NURIT GREENGER: WHY IS THE MANDATE FOR PALESTINE IGNORED?
Why Does Israel Ignore The Mandate For Palestine? By Nurit Greenger
The best defense tool for Israel and international supporters is the Mandate For Palestine Document. However, for 63 years, from the time the state was established, the leadership of Israel ignored it and neglected its legitimate and historic claims.
The “Mandate for Palestine,” is the historical League of Nations document, which laid down the Jewish legal right to settle anywhere in Palestine, and ratified in the United States congress by the Lodge/Fish Resolution of June 30, 1922 :
“Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled. That the United States of America favors the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which should prejudice the civil and religious rights of Christian and all other non-Jewish communities in Palestine, and that the holy places and religious buildings and sites in Palestine shall be adequately protected.”
The legally binding document was conferred on April 24, 1920 at the San Remo Conference, and its terms outlined in the Treaty of Sèvres on August 10, 1920. The Mandate’s terms were finalized and unanimously approved on July 24, 1922, by the Council of the League of Nations, which was comprised at that time of 51 countries, and became operational on September 29, 1923.
The “Mandate for Palestine” was not a naive vision briefly embraced by the international community in blissful unawareness of Arab opposition to the very notion of Jewish historical rights in Palestine. The Mandate weathered the test of time: On April 18, 1946, when the League of Nations was dissolved and its assets and duties transferred to the United Nations, the international community, in essence, reaffirmed the validity of this international accord and reconfirmed that the terms for a Jewish National Home were the will of the international community, a “sacred trust” – despite the fact that by then it was patently clear that the Arabs opposed a Jewish National Home, no matter what the form.
The Mandate For Palestine is the Jewish State of Israel’s best defense tool that is not used. Therefore, Israel is forever in a battle to justify her right to exist as a Jewish state. Had the Mandate For Palestine was an integral part of Israel’s education system curriculum, the mindset of the Israelis would have been solid as far as what is and what is not good for Israel, what belongs to her and must not be treated, at any price, as a giveaway, as a failing appeasement incentive, to her enemies.
One of the core issues Israel overlooked, these past 63 years of her existence, is its Arab minority population. These Arabs, mostly of the Moslem faith, are living as a minority in a Jewish State. Though they were awarded citizenship they hardly behave as citizens. They do not identify with Israel’s national symbols. i.e. the Flag, the Anthem, Ha’Tikvah, and the state’s official Jewish Holidays. In other words, this Arab minority is really a foreign entity and for them Israel is just real estate on which they live. In recent years these Arabs have been rather transparent that they have no love and hold much disrespect and contempt for the Jewish State where they are full fledge citizens. Yet, they greatly relate to and have close affiliation with the State of Israel’s hostile neighboring Arab States. One can go as far as accuse many of these Arabs of treasonous behavior and for being a growing 5th column force within the borders of the Jewish State of Israel.
It is worthwhile learning by heart the Mandate For Palestine document available FREE, on: http://www.mythsandfacts.org/
On The Mandate For Palestine, Page 13: http://www.mythsandfacts.org/Conflict/mandate_for_palestine/Mandate%20for%20Palestine-11-20-07-English.pdf
Political Rights in Palestine Were Granted to Jews Only
The “Mandate for Palestine” clearly differentiates between political rights—referring to Jewish self-determination as an emerging polity—and civil and religious rights, referring to guarantees of equal personal freedoms to non-Jewish residents as individuals and within select communities. Not once are Arabs as a people mentioned in the “Mandate for Palestine.” At no point in the entire document is there any granting of political rights to non-Jewish entities (i.e., Arabs). Article 2 of the “Mandate for Palestine” explicitly states that the Mandatory should:
“… 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.”
Political rights to self-determination as a polity for Arabs were guaranteed by the League of Nations in four other mandates – in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and later Trans-Jordan, today Jordan.
International law expert Professor Eugene V. Rostow, examining the claim for Arab Palestinian self-determination on the basis of law, concluded:
“… the mandate implicitly denies Arab claims to national political rights in the area in favor of the Jews; the mandated territory was in effect reserved to the Jewish people for their self-determination and political development, in acknowledgment of the historic connection of the Jewish people to the land. Lord Curzon, who was then the British Foreign Minister, made this reading of the mandate explicit. There remains simply the theory that the Arab inhabitants of the ‘West Bank’ and the Gaza Strip have an inherent ‘natural law’ claim to the area.
Neither customary international law nor the United Nations Charter acknowledges that every group of people claiming to be a nation has the right to a state of its own.”
Since political rights in Palestine were granted to Jews only, why did the State of Israel not adhere to her sole rights? Why did she agree to share these rights with what is becoming clearer by the day, its enemies, who avowed to destroy her and are now pausing danger to her existence from within?
Where is the sense and the good judgment?
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