Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: from Balfour Promise to Bush Declaration: The Complications and the Road for a Lasting Peace

By Gabriel G. Tabarani

In the coming five to ten years, the highest number of key global security challenges is likely to be concentrated in the Middle East, or be related to it. And the traditional most significant challenge in the Middle East is the Arab-Israeli conflict and its core, the dispute between Israelis and Palestinians. It is a center of gravity around which the region has revolved, and remains of vast political and symbolic significance. Both in its own right and due to its (positive or negative) signaling effects, reinvigoration of the peace process is a key challenge for regional and international policy-makers in the coming years.

So, what is the origin of this Israeli-Palestinian old conflict? Why did we reach this point in that region? Who to blame? How we can find a just solution? What will be the consequences if the conflict is not resolved? Can a viable state be made in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip?

Gabriel Tabarani, who is a specialist on Middle East affairs, will try to find the answers in this book where he takes us back to that region through its history and facts, analyzes some turning points in it, which affected that region, discovers the causes and the important aspects of the conflict and the obstacles to peace. He presents all current events details and information from both sides of this conflict. Furthermore this book offers some recommendations on how we can solve this conflict, gives the light on all events and tries to answer all questions in a fair and balanced way.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Mar 25, 2008
• ISBN: 9781467879040

Gabriel G. Tabarani

Gabriel G Tabarani is an expert on Middle East and North African affairs. He graduated from lUniversite Saint Joseph de Beyrouth, (Lebanon) specialising in Political and Economic Sciences. He started his working life in 1973 as a reporter and journalist for the pan-Arab magazine Al-Hawadess in Lebanon later becoming its Washington, D.C. correspondent. He subsequently moved to London in 1979 joining Al-Majallah magazine as its Deputy Managing Editor. In 1984 joined Assayad magazine in London initially as its Managing Editor and later as Editor-in-Chief. Following this, in 1990 he joined Al-Wasat magazine (part of the Dar-Al-Hayat Group) in London as a Managing Editor. He has already authored four books: The Tears of the Horizon a romantic novel, The Winter of Discontent in The Gulf (1991) about the first Gulf War when Saddam Hussein took over Kuwait, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: From Balfour Promise To Bush Declaration The Complications and The Road For a Lasting Peace (2008), and "How Iran Plans To Fight America And Dominate The Middle East"(2008). Furthermore, he wrote the memoirs of national security advisor to US President Ronald Reagan, Mr Robert McFarlane, serializing them in Al-Wasat magazine over 14 episodes in 1992.

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Contents

About the Author

From the Author

Middle East: Land of Conflicts

Introduction

Palestine: Ancient To Modern History

Chapter I

Land Of Israel

Chapter Ii

The Zionism

CHAPTER III

Palestine And The Palestinians

CHAPTER IV

Population Of Palestine

Prior To 1948

CHAPTER V

Civil War In Mandatory Palestine

CHAPTER VI

The Palestinian Refugees

CHAPTER VII

The Jewish Refugees

CHAPTER VIII

The Conflict After 1948

CHAPTER IX

The Relapse

CHAPTER X

The Impact Of The 1967 War

CHAPTER XI

War Of Attrition

CHAPTER XII

Lebanon And The Conflict

CHAPTER XIII

War Of Stones

CHAPTER XIV

Oslo Accords

CHAPTER XV

The Second Intifada

CHAPTER XVI

Peace Offers And Confrontations

CHAPTER XVII

Dynamics Of The Palestinian

Issue After 2006

CHAPTER XVIII

The International Involvement

CHAPTER XIX

The Obstacles To The Peace

CHAPTER XX

The Palestinian Arabs In Israel

CHAPTER XXI

Economic Viability Of A

Palestinian State

CHAPTER XXII

The Road To A Lasting Peace

REFERENCES & NOTES

To my son who always made me a proud father…

To Joey

About the Author 

Gabriel G. Tabarani is an expert on the Middle East affairs. He graduated from the French University in Beirut (St Joseph University) in political and economical Sciences. He started his working life as a reporter and a journalist in the Pan Arab magazine Al-Hawadess (Events) in Lebanon in 1973. He moved to London in 1979 where he became a Deputy Managing Editor for Al-Majalla magazine. In 1984 he moved another time to Assayad magazine in London as Managing Editor and later as Editor- in- Chief. In 1990 he moved to Al-Wasat magazine (Dar-Alhayat) in London as Managing Editor…

Mr Tabarani wrote two books, the first was The Tears of the Horizon a love story, and the second book was The Winter of Discontent in The Gulf (1991) about the first Gulf War when Saddam Hussein took over Kuwait.

From the Author

Middle East: Land of Conflicts

The Middle East is perhaps the world’s most crucial region: economically and strategically it occupies a top rank on the international agenda, with significance far beyond its geographical bounds.

