn’t “biff” the French out of Syria. It was not official policy. The British always had to be very careful of their relationship with the French, whose watchword was always “perfidious Albion”. Even right through WW! . Every single British Army move, which had not been completely co-ordinated with the French High Commend, was regarded as a potential betrayal. by the “biffteaks”, which was the slang word for the English.
I must have a dozen books dealing with those aspects alone.
As for your first highlight, I see nothing remarkable in it. it’s well known, and I’ve read it umpteen times, that The Ottomans regarded Syria as including Palestine. In fact, it was known, even on a 1921 map book I have, as “Southern Syria.
But the (late 1915-Jan 1916) Sykes-Picot secret deal which divided the Ottoman Empire outside of Arabia, into French and British “spheres of influence”. , fixed that. and Palestine was NOT included as Southern Syria, since it was to come into the British “zone”. And., as you know they made a deal about the Golan Heights too, to join it with Palestine…
Sir Mark Sykes has asserted this many times, even writing detailed letters to the TIMES about it.
The wording of their agreement was intentionally left a bit vague because they were dickering with the Hejaz lunatic Hussein for a “Revolt” which occurred just a few months later, and building him up into believing that he would be the Caliph over ALL the Ottoman Empire, and Moslems everywhere. The Arabs spoke no English and relied on British “interpreters”. I have several books mentioning this aspect. They regarded the Arabs as ignorant savages, which compared to Britishers, they were, and easily fooled by their grandiose expectations.
A very interesting historical time, and a good blueprint of the deceit and cunning with which politics was conducted.
@Sebastien Zorn
I wanted to mention this in my first comment but decided not to because these people weren’t the ones who influenced things decisively.
To add to my previous comment:
@Sebastien Zorn
@Edgar
Here is the quote [keep in mind that the borders were still “fluid” and the French thought for a time that Syria included Palestine]:
The quote is from before the Mandate was established.
I remember reading that the British actually fought the French and kicked them out of some place there but I cannot find the reference now.
@SEBASTIEN-
Two things, minor of course. Weizman didn’t invent cordite. it was already i use for maybe 25-30 years. What he did, was to find a new, cheap way to make acetone which was an essential ingredient. It is urban legend that it was this, who impelled the British to the Balfour Declaration.
In fact, as a kid I heard this touted as the reason, to show how brilliant a Jew was. that he helped the Bristih to win the War. But….not true.
Of course it’s not so. The Declaration was the result of Dorothy and James De Rothschild’s interactions with Balfour Weizman, Lloyd George and other major British political figures.
Also. … Lawrence was not the Arab representative. Feisal, his boy friend, was the official rep, all documents were signed by him, some with Lawrence’s translations into English, by the side, Lawrence was his “advisor”.
@Edgar It hardly matters that Lawrence was delusional. That goes without saying. That was true of Mohammed and all of his successors. But he was the diplomatic representative of the Arabs and he did support Zionism and Jewish sovereignty over all of Palestine.
@Reader The British broke with Zionism and vied with the French after the war. During the war, they were intent on rewarding their allies. Besides the Jewish Legion, Chaim Weizmann’s invention of cordite enabled the Brits to win. He gave over the rights to the crown and oversaw production. All he asked was a hearing for Zionism. Also. There had always been Christian Zionism among some of the British upper classes.
All the Arabs said they wanted was the rest of the Middle East, initially as one state.
READER-
I don’t dount that you read it-if you say so, but …Statements of many, show that Lawrence was the Poseur Supreme, not very reliable, especially in his writings. A guy who gloried in attracting attention , walking around Paris dressed in full Arab robes with headress and open leather sandals. He was extremely eccentric. He told a story about being captured by the Turks , lashed with barbed wire and sodomised by the Turkish Commander. A well known tale. And…they didn’t “kick the French out”..(Of where”)
Meinertzhagen, Allenby’s Chief of intelligence, who knew him well, who shared a tent with him for a couple of years, said “He is very modest. and has a habit of “backing slowly into the limelight”. ”
HIs Seven Pillars of Wisdom, (which I have, -a barmitzvah present) by his own admission contained untrue, imaginary statements.
The French Mandates were well known and both Lebanon and Syria were “special spheres of influence “for France for many years AFTER the Mandates had expired and they still there to a large extent as late as the Yom Kipur War.
I’d be interested in seeing from where your info came, the name of the book or statement etc. Just curious. I still believe it’s yarn, because I know from my OWN experiences that Lebanon and Syria were very French oriented for many years, especially Lebanon. Used to read about it and all took it for granted.
Lebanon used to be called “The Mediterranean Riviera, and they spoke English with French accents.
