Territories Occupied?

What San Remo Really Says

By Maggie Sager of Resisting Occupation

In light of the newly intensified focus on settlement construction in the West

Bank, many Zionists pressed to find justification for this internationally condemned
activity have resorted to the oft-heard argument that the occupied territories are not in
fact occupied at all.

A common iteration of the argument goes something like this: San Remo gave all
of Palestine to the Jews. The British Mandate violated San Remo illegally, as did UN
Resolution 181. Nothing can invalidate San Remo. Thus Jews are exclusively entitled to
the occupied territories and settlement activity is legitimate.

In combating this…interesting…justification for the legality of settlements, as

well as corollary arguments for “better title” and legal acquisition of territory gained by
“defensive occupation” I will attempt to explain exactly what the relevant agreements,
treaties, and international laws actually reveal in a series entitled Territories Occupied?
The first part of this series will focus on San Remo:

A discussion of occupation as relating to the agreement reached by four Allied

powers at the San Remo Conference of 1920 must first be placed in historical context in
order to determine if it, or any other relevant agreement of the time, did in fact give the
Jews exclusive rights to Palestine. Because San Remo relies on the express language of
the Balfour Declaration of 1917, this is where we will start.

What the Balfour Declaration Does and Does Not Say

The Balfour declaration, considered the authoritative statement of British policy

toward Zionism, and related from British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Walter
Rothschild states in part:

His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a

national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the
achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which
may prejudice 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. [1]

The caveat of preserving the “civil and religious rights” of native Palestinians
would in the eyes of most disinterested observers deal a fatal blow to the Zionist claim of
exclusive rights to Palestine. However, most observers are not in fact disinterested. Many
modern Zionists have interpreted this line to mean that while Jews must allow the
presence of Arabs within what is now Israel without instituting a policy of apartheid or
discrimination (a principle Israel arguably violates), the political rights of the indigenous
population were not recognized. Yet this claim falls apart upon further inspection.
 The original draft of the declaration stated “that Palestine should be reconstituted
as the National Home of the Jewish people,” however this language was replaced before
the declaration could be adopted. [2] There exists stark contrast between the implications
of the latter statement and the former. One implies that the whole of Palestine be
designated the Jewish homeland, whereas the other clearly leaves room for indigenous
national aspirations. The fact that one was preferred over the other speaks volumes as to
the intent of the declaration.

What’s more, in 1919 the General Secretary of the World Zionist Organization
made this assertion:

It has been said and is still being obstinately repeated by anti-Zionists again and again,
that Zionism aims at the creation of an independent "Jewish State." But this is wholly
fallacious. [3]

But regardless of what Zionism claimed to be or entail, Winston Churchill

elucidated in unequivocal terms exactly what was at the heart of the British government’s
policy in the White Paper of 1922. According to Churchill:

Unauthorized statements have been made to the effect that the purpose in view is
to create a wholly Jewish Palestine. Phrases have been used such as that Palestine is to
become "as Jewish as England is English." His Majesty's Government regard any such
expectation as impracticable and have no such aim in view. Nor have they at any time
contemplated, as appears to be feared by the Arab delegation, the disappearance or the
subordination of the Arabic population, language, or culture in Palestine. They
would draw attention to the fact that the terms of the Declaration referred to do not
contemplate that Palestine as a whole should be converted into a Jewish National Home,
but that such a Home should be founded `in Palestine.' … It is also necessary to point out
that the Zionist Commission in Palestine, now termed the Palestine Zionist Executive,
has not desired to possess, and does not possess, any share in the general
administration of the country… Further, it is contemplated that the status of all
citizens of Palestine in the eyes of the law shall be Palestinian, and it has never been
intended that they, or any section of them, should possess any other juridical status.
[emphasis added].

This seems quite clear-cut. To go even further, in elucidating the government’s

intentions to the Sharif of Mecca, British Dispatch Commander David Hogarth related,
“Political and economic freedom of the Palestinian population was not in question,” nor
was the possibility of an independent Jewish state in Palestine. [4]

The Hussein-McMahon Correspondence: A Different Story?

There is, however, one glaring issue with Churchill’s white paper, namely his
misinterpretation of the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence of 1915-1916, which
deserves attention. The declaration states:

It is not the case, as has been represented by the Arab Delegation, that during the
war His Majesty's Government gave an undertaking that an independent national
 government should be at once established in Palestine. This representation mainly
rests upon a letter dated the 24th October, 1915, from Sir Henry McMahon, then His
Majesty's High Commissioner in Egypt, to the Sharif of Mecca, now King Hussein of the
Kingdom of the Hejaz. That letter is quoted as conveying the promise to the Sherif of
Mecca to recognise and support the independence of the Arabs within the territories
proposed by him. But this promise was given subject to a reservation made in the same
letter, which excluded from its scope, among other territories, the portions of Syria lying
to the west of the District of Damascus. This reservation has always been regarded by His
Majesty's Government as covering the vilayet of Beirut and the independent Sanjak of
Jerusalem. The whole of Palestine west of the Jordan was thus excluded from Sir. Henry
McMahon's pledge.

