Re Israel & Palestine we have the original Partition which should serve as the basis of negotiations for any meaningful, long-term resolution of that particular conundrum.

Originally, Jordan was meant to be the Palestinian homeland and the rest was to go to the Jews. The Arabs wanted it all and started violent attacks to get it until the Jews began fighting back. Starting with Jordan for the Palestinians and the rest for the Jews should be the basis of negotiations for any meaningful, long-term resolution of that particular conundrum, if there is any attempt to be fair, but, of course, that is not going to happen.

Intrigued where this idea of "Jordan was meant to be the Palestinian homeland and the rest was to go to the Jews" comes from.

By Jordan do you mean Transjordan and it your understanding that the Jews were to receive the rest of the Palestine Mandate?

I think you are getting a tad muddled here.

The key document is the White Paper of June 1922 (aka the Churchil White Paper), which in turn led to the Transjordan Memorandum passed by the League of Nations creating Transjordan from the eastern portion of the British Mandate.

Transjordan was excluded from the provisions of the Balfour Declaration and thus not included in areas that woiuld see Jewish immigration.

However it is not accurate to portray Transjordan as an Arab entity and the rest of Palestine as earmarked for the Jewish National Home as per the Balfour Declaration.

Excerpts from the 1922 White Paper make this very clear:

• "The tension which has prevailed from time to time in Palestine is mainly due to apprehensions, which are entertained both by sections of the Arab and by sections of the Jewish population. These apprehensions, so far as the Arabs are concerned are partly based upon exaggerated interpretations of the meaning of the [balfour] Declaration favouring the establishment of a Jewish National Home in Palestine, made on behalf of His Majesty's Government on 2 November 1917."

• 'Unauthorized statements have been made to the effect that the purpose in view is to create a wholly Jewish Palestine. Phrases have been used such as that Palestine is to become "as Jewish as England is English." His Majesty's Government regard any such expectation as impracticable and have no such aim in view. They would draw attention to the fact that the terms of the 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." In this connection it has been observed with satisfaction that at a meeting of the Zionist Congress, the supreme governing body of the Zionist Organization, held at Carlsbad in September, 1921, a resolution was passed expressing as the official statement of Zionist aims "the determination of the Jewish people to live with the Arab people on terms of unity and mutual respect, and together with them to make the common home into a flourishing community, the upbuilding of which may assure to each of its peoples an undisturbed national development"'.

• 'it is contemplated that the status of all citizens of Palestine in the eyes of the law shall be Palestinian, and it has never been intended that they, or any section of them, should possess any other juridical status. So far as the Jewish population of Palestine are concerned it appears that some among them are apprehensive that His Majesty's Government may depart from the policy embodied in the Declaration of 1917. It is necessary, therefore, once more to affirm that these fears are unfounded, and that that Declaration, re-affirmed by the Conference of the Principal Allied Powers at San Remo and again in the Treaty of Sèvres, is not susceptible of change.'

King Abdullah is a man on a tightrope and I for one do not want to kick him off.

Actually, either do I. I just wanted to point out that the original, original partition was much different from the 1967 lines and that there is no reason why 1967 should be the basis of negotiations. The Palestinians had plenty of opportunities to accept those boundaries and they refused over and over again and insisted on keeping up the hostilities. They are their own worst enemies.

Re Israel & Palestine we have the original Partition which should serve as the basis of negotiations for any meaningful, long-term resolution of that particular conundrum.

Originally, Jordan was meant to be the Palestinian homeland and the rest was to go to the Jews. The Arabs wanted it all and started violent attacks to get it until the Jews began fighting back. Starting with Jordan for the Palestinians and the rest for the Jews should be the basis of negotiations for any meaningful, long-term resolution of that particular conundrum, if there is any attempt to be fair, but, of course, that is not going to happen.

Both King Hussein and King Abdullah have been very good friends to the West.

