User:Koakhtzvigad/Smoke (vision obstruction)

Smoke, generated by various use of chemicals and gases is an age-old means for armies to obscure the vie of their enemy, thereby denying the enemy knowledge of own tactical dispositions and movements on the battlefield.

War on Terror

V Further V Reading V

So, you really like maps :) But, you are not from the 'Middle East'?

Palestine Do you know how the British and French decided on the mandate (small m as used in the Convention) territorial borders? You may want to see Land of Israel I have no proof, but one researcher told me over a decade ago he saw in the British Archives a document with a letter and a map attached. The document was a request from the Colonial Office for guidance on topography of the Turkish lands based on the request of its Commissioner that was newly arrived to replace the Military Administration. The map was a topographical rendering taken from an atlas of the Bible depicting different views of the Holy Land. The note said this was forwarded with complements from a professor of Geography at the Royal Geographical Society Now to the question of 'Palestine'

There was never a 'state' of Palestine, only a People, Plishtim, known from the Bible since the Covenant made by Abraham

They were at various times allies and enemies of Israel, in the last part of their history a buffer state between Judea and Egypt

After that the name was used by various occupying powers as an administrative name, in some case having several Palestines

So, how did the Palestine name come to be adopted by the British? After all, the Ottoman subjects at the time didn't call it that.

The British were, before the First World War, occupying Egypt. Now recall what I said about one of the sources used in the Palestine article that Palestine in the 2nd millennium BCE was a buffer state between Egypt and Judea. Yigal Sheffy in British military intelligence in the Palestine campaign, 1914-1918 pp.2-3 says "The British government viewed its strategic relations with the Ottomans mainly within the context of its imperial power struggles with other European powers in the east, or its endeavours to secure British sea and land routes to India. The Eastern Question acquired a new aspect in early 1906, when the Ottomans turned into a potential enemy for the first time, as a consequence of sudden tension between the Sublime Porte and Whitehall over delineating the Palestine-Egypt border in the Sinai Peninsula." But, there was no Palestine in the Ottoman Empire! The article says "Nonetheless, the old name remained in popular and semi-official use.[[no citation] Many [if many, then there should be no difficulty in producing many examples?] examples of its usage in the 16th and 17th centuries have survived.[132] During the 19th century, the Ottoman Government employed the term Ardh-u Filistin (the 'Land of Palestine') in official correspondence, meaning for all intents and purposes the area to the west of the River Jordan which became 'Palestine' under the British in 1922.[133] However, the Ottomans regarded "Palestine" as an abstract description of a general region but not as a specific administrative unit with clearly defined borders." [no reference]

I bolded the references because they are ‘’crucial’’ to understanding the issue. The first is Gerber, Haim (1998) "Palestine" and Other Territorial Concepts in the 17th Century", in: International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol 30, pp. 563–572. The reference ‘’does not’’ give a page number, meaning the editor simply read the abstract that proposes the name may have been in use communally as a reflection of communal identity aside from the official Ottoman one. The second reference says Mandel, Neville J. (1976) The Arabs and Zionism Before World War I. University of California Press, where it says "Despite these administrative divisions and changes, the concept of a geographic area called "Palestine" was used by the three main parties figuring in this book: the Ottoman Government, the Arabs and the Jews. The Ottoman Government employed the term "Arz-i Filistin" (the "Land of Palestine") in official correspondence, meaning for all intents and purposes the area to the west of the River Jordan which became "Palestine" under the British in 1922. The Arabs used the term "Filastin" to designate an area whose limits had varied at different historical periods, and thus their notion of its precise dimensions was necessarily vague, especially in the decades before World War I, given the recent administrative changes which had taken place. The Jews' use of "Palestine" was equally imprecise, because for them it was a translation of "Eretz Yisra'el" (the "Land of Israel"), the dimensions of which had also varied at different stages of Jewish history." However, that was 1976. Today I can look up what the word land is in Turkish. It turns out there are many names for land: toprak, kara parçası, ülke, vatan, aynı türden toprak parçası, alan, arazi, kişisel arazi, arsa, karaya çıkmak, karaya indirmek, karaya getirmek, iniş yapmak, yere inmek, düşmek, karaya ayak basmak, yenmek, kazanmak, indirmek, karaya çıkartmak, sokmak, çakmak, vurmak, yapmak, diyar, kara, memleket, yer, karaya çıkarmak/çıkmak, yere indirmek/inmek, (gemiden yük, yolcu v.b.´ni) indirmek, (balık) tutup karaya çıkarmak, elde etmek, (yumruk) indirmek, iniş yap, aşk etmek, inmek (yere), kara parçası (piece of), yapıştırmak, yerey, yerleştirmek, arazi, toprak Ardh-u is not one of the words used in Turkish for land And a Turkish source from Filistin ve Şark-ül-Ürdün,(Orient-ul-Palestine and Jordan) Celâl Tevfik Karasapan - 1942, says Cities and villages of this land must be at least half an hour walk [wide]. Palestine is empty, all terrain cover is included in this class. This land is owned on the applicable current laws of the land public property.(my translation) However in Osmanlı kanunnâmeleri ve hukukî tahlilleri: Kanunî Sultân Süleyman (And legal analysis of the Ottoman code of law: Suleyman the Magnificent) the word arazi means "public property land revenues of the foundation of the authentic subject another [unique] person land, the land is as public property...called a section around the public property land", so while the translation is not great, the legal use of arazi is more for taxation assessment purposes than an administrative or geographic use. Mandell not only didn't write it correctly, but misunderstood the finer point of the term, and of course it was used in official documents, in the same way that allotment was used in the English tax records, but one would never say "the region of the allotments of Southampton" for example. So where did Ardh-u come from? In his Land Ownership in Palestine/Israel, http://www.ap-agenda.org/nasser/nasser3.htm Nasser Abufarha says, “To understand the land ownership system in the society of the fellahin, one needs to understand the concept of the feddan. There is widespread misconception that the feddan is a unit of measurement for an area of land. This is an inaccurate understanding of the concept. The feddan is a measurement of a share of land that varies in size from village to village and may vary from year to year, even within the same village.