In the coming five to ten years, the highest number of key global security challenges is likely to be concentrated in the Middle East, or be related to it. The 2006 crises in Lebanon and Gaza, involving a wide range of regional actors including Syria and Iran, may have given only a taste of what is yet to come. They certainly manifested the reality of fragility that characterizes the Middle East. They also point to the necessity of approaching conflict(s) in that area in a hostility manner, taking full account of the inter-linkages between the various epicenters of instability in the region. Such inter-linkages illustrate the potential for either positive or negative domino effects: escalation and crisis in one arena tends to evoke a spillover effect elsewhere in the region and in the relations of regional actors with the international community, or individual international actors. In addition, longer-term trends that affect most or all Middle Eastern societies in a cross cutting way also need to be taken into account, as they exacerbate instability and underline the need to approach issues comprehensively. As a consequence, crisis management vis-à-vis the Middle East requires not only in-depth understanding of individual crises, but also a fundamental appreciation of the inter-linkages and symbolic and political connections between the various issues, as well as early preparation in anticipation of longer-term developments.

The traditional most significant challenge in the Middle East is the Arab-Israeli conflict and its core, the dispute between Israelis and Palestinians. It is a center of gravity around which the region has revolved, and remains of vast political and symbolic significance. Both in its own right and due to its (positive or negative) signaling effects, reinvigoration of the peace process is a key challenge for regional and international policy-makers in the coming five to ten years. Success in this area will facilitate the capacity of the international community to deal with a variety of other epicenters of instability; sustained failure to reinvigorate the process will cast a shadow over efforts to resolve other crisis in the Middle East.

The history of the conflict is much more complex than that a simple explanation, but the religious and historical differences are very important to this story. On another level, the reasons for the continual fighting are easy to understand. They have been fighting for over 80 years, and each war, each death, each act of terrorism, only deepens the hatred and the reluctance to give in to the other side.

The key challenge ahead does not lie in how to settle the conflict, but how to move towards such a settlement. While a broad consensus now exists on the two- state solution and its general parameters, especially after the declaration of President Georges W. Bush and the Annapolis Summit (2007), profound disagreement prevails regarding the process towards realizing it. In Israel, a third way perspective has recently evolved that reflects a little evolution over the past decade and promotes unilateral steps as the best path (for Israel interest) to pursue in order to enhance security and contribute to ending Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land. This approach underpinned Israel’s 2005 Gaza Disengagement, and has since been embodied in the Israeli Kadima government of Ehud Olmert. Among Palestinians, PLO Chairman and President of the Palestinian Authority (PA) Mahmoud Abbas (Abou Mazen), who did not like the unilateral steps, remains committed to a negotiated permanent status and strongly rejects the resort to violence. Hamas’s take over of the Palestinian Authority government in early 2006 for several months, however, has deepened the challenges confronting Palestinians; its reluctance to disavow violence, recognize Israel and thus commit to the two-state solution, and to uphold previously signed agreements resulted in a near-boycott of the Palestinian Authority internationally. Furthermore the bloody take over of Gaza by Hamas later and its animosity with Mahmoud Abbas authority made the situation more complicated.

However, the substantial majority of Israelis and Palestinians recognize that their future is intertwined with the other. Most deeply desire a better future for their children and grandchildren and are willing to make substantial concessions if peace and security can be achieved. With the beginning of a new year 2008, there is a new opportunity for peace. The ways in which the United States provides leadership in the community of nations will have profound consequences for Israelis, Palestinians, the Middle East, and for the world.

On the other hand we must understand and realize, according to Michael Oren, that there is a fundamental difference between a Middle East lacking formal peace agreements and one defined by terrorism, interstate conflict, and civil war; between one housing a powerful Iran and one dominated by Iran; or between one that has an uneasy relationship with the United States and one filled with hatred of the United States. Time also makes a difference. Opportunities in the Middle East cannot last forever. It is clearly in the interest of the United States, Europe and the international community that the emerging opportunities be seized to make the way to a lasting peace in that region.

To ensure this, U.S. policymakers, who are the principal players in the region, need to avoid two mistakes, while seizing two opportunities. The first mistake would be an over-reliance on military force. As the United States has learned to its great cost in Iraq — and Israel has in Lebanon — military force is no panacea. It is not terribly useful against loosely organized militias and terrorists who are well armed, accepted by the local population, and prepared to die for their cause. Nor would carrying out a preventive strike on Iranian nuclear installations accomplish much good. Not only might an attack fail to destroy all facilities, but it might also lead Tehran to reconstitute its program even more covertly, cause Iranians to rally around the regime, and persuade Iran to retaliate (most likely through proxies such as Hezbollah & Hamas) against U.S. interests in the Middle East, the Gulf Arab states and maybe even directly against the United States. It would further radicalize the Arab and Muslim worlds and generate more terrorism and anti-American (and anti- Western) activity. Military action against Iran would also drive the price of oil to new heights, increasing the chances of an international economic crisis and a global recession. For all these reasons, military force should be considered only as a last resort.

