tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7014209.post2636616526453749257..comments2024-03-28T14:55:27.949+02:00Comments on My Right Word: Mandate HistoryYMedadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14333122797414935958noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7014209.post-15716036125506550242015-12-17T22:54:31.173+02:002015-12-17T22:54:31.173+02:00I was coming back to the beginning of your post, w...I was coming back to the beginning of your post, where you quoted two different opinions about why Ormsby-Gore resigned, and providing a little evidence that the first might be closer to the truth, or at least was a major factor. I don't think you gave an opinion about that yourself, but would be interested to know if you have a view. On the matter of the appeasement of Arab violence, that seems to me to have been a major disaster from very early on in the Mandate, from Samuel especially, from the little I know. It seems madness to me to reward violence by restricting Jewish immigration. If anything, I would have thought it would have made more sense to increase the quotas every time there were attacks on Jews.<br /><br />AndrewAndrew Chapmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11682602818338988947noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7014209.post-16175512333215503682015-12-17T22:25:58.556+02:002015-12-17T22:25:58.556+02:00The "the pro-Arab tendencies" in there, ...The "the pro-Arab tendencies" in there, similar to today, are presumed by those who maintain them to be able to placate Arab violence while seeking their own self-satisfying standing in their positions. I stand by my opinion.YMedadhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14333122797414935958noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7014209.post-12936505266641222902015-12-17T16:14:10.375+02:002015-12-17T16:14:10.375+02:00Here's a passage from earlier in Cohen's b...Here's a passage from earlier in Cohen's book (pp 14-15), which gives more of an idea of what he meant by saying that Zionism was the rock upon which Ormsby-Gore's career had foundered:<br /><br />'Fundamentally, Ormsby-Gore remained a Gentile Zionist, whose political heritage included a deep sense of obligation to the Jewish National Home, as envisaged by the architects (including himself) of the Balfour Declaration. In time he was to grow almost to resent the Zionists for his own inability to free himself from them - unlike his successor, Malcolm MacDonald, Ormsby-Gore was to become involved in a losing struggle against the pro-Arab tendencies of the senior Department, the Foreign Office. To Weizmann, he would complain that the Foreign Office was staffed with ‘new Pharaohs who knew not Joseph … assimilated Jews, the same kind that had opposed the Balfour Declaration’. Long before he was actually to leave the Colonial Office, Ormsby-Gore would bemoan his fate as intolerable and threaten resignation.'<br /><br />AndrewAndrew Chapmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11682602818338988947noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7014209.post-53422578363817104122015-12-16T19:00:11.504+02:002015-12-16T19:00:11.504+02:00Sorry, it did strike me afterwards that that could...Sorry, it did strike me afterwards that that could be read as an anti-Zionist comment. I am sure Cohen didn't mean it that way, and neither did I.<br /><br />AndrewAndrew Chapmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11682602818338988947noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7014209.post-91407276287732670192015-12-16T18:36:56.780+02:002015-12-16T18:36:56.780+02:00That, obviously, is an error.
He foundered on a c...That, obviously, is an error.<br /><br />He foundered on a campaign of Arab terror which besides hundreds of Jews, killed many dozens of British officials (like the assassination of Andrews as he was leaving church on Sunday in September 1937), policemen and soldiers.<br /><br />Are you at all knowledgeable about the period or are you trying to play the innocent?YMedadhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14333122797414935958noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7014209.post-63790380757191563632015-12-16T14:53:41.562+02:002015-12-16T14:53:41.562+02:00With regard to your post more specifically, I foun...With regard to your post more specifically, I found this in 'Palestine: Retreat from the Mandate' by Michael J. Cohen, p.66: 'Ormsby-Gore resigned from office [in May 1938] a broken man, with Zionism the rock upon which his career had foundered.'<br /><br />AndrewAndrew Chapmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11682602818338988947noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7014209.post-83356343236070839172015-12-15T22:45:44.703+02:002015-12-15T22:45:44.703+02:00I had in mind the 'peoples' of Article 22....I had in mind the 'peoples' of Article 22. I was just using 'Arabs' as a shorthand for the Arabic-speaking people, Christian and Moslem, who I think formed the vast majority of the non-Jewish population.<br /><br />AndrewAndrew Chapmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11682602818338988947noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7014209.post-28101564916849925792015-12-15T22:25:58.655+02:002015-12-15T22:25:58.655+02:00Ah.
