Weekend long read

Our weekly round-up of Middle East related background reading.

1) At the Tablet Tony Badran takes a wider look at the Lebanese PM’s recent resignation.

“Saudi Arabia’s minister of state for Gulf affairs, Thamer al-Sabhan, ratcheted up the rhetoric this week, and stated that Saudi Arabia will treat the Lebanese government as a hostile government which has “declared war,” because of Hezbollah’s involvement in military operations in Yemen and elsewhere targeting Saudi troops and the Saudi homeland itself.

Rhetoric aside, it is in fact hard to see how Lebanon cannot be held responsible for attacks facilitated and conducted by the entity that controls the country’s government and armed forces – which is why few nations with any choice in the matter would choose to be run by a terrorist organization, especially one that is controlled by a foreign country.”

2) At Mosaic magazine, Nicholas Rostow explains “How the Balfour Declaration Became Part of International Law“.

“In 1922, the League [of Nations] duly created the mandate for Palestine and made Britain the mandatory power. To the words of the Balfour Declaration, it added the recognition already given at San Remo “to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country” and conferred on Britain the obligation to implement its declaration, thus making it, too, part of international law. The terms of the mandate were binding on all members of the League. In 1924, the United States formally concurred in this international action by means of a treaty with Great Britain.” 

3) At the Algemeiner Einat Wilf discusses a topic relevant to the BBC’s recent portrayals of the Balfour Declaration as an act of ‘colonialism’.

“The campaign waged by Palestinians and their supporters to demand that Britain apologize for the Balfour Declaration, a century after it was issued, betrays yet again their fundamental misunderstanding of how and why the modern State of Israel came into being. Israel is the outcome of deliberate Jewish action — not of foreign hand-outs. Israel is a country attained – not a land given. […]

For too many, the story that Jews could attain something for themselves by operating, as all peoples do, on multiple fronts — diplomatically, economically, militarily — is still so fanciful that to some, the story of Israel only makes sense if presented as a series of handouts by foreign powers with shady motivations.”

4) Asaf Romirowsky and Alexander Joffe discuss “How the Quakers Became Champions of BDS” at the Tablet.

“How did a century-old religiously based pacifist organization transform itself into one of the leading engines for the Palestinian cause? Part of the answer lies in the AFSC’s evolution, which has gone from trying to save Jews to vilifying them. Its Quaker theology has similarly gone from emphasis on the “Inner Light” that guides individual conscience to something like old-fashioned Christian supersessionism, where Jews deserve to be hated. The result is that the organization is now effectively captive to progressive Israel-hatred.”

 

 

More from Hadar Sela
One to watch out for on BBC Two
An upcoming BBC Two programme relates to the Balfour Declaration.
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