League of Nations Quotes
The Mandatory [Great Britain] shall be responsible for placing the country [Palestine] under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment of the Jewish national home, … 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.
League of Nations, Mandate to Great Britain for the Management of Palestine, Article 2, July 24, 1922
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Often referred to as the "Balfour Declaration." 1st Earl of Balfour
The PLO and most of the Arab nations, took the position that the United Nations original partition of Palestine into a Jewish and a Palestinian nations -- UN General Assembly Resolution 181 – was “illegal”. That view has served as the basis for the Arab Israeli problems since. The basis of the illegality they claimed was the right of the Palestinians to self determination. However, it is a right which they deny to the Jews living in Palestine who also had a right to self determination. The UN solution was to partition the land into two nations so that the each had the right of self determination. However, the Arab leadership wanted only Arabs to have the right of self determination.
The “Mandatory” was Great Britain who received the “Mandate” from the League of Nations to administer Palestine for the purposes set forth, and the methods specified, in this document. This together with {624531} are very important historically for two reasons. First, the San Remo Conference established the responsibility of the British for the Governance of Palestine. Second, it refutes an argument that some people make that the establishment of Israel by the United Nations in 1947 was a sudden act of guilt by the world over the Holocaust, thereby making the Muslim Arabs pay for the sins of the Christian Germans. What these quotations show is that the original mandate to the British by League of Nations, as early as 1920, envisioned the Jews as having a homeland in Palestine and provided specific methodologies and cautions regarding such an establishment. The world’s nations had decided the issue of the Jews in Palestine almost 20 years BEFORE the start of the Holocaust and more than 25 years earlier than the UN Resolution recognizing the nation of Palestine.
The “Mandatory” was Great Britain who received the “Mandate” from the League of Nations to administer Palestine for the purposes set forth, and the methods specified, in this document. This together with {590281} are very important historically for two reasons. First, the San Remo Conference established the responsibility of the British for the Governance of Palestine. Second, it refutes an argument that some people make that the establishment of Israel by the United Nations in 1947 was a sudden act of guilt by the world over the Holocaust, thereby making the Muslim Arabs pay for the sins of the Christian Germans. What these quotations show is that the original mandate to the British by League of Nations, as early as 1920, envisioned the Jews as having a homeland in Palestine and provided specific methodologies and cautions regarding such an establishment. The world’s nations had decided the issue of the Jews in Palestine almost 20 years BEFORE the start of the Holocaust and more than 25 years earlier than the UN Resolution recognizing the nation of Palestine.
At that time Jews in Palestine were in the minority. The issue of how to obtain the land was hotly debated amongst Jewish groups. Jabotinsky was at one extreme—colonize and take the land just as the Arabs had done to the Jews when there was a Jewish majority. His view did not however prevail. The policy was to buy the land from individual Arabs and Jewish land up to 1948 was obtained that way. In that year the UN partitioned Palestine and 11 Arab armies attacked the new state of Israel and asked the Arab civilians to leave the area so that the Army could cleanse it of Jews. Many did not, and they or their descendants are still on their land or have sold it. The Arabs who left, were suspected of being possible collaborators or terrorists, and they have never been paid for their land or allowed to return. Compensation is still in dispute. At the same time Jews driven out of Arab countries by law and the military have never been compensated or given any right of return either.
His is one extremist view of Jerusalem. Most historians agree that both Jews and Arabs have lived in Jerusalem since recorded history. Extremists on both sides of the Arab Israeli debate have constructs which deny the existence of the other group. Sisalem is one. Both the Palestinians and Jews claim Jerusalem as their capital and both have reasonable historical claims, and both have shared the city for thousands of years.
at the First World Zionist Congress, 1897
This is the first statement of a Jewish nation since Biblical Times.
Mr. Brandeis was Louis D. Brandeis, first Jewish Supreme Court Justice and one of the leading Zionist world leaders. Theodor Herzel is generally credited with being the father of Zionism but his treatise was written in 1895. Four years earlier, Blackstone, a Methodist Evangelical Minister, had drafted what has come to be called the Blackstone Memorial, which was a petition to President Benjamin Harrison to have American foreign policy work to return the Jews to Palestine where they would have a state and government. The petition was signed by over 400 notables. Straus, Brandeis and other Jewish Zionists credited Blackstone even though history has almost forgotten him. See {614860} for quotes from the Blackstone Memorial.
The irony is that the Zionist movement was very democratic long before most of the world had adopted democracy. They not only saw no conflict between a Jewish Homeland and democracy, but they maintained that Jewish tradition required democracy. After 60 years if constant attacks by its neighbors and having to defend the nation from invasion and extinction, the Israeli body politic actually became very conservative, while the Zionists were extremely left wing. Under the concept of Zionism there was a large population of Arabs as Israeli citizens. However, when some of those Arabs were openly against the nation in its struggle with the Palestinians and its other Muslim neighbors. Leiberman led the right wing effort in various efforts to expel the dissident Arab citizens and use very non democratic methods to cope with the right wing’s perception of the risk to the Jewish State.
The recommendation for partition was the basis of the decision of the United Nations in 1949 to partition Palestine.
Commenting on Israel's right to exist:
Arguing that the Arabs will never agree willingly to a Jewish state:
The highest court in New York. This was the generally accepted view of international law until WWII when atrocities and crimes against humanity were coped with. Also, at the time of this writing America was a small emerging state and not one of the great powers. Hence the prohibition of even commenting on the internal affairs of another nation was important to us. Now that America is a superpower, and society is more concerned with human rights, the point of view has changed.
It was signed by over 400 American notables—politicians and clergy, Christian and Jewish. Signers included the Mayors of Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia and Baltimore, congressmen and editors of most of the leading newspapers of the day. Blackstone’s Memorial predated the Zionist writings of Theodor Herzl by 4 years and Blackstone, thought a Christian, was credited as being the “Father of Zionism” by many of the American Jewish Zionist leaders. See {614859}.
The League of Nations, abbreviated as LON (French: Société des Nations [sɔsjete de nɑsjɔ̃], abbreviated as SDN or SdN), was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. Founded on 10 January 1920 following the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War, it ceased operations on 20 April 1946.