The second mistake would be to count on the emergence of democracy to pacify the region. It is true that mature democracies tend not to wage war on one another. Unfortunately, creating mature democracies is no easy task, and even if the effort ultimately succeeds, it takes decades. In the interim, the U.S. government must continue to work with many non-democratic governments. Democracy is not the answer to terrorism, either. It is plausible that young men and women coming of age would be less likely to become terrorists if they belonged to societies that offered them political and economic opportunities. But recent events suggest that even those who grow up in mature democracies, such as the United Kingdom, are not immune to the pull of radicalism. The fact that both Hamas and Hezbollah fared well in elections and then carried out violent attacks reinforces the point that democratic reform does not guarantee quiet. And democratization is of little use when dealing with radicals whose platforms have no hope of receiving majority support. More useful initiatives would be actions designed to reform educational systems, promote economic liberalization and open markets, encourage Arab and Muslim authorities to speak out in ways that delegitimize terrorism and shame its supporters, and address the grievances that motivate young men and women to take it up.

As for the opportunities to be seized, the first is to intervene more in the Middle East’s affairs with nonmilitary tools. Regarding Iraq, in addition to any redeployment of U.S. troops and training of local military and police, the United States should establish a regional forum for Iraq’s neighbors (Turkey and Saudi Arabia in particular) and other interested parties akin to that used to help manage events in Afghanistan following the intervention there in 2001. Doing so would necessarily require bringing in both Iran and Syria. Syria, which can affect the movement of fighters into Iraq and arms into Lebanon and the rejectionist factions in the Palestinian movement (Hamas, Islamic Jihad and others who have their leadership and offices in Damascus), should be persuaded to help in exchange for economic benefits (from Arab governments, Europe, Japan and the United States) and a commitment to restart talks on the status of the Golan Heights. In the new Middle East, there is a danger that Syria might be more interested in working with Tehran than with Washington. But it did join the U.S.-led coalition during the Arab Gulf War and attend the Madrid peace conference in 1991and Annapolis conference in November 2007, three gestures that suggest it might be open to a deal with the United States in the future.

Iran is a more difficult case. But since regime change in Tehran is not a near-term prospect, military strikes against nuclear sites in Iran would be dangerous, and deterrence is uncertain, diplomacy is the best option available to Washington and the West. The U.S. government should open, without preconditions, comprehensive talks that address Iran’s nuclear program and its support of terrorism and foreign militias especially Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Iran should be offered an array of economic, political, and security incentives. It could be allowed a highly limited uranium-enrichment pilot program so long as it accepted highly intrusive inspections. Such an offer would win broad international support, a prerequisite if the United States wants backing for imposing sanctions or escalating to other options should diplomacy fail. Making the terms of such an offer public would increase diplomacy’s chances of success. The Iranian people should know the price they stand to pay for their government’s radical foreign policy. With the government in Tehran concerned about an adverse public reaction, it would be more likely to accept the U.S. offer.

But the most important opportunity, which must be seized before it will be too late, it is on the Israeli-Palestinian front, which is the subject of my book. Diplomacy here also needs to be revived because this conflict is still the issue that most shapes (and radicalizes) public opinion in the Arab region and the Muslim world. The goal at this point would be not to bring the parties to Annapolis or Camp David or anywhere else to meet face to face only, but to begin to create the conditions under which diplomacy could usefully be fruitful. The United States should articulate those principles it believes ought to constitute the elements of a final settlement, including the creation of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 lines. (The lines could be adjusted to safeguard Israel’s security and reflect demographic changes, and the Palestinians would have to be fairly compensated for any losses and get exchanged land resulting from the adjustments.) The more generous and detailed the plan, the harder it would be for Hamas to reject negotiation and favor confrontation. Consistent with this approach, U.S. officials ought to sit down with Hamas officials, much as they have with the leaders of Sinn Féin in Northern Ireland, some of whom also led the Irish Republican Army. Such exchanges should be viewed not as rewarding.

Avoiding these mistakes and seizing these opportunities would help, but it is important to recognize that there are no quick or easy solutions to the problems the new era poses. The Middle East will remain a troubled and troubling part of the world for decades to come. It is all enough to make one nostalgic for the old Middle East.

So the question now: what is the origin of this Israeli-Palestinian old conflict? Why we arrived to this point in that region? Who to blame? How we can arrive to a just solution? What are the consequences if the conflict will not be resolved?