Villages owned their land collectively by the village residents or by the hamoula (family). Physical features and traditional names of lands were used to describe the boundaries of a certain village land and were respected by neighboring villages. In the plowing and seeding season, lands were divided between village residents every fall based on ability to cultivate. Zalameh wa 'ammal (a man and a working animal) would get one feddan share. A man without 'ammal would get half a feddan. A man would get half a feddan for each additional working animal he owned that was available for work.

This system was used by the villages for the distribution of ‘’ardh as-sahil’’ (the lands of the fields) for cultivation. The concept is still used today in some villages in the West Bank.” The word ardh therefore refers to cultivated land (or more correctly, plough land; see Governing Property p.196; the cultivated land, the Turkish term for which I don’t yet know, referred to the pasture for herding) in English, and not to taxable property land as in a geographical area. This is a fine distinction, and an important one. Ardh-u Filistin means cultivated land of Filistin, but “In 1858 the Ottoman Authority introduced the law of tabu to establish rights of land ownership. Landowners were instructed to have their property inscribed in the land register. The tabu was resisted by the fellahin. They saw a threat to their community in registering their land for two main reasons: 1) the cultivated fields were classified as ardh ameriyeh (the land of the emirate) and were taxed, so owners of registered fertile land were forced to pay tax on it; 2) data from the land register were used by the Turkish Army for the purpose of the draft. Owners of registered lands were often drafted to fight with the Turkish Army in Russia.

By the way, etymologically ‘ploughed land’ resembles that of a ground ‘ploughed over’ by the horse hooves, and not surprisingly the national dance of be Bedouin kingdom of Saudi Arabi is the ‘al Ardha’ the may be derived from ‘Ardhal Kheil’ meaning displaying the horses, as for centuries, Arabs used to train their horses and show them off during special events when they prepared to go to battle. Ardha: The Warrior's Dance 19/03/2008 By Khaled al Oweigan http://www.aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=7&id=12148

The Turkish Land Register was not able to document the state of land ownership in Palestine (Falah, 1983). People continued their traditional communal ownership of the land. This tradition continued with the exception of some families or individuals who took advantage of the loose manner in which the tabu registered lands. They registered large pieces of land that were not necessarily theirs in their names, especially those who held positions in government.” Since pretty much only Turks were in the government, essentially there was no organised registration of cultivated land in that part of Syria (as the administrative province of the Empire). He then says “Under the British system, the Land Settlement Ordinance was introduced in 1928. Rights of ownership were confirmed only after the land survey was completed. The registration of land was to be in the names of specific individuals and not in the name of the village, the family, or the tribe (Falah, 1983). This was an attempt to break village or tribe solidarity and an effort to promote the capitalist system of private ownership and individualism. The British Land Settlement Ordinance was resisted by fellahin society mainly because it did not allow for their tradition of collective ownership. Individual ownership posed a threat to the power structure in the village social order. The village mukhtar and wujuh el-'alih (the notables of the family) and the Bedouin tribes' sheikhs took their power from this system of collective land ownership.

In addition to the practical reason mentioned above, the fellahin saw the land register as an insult to tradition. This system had been working for generations as an efficient and fair use and distribution of the land.”

So essentially the British tried to implement a modern land management to go with the taxation system, and this was again resisted for cultural reasons. In other words there was no Ottoman legacy land management system, and the British were unable to create an effective one after the completion of the survey sometime in the early 1930s (yet to identify this) “Following land registration in 1933, much of the leapfrogging of rights resulting from this history was finally eliminated.” (Governing Property, p.201)

For more on this, see ‘’Governing Property, Making the Modern State: Law, Administration and Production in Ottoman Syria’’ by Martha Mundy and Richard Saumarez Smith, I.B. Taurus, 2007 This work makes great pains to emphasize the importance of Ottoman legal terms used throughout the land administration, notably on pp.51-52 where’ “This can be seen in a textbook such as Kavanin-i Tasarrufiye – Notları of Ebül’ula Mardinizade.77 The text criticizes the logical basis of earlier categories of land and provides doctrinal support for what were to be the last reforms of property right under the empire. In 1912 laws were issued that marked a break in Ottoman juridical language: these decreed a cadastral survey on European models, the introduction of mortgage (termed hypothèque) on the model of ‘other civilized nations’, and the unification of property categories across all types of land. The legislation of 1912 appeared too late to be introduced into the Arab provinces. Nor does it appear to have been treated in practice as part of the Ottoman legal corpus by the French and the British who at the end of the First World War occupied and divided the Arab provinces between them. British officials under the Mandate in Palestine and Jordan were to implement a similar programme but were to celebrate their land registration not as part of Mandate legal responsibility to apply Ottoman law, but as evidence of the progress in civilization that European forms of property represented.” The name Palestine therefore had nothing to do with earlier use in the Ottoman Empire in a gepographic , political or even administrative sense, but was PERHAPS (I find no documented support yet) a cultural ‘’tradition’’ of purely local self-identification in the face of Imperial attempts at Ottomanization of the area, resisted on similar grounds that any traditional society resists systematic incorporation into larger administrative entities they see as detached from and destructive to their way of life. This is why I agreed with Paddy Ryan’s assertion that there may well be sociological basis for apartheid claim, though not by Israel, but by the Ottoman Empire (and genocidal towards Armenians).

