By Rev. Edward H. Flannery
originally published in The Lamp/A Christian Unity Magazine; June, 1969

Numerous discussions with Christians about the State of Israel have convinced me that many of them are not only poorly informed but often badly mistaken about that State, especially with respect to its historical and judicial foundations. Most seem unwilling to consider the subject except in terms of Arab refugees, which problem they over-simplify, and thereby cast doubt on the State’s right to exist. Frequently the matter is put crudely: ‘But didn’t the Jews rob the Arabs of their homeland?’

We are aware of the pitfalls and complexities of trying to answer this question and sensitive to the chasm that separates Israelis and Arabs in this regard. It is incumbent on all men of good will, nevertheless, to seek out the facts of the matter honestly and courageously, and to shun exaggerations and distortions of either side.

If we arrive at a pro-Israel position this is because, we believe, a dispassionate and complete consideration of all the facts requires it. This is not to ignore Arab claims and rightness on particular points, nor to approve all that the Israelis have done. It simply means that an objective assessment of essential facts of the situation is in Israel’s favor. Whoever deals with nothing but the question of refugees, boundaries, over-reaction, may find cause to criticize Israel, but cannot on that account cast doubt on Israel’s right to live and develop in peace.

The roots of the tragic conflict between Arabs and Israelis over the State of Israel can be traced to two diametrically opposed views of ownership of the land of Palestine. The Arabs hold that it is an Arab land and therefore could not morally or legally be given to the Jews: and so, many conclude, Israel as a State should be eliminated. The Jewish position is that Palestine belongs both to Palestinian Arabs and Jews and that the State of Israel is morally and legally well founded.

Obviously, these positions are inherently contradictory, so that one is necessarily right, the other wrong, despite whatever partial truths or falsehoods either may contain. To decide their rightness or wrongness we must first turn to history, then to law. Our objective is to prove not only the legal validity of the State but of the moral basis upon which this legality rests.

1. Is Palestine an Arab country?

What does history tell us?

A crossroads between Asia, Europe, and Africa, Palestine has remained (from the destruction of Jerusalem until today) the neglected province of absent rulers and the runway of fluctuating populations. First a Roman province, then Byzantine, it came under Arab rule in 637 A.D. The Arabs ruled it as foreign conquerors for 400 years to lose it in 1071 to the Seljuk Turks (1071-1099). Christian Crusaders occupied it for nearly two centuries, after which it was ruled by Tartars, Mongols (1244-1260), Mamelukes of Egypt (1260-1517), and Ottoman Turks, who held it until it was mandated by the Allies to Great Britain at the close of World War I.

Thus, it has remained an amorphous geopolitical entity without clear boundaries, a thankless host to Jews, Arabs, Christian pilgrims, bedouins, and the various agents of its conquerors. In the last thirteen centuries it has changed hands fourteen times and has at no time been an independent country. No national claim to it was made by any group within it from the First to the Twentieth century.

Through the centuries it had a clear, if fluctuating, Arab majority. It was never, on the other hand, without a Jewish population, and often in the course of the centuries Palestine was the center of world Jewry’s cultural and religious life. Though a small minority, Jews alone maintained a continuous presence going back to the earliest times. Moreover, until Jewish settlers began populating it in large numbers in the latter half of the nineteenth century, the land evidenced the neglect it had suffered. The land of "milk and honey" of old was now for the greater part a morass of desert, swamp and stones. The comment has been correctly made that never was there a land more than Palestine that called out for a nation and a people to possess and care for it. The historian of Palestine understands this better than anyone else.

There is another aspect of the problem, however, that history does not answer. It is often assumed by critics of Israel that Palestine was an Arab land by virtue of its Arab majority. It is an ambiguous argument since it is not clear whether the principle is to be applied universally and impartially. Did it apply in times past when Arabs were a majority under the Turks? Does it apply today in Israel’s part of Palestine where Jews are a majority? Or only in 1920? The argument, of course, is based on the principle of national self-determination.

The principle came into prominence after World War I thanks principally to Wilson’s peace proposals and has been generally accepted ever since. It is my contention 1) that the principle is not a mechanical one based only on numerical population but on other more qualitative considerations which history and culture provide; 2) that its application must always be validated by legal agreements of parties legitimately empowered to decide the status of the land involved, and 3) that it is not retroactive. If it were retroactive, most states in the modern world would have to be unmade.

On all above scores the principles of self-determination cannot be accepted as legitimation of the Arab claim to all of Palestine. It could as well be employed to legitimate the claim of Israel today.

