Vol. 27 No. 3 · 3 February 2005
pages 16-18 | 4392 words
After Arafat
Rashid Khalidi
The autumn of the patriarch is finally over. These are difficult times for the Palestinians, and Yasser Arafat’s death presents them with a daunting challenge. The first of their difficulties is the long-standing fragmentation of the Palestinian people. Nearly five million still live in some part of what was once Mandate Palestine, and can be divided into four distinct groups. More than a million have been citizens of Israel since 1948. Over 3.5 million, in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, are in their 38th year of military occupation, hermetically sealed off from one another. Each of the four groups – those with Israeli citizenship, 250,000 Arab Jerusalemites, more than two million West Bankers and 1.3 million Gazans – is subject to different laws; the last two face stringent restrictions on their movements.
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Letters
Vol. 27 No. 7 · 31 March 2005
From Myron Kaplan
‘Having accepted that 78 per cent of Mandate Palestine is irrevocably part of Israel, no Palestinian leader could win majority support for agreeing to cede any of the remaining 22 per cent,’ Rashid Khalidi writes (LRB, 3 February). However, Mandate Palestine included not only Israel and the Palestinian areas, but also what is now Jordan. The intention of the British government, according to the Balfour Declaration, was to establish a national home for the Jewish people in their ancient homeland. In 1921, Britain subdivided Mandate Palestine, drawing a line along the Jordan River to the Gulf of Akaba. The eastern portion, known as Transjordan, was renamed Jordan and became independent in 1946. This state was carved out of almost 78 per cent of Mandate Palestine. Thus, it is the nation of Jordan – not Israel – that comprises 78 per cent of the land of Mandate Palestine.
Myron Kaplan
Rockland, Massachusetts
Vol. 27 No. 8 · 21 April 2005
From Alex Simpson
Myron Kaplan claims that ‘Jordan … comprises 78 per cent of the land of Mandate Palestine’ (Letters, 31 March). The British government made no promises to Jewish groups about the eastern boundaries of the Jewish homeland. The boundaries were drawn at the Jordan River because Jewish claims in those areas were weak. Even when the Mandate was approved in 1922, it stated that the allocation of territories east of the Jordan would be ‘ultimately determined’ by the British. Later in 1922, the League of Nations approved a British memorandum concerning the organisation of the territories east of the Jordan as ‘Transjordan’. To say that Transjordan was ‘carved out’ of Palestine or is part of a promised Jewish homeland isn’t correct.
Alex Simpson
Dallas
