THE HANDSTAND...................................................................................SEPTEMBER 2002


ocean of despair and droplets of hope,
I note: there is no one to talk to....
written by: Ghassan Andoni


Regardless of the apparent huge level of disagreement, Palestinians and Israelis are more in agreement, about many issues, than ever before. Both agree that on the other side there is no one to talk to...Where does that come from? I think it does not originate from the intensity and brutality of the current crisis, but rather comes from the complexity of the Palestinian Israel conflict. It originates from the inner conflict between the necessity to "eliminate" the enemy that stems from the pre-set objectives of either side and the moral ability to live with its consequences. The drastic failure of the Oslo attempts indicated that even re-modeling the other as an exit of this stale-mate situation is rather fruitless.

As cruel as it looks, and as cold as it sounds, neither the current Israeli or Palestinian definition of rights and nations aspirations can stand a partner on the other side. If Jews were the miserable, prosecuted, and shelter seeking emigrants, Palestinians would not have a problem to accommodate them. But they are not. If Palestinians were much much much less in numbers, if they were willing to accommodate for the Zionist project, if they had no national aspirations, and if they were less attached to their rights and land, Israelis would have little problems to accommodate them. But this is not the case. So, the images that best fit the continuity of the conflict is the one of a "terrorist" versus that of a "Zionist gangster". Such images can easily eliminate any historical or geopolitical context in which this crisis developed. It help both escape the notion of historical rights or justice. If the opponent is a "terrorist", a group or a nation that is set for indiscriminate killing of Jews for no reason but a weird ideological, fanatical, or religious one, then there is no one to talk to. And if the opponent is a gangster that only tuned to robbing, killing, and disposing, then there is no one to talk to.
 
As much as this public attitude can serve as an excuse to continue with the fight, it can serve to stop the illusionary hunt for the partner "tailored to my taste". Chances to continue with the fight are as wide as the ocean and chances to accept the other as he is, are only a few droplets.  


Ghassan Andoni©2002. Ghassan is a creator, and presently a co-ordinater, of the International Solidarity Movement in Jerusalem.


POLITICAL POWER STRUCTURES - A FATAL STORY

THE MANDATES - A LEGAL SYSTEM?
"The Peace Negotiations" by Robert Lansing, 1919, offer a comparison of the United Nations organisation we know, with its innate inability to act for the equality of all Nations, with these memoranda of the institution of The League of Nations encapsulated in the Treaty of Versailles at the end of World War One.

Was Robert Lansing the last but one( the other being George Marshall in 1945)of the benign and altruistic political representatives of an American Nation that had developed a philosophy of government that believed in the Equality of all Nations? As Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to President Wilson he was in a unique position to comment on the final phases of such beliefs for US governments.

Robert Lansing's preliminary worry was with regard to the President of the United States. He judged President Wilson's interest in adopting the proposed mandatory system for disposal of the German and the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire after World War One as wholly unsatisfactory.. He saw it as participation, possibly, in the political quarrels of Europe, or The Old World as it was then described. He foresaw legal difficulties that would entangle the USA as guardian of any of the peoples defeated or victims of the war. He reasoned with President Wilson, that the mandates stemming from the installation of The League of Nations presented these difficulties from the standpoint of international law and the philosophy of government. These matters that Wilson dismissed a "mere technicalities" were subsequently written up by Lansing in a memoranda to the President, as follows:

"The system of mandatories under the League of Nations..raises some interesting and difficult questions.The one which is the most prominent, since it enters into nearly all of the international problems presented, is: Where does the sovereignty over these territories reside?

SOVEREIGNTY

"Sovereignty is inherent in the very conception of government.It cannot be destroyed although it may be absorbed by another sovereignty, either by compulsion or cession.
When the Germans were ousted from their colonies, the sovereignty passed to the Power or Powers which took possession. The location of the sovereignty up to the present is clear, but with the introduction of the League of Nations as an international primate superior to the conquerors, some questions will have to be answered.
Do those who have seized the sovereignty transfer it, or does Germany (and the Ottoman Empire of the Middle East) transfer it to the League of Nations? If so, how?
Does the League assume possession of the sovereignty on its renunciation by Germany? If so, how?
Does the League merely direct the disposition of the sovereignty without taking possession of it?
Assuming that the latter question is answered in the affirmative, then after such disposition of the right to exercise sovereignty, which will presumably be a limited right, where does the actual sovereignty reside?
The appointment of a mandatory to exercise sovereign rights over territory is to creat an agent for the real sovereign. But who is the real sovereign?
Is the League of Nations the sovereign, or is it a commn agent of the nations composing the League, to whom is confided solely the duty of naming the mandatory and issuing the mandate?
If the League is the sovereign, can it avoid responsibility for the misconduct of the mandatory, its agent?
If it is not the League, who is responsible for the mandatory's conduct?
Assuming that the mandatory in faithfully performing the provisions of the mandate unavoidably works an injustice upon another party, can or ought the mandatory to be held responsible? If not, how can the injured party obtain redress? Manifestly the answer is: from the sovereign - but who is the sovereign?
In the Treaty of Peace Germany will be called upon to renounce sovereignty over her colonial possessions. To whom will the sovereignty pass?
If the reply is "the League of Nations" the question is:Does the League possess the attributes of an independent state so that it can function as an owner of territory? If so, what is it? A world state?
If the League does not constitute a world state, then the sovereignty would have to pass to some national state. What national state?What would be the relation between the national state and the League?
If the League is to receive title to the sovereignty, what officers of the League are empowered to receive it and to transfer its exercise to a mandatory?
What form of acceptance should be adopted?
Would every nation which is a member of the League have to give its representatives full powers to accept the title?
Assuming that certain members decline to issue such powers or to accept title as to one or more of the territories what relation would those members have to the mandatory named?"

