San Remo a la Martin Kramer

In Martin Kramer's treatment of the San Remo Conference, he, correctly, notes that that historic event highlights

Britain’s history of imperial self-dealing, which at San Remo and as a consequence of San Remo nearly undermined any prospect of a Jewish state.

 and therefore, to suggest, as he does, that this claim

San Remo was and remains more important to Israel’s legitimacy than the Balfour Declaration and the UN resolution

is incorrect is itself quite incorrect. He is wrong.

Moreover, Kamer terms as "an arcane argument" that

the mandate enjoined Britain [in Article 6] to “encourage . . . close settlement by Jews on the land,” and [as] Britain had a mandate for all of Palestine...Jewish settlement anywhere in the land cannot be illegal...[and as] the [1947] UN General Assembly...resolution...wasn’t ever adopted...Thus, in the absence of a Palestinian Arab state, Israel stands as the sole successor state to the League of Nations mandate

One last bit of Kramer's argument is that to invoke San Remo so as to 

legitimate...Israeli sovereignty over all of mandate Palestine, is itself a deviation from the past Zionist and Israeli understanding both of San Remo and of the mandate. 

In response, I would suggest the following points:

1. The Mandate in any form could not have gone forward without San Remo. Whatever the status of the San Remo decisions (not all connected with the future of Palestine), the Conference was another important and crucial link towards Jewish statehood. Whatever changes and alterations in wording there were, as Kramer notes, without it, the future Mandate to be adopted later, in July 1922, might not have occured.

2. The dispute over whether "civil rights" included political rights of the Arabs of Palestine or whether any rights were "upgraded" is itself arcane as the term "Arabs" does not appear neither in any San Remo decision nor in the League of Nations Mandate decision. There were no specific "Arab political rights" that were guaranteed, as opposed to those of and for the Jews. In that territory slated to become the reconstituted Jewish national home, there were Jews and non-Jews and the geopolitical entity was first and foremost Jewish, especially through the historic connection of the Jewish people, as noted in the preamble, to that territory as is phrased in the Mandate decision. 

Indeed, that is obvious from the decision's wording:

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

Political is mentioned but in connection with Jews in other countries than Palestine and so the meaning Kramer attempts to apply to the term doesn't hold up to his intention. Furthermore, the decison reads that it deals with

the surrender of the rights hitherto enjoyed [emphasis added] by the non-Jewish communities in Palestine;

Obviously, "hitherto" refers not to some future right of separate nationality but of, yes, civil rights and liberties in the field of community and religious spheres, to the extent they existed. This was not to be on par with the Jews. Whatever France considered as adopted was not a significant aspect in what developed.

3. As for Kramer's assertion that "Palestine had been given not to the Jews but to the British", a Zionist delegation was in attendance and all were aware that indeed Palestine was intended for the Jews with British guardianship. That was the deal. But it was all lfor the Jews in any case.  Much anti-Zionist effort had gone into an attempt to get at Wilson and dissuade him for lending support to Great Britain's efforts and all was thwarted.

Even the wittling down of territory that was already planned by the British in favor of establishing an Arab regime in Tranjordan was not new, as unfortunate as it was as the original Zionist map presnted to the Versailles Peace Conference of January 1919 was not accepted even then.

4. Could San Remo been avoided? Was there a substitute? Of course not. The four powers making up the Conference, with observer status provided to the United States, were self-described as the liberators of the Ottoman Empire and so they were accepted. Their standing, in international law, provided the future state of Israel and, today, its presence in Judea and Samaria, the quite legitimate legal right to continue with the basic goals of the Mandate: close settlement by Jews on the land and Jewish immigration.

The belittling of the April 1920 San Remo Conference is unworthy, with all its negative aspects as he points out.

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