But even on the basis of numbers, the case of Israel is stronger than its critics would allow. When they speak of Jews robbing or displacing Arabs they confess an ignorance of Palestinian and Zionist history. Jews commenced to settle in Palestine in larger numbers in the latter half of the nineteenth century, purchasing land, developing it and generally employing Arabs to do the work. It is not our intent to describe the growth and development of the Jewish settlement of Palestine, except to say that it was a legal and human process, which finally provided the basis for the partition plan of the United Nations.

It is apparently not generally known how recent the Arab claim to the whole of Palestine is. The claim is the product of Arab nationalism, which existed in cultural forms in the nineteenth century but did not take a definite political expression until after World War I. Even though Jewish settlement of Palestine had begun in earnest in the 1880s, no clear Arab hostility to it was manifest until after the Paris Peace Conference.

As late as 1919, at the Conference, Emir Feisal, Sheriff of Mecca, who was to be the ruler of the Arab State Britain promised to sponsor, accepted the Balfour Declaration (see below) and signed with Chaim Weizmann of the World Zionist Organization an agreement in which they declared that they were "mindful of the racial kinship and ancient bonds existing between the Arabs and the Jewish people." Article IV of the agreement stated:

"All necessary measures shall be taken to encourage and stimulate immigration of Jews into Palestine on a large scale, and as quickly as possible to settle Jewish immigrants upon the land through closer settlement and intensive cultivation of the soil. In taking such measures the Arab peasant and tenant farmers shall be protected in their rights, and shall be assisted in forwarding their economic development."

Later, Feisal, because of duplicity on the part of Britain and France, dissociated himself from the agreement. His statement nonetheless stands as authentic testimony to attitudes and policies of the time.

In the same year Feisal, in a letter to Felix Frankfurter, later Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court and a Zionist, wrote these words:

"I want to take this opportunity of my first contact with American Zionists to tell you what I have been able to say to Dr. Weizmann in Arabia and Europe.

"We feel that the Arabs and Jews are cousins in race, having suffered similar oppressions at the hands of the powers stronger than themselves, and by a happy coincidence have been able to take the first steps toward the attainment of their national ideals together. We Arabs, especially the educated among us, look with the deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement. Our deputation here in Paris is fully acquainted with the proposals/ i.e., for a Jewish state on both sides of the Jordan/ submitted yesterday by the Zionist Organization to the Peace Conference. We will do our best . . . to help them through; we will wish the Jews a most hearty welcome home. Dr. Weizmann has been a great helper in our cause, and I hope the Arabs may soon be in a position to make the Jews some return for their kindness. . . . "

At this point we leave the pages of history. Its testimony is clear: as the second decade of the present century drew to a close Palestine could by no means be considered an Arab country in which Jews had no rights. Competing claims by Arabs and Jews, we shall see, had been made to the Allied governments into whose jurisdiction Palestine had fallen. It was against this historical background and these claims that the forces of international law would move to establish both an independent Israeli State, a Palestinian Arab State, as well as several other Arab States again.

2. Is the State of Israel Legally Founded?

The juridical foundation of the State of Israel begins with the Balfour Declaration. This took the form of an official letter from the British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Lord Rothschild of England in 1917. Its text ran:

"His Majesty’s Government views with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."

The Declaration was the fruit of almost three years of diplomatic efforts that went on between the Zionists and the British government. Indeed, it was the fruit of efforts made from the beginning of the Zionist movement. Since its first foundation in 1897 as a modern organization at the Congress of Basle, Zionism had pursued two courses: one seeking a legal charter from the various governments that would be involved in setting up a Jewish state; and a second which concerned itself with the purchase, settlement, and development of the land in Palestine. The Balfour Declaration made no mention of a Jewish state but only a "national home," but posterior developments were to make clear that this was the aim of Jewish efforts, which aim was accepted by the various political authorities (excluding Arabs).

Of itself, the Balfour Declaration was of no political efficacy. All would depend on whether its principles would be accepted by the Allied governments and finally the world community. This acceptance began immediately through ratification by the French, Italian, and United States governments. At the same time a Zionist emissary to the Vatican was assured by Pope Benedict XV that "Jews and Catholics would be good neighbors in Palestine."

More important than these approvals was the incorporation of the Balfour principle into the Palestine Mandate Agreement between Britain and the League of Nations in 1920 at the San Remo Conference of the Allies. It was also incorporated into the treaty of peace between the Allies and Turkey at Sevres in the same year. And in 1922, when a special mandate for Palestine was enacted, the "historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine" was recognized, the principle of the Balfour Declaration was incorporated and Jewish immigration into Palestine was encouraged. At this point the Balfour principle had acquired an effective international legal status.

