A Mandate for Israel

No race has done better out of the fidelity with which the Allies redeemed their promises to the oppressed races than the Arabs. Owing to the tremendous sacrifices of the Allied Nations, and more particularly of Britain and her Empire, the Arabs have already won independence in Iraq, Arabia, Syria, and Trans-Jordania, although most of the Arab races fought [for Turkey]....The Palestinian Arabs fought for Turkish rule.

When, in 1922, the final amended draft of the Palestine Mandate came before the League Council, Balfour said very much the same thing, concluding: "[T]hat we should be charged...with having taken a mean advantage of the course of international negotiations [with the Arabs], seems to me not only unjust to the policy of this country, but almost fantastic in its extravagance." Even before Britain had decided to shrink the Jewish national home, Balfour, speaking of the entire Mandate territory on both sides of the Jordan, expressed the hope that the Arabs "will not grudge that small notch...in what are now Arab territories being given to the [Jewish] people who for all these hundreds of years have been separated from it." Though nearly 80 percent of that "small notch" was soon made off limits to the Jews, the Arab powers continued to "grudge" a Jewish state in Palestine.

The League Council confirmed the Mandate in July 1922. It then approved a British resolution that listed all the mandate provisions mentioning Jews and the Jewish national home and declared them "not applicable to the territory known as Trans-Jordan." The resolution stated that the administration of Trans-Jordan would be under the general supervision of the Palestine Mandatory. From this point forward, British officials sharpened the distinction between their separate administrations in Western Palestine and Trans-Jordan (both under the Palestine Mandate) by referring to the latter only as Trans-Jordan, not as Eastern Palestine. It became the practice to refer to Western Palestine simply as Palestine. Trans-Jordan remained under the Palestine Mandate until 1946, when, as noted, it achieved independence. As a matter of geographical fact, it has never ceased to be Eastern Palestine. In 1949, after Trans-Jordan conquered the territory it dubbed "the West Bank," the country changed its name to Jordan. It is now governed by King Hussein, grandson of the Emir (later King) Abdullah.

Law, History, and Current Diplomacy

AMERICAN policymakers show a powerful disinclination to enter into the kind of legal and historical issues raised here. They dismiss them as academic--disconnected from the practical realities of war and diplomacy. Yet these same policymakers attribute enormous value to negotiations and peace agreements. The inconsistency can be dangerous.

One can say that international law is cant, lacking real world significance. History does offer some support for that proposition. But one can hardly then contend that peace agreements are important. They are, after all, but a sub-species of international law. To devalue international law--to treat it non-rigorously or not at all, to reject the relevance of old laws, mandates, agreements, and the like--is to foreshadow the lack of respect that will be shown to the treaties now under negotiation, if they materialize at all.