In his role as Secretary of State for War, Churchill had since 1919 been arguing for withdrawal from the Middle East territories since it would involve Britain "in immense expense for military establishments and development work far exceeding any possibiity of return" and in 1920 in regards to Palestine:
"The Palestine venture is the most difficult to withdraw from and the one which will certainly never yield any profit of a material kind."
On 14 February 1921, Churchill took over at the Colonial Office tasked with making economies in the Middle East. He arranged for the conference at Cairo with a view to this end as well as making an Anglo-Arab settlement.
In the course of a report to parliament on 14 June 1921 that dealt with the outcomes of the conference, Churchill said:
We are leaning strongly to what I may call the Sherifian solution, both in Mesopotamia, to which the Emir Feisal is proceeding, and in Trans-Jordania, where the Emir Abdullah is now in charge. We are also giving aid and assistance to King Hussein, the Sherif of Mecca, whose State and whose finances have been grievously affected by the interruption of the pilgrimage, in which our Mohammedan countrymen are so deeply interested, and which we desire to see resumed. The repercussion of this Sherifian policy upon the other Arab chiefs must be carefully watched.
The Sharifian or Sherifian Solution, (Arabic: الحلول الشريفية) as first put forward by T. E. Lawrence in 1918, was a plan to install three of Sharif Hussein's four sons as heads of state in newly created countries across the Middle East: his second son Abdullah ruling Baghdad and Lower Mesopotamia, his third son Faisal in Syria, and his fourth son Zeid in Upper Mesopotamia. The Sharif himself would not wield any political power in these places, and his first son, Ali would be his successor in Hejaz.
Faisal was the first of Hussein's sons to gain an official role, in what was known as the Occupied Enemy Territory Administration (OETA) East, a joint Arab-British military administration.
The Arab and British armies entered Damascus on 1 October 1918, and on 3 October 1918 Ali Rida al-Rikabi was appointed Military Governor of OETA East. Faisal entered Damascus as on 4 October and appointed Rikabi Chief of the Council of Directors (i.e. prime minister) of Syria. The territory consisted of the Ottoman Damascus Vilayet and the southern part of the Aleppo Vilayet. The area of Ma'an and Aqaba became subject of a dispute.
Faisal consistently maintained that the Sykes-Picot Blue Zone was part of the area promised to Hussein in the McMahon-Hussein correspondence. On 15 September 1919, Lloyd George and Clemenceau reached an agreement whereby British forces were to be withdrawn starting on 1 November. As a result, OETA East became a sole Arab administration on 26 November 1919.
Meantime, Faisal was called to London, arriving there on 18 September 1919 and it was ultimately explained to him that he would have to make the best of it that he could with the French. While in London Faisal was given copies of all of the McMahon-Hussein correspondence that until then he had not been fully apprised of; according to his biographer, Faisal believed that he had been misled by his father and by Abdullah in this regard. Faisal arrived in Paris to attend the Versailles Peace negotiations on October 20,1919.
After receiving authorization on December 19,1919 from Hussein to enter into official discussions, Faisal, together with Haidar and General Gabriel Haddad, met on 23 December with Sir John Tilley, Hubert Young and Kinahan Cornwallis. In this meeting, there was a frank exchange of views wherein Tilley, representing Curzon, raised the issue of Hussein's signature to the Treaty of Sèvres and Faisal explained that Hussein would not sign until he was sure about Britain's intention to fulfill its promises to him. There were discussions about the McMahon-Hussein correspondence and its meaning and an agreement to set out English and Arabic versions side by side to see if anything might be resolved.
Faisal and Clemenceau finally agreed on 6 January 1920, that France would permit limited independence of Syria with Faisal as king provided Syria remained under French tutelage, Syria to accept the French mandate and control of Syria's foreign policy.
The political scene in Damascus was dominated by three organizations, al-Nadi al-'Arabi (the Arab Club with strong Palestinian connections), Hizbal-Istiqlal al-'Arabi (the Arab Independence Party connected to al-Fatat) and Al-'Ahd (an Iraqi-run officers association).
After returning to Damascus on 16 January, Faisal then proved unable to convince these supporters of the merits of his arrangement with Clemenceau and the Syrian National Congress on 8 March 1920 declared Faisal King of the Arab Kingdom of Syria over the whole of the OETA East area, which was a joint British, French and Arab military administration over Levantine provinces, which included "Southern Syria" (Palestine).
