During the negotiations of the Versailles peace agreement, the the Ottoman Turkish Empire was divided by the preconceived lines drawn up in the Sykes–Picot Agreement that was concluded on 16 May 1916. When called upon to administer the area for the League of Nations the British recalling the long lost glory of the Roman Empire out of their obsession for "greatness and grandeur", called the area conquered from the Ottoman Turkish Empire in World War I the "Mandated Area for Palestine" -which included today's Kingdom of Jordan in memory of the term used by the Romans (Arabic: Filastin, Greek: Palaistine; Latin: Palaestina) It is a recorded historical fact that the "Arabs of the Mandated Area" refused to be identified as "Palestinians" while the Jewish population had embraced it. It was not until the aftermath of Israeli liberation of the Jordanian Occupied area of Judea and Shomron in 1967.
“Why is it that on June 4th 1967 I was a Jordanian and overnight I became a Falestinian?” “We did not particularly mind Jordanian rule. The teaching of the destruction of Israel was a definite part of the curriculum, but we considered ourselves Jordanian until the Jews returned to Jerusalem. Then all of the sudden we were Falestinians - they removed the star from the Jordanian flag and all at once we had a Falestinian flag”. Walid ShoebatThe Arabs only began to "Identify" themselves as "Falestinians" after 1967 in their KGB orchestrated mis-information campaign to delegitimatize Israel. Võ Nguyên Giáp, a General in the Vietnam People's Army and a politician; “Stop talking about annihilating Israel and instead turn your terror war into a struggle for human rights. Then you will have the American people eating out of your hand.”
"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct Palestinian people to oppose Zionism. For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan." -Zahir Mohsen- Palestine Liberation Organization executive committee member
A direct outcome of the speeches by “Presidente” Mahmoud Abbas of the “Palestinian Authority” and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the UN has been the talk of will negotiations begin, yes or no.The major issue that will be discussed at the UN over the next few days is the “Not If” but “When” the UN will grant recognition to the “State Of Palestine”.
The acceptance of this one-sided recognition, of what was granted previously to the “Arabs of the Mandated Territory”, in 1947 but was never accepted and initialized by them. Is sure to be accepted since the 22 already existing Moslem Arabic countries and there third world “lackeys” already outnumber the one lone “Jewish State”.
Abba Eban, the father of Israeli statesmanship, former foreign minister and ambassador to the United States and United Nations once stated: "Lest Arab governments be tempted out of sheer routine to rush into impulsive rejection, let me suggest that tragedy is not what men suffer but what they miss.” This quote of his was misquoted and it has been used to distinguish the Palestinian ineptitude to settle for peace with Israel time and time again as the; "Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity."
When I “Googled” the simple question: “Why did the “Palestinians” fail to create a state in 1947”
My question was immediately changed from one of blame on the Arabs themselves to a query that lays the blame on others!
I got;
“Why did the UN fail in its plan to create a Palestinian State in the late 1940s?”
Very interesting indeed, isn't it? Why does my simple question which asks;
“Why did the “Arabs of the Mandated Area fail to immediately establish a “Palestinian State” with the passage of UNR181?
Suddenly and miraculously becomes changed by Google into blame for failure on the UN?
If you look at the partition map, on the left, and the full "Mandated Area" map on the right, you can see that the Arabs by far received the larger part of the Mandated Territory than the Jews in UNR181? It begs to differ? So why didn’t “The Arabs of the Mandated Areas” proclaim the “State Of Palestine” there and then?
The Jews who received the smaller and widely dispersed part did not hesitate they established the “State Of Israel” on May 15, 1948.
Let us first look at the source of the term “Palestine”?
The word "Palestine" was first used by the Romans to signify the destruction of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem and in order to show their total victory and conquest of Judea and Israel. The war against the Jews had been so costly in Roman lives and money that Vespasian the Roman Emperor had stolen the wealth of the Temple to build the Coliseum in Rome and the “Grand Arch of Victory” that is in his name. As you may see, in the following picture of the inner part of the arch, that image of this looting of the Temple still exists! The Romans who had changed the name from Judea to Syria-Palestina used the word to describe a conquered region never a nation nor a country!
The Roman coins of the era labeled “Judaea Capta” were a series of commemorative coins originally issued by the Roman Emperor Vespasian to celebrate the capture of Judaea and the destruction of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem by his son Titus in 70 AD during the First Jewish Revolt.
The word "Palestine/filistin" is not even a word in Arabic. Ask any scholar of lingquistics how do you say "Palestinians" in Arabic? Since the letter "P" doesn't even exist in Arabic! There isn't a word called Palestine in Arabic they pronounce it "(B)alestine" or "(F)alistine".