Just so we understand how the word Palestine is misused, here is another, this time geographical description from the same work. “The ‘Ajlun district formed the southernmost part of the sanjak of Hauran in the vilayet of Suriye, of which Damascus was provincial capital (Map 5.1). Bounded by the Yarmuk River on the north and the Zarqa River on the south, the district was one of settled agriculture, comprising mountains in the Jabal ‘Ajlun, rolling hills in the Kura and Kafarat, and the southernmost extension of the great Haurani plain in the Bani ‘Ubayd and Bani Juhma nahiyes (Map 5.2). Over the centuries of Ottoman rule the region of ‘Ajlun had at times been attached to urban centres in Palestine or, as in the later nineteenth century, linked to Damascus as a subdivision of the Hauran.1 Nevertheless, it formed a relatively stable administrative delimitation, and several of its sub-districts (notably, the Kura, Kafarat, Jabal ‘Ajlun and Bani Juhma) were units recognized by the administration since the Ottoman conquest. In the late nineteenth century the district contained just over one hundred villages.2 See Map 5.3.3 I’d be happy to send the map to you. It shows central East Bank of what is today Jordan. As you will have noticed, there is no mention of the Ottoman administration of this sanjak in the Wikipedai article. This is because the PLO no longer claims Jordan as an indivisible part of Palestine so certain editors chose to ‘forget’ to edit there. It does say that “The Hauran is mentioned in the Bible (Ezekiel 47:16-18) describing the boundary area of the Israelite Kingdom at the time.” but the link is to Israelites rather than to the Kingdom of Israel!

And here we get into theological reasons for the name use by the British. The reason British called the 'area' Palestine is because of the name on their maps for the area bordering Egypt. Look at the colour map from USA in the article subtitled ‘’An 1882 rendering of Canaan, as divided among the Twelve Tribes, by the American Sunday-School Union of Philadelphia.’’ It has a large yellow area at the south-western extreme. This was the area through which the British Army and its allied troops attacked in the Sinai and Palestine Campaign. Look carefully at the map from 1917 "The Times History of the War" Volume X, p.368 titled Map of north and central Sinai, 1917. The border on the Turkish side has Palestine, but the inset map? It only correctly shows the Ottoman province of Syria. Here is another contemporary English Maps from Palestine Campaign by Wavell. No Palestine.

However, almost all European historical maps produced in the 19th century, regardless of the period, are titled "Map of Palestine" as here Wavel at the time served as a staff officer on the HQ OF the Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF) that was formed in March 1916 to command the British and British Empire military forces in Egypt during World War I. And who was facing them? The Ottoman 4th Army in Filistina under Cemal PASHA. But where was this 100,000 strong Army? It was not dispersed over the entire area of what later became the mandate territories, but was located Western Front style dug in on the Egyptian border with advanced posts in Sinai, and main positions around Gaza. Its last positions during retreat were over-run by Australians at Beersheva after which the British Empire forces literally walked in unopposed into Jerusalem. There is a little known fact that for much of European history all maps of the Holy Land had to be approved by the Roman Catholic Church (until Reformation). The Church had certain views about use of anything connected with the Jews (reconquest for the Church was still policy until the 20th century), and therefore all maps until the time when Biblical textual criticism emerged in the late 19th century (NOTE in Germany) depicted Holy Land at the time of Christian era, i.e. one of Roman occupation, hence Palestine. Although most historical maps produced in Europe during the 19th century deal with other historical periods, they are still named ‘’Map of Palestine’’ though often there would be no actual Palestine name on the map named for historical reasons.

The majority of political elite of the early Zionist movement was German-speaking, and ‘progressive’ in that they accepted the Biblical textual criticism theory of the time that the Torah is a composite document. Use of maps depicting borders of Israel derived from the Torah were therefore theologically inconvenient to the Zionist cause, so the ‘scientific’ maps were used, which were still derived from those approved by the Church. Hence, Palestine. By the by, Palestinian Arabs make great use of Israel destruction of ‘their’ villages and houses for political purposes. However, none of these were ‘their’. In 1915 the Ottomans exiled to the ‘Syrian desert’ (as described by a Turk in 1942 above) a vast number of Anatolian Armenians. It is these people that built these villages, and later, after establishment of the mandate territories, and re-establishment of independent Armenia following the Russian Revolution, abandoned them. How do I know this? Because if you look at the images of the house you can see they were not built by or lived in my Muslims. Here is a quote to confirm this “Thus, in respect of true architectural value, modern Eastern houses, whether Mahometan, Armenian, or Greek, are, as before said, much one level, and that level a low one. Each has, however, something that individualises it to a certain extent, and acts the sign-board to make known the nationality of the in-dweller. Thus, the Greek is apt to try his hand, not over-successfully, at European imitation; while the Armenian displays a more Oriental taste by projecting ledges, strong colouring, and so forth. The Mahometan townsman has also his own distinctive marks, whereby his house may be very generally recognised at first sight. Pious inscriptions, wherein the name of God figures always, and that of Mahomet sometimes, decorate the corners and the upper roof-sheltered lines of the walls, in all the graceful intricacy of Arab caligraphy. Thus, for instance, a blessing on the Prophet takes the form of a dodo-like bird, resolving itself, legs, wings, beak, and all, on laborious anatomical deciphering, into words and sentences; an invocation of the Deity contracts itself into a scriptural egg, or expands into what may lie supposed to represent a cypress, a palm-tree, &c. Bona-fidc flowers, too, wreaths, spears, swords, drums, banners, and other cheerful or martial objects are often depicted ; and, in their complicated combination of form and hue, recall something of the gorgeous Saracenic colour school, familiar to Europeans in the relics of the Alhambra. Curious carving, too, is bestowed on lintels, eaves, and doorposts; the wood-work of the windows also is often tasteful, if considered in itself, though wanting harmony with the general lines and proportions of the building in which it is set. Lastly, the greater extent of lattice along some of the window ranges, those, of course, belonging to tho Harem, decisively indicates the Mahometan proprietor. p.310 Mahometani&m in the Levant. [September Fraser's magazine, Volume II - No. IX New Series 1870 By Thomas Carlyle

