Was 'Palestine' Actually Syria?

Let's check on that way back when:

"In 1917, Ramallah-born New York surgeon, Fuad Isa Shatara, and N.A. Katibah founded the Palestine Antizionism Society. It was among the organizers of an anti-Zionist rally on November 8, 1918 in Brooklyn. Besides the two founders, the young Lebanese Orientalist Philip Khoury Hitti made an appearance as a speaker at the event. The rally passed a resolution, describing the Arabs at risk of being dominated by “a race rendered more powerful and wealthy through contact with the western civilization thus applying might against right” and protesting the “artificial importation of Zionists flooding the country against its natural capacities and thus forcing an emigration of the rightful inhabitants.”227 Thus, by 1918, the anti-Zionist Arab-American movement had already found both its central arguments and its leaders. Rihani, Hitti and Shatara would shape the movement over the next two decades. The Arab Americans worked to influence the State  Department and other influential elements of the foreign policy strata. Fuad Shatara of the Palestine Antizionism Society wrote two letters to Secretary of State Robert Lansing in November 1918 and February 1919, arguing that Zionism was in contravention to Wilson’s Fourteen Points.228 In December 1918, Hitti and George Khairalla established the New Syria National League. The group lobbied for the establishment of a Greater Syria under American protection, reaching from the Sinai to the Euphrates.229 These groups intensified their activities in light of the upcoming peace conference in Paris. Shatara and Hitti reached out to John Huston Finley, the chief of the Red Cross Commission in Palestine, asking Finley not to detach Palestine from Greater Syria.230 During the conference, Hitti’s New Syria National League also sent a telegram to Wilson, Lloyd George and Clemenceau advocating an American protectorate over Syria. 231"          

227 “Untitled,” New York Times, November 9, 1917; cited in Davidson, “Debating Palestine,” 230; see also Knee, “The King-Crane Commission of 1919,” 204. 228 Davidson, “Debating Palestine,” 231. 229 The Formation of Modern Iraq and Syria (Routledge, 2013), 147. 230 Knee, The Concept of Zionist Dissent in the American Mind, 1917-1941, 205. 231 The Formation of Modern Iraq and Syria, 147.

From this thesis.

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The October 1938 'Ultimatum'

I was asked by a Menachem Begin Heritage Center employee to help research an item he came across via a poem by a Warsaw Ghetto poet, Władysław Szlengel, who was close to the Revisionist thinking. It referred to an "ultimatum".

I was not aware of the event but set about doing what I could.

It seems that during 1938, the Mufti Haj Amin Al-Husseini had ensconced himself in Syria and was promoting his violent reign of terror (that he had begun in April 1936) from Damascus. The Peel Partition Plan had been made a year earlier and now the British had set up the Woodhead Commission.

The Arabs were convening in Cairo and this 

'World Parliamentary Congress of Arab and Muslim Countries for the Defense of Palestine' convened in Cairo in October 1938, it marked Egypt's assuming a central place in unofficial Arab-Muslim efforts to assist the Palestinian Arab cause

On it briefly:

What set off my colleague's interest was this:

an editorial of the Davar newspaper on October 14 which blasted an "ultimatum" directed to Chaim Weitzmann. 

But what was the ultimatum?

It was that the Arabs, even if they would be completely destroyed, they would not allow Jews to settle in and build a majority in Arab Palestine.

Haaretz had a Reuters report from October 10

which I found in Chicago The Sentinel as "dire calamities":

Some further background:

and the author of that book further pointed out:

It seems that Haaretz was very concerned about the ramifications of the 'ultimatum' publishing, on October 12, that "the threat issued this past week by one of the nationalist Arab groups in Damascus to the Zionist movement that revenge will be taken against Jews residing in Arab countries":-

In other words, what occured as a result of the 1947-1948 war, when hundreds of thousands of Jews were set up and forced to flee from the Arab states they had lived in for centuries, even before they became states, was in th Arab mind a decade earlier. The man behind all this was staunch Syrian Arabist Nabih al-Azma (in the middle)

