APPENDIX
1: Basic documents regarding
Title:
Caption: This resolution, consisting of the Balfour Declaration and
Article 22 of the Covenant of the
Title: The Franco-British [Boundary]
Convention of
Caption: The Franco-British [Boundary] Convention which delineated
the boundaries between
Title: Mandate for
Caption: The Mandate for
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APPENDIX
II: The Franco-British [Boundary] Convention Of
The British and French Governments,
respectively represented by the undersigned Plenipotentiaries, wishing to
settle completely the problems raised by the attribution to Great Britain of
the mandates for Palestine and Mesopotamia and by the attribution to France
of the mandate over Syria and the Lebanon, all three conferred by the Supreme
Council at San Remo, have agreed on the following provisions:-
Article 1
The boundaries between the territories under
the French mandate of Syria and the Lebanon on the one hand and the British
mandate of Mesopotamia and Palestine on the other are determined as follows:-
On the east, the
On the south-east and south, the aforesaid
boundary of the former vilayets southwards as far as Roumelan Koeui; thence a
line leaving in the territory under the French mandate the entire basin of
the western Kabur and passing in a straight line towards the Euphrates, which
it crosses at Abu Kemal, thence a straight line to Imtar to the south of
Jebul Druse, then a line to the south of Nasib on the Hedjaz Railway, then a
line to Semakh on the Lake of Tiberias, traced to the south of the railway,
which descends towards the lake and parallel to the railway. Deraa and its
environs will remain in the territory under the French mandate; the frontier
will in principle leave the valley of the Yarmuk in the territory under the
French mandate, but will be drawn as close as possible to the railway in such
a manner as to allow the construction in the valley of the Yarmuk of a
railway entirely situated in the territory under the British mandate. At
Semakh the frontier will be fixed in such a manner as to allow each of the
two High Contracting Parties to construct and establish a harbour and railway
station giving free access to the
On the west, the frontier will pass from
Semakh across the
From Metullah the frontier will reach the
watershed of the valley of the
Article 2
A commission shall be established within three
months from the signature of the present convention to trace on the spot the
boundary line laid down in article 1 between the French and British mandatory
territories. This commission shall be composed of four members. Two of these
members shall be nominated by the British and French Governments
respectively, the two others shall be nominated, with the consent of the
Mandatory Power, by the local Governments concerned in the French and British
mandatory territories respectively.
In case any dispute should arise in connection
with the work of the commission, the question shall be referred to the
Council of the
The final reports by the commission shall give
the definite description of the boundary as it has been actually demarcated
on the ground; the necessary maps shall be annexed thereto and signed by the
commission. The reports, with their annexes, shall be made in triplicate; one
copy shall be deposited in the archives of the
Article 3
The British and French Governments shall come
to an agreement regarding the nomination of a commission, whose duty it will
be to make a preliminary examination of any plan of irrigation formed by the
Government of the French mandatory territory, the execution of which would be
of a nature to diminish in any considerable degree the waters of the Tigris
and Euphrates at the point where they enter the area of the British mandate
in Mesopotamia.
Article 4
In virtue of the geographic and strategic
position of the
Article 5
1.The French Government agrees to facilitate
by a liberal arrangement the joint use of the section of the existing railway
between the
2.The British Government may carry a pipe line
along the existing railway track and shall have in perpetuity and at any
moment the right to transport troops by the raiiway.
3.The French Government consents to the
nomination of a special commission, which, after having examined the ground,
may read just the above-mentioned frontier line in the valley of the Yarmuk
as far as Nasib in such a manner as to render possible the construction of
the British railway and pipe line connecting Palestine with the Hedjaz
Railway and the valley of the Euphrates, and running entirely within the
limits of the areas under the British mandate. It is agreed, however, that
the existing railway in the Yarmuk valley is to remain entirely in the
territory under the French mandate. The right provided by the present
paragraph for the benefit of the British Government must be utilized within a
maximum period of ten years.
The above-mentioned commission shall be
composed of a representative of the French Government and a representative of
the British Government, to whom may be added representatives of the local
Governments and experts as technical advisers to the extent considered
necessary by the British and French Governments.
