Palestinian Air

It’s the number one topic on the world’s political agenda. It’s considered more important than the Iranian nuclear threat or the Iraqi war. The drive for a State in Palestine gains constant momentum, propelled by the iron will of the international community. The Palestine issue is entrenched in the collective conciousness as the single most urgent obstacle to peace in the Middle East, and, by proxy, the world.

And yet, even as road maps and initiatives fly, there seems to be a need to get back to the basic fundamentals of the issue at hand. Since we are talking about a specific people (Palestinians) and a specific geographic landmass (Palestine), these obvious details should surely at this point be redundant. That would be the case, except for the fact that the negotiators are still debating “Israel’s right to exist”. Since there is clearly some doubt cast over the basic geographic realities on the ground, there is a growing, urgent need to set the record straight.

So where is Palestine?

Well, it depends who you ask. You may be given any number of the folowing answers: Israel, Judea and Samaria, The West Bank and Gaza, Jerusalem, somewhere in the Middle East….. These are the vague responses offered by the world’s major media outlets, political delegations, United Nations, Arab experts and even, sadly, some marginal Israeli public doctrine.

The correct answer is, all of the above, and Jordan. That is: Jordan, Israel’s neighbour, with whom they share their modern beginnings, a peace treaty, a border, and a common problem: the Palestinians.

Formal use of the term ‘Palestine” returned after WWI. The 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement to divide the remains of the Ottoman Empire between the British and French rapidly paved the way for the San Remo Conference and then League of Nations approval of the British Mandate for Palestine in 1922. That geographic area included what is Israel and Jordan today. During the intervening years the British had meanwhile handed over 77% of Palestine, the land east of the jordan river, Read the rest of this entry »

As with most issues Churchill was a contrarian thinker when it came to the “Jewish Question”, and the creation of a Zionist State. For 40 years, in the face of media and political criticism, Churchill consistently advocated the necessity of forming in “Palestine”, a Jewish State, and resisted all varieties of appeasement to Arab demands and violence. It is not an exaggeration to state that Churchill’s views and political skills and cunning led the way to Anglo-British support of Modern Israel, and by extension, the guarantee of its very survival. Churchill’s attitudes towards Zionism and Arab culture are still apposite today.

Churchill possessed three general ideas about Zionism and the establishment of a Jewish State in the British Protectorate called “Palestine”. These ideas took root during World War One and solidified into a concrete action plan in 1917 after the Balfour Declaration was given, which promised Jews a National Home in their ancient lands renamed “Palestine” but comprising biblical Israel. Churchill’s three main themes informed his 1922 White Paper, when as colonial secretary; he depicted the rationale, and the methods of providing Jews, a national home. This White Paper became the blue-print for the Zionist State.

First, Churchill dismissed claims that Arabs had occupied “Palestine” or Israel, before the Jews. Churchill knew that Jewish Semitic Tribes, along with Greeks, Assyrians and Levantine groups had long pre-dated Arabs in the area. Jewish clans, as distinct and homogenous groups, had existed and cultivated Judea and Israel 3000 years before the 642 A.D. Muslim-Arab invasion. Jericho, the world’s oldest village, was built by ancient Jewish tribes circa 10,000 B.C.; Moses led the Jews (or a part of them it should be more accurately stated) from Egypt to Israel (or Canaan) in 1200 B.C. who erected the first great Jewish temple. As a scholar of Moses and Jewish History, Churchill would know all of this, Arab claims to the area were false and specious.

Secondly, Churchill had great faith in Jewish culture, finance and intellectual skill, he knew that the Jews would make deserts bloom and develop civilization, Read the rest of this entry »

President Bush and Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert stubbornly and foolishly continue to push for the creation of an independent Palestinian State between Israel and Jordan, as Hamas and Fatah turn the proposed site for such a state – Gaza and the West Bank – into battlegrounds of blood, misery and privation for the Arab populations caught in their deadly crossfire.

The 70th Anniversary of the Peel Commission Report released on 7 July 1937 presents a unique and impartial insight into understanding what the so called “Palestinian problem” was – and still is today – really about.

The Peel Commission recognised there was an insoluble conflict in Palestine between the Arabs and Jews necessitating the partition of Palestine into two independent sovereign states.

There was no mention of a third interested party – the “Palestinians” or “the Palestinian people” – who also deserved a separate state. This “people” was the subsequent creation of skilful Arab propaganda in the 50’s and 60’s in response to Israel’s creation in 1948.

