Natural Rights

• Did the Arabians care about the natural rights of the Byzantines when they conquered Palestine?
• Did the Mamluks care about the natural rights of the Crusaders when they conquered Palestine?
• Did the Ottomans care about the natural rights of the Mamluks when they conquered Palestine?
• Did Muhammad Ali Pasha care about the natural rights of the Ottomans when his army conquered Palestine?
• Did the Ottomans care about the natural rights of Muhammad Ali Pasha when the British forced him out of Palestine?
• Did the Zahir al-Umar care about the natural rights of the Ottomans when he took control of Palestine?
• Did the notables care about the natural rights of the fellaheen when they stole title to their land and made them semi-feudal debtors living in perpetual poverty?

• A History of Anti-Partitionist Perspectives - Guedirik: For instance, in April 1936, Georges Antonius, then adviser to the Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al Hussaini, proposed to Ben Gurion a scheme combining the "natural rights" of the Arabs of Palestine and the "cultural and religious rights" of the Jews.
  The conclusions of the Commission were awaited with impatience and when the recommendations were made public, the AHC rejected them as they were in contradiction with the "natural rights" of the Arabs of Palestine and it deprived them from their right to self-determination.
• War in Palestine 1948 - David Tal: This claim was based on several arguments: the Palestinians formed the majority in the country, and their will should be decisive, not least because any other solution would be an infringement of their right to self-determination; they had natural rights to the land, as they had lived on it for generations
• The Meaning of the Disaster (al-Nakba) - Constantine Zurayk: This claim was based on several arguments: the Palestinians formed the majority in the country, and their will should be decisive, not least because any other solution would be an infringement of their right to self-determination; they had natural rights to the land, as they had lived on it for generations
• Behind the Silken Curtain - Bartley C. Crum: Making it clear that he recognized neither the Balfour Declaration nor the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine by which Great Britain became trustee for Palestine, Jaamal (Husseini) declared that we had no right to arbitrate or decide any questions "relating to the Arabs' natural rights in their own country." These rights could not be argued, he said.
• Betrayal of Palestine: the Story of George Antonius - Susan Silsby Boyle: By not carrying their inquiry to its proper limits, the Commissioners found themselves defenseless against the argument that Zionist and Arab rights in Palestine stood on an equal footing, and were persuaded into adopting it, thus giving the weight of their endorsement to a claim which is historically invalid and, so far as natural rights go, fictitious. And having adopted the claim as valid, they based their proposals for a solution upon it. The solution proposed by the Royal Commission rests on the argument that, since Arabs and Jews have equal rights to the possession of Palestine, the country should be divided between them.
• Collusion Across the Jordan - Avi Shlaim: First, its support for complete unity between the two sides of the Jordan and their union into one state, which is the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, at whose head reigns King Abdullah Ibn El Hussein, on a basis of constitutional representative government and equality of the rights and duties of all citizens. Second, its reaffirmation of its intent to preserve the full Arab rights in Palestine, to defend those rights by all lawful means in the exercise of its natural rights but without prejudicing the final settlement of Palestine's just case within the sphere of national aspirations, inter-Arab co-operation, and international justice.
• Colonialism and Christianity in Mandate Palestine - Laura Robson - The Jerusalem association's statutes declared, "The purpose of this society is to ele- vate the interests of the country (Palestine) connected with agriculture, technics, economics and commerce, the revival of science and the education of the national youth and the protection of natural rights, morally and materially.
  He deplored the slowness of the Palestinian Arabs in producing propaganda aimed at a British audience: "This is a frank admission of our backwardness in the very important field of information and propaganda. I must admit again that it was wrong of the Arab people of Palestine to depend only on their indisputable natural rights to their country and on the Covenant of the League of Nations which decreed their self-determination."
• Israel and Palestine-Reappraisals-Revisions-Refutations - Avi Shlaim: In December 1920 Abd al-Hadi participated in the Third Palestinian Congress in Haifa. The Congress denounced the actions of the British government and its plans for realising the Zionist goals. It also rejected Balfour's promise of a national home for the Jews in Palestine as a violation of international law, of wartime Allied commitments, and of the natural rights of the inhabitants of the country.
• Palestine 1936: The Great Revolt - _Oren Kessler: As his exposition came to a close, Antonius finally abandoned the pretense of disinterested historian. It was a crucial moment in the Arab national struggle, and as its foremost champion he would make his position plain:
  
