Monday, May 23, 2011
On May 23, 1939, by a narrow majority of 89 votes, British Parliament approves a plan to make Palestine an independent state, governed jointly by Arabs and Jews, within 10 years. The McDonald White Paper also limits Jewish immigration to 75,000 over the next five years. Under threat from Nazi Germany, this is seen as an outrage by European Jews, and an abandonment of British support for a Jewish homeland. To the Arabs it did not go far enough. Both groups violently reject the plan and violence that has raged between the groups continues. The British Mandate, over Palestine was established by the League of Nations in 1920 following the end of World War I and the British defeat of the Turks and the Ottoman Empire.
Last week, during an intense meeting at the White House, President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussed borders of the future Palestinian state. Obama called for a border approximating to the West Bank’s boundary before Israel captured it in the 1967 war. Netanyahu firmly rebuked the President’s call, citing the indefensibility of the 1967 lines. According to a senior Palestinian official, Palestinians will unilaterally seek recognition as a U.N. member-state in September given the deadlock in U.S.-brokered peacemaking with Israel. In light of the U.S.’s veto power on the U.N. Security Council, any such unilateral maneuver will likely be more “symbolic” than effective.
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