Palestine Mandate -- a Short Analysis

Abstract

This short analysis explains why the Zionist Jews in 1920 wanted to defer statehood until a later time and chose a method of attaining statehood that would give them present rights to settle without the obligations of statehood and then receive statehood at a later time when they could become a stable state. The method they chose and that was adopted by the Allied Principal War Powers was to create a trust carrying out the provisions of the Balfour Declaration, giving the Jews the immediate right to settle in all Palestine west of the Jordan. The agreement to create such a trust is the San Remo Resolution. The trust agreement is the Palestine Mandate. They placed in trust the collective political rights to self-determination in Palestine that were intended to vest when the Jews had attained a population majority where they were to rule and had attained the capability of exercising sovereignty. These terms, though not express, are obtained from evidence of the intention of the settlors of the trust which is the lodestar of trust interpretation if judicially admissible. Under international law, approval of the Palestine Mandate, intended to give the Jews the opportunity to develop into a majority stable sovereignty is a tacit recognition of it's statehood under international law and there is evidence that at least the United States and the United Kingdom had that intention.

As the terms of the trust were self-executing, legal dominion over a portion of the territory within the soon to be negotiated Armistice Green Line vested in 1948 and the remainder of the mandate territory vested in 1967 when the Jewish People gained the capability in that area of exercising sovereignty. This also commemorates the late Harry Sacher as the architect of present day Israel.