The Land of Palestine

First, an interesting highlight in document 2 (paragraph 3) that seems to be the thread through all of it. My commentary view: the Palestinians have always been treated like a dependent kid where everyone else decided what was best for them.

"The decision on the Mandate did not take into account the wishes of the people of Palestine, despite the Covenant’s requirements that “the wishes of these communities must be a principal consideration in the selection of the Mandatory”. This assumed special significance because, almost five years before receiving the mandate from the League of Nations, the British Government had given commitments to the Zionist Organization regarding the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine, for which Zionist leaders had pressed a claim of “historical connection” since their ancestors had lived in Palestine two thousand years earlier before dispersing in the “Diaspora”."

Document 1  -- https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-208638/

CONCLUSIONS

The acquisition of land and other property in Palestine by Jews has been discussed in the preceding chapters.  Prior to the military operations of 1948 and 1967, the land had been acquired by the traditional market methods, but these were subsequently replaced by less orthodox methods and the Palestinians' abandoned land and other property was simply seized by the Jews.  For instance, after the military operations of 1948, the military occupation authorities took emergency and other measures to seize the Palestinians' lands and property.  These measures, which have been described in detail in the foregoing chapters, all have the same characteristic: they are always taken for "security reasons".  Subsequently, and particularly after these measures came into force, the State felt it had to justify the acts resulting from the application of these measures.

In order to do so, it enacted a series of laws, the most important of which – the Land Acquisition Law – enabled it to give a legal character to all the abuses arising out of the emergency and other measures taken by the military authorities.  The Land Acquisition Law also authorized the State of Israel to take over abandoned land and property, which had not been the practice before this law was enacted.

This law, of which the State is the main beneficiary since it owns most of the land and other real property in Palestine, was subsequently to facilitate the direct intervention of the State in the administration and management of the land and other real property owned by the Palestinians.

Once the land and property had been acquired thanks to the Land Acquisition Law, this intervention of the State was to continue under the guise of the establishment of Jewish settlements.

Obviously, the State had to develop the land it had taken over and prevent bankruptcies; and so it introduced the policy of establishing settlements that would be State-run.

Like the steps taken or envisaged by the Israeli authorities to change the status, the geographical nature and the demographic composition of the occupied territories, this policy has been a matter of constant concern to the international community, which, in a resolution adopted on 28 October 1977, called upon the Government of Israel to "desist forthwith from taking any action which would result in changing the legal status, geographical nature or demographic composition of the Arab territories … including Jerusalem".51/

This United Nations injunction had no effect, and the policy of establishing Jewish settlements in the occupied territories broadened in scope daily.  A recent extension is the authorization to establish a new settlement near Nablus, in the West Bank given to a group of militants by Mr. Begin's government.52/  This authorization also permits them to confiscate land belonging to Palestinians.  This act on the part of the Government of Israel is only one link in a chain of measures going back to the cessation of hostilities in 1948 which has clearly led to the establishment of Jewish settlements in the occupied territories and to the Palestinians being dispossessed of their land and property.

In the view of the international community, such measures are invalid since they are contrary to the letter and the spirit of Aritcies 49 and 53 of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War.

It is estimated that about eighty Jewish settlements, with a population of between 5,000 and 6,000 inhabitants, have been established in the West Bank since the end of the military operations of 1967.53/

These settlements, and their raison d'être, which varies according to the analyst, have not been such as to promote good relations between Jews and Palestinians.  In some cases they have even contributed to a deterioration of these relations in which, owing to the occupation, there are anomalies which the Palestinian Arabs refuse to accept.  The Palestinian Arab populations have always refused to allow the future to be dictated or controlled by elements outside the organic whole they constitute.  And there has never been a case recorded in history of passive resistance to colonization. Such resistance is justified in the case of the Palestinian populations, particularly as the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people were recognized by the United Nations General Assembly in its resolution 2535 S (ES-VII) of 10 December 1969.  These rights, including the right of self-determination, give the Palestinian people the psychological and physical strength to take their future into their own hands.  In doing so and in opposing or resisting settlement, the Palestinians have to face the extremely harsh measures taken against them by the occupying power, which is anxious to reduce if not destroy all such resistance.

It is a well-known fact that the methods and practices of the occupying power are harsh and excessive and that they sometimes go as far as systematic repression.54/  And the Israeli authorities who continue to be the occupying power in the Arab and Palestinian territories are also guilty of this practice, which is that of all colonial and occupying powers. By its very nature, occupation involves repression.

Document 2 -- Part I (1917-1947) - Question of Palestine

Origins and Evolution of the Palestine Problem: 1917-1947 (Part I) Introduction

Arnold Toynbee is possibley the most important British historian in the 20th Century. And this topic is doubly an area of his personal expertise.  Here is what he says to close this document:

Arnold J. Toynbee who, before becoming recognized as an eminent world historian had dealt directly with the Palestine Mandate in the British Foreign Office, wrote in 1968:

“All through those 30 years, Britain (admitted) into Palestine, year by year, a quota of Jewish immigrants that varied according to the strength of the respective pressures of the Arabs and Jews at the time. These immigrants could not have come in if they had not been shielded by a British chevaux-de-frise. If Palestine had remained under Ottoman Turkish rule, or if it had become an independent Arab state in 1918, Jewish immigrants would never have been admitted into Palestine in large enough numbers to enable them to overwhelm the Palestinian Arabs in this Arab people’s own country. The reason why the State of Israel exists today and why today 1,500,000 Palestinian Arabs are refugees is that, for 30 years, Jewish immigration was imposed on the Palestinian Arabs by British military power until the immigrants were sufficiently numerous and sufficiently well-armed to be able to fend for themselves with tanks and planes of their own. The tragedy in Palestine is not just a local one; it is a tragedy for the world, because it is an injustice that is a menace to the world’s peace.” 147

It is the sources/evidence, that can illuminate a path for the future.  :)