Lord Curzon who was Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs disapproved and asked Faisal to take up his case with the Supreme Council. Curzon met with the French ambassador on 30 March and noted that the £100K monthly Anglo-French subsidy to Faisal had not been paid since the end of 1919 and should not be paid if Faisal pursues an "unfriendly and independent policy".
In April 1920 the San Remo conference handed the French a Mandate for Syria; Faisal was invited to attend but did not do so, Nuri al-Said, Rustam Haidar and Najib Shuqayr attended informally, arriving nearly a week late and remained isolated from the main decisions of the conference.
On 11 May, Millerand (who had replaced Clemenceau on 20 January) wrote:
"...the French government could not agree any longer to the daily violation of the principles of the agreement accepted by the Emir... Faysal cannot be at one and the same time representative of the king of Hejaz, of Pan-Arab claims and prince of Syria, placed under French mandate."
"...that hundreds and thousands of Jews were going to pour into the country in a very short time and dominate the existing population",
but even was quite impossible.
"Jewish immigration would be a very slow process and the rights of the existing non-Jewish population would be strictly preserved. ...Trans-Jordania would not be included in the present administrative system of Palestine, and therefore the Zionist clauses of the mandate would not apply. Hebrew would not be made an official language in Trans-Jordania, and the local Government would not be expected to adopt any measures to promote Jewish immigration and colonisation."
"There was no question of setting up a Jewish Government there ... No land would be taken from any Arab, nor would the Moslem religion be touched in any way."
"We have done this undoubtedly to support the Jews. Some time ago there appeared an article in The Times saying that the arrangements made at the Peace Conference in Paris were really the work of the Jews. In this country some of our chief offices of State are now held by the Jews, and we are undoubtedly under a great debt to those of the Jewish persuasion for carrying on the usages, customs, and government of civilisation. Therefore we cannot disregard them, or treat them in the way that other countries have done. I should be very sorry to see us do it. Still, we are now undertaking a distinct burden of government on behalf of the Jews, and not on behalf of British interests. That must be remembered, and the country should realise it, whenever there is any declaration of our policy in Palestine.The position in Palestine has not been made any easier by the claims of the extreme Zionists, which have already been alluded to by Lord Sydenham. I do not think he mentioned one fact, that one of their leaders has said that all the present good land under cultivation, or land that could be cultivated without some extensive scheme of irrigation, is already held by owners, and, inasmuch as they are not making the best possible use of that land, three-fourths of it should be taken away from them and handed over to Jewish settlers, and only one quarter left to the present holders, who are not tilling the land properly. Lord Sydenham has also told us that they claim all uncultivated land."
"The best solution—I do not say it is an adequate one —is that you should give some confidence to the Arabs by saying that the administration of the country will be carried on in some degree by Arabs, Jews, and Christians as far as possible in proportion to the number of those different creeds in that country, and that the administration will be conducted under the suzerainty of the Emir Feisal. That is the only possible chance of peace there. If you do not do that I should look with dismay on what may happen to Palestine in the future. If you do it, you will be redeeming the pledges you have made time after time.
I know the Emir Feisal. I have had frequent conversations with him and his, representatives, and I am confident that they will faithfully discharge any agreement you enter into with the Jews and others as to their special rights and prerogatives; but it is impossible to conceive that you will have peace in Palestine so long as there is the idea prevalent that the whole of that country is going to be under Jewish control. If you do not mean that, what do you mean? A "Jewish home" is too narrow a term to convey any other meaning, I believe it to be the views of eminent Zionists that they should obtain practical control of Palestine."
The region that became known as the Emirate of Transjordan was separated from the area of the French Mandate after the French defeated King Faisal at the Battle of Maysalun in July of 1920.
For a time, the area had no established ruler nor occupying power nad had become a no man's land or, as Sir Herbert Samuel put it, "..left politically derelict". Hussein continued in his refusal to recognize any of the Mandates that he perceived as being his domain.
During the period that the San Remo conference -as part of a peace treaty with the Ottoman Turkish Empire established the "Mandate for Palestine" and gave the United Kingdom of Great Britain the status of the "Mandatory Power" over the entire region.