who, already in 1925, "convinced...al-Hajj Amin al-Husaini, to establish a special finance committee for the Syrian Revolt in Jerusalem". In 1931, he was living in the Palestine Mandate  and then, when the Mufti fled to Damascus, reciprocated.  As a  leaders of the Istiqlal party, Nabih al-Azma, with others, took over the Palestine Defense Committee in Damascus. Money was collected in Syria and it was transferred through al-Azma, who lived in Palestine, to the AHC leadership. Weapons were also procured by Istiqlal members in Transjordan and smuggled into Palestine. In July 1936, the Palestine Defense Committee dispatched about 700 Arab volunteers to fight in Palestine under the command of Fawzi al-Qawuqij. An Arab congress took place in Bludan, Syria in September 1937 and its the main organizer of the event was Nabih al-Azma, then a member of the Syrian National Bloc party, who received payments from the Italians. It was well-attended by leading Arab nationalist and pan-Islamic politicians and would prove instrumental in internationalizing the Arab-Zionist dispute in Palestine and in mobilizing Arab and Muslim public opinion. Seems he's mentiond in here.

The French eventually arrested al-Azma and others of the Palestine in March 1939 and two of their newspapers banned. The Committee was moreover discredited by the publication of evidence showing that Nabih al-Azma had been embezzling funds from the Palestine Defense Committee.

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Again, Is "Palestine" Really Part of Syria?

As Zachary J. Foster details in his 2011 Georgetown University MA thesis, "Arab Historiography in Mandatory Palestine, 1920--1948", many Arab historians

considered Palestine a constitutive part of Syria. Bahri, for instance, writes that Haifa is among the “mother cities of Syria broadly and Palestine specifically.” In his brief biography of Abid Baha’ Abbas, the founder of the Bahai faith, Bahri also lists all of the countries or regions with Bahai populations: Iran, Japan, China, India, Egypt, Syria (Suriyya), Europe and America. Insofar as there were many Bahai in “Palestine,” it only makes sense that Palestine was assumed as part of Syria in Bahri’s laundry list, or else it would have been an embarrassing oversight to neglect Palestine. Barghouthi and Totah add that Palestine “remained part of Syria, and a natural border did not separate it (Palestine) from it(Syria), and was not distant from it racially or historically, and therefore historians have not singled it [Palestine] out with a distinct name but rather they have related to it [i.e. naming, in terms of] the peoples and tribes living in it.”

If you are worried that his sources are not solid, a footnote there reads:

On the proposals for a Syria (including Palestine) -- Egypt union before the war, see Ayyad, Arab Nationalism,59; Lunts, “Shorishayha ve-Mekorotayha,” 34; Gooch and Temperley, British Documents, 824-5; During the war:Tamari, Am al-Jarad, 75-6; Blyth, “The Future of Palestine,” 85; And after the war: Mir’at al-Sharq, 23 December 1926. The proposals for a Palestine-Syria unification all come after the war and extend well into the late 1920s: see the resolution of the First Palestinian National Congress; responses in Palestine to the King-Crane Commission; petitions of the Muslim-Christian Associations; Resolution of the First Syrian National Congress in 1919, petitions produced by Nablusite notables, all of which opted for unity with Syria in the 1918-1920 period. On these proposals, See Porath, The Emergence, 81-2; Muslih,The Origins 131-154; Qasmiyya, “Suriyya wa al-Qadiyya al-Filastiniyya”; For more pro-Syrian unity rhetoric in the post 1920 period, see resolutions of the fifth Palestinian National Congress in 1922, cited in Kimmerling, “Process of Formation,” 80, n.62; Mir’at al-Sharq, 24 May 1925, 4 November 1926; Mansur, Tarikh Nasira, 120; Zionist report on the Third Palestinian National Conference, CZA,L4/768; Zionist report on Palestinian Activities in America. New York, 28 March 1922, CZA A185/56; ZionistReport on the Arab Movement, 1928, CZA, L9/349; For unity with the Hijaz, see Filastin, 10 September 1921; 14 March 1924; 19 June 1925

Quite simply, Foster considers the writing of a unique "Palestine history" to be

the projection of contemporary prerogatives on to the past.

Foster continues his review of the geography and history books written and published at the time and adds

in 1938 George Antonius uses the word Syria to describe the entire Bilad al-Sham region throughout his book. “Of the countries surrounding Egypt, Syria was the most important from a military point of view.” That is to say, it was still perfectly natural for him to write Syria to refer to places like Bir Sab’ and Ghazza. al-Nimr adds in 1938 that Nablus is located in the heart of Southern Syria (qalb Suriyya al-Janubiyya).

