Will Israel act to reclaim its sovereign legal rights after a century of British corruption over their maladministration of the Mandate for Palestine?
This is a subject that irks me a great deal because collectively, we Jews, do not seem to have what it takes to hold tight to our sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Subverted Mandate For Palestine
After World War I, Great Britain received the power to be the holder, mind you a shameful one, of the Mandate for Palestine in the Land of Israel.
In order to understand the injustice that was done, we must remind ourselves and remember how that country treated Israel then and its current claim to Jerusalem today.
Britain’s Perfidy
Pursuing Great Britain receiving the Mandatary role for the Land of Israel, its first perfidy was to cease to apply the Mandate’s provisions to all of the mandate’s originally assigned territory. Those provisions had to do with “facilitating Jewish immigration” and “encouraging close settlement by Jews on the land.” However, those in control in Britain decided that these provisions would not apply to any of the Mandate’s territory east of the Jordan River.
That territory, today known as Jordan (then named Transjordan), constituted 78% of the area that was intended to be part of a future Jewish National Home, the state of Israel, and was closed off by Britain to Jews. In place of having Jews settle in their land, that territory was perfidiously stolen by Britain to become the Hashemite Tribe’s Emirate of Transjordan, created by the British to satisfy the Hashemite Emir Abdullah’s territorial ambitions.
Abdullah, like his brother Feisal, whom the British had put on the Iraqi throne, wanted a place to rule. Subsequently, Britain deprived the Jewish-Zionists of land they had been led to believe would be included in the Mandate for Palestine. The British had gifted the Arabian Hashemite family, belonging to the Dhawu Awn, one of the branches of the Hasanid Sharif of Mecca, with what was addressed then as “Transjordan.”
The local Arabs, who later named themselves “Palestinians,” anti-Semites and one-sided critics of Israel have little interest, if at all, in historical facts and nothing can penetrate their veil of elected ignorance. The only hope to change minds is to teach Arab students whose minds have not yet been tainted and poisoned by propaganda.
A good place to start with that is to end the propagated myth about the Jews stealing “Palestinian” land. The region’s history must be taught correctly. The real thieves of that land are the Hashemites of Jordan assisted by Britain as early as 1921.
The Hashemites had no connection to the land until the 1936-39 Arab revolt, and then imperial Britain imposed Abdullah on the residents.
The British Despised The Idea That Jews Could Defend Themselves
In April 1920 local Arabs attacked the Jewish quarter in Jerusalem. In response, Vladimir Jabotinsky, the Zionist leader, organized Jewish self-defense units. Instead of the British arresting the violent Arabs, they arrested Jabotinsky, who they interned in Acre Prison after they accused him of illegally training and arming Jews and using British military forces – former members of the Jewish Legion, no longer part of the British army, who fought in WWI as part of the British army against the Ottoman forces – without their permission.
Of course, the British charge was unjust, but Jews defending themselves was not part of the Brits’ lexicon.
For his belief that Jews must and can defend themselves, rather than always being the victims of all types of attacks, Jabotinsky received a long prison sentence. International outcry led to his early release from prison after three months of incarceration. However, this incident made it clear about the British in Palestine; they had very little affinity and sympathy for the Jews in Eretz Yisrael.
Other evidence shows that in 1929, save to evacuate a handful of Jews, when Jews were being bestially massacred by Arabs in Hebron, the British did nothing to protect them.
The same was true during the Arabs’ 1936-1939 revolt; the British did little, if anything, to help the Jews defend themselves.
Teaching the Jews How to Fight Back
British Captain Orde Wingate, killed in a plane crash in Burma on March 24, 1944, has been called the father of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and a hero during the British Mandate in Palestine-Eretz Yisrael.
Wingate, a son of Christian missionaries who carried a Bible wherever he went and trumpeted Jewish claims to the land just as British Mandatory policy turned anti-Zionist, arrived in September 1936. He was assigned with ending the Arabs’ sabotage of an oil pipeline running from Iraq to Haifa through the Jezreel Valley. He also trained Jewish fighters to repel Arab attacks during the Arab Revolt, the nationalist uprising by the Arabs against the British Mandate.