Now to PLO What you read and how it is, are usually different things in the 'Middle East' Although the PLO is an 'organisation', how could they declare Independence? Simple. Its a play on word meanings, an ancient Middle Eastern past time :) The decision to create an 'organisation' was taken by the Cairo Summit in January 1964 It was launched as the Palestinian Liberation Organisation. "Veteran Palestinian diplomatist Ahmed Shuqairy, an extravagant orator who had served long years in the foreign services of Syria, Saudi Arabia and the Arab League, was entrusted with putting some flesh on the summit's bare bones of an idea."(The Palestinian Liberation Organisation: people, power, and politics By Helena Cobban, p.29) Doesn't say so in the Wikipedia article, but there was a lot of opposition to PLO in the beginning. Shuqairy had to dig deep to find founding members, in the case of Arafat, to his 1952 student days in Cairo

The founding Conference was held in May 1964 in Jordanian East Jerusalem 422 members were responsible for the first Palestinian National Charter, and Basic Constitution There was also an Executive Committee

The military arm was known as Asifa, and Al-Fateh (not Fatah) petitioned the UN in 1965 to have its prisoners in Israel recognised as prisoners-of-war (a de jure recognition of PLO as a state in international military law, but within the strategy of pan-Arabism of the time) A state is an organisation by virtue of all of its ministries, and these were set up covertly in Nablus by Arafat in late 1967. However Israelis captured the Jordanian Military Intelligence HQ in East Jerusalem, and soon much of the PLO network of about 1,000 were in jails, and 200 dead, with Arafat escaping from Ramallah

In 1968 following the brief Battle of Karameh (honour in Arabic) brought estimated 5,000 volunteers to Al-Fateh in 48 hours

"In January 1968, Fateh had convened a co-ordinating meeting of all commando groups, also in Cairo. The only group which failed to participate was the PFLP, which considered the PLO the sole framework for inter-group co-ordination. The groups represented at the January meeting then set up a co-ordinating body called the Permanent Bureau. The PLO hit back two months later by establishing its own guerrilla formation, the Popular Liberation Forces, as an offshoot of the PLA. Thus, when the Fourth PNC was finally convened in Cairo in July 1968, just four months after the Battle of Karameh, the principle of the primacy of guerrilla operations against Israel was agreed by all present. Of the 100 seats at the session, 38 went to the Permanent Bureau and 10 to the PFLP [pro-PLO], and 20 were divided between the PLA and the Popular Liberation Forces, with the remainder going to previously serving PNC members." PLO had a Chairman, and the Chairman chaired a Central Committee that was the executive The political organ was still Al-Fateh, but the Executive Committee was a fully staffed Cabinet, and many of its members made it to Olso; Ahmad Khuri (Abu Ala) (PLC speaker) Director-general of PLO economic department; negotiated Oslo accord; Minister of Economics and Trade 1994, but resigned. Elected PLC Speaker in 1996, and others (The Transformation of Palestinian Politics: From Revolution to State-Building, By Barry Rubin, Appendix, p.214) The funding came through its various 'ambassadors' to Islamic and Marxist states PLO established a Military Co-ordination Council in Amman in October 1968 "...and at the 7th PNC, convened in Cairo the following February, the guerrilla groups were allotted 57 seats among them, out of the total of 105. Although the PFLP and the PLA both boycotted the session in protest at their share of the seats, it was practically a foregone conclusion that Fateh, with 33 formally allotted seats and many sympathisers in the 'independent' delegations, would be able to impose choice for Chairman on the Organisation. They did: he was the stocky, balding guerrilla organiser, Yasser Arafat. Fateh's Khaled al-Hassan, Farouq Qaddumi and Muhammed Yousscf al-Najjar were also elected to the 15-man PLO Executive Committee, where Hassan headed its Political Department ('Foreign Ministry')."(Cobban, p.44)

And, Al-Fateh collected tax also "By early 1968, Khaled al-Hassan had succeeded in persuading King Feisal to enforce the collection of a 'liberation tax' from Palestinians working in the Kingdom, which thereafter brought between 50 and 60 million riyals a year to the Palestinian movement." (Cobban p.45)

So you see, by the time OIC recognised PLO, it was a de-facto state, but without borders

Israelis know all this, and their strategy was as follows. (but first, and interlude to Siberia!) To really understand it you need to know the history of the Zionist movement in Russia and Soviet Union. Many of its leaders had spent time in Russian and Soviet labour camps. The counter-PLO strategy was borrowed from the labour camps. They could see that they had a fight with Al-Fateh, but it was inefficient to go chasing them all over the World (Mossad was stretched), and the campaign in 1982 proved that limited offensives also failed to dislodge it from the refugee camps. So, they decided on a different strategy. Israelis agreed to recognise PLO. When PLO declared Independence, Israelis continued with the peace negotiations like nothing happened although according to the Israeli policy PLO was a terrorist organisation, and therefore the state of Israel was at war with it, a terrorist state named PLO. When the Olso Accords were signed, few people understood what it meant. Israel had signed an agreement to create a public administration and legislative organs of PLO in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (WB&GS). By restricting PLO to the two territories, Israelis created two massive camps. Not that they conceived them as labour camps, but they could now contain PLO by entrapping it in its own political demographic, the electorate. (there is also a military tactic called hugging the belt) What happened next was very predictable. Just like in the labour camps where the guards leave the prisoners to work out their own power and political structure of the camp as long as everyone turns out to work, so too in WB&GS there immediately begun to form power groups vying for their share of political influence and funding. As soon as Arafat was dead, in fact almost 2 years before then, several groups emerged that eventually challenged Al-Fateh, one succeeding in a take over in Gaza, the Hamas. All Israel had to do now is 'watch the fence' (literally as it turned out later) like the guards in the labour camps. They used to let Palestinians come and work in Israel, but the number of suicide bombers persuaded them to eventually end that practice.

