So far as I can make out the British Mandate covered what is now Jordan, as Singer says, but it seems that very quickly it became (such as in atlases printed during that period) Palestine (west of the Jordan river) and Transjordan (to the east).

To come to the point, so what? Singer doesn't even hint at a reason why people whose roots are in Palestine-west-of-the-Jordan should be expected to settle elsewhere. The nearest he comes is to quote an Israeli politician "East of the river Jordan, there is enough room to settle the Palestinian refugees". But there is room for them in lots of places. So what? They want to go where their ancestors have always lived until they were expelled/excluded in the last 64 years. Why shouldn't they?

Singer's attitude is shown pretty clearly in his acceptance that these people should be sent anywhere that is convenient to Israel.

Singer's willingness to talk nonsense is illustrated in his comments about article 5 of the Mandate. To suggest that this precludes granting independence to part of the territory in question seems ludicrous. In fact the Mandate actually envisaged the creation of a Jewish National Home within the territory. (No-one actually seems to know what this means, though one possibility seems to be an independent state. As a matter of fact the one thing that is clear is that it doesn't mean the state of Israel as it has turned out - it was supposed to protect the "civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of race and religion" - Article 2).

The latest Zionist pronouncement via Peter Singer continues to argue the case for racist Israel on the basis of a colonialist mandate from the League of Nations, an organisation full of anti-Semitic governments only too keen to label Jews a “nation” rather than part of their own populations. The Arab people in general and the Palestinians in particular were not represented. Neither the Palestinian people nor anyone else are legally or morally obliged to give the League’s Balfour Declaration the time of day.

The right to Palestinian territory, from the sea to the River Jordan, belongs to the families born there including the five million exiles being kept from their homeland by Zionist guns backed (for now) by officialdom in Europe and America and unfortunately Australia.

Treating people of Jewish descent as constituting a “nation” satisfies underlying anti-Semitism in those who see these people as a “problem” to be “solved” by encouraging them to settle in someone else’s territory. The racist Zionist movement was and is only too happy to cash in on the anti-Semitic notion, reinforced by religion, that Jews are “different” from everyone else. Hence this latest article urging that the Palestinians be dumped in Jordan rather than return to their own homeland.

PS: The invasion of Palestine was not a “War of Independence” waged by the invaders as Mr Singer suggests readers uncritically assume.

Dear Julian,

Just because the truth is inconvenient (abetting antisemitism) doesn't mean that it should be ignored.

Whether you like it or not, Jews are a nation and were never anything else. That you don't like their treatment of Palestinians is a separate matter.

Judaism is one of the first national movements. When nationalism started in the west, they were challenged by Napoleon who asked them: "are you a separate nation?". Obviously they saw the catch and had a hard time with it: if they said the truth they would face persecution and expulsion; if they lied, as they eventually did, claiming that Judaism is just a religion, they were to gain emancipation and civil rights. So they did answer hesitantly and cowardly, "No, we are French". Of course they never meant what they claimed in http://people.ucalgary.ca/~elsegal/363_Transp/Sanhedrin.html

#To jeremy

In response to your comments:

1. Transjordan remained part of the Mandate from 1920 until 1946.

2. Quoting one sentence out of its context is misleading. What Rabin said was:
"The Palestinians should have a sovereign State which includes most of the Palestinians. It should be Jordan with a considerable part of the West Bank and Gaza. East of the river Jordan, there is enough room to settle the Palestinian refugees. One tiny State between Israel and Jordan will solve nothing. It will be a time bomb"

3. Palestine - a sparsely populated and underdeveloped area of the Ottoman Empire for 400 years - was a centre for the migration of vast numbers of Arabs attracted to the economic opportunities available with the migration of large numbers of Jews to Palestine from about 1880. The UN recognized this in 1947 when the Partition Resolution called for the creation of one Jewish State and one Arab - not "Palestinian" - State in the remaining Palestine territory.

