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Mandate for Palestine (1922)

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aliasesMandate for Palestine, League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, Palestine Mandate

18 min read

Summary

The League of Nations instrument (C. 529. M. 314. 1922. VI; done at London, 24 July 1922; communicated from Geneva, 12 August 1922) by which the Council of the League confirms the mandate for Palestine entrusted by the Principal Allied Powers to His Britannic Majesty: a preamble incorporating the Balfour Declaration of 2 November 1917 — the Mandatory is responsible for putting it into effect, on the understanding that nothing prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status of Jews in any other country, with recognition given to the Jewish people’s historical connection with Palestine and the grounds for reconstituting their national home there — and 28 articles giving the Mandatory full powers of legislation and administration, charging it with securing the establishment of the Jewish national home and the development of self-governing institutions, recognising an appropriate Jewish agency (the Zionist organisation, so long as appropriate) as a public body, facilitating Jewish immigration and close settlement on State and waste lands, and governing nationality, the Holy Places, the Wakfs, foreign relations, non-discrimination, official languages (English, Arabic and Hebrew), annual reporting to the Council, and — in Article 25 — postponement or withholding of the mandate’s provisions east of the Jordan (Mandate for Palestine (1922), PDF p.1-13).

What the file is

  • A scanned copy of the League’s bilingual printed instrument: League document C. 529. M. 314. 1922. VI, communicated to the Council and the Members of the League from Geneva on 12 August 1922 (PDF p.1), printed for the League of Nations by Imprimeries Réunies S.A., Lausanne (PDF p.14). The original is the PDF; the supplied text copy (about 5,812 words) is its OCR layer, with === PDF p.N === markers, so locators are PDF page numbers. Downloaded from the UNISPAL copy at https://www.un.org/unispal/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/C-529-M-314-1922-VI_BI.pdf (access basis: public-domain).
  • Structure: cover (PDF p.1); the French text in full — preamble and Articles 1-28 (PDF p.2-7); the English text in full — preamble and Articles 1-28 (PDF p.8-13); printer’s imprint (PDF p.14). The two texts are parallel versions of the same instrument, article for article; the instrument is dated by its execution clause, “Done at London the twenty-fourth day of July, one thousand nine hundred and twenty-two” (PDF p.13; French at PDF p.7), and is a certified true copy over the Secretary-General’s name.
  • Text quality: the OCR layer is heavily garbled in places — broken and hyphenated words, “011” for “on”, “110” for “no”, “shall lake” for “shall take”, “in lien of” for “in lieu of”, “penality” for “penalty”, a dropped initial in “uthorised”, and the French Article 14 headed “Article 1 1.” Points relied on were checked against the original’s printed pages (Article 14’s heading, PDF p.4; the Article 21 numbering, PDF p.6); the substance is recoverable throughout. One substantive divergence between the two language texts is in the original itself: the French Article 21 rules are numbered 1-7 and 9, with no paragraph 8, while the English rules are numbered (1)-(8) complete, the final rule’s content identical in both (PDF p.6, p.12; see Open questions).

