On Self-Determination

Self-determination is a sacrosanct principle of national freedom.

Jews demanded self-determination as did the Arabs of the Mandate of Palestine.

Here it is explained

By 1920, the League of Nations had affirmed the applicability of the right to self-determination to the people of Palestine and decided to establish a temporary Mandatory system to facilitate Palestine's independence in accordance with Article 22 of its Covenant. Article 22 stated that “[c]ertain communities formerly belonging to the Turkish empire have reached a stage of development where their existence as independent nations can be provisionally recognized subject to the rendering of administrative advice and assistance by a Mandatory until such time as they are able to stand alone. The wishes of these communities must be a principal consideration in the selection of the Mandatory...The United Nations has affirmed this right since at least 1974. When the UN recognized the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) as the representative of the Palestinian people and granted it observer status, it explicitly recognized that Palestinians constitute a people entitled to self-determination. Numerous General Assembly Resolutions have affirmed this right as particularly applicable to the Palestinian people, including Resolutions 2535 (10 Dec. 1969); 2649 (30 Nov 1970); 3236 (22 Nov 1974); 43/177 (15 Dec. 1988); and 48/94 (20 Dec. 1993). Of particular note is Resolution 3236, which reaffirms and specifies the inalienable rights of Palestinian people in Palestine as including: a) the right to self-determination without external interference;..."

A pseudo-academic treatment is here.

Of course, this rather conveniently ignores the fact that whereas the term 'Arab' appears nowhere in this document, you can read this:

The Council of the League of Nations:

Whereas the Principal Allied Powers have agreed, for the purpose of giving effect to the provisions of Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, to entrust to a Mandatory selected by the said Powers the administration of the territory of Palestine...the Principal Allied Powers have also agreed that the Mandatory should be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 2nd, 1917, by the Government of His Britannic Majesty, and adopted by the said Powers, in favor of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing should be done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country; and

Whereas recognition has thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country; and

...ART. 2.

The Mandatory shall be responsible for placing the country under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment of the Jewish national home, as laid down in the preamble, and the development of self-governing institutions, and also for safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of race and religion.

ART. 3.

The Mandatory shall, so far as circumstances permit, encourage local autonomy.

ART. 4.

An appropriate Jewish agency shall be recognised as a public body for the purpose of advising and co-operating with the Administration of Palestine in such economic, social and other matters as may affect the establishment of the Jewish national home and the interests of the Jewish population in Palestine, and, subject always to the control of the Administration to assist and take part in the development of the country.

The Zionist organization, so long as its organization and constitution are in the opinion of the Mandatory appropriate, shall be recognised as such agency. It shall take steps in consultation with His Britannic Majesty's Government to secure the co-operation of all Jews who are willing to assist in the establishment of the Jewish national home.

ART. 5.

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.

ART. 6.

The Administration of Palestine, while ensuring that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced, shall facilitate Jewish immigration under suitable conditions and shall encourage, in co-operation with the Jewish agency referred to in Article 4, close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes.

Arabs are relegated to a group of citizens who are defined as non-Jews.  They have full personal, civic and human rights and liberties, and those must be assured.  But the dominant political national character of the country is Jewish.  The entire rest of the Middle East was to be and has become Arab and, actually, Muslim Arab as increasing persecution of Christians are severely reducing their numbers throughout the area.  Those outside the Mandate, other than Jews, are foreign.  Non-Jews are to be awarded local autonomy if they disagree with the Jewish character of the country, it could be inferred.

Self-determination, as proposed by Arabs, is not sympathetic to the Jews, either as individuals or as a national group.  Hamas is most forthright. Its Covenant opens with a Quaranic verse:

"Ye are the best nation that hath been raised up unto mankind...And if they who have received the scriptures [i.e., the Jews] had believed, it had surely been the better for them: there are believers among them, but the greater part of them are transgressors...and if they fight against you...they shall not be helped. They are smitten with vileness wheresoever they are found; unless they obtain security by entering into a treaty with Allah...

and continues

Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious. It needs all sincere efforts...Jihad becomes the individual duty of every Moslem. In face of the Jews' usurpation of Palestine, it is compulsory that the banner of Jihad be raised...Our enemy relies on the methods of collective punishment. He has deprived people of their homeland and properties, pursued them in their places of exile and gathering, breaking bones, shooting at women, children and old people, with or without a reason. The enemy has opened detention camps where thousands and thousands of people are thrown and kept under sub-human conditions. Added to this, are the demolition of houses, rendering children orphans, meting cruel sentences against thousands of young people, and causing them to spend the best years of their lives in the dungeons of prisons...

In their Nazi treatment, the Jews made no exception for women or children...We should not forget to remind every Moslem that when the Jews conquered the Holy City in 1967, they stood on the threshold of the Aqsa Mosque and proclaimed that "Mohammed is dead, and his descendants are all women."...

Israel, Judaism and Jews challenge Islam and the Moslem people. "May the cowards never sleep."...Arab and Islamic Peoples should augment by further steps on their part; Islamic groupings all over the Arab world should also do the same, since all of these are the best-equipped for the future role in the fight with the warmongering Jews...

And also two other verses of the Quran are quoted:

"The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), 

"But the Jews will not be pleased with thee, neither the Christians, 

Self-determination can be a dangerous theory.

In 1920, the Germans expressed it this way:

1. Wir fordern den Zusammenschluß aller Deutschen auf Grund des Selbstbestimmungsrechtes der Völker zu einem Groß-Deutschland.

And here, in English:

1. We demand the union of all Germany in a Greater Germany on the basis of the right of national self-determination.

By the way, the official version has it as

1. We demand the unification of all Germans in the Greater Germany on the basis of the right of self-determination of peoples.

To be clear, those Germans were the members of the National Socialist German Workers' Party and the principles were composed by Adolf Hitler and Anton Drexler and presented on 24 February 1920 "to a crowd of almost two thousand and every single point was accepted amid jubilant approval." (Mein Kampf, Volume II, Chapter I).

Arabs have some two-dozen countries where they can realize self-determination.

They do not have the right to deny Jews our right of self-determination.

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