#csteele

Yes - the Treaty of Sevres was not executed and was superseded by the Treaty of Lausanne.

Yes - the Treaty of Lausanne did not mention Palestine but it contained the following provision:

"Turkey hereby renounces all rights and title whatsoever over or respecting the territories situated outside the frontiers laid down in the present Treaty and the islands other than those over which her sovereignty is recognised by the said Treaty, the future of these territories and islands being settled or to be settled by the parties concerned."

The future of Palestine, Syria and Lebanon and Mesopotamia had been determined as set out at the San Remo Conference and in the Treaty of Sevres in 1920. Nothing in the Treaty of Lausanne changed those decisions.

You continue to rely on Wikipedia at your risk.

If you believe the Mandate did not come into effect until 29 September 1923 do you still stand by your earlier statement:

"You know as well as I do that the Transjordan Memorandum separated the areas controlled by the British into Palestine and Transjordan well before the British Mandate came into effect"

Just a simple "yes" or "no" - and then perhaps we might just have to agree to disagree.

Dear Yuyutsu,

There are many forms of persecution ... and these are ongoing.

Persecution of peoples occurs world wide.

I re-state my belief that Jews need a homeland, and an associated voice on the political stage.

Do you really believe that Jews are/would be immune to persecution?

As you rightly observed, it is not your perception of yourself, but what others perceive of you.

Israel is not perfect, and is certainly open to criticism. However, considering what is happening elsewhere in the world, Israel is singled out for inordinate condemnation. Martin Luther King observed that such criticism of Israel was antisemitism.

One only has to look at many of those OLO writers - indeed the number of topics pro rata given to criticise, indeed damn Israel, OLO - to see an unhealthy obsession. If Israel wasn’t a Jewish homeland, do you really think it would attract such malevolent interest.

Where is there the constant barrage, amount of media, and level of condemnation of other, by far worse situations?

The British, have taken to criticism of Isreal with the same enthusiasm they take to bloodsports. Politically safe, indeed opportunistic. Whitehall is not referred to as the “camel train” for nothing.

Even now leave Jews leave England, and elsewhere, because they are not afforded the level of protection other groups have.

As for England’s record ... I wouldn’t like to be a Gypsy there.

I made comparison with our indigenous people and the Palestinians on
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=1168

Dear David Singer,

Since you seemed to have dialled back the bombast I am happy to answer in a more measured fashion.

The Allied Powers could well have colonised the areas they had under their control after the war, in fact for one of them it was a serious consideration. They decided to go the Mandate route because it gave them legitimacy under international law. The earlier treaties were the principal powers carving up their areas of influence but until it had gone through the Mandate process with the League they lacked validity with the international community. The US's Kurdish Mandate was a case in point. Failure to get it through their Senate saw America withdrawing from the Mandate process and not seeking ratification through the League.

So to answer your question. Yes. I stand by my statement. Britain had control but not until it officially took up its responsibility, as was vested in it by the authority of the League, did the Mandate properly come into effect.

While it isn't the only source I go to Wikipedia has done a fine job for me thus far.

As for agreeing to disagree that is something we might do over the intent or motives of the participants. The facts however stand as they are and do not afford us that option. You either believe in the facts or you don't.

Hopefully you consider your question answered and will afford me the same courtesy.

Did the Mandate come into effect on the 29th of September 1923? A simple 'yes' or 'no' if you please.

Dear Danielle,

Regarding your post dated Wednesday, 30 March 2011 2:49:44 PM.

I remember researching some of the quotes you used many, years ago and was a little surprise to see they still have currency. For instance I grant Mark Twain's 'The innocents abroad; or, The new Pilgrim's progress' was not very flattering of Palestine but no more than he was of Greece.

“"From Athens all through the islands of the Grecian Archipelago, we saw little but forbidden sea-walls and barren hills, sometimes surmounted by three or four graceful columns of some ancient temples, lonely and deserted---a fitting symbol of desolation that has come upon all Greece in these latter ages. We saw no plowed fields, very few villages, no trees or grass or vegetation of any kind, scarcely, and hardly ever an isolated house. Greece is a bleak, unsmiling desert, without agriculture, manufactures, or commerce, apparently."

Available nowadays through Google Books it is quite amusing in parts, though Mr Twain was disturbingly un-PC.

Of Neapolitans, “filthy in their habits, and this makes filthy streets and breeds disagreeable sights and smells. There was never a community so prejudiced against cholera as these Neapolitans are. But they have good reason to be. The cholera generally vanquishes a Neapolitan when it seizes him, because you understand, before the doctor can dig through the dirt and get at the disease the man dies.”

Nor did the Jews of Palestine escape his acid; “They say that the long-nosed, lanky, dyspeptic-looking body-snatchers, with the indescribable hats on, and a long curl dangling do front of each ear, are the old , familiar, self-righteous Pharisees we read of in the scriptures. Verily they look it. Judging merely by their general style, and without other evidence, one might easily suspect that self righteousness was their specialty”.

Keeping in mind the original Twain quote was about a short journey near the Sea of Galilee why is the determined portrayal of Palestine pre-Israel as a desolate, depopulated place so important to so many?

Might it be to defend a sense of self righteousness?

#csteele

My answer is "No"

Now are you prepared to return the same courtesy by answering my earlier query to you:

If you believe the Mandate did not come into effect until 29 September 1923 do you still stand by your earlier statement:

"You know as well as I do that the Transjordan Memorandum separated the areas controlled by the British into Palestine and Transjordan well before the British Mandate came into effect"

Just a simple "yes" or "no"

Dear David,

Could you do me the courtesy of actually reading my post.