@Edgar
I said that it was deemed temporary by the British.
Lawrence of Arabia said that they were going to kick the French out, and they did – by force.
I clearly remember reading this, I’ll doublecheck.
READER-
I don’t understand your reference to France having temporary Mandates from which the British kicked them away/
The French had TWO Mandates; they were Lebanon and Syria, and associated minorities therein. How did the British kick them out of there…It never happened.
The Golan was part of the British Mandate but they made a deal giving it to France, becoming part of Syria, one of the French Mandates. Historical Fact.
The reasons for the Balfour declaration and for the Mandate were purely political and had nothing to do with Britain gifting the land to the Jews for them to build their national home on.
The Mandate permitted Britain to take over the entire ME with the aim of creating a pan-Arab entity under the British influence if not rule (the real reason, not the stated one).
There was a French Mandate which was openly deemed temporary by the British (they did kick the French out of the French Mandate).
In order to do the same with the Jews, the British created the Arab “national movement”, they encouraged the Jewish pogroms by the Arabs and prevented the Jews from defending themselves, AND they prevented aliyah by claiming the limited “absorptive capacity” for the Jews while at the same time bringing in the Arabs because they were needed for work(!).
Transjordan was cut off from the Mandate when Churchill was in charge also.
FRANK-
May be correct in all else. I don’t know =. But about Ireland, he is definitely wrong. Eire and Northern Ireland are contiguous, and thaere has NEVER been ANY movement to “break away” other than from a small vicious UK hating Catholic sector grouped mainly around the Shankill area of Belfast.
In fact “Eire” incorporated the North as part of thr whole.Although living in Dublin, My bank happened to have been the Shankill Rd branch, and I freqwue3ntly went there during the worst times, The manager and all the staff were Verbrente Protestant Unionists, yet never harmed io any way. I used to have to pass through several “z ones” each barricaded with barbed wire and cement traffic stoppers. The taxi drivers had paid off each of these area “leaders: to be allowed free passage.
Many of the atrocities were not “national” in nature, but paying off old personal scores.
The situation was like the old Betar song, “Israel on both sides of the Jordan” even whilst knowing it can never happen.
The Catholic population was doubled by the Protestant population and there was NEVER any chance at ANY point, when a SERIOUS division was contemplated.
ALL THROUGH THE …”TROUBLES”, the Irish National Sports teams were composed of players from both NORTH and South.
This NEVER changed.
@Frank Adams
Very nice analysis, indeed!
@ Frank
What an erudite comment. Let’s hear more from you.
First Ireland is a notoriously cleft state to the point of breaking apart since 1920 on national lines as did the US in The Civil War or War Between the States. A very useful form of words for pointing to a state not necessarily being a nation nor a nation being a state. Afghan – Pakistan problems with the Taliban arise from the Pashtun tribe having been split for local tactics by the British Raj between the states of Afghanistan and the Raj. One reason Jews are misunderstood is that we are a nation but for most of history we have not been a state.
The congruency in the average Western mind between state and nation flows from the ideas of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution which coloured politcs since directly or through the empires of maritime Europe. (Rank stars crossed The Pond on the epaulettes of British admirals). If sovereignty is not the King’s by Grace of God but We the People’s then who is “We the People” becomes an argument that continued in the currency of language and religious sectarianism – except when the Republics of the US and France keep religious tests and symbols off the table of public business. This explains why being Jewish was an excuse for restricting citizenship and the fruits of office in Europe, and Islam as much a definition of who was in or out in the Indian succession of the Raj or the rest of the Moslem World.
That leaves us with Arab immigration to the Land of Israel as elementary economics that labour flows towards areas of natural prosperity and centres of investment compare the immigration stream to the US even before steamships. It is proof of the abandoned poverty of the Holy Land that the minuscule investment of steamship pilgrimage and aliyah before the Mandate and the investment of a Zionist £100million or $400 million in 1917 – 37 (Peel Report) and another £100 million of British military spending in 1937 – 47 drew in Arab immigration to an area of about $10 billion investment in 30 years.. The British archives from Peel (’37) to UNSCOP note that the day labourers’ wages in Palestine were the highest in the Arab World – or as Nasserists had it, ” From the Ocean to the Gulf.” Wages in Israel or PA are still the highest apart from the speculator sharks in the Gulf.
Which leaves us with why was it allowed ? Simply because at the time no government – especially a British colonial government considered it government business to regulate beyond security and public health. Taxes were low, “To let money fructify in the pocket,” as Gladstone put it. Before The Depression minimal monetarist government was not just orthodoxy but custom and practice.
Excellent!
Thank you Ted.