Lansing continues..."many of the questions, I believe the large majority, were as pertinent after the treaty was completed as they were when the memorandum was made."

"In conversation with Colonel House (also on President Wilson's staff), I stated that, in my opinion, a simpler and better plan was to transfer the sovereignty over territory to a particular nation by a treaty of cession under such terms as seemed wise and, in the case of some of the newly created states, to have them execute treaties accepting protectorates by Powers mutually acceptable to those states and the League of Nations." However as far as Col. House was concerned - "to abandon the system was to abandon one of the ideas of international supervision, which the President especially cherished and strongly advocated."

"The mandatory system produced by the creative mind of General Smuts...appealed strongly to those who preferred to adopt unusual and untried methods..The self-satisfaction of inventing something new, or of evolving a new theory is inherent with not a few men. The system....appeared to possess no peculiar advantage over the old method of transferring and exercising sovereign control either in providing added protection to the inhabitants of territory subject to a mandate, or greater certainty of international equality in the matter of commerce and trade - the two principal arguments urged in favour of the proposed system."

"...In actual operation the apparent altruism of the mandatory system worked in favour of the selfish and material interests of the powers which accepted the mandates.The League of Nations might reserve in the mandate a right of supervision and even of revocation of authority, but that right would be nominal and of little, if any, real value provided the mandatory was one of the Great Powers as it undoubtedly would be".

"From the beginning to the end of the discussions on mandates and their distribution among the Powers it was repeatedly declared that the US ought to participate in the general plan for the upbuilding of the new states which under mandatories would finally become independent nationalities, but it was never to my knowledge proposed except by the inhabitants of the region in question, that the US should accept a mandate for Syria or the Asiatic Coast of the AEgeanSea,(Lebanon).Those regions were rich in natural resources and their economic future under a stable government was bright."

"I confined the objections which I presented to him, as I have stated, to those based on legal difficulties.....The system of mandates was written into the Treaty"

In Sept. 1919 In a private conversation which was reported by the recipient "Mr. Lansing said..England and France have gotten out of the Treaty everthing that they wanted, and the League of Nations can do nothing to alter any of the unjust clauses of the Treaty, except by unanimous consent of the members of the League, and the Great Powers will never give their consent to changes in the interests of weaker peoples."..." he continued "I believe that if the Senate could only understand what this Treaty means, and if the American people could really understand, it would unquestionably be defeated, but I wonder will they ever understand what it lets them in for.""(The revelation of this conversation led to the resignation of both the recipient and Lansing.)

This book ends prior to the ratification of the Treaty but here are quotes from a memoranda that Lansing wrote:- "The terms of peace appear immeasurably harsh and humiliating, while many of them seem to me impossible of performance....The League of Nations created by the Treaty is relied upon to preserve the artificial structure which has been erected by compromise of the conflicting interests of the Great Powers, and to prevent the germination of so many seeds of war which are sown in so many Articles and which under normal conditions would soon bear fruit. The League might as well attempt to prevent the growth of plant life in a tropical jungle.Wars will come sooner or later......the League is an instrument of the mighty to check the normal growth of national power and national aspirations among those who have been rendered impotent by defeat.....peoples delivered into the hands of those they hate, while their economic resources are torn from them and given to others. It may be years before these oppressed peoples are able to throw off the yoke, but as sure as day follows night the time will come when they make the effort.......whatever it may be called or however it may be disguised it is an Alliance of the Five Great Military Powers..........the law of restraint will be broken or render the organization powerless. It is founded on the shifting sands of self-interest."
by jocelyn braddell

Henry Ford on Zionism in 1920
  From "Will Jewish Zionism Bring Armageddon?"   Observing and weighing the events and tendencies of Jewish rule thus far in Palestine, it is not difficult to see the purpose in it all. The Jews still distrust their ability to make a State. They do not distrust the world's willingness to let them have a State; indeed, it is amazing how naturally the Jews place confidence in that portion of the world they have always affected to despise. But deep-seated in the Jew is a distrust of himself. He doesn't know how his people will contrive to live together. He doesn't know how they will contrive to drop the principles and practices which are so destructive of social comity elsewhere. And he feels that, patient as the mandatory power may be now, it is doubtful how long that patience will hold out under the blunders and brutalities that will be inseparable from Zionist rule, if any deductions can be drawn from the facts at hand.