4.In the event of the track of the British
railway being compelled for technical reasons to enter in certain places the
territory under French mandate, the French Government will recognize the full
and complete extra-territoriality of the sections thus lying in the territory
under the French mandate, and will give the British Government or its
technical agents full and easy access for all railway purposes.
5.In the event of the British Government
making use of the right mentioned in paragraph 3 to construct a railway in
the valley of the Yarmuk, the obligations assumed by the French Government in
accordance with paragraphs 1 and 2 of the present article will terminate
three months after the completion of the construction of the said railway.
6.The French Government agrees to arrange that
the rights provided for above for the benefit of the British Government be
recognized by the local Governments in the territory under the French
mandate.
Article 6
It is expressly stipulated that the facilities
accorded to the British Government by the preceding articles imply the
maintenance for the benefit of
Article 7
The French and British Governments will put no
obstacle in their respective mandatory areas in the way of the recruitment of
railway staff for any section of the Hedjaz Railway.
Every facility will be given for the passage
of employees of the Hedjaz Railway over the British and French mandatory
areas in order that the working of the said railway may be in no way
prejudiced.
The French and British Governments agree,
where necessary, and in eventual agreement with the local Governments, to
conclude an arrangement whereby the stores and railway material passing from
one mandatory area to another and intended for the use of the Hedjaz Railway
will not for this reason be submitted to any additional customs dues and will
be exempted so far as possible from customs formalities.
Article 8
Experts nominated respectively by the
Administrations of Syria and Palestine shall examine in common within six
months after the signature of the present convention the employment, for the
purposes of irrigation and the production of hydro-electric power, of the
waters of the Upper Jordan and the Yarmuk and of their tributaries, after
satisfaction of the needs of the territories under the French mandate. In
connection with this examination the French Government will give its
representatives the most liberal instructions for the employment of the
surplus of these waters for the benefit of
In the event of no agreement being reached as
a result of this examination, these questions shall be referred to the French
and British Governments for decision.
To the extent to which the contemplated works
are to benefit Palestine, the Administration of Palestine shall defray the
expenses of the construction of all canals, weirs, dams, tunnels, pipe lines
and reservoirs or other works of a similar nature, or measures taken with the
object of reafforestation and the management of forests.
Article 9
Subject to the provisions of Articles 15 and
16 of the mandate for Palestine, of Articles 8 and 10 of the mandate for
Mesopotamia, and of Article 8 of the mandate for Syria and Lebanon, and
subject also to the general right of control in relation to education and
public instruction, of the local Administrations concerned, the British and
French Governments agree to allow the schools which French and British
nationals possess and direct at the present moment in their respective
mandatory areas to continue their work freely; the teaching of French and
English will be freely permitted in these schools.
The present article does not in any way imply
the right of nations of either of the two parties to open new schools in the
mandatory area of the other.
The present convention has been drawn up in
English and French, each of the two texts having equal force.
Done at
HARDINGE OF
PENSHURST
G. LEYGUES |
APPENDIX
III: Jewish Legal Rights and Title of Sovereignty to the
by Howard Grief
April 2004 published on Jerusalem Summit website www.jerusalemsummit.org
The legal title of the Jewish People to the
mandated territory of Palestine in all of its historic parts and dimensions
was first recognized under international law on April 25, 1920 by a Decision
taken at the San Remo Peace Conference by the Supreme Council of the
Principal Allied Powers to entrust Palestine to Great Britain under the
Mandates System for the purpose of establishing a national home for the exclusive
benefit of the Jewish People, in accordance with the terms of the Balfour
Declaration of November 2, 1917.
The Supreme Council of the Allies was made up
of the top political leaders and officials of Great Britain, France, Italy
and Japan, and it was they in their meeting in the Italian resort city who
decided the future fate of all the Asiatic possessions which, as a
consequence of World War I, had ceased to be under the sovereignty of the
Ottoman Turkish Empire which formerly governed them.