In all actuality the word Palestine or “Phlistine” comes from Hebrew פְלִשְׁתִּים, p'lishtim,which literally means "invaders",was meant to indicate that the Philistines were a sea people who had invaded the Eastern Mediterranean. Archaeological digs in the area of Gaza and near Ashdod and Ashkelon in Israel indicate that the Philistines were part of the Minoan civilization from the island of Crete in Greece and not- Moslem Arabs!! The Mycenaean civilization flourished during the period roughly between 1600 BC, when Helladic culture in mainland Greece was transformed under influences from Minoan Crete, and 1100 BC, when it perished with the collapse of Bronze-Age civilization in the eastern Mediterranean
The eruption of Thera, also referred to as Santorini eruption, was a major catastrophic volcanic eruption which is estimated to have occurred in the mid second millennium around 1700BCE. The eruption was one of the largest volcanic events on Earth in recorded history. The eruption devastated the Minoan civilization on the island of Thera (also called Santorini), including the Minoan settlement at Akrotiri, as well as communities and agricultural areas on nearby islands and on the coast of Crete.
“Originally of Greek Mycenaean origin, the Philistines, along with other "Sea Peoples," swept across the lands of the eastern Mediterranean shortly after 1200 B.C., displacing the previous inhabitants and carving out their own territory in southern Palestine. We know that they came from the Aegean area because their pottery is closely related to Mycenaean pottery produced during the Late Bronze Age in mainland Greece and the Greek islands. During the earliest period of their occupation of Palestine, the Philistines used local clays to produce a monochrome pottery, decorated with either red or black paint, that is very similar to the Mycenaean pottery of the Aegean.” (*)
After the victory of the British army over the Turks the British began to use the term Palestine as the name for the captured region so as not to show preference either to Jew or Arab. In the context of the "White Paper issued by Mr. Churchill, the Colonial Secretary," stated that "the nationality to be acquired of all citizens of Palestine, whether Jews or non-Jews, whether for purposes of internal law or international status, would be Palestinian and nothing else...."
During the Gulf War, the Observer published a photograph of the assembled delegates at the 1921 Cairo Conference, which redrew the map of the
The Oxford English Dictionary (2nd ed.; XI:93; 1989) indicates that the earliest known literary citation for the term "Palestinian" is in the “Old Testament Apocrypha” which refers "books...not contained in the Jewish or Palestinian Canon, i.e., in the Hebrew Bible" (II:181). There is mention of "Palestinian biblical kings" in the article Palestine in the 11th edition of Encyclopedia Britannica (1910-11), older references usually apply to cultural objects and in the article entitled “Palestine” in the 13th edition (1926). This article had the first specific reference in Encyclopedia Britannica to Palestinians (Jews and non-Jews) as a distinct group (III:22). It cites a A section on the new territory's Constitution also referred to an advisory council "consisting of 10 British officials and 10 Palestinians.
Now let us look at this idea of the “Palestinian State” and from whence it began.
On November 29th, 1947 at Lake Success the “United Nations” which was the post World War II answer to the defunct “League Of Nations” took action to redress the issue of the plight of Jewish refugees especially after the magnitude of the Holocaust became known. These homeless refugees survivors of the horrors of the NAZI regime’s intricate and detailed plan to exterminate world Jewry, as laid out in the Wannssee Conference of January 1942, had no “Homeland” to return to. These refugees who were sailing towards the one place in the world where they believed they could go and live without persecution were blocked by the ships of the Royal Navy who intercepted these stateless Jewish refugees en route to Palestine after the war and either returned them to Europe or interned them in Cyprus. The British authorities in Whitehall, who had done nothing to alleviate the plight of the Jews seeking refuge in Palestine at their greatest moment of peril briefly glanced and opened it’s eyes. The British realizing that their actions were causing difficulties turned to the new world council of the UN.
The Arabs as a whole as then and until today still see the Holocaust, solely as a barbaric event on European soil for which the innocent Palestinians were made to pay. Their vision of the time was that the flotsam and jetsam of surviving European Jewry was being imposed on the Arabs of Palestine unfairly. The Arabs belief is if the Europeans felt guilt about their Jews, than they should have assumed the burden of accepting Jewish refugees, rather than imposing them on the indigenous Arabs and calling for the establishment of a Jewish state, if even in only part of Mandated Palestine.