They have been swamped by Palestinian terrorists seeking safe bases and retreats from their targets, and have co-operated with the West in trying to get them out. If we now dumped a few million more Palestinians, unwilling to go there in the first place, how could we expect any further respect or help from the Jordanians? The whole country would become a terror republic, with legal rights to promote hatred and discord throughout the Middle East.

King Abdullah is a man on a tightrope and I for one do not want to kick him off.

Not sure that UG is suggesting that all Palestinians are ethnically cleansed from Israel and the West Bank and dumped in Jordan...!

Hussein took on the PLO in September 1970 in a conflict that raged until July 1971. The prize was quite simple, who would be in charge of Jordan.

The key problem faced by Hussein was that the Palestinian refugees living in Jordan by 1970 made up almost half the country's population.

By July 1971 the PLO had been decisively defeated despite the assistance of Iraq & Egypt (passive) and Syria (active). The PLO fighters were relocated to Lebanon and Hussein became a figure of hate in many Arab countries. This period aslo spawned the Black September group infamous for the Munich Olympics attack and other actions against Jordanian and western targets.

King Abdullah is a man on a tightrope and I for one do not want to kick him off.

Actually, either do I. I just wanted to point out that the original, original partition was much different from the 1967 lines and that there is no reason why 1967 should be the basis of negotiations. The Palestinians had plenty of opportunities to accept those boundaries and they refused over and over again and insisted on keeping up the hostilities. They are their own worst enemies.

Which original,original partition do you mean?

See attached for the sequence of proposed partitions of Palestine and since.

Evolution Palestine.docx

Which original,original partition do you mean?

I'm talking about this one. This was the area originally earmarked for the Jewish National Home.

In 1920, at the Paris Peace Conference The British asked for a mandate that would implement the Jewish national home of the Balfour declaration. Britain received a provisional mandate over Palestine, which would extend west and east of the River Jordan. The territory included in the 1920 convention included most of the land that had been under Jewish rule during Biblical times. The British were to help the Jews build a national home and promote the creation of self-governing institutions.

However, in 1922, the British declared that the boundary of Palestine would be limited to the area west of the river. The British "White Papers" policies prohibited Jewish settlement East of the Jordan, while allowing a foreign group of Arabs (the Hashemites) to settle and eventually be given all of Trans-Jordan. The British truncated 77% of what was meant to be Palestine. It was in clear violation of Article 15, as well as Article 5 of the Mandate which stated 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 White Papers subverted the purpose of the Palestine Mandate, partitioned Palestine and created an independent Palestine-Arab state with no regard for the rights and needs of the Jewish population.

Here's an even more "explicit" version of your map:

This map is a classic example of, at best, "retrospective historical revisionism". Putting to one side the intriguing inclusion of the Golan Heights (seized from Syria and occupied since 1967) as part of "Jewish Palestine", the whole concept of a "Jewish Palestine" is somewhat unsupported by historical fact.

The key moment, then and since, in the conflict surrounding the Middle East was the Cairo Conference of 1920. This was deliciously desribed by one of the attendees, one WS Churchill, as a "meeting of the 40 thieves".

The task of the conference was simple but near-on impossible and set the stage for a conflict that continues today.

What they tried to do was to square a literal circle in terms of reconciling the McMahon Letters of 1915 (which over-promised the extent of potential Arab political independence), the Balfour Declaration of 1917 which set a target of supporting a Jewish National Home in Palestine, and the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 which carved up the southern elements of the Ottoman Empire into French and British areas of influence.

The details concerning Mesopotamia (Iraq), Aden and the Gulf are irrelevant to this thread (but their effects still resonate today), so I will just focus on the Palestine angle.

The Jewish National Home, which derived from the formulation of Zionist aspirations in the 1897 Basle program has provoked many discussions concerning its meaning, scope and legal character, especially since it had no known legal connotation and there were no precedents in international law for its interpretation.

Both the Balfour Declaration and in the Mandate promised the establishment of a "Jewish National Home" without, however, defining its meaning or spatial extent. This omission, while sensibly vague at the time, is where the problems start.

