Shalom... I am Shoshana McCrimmon, a sometimes-freelance writer and an aspiring teacher. I write frequently in support of Israel and have been involved in various internet and on-campus hasbara efforts.

     I firmly believe that the original Mandate for Palestine, a Jewish National Homeland, which came from the 1920 San Remo conference (and 1917 Balfour Declaration), is the only viable and permanent solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. This mandate was set up in much the same way as the mandate for India/Pakistan/Bangladesh -- namely, that religious populations would be transferred in such a way as to form homogenous areas where similar cultures could institute themselves. This plan allocated land for a future Jewish state which included all of what is now Israel AND Jordan. It is significant to me that the Arab countries neighbouring Israel ALSO received mandates during this period, and were not independent nations prior to the period, but also territories occupied by the Ottomans then Britons and French. The British, inilaterally and in violation of their mandate, gave 76% of the land mandated for the Jewish Homeland to form the nascent state of Jordan. This was done with the support of the Jewish Agency and Sheikh (later King) Hussein, in order to solve the demographic problem of the Mandate for Palestine. Jews were to remain concentrated in 'West Palestine' and the non-Jews (60% were not indigenous but migrant workers, according to the 1951 URNWA report) were to remain concentrated in 'East Palestine', which some population transfer, according to the India/Pakistan/Bangladesh model.

     With the dissolution of the League of Nations and advent of the U.N., the remaining 24% of the land was recommended for further division in a non-binding U.N. General Assembly resolution, which suggested the creation of yet another Arab State in the West Bank, and attempted to internationalize Jerusalem. It is also significant that the Arab block at the U.N. REJECTED this suggestion.

     When Britain unilaterally divided the land outlined in the Mandate for Palestine, a Jewish National Homeland, the non-Jewish population in Israel that did not want to live in a Jewish state was not required to go to Jordan along with that land. Instead, these "Palestinian" refugees (450-600.000 people) have remained classified as "internally displaced people" for over 50 years, despite the facts that:

68% of them voluntarily abandoned their property without ever seeing a Jewish soldier;

only 20% were landowners and the vast majority of the remaining 80% had lived in the region for less than 10 years as migrant workers and were NEVER indigenous people; and

according to UNRWA, 3/4 of the 'refugees' resided outside the camps [and are therefore effectively resettled and would not normally be considered refugees].

     All of the above items would disqualify the "Palestinians" as refugees by any other organization, including the UN's OTHER refugee organization, the UNHCR. Further, the 'refugees' held Jordanian citizenship until 1988, when Jordan withdrew all claims to the West Bank. It is extremely significant that Jordan retains in it's lawbooks the 'Right of Return' for all non-Jewish Palestinians to Jordan. (Jordanian Nationality Law, Official Gazette, No. 1171, Article 3 (3) of Law No. 6, 1954, 16 February 1954, p. 105. [reactivated in law no. 7, sect. 2, of 1 April 1963. When Jordan made peace with Israel in 1994, this judenrein legislation remained.])

     Yet nascent Israel absorbed over 900.000 Arab and Persian Jewish refugees without the financial support of world governments or any U.N. assistance (notably, the U.N. did NOT create a special refugee agency for this larger Jewish group, as was done with the "Palestinians"). I do not believe that Israel should be compelled to forfeit more land simply because Arabs have taken a racist, intolerant and bigoted views towards Jews and happen to control 83% of the world's oil resources. Jews have only restored their ancestral homeland on land which is 0.01% the size of all Arab lands combined. A price must be paid for the Arab aggression during Israel's birth, and the decades between, and that price should include the resettlement of the "Palestinian" refugees in the lands of those Arab countries who declared war on Israel five times in as many decades, and lost, as has been the practice everywhere else in the world.