Britain violated the Mandate and contributed to the Holocaust

By HENRY ROME, JPOST

Violent and anti-Semitic actions by the British during the Mandate period reverberate today in the relations between Israel and the UK, two British journalists said at an event on Sunday marking the 96th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration.

The conference at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem featured the Hebrew premiere of a documentary about British policy from the period between the publication of the declaration, on November 2, 1917, to independence.

In addition to speeches by British journalists, the former speaker of the Knesset, Shlomo Hillel, and a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem addressed the gathering.

The film screening and speeches largely focused on British actions in the Middle East nearly a century ago. The speakers also discussed how the British “betrayal” of Jews is portrayed in the mainstream British press. While participants did not specifically reference contemporary issues between Israel and the United Kingdom, the event came at a time of increased tensions regarding Iran and accusations that the former British foreign secretary made anti-Semitic comments in Parliament.

“I can speak to you as a British citizen who represents tens of thousands of Christians in Britain who have a very real sense of sorrow and shame of our nation’s betrayal of the Jewish people during the mandate period,” said Hugh Kitson, the producer of the documentary titled The Forsaken Promise. “Our government needs to make a formal apology to the nation of Israel for the handling of the mandate – or really I should say the mishandling of it – and the wholesale suffering it caused to thousands and thousands of people,” he added.

The documentary argued that despite the Balfour Declaration’s assurances of a Jewish homeland, the British government went to extraordinary lengths to impede the creation of a Jewish state. The film accused the British government of obstructing efforts by Jews to flee the Holocaust.

And it said the British did not try to stop massacres of Jews in Hebron and on the convoy route to Hadassah hospital on Mount Scopus.

In addition, the film featured interviews with Holocaust survivors who were denied entry into Palestine following the war. The narrator said that “Britain’s international reputation was in tatters” after the military either detained Jews fleeing Europe or sent them back.

Hillel called the film a “masterpiece.”

“The relationship between Great Britain [and] the British people, and the Jews and Israel, have been very complex and very, very old. It has its ups and downs,” Hillel said.

He paused and then added, “It continues to have its ups and downs, I have to say.”

Melanie Philips, a British author and publisher, said the film told the “story of the utmost treachery and malice, as the British upended their international treaty obligation” under the mandate. She argued that the British public is besieged with anti-Israel propaganda that obscures the history of British action during the mandate.

“It is essential that people understand this history, in order to show them that, contrary to what they believe, Israel stands for law, history and justice,” she said.

Robert Wistrich, a professor at the Hebrew University, concluded the discussion, arguing that “Britain placed every conceivable obstacle in the way of any relief of that suffering,” referring to the Holocaust.

“I can only use a word very much avoided by historians: A sense of ‘evil,’” he said.

“British policy – just looking at the facts themselves and the documents and what we know – is increasingly afflicted by kind of evil design. [It] wasn’t necessarily there at the beginning, but was an absolutely cold and callous disregard for the most elementary human values,” he added.

MK Shimon Ohayon also spoke briefly at the event and noted that, when he was in high school, “everybody was proud to learn [the Balfour Declaration] by heart.”

November 5, 2013 | 123 Comments »

Leave a Reply

50 Comments / 123 Comments

  1. Salubrius Said:

    The changes to the mandate in 1939 were adjudicated by the only agency having jurisdiction over mandatories and their administration of what was entrusted to them. They were not adjudicated in a law court because law courts have no jurisdiction over disputes between beneficiaries and trustees having legal dominion over the trust res.

    CuriousAmerican Said:

    I am saying the WP 1939 was NOT fully adjudicated.

    Apparently Curious American has omitted the posts of Salubrius which demonstrate the matter WAS adjudicated by the only body having the legal authority to determine legality. The league Council did not have the authority to determine legality but only to change the mandate.
    CA did not dispute the posts of Salubrius which demonstrated the illegality of the BWP39. Was the CA omission intentional? CA did quote some of Salubrius posts which he thought would make his case but conveniently overlooked the main points. Is CA an honest individual who is just trying to make a sincere argument?
    If so why does he ignore everything which clearly demonstrates that his statement was false that: the BWP39 was LEGAL.