  There is no room for a second nation in a country which is already inhabited, and inhabited by a people whose national consciousness is fully awakened, and whose affection for their homes and countryside is obviously unconquerable. … There seems to be no valid reason why Palestine should not be constituted into an independent Arab state in which as many Jews as the country can hold without prejudice to its political and economic freedom. … It would protect the natural rights of the Arabs in Palestine and satisfy their legitimate national aspirations. It would enable the Jews to have a national home in the spiritual and cultural sense, in which Jewish values could flourish and the Jewish genius have the freest play to seek inspiration in the land of its ancient connection.
• Partitioning Palestine - Penny Sinonglou: Auni Abdelhadi and Jamal Husseini mixed denial of the mandate's validity with insistence that the terms of the mandate were being violated. Abdelhadi asserted that the mandate was inconsistent with Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations and noted that complaints about the functioning of the mandate were subsidiary to the point that "nothing matters so much to the Arabs as their real and natural rights."
• Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict-1881-2000 - Benny Morris: What emerged was al Fatat. Two of its founding members, 'Abd al-Hadi and Rafiq al-Tamimi (also of Nablus), were to play prominent parts in the Palestinian Arab national movement. All were of Greater Syrian origin, and all were Muslims. The society initially aimed at preserving the "natural rights" of the Arab nation rather than Arab independence, Arab-Turkish equality within the empire rather than secession. But by 1913 leading members were defining its platform as "the liberation of the Arab nation."
• The Emergence of the Palestinian-Arab National Movement: 1918-1929 - Yehoshua Porath: Since Palestine is ours, went the resolutions of the Third Congress, it would be an offence against our natural rights if our homeland were taken from us by the Zionists. A people's homeland is like an individual's home -no person "other than himself has the right to take a part of it unless he proves his right by being a majority of the population"
• The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine - Ilan Pappe: The moment British Foreign Secretary Lord Balfour gave the Zionist movement his promise in 1917 to establish a national home for the Jews in Palestine, he opened the door to the endless conflict that would soon engulf the country and its people. In the pledge he made in his government's name, Balfour promised to protect the aspirations of the non- Jewish population - a strange reference to the vast native majority - but the declaration clashed precipitately with both the aspirations and natural rights of the Palestinians for nationhood and independence.
• In his testimony before the Anglo-American Committee o f Inquiry on Palestine, J.L. Magnes declared:
  
  The Arabs have great natural rights in Palestine. They have been here for centuries. The graves of their fathers are here. There are remains of Arab culture at every turn. The Mosque of Aksa is the third Holy Mosque in Islam …
• The Iron Cage - Rashid Khalidi: Starting soon after the British occupation, they repeatedly pressed Great Britain to grant them the national rights, notably self-determination, and the political rights, notably representative government, they justifiably considered were their due. They claimed these rights on the basis of the American president Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points, Article 4 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, Allied promises to support Arab independence during World War I and their natural rights as a people. Each time they did so, however, they were told that they were obliged to accept the terms of the Mandate as a precondition for any change in their constitutional position. But these terms denied the Palestinians any of these rights, or at best subordinated them completely to the national rights of the Jewish people.
• The Israel-Palestine Conflict - James L. Gelvin: O Arab sons of Palestine:
  The Syrian nation and the Palestinian associations are incensed that the [allies] would seek to detach Palestine from its motherland, Syria, under the guise of establishing a national government. How can we accept the life of slaves to the Jews and foreigners and not defend our political and natural rights? Raise your voice, protest this treachery, and never fear threats or intimidation… . If there exists a man among you who, bribed by gold or honors, rallies to the occupation government, stay away from him, boycott him, and show him your scorn, for he is a traitor to his country and his nation. Likewise, boycott the Jews, sell them nothing and buy nothing from them. Boycott those who sustain them and serve them as underlings… .