Statement of the Zionist Organization regarding Palestine

Summary

The Zionist Organization’s proposals to the Peace Conference of 3 February 1919: draft resolutions recognising the historic title of the Jewish people to Palestine and their right to reconstitute their National Home there, vesting sovereign possession in the League of Nations with government entrusted to Great Britain as Mandatory, and conditioning the mandate to secure the Jewish National Home and ultimately an autonomous Commonwealth — with Jewish immigration and close settlement promoted, a representative Jewish Council offered priority concessions and charge of Jewish education, and boundaries drawn in a Schedule running north of Sidon and east along a line west of the Hedjaz Railway to the Gulf of Akaba; a supporting statement argues the historic title on five grounds, from the land as the Jews’ historic home to its need of redemption by a population “the Jews alone can supply” (Statement of the Zionist Organization regarding Palestine, lines 73-149).

What the file is

• The statement as reproduced by UNISPAL, which labels it a non-UN document and gives its document source as the Zionist Organization, downloaded from https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-199976/ (access basis: public-domain). The original is the HTML page; the supplied text copy (about 1,625 words, lines 1-215) is a plain-text rendering with no page markers, so locators are line numbers. UN page furniture occupies lines 1-71 and 153-214; the statement is lines 73-151.
• The date is given in two calendars: “Third day of February Nineteen hundred and nineteen” and “Third day of Adar Five thousand six hundred and seventy nine” (lines 75-77). Two provisions of the draft are expressly placeholders — resolution 4 on general mandate conditions and condition III on the Holy Places (lines 89, 107).
• Text quality: the draft resolutions and Schedule are clean; the supporting statement’s paragraphs lose much punctuation in the text copy (long runs without full stops), and some Schedule place-names are garbled. Points held under Open questions.

Section by section

• Draft resolutions 1-3 (lines 83-87): the High Contracting Parties recognise “the historic title of the Jewish people to Palestine and the right of the Jews to reconstitute in Palestine their National Home”; the boundaries shall be as in the annexed Schedule; “The sovereign possession of Palestine shall be vested in the League of Nations and the Government entrusted to Great Britain as Mandatory of the League.”
• Resolution 4 (line 89): a placeholder for applying such general mandate conditions as are suitable.
• Resolution 5(I) (line 91): Palestine shall be placed under political, administrative and economic conditions securing the establishment of the Jewish National Home “and ultimately render possible the creation of an autonomous Commonwealth”, clearly understood that nothing shall 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.
• Resolution 5(II) (lines 93-101): the Mandatory shall (a) promote Jewish immigration and close settlement on the land, “the established rights of the present non-Jewish population being equitably safeguarded”; (b) accept the cooperation of a Council representative of the Jews of Palestine and of the world, to be established for the National Home’s development, and entrust it with the organisation of Jewish education; (c) offer that Council, if its constitution precludes private profit, priority in any concession for public works or development of natural resources.
• Further conditions (lines 103-107): the Mandatory shall encourage the widest practicable self-government for localities; there shall be for ever the fullest freedom of religious worship for all creeds, and no discrimination in citizenship and civil rights on grounds of religion or race; a placeholder provision on control of the Holy Places.
• The Schedule — boundaries (lines 109-123): north from a point on the Mediterranean south of Sidon, by the Lebanon foothill watersheds to Jisr el Karaon and El Bire, between the Wadi el Kook and Wadi et Teim basins, along the Hermon’s eastern and western slope divide west of Beit Jenn, then eastward by the Nahr Mughaniye’s northern watersheds close to and west of the Hedjaz Railway; east, a line close to and west of the Hedjaz Railway terminating in the Gulf of Akaba; south, a frontier to be agreed with the Egyptian Government; west, the Mediterranean. Details to be settled by a Special Commission with Jewish representation.
• The historic title, considerations 1-5 (lines 131-139): (1) the land is the historic home of the Jews, source of spiritual and moral influences of supreme value to mankind; driven out by violence, they never ceased to long and hope for return. (2) Millions of Jews, particularly in Eastern Europe, live in deplorable, congested conditions; Palestine is an urgent outlet and the country above all in which the Jewish masses would cast their lot, capable of holding a prosperous population many times its present number. (3) Palestine can hold only a proportion of “the fourteen millions or more” of world Jewry, whose equal rights elsewhere the Conference should secure; a National Home will still inspire and raise them. (4) Such a Palestine serves the world, “whose real wealth consists In the healthy diversities of its civilisations”. (5) The land itself needs redemption from desolation, requiring stable and enlightened government and an energetic, intelligent, devoted population backed by large financial resources: “Such a population the Jews alone can supply.”
• The record and the need (lines 141-145): thirty years of Jewish activity in Palestine within the Turkish system; some millions of pounds sterling spent, chiefly on mostly successful agricultural settlements; scientific methods and capable agriculture; Hebrew revived as a living language of schools and daily life; foundations of a Jewish University laid at Jerusalem; since the British occupation the Zionist Organization has spent approximately £50,000 a month on relief, education and sanitation; great sums are promised from the Jews of the world, if a National Home is assured, for drainage, irrigation, roads, railways, harbours, public works, land settlement and house building; hundreds of thousands of Jews seek to begin life anew in Palestine, some already reaching Trieste and Rome on foot.
• Recognition (lines 147-149): the historic title was recognised by the British Government in its Declaration of 2 November 1917 to Lord Rothschild, quoted in full.