These possessions included all the area then
called the
British determination and influence in the
wartime group of nations officially called the Principal Allied Powers in
relation to Turkey excluded other areas under former Ottoman rule in Asia
from being part of the new system of mandatory government, particularly the
Hedjaz and the whole Arabian Peninsula.
This was the global settlement that was made
after World War I, that conferred enormous benefits to the Arabic-speaking
world. The "Arabs" received the lion's share of the territories
that formerly belonged to
Other peoples who were originally included in
this global settlement fared badly. Kurds and Armenians were supposed to get
their own autonomous homelands or states, and the Assyro-Chaldeans, who were
a Christian community centered in
When the settlement and division of land was
devised at the San Remo Conference, it was clear to all concerned parties,
Arab and Jew alike and to all European, American and Japanese statesmen, that
Palestine, within its historic frontiers according to the biblical formula,
from Dan to Beersheba, but which still needed to be marked out in a separate
agreement, was exclusively reserved for the benefit of the Jewish people all
over the world, of which only a fraction then actually lived in the ancient
Jewish country. What this obviously meant to one and all was an independent
Jewish State in all of the historic
Jewish legal rights and title to all of
historic Palestine, including Transjordan and Golan, whose association with
the Jewish People goes back to the earliest days of Jewish history, was
indeed then formally recognized in the Franco-British Convention of December
23, 1920, even though no specific words were used to that effect but was well
understood by the parties, both from the negotiations that were conducted
prior to the conclusion of the Convention in consultation with Zionist
leaders who pressed the British to obtain the best possible frontiers for the
Jewish National Home, and from the reference to the Mandate for Palestine
contained in the Convention itself. Some parts of historic
Jewish legal rights and title to the country
of
1.The
historical connection of the Jewish People with
2.The right enshrined
in Article 22 of the Treaty of Versailles of 1919 which provided for national
independence or self-determination for those peoples, inhabitants and
communities living in the colonies and territories formerly under Turkish and
German sovereignty. This principle of self-determination was also adopted for
the benefit of the Jewish People by the Principal Allied Powers when they
created the Mandates System even though the vast majority of Jews did not
live in any of the territories described in Article 22 of the Treaty of
Versailles that were destined for eventual independence. That was the most
unique element of the Mandate for
3.The right of the
Jewish People to reconstitute their State of old in accordance with the
Balfour Declaration of November 2, 1917, as adopted by the Principal Allied
Powers on April 25, 1920 at the San Remo Conference. The Balfour Declaration
was a declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations as stated in
the brief letter sent to Lord Lionel Walter Rothschild which contained the
text of the famous Declaration. It viewed with favour "the establishment
in
The "home" referred to in the
Declaration was a euphemistic term for "state" already used 20
years earlier by the Jewish leaders attending the World Zionist Congress
convoked by Theodor Herzl and held at Basel, Switzerland, in August 1897, so
as not to offend Turkish sensibilities on the projected loss of Palestine
from their recognized sovereign domains under international law. The word
"national" was later appended to the word "home" by Nahum
Sokolow, the long-time Zionist leader at the time he participated in the drafting
of the Balfour Declaration with British officials. The addition of this word
was to make it even clearer what the ultimate goal of the Zionist
Organization was, on behalf of the scattered Jewish people. Strangely, what
was evident by the words "national home" then became muddled by the
originator of the term, Sokolow himself, who, in a display of inane and
unnecessary deception, wrote in the introduction to his two-volume monumental
work, History of Zionism,
published in 1919, that the word "home" as used in the Basel
Program of 1897, did not mean the creation of an independent "Jewish
State", which was an interpretation he attributed to anti-Zionists who
were opposed to the revival of the Jewish People as an independent nation in
its ancestral homeland. This denial of the term's true meaning was contrary
to what both Balfour and Lloyd-George themselves stated, both at the time the
Balfour Declaration was approved by the War Cabinet and in the years
afterwards. It was also contrary to President Wilson's own pronouncement on
the subject, influenced by the great American Supreme Court Justice, Louis
Dembetz Brandeis, both of whom had a major role in the approval of the
Balfour Declaration. The matter became further confused by Ahad Ha'Am, the
pompous pseudonym used by Asher Ginsberg, who stated erroneously in a
deliberate trouble-provoking exegesis that the words "in
As a result of Sokolow's and Ginsberg's
unconscionable and unforgivable misrepresentations which created heavy
roadblocks on the way to Jewish independence, it thereafter became easy for
succeeding British Governments to exploit their false interpretation of the
Balfour Declaration and to change the policy embedded in the Declaration to
the great detriment of the Jewish National Home.