Captain Wingate took it upon himself to teach the Jews to take the fight to the Arabs; he organized “Night Squads” that soon had the Arabs on the run. He was forced to leave the area in 1938 because his Zionism and Jews fighting back had made him unpopular with many of the British officers.
The White Paper
The White Paper, passed in London in 1939, was another British betrayal of Jews. The decree limited Jewish immigration to the Mandate of Palestine to 15,000 for each of the next five years, after which any Jewish immigration would be subject to an Arab veto. The British put the anti-Semitic Arabs in charge of the number of Jews arriving in the Jewish homeland.
This immigration limitation denied Jews who sought to escape the murderous Nazi acts, to save their lives. That action puts the British in the same category with the Nazis, having the blood of untold number of Jews on their hands.
The facts: During the time of maximum peril for European Jews, instead of facilitating immigration, as they were obligated to do according to the Mandate’s provisions, the British chose to carry out anti-Semitic favor with the Arabs, implementing cruel limitations on Jewish immigration.
At a time when hundreds of thousands of European Jews could have been saved, the British prevented desperate Jewish refugees from reaching Eretz Yisrael’s shores. Even after World War II ended, the British, still ruling mandatory Palestine, continued to prevent ships full of Jewish refugees, who had survived the Nazi concentration camps, the Holocaust, from landing in British Mandate-Palestine.
Current British Double Standard on Jerusalem
The above are the disturbing backdrop details about “competing” Israeli and Arab claims to Jerusalem. Britain must stop playing both sides of the coin as it so fervently did while being the mandatory ruler of the land of Israel from 1918-to-1947. Either move its embassy from Tel Aviv to the Capital of Israel, Jerusalem, or move the consulate for the PalArabs from Jerusalem to Ramallah, the “capital” of the Palestinian Authority.
Queen Elizabeth has reigned for 70 years. The Platinum Jubilee was celebrated in June 2022 around the world, including in Israel. The disparity between how Israelis and PalArabs were able to mark the occasion must be noted.
Israelis were invited to celebrate the Queen’s Jubilee in Tel Aviv; the United Kingdom hosted its Jubilee party for PalArabs, where no Israelis were invited, in Israel’s capital Jerusalem. This little publicized fact is an insult to Israel’s sovereignty and British fermentation of rancor between Jews and Arabs.
The United Kingdom refuses to acknowledge Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, having its embassy to Israel in Tel Aviv, the cause for ongoing baseless disparity. At the same time the British consulate to the Palestinian Authority is not placed in Ramallah, the Palestinian Authority’s main city, rather it is in Jerusalem, Israel’s capital. The United Kingdom operates a double standard when it comes to Jerusalem and it disrespects Israel’s sovereignty.
British Interpretation of UN Security Council Resolution 242
Britain’s denial of Israel’s legal right to Jerusalem is based on UN Security Council Resolution 242 that makes no mention of Jerusalem. Resolution 242 allows Israel to retain any territory won in the Six-Day War that it deems necessary for it to have “secure [defensible] and recognized boundaries.” Any part of Jerusalem is not spelt out in the resolution, one of the many things that are supposed to be decided in negotiations between the parties, which the Arabs refuse to negotiate in good faith.
Jerusalem houses Temple Mount and the Western Wall, the holiest sites in Judaism to Jews, both of which invigorate Jewish religious and national morale. Undermining Jerusalem is an Insult to the Jewish people.
The British position that Jerusalem’s status is subjected to negotiations, yet, giving its “final determination” that Jerusalem “must” be shared between Israel and the PalArabs, is effectively ignoring the outcome of possible negotiations, which is one more “same old same” ongoing British perfidy.
The best advice for Britain is to stick with the position that the status of Jerusalem should be determined by negotiations between the parties, without its biased input.
UK Foreign Office Continues to Reward PalArabs’ Intransigence While Penalizing Israel
As mentioned above, the PalArabs refused to acknowledge the Jewish connection to the Land of Israel, including Jerusalem, not recognizing the city as Israel’s capital. At the same time, Britain’s Foreign Office rewards PalArab obstinacy while penalizing Israel about its sovereignty.