So, Israel is not an apartheid state, but one scarred to death, literally, and taking unprecedented security measures to prevent deaths of its citizens.

PLO remains the real name of the state that governs Arabs who live in WB&GS. The administrative organisation is THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY, which is the legal name, with the THE and all in capitals. It says so on the passports, so its not just a font they choose (in law a name in a legal document is only recognised in the font it is written in, ask your lawyer). The name Palestinian National Authority used in Wikipedia, though correct according to Wikipedia Manual of Style, is, in legal terms, a fictitious name. And, because it was created as an organisation subordinated to the PLO through the Oslo Accords, it can never be a state. PLO is not listed as a terrorist organisation, by Israel, but other splinter groups like Palestine Liberation Front are, and these participated in the 2006 elections. Therefore, as far as Israel is concerned, PLO is a terrorist state by extension of harbouring terrorist organisations, just like Libya and Iraq were, and Syria and Pakistan are now. Not that it says so in public. No one does (see for example US policy towards Pakistan). But, everyone knows this because this is a World-wide legal counter-terrorism convention.

There is law in the World still.

Sandbox2500

About this (please move it there/delete if you don't like such comment here). The first part about the origin of the name Palestine, the land laws there, etc. is interesting. It is relevant about discussion about the topic/scope of Palestine (region) article, about whether Palestine should contain the text or redirect to Palestine (region) or redirect to Palestine (disambiguation), etc. It is relevant about some article dealing with the current land laws there, settlements land, public land, private land, etc. But I don't see what it has to do with State of Palestine.

The second part about PLO seems written in negative tone towards the PLO, so if it is to be used it should be edited in more NPOV way. You try to make a point that "PLO is a state" (even a terrorist state). You claim that it has all the features of such state - but the PLO itself doesn't claim to be a state - and nobody recognizes it as state - so it is an entity similar to a state, but not exactly a state (this is best shown by its UN status - "entity right after the states and before the other entities and the international organizations"). And again, all this is relevant to the Palestine Liberation Organization article.

But State of Palestine article topic is not "PLO state-like features" - the scope of State of Palestine topic is more limited - it deals with the 1988-declared SoP, not just any Palestinian state (past, present, future, virtual, terrorist, state-like-organization, interim authorities, etc.). There is some overlap with PLO - because the PLO Executive Committee is the SoP government-in-exile, the PLO Palestinian National Council is the SoP legislature, the PLO Chairman is the SoP president. But only those acts of these institutions that are taken with the "SoP hat" are relevant to the SoP (when a person shares two or more posts he acts with different "hat" according to the issue at hand - e.g. "in the capacity of SoP president, John Smith complained against Israel Wall" is SoP hat, but "in the capacity of PLO chairman, John Smith ..." is not SoP hat). Because such detailed references are seldom made it is not so easy to distinguish in practice between the actions of PLO and actions of SoP (but this is not so big problem in practice - because SoP doesn't control any territory and doesn't have any activities outside foreign relations - unlike the PLO that trough its 'proxy' PNA/Oslo Accords administration has actual influence both de jure and de facto). But de jure these are different. That's why PLO is accepted by all (?) as UN observer, participates in many international organizations, etc. and SoP is not accepted anywhere except OIC, AL and some organizations of developing countries like NAM/G-77/etc.

AFAIK there are two theories about "what is a sovereign state?":

1. Declarative theory - Montevideo Convention with 4 requirements: (a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states.
2. Constitutive theory - states exist even without recognition, but "International Law" takes notice of them as "legal person/subject" only if they are recognized by other states (even without recognition the state exists, but has no rights/obligations related to "International Law")

Here we may argue whether there is additional "obvious" requirement - that the entity itself claims to be a sovereign state. PLO doesn't claim to be. SoP claims to be. But, taking in account the main two criteria gives us three options:

1. common case - a state that satisfies both Declarative and Constitutive requirements (this doesn't mean that it's recognized by ALL other states, but only by SOME)
2. a state that satisfies Declarative requirements only, but isn't recognized by ANY other state - one of List of unrecognized countries
3. a state that satisfies Constitutive requirements only, but fails some of the others (mostly territory/population) - one of government-in-exile

So, let's check the PLO and the SoP.

• SoP
  • Declarative requirements: has government (the PLO Executive Committee serves as SoP GiE), has relations with other states - but doesn't control any territory/population
  • Constitutive requirements: is recognized as state by many states
• PLO
  • Declarative requirements: has government-like institution (the PLO Executive Committee), has relations with other states - but doesn't control any territory/population (even if we consider PNA to be "part of PLO" all of the territory is still under final Israel control - PNA acts only as much as Israel allows it and where Israel allows it)
  • Constitutive requirements: is not recognized as state by any state

So, PLO fails both Declarative and Constitutive requirements and SoP satisfies most of these with the exception of territory/population control - a typical setup for a government-in-exile situation.

But, OK, what are we discussing here? What changes do you want in which articles? So, far I remember one change that seems reasonable - to mention on the PNA page that its name according to the Oslo Accords is PISGA. Alinor (talk) 12:50, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Er, there is another 'theory' of state, the Islamic one - Wee have wayz of making Palestine a state.

The two accepted theories are based in centuries of European international law development. This does not apply in the Islamic world where states are largely what the armed forces and their masters say they are.