The "Mandate for Palestine" was a "League of Nations" (forerunner to the United Nations today) "stewardship" given to the United Kingdom (British) to administrate the territories of the geographical area collectively known as "Palestine". The part west of the Jordan river became designated as "Palestine" and the area EAST of the Jordan river became known as Transjordan, both of which had been conceded by the Ottoman Empire following the end of World War I in 1918.
The mandate was assigned to Britain by the San Remo conference in April 1920, after France's concession in the 1918 Clemenceau–Lloyd George Agreement of the previously-agreed "international administration" of Palestine under the Sykes–Picot Agreement.
As Abdullah I, had entered the region in November 1920 the British were anxious to get Faisal's approval to the British Stewardship over the Palestinian Mandate. In doing so the British claimed that TE Lawerence, who was the translator for Faisal, had written a letter to Churchill, from February 17th, 1921, whereby Faisal; "had agreed to abandon all claims to Palestine in return for Arab sovereignty in Iraq, Trans-Jordan and Syria.
Later in the month a conference was held with the British during which it was agreed that Abdullah bin Hussein would administer the territory under the auspices of the British Mandate for Palestine with a fully autonomous governing system.
As part of the agreement Britain withheld those articles of the Mandate concerning a Jewish national home and relegated all the area East of the Jordan river as "Jew Free" and the Amirate of Trans-Jordan, was a "protectorate" created by the British on 11 April 1921.
(Pictured here are T E Lawerence King Abullah I and General Edmund Allenby in Jerusalem 1919)
On 2 March 1921 a conference was held in Amman with the British during which it was agreed that Abdullah bin Hussein would administer the territory under the auspices of the British Mandate for Palestine with a fully autonomous governing system. As part of the agreement Britain negated those articles of the Mandate concerning a Jewish national home and relegated all the area East of the Jordan river as "Jew Free".
The "Mandatory Power"-Great Britain according to Art 25 of the Mandate, chose to avoid the conflict with the Hashemites in "Transjordan" and "ceded" any definite connection between it and the area of "Western Palestine" therefore creating on April 1921 the "British protectorate" officially known as The Emirate of Transjordan (Arabic: إمارة شرق الأردن Imārat Sharq al-Urdun lit.).
ART. 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.(* see below)
"the terms of the (Balfour) Declaration referred to, do not contemplate that Palestine as a whole should be converted into a Jewish National Home, but that such a Home should be founded `in Palestine.'"...
"Further, it is contemplated that the status of all citizens of Palestine in the eyes of the law shall be Palestinian,(meaning Jew and Arab alike)"
When it is asked what is meant by the development of the Jewish National Home in Palestine, it may be answered that it is not the imposition of a Jewish nationality upon the inhabitants of Palestine as a whole, but the further development of the existing Jewish community, with the assistance of Jews in other parts of the world, in order that it may become a centre in which the Jewish people as a whole may take, on grounds of religion and race, an interest and a pride.
But in order that this community should have the best prospect of free development and provide a full opportunity for the Jewish people to display its capacities, it is essential that it should know that it is in Palestine as of right and not on the sufferance.
That is the reason why it is 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 historic connection."
In a letter dated the 24th October, 1915, from Sir Henry McMahon, His Majesty's High Commissioner in Egypt, to the Sharif of Mecca, now King Hussein of the Kingdom of the Hejaz. The United Kingdom / Great Britain (holder of the Mandate from the league of Nations), agreed to an "independent national government" to be established in the Mandated Palestine Territory EAST of the Jordan(river).
As to the remainder of the Mandated Palestine Territory, "west of the Jordan",it is intended by the League of Nations and the Balfour Declaration to be converted into a Jewish National Home and was, "...thus excluded from Sir. Henry McMahon's pledge."
The Hashemite dynasty ruled the protectorate, as well as the neighbouring Mandatory Iraq and, until 1925, the Kingdom of Hejaz to the south. On 25 May 1946, the emirate became the "Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan", achieving full independence on 17 June 1946 when in accordance with the Treaty of London ratifications were exchanged in Amman. In 1949, it was constitutionally renamed the "Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan", commonly referred to as Jordan.
Articles from the Mandate For Palestine
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.