The phrasing of the Balfour Declaration itself emphasises the perceived nature of Palestine not being a purely Jewish entity:

"His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."

A statement on "British Policy in Palestine," issued on 3 June 1922 by the Colonial Office, placed a restrictive construction upon the Balfour Declaration. The statement excluded "the disappearance or subordination of the Arabic population, language or customs in Palestine" or "the imposition of Jewish nationality upon the inhabitants of Palestine as a whole", and made it clear that in the eyes of the mandatory Power, the Jewish National Home was to be founded in Palestine and not that Palestine as a whole was to be converted into a Jewish National Home.

This construction, which restricted considerably the scope of the National Home, was made prior to the confirmation of the Mandate by the Council of the League of Nations and was formally accepted at the time by the Executive of the Zionist Organization.

The carving out of Transjordan was actually permitted under the terms of the Mandate in a deliberate effort to at least partially honour the terms of the McMahon letters re Arab independent states.

Article 25 of the Mandate recognised the McMahon-Hussein correspondence and the final text of the Mandate reads:

"In the territories lying between the Jordan [river] 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".

Thus Transjordan became a semi-autonomous state under a British Protectorate and technically within the Mandate until full independence was granted in 1946.

When the Palestinian authority (sic) sets up a facebook page in praise of a murderer who shot a nine year old girl you could well understand why negotiations with such vermin can only lead to ceding land to those who will use it to commit further acts of violence, as they always have. I don't think prayer is rational, but if I were a Trojan I would be praying for no wooden horses to be let through the city gates.

http://www.thecommentator.com/article/4240/it_s_not_bbc_bias_against_israel_it_s_hate

As we reported here, a nine year old girl was shot by a Palestinian sniper while the supposedly "moderate" Palestinian Authority circulated on Facebook a celebration of the would-be child murderer, thus:

"The sniper of Palestine was here. He saluted Hebron, and rested in El-Bireh. He left the signature of [real] men in different parts of the homeland. He saluted and left, and moved on to a different place, with a new signature, as he tells the stories of those who love the homeland."

Kindly read what comes straight from the leaders of Fatah and then tell me why on earth Israel should waste any effort talking to them.

Here's an even more "explicit" version of your map:

The two real features of this map are the inclusion of the Golan Heights (as you stated) and the inclusion of the West Bank of the Jordan in the area intended as the Jewish Homeland. Also of course the inclusion of Jerusalem.

If Britain and the UN (as successor to the League of Nations) had continued to follow this map for the foundation of the State of Israel in 1948 there would be no 'Palestinian problem' now. It was all the dithering, shilly-shallying and obfuscation that followed the Arab invasion of this territory - aided by the British - that has led to the current problems, plus all the terrorism that we endured from the PLO/Fatah, Black September and similar groups, with the on-going Hezbollah and Hamas mini-war.

Here's an even more "explicit" version of your map:

The two real features of this map are the inclusion of the Golan Heights (as you stated) and the inclusion of the West Bank of the Jordan in the area intended as the Jewish Homeland. Also of course the inclusion of Jerusalem.

If Britain and the UN (as successor to the League of Nations) had continued to follow this map for the foundation of the State of Israel in 1948 there would be no 'Palestinian problem' now. It was all the dithering, shilly-shallying and obfuscation that followed the Arab invasion of this territory - aided by the British - that has led to the current problems, plus all the terrorism that we endured from the PLO/Fatah, Black September and similar groups, with the on-going Hezbollah and Hamas mini-war.

Forgive me but you seem to have missed the point somewhat....

Not only does the map above include the Golan Heights, Jerusalem and the West Bank into a "Jewish Palestine", but also conveniently creates an "Arab Palestine" in Transjordan. Classic piece of after the event revisionism.

There never was a Jewish or Arab Palestine intended or actual courtesy of McMahon letters, Balfour Declaration, Cairo Conference or the Churchill White paper. Please have a look at my earlier posts and you will see that there was no intention of giving all of Palestine to create a Jewish National Home. It was to be a National Home in Palestine and certainly not a Jewish state of Palestine.