Section by section

  • Preamble (PDF p.2 in French, p.8 in English): the Principal Allied Powers have agreed, to give effect to Article 22 of the Covenant, to entrust the administration of the territory of Palestine, formerly part of the Ottoman Empire (English: “which formerly belonged to the Turkish Empire”), within boundaries to be fixed by them, to a Mandatory selected by them; the Mandatory is to be responsible for putting into effect the 1917 declaration in favour of a national home for the Jewish people, with the civil-and-religious-rights proviso for existing non-Jewish communities and for the rights and political status of Jews in any other country; recognition is thereby given to the Jewish people’s historical connection with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home there; His Britannic Majesty is selected and has accepted; the Council, the degree of authority not having been previously agreed, confirms the mandate and defines its terms.
  • Article 1 (PDF p.2, p.8): the Mandatory shall have full powers of legislation and administration, save as limited by the mandate’s terms.
  • Article 2 (PDF p.2, p.8): the Mandatory is responsible for placing the country under political, administrative and economic conditions securing the establishment of the Jewish national home, as laid down in the preamble, and the development of self-governing institutions, and for safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of race and religion.
  • Article 3 (PDF p.2, p.8): the Mandatory shall, so far as circumstances permit, encourage local autonomy.
  • Article 4 (PDF p.3, p.9): an appropriate Jewish agency is recognised as a public body to advise and co-operate with the Administration in economic, social and other matters affecting the establishment of the Jewish national home and the interests of the Jewish population, and, subject to the Administration’s control, to assist and take part in the country’s development. The Zionist organisation, so long as its organisation and constitution are in the Mandatory’s opinion appropriate, shall be recognised as such agency, and shall take steps in consultation with His Britannic Majesty’s Government to secure the co-operation of all Jews willing to assist in establishing the Jewish national home.
  • Article 5 (PDF p.3, p.9): no Palestine territory shall be ceded or leased to, or in any way placed under the control of, the Government of any foreign Power.
  • Article 6 (PDF p.3, p.9): the Administration, while ensuring that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced, shall facilitate Jewish immigration under suitable conditions and encourage, in co-operation with the Article 4 agency, close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes.
  • Article 7 (PDF p.3, p.9): the Administration shall enact a nationality law, including provisions to facilitate the acquisition of Palestinian citizenship by Jews who take up their permanent residence in Palestine.
  • Article 8 (PDF p.3, p.9): the privileges and immunities of foreigners, including consular jurisdiction and protection as enjoyed by Capitulation or usage in the Ottoman Empire, shall not be applicable in Palestine; unless the Powers whose nationals enjoyed them on 1 August 1914 have renounced re-establishment or agreed a period of non-application, they are to be re-established in full, or as modified by agreement, at the expiration of the mandate.
  • Article 9 (PDF p.3, p.9): the Mandatory shall see that the judicial system assures foreigners and natives alike a complete guarantee of their rights; respect for personal status and religious interests is fully guaranteed; the control and administration of Wakfs shall be exercised in accordance with religious law and the founders’ dispositions.
  • Article 10 (PDF p.3, p.9): pending special extradition agreements for Palestine, the Mandatory’s extradition treaties with other foreign Powers apply to Palestine.
  • Article 11 (PDF p.4, p.10): the Administration shall take all necessary measures to safeguard the community’s interests in the country’s development and, subject to the Mandatory’s international obligations, has full power for public ownership or control of any natural resources and of public works, services and utilities; it shall introduce a land system appropriate to the country’s needs, having regard among other things to promoting close settlement and intensive cultivation of the land. It may arrange with the Article 4 agency, on fair and equitable terms, to construct or operate public works, services and utilities and develop natural resources not directly undertaken by the Administration; no profits distributed by the agency shall exceed a reasonable rate of interest on capital, and further profits shall be used by it for the country’s benefit in a manner approved by the Administration.
  • Article 12 (PDF p.4, p.10): the Mandatory controls Palestine’s foreign relations and the issuance of exequaturs to foreign consuls, and may afford diplomatic and consular protection to citizens of Palestine outside its territorial limits.
  • Article 13 (PDF p.4, p.10): all responsibility for the Holy Places and religious buildings and sites — preserving existing rights, securing free access and free exercise of worship, while ensuring public order and decorum — is assumed by the Mandatory, responsible solely to the League of Nations; nothing confers authority to interfere with the fabric or management of purely Moslem sacred shrines, whose immunities are guaranteed.
  • Article 14 (PDF p.4, p.10): a special Commission shall be appointed by the Mandatory to study, define and determine rights and claims concerning the Holy Places and the different religious communities; its nomination method, composition and functions require the Council’s approval, without which it shall not be appointed or enter on its functions.