Despite British backtracking, the Balfour
Declaration did become in any case an act of international law of supreme
importance to the cause of Zionism, when it was officially adopted by the
Principal Allied Powers at the San Remo Conference. It is without doubt the
linch-pin or essential foundation of all Jewish legal rights to
The foregoing three components of the Jewish
legal title to Palestine were then rolled into one comprehensive
international instrument, the Mandate for Palestine, which thereafter became
the primary cited source for Jewish legal rights to the re-constituted Jewish
National Home that was called Palestine in English, a name originally chosen
by the Zionist leaders in the Basel Program of 1897, and translated into
Hebrew as the Land of Israel.
These rights were included specifically in the
first three recitals of the Preamble of the Mandate Agreement, each one of
the recitals being of great importance by itself. Recital One refers to
Article 22 of the Covenant of the
The instrument containing the Mandate for
This constituted official recognition under
international law of Jewish legal rights and title to all of
In this regard, it is worthwhile to assess the
claim that Jewish legal rights and title to the whole country including
Second, the doctrine of estoppel also applies
with even greater force to the
Finally, the doctrine of estoppel applies with
equal validity to all Arab states whose own creation under international law
derived from the very same global settlement made by the Principal Allied
Powers at
One additional note related to this matter is
that it is unnecessary to base the continuation of Jewish legal rights and
title to all of former
Unfortunately what was clearly established in
regard to Jewish legal rights and title to all of
After taking complete control of the Turkish
Government, Ataturk refused to accede to the loss of any Turkish territories
in
The various provisions of the Treaty of Sevres
which had clearly set out the new legal structure for Palestine and that of
Syria and Mesopotamia in an unambiguous way were not repeated in the Treaty
of Lausanne, but simply omitted altogether, replaced by a vague clause
(Article 16), which referred to the future of territories "being settled
or to be settled by the parties concerned" among which was Palestine,
over which Turkey again renounced all rights and title, as it had done
previously when the Sultan's representatives signed the Treaty of Sevres.
The change in regime in
As a result, many renowned jurists have
wrongly maintained that Turkey only lost its sovereignty over Palestine and
the rest of the Fertile Crescent when it agreed to the Treaty of Lausanne of
1923, though the Treaty of Versailles of 1919, also recognized by Kemal's
Turkey, expressly rebuts that incorrect contention, as does the first recital
in the Preamble of the Mandate for Palestine as well as Turkey's earlier
acceptance of Wilson's Fourteen Points, delivered in an address to the U.S.
Congress on Jan. 8, 1918, one point of which dealt specifically with Turkey
limiting its control to its own peoples. In any event, the provisions of the
Treaty of Sevres still have great evidentiary value despite its
non-ratification, to show what the Principal Allied Powers actually intended
to do or had in mind when they adopted the Balfour Declaration as the only
basis of the Mandate for
The changes produced by Ataturk's rise to
power were also accompanied by a sudden American intervention in the involved
process then underway to confirm all the new mandates that were allotted to
Mandatories under the Mandates System. The
The American maneuver produced very
deleterious effects for Jewish legal rights and title to all of
The damage done soon became evident enough.
