The British objectives in ‘mentoring the revival of a national home for the Jewish people’ under the Mandate for Palestine were not based solely on the 1917 Balfour Declaration. While international support for the re-establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine was set in motion by this landmark British policy statement, international intent rested on a solid consensus, expressed in a series of accords and declarations that reflected the ‘will’ of the international community, hardly the product or whim of a colonial empire with its own agenda.
(Napoleon in 1799 offered the Jewish community in Palestine aka The Land of Israel to reconstitute the Jewish State in Palestine as a French protectorate)
The Mandate itself notes this intent when it cites that the Mandate is based on the agreement of the Principal Allied Powers and declares:
“Whereas recognition has therefore been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country” [italics by author]. There was also the January 1919 Faisal Weizmann Agreement.
A June 1922 letter from the British Secretary of State for the Colonies, Winston Churchill, reiterated that:
“…the [Balfour] Declaration of 1917 [was] re-affirmed by the Conference of the Principle Allied Powers at San Remo and again in the Treaty of Sevres … the Jewish people … is in Palestine as a right and not on sufferance. That is the reason why it necessary that the existence of a Jewish National Home in Palestine should be internationally guaranteed and that it should be formally recognized to rest upon ancient historical connection.”
In the first Report of The High Commissioner on the Administration of Palestine 1920-1925 to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, published in April 1925, the most senior official of the Mandate for Palestine, the High Commissioner for Palestine, underscored how “international guarantee[s]” for the existence of a Jewish National Home in Palestine aka The Land of Israel were achieved:
“The Declaration was endorsed at the time by several of the Allied Governments; it was reaffirmed by the Conference of the Principal Allied Powers at San Remo in 1920; it was subsequently endorsed by unanimous resolutions of both Houses of the Congress of the United States; it was embodied in the Mandate for Palestine approved by the League of Nations in 1922; it was declared, in a formal statement of policy issued by the Colonial Secretary in the same year, ‘not to be susceptible of change’; and it has been the guiding principle in their direction of the affairs of Palestine aka The Land of Israel of four successive British Governments. The policy was fixed and internationally guaranteed.”
**It is also important to note that after WWI the Arabs/Muslims received over 12 million sq. km. of territory with a wealth of oil reserves. At the same times the Jewish people were allocated about 120,000 sq. km. nut today they have about 21,000 sq. km. The world at large also ignores that the Arab Muslim countries terrorized and expelled over a million Jewish families who lived there for over 2,700 years and confiscated all their assets, including personal property, businesses, homes and over 120,000 sq. km. of Jewish owned Real Estate for over 2,400 years (which is 6 times the size of Israel and valued in the trillions of dollars, they also took Jewish territory east of the Jordan River which is Jordan). Most of the million expelled Jewish families were resettled in Israel, and today comprise over half the population.
YJ Draiman
(Napoleon in 1799 offered the Jewish community in Palestine aka The Land of Israel to reconstitute the Jewish State in Palestine as a French protectorate)
The Mandate itself notes this intent when it cites that the Mandate is based on the agreement of the Principal Allied Powers and declares:
“Whereas recognition has therefore been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country” [italics by author]. There was also the January 1919 Faisal Weizmann Agreement.
A June 1922 letter from the British Secretary of State for the Colonies, Winston Churchill, reiterated that:
“…the [Balfour] Declaration of 1917 [was] re-affirmed by the Conference of the Principle Allied Powers at San Remo and again in the Treaty of Sevres … the Jewish people … is in Palestine as a right and not on sufferance. That is the reason why it necessary that the existence of a Jewish National Home in Palestine should be internationally guaranteed and that it should be formally recognized to rest upon ancient historical connection.”
In the first Report of The High Commissioner on the Administration of Palestine 1920-1925 to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, published in April 1925, the most senior official of the Mandate for Palestine, the High Commissioner for Palestine, underscored how “international guarantee[s]” for the existence of a Jewish National Home in Palestine aka The Land of Israel were achieved:
“The Declaration was endorsed at the time by several of the Allied Governments; it was reaffirmed by the Conference of the Principal Allied Powers at San Remo in 1920; it was subsequently endorsed by unanimous resolutions of both Houses of the Congress of the United States; it was embodied in the Mandate for Palestine approved by the League of Nations in 1922; it was declared, in a formal statement of policy issued by the Colonial Secretary in the same year, ‘not to be susceptible of change’; and it has been the guiding principle in their direction of the affairs of Palestine aka The Land of Israel of four successive British Governments. The policy was fixed and internationally guaranteed.”