  2. The three members of the Permanent Mandates Commission who voted that the changes in 1939 White Paper was within the scope of the Mandate were evidently not aware that the French had tried to expand the savings clause and add “political rights” to the civil and religious rights” of the non-Jewish communities that were to be saved. You can find that in the minutes of the meeting of April 25th at San Remo. But the three in the Permanent Mandates Committee who interpreted “civil and religious rights” to include “political rights” just hadn’t done their homework. To satisfy the French, the others made a side agreement that they would interpret the savings clause to the effect that it meant the non-Jewish communities would not have to surrender any of their rights. But they had no political rights to surrender. The Arabs in Palestine had never ruled Palestine from a capital within the boundaries of the state.

    See the minutes of the discussion at
    http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/D54DB2B34342AE5D052565E9004F24DF

    Therefore, the minutes show that those three hadn’t done their homework — not that they were necessarily anti-semitic. I thought I had posted this before. If it is duplicatory, I apologize.

  3. @ yamit82:
    We should care what Arab apologists like you think or opine???

    I am NOT an Arab apologist.

    I am saying the WP 1939 was NOT fully adjudicated. The British were taking it to the League of Nations.

    That being said: I do think the WP 1939 was despicable.

    There is not disagreement that it was immoral or despicable.

    What you are arguing over is LEGALITY.

    Morality and legality are not always the same thing.

    I have told you my reasons why I think it was legal, albeit despicable.

    You insults speak ill of you as a real bigot.

    I know of Arab apologists who cite the Balfour Declaration to claim Israel is illegal.

    The interpretation of the declaration depends on the sympathies of the jurist.

    Can there be any doubt that 9 Arab jurists would differ totally from 9 Jewish jurists on the legality of the 1939 WP? 9 Christian jurists would probably split on their opinion.

    It is not prejudice to point this out.

    The British were taking their case to the League of Nations. That was not accomplished. So the case was NOT fully adjudicated.

    Since we all agree the White Paper of 1939 was despicable, you have no case for outrage.

    What is happening here is that bernard ross, dove, and yamit are re-ifying legality as if legality were the only important issue in and of itself.

    I made my point. There is no need to continue the debate.

    If you want to go on with your re-ification of legality, that is your choice.

    We agree it was despicable.

    But if you are fully convinced that what Britain – who regularly acted despicably – did was illegal then contact this group and ask them to sue Britain.

    Shurat HaDin – Israel Law Center
    10 Hata’as St., Ramat Gan 52512
    ISRAEL
    Phone: 972-3-7514175
    Fax: 972-3-7514174
    US line: 212-591-0073

    http://www.israellawcenter.org/index.asp

    Unless you do, I will consider your inaction to be a silent acknowledgement of the correctness of my view.

  4. Salubrius Said:

    The Permanent Mandates Commission appears to be a special court of equity set up for the purpose of adjudicating disputes between the beneficiaries and the trustee. ……..
    League of Nations Council that met more frequently than the League in its entirety, had the power under Article 27 to modify the mandate, not interpret it.

    Therefore, the one and only entity legally charged with adjudicating whether the BWP39 was LEGAL did in fact declare it to be ILLEGAL!

    @ CuriousAmerican:
    Do you still continue to maintain that the BWP39 was LEGAL?

  5. CuriousAmerican Said:

    In the end, at statement that the White Paper of 1939 was illegal is confined to opinion.