4. Pursuing a right of return by Palestinian Arabs or their descendants to what is now Israel - 17% of former Palestine - has been and continues to be one of the major stumbling blocks to resolving the Jewish-Arab conflict.

5. Article 5 of the Mandate is clear and unambiguous - no ceding or leasing of Palestine territory.

Article 27 stipulated:
"The consent of the Council of the League of Nations is required for any modification of the terms of the mandate"

Transjordan's independence was recognized by the League of Nations in dubious circumstances at its last meeting on 18 April 1946 prior to being disbanded on 20 April 1946.

6. The terms of the Mandate did not preclude the creation of a Jewish state according to sworn evidence given to the Peel Commission in 1937.

7. Please particularise the civil and religious rights of any persons living in Israel not being "safeguarded" - the term actually used in Article 2.

To Emperor Julian

Another one of your Jew-hating and Jewish State denying posts that can only give encouragement to those who seek to prolong the 130 years old conflict between Jews and Arabs - rather than attempt to resolve it.

Reflect on your views as the deaths, injuries and trauma suffered by both Jews and Arabs continue to escalate and as people all around the world become victims of terrorist actions in support of the "Palestinians" - perpetrated by those holding similar opinions to your own.

All we can see in these further Zionist posts are assertions without supporting facts or arguments – including the further assertion that to reject them makes one a “Jew hater” with responsibility for the continuing deaths caused by the Zionist occupation of Palestine. The assertion that people of Jewish descent are “a nation” is embellished by calling this assertion “truth”. It is asserted that Jews loyal to the land of their birth were being “cowardly” by failing to satisfy Zionist ambitions.

The bottom line: Proclaiming the right of a worldwide ethnic group to call itself a “nation”, seize someone else’s land and hold it by violence is a claim that that ethnic group is “special” in a way that no other ethnic group on earth is “special”. The name of this claim is “Zionism”. To anyone who detests racism it is a vile claim.

There are grounds to negotiate a decent solution in Palestine. For example one issue to be confronted is that Palestine is a police state. Virtually nobody in Israel - Jewish or Arab - wants to live under its rule. To qualify for a one state solution Palestine would need to make radical and permanent changes, with democracy and respect for individual human rights nailed home. There are other issues of justice - special status for the world’s ethnic Jews are not among them.

To pull Zionists to reality they might study the work of genuine Jewish historian Ilan Pappe, who was born in Israel and did the bulk of his detailed historical research there. Pappe’s extensively referenced book is “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine”. Pappe is a moral and intellectual giant beside whom Zionists are pygmies.

Dear Julian,

To state a fact is not to express any value judgment.

The Jews are clearly a nation: you can read about it all over the bible, in the Jewish prayer book and in every bit of Jewish literature from many ages.

You may like this fact or you may hate it. You may believe that Jews should inherit the earth, or you may agree with Hitler that they should be eliminated. If you are a Zionist then you believe that the land of Israel belongs to the Jews.

There is a wide consensus within Judaism that the land of Israel belongs to the Jews, which will eventually all return there, but there is also an internal division among the Jews as to whether the time is ripe to return to the land now and rebuild the temple in Jerusalem, or whether the Jews are still exiled under God's punishment and must wait patiently until the Messiah comes and brings them back to the land, subduing all nations around on the way.

You may legitimately argue the right of nations to "seize someone else’s land and hold it by violence", but you ridicule yourself in denying the "right" of people to call themselves a nation, especially when they have done so for about 3000 years. Also, by denying them the "right" to consider themselves "special". Do you really believe that one needs permission to think of themselves as "special"? That you personally do not agree that they are has nothing to do with it!

<<It is asserted that Jews loyal to the land of their birth were being “cowardly” by failing to satisfy Zionist ambitions.>>

There were no Zionists yet at Napoleon's times!

Claims on behalf of an ethnic group do not make them facts, even “clearly”, no matter in how many of their own texts the claim is made. A belief that “the land of Israel belongs to the Jews” does not make it belong to the Jews. It didn’t belong to whoever grabbed it from its inhabitants 3000 years ago either. Wide consensus in the religion of some Jews does not make it true.