He continues

the tendency to consider Palestine a part of Syria that was suggested in Bahri, al-Barghouthi and Totah, Antonious and Canaan is consistent with the geographical studies of the period written by Arabs residing in both Palestine and Syria. In the first place, let us recall that discussions of Palestine are included in the classic histories of Syria written by Yusuf Dibbs and Jurji Yanni in late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The first Jughrafiyat Filastin was published in 1921 and seems to have been destined for the Mandatory education system. The authors, Totah and Khuri, write that there is no natural border between Syria and Palestine...For Sabri Sharif Abd al-Hadi’s Jughrafiyat Suriyya wa Filastin al-Tabi‘iyya, publishedin 1923—six years after the British arrived in Jerusalem—there is no neat border between Syria and Palestine. In some cases, the plains and mountains of Palestine and Syria bleed into one another.

By the way, on this book, Foster observes

It is worth noting that Rashid Khalidi misinterprets this book, claiming that its importance lies in“the fact that all over Palestine, students were already learning that Palestine was a separate entity, a unit whose geography requires separate treatment [from Syria].” Khalidi, Palestinian Identity, 174. As we indicated above,however, this book suggests much the opposite: that there was great confusion over what was Palestine and what was Syria, and that Palestine was a region within Syria. We must be careful to go to the primary sources before accepting Khalidi’s interpretation of the evidence..

Foster pursues the subject further and as it is important, here is another longish excerpt from his academic study:

Palestine was inextricably tied to a larger territorial unit, Syria. In some cases it was a constitutive part of it and in other cases Palestine did not include Haifa, Acre, Tiberias, Tzfat, Nazareth, the Bisan valley and other areas. When we consider that,in the late Ottoman period, “Palestine” had no administrative status and “Palestinians” called themselves “Syrians,” this is not so surprising. The attempt by the British and French to transform much older conceptions of space and self, usually by resort to force of arms, did not happen overnight. I would suggest that the attempt to trace the “earliest manifestations” of the national or proto-national identity, as Khalidi, Gerber and Fishman have done, has inadvertently reified the naturalness and inevitableness of the development of nation-state borders, geographies and loyalties in the region, things that were simply not indigenous to the region and were brought to the region by the colonial use of force.Another implication of this section is that the various pro-Syrian unity positions taken by theArabs of Palestine from 1918-1920 were probably not as “fleeting” and “ephemeral” as everyone seems to believe. The decision of the First Palestinian National Congress to call Palestine“Southern Syria” in hopes of uniting with Faysal’s government in Syria, may itself have been an innovation, but in name rather than substance. The idea that Palestine was a part of Syria continues to be perfectly acceptable to Palestine’s Arabs in the 1920s and even as late as the 1930s and 1940s. We have examined city-loyalties, Arab and Islamic loyalties and the role of the regional epicenters.

As Foster concludes this chapter in his study

Today scholars want to know when a Palestinian identity first emerged, but they seem much less interested in determining what people themselves in the 1920s and 1930s actually cared about.

And then makes sure we are clear about the facts and how Arab historians today interpret them

while Khalidi is right to point to the existence of an incipient Palestine loyalty in the 1914-1923 period, he grossly over exaggerates both its importance for the people who felt it and its prevalence in the general population. The historical works would seem to support what Salim Tamari has described as a kind of “cultural nihilism” – the idea that Palestine was not particularly important or distinct apart from its Bilad al-Sham context, at least in the 1920s and also in the early 1930s...not a single book was written on the history of Palestine out of sheer passion and love for Palestine until the 1930s. As we stated previously, this is in complete contrast to the city histories – all of which seem to have been written out of the authors devotion and love for the home town. Continuing along to the 1930s, regional, Arab and Palestine histories remain roughly equal in number until 1936, at which point the conflict among the British, Zionists and Palestinians reached a breaking point with the outbreak of the General Strike in Palestine in the Spring of 1936, the first phase in a 3-year long revolt, today known as the “Great Arab Revolt.” Only then did interest in Palestine soar and come to dominate historical writing, alongside with Arab histories.

My take from this is that my outlook remains unchanged from when I first began blogging on this aspect: for Arabs, Palestine was a region, not a country. It was not a separate geopolitical entity except as part of Syria. Local patriotism was a result of the clash with Zionism which had a 3000-year history of a concrete conceptualization of what the Jewish homeland's borders were and which the Arabs did not possess.

This is part of what I term "Palestinianism" which is the fabrication, caused by competitiveness with the challenge Zionism confronts the local Arabs, of a history, an identity and a geography.