PLO/Palestine subject area is hard to make sense of because it is a paradox. An initially political entity is now behaving like a state, but its claim to territory is based on a name resurrected by the British Empire. You see, there is a slight requirement in the international law related to statehood, which is assumed, that a state is a defined population with discrete symbols, one of which is self-identification. That self-identification, is the, er...make it, THE NAME (and flag, and hymn, etc. which are also legal national symbols, and not just something pretty). In European legal history the first time someone invented a new state were, the British American Colonies. Since that was an undesirable association, and already in legal use by the British, the Congress had to invent a new name for the new country, which they did. But, they could clearly identify the People (WE THE PEOPLE), and its borders, for the most part (the West was an open book)

In Israel the situation is quite different. PLO can not legally identify either the PEOPLE, due to the land title registration they resisted through the Ottoman and much of the British occupation, or the NAME, which is recorded in Roman Law (now defunct) and in various British documents, but which was never established as a legal entity under international law, or British law for that matter since it never had the status of colony or dominion.

The mandate territories were not nameless in the region before the British appended Palestine to them.

From The treaties of peace, 1919-1923, Volume 2 By Lawrence Martin Page xxxvii

MANDATES IN ARABIA

General (map facing p. 966). The former Turkish possessions in Arabia were surrendered by Articles 27, II (2), 27, II (3), 94, 95, 98, and 132 of the Treaty of Sevres and Articles 3 (1), 3 (2), and 16 of the Treaty of Lausanne. This includes (a) the proposed British mandates over Palestine and over Iraq (Mesopotamia), (b) the proposed French mandate over Syria and The Lebanon, (c) the independent Arabian Kingdom of The Hedjaz, (d) the countries of undetermined status on the Red Sea coast of Arabia between The Hedjaz and Aden (i. e., Asir and Yemen, and former Turkish islands in the Red Sea), and (e) the countries of undetermined status on the Persian Gulf coast of Arabia between Iraq on the northwest and El Qatar and Trucial Oman on the southeast (i. e., Koweit and the border of Nejd and Hasa. The interior of Nejd, and the Kingdom of Kerak or Trans-Jordan (the latter being part of the proposed British mandate over Palestine) were never under effective Turkish i. e., Ottoman, sovereignty or administration. The three mandates had already been allocated to Great Britain and to France by the decision of the Supreme Council dated April 25, 1920 (four months before the Treaty of Sevres was signed). 1See British Treaty Series, Miscellaneous No. 4. Cmd. 1195; map in

• La Geographie", Vol. 35. 192*. P- S67; "Nation and Athenaeum", Vol. 34. March 8, 1924, pp. 787-9.

1 See 'Franco-British Convention of Dec. 23, 1920 on Certain Points Connected with the Mandates for Syria and the Lebanon, Palestine and Mesopotamia", British Treaty Series, Miscellaneous No. 4, 1921, Cmd. 119s; "Agreement between His Majesty's Government and the French Government respecting the Boundary Line between Syria and Palestine from the Mediterranean to El Hamm6", British Treaty Series, No. 13, 1923, Cmd. 1910, with 3 maps, scale 1: 1oo.ooo.

• See "Franco-Turkish Agreement signed at Angora, Oct. 20, 1921", British Treaty Series, Turkey, No. 2, 1921, Cmd. 1556.

'Syria and The Lebanon [included in the Sanjak of Syria]. Syria is called "Esh-Sham" by the Arabs, and was called "Suristan" or "Arabustan" by the Turks (see Dana's "Arab Asia", published by the American Press, Beirut, 1922, p. 23).

The frontier between Syria, on the one hand, and Palestine and Iraq (then called Mesopotamia) on the other, was fixed by the Anglo-French Convention of December 23, 1920, and the Anglo-French Agreement of March 7, 1923.1 The northern frontier of Syria was fixed in one position by Article 27, II (2) of the Treaty of Sevres; it was then proposed that it should be shifted northward, by Article 8 of the "Accord d'Angora", signed Oct. 20, 1921.* The frontier provisions of this agreement were confirmed by Article 3 (1) of the Treaty of Lausanne. The French mandate over Syria and The Lebanon was ratified by the League of Nations on July 24, 1922 and came into force on September 29, 1923. 1 See 'Franco-British Convention of Dec. 23, 1920 on Certain Points Connected with the Mandates for Syria and the Lebanon, Palestine and Mesopotamia", British Treaty Series, Miscellaneous No. 4, 1921, Cmd. 119s; "Agreement between His Majesty's Government and the French Government respecting the Boundary Line between Syria and Palestine from the Mediterranean to El Hamme", British Treaty Series, No. 13, 1923, Cmd. 1910, with 3 maps, scale x1oo.ooo.

• See "Franco-Turkish Agreement signed at Angora, Oct. 20, 1921", British Treaty Series, Turkey, No. 2, 1921, Cmd. 1556.

Palestine and Trans-Jordan. The northern frontier of Palestine and Trans-Jordan (see above) and the southwestern frontier (with Egypt) are the only ones definitely fixed.3

The frontiers on the east (with Iraq and with Nejd) and on the »outh (with The Hedjaz) are shown on the map of Mandates in Arabia upon the basis of what is thought to be the present administrative extent of the jurisdiction of the Amir Abdullah. The internal boundary between Palestine and Trans-Jordan is essentially accurate. The boundary agreed to in 1923 appears to leave to Palestine the whole of the Sea of Galilee as well as some land southeast of the lake, and to Trans-Jordan the whole of the Dead Sea, rather than merely the portion east of its median line. The British Mandate over Palestine was ratified by the League of Nations on July 24, 1922. |0n May 26, 1923 the British authorities in Palestine issued a declaration conferring the rights of autonomous administration upon Trans-Jordan (see.Washington "Post", May 27. 1923). 3See "Report on Palestine Administration, July. 1920-December. 192*", His Majesty's Stationery Office. London. 192a, pp. 23-24; "Railway Map of Palestine and Transjordania, scale * : 750,000, reproduced by the Survey of Egypt, 22 /208".