To find the answers this book will try to travel to the history of that region, to analyze some turning points in it, which affected the region, to discover the causes and the important aspects of the conflict and the obstacles to the peace, and to present all current details and information from both sides to this conflict. Furthermore this book will give some recommendations on how we can solve this conflict, give the light on all events and try to answer all questions in a fair and balanced way, and I hope I succeeded to do so.

Gabriel G. Tabarani

Introduction

Palestine: Ancient To Modern History

The ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is both simple to understand, yet deeply complex. At the heart of this conflict is a basic idea that both sides believe: The Israelis believe that they are entitled to the land known as Israel, while the Palestinians believe that they are entitled to the land call Palestine. Unfortunately, both sides claim the same land; they simply call the land by different names. For religious Jewish Israelis and religious Palestinian Muslims, the beliefs deeper still, for both sides believe that God (called Jehovah by the Jews and Allah by the Muslims), gave them the land, and that to give it away or to give it up to another people is an insult to God and a sin.

So what is the real story? What the history is telling us?

Before going deeper in details in the coming chapters, a very quick trip to the ancient and modern history of Palestine is needed to understand some of the reality in that conflict and its background.

Historically, the ancient Jews from Biblical times called Palestine: Land of Israel, Judea, Samaria, Galilee and other long-ago names. Modern Jews, and quite a few Christians, believe that in the days of the Bible and the Torah, God gave this land to the ancient Jews (also known as Hebrews), led by men such as Abraham, Moses, David, and others. About 2000 years ago, the Roman Empire ruled this area, and suppressing several Jewish rebellions, the Romans destroyed the Jewish Temple in the city of Jerusalem, killed large numbers of Jews, and forced many others to leave their homeland in an exodus called The Diaspora.

But historically too, this territory was inhabited first by the Canaanites, then after came the Israelites. And according to several Arab historians: Palestinians have continuously resided in Palestine since four thousand years before Christ. Their ancestors built the cities of Jerusalem, Nablus, Jericho, Beisan, Acca (Acre) and Jaffa. The Hebrews arrived in the land between 1400-1200 B.C., and only maintained control over it during the lifetimes of King David and his son King Solomom- a period of about 80 years. The land then came under Greek and Roman rule, and was conquered by Islam in the year 637A.D. under the second Caliph Omar. By that time, the Jews had already left Jerusalem, and Christianity was the dominant religion. The Caliph granted full security to all Christians, including personal safety, and protection of property, religion and churches. The Muslims declared Jerusalem the capital of Palestine, and the city remained under Islamic rule until the end of the Ottoman Empire in 1917, except for a brief time of Christian rule under the Crusaders. (Mohammed Abo- Sak, US Involvement in the Israeli Palestinian Conflict, 1997)

However, the history of that region pointed out that this land became after the Israelites, part of the Babylonian, Persian, Greek and Roman Empires with periods of Independence or autonomy for the Jews. When the Roman Empire split, the region was ruled by the Eastern Roman Empire, also called the Byzantine Empire. After that it was ruled by the Sassanians, Omayyads, Crusaders and Mamelukes, and then by the Ottoman Empire from 1517 to 1917.

The Ottomans gained control of the Middle East under Sultan Selim I (1465-1520), and incorporated the region into an administrative unit, the Vilayat (Province) of Syria. The name Palestine disappeared as the official name of an administrative unit, and much of the region became part of the Vilayet (Province) of Damascus (Syria) until 1660, then the Vilayat of Saida (Sidon)- (Lebanon), briefly interrupted by the 7 March-July French occupation of Jaffa, Haifa, and Caesarea. On the 10th of may 1832, it was one of the Turkish provinces annexed by Mohamad Ali’s briefly imperialistic Egypt (nominally still Ottoman), but in November 1840 direct Ottoman rule was restored.

World War I

During World War I, The British waged the Sinai and Palestine Campaign under General Allenby. At the same time, the intelligence officer T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) was stirring up the Arab Revolt in the region. The British defeated Ottoman Turkish forces in 1917 and occupied Palestine and Syria. The land was under British military administration for the remainder of the war.

The British military administration ended starvation with the aid of food supplies from Egypt, successfully fought typhus and cholera epidemics and significantly improved the water supply to Jerusalem. They reduced corruption by paying the Arab and Jewish judges higher salaries. Communications improved by new railway and telegraph lines.

In Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916, Britain and France had proposed to divide the Middle East between them into spheres of influence, with Palestine as an international enclave.