**It is also important to note that after WWI the Arabs/Muslims received over 12 million sq. km. of territory with a wealth of oil reserves. At the same times the Jewish people were allocated about 120,000 sq. km. nut today they have about 21,000 sq. km. The world at large also ignores that the Arab Muslim countries terrorized and expelled over a million Jewish families who lived there for over 2,700 years and confiscated all their assets, including personal property, businesses, homes and over 120,000 sq. km. of Jewish owned Real Estate for over 2,400 years (which is 6 times the size of Israel and valued in the trillions of dollars, they also took Jewish territory east of the Jordan River which is Jordan). Most of the million expelled Jewish families were resettled in Israel, and today comprise over half the population.
YJ Draiman
In 1799, the French armies under Napoleon were camped outside of Acre. Napoleon issued a letter offering Palestine as a homeland to the Jews under French protection.
ReplyDeleteThe project was stillborn because Napoleon was defeated and was forced to withdraw from the Near East. The letter is remarkable because it marks the coming of age of enlightenment philosophy, making it respectable at last to integrate Jews as equal citizens in Europe and because it marked the beginning of nineteenth century projects for Jewish autonomy in Palestine under a colonial protectorate. After the defeat of Napoleon, it was largely the British who carried forward these projects, which have in hindsight been given the somewhat misleading name of "British Zionism."
Letter to the Jewish Nation from the French Commander-in-Chief Buonaparte
(translated from the Original, 1799)
General Headquarters, Jerusalem 1st Floreal, April 20th, 1799,
in the year of 7 of the French Republic
BUONAPARTE, COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF THE ARMIES OF THE FRENCH REPUBLIC IN AFRICA AND ASIA, TO THE RIGHTFUL HEIRS OF PALESTINE.
Israelites, unique nation, whom, in thousands of years, lust of conquest and tyranny have been able to be deprived of their ancestral lands, but not of name and national existence !
Attentive and impartial observers of the destinies of nations, even though not endowed with the gifts of seers like Isaiah and Joel, have long since also felt what these, with beautiful and uplifting faith, have foretold when they saw the approaching destruction of their kingdom and fatherland: And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. (Isaiah 35,10)
Arise then, with gladness, ye exiled! A war unexampled In the annals of history, waged in self-defense by a nation whose hereditary lands were regarded by its enemies as plunder to be divided, arbitrarily and at their convenience, by a stroke of the pen of Cabinets, avenges its own shame and the shame of the remotest nations, long forgotten under the yoke of slavery, and also, the almost two-thousand-year-old ignominy put upon you; and, while time and circumstances would seem to be least favorable to a restatement of your claims or even to their expression ,and indeed to be compelling their complete abandonment, it offers to you at this very time, and contrary to all expectations, Israel's patrimony !
The young army with which Providence has sent me hither, let by justice and accompanied by victory, has made Jerusalem my head-quarters and will, within a few days, transfer them to Damascus, a proximity which is no longer terrifying to David's city.
Rightful heirs of Palestine! Aka The Land of Israel
The great nation which does not trade in men and countries as did those which sold your ancestors unto all people (Joel,4,6) herewith calls on you not indeed to conquer your patrimony ;nay, only to take over that which has been conquered and, with that nation's warranty and support, to remain master of it to maintain it against all comers.
Arise ! Show that the former overwhelming might of your oppressors has but repressed the courage of the descendants of those heroes who alliance of brothers would have done honor even to Sparta and Rome (Maccabees 12, 15) but that the two thousand years of treatment as slaves have not succeeded in stifling it.
Hasten !, Now is the moment, which may not return for thousands of years, to claim the restoration of civic rights among the population of the universe which had been shamefully withheld from you for thousands of years, your political existence as a nation among the nations, and the unlimited natural right to worship Jehovah in accordance with your faith, publicly and most probably forever (JoeI 4,20).