Now because I see that you like maps, you must be wondering what a Railway Map is doing doing mentioned there. For the answer we turn to the HARVARD LAW LIBRARY HANDBOOK OF THE DIPLOMATIC HISTORY OF EUROPE, ASIA, AND AFRICA 1870-1914 which has the following section 69 (the only one mentioning Palestine):

[My appologoes, but its a DJVU text file that I haven't proof-read yet]

69. RAILWAY CONCESSIONS IN TURKEY.

1. INTRODUCTION.

The construction of railways in Turkey has been influenced by political and strategic objects of the powers and by the desire to secure Turkish markets, at least as much, if not more, than the economic value of each particular road. As the Turkish government was unsuccessful in its attempts to build and operate railroads almost all the track in Turkey was built and at the outset of the World War mostly operated by foreigners; the one exception was the Hedjaz pilgrim railway. Capitalists and engineers who built and managed the roads used material from their own countries and the principal employees of the roads, usually of the nations whose citizens control them, "involuntarily act as agents for the introduction" of their national goods. The use of railroads in the international competition for the Turkish market was particularly marked in the German railroad development after 1888, a development strongly backed by the diplomats of the Empire and by its great banks. Political considerations of another sort led Russia to block railroad building in Armenia, which bordered on her territory, except with her consent.

206

We may leave out of consideration the railroads of European Turkey, as that territory is now almost entirely in the hands of oths nations. The Bagdad line is also to be omitted (See article, The Bagdad Railway, 1903-1904), though the later history centers around it.

2. FIRST PERIOD, TO 188S.

Railroad history may be divided into four periods, the division being marked by the years 1888, 1903, 1908. In the first, the £iigM were dominant. As early as 1833 there was a serious attempt to work out routes to the Euphrates and the Persian Gulf, leaving the seacoast either at Tripoli or at Haifa. The main object was the short route to India. After the middle of the nineteenth century numerous plans were put forward to join the Mediterranean and Persian Gulf at Koweit; in 1866, a concession with a six per cent guarantee on capital invested, by the Turkish government, was obtained ; but the financial returns were too doubtful, in view of the competition with Suez, to interest the necessary capital. The concession for the Smyrna and Aidin Railway was given in 1856 and was to expire in 1935. The first section was opened in 1866. The Turkish government guaranteed six per cent on the cost of construction, but its payments fell in arrears; in 1888, in a new convention, the arrears were cancelled, the guarantee abandoned for the future, and the concession extended to 1935, when the government might exercise an option to purchase, but must pay, in addition to the purchase price, a large smn, as the agreed government debt to the company. The c<MnpanT. whose line has been extended up the Cayster and Maender valleys^ has since paid dividends to its stockholders without government aid. To the outbreak of the war it remained in the hands of the British. The concession for the Smyma-Cassaba Bailroad was granted to English capitalists in 1863 to expire in 1891. In 1872 it was extended to Alashehr. At that time it made a loan to the government and agreed to build and operate a line to Somah for the government account. Another small road from Mersina to Adana, forty-two miles, was buUt in 1883 by a Franco-English syndicate. In 1888 the English interests were bought out by the French. The road had no government aid and was not at first successful.

The Turkish Government decided in 1871 to take a hand in railroad construction and operation on its own account. In that year it began to build from Mudania to Brusa, but though the line was only about twenty-six miles long, it was scarcely completed in 18S<7 and was not opened for traffic, until in 1891 it was conceded to a French company. Operation began the next year. The companj had no government aid. At the same time the Turkish Government began a line from Haidar Pasha, opposite Constantinople, to Ismidt

207

fifty-eight miles, which, though of easy construction, took three years to complete and Turkish operation was so unsuccessful that the line T<7as leased to British subjects in 1880.

8. SECOND PERIOD, 1888-1908.

The second period opens with 1888, marked by the beginning of kilometer guarantees, i. e., a stipulated net revenue for each kilometer of road operated, the entrance of the Germans, and the loss of the English position to the French and Germans. The Haidar Pasha-Ismidt line was taken away from the English concessionaires on payment of compensation in 1888 by exercise of the right of denunciation and sold to a German syndicate headed by the Deutsche IBank, the great German financial institution for Near East enterrises. The Anatolian Railroad Co., formed to operate the line, got a concession to extend to Angora, three hundred and two miles, \yith a liberal kilometric guarantee, that is, a guarantee that the gross returns should be so much per kilometer. The guarantee was secured on the tithes (agricultural tax) of the provinces traversed bv the road. In addition, the road was to receive interest on sums expended during construction, and, a new and important feature, all mining rights for twenty kilometers on either side of the railway. In 1893, the line was farther extended by two branches, one to An- gora, the other to Konia. The company in accepting this concession agreed eventually to extend the line from Angora to Bagdad; but in fact, because of Eussian opposition to the route through Armenia, the Konia branch became the next link in the Bagdad railway. These lines were rapidly pushed to completion, the money being raised by ^ale of stock and bonds based on the Turkish kilometric guarantee, also secured on the local tithes. This company had strong German diplomatic support, in contrast to the attitude of the British Government which, when the Smyrna-Cassaba line asked protection against the danger of being shut off from its natural sphere of penetration by the extension to Konia, replied that it was glad to see the extension of German railroad activity.

The heavy debts of the Turkish Government to the Smyma--Cassaba company and its ill success induced the company to sell the road to the French investors, the Nagelmacker interests, who got a new concession from the Government on satisfying the claims of the old company against the Government. Turkey agreed to pay a fixed annuity of 92,'400 pounds a year for ninety-nine years, the life of the concession, secured by the Government's share of the receipts of the railway and the agricultural tax on the province of Aidin. The Government has the right to repurchase in 1974. The annuity was made the basis for an issue of bonds, and to provide the bulk of

208

the capital for the new construction authorized, other issues of bonds were to be based also on a kiloiaetric guarantee. The c(»iipany fell into German hands and a junction was made with the Anatolian railroad.