After Sykes-Picot agreement, the British had made two promises regarding the territory in the Middle East it was expecting to acquire. Britain had promised the local Arabs, through Lawrence, independence for a united Arab country covering most of the Arab Middle East, in exchange for their support of the British; and in the Balfour Declaration of 1917 had promised to create and foster a Jewish national home in Palestine. The British had, in the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence, previously promised to the Hashemite family lordship over most land in the region in return for their support. At the same time, British interest in Zionism dates to the rise in importance of the British Empire’s South Asian enterprises in the early 19th century, concurrent with The Great Game and planning for the Suez canal. Eminent British figures such as Queen Victoria, King Edward VII, Lloyd George, Lord Palmerston and Arthur Balfour were among the enthusiastic proponents of Zionism.

In October 1919, British forces in Syria and the last British soldiers stationed east of the Jordan were withdrawn and the region came under exclusive control of Sherif (Prince) Faisal Bin El-Hussein from Damascus.

On November 23, 1918, a military edict was issued dividing Ottoman territories into occupied enemy territories (OET). The Middle East would be divided into three OETs, and OET-South extended from Egyptian border of Sinai into Palestine and Lebanon as far as north of Acre and Nablus and as far as east as the River Jordan. A temporary British military governor (General Moony) would administer this sector. At that time General Allenby assured Prince Faisal That the Allies were in honor bound to endeavor to reach a settlement in accordance with the wishes of the peoples concerned and urged him to place his trust whole-heartedly in their good faith.

Interwar Period

In a meeting at Deauville in 1919, David Lloyd George (UK) and Georges Clemenceau (France) revised the Sykes-Picot agreement, with Palestine and the Vilayat (Province) of Mosul, in modern-day Iraq, falling into the British sphere in exchange for British support of French influence in Syria and Lebanon. According to historian Ilan Pappe: The borders of mandatory Palestine, first drawn up in the Sykes-Picot agreement, were given their definitive shape during lengthy and tedious negotiations by British and French officials between 1919 and 1922…In October 1919 the British envisaged the area that is today southern Lebanon and most of southern Syria as being part of British mandatory Palestine…In the East, matters were more complicated… Transjordan was part of the Ottoman province of Damascus, which in the Sykes-Picot agreement had been allocated to the French.

At the San Remo Conference (19-26 April 1920) the Allied Supreme Council granted the mandates for Palestine and Mesopotamia to Britain without precisely defining the boundaries of the mandated territories. Although the land east of the Jordan had been part of the Syrian administrative unit under the Ottomans, it was excluded from the French Mandate at the San Remo Conference, on the grounds that it was part of Palestine.

British victories during World War I, and years of delay before formal treaties were ratified left the bulk of this territory under British military occupation from 1917 to 1920.

The San Remo Conference was an international meeting of the post-World War I Allied Supreme Council, held in San Remo, Italy, between 19 to 26 April 1920. It determined the allocation of Class A League of Nations mandates for administration of the former Ottoman-ruled lands of the Middle East.

The decisions of the conference mainly confirmed those of the First Conference of London (February 1920), and broadly reaffirmed the terms of the Anglo-French Sykes-Picot agreement of 16 May 1916 for the region’s partition and the Balfour Declaration of 2 November 1917. Britain received the mandate for Palestine and Iraq, while France gained control of Syria and Lebanon.

After the San Remo Conference the British government placed Palestine under civil rule, in anticipation of the granting of a formal League of Nations Mandate. The Mandate was approved in July 1922 and came into effect in September 1923. In April 1921, before the mandate came into effect, Britain created an autonomous political division called the Emirate of Transjordan in a part of what would become the Mandate Territory of Palestine. Accordingly, the objectives set out in the British Mandate for Palestine did not apply to what became Transjordan.

The League explicitly tasked the British with recognizing the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country and securing the establishment of the Jewish national home while simultaneously safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine.

The precise geographical boundaries of the Mandate, and whether or not it was wholly intended to become a Jewish National Home have historically been disputed, with conflicting and shifting British promises to Jewish and Arab interests made in the Balfour Declaration of 1917, the Sykes-Picot agreement, the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence, and the Churchill White Paper of 1922. Territory under British control east of the Jordan River was formed in September 1922 into a separate administration known as Transjordan. Transfer of authority to an Arab government in Transjordan took place gradually, starting with the recognition of a local administration in 1923 and transfer of most administrative functions in 1928. Britain retained mandatory authority over the region until it became fully independent as the Hashemite Kingdom of Trans-Jordan in 1946.

The Territory west of the Jordan remained under British administration until 1948. Following World War II, the United Nations succeeded the League of Nations as overseer the Mandate territories, and took up the question of Jewish and Arab self-government in the Mandate. On September 30, 1947, Britain decided to terminate the British mandate of Palestine, later setting the withdrawal date of May 15, 1948. Subsquently, a majority of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine recommended the creation of two independent Arab and Jewish states, with Jerusalem to be placed under international administration, and on November 29, 1947 the UN General Assembly voted 33 to 13 in favor of 1947 UN Partition Plan.

