Palestine – 1922 Two-State Solution Key To Resolving Arab-Jewish Conflict
United Nations Secretary-General Ban-Ki moon has jetted into Jerusalem on a fool’s errand – with tensions continuing to escalate between Arabs and Jews as their conflict spanning almost 100 years remains unresolved.
The Secretary-General observed:
“Beyond the immediate tensions, what is missing is the resolve to restore a political horizon for talks, and a political process that delivers real results and hope … We must, for the future of our children, turn back from this dangerous abyss, safeguard the two-state solution and lead people back onto the road towards peace,”
Safeguarding this “two-state solution” – code words for creating a second Arab State in Mandatory Palestine in addition to Jordan – is a lost cause. Restoring talks on this failed political process after twenty years of fruitless negotiations is meaningless United Nations babble speak.
The Secretary-General needs to focus on the “two-state solution” actually existing in 2015 – Israel and Jordan – the two successor States to the 1922 Mandate for Palestine – which eventually emerged after:
- the 1920 Arab riots and
- the political machinations of France and Great Britain between 1920 and 1922.
The riots were intended to pressure decisions affecting the fate of Palestine, Lebanon, Syria and Mesopotamia (Iraq) at the San Remo Conference starting on 19 April 1920 – following the liberation of those territories from 400 years of Ottoman Empire rule in World War 1.
The Arabs opposed a Jewish homeland in Palestine – and went on a murderous rampage to express their rage. 5 Jews and 4 Arabs were killed and hundreds wounded between 4 April and 7 April 1920.
However the riots had little impact on the decisions taken at San Remo and the subsequent signing of the Treaty of Sevres.
The resulting Mandate for Palestine – adopted unanimously by all 51 member States of the League of Nations on 24 July 1922:
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Gave recognition to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country
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Empowered Great Britain as the Mandatory Power to be responsible for placing the country under such political, administrative and economic conditions as would secure the establishment of the Jewish national home whilst safeguarding the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine and the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.
The Mandate however contained Article 25 – a provision used to deny the Jews the right to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in Transjordan – 78% of the territory of Mandatory Palestine.
The inclusion of Article 25 followed French pressure on the British to stop Abdullah – the second son of the Sharif and Emir of Mecca Hussein bin Ali – leaving Transjordan whilst en route to Damascus with an armed force of 400 Arabs to help his brother Feisal resist French attempts to remove him from power in Syria.
Britain obliged by appointing Abdullah Emir of Transjordan on 11 April 1921. This Emirate became the independent Jew-free Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan in 1946 – today’s Jordan.
Achieving these British and French objectives closed the door firmly on any right to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in Transjordan – confining that right within the remaining 22% of Mandatory Palestine – today’s Israel, the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) and Gaza.
Redrawing the current boundaries of that fateful 1922 decision – taking into consideration today’s changed circumstances on the ground – remains the key to ending the Arab-Jewish conflict.
Pencils and rubbers wielded by Israeli and Jordanian negotiators can end the indiscriminate murder and maiming of Jews by Arab gun-toters, knife-stabbers, stone-throwers and car-rammers – and the inevitable Jewish response.
David Singer is a Sydney Lawyer and Foundation Member of the International Analysts Network
The history is mostly correct, but the conclusion – a pencil and rubber peace – between Israel and (of all parties!) Jordan, does not follow.
The history omits that when Britain gave 3/4 of its mandate to the Arabs, the border of the state set aside for the Jewish people became the Jordan River and that the Poms gave the Froggies the Golan on which the JNF held and still holds land.
It follows that since the Palestine Mandate was bisected (into uneven parts), neither part has any business interfering with the other. Trans-Jordan’s illegal occupation of Judea and Samaria gives it no right to involve itself in the affairs of the region, the more so since it relinquished all rights to it when it signed a peace treaty with Israel.
The Arabs rejected the further partitioning of the Jewish homeland and waged aggressive war on Israel. Israel has a right to hold land and to be compensated for losses and costs of war incurred as a result of aggression by its vanquished foes; being the nation state of the Jewish people does not alter law and practice.
