Monday, February 1, 2016

Jordan is Palestine


What happened to the Mandated Area East of the Jordan River? Is Jordan actually "Arab" Palestine?

Henry McMahon had exchanged letters with Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca in 1915, in which he had promised to recognize the independence of the Arabs subject to certain exemptions:
The districts of Mersina and Alexandretta, and portions of Syria lying to the west of the districts of Damascus, Homs, Hama and Aleppo, cannot be said to be purely Arab, and must on that account be excepted from the proposed limits and boundaries.
McMahon's promises were seen by the Arabs as a formal agreement between them and the United Kingdom. On this understanding the Arabs established a military force under the command of Hussein's son Faisal which fought, with inspiration from 'Lawrence of Arabia', against the Ottoman Empire during the Arab Revolt.

In January 1918 Commander David Hogarth, head of the Arab Bureau in Cairo, was dispatched to Jeddah to deliver a letter written by Sir Mark Sykes on behalf of the British Government to Hussein (now King of Hejaz). The message assured Hussein that:
The Entente Powers are determined that the Arab race shall be given full opportunity of once again forming a nation in the world. This can only be achieved by the Arabs themselves uniting, and Great Britain and her Allies will pursue a policy with this ultimate unity in view.
In respect to Palestine and in the light of the Balfour Declaration Hogarth continued by stating:

Since the Jewish opinion of the world is in favour of a return of Jews to Palestine and in as much as this opinion must remain a constant factor, and further as His Majesty's Government view with favour the realization of this aspiration, His Majesty's Government are determined that insofar as is compatible with the freedom of the existing population both economic and political, no obstacle should be put in the way of the realization of this ideal.

"Was Trans-Jordan not part of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine specified as the 'Homeland for ‎the Jewish People'?"Article Two of the Mandate for Palestine states:‎
"The Mandatory shall 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."‎
‎‎"In August 1920, Sir Herbert Samuel's request to extend the frontier of British territory beyond the River Jordan and to bring Transjordan under his administrative control was rejected."

Okay so what happened to the 72% of the Mandatory lands east of the ‎Jordan River?”
"The British Foreign Secretary, Lord Curzon, proposed instead that British influence in Transjordan should be advanced by sending a few political officers, without military escort, to encourage self-government and give advice to local leaders in the territory. Following Curzon's instruction Samuel set up a meeting with Transjordanian leaders where he presented British plans for the territory. The local leaders were reassured that Transjordan would not come under Palestinian (meaning part of the Jewish homeland) administration and that there would be no disarmament or conscription. Samuel's terms were accepted, he returned to Jerusalem, leaving Captain Alec Kirkbride as the British representative east of the Jordan."(citation)
In July 1920, when Faisal bin Hussein was expelled from Syria by the French, he cancelled the proposed agreement that he had made with Dr. Chaim Weizmann on the 3rd of January, 1919 at the Paris Peace Conference. The two had negotiated and signed an agreement, which spoke of full cooperation in the development of the independent Arab state in present-day Syria and Iraq (as promised by the British to Faisal) and the Jewish home in Palestine (from the Balfour Declaration), and encouraging "the immigration of Jews into Palestine on a large scale".

Just consider for one moment the impact of how this last part of the statement by Emir Faisal:"I cannot be answerable for failing to carry out this agreement", changed history forever and condemned thousands if not a millions people to death and agony! One wonders just how many lives would have been saved had the Machiavellian maneuvers of the French and the British had not played out.

What happened next was that on the 21st of November 1920, Hashemite Emir Abdullah I bin al-Hussein, elder son of Britain's wartime Arab ally Hussein bin Ali and the brother of the deposed King Faisal, marched into Ma'an at the head of an army of 300 men. At the Cairo Conference, of March 1921 they appointed Hussein Emir of Transjordan, while assuring that no Jews would be allowed to settle in Transjordan. In that same month Abdullah and his army had effectively occupied most of Transjordan.

"On what legal basis did this 2/3 of the Palestinian ‎Mandate get handed over to Abdullah other than as an arbitrary whim of the British government?" Was not the area under the League of Nations authority? Article Five of the Mandate for Palestine states:‎
"The Mandatory shall be responsible for seeing that no Palestine territory shall be ceded ‎or leased to, or in any way placed under the control of the Government of any foreign ‎Power."
The 1922 White Paper (also called the Churchill White Paper) was the first official manifesto interpreting the Balfour Declaration. It was issued on June 3, 1922, after investigation of the 1921 Moslem riots "disturbances" against the Jews in the Yishuv.
Although the White Paper stated that the Balfour Declaration could not be amended and that the Jews were in Palestine by right. The White Paper partitioned the area of the Mandate by excluding the area east of the Jordan River from Jewish settlement. The White Paper included the statement that the British Government:
"... does not want Palestine to become "as Jewish as England is English", rather should become "a center in which Jewish people as a whole may take, on grounds of religion and race, an interest and a pride."

The Transjordan memorandum
was a British memorandum passed by the Council of the League of Nations on 16 September 1922. The memorandum described how the British government planned to implement the article of the Mandate for Palestine which allowed exclusion of Transjordan from the provisions regarding Jewish settlement.
That land, which encompassed 76% of the original Palestine Mandated land, was renamed Transjordan and was given to the Emir Abdullah by the British.
This one sided ‘partion’ is mentioned in article 25 and 27 of the The Palestine Mandate given below.

Article 25: 
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 provisions of this mandate as he may consider inapplicable to the existing local conditions, and to make such provision for the administration of the territories as he may consider suitable to those conditions, provided that no action shall be taken which is inconsistent with the provisions of Articles 15, ;16 and 18.

Art 15
The Mandatory shall see that complete freedom of conscience and the free exercise of all forms of worship, subject only to the maintenance of public order and morals, are ensured to all. No discrimination of any kind shall be made between the inhabitants of Palestine on the ground of race, religion or language. No person shall be excluded from Palestine on the sole ground of his religious belief.
The right of each community to maintain its own schools for the education of its own members in its own language, while conforming to such educational requirements of a general nature as the Administration may impose, shall not be denied or impaired.

Art 16
The Mandatory shall be responsible for exercising such supervision over religious or eleemosynary bodies of all faiths in Palestine as may be required for the maintenance of public order and good government. Subject to such supervision, no measures shall be taken in Palestine to obstruct or interfere with the enterprise of such bodies or to discriminate against any representative or member of them on the ground of his religion or nationality.

Art 18
The Mandatory shall see that there is no discrimination in Palestine against the nationals of any State Member of the League of Nations (including companies incorporated under its laws) as compared with those of the Mandatory or of any foreign State in matters concerning taxation, commerce or navigation, the exercise of industries or professions, or in the treatment of merchant vessels or civil aircraft. Similarly, there shall be no discrimination in Palestine against goods originating in or destined for any of the said States, and there shall be freedom of transit under equitable conditions across the mandated area.
Subject as aforesaid and to the other provisions of this mandate, the Administration of Palestine may, on the advice of the Mandatory, impose such taxes and customs duties as it may consider necessary, and take such steps as it may think best to promote the development of the natural resources of the country and to safeguard the interests of the population. It may also, on the advice of the Mandatory, conclude a special customs agreement with any State the territory of which in 1914 was wholly included in Asiatic Turkey or Arabia.

Art 27
The consent of the Council of the League of Nations is required for any modification of the terms of this mandate.

So the answer to the question: "Was it not given as a payoff to the Hashemite Bedouin ‎Clan by the British ‎Government in detriment to the Palestinians?" The answer is obvious yes it was.



No comments:

Post a Comment