The partition plan was rejected out of hand by the leadership of the Palestinian Arabs, by the Arab League, and by most of the Arab population. Most of the Jews accepted the proposal, in particular the Jewish Agency, which was the Jewish state-in-formation. The British refused to implement any parts of the Plan deemed unacceptable by either side, and refused to co-administer the Mandate with the UN commission. Jewish leaders declared the independent State of Israel the day prior to British withdrawal, on 14 May 1948, and the ensuing 1948 Arab-Israeli War ended with the mandatory territory controlled by the State of Israel, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, and the Kingdom of Egypt.

Regardless of the territorial boundaries, from an administrative standpoint, the UNSCOP report in the official Records of the Second Session of The United Nations General Assembly noted: "Following its occupation by British troops in 1917-1918, Palestine had been controlled by the Occupied Enemy Territory Administration of the United Kingdom government.

Anticipating the establishment of the Mandate, the United Kingdom, as from 1 July 1920, replaced the military with a civilian administration, headed by a High Commissioner ultimately responsible to the Secretary of State for the Colonies in Great Britain. David Lloyd George approved the appointment of Herbert Samuel as the High Commissioner. Samuel arrived in Palestine on June 20, 1920, and complied with a demand from the head of the military administration, General Sir Louis Bols, that he signed a receipt for one Palestine, complete. Samuel famously added the common commercial escape clause, E&OE" (errors and omissions excepted).

Separation of Transjordan

At the Battle of Maysalun on 23 July 1920, the French removed the newly proclaimed nationalist government of Hashim al-Atassi and expelled King Faisal Bin Hussein from Syria. British Foreign Secretary Earl Curzon wrote to Samuel in August 1920, stating: I suggest that you should let it be known forthwith that the area south of the Sykes-Picot line, we will not admit French authority and that our policy for this area to be independent but in closest relations with Palestine. Samuel replied to Curzon: After the fall of Damascus a fortnight ago…Sheiks and tribes east of Jordan utterly dissatisfied with Shareefian Government most unlikely would accept revival and subsequently announced that Transjordan was under British Mandate. Without authority from London, Samuel then visited Transjordan and at a meeting with 600 leaders in Salt announced the independence of the area from Damascus and its absorption into the mandate, quadrupling the area under his control. Samuel assured his audience that Transjordan would not be merged with Palestine. The foreign secretary, Lord Curzon, repudiated Samuel’s action. Subsequently, Faisal’s brother Abdullah arrived in Ma’an in southern Transjordan with 2000 followers announcing his intention to retake Syria from the French.

Ratification Procedure

According to the Council of the League of Nations, meeting of August 1920 (p.109-110): draft mandates adopted by the Allied and Associated Powers would not be definitive until they had been considered and approved by the League…the legal title held by the mandatory Power must be a double one: one conferred by the Principal Powers and the other conferred by the League of Nations, and three steps were required to establish a Mandate under international Law: (1) The Principal Allied and Associated Powers confer a mandate on one of their number or on a third power; (2) The principal powers officially notify the council of the League of Nations that a certain power has been appointed mandatory for such a certain defined territory; and (3) The council of the League of Nations takes official responsibility of the appointment of the mandatory power and informs the latter that it (the council) considers it as invested with the mandate, and at the same time notifies it of the terms of the mandate, after ascertaining whether they are in conformance with the provisions of the covenant.

Churchill White Paper

In March 1921 British Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill, visited Jerusalem and after discussion with Prince Abdullah accepted Transjordan into the mandatory area with proviso that it would be under the nominal rule of the Prince Abdullah (initially in six months) and would not form part of the Jewish national home to be established west of the River Jordan, and on June 3, 1922 the Churchill White Paper stated explicitly that the terms of the (Balfour) Declaration referred to do not contemplate that Palestine as a whole should be converted into Jewish National Home, but that such a Home should be founded in Palestine.

Legal Mandate

In June 1922 the League of Nations approved the Palestine Mandate, to come into effect when a dispute between France and Italy over the Syria Mandate was settled. That occurred in September 1923. According to the League of Nations Official Journal: The mandates for Palestine and Syria would now enter into force automatically and at the same time. The Palestine Mandate was an explicit document regarding Britain’s responsibilities and powers of administration in Palestine.

The document defining Britain’s obligations as Mandate power copied the text of the Balfour Declaration concerning the establishment of a Jewish national home: 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 favor 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.

