Palestine Mandate
From Freepedia
On June 24, 1922 the League of Nations agreed upon a document called the Palestine Mandate. This document was created to define the degree of administration to be exercised by the Mandatory in Palestine.
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Background
After World War I the Principal Allied Powers selected Britain as the Mandatory (or administrator) of Palestine. Palestine was territory previously held by the Turkish Empire. One quarter of the territory extended east from the Mediterranean to a line formed along the Jordan River, three quarters extended further east from the line of the Jordan. The entire territory is sometimes referred to as the British Mandate of Palestine.
Content
Article 2 of the Palestine Mandate stated that the administration would "secure the establishment of the Jewish national home", while "safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine". In addition, Article 25 of the mandate stated that all territory east of the Jordan was, in most part, at Britain's will, withheld from all provisions of the mandate.
Current Status
The termination of the Palestine Mandate is sometimes disputed, mostly with various referrals to technicalities. On 29 November 1947 in UN General Assembly Resolution 181 it was stated in the first paragraph, that "The Mandate for Palestine shall terminate as soon as possible but in any case not later than 1 August 1948", thus leaving no option for continuation after the given date.
Even if the General Assembly resolutions ([1]) are widely considered to be non-binding (Articles 10 and 14 of the UN Charter refer to General Assembly "recommendations"), by the end of the year 1948 the opinions regarding the termination of the Palestine Mandate seemed to be unanimously accepted. In the UN General Assembly meeting held on 1 December 1948 in Paris, the Mandate was dicussed in the past tense and being already terminated, without any opposition from any of the participating member states. Furthermore Mr Eban, as one of the representatives for the Provisional Government of Israel, also stated, that "Israel had accepted and complied with all the Security Council and Assembly resolutions", thus also accepting the status of the Mandate as already being terminated. ([2])
