Responsibility for the Middle East Conflict Lies with Great Britain

The present harsh British policy towards Israel is 100% consistent to the sabotaging handling of the Jewish Homeland project in Palestine during the British Mandate period, which violated the 1922 Mandate Treaty with the League of Nations. While the preamble of this treaty declares His Britannic Majesty to be appointed as Mandatory of Palestine, Article 2 reads, “The Mandatory shall be responsible for placing the country under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment of the Jewish national home.“

Today, 102 years later and in the midst of the fifth Middle East war, the word “safe” sounds cynical. It is obvious that the Mandatory failed to fulfill the Mandate Agreement not only in some details, but in its entirety.

Mistakes and misjudgments happen, that is human nature. But what characterized the management of the Jewish homeland project by the British Mandatory until 1948 was nothing of the sort. While Article 6 of the treaty explicitly calls for the promotion of Jewish immigration and land purchases, the opposite was practiced. Among other things, the White Papers of 1930 and 1939 brought harsh restrictions. The alleged lack of economic capacity was a pretext, because Jewish settlers actually created capacity by improving living conditions and providing jobs. In contradiction, the British authorities even encouraged Arab immigration by hiring workers from neighboring countries for infrastructure projects.

Of course, Arab-Jewish relations suffered from this lack of a genuinely focused strategy. The re-establishment of the historic Jewish homeland would have required psychological understanding and decisive action on the part of the Mandatory Power. In particular, the Arabs had to be reassured by two statements. First, Jewish sovereignty over Palestine had to be declared as just compensation for the liberation of the Arab countries from 400 years of Turkish-Ottoman rule. Second, the reduction of the Mandatory territory from 116,000 km² in 1921 by the transfer of Transjordan (89,000 km²) to the Hashemite dynasty as an autonomous emirate could only have been implemented under one clear condition: Transjordan had to be considered the exclusively Arab part of Palestine and the homeland for all those who did not want to live under Jewish sovereignty. And accordingly, this future Jewish sovereignty over the remaining 27,000 square kilometers had to be irrevocably declared as one of the results of the First World War.

As the main winner of the war, Great Britain didn’t only have the privilege to establish a new regional order, but also the moral responsibility for its stability. But while the establishment of the Jewish homeland progressed slowly, Arab affairs were pushed forward. Egypt gained its independence in early 1922, months before the Mandate Treaty with the League of Nations. Transjordan gained its independence in 1946. The corresponding Treaty of London included military aid and the establishment of the Arab Legion, trained and led by Britain. This force was expanded to 10,000 men in 1948 and played an important role in the war against the Jewish settlers.1)

The correct role of the Mandate Holder would have been to create harmony between Arabs and Jews. Instead of arming Transjordan, the 1946 Treaty of London should have set a precondition for independence – peaceful coexistence with the Jewish homeland as its neighbor.

The same precondition should have applied to Egyptian independence in 1922. Instead, in 1947, the British MI6 called on the Egyptian government to prepare for war against the future Israel.2) But this was only part of the secret service’s CPA (=covert political action), which also included substantial support for the Arab side, such as the procurement of weapons. A look behind the scenes shows the shocking extent of insincerity and disloyalty to the British nation, which is expressed in the secret service’s intrigues, hidden machinations and underhandedness.2)

An equally far-reaching British violation of the spirit of the 1922 Mandate Treaty was the appointment of the convicted rebel Amin al-Husseini as Grand Mufti. The irresponsible decision worsened Jewish-Arab relations, as this extremist proved to be an agitator and promoter of Arab terrorism. Two decades later, al-Husseini spent the last years of World War II in Berlin, where he encouraged the Nazis to commit their genocidal crimes.

The 1922 Mandate Treaty is still valid and has not been superseded by the UN Partition Plan of November 1947, as is often falsely claimed. The Partition Plan never came into force because the Palestinian Arabs rejected it in a referendum. Without the consent of both parties, however, the UN had no right to impose the 1947 Partition Plan on them. On the other hand, the continued existence of the 1922 Mandate Treaty is expressly protected by the 1945 UN Charter, the preamble of which promises to “… create conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, …”

At the latest with the military attack on the legally founded state of Israel in May 1948, any possible validity of the UN partition plan expired. Its invalidity was even anticipated by a prior announcement of the violence, for before the partition plan in November 1947, Azzam Pasha, the Chairman of the Arab League, had declared: “Nations never concede; they fight… It may be that we shall lose Palestine. But it’s too late to talk of peaceful solutions.”3)

The Arabs lost Palestine in 1948, a second time in 1956, a third time in 1967 and a fourth time in 1973. – It is time to ask who has repeatedly cheated Israel of its right to establish a stable order which guarantees security – and likewise time to call for accountability.

The Mandate Treaty of 1922 remained valid despite the British Palestine Act of April 29, 1948 and a corresponding statement by the Royal Stationery Office: “His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland will no longer be responsible for the administration of Palestine as of midnight on May 14, 1948.”4)

Article 28 of the Mandate Treaty finally mentions the possibility of terminating the mandate, but only in the context of the League of Nations as the active party that granted the mandate – and can also withdraw it again. There is no provision for a right of unilateral termination by the mandatee. The treaty can therefore only end when its obligations have been fulfilled, which is not the case to date.

Consequences:

Great Britain is still responsible for the establishment of the Jewish Homeland according to the Mandate Treaty. The one-sided declaration from April 1948 to cease this treaty has no legal relevance until the treaty’s obligations are met.

Thus, Great Britain shall be requested to …

use appropriate means for ending terrorism and attacks on Israel, especially concerning violence with roots in Jordan, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank as parts of the historic Mandate territory.
develop the Palestinian population towards prosperity, democracy and living in harmony with Israel as neighbors.

Like Great Britain, the UNO, too, has to be made accountable for the absurdity of an ongoing Middle East conflict. Beginning in 1948, the world organization‘s frequent interventions in this conflict take place in a most unfair way, demonstrably breaking its own Charter’s principles5) and contributing to the perpetuation of violence to this day.

References

1) https://www.commentary.org/articles/efraim-karsh/were-the-palestinians-expelled/

2) Mair Zamir, The role of MI6 in Egypt’s decision to go to war against Israel in May 1948, in Intelligence & National Security, May 2019

3) https://israeled.org//resources/documents/abdulrahman-azzam-pasha-rejects-compromise-zionists/

4) https://ismi.emory.edu/resources/primary-source-docs/1948%20-%20PALESTINE-HMG%20termination%20of%20Mandate%201948.pdf

5) https://www.frieden-freiheit-fairness.com/index.php/en/book/chapter/staged-middle-east-conflict