However, this is not a blank cheque to forcibly create a Jewish state in a region without the democratic consent of the local inhabitants.

I realise the above reflection will be offensive to many who have grown up with the belief that Jewish security is dependent on the presence of a Jewish nationalist state based in the historic region occupied by ancient Hebrew people.

However, as difficult as it is to read please be assured that the purpose of writing this reflection is to help build a future where the 11 million human beings in the trouble region of Israel and Palestine may find creative and sustainable ways to live in peace. Peace is based on attaining fundamental needs such as justice, security, meaning, identity and autonomy. A balanced interpretation of the history of the region is essential for this.

Moshe: Thank God for brave voices of reason and compassion, people like Antony Loewenstein. To get an insight into why the UNS General Assembly plan to divide British-mandate Palestine into a Jewish State, an Arab State and an international city was an unjust proposition, consider the following.
http://palestineisraeltrusteeship.blogspot.com/

1. Thirty years before 87 percent of the region was not-Jewish. http://palestineisraelpopulation.blogspot.com/ http://www.1948.com.au/2008events/national/letter…

2. The region had not had a significant Jewish majority for over two millennia.

3. The Jewish State had a slim majority of 498,000 Jews to 407,000 non-Jews. Although in reality the number of Arabs living in the Jewish state was potentially greater than the number of Jews considering:

(a) Jaffa the largest Palestinian Arab town (with a population of 55,000 Muslims, 16,000 Christians and 30,000 Jews) was excised from the Jewish state and placed into the Arab state despite being geographically cut-off from the Arab state. To demonstrate the precariousness of such a decision Jaffa was a prime target for the Jewish military and was surrounded and defeated by Irgun (led by Menachem Begin) and Haganah on 12 May 1948 two days before the Jewish Agency declared the state of Israel (Lapidot).

(b) 90,000 Bedouins were not included in the Jewish state despite being permitted to live in the Jewish State to graze during the dry season. This potentially underestimated the number of Arabs in the Jewish state (UNSCOP 1947).

4. The decision to partition was undemocratically decided (from the point of view of the inhabitants)

The citizens of the region (i.e. British-mandate Palestine) were not given a choice. They were left to the whim of western politicians and western domestic politics. There was no plebiscite for the region as had been initiated in Czechoslovakia, Greece, Kashmir and Korea.
Noted personalities such as Sir Isaac Isaacs acknowledged this failure of democratic principles to operate on this question. Isaacs in the 1940’s was embroiled in a ferocious debate with Julius Stone about the proposal for creating a Jewish State in British-mandate Palestine (Stone 1944). Isaacs favoured a democratic approach. Isaacs argued it was unjust to impose Jewish nationalism on a region whose inhabitants had for millennia not had a Jewish majority (Isaacs 1946).

Isaacs said let the human beings living in British-mandate Palestine decide their future. In contrast Stone favoured a Jewish nationalist approach which sought to turn back the clock two thousand years and recreate a Jewish state. Stone blinkered by the tragedy of the holocaust in Europe (like another legal giant Brandeis of the US and our own Dr Evatt a devotee of Brandeis) mistakingly believed that the creation of a Jewish state in historic Israel would help provide Jewish security for the Jewish people.

5. Unfair pressure was placed on smaller nations to back the UN General Assembly Resolution

A lot has been said about the United Nations creating Israel. Like many nation-state creation stories this is a partial truth. There were just 33 countries who voted in favour of creating a Jewish state, an Arab state and an international city of Jerusalem. 13 countries voted against partition and 10 countries including the United Kingdom abstained. The vote was only in the affirmative through heavy politiciking of the United States. The General Assembly Partition plan (29 Nov 1947) was initially to be voted on 26 August but the vote was postponed on two occasions until it was clear the necessary two-thirds majority (including abstentions) would be gained. The decisive votes were obtained from Haiti, Liberia and Philippines. Each of these three countries were pushed e.g. Haiti and Philippines in terms of aid and Liberia in terms of contracts for rubber exports to Firestone Tyre company. The Philippines itself had spoken against partition but when
the
vote came her delegates were told to vote in favour. (Smith 1947).

6. The UN Security Council rejected the General Assembly Partition plan
The General Assembly then charged the Security Council with final deliberation on the partition plan. The United Nations Security Council in March 1948 rejected the General Assembly partition plan as it endangered international peace and security. So they recalled the General assembly to meet in April and May 1948. By this time the US had proposed placing Palestine under UN trusteeship. The Jewish Agency was outraged and decided that they would create a Jewish state whether or not they had the United Nations support. They did this on 14 May 1948.

Conclusion

History has shown that Stone was wrong and Isaacs (and the likes of Antony Loewenstein) are/was correct. Forcibly creating a Jewish state in a region which had not had a Jewish majority for over two thousand years was a disaster for world peace. Isaacs said in the 1940s:

“the Zionist movement as a whole…makes demands that are arousing the antagonism of the Moslem world of nearly 400 millions, thereby menacing the safety of our Empire, endangering world peace and imperiling some of the most sacred associations of the Jewish, Christian, and Moslem faiths. Besides their inherent injustice to others these demands would, I believe, seriously and detrimentally affect the general position of Jews throughout the world” (Isaacs p. 8-9).

Sir Isaac Isaacs was right. War was a consequence of trying to impose the Jewish nationalist ideology on peoples who were not Jewish. Sure, blame can be shared to include those within the Arab Palestinian and Arab neighbours who committed violence against the Jewish community from the 1920s until today. However, failure to acknowledge the basic injustice that forcibly establishing a state base on ethnicity to an ethnic group who had not had a majority in that region for over two thousand years was bound to lead to war.

The region will continue to be at war whilst Jewish nationalist ideology is championed as opposed to acknowledging past injustices and basing statehood on it’s citizens.

Sources

Gandhi, The Jews', Harijan, November 26, 1938 http://www.gandhiserve.org/information/writings_o… Jews', by Gandhi – From Harijan, November 26, 1938; http://www.kamat.com/mmgandhi/mideast.htm

Isaacs, I. Palestine: Peace and Prosperity or War and Destruction? Political Zionism: Undemocratic, Unjust, Dangerous. Ramsay Ware Publishing, 1946.

Lapidot Yehuda, ‘The Conquest of Jaffa’. http://www.etzel.org.il/english/ac18.htm

Smith, Lawrence, US Congressional Record – House. pp.11652-11658, 18 December 1947.

Stone, J, “Stand up and be counted!” An open letter to the Rt Hon Sir Isaac Isaacs on the occasion of the 26th anniversary of the Jewish National Home, 1944

UNSCOP 1947, http://www.mideastweb.org/unscop1947.htm
http://palestineisraeltrusteeship.blogspot.com/
http://www.1948.com.au/2008events/national/letter…

The Liberals cry: The Palestinians boo hoo! The negotiations that Israel recognized the PLO as the leading represenative of the "so called" Palestinians – that the PLO recognize Jewish self determination. Today Hamas still does not recognized Jewish self determination, so there's no door to negotiate between terrorists and my People, this includes Kappo Jews like Anthony.