Critics of the Balfour Declaration have attempted to declare it null and void on the basis of two other political instruments which predated it, namely, the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 and the recognition of an independent Arab Palestine supposedly conceded in letters from Sir Arthur Henry McMahon himself, who had made territorial exceptions in his agreement with Hussein, expressly stated in a letter to the London Times in 1937 that he had never intended to include Palestine in his promise of Arab independence. In any case, a British White Paper, written by Winston Churchill in 1922, declared explicitly that "the whole of Palestine west of the Jordan was excluded from Sir Arthur Henry McMahon’s pledge."

The Sykes-Picot Agreement, which incidentally contradicted McMahon’s promises to Hussein, and which did not come to light until 1917, provided for a confederation of Arab countries under joint protectorates of France and England, with a large part of Palestine internationalized and Jews given a political, religious, and civil equality only. This agreement, a secret one in the old style, had no more binding force than the Balfour Declaration. As in the case of the latter, all depended on whether it would be subsequently and openly accepted and incorporated into the various legal instruments which would determine in detail the destiny of the postwar Middle East. As it turned out, the British, the Arabs and the Jews were all discontented with the Sykes-Picot arrangement; and as the Peace Conference got under way, it was forgotten about on all sides and replaced with new arrangements, though even in these the main lines of Sykes-Picot were substantially adhered to.

It was in these critical postwar years of the early twenties that the seeds of the Arab-Israeli conflict were sown. At this point the situation was quite fluid and political arrangements that would satisfy all parties might have been worked out if all had the far-sightedness and the sensitivities required. But apparently the Zionists of that time lacked an understanding of the national aspirations of the Arabs, and the Arabs themselves, lacking political experience, resorted more to force than to the more difficult task of convincing world opinion of their case. Meanwhile, much of the confusion of this time and of future years must be attributed to the contradictory commitments made by Britain to both sides. It is unjust at the present time to attribute the blunders and duplicities of the British or Allied governments to Zionism or to the present Israeli government. Who can condemn a harassed and scattered people’s quest for a State in their ancient homeland by overt economic and political efforts?

Another source of misunderstanding concerns the relative apportionment of territory and independence that issued from the promises made by Allied powers. By some strange transportation of scene, one is given the impression by some that the Israelis got the best of it. The facts do not bear this out. After World War I Arabs received seven independent states: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, comprising an area 1,350,000 square miles. Since then another five states have been added, namely: Sudan, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, and Morocco, bringing the total square mileage to 3,500,000 with a total population of some 72 million (100 million today [in 1969]). As for Palestine itself, relying on the Balfour Declaration Jews hoped for the whole of it, including some 45,000 square miles. But in actuality 4/5 of it was made into Transjordan in 1921. Of the remaining 10,000 square miles another 2,000 was subtracted to form the Arab State in Palestine. In short, only 8,000 out of the 45,000 square miles, in which Jews formed a majority, became the State of Israel.

The final establishment of Israel as a State was effected in 1948 when, on the termination of the British Mandate, the General Assembly of the United Nations created a Jewish and an Arab State by partitioning the country. The partition plan was the result of a study conducted by a United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP). The plan was accepted by a vote of 33 to13 with 10 abstentions. It was one of the few issues on which the United States and Soviet Russia have voted together. In its resolution the General Assembly affirmed the creation of

"A Jewish State in the land of Israel, and required the inhabitants themselves to take all measures necessary on their part to carry out the resolution. The recognition by the United Nations of the right of the Jewish people to establish their own state is irrevocable. It is the natural right of the Jewish people, like any other people, to control their own destiny in their sovereign state."

On May 14, 1948 the new State of Israel declared its independence and among other things asserted that it would

"uphold the full social and political equality of all its citizens without distinction of religion, race, or sex; will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, education, and culture; will safeguard the holy places of all religions; and will loyally uphold the principles of the United Nations Charter. . . . In the midst of wanton aggression, we yet call upon the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve the ways of peace and play their part in the development of the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its bodies and institutions."

Eleven minutes after the State of Israel was proclaimed it was recognized by the United States. This country was followed shortly after by the Soviet Union and most Western powers. Today Israel is recognized by 120 countries.

On May 11, 1949, Israel was voted by the General Assembly as a member of the United Nations.

But as the British withdrew and Israel was proclaimed, the armies of Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq marched against her. The partition lines were lost, the Palestinian Arab State disappeared, annexed by Transjordan, and the refugee problem was born.

The Arab-Israeli conflict is a complex and tragic affair. There have been wrongs on both sides and on the side of the Great Powers. But Israel’s juridical foundations, her right to exist and develop in peace cannot be questioned.