    Your original statement was not to dispute the statement that it was illegal, you unequivocally stated that it was LEGAL.
    Now you attempt to revise your statement by saying it was not proven to be illegal thereby creating a red herring around what you actually stated.
    But even in that you are disingenuous because you state that:.
    CuriousAmerican Said:

    It was not fully adjudicated.

    whereas:
    Salubrius Said:

    Yes. I am saying that the enforcement of BWP39 by Britain was illegal even though it was under the color of law. The Permanent Mandates Commission appears to be a special court of equity set up for the purpose of adjudicating disputes between the beneficiaries and the trustee. What is not clear is whether the PCIJ had the jurisdiction to review the decisions of the Permanent Mandates Commission. However it is perfectly clear the League of Nations Council that met more frequently than the League in its entirety, had the power under Article 27 to modify the mandate, not interpret it. “The British ignoring their legal obligation under the terms of The Mandate illegally restricted Jewish immigration into Palestine.”

    What is important for me to demonstrate IMHO is that you are an extremely disingenuous individiual who will grasp at any straw to justify your false statement that: the BWP39 swindle was LEGAL
    CuriousAmerican Said:

    In the end, however, it was never fully adjudicated. Even the Mandate Council was divided.

    In spite of all evidence to the contrary you continue to propagate the ludicrous and disingenuous canard that the BWP39 was legal and your basis now is that the adjudication had a minority opinion. Does a minority opinion in the US Supreme Court give credence to the view that the minority opinion is the law and the majority opinion is not the law?
    Your disingenuous mental gymnastics and your attempts to obfuscate and hide your own original statements IMHO designates you to be an utter fraud.

  6. The three members of the Permanent Mandates Commission who voted that the changes in 1939 White Paper were within the scope of the Mandate were evidently not aware that the French had tried to expand the savings clause of the Balfour Declaration and add “political rights” to the civil and religious rights” of the non-Jewish communities that were to be saved. They were apparently unaware that the majority of the group at San Remo had expressly rejected the French effort. So they interpreted “civil and religious rights” to include “political rights”. I don’t interpret this as their being antisemitic. They just hadn’t done their homework. The Arabs in Palestine had never had any political rights. Palestine had always been ruled from outside its boundaries except under the rule of the Jews when it was a Jewish Nation-State.

    See the minutes of the discussion at
    http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/D54DB2B34342AE5D052565E9004F24DF

  7. @ bernard ross:
    @ Salubrius:

    http://www.counterpunch.org/2006/11/11/on-the-anti-semitism-of-the-present-government/

    I wish to place on record my view that the policy of His Majesty’s Government is anti-Semitic in result will prove a rallying ground for Anti-Semites in every country in the world.

    This view is prompted by the receipt yesterday of a correspondence between Lord Rothschild and Mr. Balfour.

    It is in this atmosphere that the Government proposes to endorse the formation of a new nation with a new home in Palestine. This nation will presumably be formed of Jewish Russians, Jewish Englishmen, Jewish Roumanians, Jewish Bulgarians, and Jewish citizens of all nations – survivors or relations of those who have fought or laid down their lives for the different countries which I have mentioned, at a time when the three years that they have lived through have united their outlook and thought more closely than ever with the countries of which they are citizens.

    Zionism has always seemed to me to be a mischievous political creed, untenable by any patriotic citizen of the United Kingdom.(Lord MONTAGUE)

  8. CuriousAmerican Said:

    It was not fully adjudicated. The War intervened. Even the Mandate Council was divided.

    4 to 3 is still a majority opinion. That it was never adjudicated, the majority opinion of the committee stood that it was illegal in the sense that it was in contradictions to the mandatory guidelines and obligations under which Britain as trustee agreed for the purpose in carrying out those same guidelines.

    In the end, at statement that the White Paper of 1939 was illegal is confined to opinion.

    No the WP was illegal because it was in-contravention of the terms of the mandate awarded to Britain for the purposes outlined in the preamble. As long as the Mandates purpose and terms were not legally amended by the proper legal authority it stands as legal and the WP as illegal by any definition.

    Arabs are not named in the mandate and if the intention was to refer to them they would have been named. Rights of minorities is universally acknowledged as per Wilson’s 4 points. It was the mandatory powers who sought to relegate such principles to vague references because they all had large minorities and were afraid that many would demand autonomy at best and independence at worst. A Europe of some 300 countries could never be encouraged or entertained.