And from The Invention of Palestine, Zachary J. Foster, A DISSERTATION
PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY OF PRINCETON UNIVERSITY IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY RECOMMENDED FOR ACCEPTANCE
BY THE DEPARTMENT OF NEAR EASTERN STUDIES, November 2017, page 53-54:

_____________

P.S.  Some previous posts:

Here;

Here;

Here;

and an important one here.

_____________

P.P.S.

Foster thought I "politicized" his research.


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The Syrian Colony and Settlers

Yes, the Syrian Colony in ... New York City:-

According to Linda K. Jacobs,

Syrians arrived in 1880 [and....settled mainly on the east side of Washington Street between the Battery and Albany.

See this museum.

The first Syrians arrived in New York in 1878.

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When Did Arabs Come to 'Palestine'?

From this book, The nationalist crusade in Syria by Elizabeth P. MacCallum. New York : The Foreign Policy Association, 1928, full text here:

The Muslim conquest of Syria and Palestine in the seventh century CE.

And what was the imagined territory if this Syria?

Jerusalem was but a vilayet, a regional administrative unit, not part of a country called Palestine'.

And another source, referring to the year 1937 from this book:-

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More on Palestine is Part of Syria

Continuing to research the link between Palestinianism and its Syrian roots on the question of whether the term "Palestine" was an actual one or did the Arabs who resided in the territory actually see themselves of Syrians, or South-Syrians.

Nuri As-Sa'id's Fertile Crescent Project
1943
The following proposals of mine are based on the close and firm ties between
Iraq and all the Arabs inhabiting historical Syria. The States of the Arabian Peninsula

The Arab States and the Arab League have an economic system which differs from our own, though they are very close to us in respect of language, customs and religion. On the other hand, Egypt has a bigger population than that of backward (i) States. It also has its (own) problems in the Sudan and elsewhere. Because of this, I have assumed that these States are not inclined to join an Arab federation (2) or an Arab League from the start (3). But if the union (ittihad) of Iraq and Syria does materialize, it may then be very likely that these States mentioned (4) may in the course of time show their desire to join this union. But I expect that this union - even if confined to Iraq and Syria - will at the very beginning lead to the facilitation of joint consultation among all the Arab States and to
all these States acting in concert, whether they are inside the union or outside it...

...In my view, the only equitable solution indeed, the only hope of securing permanent peace, reassurance and progress in these Arab areas, is for the United Nat- ions to declare now the following:

(1) That Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Trans Jordan be reunited into one State.

(/) Translated by the Editor from the original (Arabic) text which forms part of the
Memorandum submitted by Nuri as-Sa'id at the beginning of 1943 to Mr. R.G. Casey ,
British Minister of State in the Middle East (Cairo). This Memorandum was entitled) in
part) Istiqlal al-'Arab wa Wahdatuhum: Mudhakkira fi al-Qadiyya al-'Arabiyya
(Arab Independence and Unity: Memorandum on the Arab Cause)) printed by the
Government Press, Baghdad, 1943. The part translated above occurs on pp. 19-22 of
this Memorandum and follows a somewhat lengthy exposition (15 pages) of political condi-
tions in the Arab countries since the latter part of the Ottoman era) as well as their rela-
tions with Britain and France since the First World War. ED.

__________

A. The Syrian Unity Project "The Unified Syrian State", and the Arab Federation :

1. The Allies should declare their support of the independence of Syria in its natural boundaries, and consider its national and geographic unity as the basis of its system of government;

2. This declaration will, in fact, uphold the interests of the country and the wishes of the Syrian people, which they have expressed at the end of the last World War and on all occasions, as recorded by the American Plebiscite Commission, namely, Mr. Crane's Commission, (i) Moreover, the Syrian Congress which was held in Damascus, representing all the regions of liberated Syria, namely, Northern Syria, Lebanon, Trans Jordan and Palestine, also declared the above in (its) resolution of March 8, 1920, which was duly communicated to the (various) States and to the League of Nations.
The (Syrian Congress) thus expressed in this historic resolution the real wishes of the Syrian people. It was that resolution which has since then become the National covenant of all Syrians. The present Syrian Government still considers the day on which it was proclaimed an official national day, and the flag which was designed (by that resolution) for Syriaas the same flag which (now) shelters the Government of Transjordan.