But as the term "Arabs" does not at...Ah.<br /><br />But as the term "Arabs" does not at all appear but rather the very general "non-Jews" which could have been intended to describe a vast variety of persons residing in the territory of the Mandate, including Arabs, Germans, Armenians, etc., your point would fail.YMedadhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14333122797414935958noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7014209.post-47718675962981895992015-12-15T21:16:29.742+02:002015-12-15T21:16:29.742+02:00No, on the contrary, I think it is clear that the ...No, on the contrary, I think it is clear that the building of the Jewish National Home comes across as the primary purpose of the Mandate - this from the Peel Commission which I think was perhaps the fairest of the commissions. If you would like me to make a definite point - although I am personally in the trying to learn and understand phase, so bear with me - I would ask you if you would agree that the Jewish people were not the sole beneficiary of the Mandate, as some would have it. Rather, there seem to be two principles and two (overlapping) beneficiaries in view: first (in order), from Article 22 of the LoN Covenant, the present inhabitants, Jews and Arabs and others; second, from the National Home idea, the Jewish people as a whole.<br /><br />AndrewAndrew Chapmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11682602818338988947noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7014209.post-71360332600079784842015-12-15T20:37:19.868+02:002015-12-15T20:37:19.868+02:00I still have difficulty with what you are trying t...I still have difficulty with what you are trying to say. Can you make a clear statement of what you want to prove? Are you intimating that the Arabs of the Mandate territory had priority over the Jewish population?<br /><br />May I point out that the 1922 White Paper's origin was in the March 1921 Jerusalem Conference which decided to implant a Saudi Arabian in Transjordan. That I find odd if we are discussing the "local inhabitants", no?YMedadhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14333122797414935958noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7014209.post-41170595967660828632015-12-15T20:29:28.021+02:002015-12-15T20:29:28.021+02:00Well, I was just reflecting on the structure of th...Well, I was just reflecting on the structure of the Mandate, and especially the first two paragraphs of the preamble. Admittedly, if one adds the third paragraph and the idea of reconstitution, then only my a) would really fit the bill. But my impression is that even the Zionist organisation had been running with a more limited conception well before 1922, with talk of a separate Arab national development. The White Paper of June 1922 seems to me to have cemented such an interpretation (or mis-interpretation) before the Mandate was even agreed in July.<br /><br />AndrewAndrew Chapmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11682602818338988947noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7014209.post-4484140591499962242015-12-15T18:37:39.766+02:002015-12-15T18:37:39.766+02:00Sorry, I miss your point.
The Mandate decision mak...Sorry, I miss your point.<br />The Mandate decision makes it apparent that a purpose of the mandate was to increase the Jewish population so that the Jewish national home which had been over the centuries had been deprived of its Jewish population by an Ottoman occupation which kept Jews out or limited their ability to stay or purchase property could regain its natural land historic native population.YMedadhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14333122797414935958noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7014209.post-91622317150619080332015-12-15T18:30:42.887+02:002015-12-15T18:30:42.887+02:00To square Article 22, which referred to the inhabi...To square Article 22, which referred to the inhabitants of the territory, with a National Home for the Jewish people, there either had to be:<br />a) large-scale Jewish immigration - the original idea of most at the beginning, I think: eg Balfour etc<br />b) medium-scale Jewish immigration - with the probable result of a partition of Palestine West of the Jordan; or I guess some sort of federated state with a Jewish province.<br /><br />AndrewAndrew Chapmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11682602818338988947noreply@blogger.com