  • Article 15 (PDF p.4, p.10): complete freedom of conscience and free exercise of all forms of worship, subject only to public order and morals; no discrimination of any kind between inhabitants on grounds of race, religion or language; no person shall be excluded from Palestine on the sole ground of religious belief; each community’s right to maintain its own schools in its own language is not to be denied or impaired, subject to general educational requirements.
  • Article 16 (PDF p.5, p.11): the Mandatory shall exercise such supervision over religious or eleemosynary bodies of all faiths as public order and good government require; subject to it, no obstruction of or interference with their enterprise, and no discrimination against their representatives or members on grounds of religion or nationality.
  • Article 17 (PDF p.5, p.11): the Administration may organise on a voluntary basis the forces necessary for peace, order and defence, under the Mandatory’s supervision, and may not use them for other purposes without the Mandatory’s consent; except for those purposes no military, naval or air forces shall be raised or maintained; the Administration may contribute to the cost of the Mandatory’s forces in Palestine; the Mandatory may at all times use Palestine’s roads, railways and ports for armed forces, fuel and supplies.
  • Article 18 (PDF p.5, p.11): no discrimination in Palestine against nationals of any League Member State, including its incorporated companies, as compared with the Mandatory’s or any foreign State’s nationals, in taxation, commerce, navigation, industries or professions, or treatment of merchant vessels or civil aircraft; no discrimination against goods originating in or destined for those States; freedom of transit under equitable conditions across the mandated area. Subject to that and the mandate’s other provisions, the Administration may, on the Mandatory’s advice, impose the taxes and customs duties it considers necessary, develop natural resources and safeguard the population’s interests, and conclude a special customs agreement with any State whose territory in 1914 was wholly included in Asiatic Turkey or Arabia.
  • Article 19 (PDF p.5, p.11): the Mandatory shall adhere on Palestine’s behalf to general international conventions, existing or future with the League’s approval, on the slave traffic, arms and ammunition traffic, drug traffic, commercial equality, freedom of transit and navigation, aerial navigation, postal, telegraphic and wireless communication, and literary, artistic and industrial property.
  • Article 20 (PDF p.5, p.11): the Mandatory shall co-operate on Palestine’s behalf, so far as religious, social and other conditions permit, in any common League policy for preventing and combating disease, including diseases of plants and animals.
  • Article 21 (PDF p.6, p.11-12): within twelve months the Mandatory shall secure a Law of Antiquities ensuring equality of treatment in excavations and archaeological research for all League Members’ nationals, on the rules set out: “antiquity” is any construction or product of human activity earlier than the year 1700 A.D.; protection by encouragement rather than threat, with a reward for a reported unauthorised discovery; no disposal except to the competent Department and no export without licence; penalties for malicious or negligent destruction or damage; digging only by authorised persons; equitable terms for expropriation of land of historical or archaeological interest; authorisation only to persons of sufficient archaeological experience, without excluding any nation’s scholars without good grounds; division of excavation proceeds between excavator and Department, or a fair indemnity where division is impossible for scientific reasons.
  • Article 22 (PDF p.6, p.12): English, Arabic and Hebrew are the official languages of Palestine; Arabic statements or inscriptions on stamps or money are to be repeated in Hebrew, and Hebrew in Arabic.
  • Article 23 (PDF p.6, p.12): the Administration shall recognise the respective communities’ holy days as legal days of rest for their members.
  • Article 24 (PDF p.7, p.13): the Mandatory shall make an annual report to the Council on the measures taken during the year to carry out the mandate, with copies of all laws and regulations promulgated or issued.
  • Article 25 (PDF p.7, p.13): between the Jordan and Palestine’s eastern boundary as ultimately determined, the Mandatory may, with the Council’s consent, postpone or withhold application of provisions it considers inapplicable to existing local conditions, and make such provision for those territories’ administration as it considers suitable, provided nothing inconsistent with Articles 15, 16 and 18 is done.
  • Article 26 (PDF p.7, p.13): disputes with another League Member over the mandate’s interpretation or application, if not settled by negotiation, are to be submitted to the Permanent Court of International Justice provided for by Article 14 of the Covenant.
  • Article 27 (PDF p.7, p.13): the Council’s consent is required for any modification of the mandate’s terms.
  • Article 28 (PDF p.7, p.13): on termination, the Council shall safeguard in perpetuity, under the League’s guarantee, the rights secured by Articles 13 and 14, and use its influence to secure that the Government of Palestine fully honours the Administration’s legitimately incurred financial obligations, including public servants’ pension and gratuity rights. The original is deposited in the League’s archives; certified copies go to all League Members.