The problem was not one of "shilly-shallying" after some Arab invasion. The Arabs/Palestinians were already there. The dilemma was how to reconcile the creation of the Jewish National Home with the pledge in the Balfour Declaration that "nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine". The problem, then as now, was how to reconcile the demands of Jewish returnees with those of the indigenous Arab/Palestinian population.

The map I posted is a nonsense and has no bearing in historical fact but does not make for a convenient narrative today.

If you or Ulysses can post any evidence that the whole of the Mandate of Palestine west of the Jordan was pledged as the Jewish National Home I would love to see it.

The maps (from a staunch pro-Israeli website) below show the extent of Jewish settlements in 1947 and the UN proposal for the partition proposed in 1947, underlining the point that the Jewish population only occupied a relatively small % of the area of Palestine. A little different to the nonsense map and no mention of Jewish or Arab Palestine, no surprise as they never existed!

http://www.christians-standing-with-israel.org/un-partition-plan-1947-palestine.html

Just to make clear I have no axe to grind re the state of Israel etc but one of the issues that clouds the possibility of a compromise and deal at some stage is the legacy of half-truths and misconceptions held by all sides involved in the conflict. Ultimately in a reworking of the Judgement of Solomon there needs to be a realization that slicing a small prize between 2 warring parents is a nonsense and a more sensible solution would be to share the "baby".

The problem of the invasion of the land to the West of the Jordan Valley by British-led Arab Legions (the military arm of the Arab community within the Palestine Mandate) must be considered in conjunction with any map showing proposed borders in the area.

The British government of the day supported the Arab view of 'This is our land, and our land only' 100% and did everything in their power to disrupt and delay the immigration of Jewish refugees to the area. When this proved both embarrassing and impractical, and the Jewish authorities declared their intention of proclaiming statehood, the British encouraged the invasion of the territory from all directions, coordinating and commanding the invasion.

From this illegal act has stemmed all the subsequent problems in the area, which would not have been the case if logical and sensible discussions had been held and logical and sensible borders defined before the announcement of statehood and it's recognition by the majority of the nations represented in the United Nations.

The problem of the invasion of the land to the West of the Jordan Valley by British-led Arab Legions (the military arm of the Arab community within the Palestine Mandate) must be considered in conjunction with any map showing proposed borders in the area.

The British government of the day supported the Arab view of 'This is our land, and our land only' 100% and did everything in their power to disrupt and delay the immigration of Jewish refugees to the area. When this proved both embarrassing and impractical, and the Jewish authorities declared their intention of proclaiming statehood, the British encouraged the invasion of the territory from all directions, coordinating and commanding the invasion.

From this illegal act has stemmed all the subsequent problems in the area, which would not have been the case if logical and sensible discussions had been held and logical and sensible borders defined before the announcement of statehood and it's recognition by the majority of the nations represented in the United Nations.

Good grief, one of the most complicated and still argued over chapters of modern history reduced to a 4 sentence denunciation of British policymakers.

Like many reductionist theories you place way too much emphasis on the potential of one player to completely shape all the events that unfolded. Please have a read of this (albeit lengthy) piece by Avi Shlaim. He too is not without his critics, but sadly no one who expresses an opinion re the Israel/Palestine conflict can escape criticism from one or either side or even both!

http://www.palestine-studies.org/enakba/diplomacy/Shlaim,%20Britain%20and%20the%20Arab%20Israeli%20War%20of%201948.pdf

Most current historians without an agenda see Britain's role as largely one of promoting its own interests and being only too glad to extract itself from the financial and political quagmire of Palestine. Britain refused to assume responsibility for implementing the UN partition plan on the grounds that the use of force would be required. So the real charge against Britain is not that she plotted war against the infant Jewish state but that her abdication of responsibility at the critical moment allowed Palestine to slide into chaos, violence and bloodshed. Though it can be argued that the abrupt British exit was actually to the benefit of the Israelis as they were going from strength to strength by the end of the Mandate period having largely crushed the Palestinian arab militias and had even possibly struck a deal with Transjordan's Abdullah that the Arab Legion (which was the army of Transjordan not the "military arm of the Arab community within the Mandate) would only operate in areas earmarked as non-Jewish areas under the partition plan, and seize them to expand the territory of Transjordan (hence the subsequent annexation of the West Bank).

