Dear Danielle,

I have watched your link and I must thank David Singer for without having my eyes opened the perniciousness of it would not have been evident.

Here is one for you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GS0_kiAh8Y&feature=related

Dear David Singer,

The three other matters you raised were not questions they were statements. That you still want me to address the first after Awv and I have so thoroughly thrashed it out is a testament to your unwillingness to accept any answer but your own and gives me little hope for progression on the other two. If you have a specific question you would like me to address I will.

Csteele:

If such belligerence is brought up in you by arguing with an anonymous entity on line, I’d hate to have a debate with you in person. This is the main problem in the Middle East today, where people get fired up so easily and prefer throwing bombs rather than discuss their differences.

“… the historical extent of Palestine is far closer to the Faisal-Weizmann Agreement than what existed for a few years on the temporary maps of the victors”

The Faisal-Weizmann agreement did not last more than a few months, let alone years.

As for the significance of the Mandate decision to the situation in the Middle East today:
It is not mentioned in agreements reached between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Hamas and Hezbollah do not give a damn about the League of Nations Mandate. They do not care if the state of Israel includes Jordan or not, whether its borders are along the 1967 or 1948 lines. They do not want to see Israel occupying a square millimetre, full stop. On the other side of the coin you have the Jewish settlers who see it as their historical and God-given right to the land up to the Jordan River, regardless of any Mandate decision that happened almost 100 years ago. Hardly anyone seems to care anymore – it has become a purely academic discussion. If we were to settle our disagreement today about the borders of the British Mandate of Palestine one way or the other it will have absolutely no impact on any of the parties to this conflict, and will not bring a resolution any closer.

Dear Avw,

Calling most people a racist in person will get you a degree of belligerence. That shouldn't be a surprise.

Yet again you distort and evade the point which is the historical extent of Palestine that was recognized by all parties, up until the carving up of the area by the victors, was pretty darn close to the boundaries set by the Faisal-Weizmann Agreement. Ancient history plus the administration boundaries set by the Ottomans also support this.

Can you to show me just one other map that came within a bulls roar of the boundaries of the Mandate for Palestine.

For David Singer and the Israeli Foreign ministry to keep banging on about Israel only being 17% of the 'former Palestine' is just straight out objectionable and needs to be challenged, as do you if you support this.

Stripped of everything this was a forced European colonization of a middle-eastern country. As part of the West the treatment of our Jewish populations scaled from despicable to unimaginable horror and as such our support of a Jewish homeland has gone a small way in addressing those wrongs. 

But indigenous Jewish communities lived and thrived throughout the middle east before the proclamation of a Jewish state. Their lives and histories have been turned completely upside down. What we in the West have done is ask the Palestinian people who had struggled severely under the Ottoman rule to shoulder the burden of our past misdeeds. 

That we have done so with such little sympathy or grace condemns us further. We rightly criticize the huge Han Chinese migrations into Tibet or the Javanese into West Papua but so little is said about the massive European migrations into Palestine and the subsequent displacement of the indigenous population.

Surely a stronger stance against the deprivations caused by the actions of the government of Israel is one small measure open to us and I am taking it.

News that the Picasso painting Buste De Femme has been on show in the West Bank begs the question. Where is the artist who will paint a 'Guernica' of Operation Cast Lead? 

csteele

I'm still waiting for your response to these two matters:

1. You wrote:

"As I have stated the Mandate and its boundaries did not become binding until it was enacted but right up until that time they were fluid and Palestine and Transjordan had been delineated well before then."

I replied:

"How do you justify this statement with Article 25 of the Mandate which declared:

"In the territories lying between the Jordan and the eastern boundary of Palestine as ultimately determined....."

Do you still stand by your original statement?

2. You wrote

"The Emirate of Transjordan was deemed a state in 1922 or if you want to be picky on the 15th of May 1923 when Britain recognized it as an independent government."

I replied

""Deemed" a state when Britain recognized it as an independent government?

Do you have any authorities to support your contention?

There is certainly evidence to the contrary that does not support this view.

Article 5 of the Mandate stipulated:

"The Mandatory shall be responsible for seeing that no Palestine territory shall be ceded or leased to, or in any way placed under the control of the Government of any foreign Power"

Because of this provision Britain notified the League that it accepted full responsibility as Mandatory for Transjordan and advised that the Administration of Transjordan was under the general supervision of Britain.

Nothing could be done in Transjordan without Britain's consent until 1946.

So much for an "independent government"".

Do you still stand by your original statement?

csteele,

As I am unable to access the youtube site you provided, would you please provide the gist of the content.

Also, I think you accused Israel of stealing Palestinian water ... would you please provide facts/evidence.

To csteele

I watched the video you suggested.

Like so much Arab propaganda it leaves out more than it says.

1. It does not mention

(i) the rejection of the 1947 UN Partition Plan by the Palestinian Arabs nor

(ii) their failure to do anything about creating their own viable and contiguous State between 1948-1967 nor

(iii) their decision to unify the West Bank with Jordan in 1950.

2.It fails to mention that offers by Israel to cede more than 90% of the West Bank and Gaza in 2001 and 2008 were rejected by the Palestinian Arabs.

3.The White House quote used in the video was taken from a letter that Bush wrote to Sharon on 17 April 2004. It does not set out these relevant paragraphs from that letter:

"As part of a final peace settlement, Israel must have secure and recognized borders, which should emerge from negotiations between the parties in accordance with UNSC Resolutions 242 and 338. In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, and all previous efforts to negotiate a two-state solution have reached the same conclusion.

It is realistic to expect that any final status agreement will only be achieved on the basis of mutually agreed changes that reflect these realities. I know that, as you state in your letter, you are aware that certain responsibilities face the State of Israel. Among these, your government has stated that the barrier being erected by Israel should be a security rather than political barrier, should be temporary rather than permanent, and therefore not prejudice any final status issues including final borders, and its route should take into account, consistent with security needs, its impact on Palestinians not engaged in terrorist activities."

3. The video infers no viable and contiguous state can emerge because of Israel's actions when this is clearly the objective negotiations are intended to achieve.

A quite insidious, deceptive and misleading video.