3. The project of the Unified Syrian State consists of:-

a) The recognition of an independent and sovereign Syrian State whose system of government shall be a constitutional monarchy.

b) The Unified Syrian State shall comprise Northern Syria, Transjordan, Palestine and Lebanon.

c) Both Palestine, in some of its districts, and ancient Lebanon shall each have, in accordance with the constitution, a special administration. In the case of the former, the rights of the Jewish minority and the special status of the Holy Places shall be duly safeguarded, while in the case of the latter due regard shall be paid to the national aspirations of the Lebanese.

d) The Balfour Declaration shall be revoked for its inacceptance by the Arabs, who are the legitimate owners of the country. Otherwise, it shall be given a definitive interpretation which will dissipate the fears in the Arab and the Muslim worlds. Thus, the status quo, namely, a proportion of one third (Jews) to two thirds (Arabs), will be considered as adequate, and Jewish immigration will be absolutely prohibited.

______________

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Palestine? No, Southern Syria

Excerpt from

LEAGUE OF NATIONS

PERMANENT MANDATES COMMISSION

MINUTES

OF THE

NINTH SESSION

Held at Geneva from June 8th to 25th, 1926

including the

REPORT OF THE COMMISSION TO THE COUNCIL

TWENTY-SECOND MEETING

Held on Tuesday, June 22nd, 1926, at 10.30 a.m.

Chairman: The Marquis THEODOLI.

Present: All the members of the Commission.

589. Palestine and Transjordan: Examination of the Annual Report for 1925.

Arab Grievances.
M. PALACIOS, returning to the concrete questions of a general character of which the Arabs complained, recalled those concerning the national title, the national hymn and the flag. These were really thorny questions, like all sentimental and patriotic questions, regarding which it was necessary to observe complete prudence and tact.
As regards the first point, the Arabs claimed that it was not in conformity with Article 22 of the Mandate to print the initials and even the words "Eretz Israel" after the name "Palestine" while refusing the Arabs the title "Surial Janonbiah" ("Southern Syria"). The British Government had not accepted the use of this Arab title, but gave the place of honour to the Hebrew word used for 2,000 years and decided that the official name in Hebrew was "Palestina" followed by the initials signifying "Aleph Jod", the regular Hebrew name. Was the question still under discussion and could the accredited representative give the Commission any further information?
Colonel SYMES explained that the country was described as "Palestine" by Europeans and as "Falestin" by the Arabs. The Hebrew name for the country was the designation "Land of Israel", and the Government, to meet Jewish wishes, had agreed that the word "Palestine" in Hebrew characters should be followed in all official documents by the initials which stood for that designation. As a set-off to this, certain of the Arab politicians suggested that the country should be called "Southern Syria" in order to emphasise its close relation with another Arab State.

^

What Was To Be A Part of Syria?

Well, this might help:-

In 1932 a group of men in Haifa, including ʿAwnī ʿAbd al-Hādī, ʿIzzat Darwaza, Rashīd al-Ḥājj Ibrāhīm, Akram Zuʿaytir and Ṣubḥī al-Khadrā formed the Ḥizb al-Istiqlāl (the Independence Party).

Al-Istiqlāl was created with three goals, as expressed on the official statement registering it as a political organization [at Deputy Commissioner’s Offices] on 13 August 1932: “1) the independence of the Arab countries; 2) the Arab countries are one and inseparable; 3) Palestine is an Arab country and an integral part of Syria”.

The last point was particularly contentious as the idea of a “Greater Syria” (Sūriyā al-Kabīra or Bilād al-Shām)—of which Palestine comprised the southern section—was a political position increasingly on the wane in Palestine. 

Reproduced in Darwaza, Mudhak-kirāt Muḥammad ʿIzzat Darwaza, Vol. I, pp. 796f. as per "Teacher, Preacher, Soldier, Martyr: Rethinking ʿIzz al-Dīn al-Qassām", by Mark Sanagan, McGill University in Welt des Islams 53-3-4 (2013) 315-352 .

^

Doubts on Obama's Syria Policy

.
A GraphicZionism comment:

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Caring About Arabs

I don't understand something.

If 100,000 or so Syrian Arabs are killed and over 1000 more in a chemical gas attack and the world really doesn't want to do anything about it, then ...

why are they all aghast and hot and bothered and interfering when "Palestinian Arabs" are involved, with much less killing?

Is it because we are Jews that the world gets involved?

^

Now They Wake Up

A new poster:

But will it help the Syrians being butchered?

^

Rocks Thrown; Police Shoot

In Israel?

No, Turkey.