Pencil and rubber do not make for peace; bullets and barbed wire do, the more so when signatory regimes remain hostile and are unstable, where there are strong voices demanding the cancellation of treaties.
Again suggesting Jordanian involvement in Judea and Samaria on the basis of some history is as pointless as it is tedious. Jordan has not been a promoter of peace judging by the bastardry of the Islamic Waqf’s actions on the Temple Mount e.g. archaeological vandalism in building of two mosques and refusal of Israel’s request to strengthen a Temple Mount support wall which is in danger of collapsing.
So David, please deal with reality, of which the obverse is desist from delusions.
Paul
Any delusions regarding resolving this long running conflict resides in your following expressed viewpoint:
“It follows that since the Palestine Mandate was bisected (into uneven parts), neither part has any business interfering with the other.”
This has not been the case as the following incontrovertible facts since 1967 prove:
1. After Israel regained control of Judea,Samaria and Gaza in 1967 – Israel
offered to cede its claims in 100% of that territory but was met by this resolution passed by the Arab League at Khartoum on 1 september 1957:
“The Arab Heads of State have agreed to unite their political efforts at the international and diplomatic level to eliminate the effects of the aggression and to ensure the withdrawal of the aggressive Israeli forces from the Arab lands which have been occupied since the aggression of June 5. This will be done within the framework of the main principles by which the Arab States abide, namely, no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it, and insistence on the rights of the Palestinian people in their own country.”
2. Offers by Israel to cede its claims in more than 90% of Judea,Samaria and Gaza were made in 2000/1 and 2008 and rejected by the Arabs.
3. Israel totally disengaged unilaterally from Gaza in 2007
4. Israel agreed to undertake negotiations with the (now defunct) Palestinian Authority under the Bush Roadmap and the Oslo Accords.
5. The Jordan-Israel Peace Treaty recognises that sovereignty needs to be resolved in Judea and Samaria and lays down negotiating principles on contentious issues relating thereto such as refugees,water and Jerusalem.
All these offers and negotiations have ended up in the garbage bin of history.
The one negotiation left to be tried is that between Israel and Jordan – two states that have been at peace with each other since 1994 – being the two successor States to the Mandate in regard to 95% of the territory of the Mandate – with almost the entire remaining 5% stuck between them in “no man’s land” where sovereignty remains disputed and still unallocated.
Give pencils and rubbers a chance to resolve who gets what part of this tiny sliver of territory and avoid any attempt to make those decisions with force of arms.
If the Arabs reject this offer let them do so. Arab rejectionism is nothing new in the history of this conflict.
Israel can then make any future decisions on sovereignty in Judea,Samaria and Gaza unilaterally as it considers is in its national interest.
The Arabs will once again have sunk in the quicksand of lost opportunities and reconfirm their own delusion that the Jewish State will one day be erased from the map and replaced by a 23rd Arab State among 58 Islamic States around the globe.
David – you are so spot on with every point you make.
It is so simple and yet so unattainable.
Historical facts and the time-line should be the corner-stone to understanding the problems.
The solution should be built upon understanding the intent of the facts and the time that intent was made
Clear. Let’s hope Ban Ki moon is thinking clearly and logically. Pray Hashem he is the change agent
He’s supposed to be.
Erica
I fear there is little hope in placing any reliance on Ban-Ki moon to achieve any end to the Arab-Jewish conflict – as his statement in Jerusalem I quoted makes abundantly clear.
David, are you implying that facts, truth, equity, morality, common sense should play a role in international affairs?!!
Are you implying that international affairs should not be conducted according to avarice, expediency, racism, inequity, injustice, immorality?
Next you’ll be telling us that the Earth is flat!
… “Other nations when victorious on the battlefield dictate peace terms. But when Israel is victorious it must sue for peace” – Eric Hoffer noted already in 1968! In this dark time an effect of Truth and Law (even though on the side of Israel) became even more irrelevant, which necessitates replacement of that old role and old doctrine.
http://JudeoChristianAmerica.org/DeclarationForIsrael.htm
http://JudeoChristianAmerica.org/IsraelDoctrine.htm