Many articles of the document specified actions in support of Jewish immigration and political status. However, it was also stated that in the large, mostly arid, territory to the east of the Jordan River, then called Transjordan, Britain could postpone or withhold application of the provisions dealing with the Jewish National Home. In September 1922, the British government presented a memorandum to the League of Nations stating that Transjordan would be excluded from all the provisions dealing with Jewish settlement, and this memorandum was approved on 23 September. From that point onwards, Britain administered the part west of the Jordan as Palestine (which was 23% of the entire territory), and the part east of the Jordan as Transjordan (constituting 77% of the mandated territories). Technically they remained one mandate but most official documents referred to them as if they were two separate mandates. Transjordan remained under British control until 1946.

The boundary between the British and French mandates was defined in broad terms by the Franco-British Boundary Agreement of December 1920. That agreement placed the bulk of the Golan Heights in the French sphere. The treaty also established a joint commission to settle the precise border and mark it on the ground. The commission submitted its final report on February 3, 1922, and the British approved it with some caveats and French governments on March 7, 1923, several months before Britain and France assumed their Mandatory responsibilities on 29 September 1923. In accordance with the same process, nearby parcel of land that include the ancient site of Dan was transferred from Syria to Palestine early 1924. The Golan Heights thus became part of the French Mandate of Syria. American President Woodrow Wilson protested British concessions in a cable to the British Cabinet. When the French Mandate of Syria ended in 1944, the Golan Heights became part of the newly independent state of Syria.

In October 1923, Britain provided the League with two reports on the administration of Palestine and Iraq for the period 1920-1922. The Secretary General’s statement accepting the reports says: The mandate for Palestine only came into force on September 29, 1923. The two reports cover periods previous to the application of the mandate.

Chapter I

Land Of Israel

The Jewish claim for the Land of Israel is based on a Biblical history and was outlined in a 1948 document entitled the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel, which reads, in part: The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped… After being forcibly exiled from their land, the people kept faith with it throughout their Dispersion and never ceased to pray and hope for their return to it and for the restoration of their political freedom.

So the Land of Israel is a term and concept in Jewish thought concerning what is considered to be the historic and divinely ordained / given territory of the Jewish People. It is derived from two Hebrew words used in the Hebrew Bible: (Eretz) which means land in English, and (Yisrael) which written as Israel, a direct near- romanized and transliterated proper noun adopted directly by English from Hebrew. The two words used together in this context means Land [of] Israel.

The name Israel derives from the Biblical patriarch Jacob, later known as Israel, literally meaning struggle with God /he struggles with God. According to the account in the Book of Genesis, Jacob wrestled with a stranger (in later tradition said to have been an angel) at a river ford and won through perseverance. God then changed his name to Israel signifying that he had deliberated with God and won as he had wrestled and won with men.

Jacob’s descendents were termed the Children of Israel or Israelites and the land they inherited from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob became known as the Land of Israel. The modern State of Israel (Medinat Yisrael) derived and based its name on the earlier usages and applications of Israel in Jewish religious history.

The Promised Land

The Israelis in our modern time are claiming that the Land of Israel was promised by God to them from a long time, for this reason they believe that they have now the right to establish their own state.

So, on which God promises the Israelis are basing their claims?

According to the Bible, particularly in Genesis, the Land of Israel was promised, as an everlasting possession, to the descendants of the Jewish patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob by God, making it the Promised Land.

On that day, God made a covenant with Abraham, saying: To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt as far as the great river the Euphrates. The Land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites; the Hittites, Perizzites, Refaim; the Emorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites.(Genesis 15:18-21). To Isaac God said: To you and your descendants I give this land. (Genesis 26:3). And to Jacob God promised: The ground upon which you are lying I give to you and your descendants. (Genesis 28:13).

The Dimensions According to The Bible

Furthermore, the Tanakh (or Hebrew Bible, referred to also as the Old Testament by Christians) contains several descriptions of the borders of the land. These descriptions encompass a region that extends from the River of Egypt to Euphrates. Areas known to be included are the modern State of Israel, the West Bank (Judea and Samaria), the Gaza Strip, and parts of modern day Syria and Lebanon. The biblically described region also encompasses the Sinai Peninsula, which is widely believed to encompass the route of the Hebrew Exodus from Egypt. The Land allocated east of the Jordan River (in numbers 34:1-15) includes much of Jordan.

Genesis 15:18-21 describes what is referred to in Jewish tradition as Gevulot Ha-aretz (Borders of the Land) regarded as the full extent of the land promised to Abraham. And numbers 34:1-15 describe the land allocated to the Israelites tribes after the Exodus. The tribes of Reuben, Gad and half of Manasseh received land east of the Jordan as explained in Numbers 34:14-15. Numbers 34:1-13 provided a detailed description of the borders of the land allocated to the remaining tribes. The region is called The Land of Canaan (Eretz Kna’an) in numbers 34:2 and the borders are known in Jewish tradition as the borders for those coming out of Egypt. The English expression Promised Land can denote either the land promised to Abraham in Genesis or the land of Canaan, although the latter meaning is more common (in Jewish circles).