    Weizmann wanted it stated more unambiguously that the Jews would be given preference. The British refused that formulation. Rabbi Berel Wein has shown that Montague, a Jewish member of the British cabinet eviscerated the declaration.

    I want you to read this: A Dissenting Note on the Balfour Declaration of November 2, 1917
    On the Anti-Semitism of the Present Government
    by Lord MONTAGUE

    Of course, I expect most Jews to hold the opinion that the White Paper of 1939 was illegal.

    Of course, I expect Jew Hating scum like you to hold the opinion that the White Paper of 1939 was LEGAL!!!

    Most Arab apologists hold the opinion that the Balfour Declaration was obliged to not violate Arab rights and that therefore the Jewish state is illegal. At most the declaration allowed the Jews an autonmous region. The Mandate was built on the declaration, and the flaw carried over.


    We should care what Arab apologists like you think or opine??
    ?
    The WP was illegal period but where I come from any law that is immoral is by definition illegal and not binding, even justification for insurrection which did indeed eventually happen. We won the Scumbag Jew hating Brits and Arabs lost and Justice prevailed.

  9. @ bernard ross:Yes. I am saying that the enforcement of BWP39 by Britain was illegal even though it was under the color of law. The Permanent Mandates Commission appears to be a special court of equity set up for the purpose of adjudicating disputes between the beneficiaries and the trustee. What is not clear is whether the PCIJ had the jurisdiction to review the decisions of the Permanent Mandates Commission. However it is perfectly clear the League of Nations Council that met more frequently than the League in its entirety, had the power under Article 27 to modify the mandate, not interpret it.

    “The British ignoring their legal obligation under the terms of The Mandate illegally restricted Jewish immigration into Palestine.” http://www.jewishhistory.org/the-miracle-of-israel/ The Permanent Mandates Commission had not means of enforcement of its ruling.

  10. Lord Montague and Balfour declarationCuriousAmerican Said:

    Weizmann wanted it stated more unambiguously that the Jews would be given preference. The British refused that formulation. Rabbi Berel Wein has shown that Montague, a Jewish member of the British cabinet eviscerated the declaration.

    A Dissenting Note on the Balfour Declaration of November 2, 1917
    On the Anti-Semitism of the Present Government
    by Lord MONTAGUE

    I wish to place on record my view that the policy of His Majesty’s Government is anti-Semitic in result will prove a rallying ground for Anti-Semites in every country in the world.

    This view is prompted by the receipt yesterday of a correspondence between Lord Rothschild and Mr. Balfour.

    “….the Government proposes to endorse the formation of a new nation with a new home in Palestine. This nation will presumably be formed of Jewish Russians, Jewish Englishmen, Jewish Roumanians, Jewish Bulgarians, and Jewish citizens of all nations –…”

    “Zionism has always seemed to me to be a mischievous political creed, untenable by any patriotic citizen of the United Kingdom. If a Jewish Englishman sets his eyes on the Mount of Olives and longs for the day when he will shake British soil from his shoes and go back to agricultural pursuits in Palestine, he has always seemed to me to have acknowledged aims inconsistent with British citizenship and to have admitted that he is unfit for a share in public life in Great Britain, or to be treated as an Englishman. …”

    “it seems to be inconceivable that Zionism should be officially recognised by the British Government, and that Mr. Balfour should be authorized to say that Palestine was to be reconstituted as the “national home of the Jewish people”. I do not know what this involves, but I assume that it means that Mahommedans and Christians are to make way for the Jews and that the Jews should be put in all positions of preference and should be peculiarly associated with Palestine in the same way that England is with the English or France with the French, that Turks and other Mahommedans in Palestine will be regarded as foreigners, just in the same way as Jews will hereafter be treated as foreigners in every country but Palestine. Perhaps also citizenship must be granted only as a result of a religious test.”

