While global pressure for the two-state solution accelerates, maybe time to apply the brakes and study the facts.

By Peter Bailey

World leaders are living in the past when they talk about  two states being the only solution to the “Palestine Problem”, when in reality their real concern is the “Jewish Problem”, without being honest enough to say so. The two-state solution was applied in 1921 when the League of Nations accepted the British proposal that Palestine east of the Jordan River become an Arab State, hence the birth of Transjordan, today the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Mandate Palestine west of the river was set to become the Jewish Homeland, in terms of the Balfour Declaration and the subsequent San Remo Resolution. The two-state solution which has been touted since 1967  is thus in reality, a three-state solution. First, a short history lesson, which will establish the  background and basis of the original two-state solution, while confirming my reasoning that the current demand is in fact for a three-state solution to the Arab Israel conundrum.  

The leaders of Britain, France, Italy, Japan and many others appeared most anxious to punish  Israel by recognising a mythical State of Palestine in light of Israel’s defensive war against Gaza, following the vicious and criminal terrorist attack on Israel by Hamas on 7 October 2023. Leading the pack in this ill-timed, uninformed and imprudent quasi- recognition was French president Emmanuel Macron, who together with his partners in this folly were clearly not in lockstep with their predecessors who attended the San Remo Conference 105 years earlier. Britain, France, Italy and Japan saw no problem then in accepting the bona fides of the Balfour Declaration by including it in the San Remo Resolution dealing with the future of the Levant, an area comprising modern day Israel, Iraq, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. With the exception of Israel, which had to proclaim its own independence in 1948,  the other states were soon established by the Mandatory Powers in terms of San Remo in  territories that had formerly been part of the Ottoman Empire before its defeat in the First World War. The establishment of the Jewish Homeland was thwarted by successive British governments.

The First World  War brought four unique individuals together in London between 1916 and 1918. The fabled four were British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, British Foreign Secretary  Sir Arthur Balfour, South African Defence Minister General Jan Smuts and scientist  Chaim Weizmann, President of the British Zionist Federation. Lloyd George and Balfour were both Christian Zionists, while Smuts, informed by his knowledge of Jewish history together with his rural religious South African background had an ingrained belief in the biblical Promised Land as the historical Jewish homeland. The association of these global statesmen led to the Balfour Declaration, which  was no accident of fate, but rather a merging of ideas based on political realities, historical knowledge and religious idealism.

The essence of the Balfour Declaration, issued by Sir Arthur Balfour in 1917, was a British undertaking to promote the reestablishment of the Jewish Homeland in Palestine, considering the historical right of the Jewish People to the territory. The  San Remo Declaration  confirmed the establishment of the division of the Levant into several territories under French and British Mandates, which would lead to the eventual self-determination of the local residents. The inclusion of the Balfour Declaration was to ensure that one element of that self-determination would be the establishment of the  Jewish Homeland in historical Israel.

The San Remo Conference was convened 105 years ago with the express purpose of deciding the future of the Middle East region that had been part of the recently defeated Ottoman Empire. Present at the conference were the leaders of Great Britain, France, Italy, Japan, Belgium and Greece, as well as the leaders of the Zionist Movement.

Following the conference, the San Remo Declaration, incorporating the 1917 Balfour Declaration, was issued, providing  the legal basis for the establishment of the League of Nations British Mandate over Palestine, amongst several other Mandates. Sir Arthur Balfour remarked at the time that this confirmed the “historical right of the Jewish people to their ancestral homeland.” While Lloyd George and  Balfour were committed to the establishment of a Jewish Homeland in Palestine, their tenure in government was unfortunately destined to be short-lived, and their promise of a Jewish Homeland left unfulfilled.

Lloyd George was replaced by Conservative party leader William Bonar Law on 23 October 1922. Bonar Law, whose primary concern was an amicable arrangement to settle Britain’s War Debt with the United States, paid scant attention to Palestine. He was seriously ill with throat cancer and resigned in May 1923, to be replaced by Stanley Baldwin on 23 May 1923. The San Remo Declaration granted had Great Britain Mandatory responsibility for Mesopotamia and for  Palestine in terms of the Balfour Declaration. Our concern is with Mandate Palestine, which has two distinct regions, one east of the Jordan River, and the other  west of the river, extending to the Mediterranean coast.  The failure of Great Britain to honour and carry out its obligation of establishing a Jewish Homeland in terms of the Balfour Declaration lies at the heart of many of the current problems facing Israel in particular, and the Middle East in general.

Unlike their predecessors who approved of the San Remo and Balfour Declarations, contemporary politicians analysing the history of Israel and of the Jewish People without considering the facts, has resulted in a bizarre revision of that history,  led by the Palestinian mythmakers and their fellow travelers. 

The original sin which lies at the root of the Israel Arab conflict can be defined as the general acceptance of the Arab myth of indigeneity to the land they call Palestine, sans any verifiable historical evidence. The same land is referred to as Israel by the Jewish people, with reams of verifiable historical evidence as to their indigeneity. The time is long overdue that the 193 member states of the United Nations recognise this truth, after which they would have a solemn duty to educate the Palestinian masses that they have no prior right to the land of Israel. Acceptance by all of the rights of the Jewish people to Israel, could result in a reset of the relationship between Israel and the Palestinian leadership, which in turn, has the potential to result in a mutually acceptable conclusion to the never ending conflict. 

HISTORY OF ISRAEL AND THE JEWISH PEOPLE

The beating heart of Israel is the city of Jerusalem, the holiest city in Judaism, while the Arab Muslim world claims Jerusalem as a holy city in Islam, refusing to acknowledge the prior rights of Jewry to the same city. There are two indisputable facts regarding Jewish and Muslim claims to Jerusalem. The first being that the Muslim religion came into being between the years 600 and 620 of the common era, while Jerusalem is historically confirmed as the centre of Jewish religious life and home to the Jewish Temple at least 1,100 years earlier.