Key passages

• “The High Contracting Parties recognise the historic title of the Jewish people to Palestine and the right of the Jews to reconstitute in Palestine their National Home.” (line 83)
• “The sovereign possession of Palestine shall be vested in the League of Nations and the Government entrusted to Great Britain as Mandatory of the League.” (line 87)
• “Promote Jewish immigration and close settlement on the land, the established rights of the present non-Jewish population being equitably safeguarded.” (line 95)
• “Lastly the land itself needs redemption Much of it is left desolate Its present condition is a standing reproach.” (line 139)
• “Such a population the Jews alone can supply.” (line 139)

Evidence the work relies on

• The statement’s own assertions, presented without cited documents or statistics beyond its figures: “the fourteen millions or more” of Jews worldwide (line 135), “some millions of pounds sterling” spent in Palestine (line 141), approximately £50,000 a month spent by the Zionist Organization since the British occupation (line 143), and the British Declaration of 2 November 1917, quoted in full as recognition of the historic title (lines 147-149).

Analysis

• Form: a lobby draft in the Peace Conference’s own instruments — resolutions ready for adoption, a boundary Schedule, and a supporting argument. Its programme goes beyond the 1917 Declaration it quotes: reconstitution of a National Home, an eventual autonomous Commonwealth, a Jewish Council with education and priority concessions, and boundaries extending north of Sidon and east to the Hedjaz Railway line.
• Presentation of the existing population: the non-Jewish population appears in the draft only as rights to be safeguarded equitably and not prejudiced, and in the argument as part of a land described as much desolate and awaiting redemption; it is given no national claim, name or number anywhere in the file.

People, organizations, places and events

World Zionist Organization, League of Nations, Britain, Balfour Declaration, Paris Peace Conference

Concepts

Jewish National Home

How it relates to other sources

• Its quoted recognition text is the Balfour Declaration itself, ingested at The Balfour Declaration; this statement capitalises “a National Home” where the Avalon letter text has “a national home” (see Open questions).
• A month earlier the same organisation’s representative, Weizmann, had signed the Faisal-Weizmann Agreement with Faisal, whose Article III guarantees the 1917 Declaration and whose Article IV pairs large-scale immigration with protection of Arab peasant and tenant farmers (Faisal-Weizmann Agreement (1919), lines 87-93); this statement, addressed to the Conference, contains no reference to Faisal, the Arab State or that agreement.
• Pappé’s map 1 records the area claimed by the World Zionist Organisation at the Paris Peace Conference 1919 as extending beyond Palestine, north to between Sidon and Tyre, east to Quneitra, Lake Tiberias and a strip east of the Jordan, and south-west toward al-Arish and Aqaba (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.332); the Schedule here is the textual claim that map draws.
• Faisal’s 1921 memorandum asks the same Allied powers for the opposite settlement — Arab independence and unity, Palestine included in Syria (Memorandum Submitted to the Conference of Allied Powers at the House of Commons, line 85).

Open questions

• The draft itself leaves two provisions unwritten: resolution 4 (general mandate conditions) and condition III (control of the Holy Places), both marked “(Provision to be inserted…)” (lines 89, 107).
• In the supporting statement’s quotation of the 1917 Declaration (line 149), “National Home” is capitalised, where the Avalon text of the letter has “national home” (The Balfour Declaration, lines 35-39). Held as each file prints it.
• Schedule place-names as printed in the text copy are partly garbled (“tile WAD: EL Kook” at line 115), and the £ sign at line 143 is rendered “œ” (“approximately œ50,000 a month”); the figure is read as £50,000 from the context of the same paragraph’s “millions of pounds sterling”, and the rendering is held here.
• The statement gives no figure for Palestine’s present population, while claiming the land can hold “many times as numerous” a population (line 133); its development figures are its own, uncited.

Coverage

lines 1-215 of 215, read in full.