Syrian refugees clash with police in Turkish camp

AKCAKALE, Turkey (Reuters) - Syrian refugees threw rocks at Turkish military police who fired teargas and water cannon on Wednesday...dozens of protesters threw stones and smashed the windows of a fire truck.

Camp residents said young men started the protest after faulty electrics set a tent on fire which injured three brothers aged seven, 18 and 19.

A Turkish official said a "commotion" had broken out after the fire, but that the situation was now under control and declined to give further details.

Another Turkish official said the fire was not the cause of the incident and that it had been started by residents outraged when guards turned away around 200 Syrians trying to get into the site which is already full, home to 35,000 people and one of the largest in Turkey.

Protesters said many people were wounded in the clash, something Turkish officials denied.
 

Does that say something about Arabs?

Turks?

Israel?

^

It's A 'Deir Yassin' in Syria

Assad is really in trouble now:

At least 10 Palestinian refugees were killed Wednesday in the Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus, activists posting to a Facebook account for the camp reported.

According to media from the camp, 15-year-old Jalal Yousif Salih was shot dead by a Syrian government sniper near the Palestine Hospital in the camp. Photos of the victim were published before he was identified.  Another victim identified as 10-year-old Fadi Alaa al-Masri was shot dead in the al-Zein neighborhood.  Earlier, a body was found in the Black Stone neighborhood. The victim was later identified as Muhammad Shaaban.

An elderly man was also shot dead in the Deir Yasin neighborhood, according to activists. They identified him as 70-year-old Ahmad Abbas.

From Facebook:

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They Demanded Palestine Not Be Separated from Syria

Read first the bottom reproduction's lower left-side, and then go up to the right-hand column:

Even non-Muslims didn't think of "Palestine" as an entity separate from Syria.

In 1920.

Of course, they blame the "Russian" Jews, the "other" Jews, not the long-established ones - who they killed in April 1920 in the Old City of Jerusalem and in 1929 in Hebron.



^

Syria: What Was, Will Be?

Source.

^

In 1919, No US Consulate in Syria

Imagine that.

In 1919, when the (in)famous King-Crane Commission set out to dish the Jewish state idea, they found out there was no US consular institution in Syria:

^

The US State Dept. and "Palestine"

Read this letter from a US State Department official to a member of the King-Crane Commission, whose report the Arabs claiming to be "Palestinians" champion, and ask yourself, where is that 'Palestine?'.

That's right, it isn't.

Doesn't exist as a country.

It's part of Syria at that time*.

And even the Arabs claimed so, that 'Palestine' is actually Syria, in 1921.


Who they kidding?


_______________

*
From their report's recommendations:

B. We recommend, in the second, that the unity of Syria be preserved, in accordance with the earnest petition of the great majority of the people of Syria...(3) The precise boundaries of Syria should be determined by a special commission on boundaries, after the Syrian territory has been in general allotted...Moreover, there would be less danger of a reactionary Moslem attitude, if Christians were present in the State in considerable numbers, rather than largely segregated outside the State, as experience of the relations of different religious faiths in India suggest. As a predominantly Christian country it is also to be noted that Lebanon would be in a position to exert a stronger and more helpful influence if she were within the Syrian State, feeling its problems and needs, and sharing all its life, instead of outside it, absorbed simply in her own narrow concerns. For the sake of the larger interests, both of Lebanon and of Syria, then, the unity of Syria is to be urged. It is certain that many of the more thoughtful Lebanese themselves hold this view. A similar statement might be made for Palestine; though, as the Holy Land for Jews and Christians and Moslems alike, its situation is unique, and might more readily justify unique treatment, if such treatment were justified anywhere. This will be discussed more particularly in connexion with the recommendation concerning Zionism...

...We recommend, in the fifth place, serious modification of the extreme Zionist programme for Palestine of unlimited immigration of Jews, looking finally to making Palestine distinctly a Jewish state...

...(3) The Commission recognised also that definite encouragement had been given to the Zionists by the Allies in Mr. Balfour's often quoted statement, in its approval by other representatives of the Allies. If, however, the strict terms of the Balfour Statement are adhered to-favouring "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people," "it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine" - it can hardly be doubted that the extreme Zionist programme must be greatly modified. For a national home for the Jewish people is not equivalent to making Palestine into a Jewish State; nor can the erection of such a Jewish State be accomplished without the gravest trespass upon the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine. The fact came out repeatedly in the Commission's conferences with Jewish representatives, that the Zionists looked forward to a practically complete disposition of the present non-Jewish inhabitants of Palestine, by various forms of purchase...