[Grand Mufti Of "Palestine" Haj Amin Al-Husseini] - "The Mufti" was one of the initiators of the systematic extermination of European Jewry and had been a collaborator and adviser of Eichmann and Himmler in the execution of this plan... He was one of Eichmann's best friends and had constantly incited him to accelerate the extermination measures. I heard him say, accompanied by Eichmann, he had visited incognito the gas chambers of Auschwitz." --- Testimony Of Deiter Wisliceny At The Nuremberg Trials in July 1946.
The Grand Mufti Haj Amin el Husseini arrived in Europe in 1941 following the unsuccessful pro-Nazi coup which he organized in Iraq. He met German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and was officially received by Adolf Hitler on November 28,1941 in Berlin. Nazi Germany established for der Grossmufti von Jerusalem a Bureau from which he organized the following: 1) radio propaganda on behalf of Nazi Germany; 2) espionage and fifth column activities in Muslim regions of Europe and the Middle East; 3) the formation of Muslim Waffen SS and Wehrmacht units in Bosnia-Hercegovina, Kosovo-Metohija, Western Macedonia, North Africa, and Nazi-occupied areas of the Soviet Union; and, 4) the formation of schools and training centers for Muslim imams and mullahs who would accompany the Muslim SS and Wehrmacht units. As soon as he arrived in Europe, the Mufti established close contacts with Bosnian Muslim and Albanian Muslim leaders. He would spend the remainder of the war organizing and rallying Muslims in support of Nazi Germany.
The Grand Mufti el-Husseini was venerated as a respected educator and leader hero by Yasser Arafat and the PLO. It should be noted, that Faisal Abdel Qader Al-Husseini (July 17, 1940–May 31, 2001) who was once the PLO's top figure in east Jerusalem. Was the son of Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni, commander of local Arab forces who was killed during hand-to-hand fighting for control of Kastel Hill on the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem road, on 8 April 1948 during the siege of Jerusalem. Faisal Abdel Qader Al-Hussein was born in Baghdad Iraq and he was the grandnephew of the Haj Mohammed Effendi Amin el-Husseini, the former Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.
The members of the UN had been aware that their inheritance of the “Mandate for Palestine” from the League Of Nations was a issue of grave proportions. Great Britain, though nearly bankrupt from the cost of World War II, held steadfastly to their rapidly shrinking post war Empire. The British government feared the loss of the “Mandate” if they sided with the Jews for fear of upsetting the petroleum imports and their increasing exportation of goods and services to Arab countries. During this period the British and their government had turned a blind eye to the suffering of the Jews as they, at the same time, distanced themselves from their promises made by Lord Balfour in 1917.
The British were in dire need of the immense revenues to be had through the oil pumped from the British Petroleum oil fields in Iraq through the Trans Arabian Pipeline to the refineries that they built in Haifa. They supposedly tried to work out an agreement acceptable to both Arabs and Jews. However the British promises to the Arabs guaranteed failure because the Arabs would not make any concessions. The British realizing that their anti Jewish immigration policy stemming from the Peel Commission report of 1937 and the White Paper of 1939 was causing immense criticism subsequently turned the issue over to the UN in February 1947 in the belief that this would defuse the issue and they would receive the continuation of the Mandate.
The UN established a Special Commission on Palestine (UNSCOP) which was sent to the area to devise a solution and found that the Jews of the “Yishuv”(the settlements”), both old and new immigrants, were imbued with the sense of right and were prepared to plead their case for a homeland in “Eretz Yisrael” before any unbiased tribunal. On the other hand the Arabs remained divided between the followers of the Grand Mufti and the other leading clans in the area. These “Arabs of the Mandated Area” were too divided along tribal and clan relations, from neighboring Arab countries, to form a central leadership.
"Palestine was part of the Province of Syria [...] politically, the Arabs of Palestine were not independent in the sense of forming a separate political entity."
(Representative of the Arab Higher Committee to the United Nations in a statement to General Assembly in May 1947.
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| Arab demonstration, Jerusalem, 1919/1920. The banner on the left reads "We resist Jewish immigration", the banner on the right reads "Palestine is part of Syria". |
"Masri" or "al-Masri" = from Egypt , Hamas member of Parliament in Gaza, Mushir al-Masri (the word "Masri" literally means "the Egyptian" in Arabic !).