The nature of the British "bug-out" rivals that of the US 1975 pull-out from Saigon as a sad reflection on those involved. This was summed up by Henry Gurney's response to a journalist's question as to who he would hand over the keys to his office as the last Chief Secretary for the Mandate Government. "I will leave them under the mat" of his office in the half-bombed out King David Hotel.

Ironically Britain has been heavily criticized by both Israeli and anti-Israeli writers for favouring one side against the other. Perhaps at least one set of critics must be wrong, potentially both!

To get a fuller picture you need to also look at the intentions of the individual Arab governments in Egypt, Iraq, Syria and Transjordan. The role of the US arms embargo that led to the Soviets/Czechs becoming the crucial arms suppliers (and probably war-winning role) during the first truce period. The internal conflicts between the Israeli elements is also of interest, see the sinking of the Altalena etc

I quite accept that my views could be totally wrong and you are spot on. Some sources/evidence though would be quite handy....

Broadly I agree with you, Folium.

But I was a schoolboy at the time, with friends and relatives in the struggle while I was studying.

So I do have biased memories and an emotional leaning towards one of the protagonists.

(And remember, the British Army, before it scuttled out of the Mandate, handed all it's supplies to the Arab Legion and their British officers)

Broadly I agree with you, Folium.

But I was a schoolboy at the time, with friends and relatives in the struggle while I was studying.

So I do have biased memories and an emotional leaning towards one of the protagonists.

(And remember, the British Army, before it scuttled out of the Mandate, handed all it's supplies to the Arab Legion and their British officers)

Anecdotal evidence and memories are important but more detached research does have a greater sway.

Re the transfer of equipment that again seems only part of the story as much of the kit ended up in israeli hands and the Arab Legion was hardly hanging around Haifa.

More typical are some of the tales below:

"It was one of the greatest packing exercises

in history. No1 Base Wkshops REME had 20,000 tons

packed and still managed to add their chapel to it;

they went to Cyrenaica, East Africa, other places

in ME and some to Egypt to close the accounts."

Forgotten Conscripts, Eric Lowe

Palestine held a huge amount of stores and the port was very busy as stores not destroyed, sold or stolen were packed for shipment to the UK or elsewhere and troops worked all hours as civilian employees were disappearing or arriving tired from fighting all night. There was plenty of paper work associated with returning stores so it was not always meticulously done as staff were overwhelmed with the volume; confusion reigned, perfect for fiddling. Some more unusual items were discovered and returned such as crates of mustard gas which caused some consternation. They were taken to Haifa very carefully and disposed of at sea. Explosives too had to be dealt with.

"Shipload after shipload of military supplies

were being taken away day and night from

the start of 1948. It wasn't just supply and

troopships using the harbour, hospital ships

taking away the sick and wounded were still

weaving in and out of the dock. The evacuation

was creating problems for normal business traffic

in the port." Forgotten Conscripts, Eric Lowe

Not only were stores being sold, officially or otherwise, entire bases and hospitals were; the value was enormous and many on all sides cashed in on the possibilities. Armoured vehicles were in demand and though many were taken to Egypt or were destroyed who knows how many found another owner. On 10th May a detail was dispatched from 3 Base Workshops, Khayat Beach, to Sarafand to destroy some turrets. REME Maj Doel with WO McCarthy and L/Cpls McGregor, Rigby-Jones and Sharpley were sent to do the job. Terrorists offered them money not to but refusing the bribe they destroyed the turrets. Returning to Sarafand they were ambushed and though they fought bravely were all killed. Being honest was dangerous.