Thanks to the unwelcome American intrusion, the British deviously sneaked in
a new provision into the Mandate, that of Article 25, using as a lame excuse
Abdullah's threatened advance into Syria to protest his brother's eviction by
the French, which had no chance of succeeding but amounted to mere bluster
and feigned action. This additional provision to the Mandate for
The British engaged in other shady maneuvers
and artifices whose combined effect was to distort the true legal meaning of
the Mandate for
The author of this article served as a legal
adviser to Professor Yuval Ne'eman in international law matters affecting the
status of the
However, these methods or devices were so
skillfully contrived and artfully executed, they fooled most people at the
time. And because they were also based on Zionist antecedents provided by the
likes of Nahum Sokolow and Asher Ginsberg and supported to a certain extent
by the statements of Chaim Weizmann himself, the British were able to get
away with their brazen undermining of the Jewish National Home until it
became obvious what they had done. By that time, it was already too late to
do anything to reform the situation and execute the Mandate according to its
original true meaning. The British methods or devices included the following
acts of sabotage of the Jewish National Home:
A.
Changing the meaning of the words "the establishment in Palestine of a
national home for the Jewish People" to connote not the establishment of
an independent Jewish State, but rather a cultural or spiritual center, as
earlier advocated by both Ahad Ha'Am and Nahum Sokolow.
B. Misrepresenting the
Mandatory's solemn obligations under the Mandate to include not only
obligations in favour of the Jewish People, but also undertakings of equal
weight designed to satisfy Arab aspirations for self-government in
C. Introducing the
illegal principle of partition into the Mandate Agreement, which was expressly
forbidden by Article 5 of the text of the Mandate. Here the British showed
great ingenuity, using all their brilliant grammatical skills to find a
mother lode of new meaning from the simple phrase "in
D. Administering
Palestine in such a way as to bring about the establishment of an independent
Arab Government for Palestine, which was, of course, the complete opposite of
what was required to be done under the Mandate's provisions. This British
policy of converting a Jewish Palestine into an Arab Palestine reached its
outrageous apex in the infamous White Paper of
Those British figures who were chiefly
responsible for tearing asunder the definitive peace settlement reached at
San Remo and Sevres and concomitantly with obfuscating Jewish legal rights
and title to all of Mandated Palestine are among the most revered personages
in British and Zionist history, specifically George Nathaniel Curzon, Herbert
Samuel and Winston Churchill.
Curzon was a leading member in Prime Minister
Lloyd George's War Cabinet, who became Foreign Secretary upon the retirement
of Arthur James Balfour. He was placed in charge of
Despite Curzon's best attempts to prevent a
Jewish state from being seen as the real and most important objective of the
Mandate for
The nefarious work begun by Curzon was
ironically taken over and completed by the erstwhile Zionist, Herbert Samuel,
who just before his appointment as British High Commissioner in
It was this White Paper of
The British circumvention of the Mandate for
The question now arises in light of what
occurred in the past just what
Next,
It is safe to assume that the foregoing advice
will never be acted upon so long as there is an anti-nationalist Labour party
and other "peace parties" who advocate a spurious peace, instead of
believing in and fighting for the integrity and non-partition of the
Only a future Government of Israel infused
with the proper Jewish nationalist and religious spirit, knowledge and pride
can change what is today a murky and forlorn situation.
As for what can be done actually now,
[1] immediately scrap the "Oslo Peace
Process" which, incredibly, recognizes the national and political rights
of a motley Gentile people to substantial parts of the Land of Israel;
[2] evict the so-called and falsely-denominated "Palestinian Authority" and its entire leadership from the Jewish country, and [3] annex or incorporate all of Judea, Samaria and Gaza into the Jewish State; [4] All Arabs who do not profess loyalty to the Jewish State must leave the country and be re-settled in other Moslem countries, just as happened between the Greeks and the Turks after World War I; [5] No Arab parties professing national and collective rights for Arabs in the Jewish country should be allowed to sit in the Knesset.
The Moslems who live in the
The future steps that need to be taken to
restore all of the Jewish country to its sovereign owner, the Jewish People,
are at this point clear enough.
It is fervently
hoped that the day is not far off, especially under the new Sharon
Government, that Israel will finally abandon what has been the most dangerous
and suicidal course for a Jewish government to have ever followed: a policy
which illegally transfers integral parts of the Jewish homeland to an enemy
bent on destroying it and which has allowed it to create foreign rule and the
rudiments of a state and army in the very midst of the Jewish country, led by
a gang of bloody terrorists and murderers as seen only too well today.
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