The most important road of Sjna, the Soci6t6 Ottomane du Chemins de Fer de Damas, Hama, et Prolonguements, was based on a concession to a native and on a similar one to a Turkish subject for a tramway south from Damascus. The line was without guaranty, as was the Jaffa- Jerusalem road, based on a concession to a native in 1888 and completed four years lajter. An Englirfi concern began a pretentious line from Haifa to Damascus and the Hauran (1891), but ran out of money after 21 miles of rail had been laid out of Haifa. A new railroad policy was struck out by Turkey in 1900, when the Hejaz line was decreed. This was to be a pilgrim route, the money was largely to come in contributions from the faithful throughout the world, the work was to be done by soldiers, and German engineers were permitted only in the non-sacred portion of the track. The lapsed road from Haifa and the French road south from Damascus were taken over and contact between Haifa and Damascus assured.

4. THIRD PERIOD, 1908-1908.

The third period is dominated by the Bagdad road. The Mersina-Adana road was secured by Oermans in 1906 by purchase of stock, though Anglo-French directors were still retained. (See article, The Bagdad Railway.) On the other hand, the Engiirfi were given permission in the same year to extend the Aidin road and the French received a concession for one from Heraclea on the Black Sea, where they operated coal mines.

6. FOURTH PERIOD, 1908-1914.

The entire railroad situation seemed passing into the hands of the Germans when, in 1908, the revolution br<^e out. At first many of the Young Turks were strongly anti-German, few favored that country. The new Government undertook an elaborate program of development, but the ministry of public works favored from the first the principle of balance of powers in railroads and an attempt was made to distribute favors impartially. Complaints were made in the Turkish Parliament against the high kilometric guarantees given the Bagdad road, but German diplomacy was able to make friends with the Young Turks and the concession was not interfered with. Concerns of all sorts of character brought forward all sorts of plans. One, for example, an Englisb sdieme,

209

was that the road should go from Adrianople across the Bosporus north of Cionstantinople, parallel but south of th($ Black Sea, and then to Persia and India. An American concern, the Ottoman- American Development Co. of New York, asked concessions which were yarionsly given as Angora-Sivas-Harput^Yan or Alexandretta-Diarbekir-yan and Diarbekir-Suleimama on the Ptf- sian f frontier. No kilometer guarantee was asked, but 4 pet cent was to be given on the cost of construction aiid 1 per cent for amortization, based on the revenues (tithes) of the six Provinces through which it went. Also, the oil and mineral lands for 20 kilometera on each side of the track were to be given the company. The scheme was approved by the experts and accepted in principle by the minister of public works. Special desire was felt by the Turkish Government that this should develop, as the United States was felt to bei free from desire to secure political control, but for some reason the plan did not succeed. Sir Edward Peitrs says (Abdul Hamid, p. 158) that the failure of the plan was due to German opposition.

In the period just before the war several important developments were put through or were in process of being organized. In South-west Arabia, the Yemen, the French secured a grant from Hodeideh to Sanaa, and began work. The English, represented by Willcocks, who had already begun the irrigation work in Babylonia, suggested roads from Fort Said to Arish, Lydda, Nablus, Bayak, and from Haifa or Tripoli tO Hit and Bagdad, but the French Damascus line secured the concession Tri{)oli-Hdms hi 1910 and opoied the branch the next year. The concession Bayak-Lydda was granted just before the war, but actual construction was conbpleted by the Turks from the junction At Afuleh in the plain of Esdraelon with the Haifa line dirough Lydda to Beerdieba after the War began. The Smyilui-Aidin road began extension to Egedir in 1908, and the next year opened the National Bahk of Turkey to oppose thel Deutsche Bank i^hidi had financed the Bagdad line and the Imperial Ottoman Bank, the French concern. Just before the war the French were given the concession Samsun-Slvas-Etzingan-Trebizond, in northeast Asiatic Turkey, for constructito ahd exploitation, through the B6gie GrSn^rale des Chemins de Fer Ottomans, again^ a loan of a half billion francs, as part of the consideration for France's consent to an increase of Turkish customs; the extension of the Soma line to the Dardanelles, and thence to the Anatolian toad at Ismid; and from Maidos on the Gallipoii Peninsula to Mirathi on the Oriental Bailways, the purpose of these last being puirely strategic. In conclusion, we should mention the convention of Germany with Russia in 1911, giving her northeast Turkey as her sphere of

210

influence and the railways built by the British in their advance qd Syria and Palestine and on Babylonia.

6. CONCLUSION.

The Turkish railways were a benefit to the population in spite of the burden of the kilometric guarantees, which, especially for the Bagdad Railway, were very high, and an advantage to the Turkish Government in the resulting increase of revenue, particularly as t large part of the Turkish taxes were in the form of a percentage of the crop grown. Without railways to move surplus crops to market, and to move troops to quell disorder, no great economic progress was possible. The kilometric guarantees had the effect of creating a sort of monopoly in the territory covered by the roads, since the government was interested in preventing competition which would lessen the income of a guaranteed road. This consideration, along with Grerman diplomacy, is said to have had considerable influence on the attempts of French and English capitalists to get a concession to parallel the Bagdad road from Hems to Bagdad though without a guarantee.

In other words, whatever the 1914 war in Europe was about, in West Asia (and not 'middle East'; the 'middle', "Palestine" and "Babylonia" being between British Egypt and British India) the war with Turkey was over strategic railway lines, and after the war, the Arabs, not just 'Palestinians' for above given reasons, wanted 'in' on the railway. And, they still do because one day the oil will run out, and railways will be again an economic mode of transport now linking Europe, India and East Asia as super-fast trains. Its the potential transport tax thats driving the PLO's agenda, not human rights (the concept is foreign to Islam) Koakhtzvigad (talk) 15:08, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

PS. I'd be most interested to find an English translation of the Franco-Turkish Agreement signed at Angora Koakhtzvigad (talk) 15:08, 13 January 2011 (UTC)