[Press Release by cjhsla.org - Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors of Los Angeles]
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[Palestine Mandate found on the net from the link provided in the above press release]
1920 - Original territory assigned to the Jewish National Home
1922 - Final territory assigned to the Jewish National Home
The legally binding Mandate for Palestine document was conferred on April 24 1920, at the San Remo Conference and its terms outlined in the Treaty of Sevres on August 10 1920. The Mandate’s terms were finalized by the Council of the League of Nations on July 24 1922, and became operational in 1923.
This historical League of Nations document, laid down the Jewish legal right to settle anywhere in western Palestine, a 10,000 square mile area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, an entitlement unaltered in international law and valid to this day.1
The UN Charter does not grant the General Assembly or the International Court of Justice the authority to assign or affect ‘ownership’ of the Territories.
The Mandate Defined Where Jews are and are not Permitted to Settle
The six page “Mandate for Palestine” document did not set the borders – leaving this for the Mandator to stipulate in a binding appendix to the final document in the form of a memorandum, but Article 6 of the Mandate says clearly:
“The Administration of Palestine, while ensuring that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced, shall facilitate Jewish immigration under suitable conditions and shall encourage, in co-operation with the Jewish agency referred to in Article 4, close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes” [italics by author].
Article 25 of the “Mandate for Palestine” entitled the Mandatory to change the terms of the Mandate in the part of the Mandate east of the Jordan River:
“In the territories lying between the Jordan and the eastern boundary of Palestine as ultimately determined, the Mandatory shall be entitled, with the consent of the Council of the League of Nations, to postpone or withhold application of such provision of this Mandate as he may consider inapplicable to the existing local conditions …”
Great Britain activated this option in the above-mentioned memorandum of September 16 1922, which the Mandatory sent to the League of Nations and which the League subsequently approved – making it a legally binding integral part of the Mandate.
Thus the “Mandate for Palestine” brought to fruition a fourth Arab state east of the Jordan River, realized in 1946 when the Hashemite Kingdom of Trans-Jordan was granted independence from Great Britain. All the clauses concerning a Jewish homeland would not apply to this part (Trans-Jordan) of the original Mandate, stating clearly:
“The following provisions of the Mandate for Palestine are not applicable to the territory known as Trans-Jordan, which comprises all territory lying to the east of a line drawn from … up the centre of the Wady Araba, Dead Sea and River Jordan. … His Majesty’s Government accept[s] full responsibility as Mandatory for Trans-Jordan.”
The creation of an Arab state in eastern Palestine (today Jordan) on 77 percent of the land mass of the original Mandate for Jews, in no way changed the status of Jews west of the Jordan River and their right to settle anywhere in western Palestine, between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
These documents are the last legally binding documents regarding the status of what is commonly called “the West Bank and Gaza.”
The memorandum (regarding Article 25) is also the last modification of the Mandate on record2 by the League of Nations or by its legal successor – the United Nations – in accordance with Article 27 of the Mandate that states unequivocally:
“The consent of the Council of the League of Nations is required for any modification of the terms of this mandate.”
United Nations Charter Article 73 recognizes the UN’s commitments of its predecessor – the League of Nations – and promises to carry through to fruition the mandate system the League of Nations created, enshrined in Article 22 of the League of Nations Charter.3
Political Rights 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) because political rights to self-determination as a polity for Arabs were guaranteed in three other parallel Class “A” mandates – in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. Article 2 of the Mandate for Palestine states explicitly 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.” [italics by author]
Jewish Rights to Palestine were internationally guaranteed.
In the first Report of The High Commissioner on the Administration of Palestine 1920-1925 to Winston Churchill, 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 were achieved:
“The [Balfour] 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 of four successive British Governments. The policy was fixed and internationally guaranteed.”
United State Government Policy
On June 30, 1922, a joint resolution of both Houses of Congress of the United States unanimously endorsed the Mandate for Palestine - the irrevocable right to settle in the area of Palestine - anywhere between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea .
On September 21, 1922 President Warren G. Harding, (the twenty-ninth president 1921-1923) signed the joint resolution of approval to establish a Jewish Homeland in Palestine.
Article 80 - “Mandate for Palestine” Valid to this Day
International law, the UN Charter, and specifically Article 80 of the UN Charter implicitly recognize the “Mandate for Palestine” of the League of Nations. This Mandate granted Jews the irrevocable right to settle in the area of Palestine, anywhere between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, a right unaltered in international law and valid to this day.
