President Obama and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton will do themselves a great service by becoming more familiar with the history of the so-called Palestinians.
“If there is one issue all Arabs agree on, it is the destruction of the Jewish State and that will never change!”
In November 1917, before Britain had conquered Jerusalem and the area to be known as Palestine, Britain issued the Balfour Declaration. The declaration was a letter addressed to Lord Rothschild, based on a request of the Zionist organization in Great Britain. The declaration stated Britain's support for the creation of a Jewish national home in Palestine, without violating the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities. The declaration was the result of lobbying by Dr. Chaim Weizmann on behalf of the world Zionist organization, but it was motivated by British strategic considerations. After the war, the League of Nations divided much of the Ottoman Empire into territories under mandate.
The British and French viewed the mandates as instruments of furthering their imperial ambitions. However, President Wilson insisted that the mandates must foster ultimate independence. The British on their part were eager to keep Palestine to themselves, and lobbied with the help of the Zionists for a mandate that would implement the “Jewish national home” in accordance with the Balfour declaration, a project that would be supported by the Americans.
On 3 January 1919, Emir Faisal, the leader of the Arab delegation to the League of Nations peace conference and Dr. Chaim Weizmann, President of the World Zionist Organization, signed the Faisal-Weizmann Agreement for Arab-Jewish cooperation, in which Faisal conditionally accepted the Balfour Declaration based on the fulfillment of British wartime promises to him.
On the subject of development of a Jewish homeland in Palestine he made the following statement: "We Arabs ... look with the deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement. Our deputation here in Paris is fully acquainted with the proposals submitted yesterday by the Zionist Organization to the Peace Conference, and we regard them as moderate and proper. We will do our best, in so far as we are concerned, to help them through; we will wish the Jews a most hearty welcome home.... I look forward, and my people with me look forward, to a future in which we will help you and you will help us, so that the countries in which we are mutually interested may once again take their places in the community of the civilized peoples of the world."
The British promises to Feisel (by Laurence of Arabia); to be made the ruler of the entire Arab World failed to materialize. Thus, he never signed the document. Years after the Faisal-Weizmann Agreement and once Arab states were granted autonomy and these new Arab nations were recognized by the Europeans and the U.N., Weizmann argued that since the fulfillment was eventually kept, the agreement of development of a Jewish homeland in Palestine held.
The Arabs opposed the idea of a Jewish national home, claiming that the area now called Palestine was their land. The Arabs felt they were in danger of dispossession by the Zionists, and did not relish living under Jewish rule. Arabs lobbied the American King-Crane commission, in favor of annexation of the Palestine mandate area to Syria, and later formed a national movement to combat the British Mandate.
At the instigation of U.S. President Wilson, the King Crane commission had been sent to hear the views of the inhabitants. At the commission hearings, Aref Pasha Adjani expressed this opinion about the Jews: “Their history and their past proves that it is impossible to live with them. In all the countries where they are at present, they are not wanted-because they always arrive to suck the blood of everybody...”
By this time, Zionists had recognized the inevitability of conflict with Palestinian and other Arabs. David Ben-Gurion, who would lead the Yishuv, becoming the first Prime Minister of Israel, told a meeting in 1919, “But not everybody sees that there is no solution to this question...We as a nation, want this country to be ours, the Arabs as a nation, want this country to be theirs.”
The Zionists and others presented their case to the Paris Peace conference. Ultimately, the British plan was adopted. The main issues taken into account were division of rights between Britain and France, rather than the views of the inhabitants Jews and Arabs.
In 1920, Britain received a provisional mandate over Palestine, which would extend west and east of the River Jordan. The area of the mandate given to Britain at the San Remo conference was much larger than historic Palestine, as envisaged by the Zionists, who sought an eastern border to the West of Amman. It is possible, that as Churchill suggested in 1922, the British never intended that all of this area would become a Jewish national home. On the other hand, some believe that Britain had no special plans for Trans Jordan initially. However, Abdullah, the son of King Hussein of the Hijaz, marched towards Trans Jordan with 2,000 soldiers. He announced his intention to march to Damascus, remove the French and reinstate the Hashemite monarchy. Sir Alec Kirkbride, asked for guidance from the British High Commissioner, Herbert Samuel, and Samuel eventually replied that it was unlikely Abdullah would enter British controlled areas. Two days later, Abdullah marched north and by March 1921, he occupied the entire country. Abdullah made no attempt to march on Damascus. In 1922, the British declared that the boundary of Palestine would be limited to the area west of the river. The area east of the river, called Trans Jordan (now Jordan), was made a separate British mandate and eventually given independence. A part of the Zionist movement felt betrayed at losing a large area, 5/8 of what they termed "historic Palestine" to Trans Jordan, and split off to form the "Revisionist" movement, headed by Benjamin Vladimir (Ze'ev) Jabotinsky, vowing to establish the Jewish Biblical homeland on both sides of the Jordan.
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