The Peel Commission Report succinctly summed up the nature of the conflict in the following words:

“An irrepressible conflict has arisen between two national communities within the narrow bounds of one small country. There is no common ground between them. Their national aspirations are incompatible. The Arabs desire to revive the traditions of the Arab golden age. The Jews desire to show what they can achieve when restored to the land in which the Jewish nation was born. Neither of the two national ideals permits of combination in the service of a single State.”

In 1937 there was no independent State called Jordan. It was then called Trans-Jordan, it comprised 77% of the territory administered by Great Britain under the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine – the operation of which was specifically the subject of inquiry and consideration by the Peel Commission .

The right of Jews to settle in Trans-jordan pursuant to the Mandate had been “postponed or withheld” by Britain with the consent of the League Read the rest of this entry »

Palestine – A Geo-physical Study

The world ‘Palestine’ has a curious meaning. Ethnologically, it means

the land of the Philistines’, a strip of territory along the Levant coast

from El Arish to Jaffa approximately.

The Romans and later the Byzantines gave the word definite and precise

administrative significations and extended the boundaries.

The Arabs, under the banner of Saladin, extinguished Frankish rule at

the decisive battle of Hattin in 1187, to become masters of the area. They

coined the word “Falestin” as their name for one of their provinces.

Since the 16th cent., this region was part of the Ottoman dominions.

For them this was not Palestine. For the Turks and the Arabs, the whole of

the region lying between the Taurus Mts. and the confines of Egypt, was

Syria, a term which had been in use from antiquity. After the ‘Treaty of

Berlin’ in 1870, which insured free access to the holy places to Jews and

Christians, their Jerusalem province came to be known as ‘Palestine’. The

area consisted of Jaffa to Jerusalem, and southwards, covering the entire

Negev Desert to the port of Aqaba (Jordan).

In Europe in the Middle Ages the word Palestine came to mean the Land

of Israel before the Diaspora (Dispersion) as mentioned in the Book of

Judges 20:1-2, “All the Israelites, the whole community from Dan to

Beersheba and out of Gilead also, left their homes as one man and

assembled before the Lord…”

The Sykes-Picot Agreement (1916 – the dismembering of the Ottoman

Empire), assigned to France Lebanon and Syria, and to England – Palestine

and Iraq. Between the two zones it was agreed to create an Arab state or

confederation of states; France with priority of rights in the north and

England in the south. (British rule in Palestine began on Dec. 11, 1917.)

The British determined the boundaries of present-day Palestine

mandatory government in 1924. Transjordan was created from the eastern

part (a gift to placate the Royal House of Hussien), extending from the

river Jordan to the eastern boundaries; and Palestine, Sist Jordan – its

borders were from the river Jordan to the Read the rest of this entry »

Jordan’s Prime Minister, Marouf al- Bakhit, has now added one new myth to the countless many concerning Palestine that have been invented by Arab propagandists.

Speaking at a recent seminar marking the 61st anniversary of Jordan’s independence, the Prime Minister asserted that everyone should realise that:

“this small country [Jordan] was not accidentally born nor was the outcome of deals,conferences or conspiracies.”

Jordan’s history is well documented and totally contradicts the Prime Minister‘s amazing assertion.

It was accidentally born in 1921 – as the emirate of Transjordan. It then comprised 77% of the area designated by Britain and France as “Palestine” after the First World War – the land in which the Jewish National Home was intended to be reconstituted almost 2000 years after the Jews had lost their biblical and ancestral homeland to foreign invaders and occupiers.

This noble plan was suddenly “postponed or withheld” in relation to Transjordan, when Britain changed tack and proceeded to transform Transjordan into an “Arab province or adjunct of Palestine”, as Winston Churchill described it at the time. However it still remained part of Palestine until independence was granted by Britain in 1946 but the Jews were prohibited from settling there.

What was postponed or withheld became permanent after 1946.

The Jews were then left to reconstitute their homeland in just 23% of the area originally allotted to them – a miniscule 28000 square kilometres. The Arabs had ended up with the other 92000 square kilometres of Palestine as an exclusively Arab State but this did not and never has satisfied the Arabs. Some wanted and still demand a greater share and others want the lot.

Jordan was indeed the outcome of deals, conferences and conspiracies – a pay off by the British, following the Cairo Conference, to Emir Abdullah, second son of Sharif Hussein of Mecca – to stop Abdullah and his armed band of followers transiting through Transjordan on their way to Damascus to help his brother Feisal in a struggle against Read the rest of this entry »