Current consensus does not agree with Churchill’s analysis of the territories excluded.
There are myriad issues, as explained below:

• (i) the fact that the word " district" is applied not only to Damascus, &etc, where
the reading of vilayet is at least arguable, but also immediately previously to
Mersina and Alexandretta. No vilayets of these names exist. It would be difficult
to argue that the word " districts " can have two completely different meanings in
the space of a few lines.
• (ii) the fact that Horns and Hama were not the capitals of vilayets, but were both
within the Vilayet of Syria.
• (iii) the fact that the real title of the " Vilayet of Damascus " was " Vilayet of
Syria."
• (iv) the fact that there is no land lying west of the Vilayet of Aleppo.

In a crushing blow to Churchill, the Eastern Committee of the Cabinet held a meeting
in which declassified documents relate this statement:

The Palestine position is this. If we deal with our commitments, there is first the
general pledge to Hussein in October 1915, under which Palestine was included in the
areas as to which Great Britain pledged itself that they should be Arab and independent
in the future…[5]

An interesting picture thus emerges, despite the fact that McMahon’s promises were
invalidated by the Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916 (in which the Allies carved up the
Ottoman empire into spheres of influence, an idea that would serve as the basis for San
Remo) as well as Balfour’s declaration, one in which all of Palestine was offered to the
Sharif of Mecca and not the Jews.

Faisal-Weizmann: More Bad News for Jewish Exclusivity

Sykes-Picot also eviscerated, though not single-handedly, the nascent Faisal-

Weizmann agreement of 1919, reached by Hussein’s son Emir Faisal and Chaim
Weizmann, who would later become president of the World Zionist Organization.
Endorsing the Balfour declaration, and thus implicitly recognizing the political rights of
the indigenous population of what would become Israel, the agreement contained the
following:

• Article 1: Understanding between Arabs and Jews

• Article 2: Borders between an Arab and Palestinian state to be determined by a
commission
• Article 3: Endorsement of the Balfour declaration and the establishment of the
Constitution and Administration of Palestine
• Article 4: Settlement of Jews to the land of Palestine provided that “in taking
such measures the Arab peasant and tenant farmers shall be protected in their
rights [in this case meaning Palestinian Arabs, considering other Arabs would not
be living in Palestine] and shall be assisted in forwarding their economic
development.”
• Article 5: Protections of religious exercises and the guarantee that “no religious
test shall ever be required for the exercise of civil or political rights”
• Article 6: Muslim holy places put under Muslim control
• 3 other articles not relevant to the discussion at hand.

It is interesting to see that a man arguing on behalf of the WZO and happily satisfied
with this arrangement would agree that the indigenous population would be protected so
ardently, with religious, economic and political rights specifically fortified, even when
Arabs would be getting their own sovereign state. It’s almost a shame this agreement
didn’t stand the test of time.

San Remo: What Does it Really Mean?

The agreement reached at the San Remo conference embodied a lot of the basic
principles of Skypes-Picot, e.g. a mandate system. Article 22 of the League of Nations
provides the legal basis for such a division in which mandate holders, to be determined at
a later date, would hold trusteeship over territories to facilitate their emerging national
identities. San Remo also incorporated the Balfour declaration, in identical language
calling for:

…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 was also stated in similar terms that the agreement was reached:

… on the understanding that there was inserted in the process-verbal an undertaking by

the Mandatory Power that this would not involve the surrender of the rights hitherto
enjoyed by the non-Jewish communities in Palestine…

If we are to accept the above statements concerning the intentions of the British
government with the Balfour Declaration, we must accept that these same principles are
at the heart of San Remo. Further, every other (now defunct) agreement of the time
continued to provide for the political rights and incorporation of the indigenous
population of Palestine and did not call for the creation of an independent Jewish state. In
this vein, where do modern Zionists come up with the idea that they were ever granted
exclusive political rights in all of Palestine? How does that make any sense at all?

[1] Yapp, M.E. (1987). The Making of the Modern Near East 1792-1923. Harlow, England: Longman. p. 290
[2] Stein, Leonard (1961). The Balfour Declaration. New York: Simon and Schuster. pp. 470.
[3] History of Zionism (1600-1918), Volume I, Nahum Sokolow, 1919 Longmans, Green, and Company, London,
pages xxiv-xxv
[4] Khouri, Fred John (1985). The Arab-Israeli Dilemma. Syracuse University Press. ISBN 9780815623403, pp. 8-10.
[5] Palestine Papers 1917-1922, Doreen Ingrams, page 48 and UK Archives PRO. CAB 27/24