Andrew Gibson-Watt was involved in the courts martial of some of those selling kit to Arabs or Jews. They were mostly RAOC or technical corps who had easiest access and included a colonel, a captain and a number of quartermaster-sergeants. However, according to Gibson-Watt they were just "a drop in the ocean". Men had no idea what they were going home to so it isn't surprising that some succumbed to temptation, especially when it was so easy and the equipment going to be destroyed.

"I also remember sending men to Beer Sheba to dismantle the overhead telephone system and bring back the copper wire. Even two years after the end of the war, the world-wide demand for the stuff could not be fully met so we had orders to recover as much as we could. But the Bedouin beat us to it. Once they discovered what we were doing they promptly headed south ahead of us and did their own dismantling. I think my lads were tickled pink to have some entrepreneurs assisting then in their task. (Years later I did hear that my team of signallers had also gone into the copper recycling business by leaping over the Bedouin, recovering the copper wire and taking it over the border into Egypt where they sold it). I spent the last few weeks packing up expensive technical equipment to ship from Haifa port and trucking other stuff up to Wadi Rushmeir near Haifa where it was destroyed by army flame throwers." Peter Davies, Signals

We will probably see similar stories from Afghan as NATO pulls out over the next 9 months....

PS returning to the theme of "perfidious Albion" trying to destroy Israel at birth, it's worth remembering how countries lined up for the ultimately disastrous excursion into the Canal Zone in 1956. Perhaps not quite such foes after all...?

[...]

We will probably see similar stories from Afghan as NATO pulls out over the next 9 months....

PS returning to the theme of "perfidious Albion" trying to destroy Israel at birth, it's worth remembering how countries lined up for the ultimately disastrous excursion into the Canal Zone in 1956. Perhaps not quite such foes after all...?

I just missed Suez. I was in the RAF, National Service, and was demobbed from the air-sea rescue helicopter squadron a couple of weeks before they were deployed to Cyprus.

Back to 1948 - I was educated in a boys grammar school from age 7, the last intake before RAButler's Education Act. So for 3 years I was the youngest boy in the school and remember when all the masters returned from the war, eager to teach and full of determination that there would never be another war like it. We had the best education available at that time. And in 1948 everyone in the school was welcoming the foundation of the Jewish state, whatever their religion (or lack of it). But we were made well aware of the atrocoties being carried out by both sides,

And when I was serving with 275 Squadron we had Czech and Polish aircrew who had served during WWII and were too old to fly Hunters, but did not want to return to the Russian occupation of their home countries, so flew the planes that no one else thought 'sexy'. Many stories from the crew room there.

The majority of Israelis and and an even more dramatic vast majority of global Jewry are not nearly as right wing as those rabbis. Someone naive about this subject would assume these right wing radical rabbis speak for the majority of Jews. NO!

The majority of Israelis and and an even more dramatic vast majority of global Jewry are not nearly as right wing as those rabbis. Someone naive about this subject would assume these right wing radical rabbis speak for the majority of Jews. NO!

nobody in their right mind, and that includes some of my right wing² Jewish friends, would assume or claim that JT.

but when one or more Wahhabi or Shia àssholes Mullahs make equivalent statements or demands the media jumps on it and presents them as if they speak for the majority of Muslims.

Maybe countries that have stolen the land themselves should stop attacking Israel and giving them such a good excuse to take it away from them.

Your Honour, Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury;

there is no doubt that my client is a thief. but we would like to present to the court and the jury a good excuse why, inspite of the fact, that he was, is and clearly has intentions to steal in future the verdict should be "not guilty".

The majority of Israelis and and an even more dramatic vast majority of global Jewry are not nearly as right wing as those rabbis. Someone naive about this subject would assume these right wing radical rabbis speak for the majority of Jews. NO!

No, of course not, JT.

But a large proportion of those who read about it will be people who really don't know much about the whole business, and they will assume that there is a large section of Jewish opinion which agrees.

This will do much more harm to the peace talks than their minimal support among Jews deserves.