Key passages

  • “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 favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people” (PDF p.8)
  • “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” (PDF p.8)
  • “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.” (PDF p.8, Article 2)
  • “The Zionist organisation, so long as its organisation and constitution are in the opinion of the Mandatory appropriate, shall be recognised as such agency.” (PDF p.9, Article 4)
  • “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” (PDF p.9, Article 6)
  • “English, Arabic and Hebrew shall be the official languages of Palestine” (PDF p.12, Article 22; the text copy renders the closing full stop as a hyphen, reading uncertain)
  • “In the territories lying between the Jordan and the eastern boundary of Palestine as ultimately determined, the Mandatory shall be entitled, with the consent of the Council of the League of Nations, to postpone or withhold application of such provisions of this mandate as he may consider inapplicable to the existing local conditions” (PDF p.13, Article 25)

Evidence the work relies on

  • The instrument is itself the operative text; it relies on no evidence. Its preamble rests its authority on Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations (including paragraph 8), on the Principal Allied Powers’ agreement and selection of the Mandatory, and on the British declaration of 2 November 1917, which it recites but does not reproduce in full (PDF p.2, p.8).

Analysis

  • Form: a League Council confirmation defining, under Article 22(8) of the Covenant, the degree of authority, control and administration the Mandatory is to exercise. Its operative centre is Article 2’s double charge — conditions securing the Jewish national home and the development of self-governing institutions, with the civil and religious rights of all inhabitants safeguarded — and the articles that follow distribute that charge: a recognised Jewish agency with a public-body role (Article 4), immigration and close settlement (Article 6), a nationality law facilitating Palestinian citizenship for permanently resident Jews (Article 7), and a land system directed to close settlement and intensive cultivation (Article 11), alongside general clauses on rights, non-discrimination, languages and worship (Articles 9, 13-16, 22-23) and League supervision by annual report, dispute referral and a consent requirement for modification (Articles 24, 26-27).
  • Presentation of the population: in the preamble and Article 2, Palestine’s existing majority enters only as “existing non-Jewish communities” and as “all the inhabitants”, holders of civil and religious rights; political rights are named in this text only for Jews outside Palestine (“the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country”, PDF p.8). Self-governing institutions are charged to the Mandatory’s responsibility without a timetable, electorate or form being specified anywhere in the 28 articles.
  • The text’s own silences: Palestine’s boundaries are left to be fixed by the Allied Powers (preamble) and its eastern boundary is “as ultimately determined” (Article 25); no definition of “national home” is given beyond the preamble’s recital; and Article 25 creates, for the territory east of the Jordan, a standing power to postpone or withhold the mandate’s other provisions, save Articles 15, 16 and 18.
  • Limits of the file: it is the mandate as confirmed in July 1922, in the League’s certified bilingual printing; it does not record the Council’s deliberations, any reservations by members, or the separate memorandum on Transjordan, none of which is in the file.

People, organizations, places and events

League of Nations, Britain, Mandate for Palestine, Balfour Declaration, World Zionist Organization, Jewish Agency, Permanent Court of International Justice, Transjordan

Concepts

Jewish National Home, Mandate system, Waqf, Holy Places

How it relates to other sources

  • It is the instrument the Statement of the Zionist Organization regarding Palestine had proposed in draft in February 1919 — League sovereignty, Britain as Mandatory, conditions securing the National Home — in the form actually adopted: sovereignty is not vested in the League in terms, the Mandatory holds full powers of legislation and administration (Article 1), and the draft’s autonomous Commonwealth aim and boundary Schedule do not appear.
  • The British Policy in Palestine — British White Paper of June 1922 of the previous month reads this text in its draft form: the White Paper’s account of Article IV — a special position relating to measures affecting the Jewish population, with no share in government — corresponds to the confirmed Article 4, and the White Paper’s Article 81 appeal right rests on the draft Order in Council, not on this instrument, which gives appeal only by annual report, dispute between League Members (Article 26) and the Holy Places responsibility to the League alone (Article 13).
  • Pappé’s statement that Britain’s Mandate charter incorporated the 1917 Balfour Declaration wholesale (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.55-56) is borne out in form by the preamble’s recital, which adopts the declaration’s own words, including its proviso, as the Mandatory’s charge.
  • Banko’s account of Mandate Article 4 giving the World Zionist Organization alone an advisory role, of Article 7 requiring a nationality law for Jewish immigrants without defining nationality or mentioning Arabs, and of Article 12 and consular protection, is the working-out in legislation of Articles 4, 7 and 12 as printed here (The Invention of Palestinian Citizenship, 1918–1947, PDF p.43-45 / printed p.32-34).
  • The Haycraft Commission’s work predates the confirmation: the White Paper and the Commission both speak of the Draft Mandate; the confirmed text’s Article 6 facilitation of Jewish immigration “under suitable conditions” is the provision under which the immigration the Commission investigated continued (Palestine. Disturbances in May, 1921. Reports of the Commission of Inquiry with Correspondence Relating Thereto, PDF p.45-61).

Open questions

  • The French Article 21 rules are numbered 1-7, then 9, with no paragraph 8, in the original as printed (PDF p.6); the English rules are numbered (1)-(8) and complete (PDF p.12), the rule numbered 9 in French being (8) in English with the same content. Whether the French numbering is a printer’s slip cannot be settled from this file; both numberings are held as printed.
  • Wording differences between the language texts, held as printed: Palestine formerly part of “l’Empire ottoman” (French, PDF p.2) against “the Turkish Empire” (English, PDF p.8); the French preamble’s “un foyer national pour le peuple juif” against the English “a national home for the Jewish people”. The file states no rule for which text prevails.
  • The instrument does not fix Palestine’s boundaries, does not name Transjordan — Article 25 describes the territory only as lying between the Jordan and the eastern boundary — and does not state when the mandate enters into force or how the “development of self-governing institutions” in Article 2 is to be measured.
  • OCR artefacts in the text copy are not the instrument’s wording; each relied-on point was checked in the original, and the artefacts are listed in What the file is and recorded in the reading notes.
  • Article 22’s first sentence ends, in the text copy, “official languages of Palestine-” with a hyphen where a full stop is expected; the French text (PDF p.6) closes the sentence with a full stop. Held as reading uncertain in the English text.

Coverage

PDF p.1-14 of 14, read in full.

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