By February 15, 2018 Read More →

July 22, 1947 Lebanese Dignitaries Refuse to Recognize a Jewish Palestine

Hamid FrangiehHis Excellency, the Vice-President of the Council of Lebanon:

“ … Gentlemen, the Arab countries which have been together for thousands of years, free from anything which marred their harmony, will not allow the imposition of a home that will menace their close relationship.  They will therefore defend themselves by defending Arab Palestine and by putting an end to Zionist ambitions.  Thus they will destroy the home of evil in the Middle East, will serve world peace and will prove their loyalty to the principles of human rights.

Mr. Hamid Frangie, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Lebanon:

“ … Their struggle for independence and for the safeguarding of their rights started at the beginning of this century with the natural awakening of the Arab peoples and the movement against Ottoman domination.  They took part in this liberation movement and spared no effort or sacrifice.  Together with the rest of the Arabs, they rose against the Turks, fighting alongside the Allies on all the battlefields of the Middle-East, in the Hedjaz, Palestine, Syria, the Lebanon, and Iraq.  … Abruptly confronted by Zionist ambitions and Allied promises to satisfy them, the Arabs of Palestine were forces to turn their struggle against the Ottoman Empire into one against their own Allies … imposing a mandate system which is nothing less than colonization … the text of the Mandate for Palestine provided for the establishment of a Jewish national home and opened the door to immigration and the settlement of foreign Jews in Palestine.

“ … Palestinian Arabs found themselves compelled not only to throw off the yoke of foreign control but also to struggle against the inroads of a foreign population

“Whilst the people of Iraq were casting off the heavy burden of the Mandate and Syria and the Lebanon freeing themselves from foreign occupation and gaining full independence and sovereignty, the situation in Palestine became steadily worse.

“The origin of Palestine’s troubles is to be found in two documents, which are null and valueless, although it is upon them that Zionist claims are based: the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate.

“Whereas the Covenant states that the purpose of the Mandate is to serve the interests of the mandated territory and requires the Mandatory to lead it towards independence, the text of the Palestine Mandate envisages placing Palestine under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment of a Jewish National Home.

“The Peace Conference should not shut its eyes to the fact that the anti-Zionist feeling in Palestine and Syria is intense and not lightly to be flouted.

“The tables show that there was no one thing upon which the population of Palestine was more agreed than upon this …

“They took advantage of the ambiguity of the texts in order to extinguish the very life of Arab Palestine.”

Source:  63

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