The Jewish people’s connection to their capital, Jerusalem, cannot be disputed. The city has never been the capital of any other nation but the Nation of Israel. It is possible that the status of Jerusalem would be determined through negotiation. However, should there be a Palestinian state, no one knows the finalized borders between the two countries. It is also possible that for a future Palestinian state the current British consulate in Jerusalem might be in the wrong place after all. And if, according to Britain’s behavior, Jerusalem “must” be shared by the two parties, then why does Britain not move its Embassy to modern “west” Jerusalem and thus recognize some part of the city as Israel’s capital, just as all Israelis do?
Since 1948, Jerusalem has been the capital of the state of Israel, the third Jewish commonwealth. The city is the seat of the government of Israel, including the Prime Minister’s office, the President’s office, the Israel parliament, the Knesset, and the Supreme Court, all located in “west” Jerusalem since Israel gained its independence in 1948.
Britain should not continue to pretend that Tel Aviv, founded in 1909, is Israel’s capital. It is not. Jerusalem has been the capital of the Jewish people for 3000 years, since King David assigned the city as the Capital of his kingdom.
By relocating its embassy from Tel-Aviv to “west” Jerusalem Britain is not committing itself to supporting Israel’s claim to all of Jerusalem but is recognizing Israel’s sovereignty as it should.
The more important issue is the current location of the British “embassy” to the Palestinian Authority (PA), now in Jerusalem. After all, Ramallah is where the PA’s government operates; it is the place where President Mahmoud Abbas has his offices, where the PA parliament meets, where all their government offices are to be found. It makes no sense for British diplomats to constantly travel from Jerusalem to Ramallah each time they need to meet with PA officials.
Making the right move is my suggestion to the British Foreign Office.
UK Hypocrisy Must Be Corrected
I strongly suggest that Britain recognizes the historic and legal fact that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital from time immemorial and moves its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. More so, move the British consulate from Jerusalem to Ramallah. Both actions would correct the double standard the British government has been and is currently deploying.
These two actions would indicate that Britain is willing to start correcting its wrong behavior toward Jews and their homeland.
London must remember, it does not dictate a capital of a country, rather it must respect a country’s sovereignty. All British embassies are situated in capital cities around the world. No other sovereign nation would accept being told where it should designate its capital, Israel included.
Jerusalem vs. British Perfidy
From the time it assumed the Mandatory role in Palestine-Eretz Yisrael, Britain has been a fervent obstacle and subverter of Israel’s existence.
There is no “east” Jerusalem, there is only Jerusalem. Addressing Jerusalem as “east and west” is ignoring the important fact that the Western Wall and the Temple Mount are located in the old city of Jerusalem, which was illegally occupied by Jordan for 19 years. That is how Jerusalem was divided into “east” and “west.” By war and occupation, not by willingness to tear the city apart.
President Donald Trump finally followed the ‘Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995‘ enacted by US Congress. That act recognized Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel and called for Jerusalem to remain an undivided city, and moved the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. After that move, the sky did not fall and hell did not break loose.
The Arab countries, Israel’s greatest foes, accepted the fair and legal act. Nothing bad will happen, only good will come, if Great Britain follows the US act with dignity, ending its ongoing bias against the State of Israel and Jews. Britain would thereby correct its historic administrative corruption related to the Mandate for Palestine. Other countries should follow suit.
See the mandate for palestine pdf, the official League of Nations Mandate for Palestine.
Nurit Greengerwas referenced as the "accidental reporter" during the 2006 second Lebanon War and felt compelled to become an activist. Being an ‘out-of-the-box thinker, Nurit is a passionately committed advocate for Jews, Israel, the United States, and the Free World in general. From Southern California, Nurit serves as a “one-woman Hasbarah army” for Israel who believes that if you stand for nothing, you will fall for anything.
Nurit:: Canadians For Israel’s Legal Rights has an upcoming Webinar, on July 24, 2022, I decided to help claim and reclaim what so many brush under the carpet.
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