Some members of an ethnic group considering their group “special” does not make it special, and calling it a “nation” doesn’t make it a nation. The “special” claim is racist, and sure, people are entitled to be racists. And to be contemptuous of racism.

The Zionists are demanding and have always demanded that the world, in particular the Palestinians, give in to the territorial demands made on the basis of all these self-serving “beliefs”.

Many people, hopefully increasingly numbers of people, reject all these claims as being without factual or moral basis. “We’re special so we want their territory” won’t cut it with anyone who has a moral compass.

Evaluating the past, Zionist Yuyutsu labels French Jews as cowardly for their loyalty to their country. Jews’ identification with their countries through history has been condemned by Zionists labelling them for it today. Zionists see this as interfering with their programme of racial self-identification. That is why Zionists have historically welcomed anti-Semitism.

Fortunately there are two important factors set to lead to dismantlement of Israel. One is the Palestinian population bomb. The other is the finite supply of Middle East oil. No oil, no incentive to keep Israel going as a threat to the oil-rich Arabs.

Dear Julian,

You seem to wish Israel dismantled: while I don't share your desire (but off-topic, I similarly wish to see Australia dismantled into its constituent states), it is legitimate: you are welcome to mess around with the Jews and the Zionists, either you'll succeed or you won't, but please don't mess around with the facts!

Ultimately, on a rare philosophical level, I agree that there are no such things as nations - that notion is only a human abstraction with no grounds in reality, but to the relative extent that nations exist at all, the Jewish nation is one of the surest and oldest candidates in existence today. They may be without land, or they may be living on land that is not theirs, but that doesn't change the basic fact of their nationhood.

Now what else do you call a person who believes one thing, but claims the opposite in order to please the ruler and gain favours? I used the word 'coward' - do you have a better one? Those Jews were not cowardly for loyalty to France: if indeed they were loyal to France, then they wouldn't be cowards, but they never meant in fact what they told Napoleon.

I do agree with your statement that <<A belief that “the land of Israel belongs to the Jews” does not make it belong to the Jews>>:
Did I ever suggest anything to the contrary? Was I offering an opinion about who owns or should own that land? Did I in fact suggest anything that justifies your calling me 'Zionist' (a similar claim from someone who's more serious with facts might have hurt my feelings)?

I'm no advocate for either the Jews or the Zionists. All I care is for the safety of my family in Israel and to hell with the rest. If you threaten my family with the "Palestinian population bomb", then I'm sure some specialized bacteria or virus can disarm that bomb in no time. No hard feelings and nothing to do with Zionism or the love of Jews, simply caring for my family.

This is getting philosophical and the thread is getting old, but the points will crop up again. To deal with this phase, the central core of Zionism is the invention of nation status for Jews (like pretending I am part of a “Celtic nation” rather than Australia the land of my birth). The statement that Jews are “a nation” is a Zionist statement. This is why I referred to Yuyutsu as a Zionist. If he is not a Zionist I apologise for that - one can say something Zionists also say without being a Zionist, and wrongly calling anyone a Zionist is insulting on the scale of wrongly calling someone a “Jew hater” or a Nazi.

Identifying with a range of Zionist claims would on the other hand edge closer to being a Zionist as quacking, waddling, and laying eggs would edge closer to being a duck.

No virus is going to defuse the Palestine population bomb nor will the USA put its lives on the line to protect Israel other than to protect oil interests. The settler enclave is bound, in time, to be engulfed as such ventures have been before. Israel still has the strategic advantage, and it could do good for once (and ensure a liveable future for Yuyutsu’s family) by genuinely bargaining to persuade the Palestinians to adopt modern civilised norms as a price for working towards a democratic solution for all of Palestine including the enclave. It is the failure of the European robber colonisers to do this when they had the chance that has left Africa a patchwork of brutal kleptocracies after the colonies could no longer stave off dismantlement.