"Khamis"= from Bahrain "Salem Hanna Khamis"
"al-Ubayyidi" or "al-Obeidi"= from Sudan "al-ubayyid"
"al-Faruqi"= Mosul Iraq
"al-Araj" = Morocco, a member of the Saadi Dynasty "Hussein al-Araj"
"al-Lubnani" =the Lebanese
"al-Mughrabi" = the Moroccan ("Maghreb" – meaning "West" in Arabic, and usually referring to North Africa or specifically to Morocco),"Dalal Mughrabi"
"al-Djazair"=the Algerian
"al-Qurashi"=Saudi Arabia "clan of Quraish"
Prior to the Mandate in 1922, Palestine’s Arab population had been in a decline. However during the Mandate period the Arabs were free to come to take advantage of the rapid development stimulated by Zionist settlement. The Arab population grew exponentially as Jewish settlers improved the quality of health conditions in Palestine as they worked the Malaria infested swampy areas and instituted General Sick Funds for the workers.
"As I lived in Palestine, everyone I knew could trace their heritage back to the original country their great grandparents came from. Everyone knew their origin was not from the Canaanites, but ironically, this is the kind of stuff our education included. The fact is that today's Palestinians are immigrants from the surrounding nations! I grew up well knowing the history and origins of today's Palestinians as being from Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Christians from Greece, Muslim Sherkas from Russia, Muslims from Bosnia, and the Jordanians next door.” -Walid Shoebat
What the UN Special Commission had found in their trip to the region was what had been apparent all along; that the conflicting national aspirations of Jews, who never had a chance of reaching a majority in the country given the restrictive immigration policy of the British and Arabs could not be reconciled. This same conclusion was found also in 1937 with the Peel Commission, that the only logical solution to resolving the contradictory aspirations of the Jews and Arabs was to partition Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states.
"The area was under populated and remained economically stagnant until the arrival of the first Zionist pioneers in the 1880's, who came to rebuild the Jewish land. The country had remained "The Holy Land" in the religious and historic consciousness of mankind, which associated it with the Bible and the history of the Jewish people. Jewish development of the country also attracted large numbers of other immigrants - both Jewish and Arab." From the report of the British Royal Commission.
The Arabs as usual had rejected this plan because it forced them to accept the creation of a Jewish state, and required some Palestinians to live under "Jewish domination." The Zionists opposed the Peel Plan's boundaries since they would have been confined to little more than a ghetto of 1,900 out of the 10,310 square miles remaining in Palestine. Nevertheless like with the UNSCOP decision the Zionists decided to negotiate with the British, while the Arabs refused to consider any compromises.
Once again in 1939 with the British White Paper, which called for the draconian measure limiting Jewish immigration to no more than 75,000 over the following five years and afterward, no Jews would be allowed in without the consent of the Arab population! Once again a plan that called for the establishment of an Arab state in Palestine within 10 years, and granted the Arabs a concession on Jewish immigration, and been offered the goal of Arab independence they repudiated the White Paper.
The leaders of the varied Arab clans were active in their rivalries but the one driving issue that united them all over and over again was the desire to eliminate the Jews. It is this innate rivalry and their own greed for leadership has prevented them over and over again from the establishment of a State of their own.
Although most of the Commission's members acknowledged the need to find a compromise solution, it was difficult for them to envision one given the parties' intractability. In any case, under British rule, there were various Arab bodies to coordinate the interests of the Palestinian community. Why didn’t these bodies evolve into entities that might have paved the way for a Palestinian state, or at least provided the necessary leadership to guide the Palestinians in moments of crisis? Surely the Arabs of Palestine did not need a stamp of approval from the Mandatory authorities to wield these institutions for their own purposes. Moreover, the Palestine civil service, judiciary, and even elements of the police force were staffed by Arabs who could have formed the basis of a civil administration within an Arab state. These Arabs were, after all, the employees of the Mandatory Authorities, as were Jews who served in similar positions.
When the Special Commission on Palestine returned, the delegates of seven nations — Canada, Czechoslovakia, Guatemala, The Netherlands, Peru, Sweden and Uruguay — recommended the establishment of two separate states, Jewish and Arab, to be joined by economic union, with Jerusalem an internationalized enclave. Three nations — India, Iran and Yugoslavia — recommended a unitary state with Arab and Jewish provinces. Australia abstained.
The Palestine Arab Higher Committee rejected the Special Commission recommendations out right because it did not meet their “All or nothing” attitude. This decision of theirs was supported in their rejection by the states of the Arab League. In a communication to the United Nations Palestine Commission dated 19 January 1948, the Arab Higher Committee for Palestine stated that it was "determined [to] persist in rejection [to the] partition and in refusal [to] recognize UNO resolution [with] this respect and anything deriving there from".
