In what ways is the 'Palestinian Lost Land' over the years picture accurate?

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Álvaro Mesa

 3y

Michael Davison

Lives in Israel (1969–present) Updated 2y

In what ways is the 'Palestinian Lost Land' over the years picture accurate?

I assume you’re referring the the Palestinian propaganda meme with the four maps.

There’s another meme that explains how it lies.

There never was a state of Palestine. During the 400 years of Ottoman rule that ended with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the creation of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, the region looked like this:

The entire region was a group of administrative districts (Sanjaks), overseen by regional administrations (Vilayets), with the exception of the Independent Sanjak of Jerusalem, which was directly subordinate to the Sultanate in Constantinople (now Istanbul).

There is no “Palestinian lost land” because there never was a Palestine to lose any land. At the end of the Mandate for Palestine, British land registries show that 76% of the land was state land that could only be leased, not purchased. The remaining 24% was divided more or less equally at 8% for each of the following groups: Absentee owners living outside the Mandate for Palestine, Arab clans living in the Mandate for Palestine and Jews living in the Mandate.

Now for the REAL shocker: the Mandate for Palestine west of the Jordan River makes up only 22% of the original League of Nations Mandate for Palestine. The area defined by the San Remo Conference of 1920.

In 1922, in order to bribe Abdullah bin al-Hussein not to take the Iraqi throne from his brother Faisal after Abdullah failed in his attempt to take the crown of the Hejaz (now Saudi Arabia, ruled by the ibn Saud clan), Great Britain chopped off 77% of the Mandate and created the Emirate of Transjordan (now the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan) in violation of the conditions of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine.

A year later, the British again violated the terms of the Mandate by ceding the Golan Heights to the French-held Mandate for Syria/Lebanon, leaving this as the area the Palestinians are now calling “historical Palestine” — 22% of the mandate land area.

“Art. 5: The Mandatory [Great Britain] shall be responsible for seeing that no Palestine territory shall be ceded or leased to, or in any way placed under the control of the Government of any foreign Power.”

The Palestine Mandate

The Palestine Mandate The Palestine Mandate The Council of the League of Nations: Whereas the Principal Allied Powers have agreed, for the purpose of giving effect to the provisions of Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations , to entrust to a Mandatory selected by the said Powers the administration of the territory of Palestine, which formerly belonged to the Turkish Empire, within such boundaries as may be fixed by them; and Whereas the Principal Allied Powers have also agreed that the Mandatory should be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 2nd, 1917 , by the Government of His Britannic Majesty, and adopted by the said Powers, in favor of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing should be done which might 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; and Whereas recognition has thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country; and Whereas the Principal Allied Powers have selected His Britannic Majesty as the Mandatory for Palestine; and Whereas the mandate in respect of Palestine has been formulated in the following terms and submitted to the Council of the League for approval; and Whereas His Britannic Majesty has accepted the mandate in respect of Palestine and undertaken to exercise it on behalf of the League of Nations in conformity with the following provisions; and Whereas by the afore-mentioned Article 22 (paragraph 8), it is provided that the degree of authority, control or administration to be exercised by the Mandatory, not having been previously agreed upon by the Members of the League, shall be explicitly defined by the Council of the League Of Nations; confirming the said Mandate, defines its terms as follows: The Mandatory shall have full powers of legislation and of administration, save as they may be limited by the terms of this mandate. The Mandatory shall be responsible for placing the country under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment of the Jewish national home, as laid down in the preamble, and the development of self-governing institutions, and also for safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of race and religion. The Mandatory shall, so far as circumstances permit, encourage local autonomy. An appropriate Jewish agency shall be recognised as a public body for the purpose of advising and co-operating with the Administration of Palestine in such economic, social and other matters as may affect the establishment of the Jewish national home and the interests of the Jewish population in Palestine, and, subject always to the control of the Administration to assist and take part

https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/palmanda.asp#:~:text=No%20discrimination%20of%20any%20kind,ground%20of%20his%20religious%20belief.

In 1947, the UN proposed and passed General Assembly Resolution 181 for the Partition of Palestine, further reducing the 22% intended for the Jewish homeland to a bare 11.5%, with more than half the area allocated to the “Jewish state” being the Negev Desert..

So, in the long run, 88.5% of the original Mandate for Palestine wasn’t enough for the Arabs, and they attempted multiple times to destroy the “Jewish state” mentioned no less than 30 times in UNGAR 181, while failing to declare the Arab state” mentioned 22 times in the same resolution.

In short, there is no “Palestinian Lost Land” because there never was any Palestinian land in the first place.