Ezekiel 47:13-12 provides a post-exilic definition of borders. The definition in Ezekiel describes the Land of Israel, which, according to Ezekiel prophecy, is a repeat of the Promised Land with tribal allocations for Israel to return to after their captivity (Ezekiel was during the Babylonian captivity after the fall of Jerusalem in 597 and 586 BC by Nebuchadnezzar). The definition is a reminder that both God’s promise and desire for Israel was not canceled completely by the situation that led to the captivity. The borders of the land described by the text in Ezekiel include from northern border modern Lebanon eastwards (the way of Hethlon) to Zedad and Hazar-enan in modern Syria; south by southwest to the area of Busra on the Syrian border (area of Hauran in Ezekiel); the West Bank and a strip of western Jordan down to the Gulf of Aqaba near Ezion-geber; either the entire Sinai peninsula or from Eilat / Taba on the Gulf of Aqaba via Kadesh-barnea to the Brook of Egypt; the Gaza Strip and all the land in between.

There are several points of debate however. The border with Egypt is given as the Nachal Mitzrayim (Brook of Egypt) in Numbers and Deuteronomy, as well as in Ezekiel. The traditional Jewish understanding of the term (as expressed in the commentaries of Rashi and Yahuda Halevi as well as the Aramaic Targums) is that it refers to the Nile, more precisely the Pelusian branch of the Nile Delta according to Halevi, a view supported by Egyptian and Assyrian texts. Later commentators identified it with the Wadi El-Arish and the Besor has also been suggested in recent times. Genesis however gives the border with Egypt as Nahar Miztrayim. This is generally understood to be the Nile, Nahar denoting a large river. If different to Nachal Mitzrayim, the Genesis verse includes a larger area of land westwards. A minority interprets Nahar Miztrayim together with Nachal Mitzrayim as Wadi El-Arish as well.

The precise southern and eastern borders of the land of Israel are also subject of debate. Only the Red Sea and Euphrates are mentioned, which can be understood to mean that the whole Arabian Peninsula is included as well. More reticent interpretations take the southern border to be a line from the mouth of the Euphrates to Eilat or a line of latitude from the mouth of the Gulf of Eilat. Still another view is that the Euphrates forms only a northern border and that the southern and eastern border extends from Eilat to an undetermined point on the Euphrates.

Another point of debate for some religious scholars is the consistent reference to the inclusion of The Land of the Hittites within the borders. Some view the Hittites as one of the tribes who had settled in Canaan and were conquered by Joshua, while others refer to a greater empire that encompassed most of central Turkey.

The common Biblical phrase used to refer to the territories actually settled by Israelites (as opposed to military expansions) is from Dan to Beersheba (or its variant from Beersheba to Dan), which occurs in the Biblical verses Judges 20:1,1 Samuel 3:10, 2 Samuel 17:11, 2 Samuel 24:2, 2 Samuel 24:15, 1 Kings 4:25, 1 Chronicles 21:2, and 2 Chronicles 30:5.

Land and State of Israel

During the British Mandate of Palestine, the name Eretz Yisrael, was part of the official name of the territory, when written in Hebrew. The official name also minted on the mandate coins. Some in the government of the British Mandate of Palestine wanted the name to be Palestina while the Yishuv (Jews) wanted Eretz Yisrael. The compromise eventually achieved was that the initials in Hebrew would be written in brackets whenever Palestina is written. Consequently, in 20th century political usage, the term Land of Israel usually denotes only those parts of the land which came under the British Mandate, i.e. the land currently controlled by the State of Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip, and sometimes also Transjordan (now the Kingdom of Jordan).

The Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel commences by drawing a direct line from the Biblical times to the present: The land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped. Here they first attained to statehood, created cultural values of national and universal significance and gave to the world the eternal book of books… After being forcibly exiled from their land, the people kept faith with it throughout their Dispersion and never ceased to pray and hope for their return to it and for the restoration in it of their political freedom…

On the 29th November 1947, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution calling for the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz-Israel; the General Assembly required the inhabitants of Eretz-Israel to take such steps as were necessary on their part for the implementation of that resolution. This recognition by the United Nations of the right of the Jewish people to establish their State is irrevocable.

Land of Israel in Jewish Law

According to the Jewish law (Halakha), several religious laws only apply to Jews living in the Land of Israel and some areas in Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria (which are thought to be part of Biblical Israel). These include agriculture laws and laws regarding taxation. Many of the laws,