Therefore, feeling that the time may be short, he is endeavoring by such actions as interference with the cultural question, with the racial rights if the natives, and by such schemes as the land- grabbing device described above, to get so strong a hold on the situation as will seriously complicate it
whenever Great Britain shall feel it to be her duty to the world to step in and attempt to bring some kind of order out of the chaos.

It begins to be very clear that Jewish nationalism will develop along the line of enmity to the rest of the world. Already the dangerous proposal has been made to organize a Jewish army for the protection of the Suez Canal. Instead of thinking of roads and farmsteads, of vineyards and oil presses, of schools and sanitary villages, the Jews are thinking of elevating themselves into the military power that shall stand between East and West on that most strategic strip of ground in the world. The whole situation is fraught with danger, and men who wish well to the Jews are alarmed and saddened by the prospect.  

There are three elements of danger in the situation as it exists today: ...the intense, egotistic and challenging nationalism that Zionists exhibit even before they get a potato patch -- the taste for world politics and world power; and the racial confusion which now exists in Palestine.   These combined are dynamite. It is unimaginable that the nations responsible to humanity for the conduct of that important strip of territory will remain supine while Bolshevism spreads under the false pretense of a religious movement favored by Christendom. Although exercising no sovereignty over the land ...The white race has thus far been the Chosen People to whom the dominion of the earth has been given Palestine is the key to world military strategy and trade. In question 12 of the Questions and Answers published by the department of education, Zionist Organization of America, this occurs: What are the commercial possibilities of Palestine?   The location of Palestine between the three continents favors foreign trade. All this lends itself to dreams of future glory, and many Christian friends of the Jew have pleased themselves by conceiving an universal Hague at Jerusalem and a new social order going out to bless the nations from Zion. It is the idea conveyed by men like A. A. Berle in books like "The World Significance of a Jewish State." All this might be expected if the Jews of today were Old Testament people, anxious to re-establish the social laws of Moses, which are conceded to be the best safeguards ever devised against pauperism on the one hand and plutocracy on the other. But Palestine has not fallen into the hands of that sort of Jews.... The racial situation in Palestine just now is very delicate. Americans do not understand it. The Zionist propaganda has always been accepted on the assumption that Palestine is the Jews' land and that they only need help to go back. It is an historical and political fact that Palestine has not been the Jews' land for more than 2,000 years. There are in Palestine 500,000 Moslems, 105,000 Christians and 65,000 Jews. The industry of the land is agriculture. Engaged in this are 69 per cent of the Moslems, 46 per cent of the Christians and 19 per cent of the Jews. Neither numerically nor industrially have they held the land. Yet, as the result of a war bargain, it is handed over to them as regardless of the native inhabitants as if Belgium had been handed over to Mexico. Many of the natives are Semites, like the Jews, but they do not want the Jews among them.   That is a strange fact for those who use the term "anti-Semitism"; why do real Semites also dislike the Jews? Surely Semites are not victims of "anti-Semitism."   The Balfour Declaration, as well as the terms of the Mandate adopted at San Remo, recognized the rights of the native races. Indeed, everyone who knows about the people who have been native to Palestine for 2,000 years recognizes their rights, everybody except the Jews. Bethlehem was a Christian town, as befits the birthplace of Christ. Yet the Jews have contrived that 2,000 Bethlehemites leave Palestine rather than submit to what they see coming. The other races are not so placid about it, hence the trouble. .... General Allenby promised those native races of Palestine that their rights would be respected. So did the Balfour Declaration. So did the San Remo Conference. So also did President Wilson in the twelfth of his Fourteen Points.   But Judah says, "Let them get out!" Americans have been in their land less than 150 years as a nation and there is China and Arabia or Siberia for us to go to if we should want to, but we prefer our own country, and so do the native races of Palestine, who have dwelt there for 2,000 years.   The watchmen on the towers of the world are alarmed at what seems brewing in Judah's geographical caldron.   [THE DEARBORN INDEPENDENT, issue of 28 May 1921]  
A Thought for 2002:: Do the English still have a Legal responsibility as expressed in the Mandates of the Treaty of Versaille, in relation to Israel and the Palestinians?



By Noam Arnon:
The writer is a spokesman of the Hebron Jewish
Community

http://www.haaretzdaily.com

Five hundred or a thousand years ago, a few
thousand Jews lived in the country. In 1919, the
League of Nations recognized the Jewish people's
right to the land, without any connection to their
number in it (tens of thousands). In 1948, 600,000
Jews lived in the country. The numerical issue was
never brought up as an element determining the
Jewish people's connection to or belonging in the
country.

Hence, for us it doesn't matter whether there are more
Jews or Arabs here. Of course, we would prefer it if
there are a majority of Jews here. But no matter, the
Jewish people will retain their right to the country.

By definition the state of Israel was founded as a
Jewish state. The regime constituted in it is
democratic in character, but its essence is Jewish.
And if there is a contradiction between this essence
and the character of the government, it is clear that
the essence takes precedence, and that steps are to
be taken to prevent damage or changes to this Jewish
essence. Democracy cannot to be exploited to
destroy the Jewish state.