The International Court of Justice reaffirmed the validity of Article 80 in three separate cases:
- Advisory Opinion of 11 July 1950, in the “… question concerning the International States of South West Africa.”4
- Advisory Opinion of 21 June 1971 “The International Court of Justice has consistently recognized that the Mandate survived the demise of the League [of Nations]…” Security Council resolution 276 (1970).5 (11654) [italics by author].
- Advisory Opinion of July 9 2004 in the case of the “legal consequences of the construction of a wall in the occupied Palestinian territory”6
In other words, neither the ICJ nor the UN General Assembly can arbitrarily change the status of Jewish settlement as set forth in the “Mandate for Palestine,” an international accord that was never amended.
All of western Palestine, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, including the West Bank and Gaza, remains open to Jewish settlement under international law until a legally binding document – in Israel’s case, a peace treaty between Arabs and Jews that was called for in Security Resolution 242 and 338 – changes this.
Professor Rostow’s position concurred with the ICJ’s opinion as to the “sacredness” of such trusts:
“A trust” – as in Article 80 of the UN Charter “does not end because the trustee dies … the Jewish right of settlement in the whole of western Palestine – the area west of the Jordan – survived the British withdrawal in 1948. … They are parts of the mandate territory, now legally occupied by Israel with the consent of the Security Council.”7
ICJ: The “Mandate for Palestine” is a Class “A” Mandate
Many assumed that the “Mandate for Palestine” is a Class “A” mandate,8 a common, but inaccurate assertion that can be found in many dictionaries and encyclopedias, and is frequently used by the pro-Palestinian media and lately by the ICJ. In the Court opinion, the Bench erroneously states that:
“Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire. At the end of the First World War, a class [type] ‘A’ Mandate for Palestine was entrusted to Great Britain by the League of Nations, pursuant to paragraph 4 of Article 22 of the Covenant …”9 [italics by author].
Indeed, Class “A” status was granted to a number of Arab peoples who were ready for independence in the former Ottoman Empire, and only to Arab entities.10 Palestinian Arabs were not one of these ‘Arab peoples.’ The Palestine Royal Report clarifies this point:
“(2) The Mandate [for Palestine] is of a different type from the Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon and the draft Mandate for Iraq. These latter, which were called for convenience “A” Mandates, accorded with the fourth paragraph of Article 22. Thus the Syrian Mandate provided that the government should be based on an organic law which should take into account the rights, interests and wishes of all the inhabitants, and that measures should be enacted ‘to facilitate the progressive development of Syria and the Lebanon as independent States’. The corresponding sentences of the draft Mandate for Iraq were the same. In compliance with them National Legislatures were established in due course on an elective basis. Article 1 of the Palestine Mandate, on the other hand, vests ‘full powers of legislation and of administration’, within the limits of the Mandate, in the Mandatory”11 [italics by author].
The Palestine Royal Report highlights additional differences:
“Unquestionably, however, the primary purpose of the Mandate, as expressed in its preamble and its articles, is to promote the establishment of the Jewish National Home.
“… Articles 4, 6 and 11 provide for the recognition of a Jewish Agency ‘as a public body for the purpose of advising and co-operating with the Administration’ on matters affecting Jewish interests. No such body is envisaged for dealing with Arab interests.12
“… But Palestine was different from the other ex-Turkish provinces. It was, indeed, unique both as the Holy Land of three world-religions and as the old historic homeland of the Jews. The Arabs had lived in it for centuries, but they had long ceased to rule it, and in view of its peculiar character they could not now claim to possess it in the same way as they could claim possession of Syria or Iraq”13 [italics by author].
There is much to be gained by attributing Class “A” status to the Mandate for Palestine. If ‘the inhabitants of Palestine’ were ready for independence under a Class “A” mandate, then the Palestinian Arabs that made up the majority of the inhabitants of Palestine in 1922 (589,177 Arabs vs. 83,790 Jews)14 could then logically claim that they were the intended beneficiaries of the Mandate for Palestine – provided one never reads the actual wording of the document:
- The “Mandate for Palestine” never mentions Class “A” status at any time for Palestinian Arabs.
- Article 2 of the document clearly speaks of the Mandatory as being:
“responsible for placing the country under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment of the Jewish national home” [italics by author].
The Mandate calls for steps to encourage Jewish immigration and settlement throughout Palestine except east of the Jordan River. Historically, therefore, Palestine was an ‘anomaly’ within the Mandate system, ‘in a class of its own’ – initially referred to by the British as a “special regime.”15
Palestine was part of the territories promised to the Arabs.
