"for the colonized Arabs, the mandate system was unjust, imposed by force on peoples too week to resist imperialist oppression."
That certainly was their view, but their view was a load of crap. The Mandate system gave 99 percent of all Ottoman land to its Arab populations to turn into states. It even handed Eastern Palestine to an Arab t…
"for the colonized Arabs, the mandate system was unjust, imposed by force on peoples too week to resist imperialist oppression."
That certainly was their view, but their view was a load of crap. The Mandate system gave 99 percent of all Ottoman land to its Arab populations to turn into states. It even handed Eastern Palestine to an Arab tribe--the Hashemites--to turn into yet another Arab state, Jordan! Arabs had no business griping about the Mandate system, they won the sweepstakes with it.
Arabs were not the only ones to help overthrow the Ottomans, BTW. The Jewish Brigades fought in those wars too, on the side of the British. (They did so again in WWII while that bastard Mufti of Jerusalem was palling around with Adolf Hitler.)
The final 1 percent of the Mandate was disposition of Ottoman Palestine. Sure, Arabs regarded Palestine as all theirs. But, it wasn't--Arabs AND Jews were indigenous, still lived there, and were therefore entitled to states there under the system that gave 99 percent of Ottoman land to Arabs, and Arabs sure didn't reject that other 99 percent, did they? Their bitching and moaning was over the 1/2 percent that would become the Jewish state. Had they said yes, Arabs would have owned half of Palestine and ALL THE REST of the old Ottoman Empire, given to Arabs freely by the British and French "colonial occupiers."
But Arabs rejected the deal for Palestine in favor of war and conquest of Israel, foolishly believing Jews so weak and sapped from the Holocaust they would be pushovers--and believing in a racist way that no Jew could beat an Arab in a fair fight. So war it was. When Arab armies streamed into Israel, all bets were off and both parties set free from Mandate rules to grab whatever they could for their pieces of Palestine. Jews won the 1948 war, so Arabs wound up with less land in Palestine than they would have gotten without the war. That's on them. They did it again in 1967 and lost the rest of their land to Israel. Tried again in 1973 and gained nothing. Those outcomes are on them, too.
Is Israel supposed to say, "Oh, dear fellows, how unsporting of us to have taken your land solely because you killed so many of us and tried to steal ours. Here, here, you can still have half, there, that's a good fellow . . ." No. You start three wars of annihilation, you'd better win at least one of them.
Jabotinski was right when he said Palestinians would never give up their land. He was wrong to say it was "their" land. It was only partly theirs, the other part being owned by the Jews of Palestine.
"for the colonized Arabs, the mandate system was unjust, imposed by force on peoples too week to resist imperialist oppression."
That certainly was their view, but their view was a load of crap. The Mandate system gave 99 percent of all Ottoman land to its Arab populations to turn into states. It even handed Eastern Palestine to an Arab tribe--the Hashemites--to turn into yet another Arab state, Jordan! Arabs had no business griping about the Mandate system, they won the sweepstakes with it.
Arabs were not the only ones to help overthrow the Ottomans, BTW. The Jewish Brigades fought in those wars too, on the side of the British. (They did so again in WWII while that bastard Mufti of Jerusalem was palling around with Adolf Hitler.)
The final 1 percent of the Mandate was disposition of Ottoman Palestine. Sure, Arabs regarded Palestine as all theirs. But, it wasn't--Arabs AND Jews were indigenous, still lived there, and were therefore entitled to states there under the system that gave 99 percent of Ottoman land to Arabs, and Arabs sure didn't reject that other 99 percent, did they? Their bitching and moaning was over the 1/2 percent that would become the Jewish state. Had they said yes, Arabs would have owned half of Palestine and ALL THE REST of the old Ottoman Empire, given to Arabs freely by the British and French "colonial occupiers."
But Arabs rejected the deal for Palestine in favor of war and conquest of Israel, foolishly believing Jews so weak and sapped from the Holocaust they would be pushovers--and believing in a racist way that no Jew could beat an Arab in a fair fight. So war it was. When Arab armies streamed into Israel, all bets were off and both parties set free from Mandate rules to grab whatever they could for their pieces of Palestine. Jews won the 1948 war, so Arabs wound up with less land in Palestine than they would have gotten without the war. That's on them. They did it again in 1967 and lost the rest of their land to Israel. Tried again in 1973 and gained nothing. Those outcomes are on them, too.
Is Israel supposed to say, "Oh, dear fellows, how unsporting of us to have taken your land solely because you killed so many of us and tried to steal ours. Here, here, you can still have half, there, that's a good fellow . . ." No. You start three wars of annihilation, you'd better win at least one of them.
Jabotinski was right when he said Palestinians would never give up their land. He was wrong to say it was "their" land. It was only partly theirs, the other part being owned by the Jews of Palestine.