Roman historian, Gaius Plinius Secundus (23/24 – 79 CE), known as Pliny the Elder described Jerusalem as by far the most famous city of the East, while fellow Roman historian,  Publius Cornelius Tacitus, (c.  56 – c. 120 CE), described it as “the capital of the Jews, with a temple of enormous reaches.” The following excerpt (translated) from Historiae V, the fifth volume of Tacitus’ Histories, leaves the reader in no doubt as to the Jewish character of Jerusalem:

“But the city stands on an eminence, and the Jews had defended it with works and fortifications sufficient to protect even level ground; for the two hills that rise to a great height had been included within walls that had been skillfully built, projecting out or bending in so as to put the flanks of an assailing body under fire. The rocks terminated in sheer cliffs, and towers rose to a height of sixty feet where the hill assisted the fortifications, and in the valleys, they reached one hundred and twenty; they presented a wonderful sight, and appeared of equal height when viewed from a distance. An inner line of walls had been built around the palace, and on a conspicuous height stands Antony’s Tower, so named by Herod in honor of Mark Antony.”

While Pliny the Elder talks about the Essenes, a Jewish sect, in his history, Tacitus confirms that Jerusalem was the Jewish capital as well as corroborating the existence of the Temple, known  in Judaism as the Second Temple. Neither Pliny nor Tacitus mention an Arab presence nor the existence of a mosque on the Temple Mount, simply because Islam did not exist in their era, only appearing on the world stage some 5 to 6 hundred years later. While there has been much conjecture about the existence of the First Jewish Temple, built by King Solomon  according to Biblical records, there is sufficient proof placing the Jews in control of Jerusalem at least 1,000 years before the arrival of Mohammed and Islam on the world stage. 

One of the results of the Roman conquest over Israel was the renaming of the region, particularly Judea and Samaria, as Palestina, in an effort to destroy the Jewish identity of the region, hence the name Palestine. One of the results of the birth of Islam was the military conquest  of the entire Levant by Muslim Arab forces between 634 and 638 CE, the establishment of the Rashidun Caliphate and the subsequent Arab colonisation of the entire region.  The Arab/Palestinian claim to Palestine originates from this colonisation, giving them some entitlement, while the claim of the rights that go with indigeneity can be debunked without further ado. The idea that Arabs are indigenous to Israel is of relatively modern origin, emerging around the same time as the modern Zionist movement and the subsequent birth of Palestinian nationalism, concomitant with the British Mandate over Palestine. 

Apparently misinformed by the mythical contrived history of Israel, the 2025 United Nations General Assembly seemed to have a one-track agenda – the establishment of a Palestinian State in addition to the State of Israel,  west of the Jordan River, popularly known as the Two State Solution. This was without any consideration for, or perhaps a lack of accurate knowledge, of  the historical background. The map of Mandate Palestine below clearly indicates that in 1921, Britain divided Palestine into two separate units,  the Arab entity of Transjordan, later the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, east of the Jordan River, with the clear intention that territory west of the Jordan would become the Jewish Homeland. That this was in fact the original Two State Solution has been long forgotten. The Arab Emirate of Transjordan was recognised by the League of Nations in September 1922, the first step to the implementation of the San Remo Declaration. The second step, the establishment of the Jewish Homeland fell by the wayside together with the Lloyd George  government.

The resignation of David Lloyd George on 19 October 1922 as the result of a financial scandal was followed by the election of a new government signaling the end of Britain honouring the terms of the Mandate. The establishment of a Jewish homeland became a very low priority, while Britain meticulously limited Jewish immigration to Palestine in order  to maintain an Arab majority. Simultaneously with its Jewish immigration policy, Britain introduced a second Two State plan, while ignoring its own decision creating Transjordan in 1921 as the first step towards an Arab and a Jewish state in Mandate Palestine. The new two state plan, creating a second Arab state west of the Jordan River became the rallying cry of the Arab community. This was resolutely, and in many cases aggressively opposed by the Zionist movement, which demanded the application of the San Remo and Balfour Declarations. Trapped between Jewish determination and Arab demands brought about  by its own perfidious plans,  the British Government decided  in 1947  to return the Mandate over Palestine to the United Nations.

The General Assembly subsequently approved a partition plan in 1947, totally ignoring the Mandate division of Palestine, rather voting for a grossly unfair partition of the Eastern half of Palestine as shown on the above map. Needless to say, the Arab world refused to abide by the U.N. vote, now calling for a single Arab State, which would include a “Jewish component”. The Zionist movement in turn reluctantly accepted the vote on the basis of:

 Half a loaf being better than none.

Britain vacated Palestine on 15 May 1948, the day after David Ben Gurion had proclaimed the Independent State of Israel in the region west of the Jordan River. The nascent State of Israel was immediately attacked by the surrounding Arab States in an attempt to strangle the Jewish State at birth. The rest of the story is the modern history of Israel, together with a never-ending call for the establishment of  two states following Israel’s stunning victory in the 1967 Six Day War.  History also records that every offer by Israel of an independent Palestinian State has been spurned, regardless of the terms. The Two State solution with no Jewish State has become the new global cry on behalf of the Palestinian people, while the Palestinians themselves chant:

 “From the River to the Sea”

This amounts to a call for a single state west of the Jordan River. Back to the future, I conclude with the all too familiar quote  by legendary Israeli diplomat Abba Eban, who said in 1973:

 “The Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” 

About the writer:
The writer, Peter Bailey, a military history buff, was a Major in the South African Army Reserve before making aliyah in 2013.  He is the author of two books: Street Names in Israel; and Men of Valor: Israel’s Latter Day Heroes. 

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