Addressing the Arab claim that Palestine was part of the territories promised to the Arabs in 1915 by Sir Henry McMahon, the British Government stated:
“We think it sufficient for the purposes of this Report to state that the British Government have never accepted the Arab case. When it was first formally presented by the Arab Delegation in London in 1922, the Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Churchill) replied as follows:
“That letter [Sir H. McMahon’s letter of the 24 October 1915] is quoted as conveying the promise to the Sherif of Mecca to recognize and support the independence of the Arabs within the territories proposed by him. But this promise was given subject to a reservation made in the same letter, which excluded from its scope, among other territories, the portions of Syria lying to the west of the district of Damascus. This reservation has always been regarded by His Majesty’s Government as covering the vilayet of Beirut and the independent Sanjak of Jerusalem. The whole of Palestine west of the Jordan was thus excluded from Sir H. McMahon’s pledge.
“It was in the highest degree unfortunate that, in the exigencies of war, the British Government was unable to make their intention clear to the Sherif. Palestine, it will have been noticed, was not expressly mentioned in Sir Henry McMahon’s letter of the 24th October, 1915. Nor was any later reference made to it. In the further correspondence between Sir Henry McMahon and the Sherif the only areas relevant to the present discussion which were mentioned were the Vilayets of Aleppo and Beirut. The Sherif asserted that these Vilayets were purely Arab; and, when Sir Henry McMahon pointed out that French interests were involved, he replied that, while he did not recede from his full claims in the north, he did not wish to injure the alliance between Britain and France and would not ask ‘for what we now leave to France in Beirut and its coasts’ till after the War. There was no more bargaining over boundaries. It only remained for the British Government to supply the Sherif with the monthly subsidy in gold and the rifles, ammunition and foodstuffs he required for launching and sustaining the revolt”16 [italics by author].
1 See: Appendix A. “Mandate for Palestine” at:
http://www.mythsandfacts.org/ReplyOnlineEdition/appendix-1.html
2 Ibid.
3 Charter of the United Nations at:
http://middleeastfacts.org/content/UN-documents/UN_Charter_One_Document.htm. (11032)
4 International status of South-West Africa. Advisory Opinion of 11 July 1950 at:
http://www.icj-cij.org/icjwww/idecisions/isummaries/isswasummary500711.htm. (10954).
5Legal consequences for states of the continued presence of South Africa in Namibia ( South-West Africa ) notwithstanding Security Council Resolution 276 (1970). International Court of Justice, Advisory Opinion of 21 June 1971, (paras. 42-86 of the Advisory Opinion) states:
“The last resolution of the League Assembly and Article 80, paragraph 1, of the United Nations Charter maintained the obligations of mandatories. The International Court of Justice has consistently recognized that the Mandate survived the demise of the League, and South Africa also admitted as much for a number of years. Thus the supervisory element, which is an essential part of the Mandate, was bound to survive. The United Nations suggested a system of supervision which would not exceed that which applied under the mandates system, but this proposal was rejected by South Africa.” See:
http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/library/cijwww/icjwww/idecisions/isummaries/inamsummary710621.htm (11654)
6 Advisory Opinion of July 9 2004, paragraph 49 of the Opinion at:
http://www.mefacts.com/cache/html/icj/10908.htm. (10908)
7 Professor Eugene V. Rostow was Sterling Professor of Law and Public Affairs Emeritus at Yale University and served as the Dean of Yale Law School (1955-66); In 1967 as U.S. Under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs he become a key draftee of UN Resolution 242.
http://www.mefacts.com/cache/html/bio/10956.htm. (10956)
8 The British Government used the term ‘Special Regime.’
9 See Paragraph 70 in the ICJ Advisory Opinion, 9 July 2004.
10 Class “A” mandates assigned to Britain was Iraq, and assigned to France was Syria and Lebanon. Examples of other type of Mandates were the Class “B” mandate assigned to Belgium administrating Ruanda-Urundi, and the Class “C” mandate assigned to South Africa administering South West Africa.
11 The “Palestine Royal Report,” July 1937, Chapter II, p.38.
12 Palestine Royal Report, July 1937, Chapter II, p. 39.
13 Ibid. p. 40.
14Citing by the UN. 1922 Census. See at:
http://www.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/80859e/80859E05.htm. (11373)
15 Palestine Royal Report, July 1937, Chapter II, p. 28, paragraph 29.
16 The “Palestine Royal Report,” July 1937, Chapter II, p. 20.
PLEASE NOTE THAT THE TERRITORY THAT NOW IS THE STATE OF ISRAEL, AT THE TIME WAS CALLED PALESTINE DERIVED FROM THE ROMANS ORIGINALLY NAMING THE AREA.