...No British officer, consulted by the Commissioners, believed that the Zionist programme could be carried out except by force of arms. The officers generally thought that a force of not less than 50,000 soldiers would be required even to initiate the programme...the initial claim, often submitted by Zionist representatives, that they have a "right" to Palestine based on an occupation of 2,000 years ago, can hardly be seriously considered.
There is a further consideration that cannot justly be...it may be doubted whether the Jews could possibly seem to either Christians or Moslems proper guardians of the holy places, or custodians of the Holy Land as a whole. The reason is this: The places which are most sacred to Christians those having to do with Jesus-and which are also sacred to Moslems, are not only not sacred to Jews, but abhorrent to them. It is simply impossible, under those circumstances, for Moslems and Christians to feel satisfied to have these places in Jewish hands, or under the custody of Jews. There are still other places about which Moslems must have the same feeling. In fact, from this point of view, the Moslems, just because the sacred places of all three religions are, sacred to them, have made very naturally much more satisfactory custodians of the holy places than the Jews could be...

...There would then be no reason why Palestine could not be included in a united Syrian State, just as other portions of the country, the holy places being cared for by an international and inter-religious commission, somewhat as at present under the oversight and approval of the Mandatory and of the League of Nations. The Jews, of course, would have representation upon this Commission.
The recommendations now made lead naturally to the necessity of recommending what power shall undertake the single Mandate for all Syria.

^

Now They're Getting Serious Over Syria

No, not the dead people. The damaged artifacts:- 

New Report on Damage to Syria’s Cultural Heritage
  
GHN member and Durham University PhD student Emma Cunliffe has prepared a comprehensive summary of the known damage to cultural heritage sites in Syria. Titled “Damage to the Soul: Syria’s Cultural Heritage in Conflict,” the report draws from a number of sources to present a picture of the destruction – from looting to shelling – that is afflicting cultural heritage sites as a result of the ongoing conflict in the country.

Pdf at <http://ghn.globalheritagefund.com/uploads/documents/document_2107.pdf>.

But if the people keep getting killed, is that new Syrian "culture" to be preserved?

^

If April 9, 1948 Is 'Deir Yassin Day', What'll Be April 9, 2012?

April 9, 2012 on the border between Syria and Turkey:

...shots from the Syrian side into Turkey injured three people, angering Ankara a day before a visit by international envoy Kofi Annan.  Two Syrians and a Turkish translator were wounded near a refugee camp in southeastern province of Kilis along the Syrian border, diplomatic sources said. The incident marked the first time Syrian fire from across the border hurt people on Turkish soil...

Actually, worse:

...Syrian forces fired across the border into a refugee camp near the town of Kilis in south-western Gaziantep province.  It was the first such incident since Turkey began sheltering thousands of fleeing Syrians last summer and the latest to fuel international alarm about the escalating crisis.  Mohammad Abdelqader, a refugee in the camp, told Reuters he had witnessed the shootings on Monday and that two Syrians had been killed and two more had been injured. Turkey is understood to have immediately protested...

And from Turkey, we go to Lebanon:-

The bloody conflict in Syria spilled across two tense borders Monday when gunfire from government forces killed a cameraman in Lebanon and wounded at least six people in a refugee camp in Turkey, authorities said.

^

Mull Over This Statistic

the Syrian death toll has moved from 2,000 to over 7,000 - about five times more than the Palestinian casualties during Israel’s Operation Cast Lead in late 2008 and early 2009.

 Burak Bekdİl in Turkey's Hurriyet Daily News

And he adds:

“In a 2007 study, Gunnar Heinsohn from the University of Bremen and Daniel Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum, found that some 11 million Muslims have been violently killed since 1948, of which 35,000, (0.3 percent) died during the six years of Arab war against Israel, or one out of every 315 fatalities. In contrast, over 90 percent who perished were killed by fellow Muslims.”...

...one of the victims [in Syria], a one-legged revolutionary singer undergoing medical treatment in safe Turkish territory. Time magazine quotes the man, one of the 300 who have fled to Turkey in the most recent wave of refugees, as saying: “We’d rather accept Israel than Bashar […] The Israelis didn’t do to the Palestinians what Bashar has done to Syria.”
Who, really, knows better how to kill?

Dear Arabs and their liberal/progressive anti-Israel supporters, think about that.


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