The Arabs blame the inability of the Palestinians to establish an independent state before the momentous and tragic events of 1947–49 on a variety of factors, including the public commitment of the British government to establishing a Jewish polity in a land that had, according to the Arabs, had been inhabited by an overwhelming Arab majority for centuries. To the Arabs it was them that the British should have given the exclusive right to self determination when Great Britain contemplated carving up the Ottoman Empire during World War I. According to the Arabs of the Mandated Areas it was the British who denied the Palestinians a formal representative body, a parliament of sorts that might have given them practice at democratic rule and set them on the path to future independence. However the British officials made the creation of that elective body conditional upon Arab recognition of Jewish claims of the Yishuv [the Jewish community] as their “national home.” The Palestinians boycotted joint governing bodies which they were invited to participate in due to this “British” commitment.
Although the Jewish community of Palestine was not happy with the fact that Jerusalem was severed from the Jewish State and that the territory allotted to them by the Commission was very small they nevertheless welcomed the compromise. The partition plan took on a checkerboard appearance largely because Jewish towns and villages were spread throughout Palestine. This did not complicate the plan as much as the fact that the high living standards in Jewish cities and towns had attracted large Arab populations, which insured that any partition would result in a Jewish state that included a substantial Arab population. Recognizing the need to allow for additional Jewish settlement, the majority proposal allotted the Jews land in the northern part of the country, Galilee, and the large, arid Negev desert in the south. The remainder was to form the Arab state.
The Partition boundaries were based solely on demographics. The borders of the Jewish State were arranged with no consideration of security; hence, the new state's frontiers were virtually indefensible. Overall, the Jewish State was to be comprised of roughly 5,500 square miles 60 percent of which was to be the arid desert in the Negev and the population was to be 538,000 Jews and 397,000 Arabs.
The Arab State was to be 4,500 square miles with a population of 804,000 Arabs and 10,000 Jews. Though the Jews were allotted more total land, the majority of that land was in the desert.
Further complicating the situation was the UN majority's insistence that Jerusalem remain apart from both states and be administered as an international zone. This arrangement left more than 100,000 Jews in Jerusalem isolated from their country and circumscribed by the Arab state.
As the partition vote approached, it became clear little hope existed for a political solution to a problem that transcended politics: the Arabs' unwillingness to accept a Jewish state in Palestine and the refusal of the Zionists to settle for anything less. In a meeting with Arab League Secretary Azzam Pasha on September 16, 1947, Jewish Agency representatives David Horowitz and Abba Eban attempted to reach a compromise with the Arab League Secretary who told them bluntly:
“The Arab world is not in a compromising mood. It's likely, Mr. Horowitz that your plan is rational and logical, but the fate of nations is not decided by rational logic. Nations never concede; they fight. You won't get anything by peaceful means or compromise. You can, perhaps, get something, but only by the force of your arms. We shall try to defeat you. I am not sure we'll succeed, but we'll try. We were able to drive out the Crusaders, but on the other hand we lost Spain and Persia. It may be that we shall lose Palestine. But it's too late to talk of peaceful solutions.”
Post Script
In all of the recent Arab “Palestinian” narratives the blame for the creation of the modern State of Israel is laid upon the “Messianic Christians” in England who carried forward the project culminating in the declaration by Lord Balfour in 1917.However in historical fact it was actually Napoleon Bonaparte who first broached the idea nearly 100 years before the birth of Zionism!! While encamped with his Army, outside of Acre on April 20th, 1799, Napoleon issued a letter offering "Palestine" as a homeland to the Jews under French protection. The project was stillborn because Napoleon was defeated and was forced to withdraw from the Near East.
The letter, cited below, 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.
General Headquarters, Jerusalem 1st Floreal, April 20th, 1799,
in the year of 7 of the French Republic
BONAPARTE, 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 favourable 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, Israel¹s patrimony!
The young army with which Providence has sent me hither, let by justice and accompanied by victory, has made Jerusalem my headquarters 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!
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 nation¹s 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 honour 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 (Joel 4,20).
Exactly when did Napoleon's involvement with the Jews come about?
It started on the 9th of February 1797. When Napoleon occupied Ancona and he saw some people wearing yellow bonnets and arm bands on which was the "Star of David." He asked some of his officers why these people were wearing the bonnet and arm bands and what was its purpose. When he was told they were Jews and they had to be identified so they could return to the ghetto in the evening, he immediately gave an order that they should remove the yellow bonnet and armbands. He then authorized the closing of the ghetto and allowed the Jews, to live wherever they wanted, and to practice their religion openly.
In 1816 when Napoleon was asked why he posted the letter he stated: “My primary desire was to liberate the Jews and make them full citizens. I wanted to confer upon them all the legal rights of equality, liberty and fraternity as was enjoyed by the Catholics and Protestants. It is my wish that the Jews be treated like brothers as if we were all part of Judaism.”