    “I assert that there is not a Jewish nation. The members of my family, for instance, who have been in this country for generations, have no sort or kind of community of view or of desire with any Jewish family in any other country beyond the fact that they profess to a greater or less degree the same religion…”

    “When the Jews are told that Palestine is their national home, every country will immediately desire to get rid of its Jewish citizens, and you will find a population in Palestine driving out its present inhabitants, taking all the best in the country, drawn from all quarters of the globe, speaking every language on the face of the earth, and incapable of communicating with one another except by means of an interpreter….”

    “…I have never heard it suggested, even by their most fervent admirers, that either Mr. Balfour or Lord Rothschild would prove to be the Messiah…”….”I would willingly disfranchise every Zionist. I would be almost tempted to proscribe the Zionist organisation as illegal
    and against the national interest. But I would ask of a British Government sufficient tolerance to refuse a conclusion which makes aliens and foreigners by implication, if not at once by law, of all their Jewish fellow-citizens….”

    “I would say to Lord Rothschild that the Government will be prepared to do everything in their power to obtain for Jews in Palestine complete liberty of settlement and life on an equality with the inhabitants of that country who profess other religious beliefs. I would ask that the Government should go no further….” Read Complete letter Here

    E.S.M.
    1917

  11. @ yamit82:

    The other three members “were unable to share this opinion; they consider that existing circumstances would justify the policy of the White Paper, provided the Council did not oppose it.”

    111. It was the intention of His Majesty’s government to seek the approval of the League Council for their new policy. This, however, they were prevented from doing by the outbreak of war in September. Read More

    It was not fully adjudicated. The War intervened.

    As for the link you write about, Yamit, I am aware of it. The opinion is by a revanent who lives in Yesha. His article is a legal opinion; but not definitive.

    In the end, however, it was never fully adjudicated.

    Even the Mandate Council was divided.

    “three members “were unable to share this opinion; they consider that existing circumstances would justify the policy of the White Paper”

    I would love to know if those three members were British.

    In the end, at statement that the White Paper of 1939 was illegal is confined to opinion.

    A clear reading of the Mandate shows that the Mandatory Power was obliged to uphold the civil rights of the Arabs.

    This was the ambiguity.

    Weizmann wanted it stated more unambiguously that the Jews would be given preference. The British refused that formulation. Rabbi Berel Wein has shown that Montague, a Jewish member of the British cabinet eviscerated the declaration.

    Of course, I expect most Jews to hold the opinion that the White Paper of 1939 was illegal.

    Most Arab apologists hold the opinion that the Balfour Declaration was obliged to not violate Arab rights and that therefore the Jewish state is illegal. At most the declaration allowed the Jews an autonmous region. The Mandate was built on the declaration, and the flaw carried over.

    The British were told to clarify the position in 1920-22. They refused to do so.

    There was an escape clause, and the British knew it, and they wanted it to remain.

    The White Paper of 1939 was despicable, but it was not illegal.

    Do not conflate law with morality.

  12. bernard ross Said:

    Salubrius:
    Are you saying that the BWP39 was legal, illegal or you don’t know?
    and/or
    are you saying that the Mandate commission decision was an adjudication and that the BWP39 was illegal?


    The Illegal 1939 White Paper

    A bit of history on how the 1939 White Paper was illegal:-

    The White Paper of May 1939*

    The Mandatory’s new statement of policy was examined by the Permanent Mandates Commission at their thirty-sixth session in June, 1939. the commission reported that:

    “the policy set out in the White Paper was not in accordance with the interpretation which, in agreement with the Mandatory Power and the Council, the Commission had always placed upon the Palestine Mandate.”

    They went on to consider whether the Mandate was open to a new interpretation with which the White Paper would not be at variance. Four of the seven members

    “did not feel able to state that the policy of the White Paper was in conformity with the Mandate, any contrary conclusion appearing to them to be ruled out by the very terms of the Mandate and by the fundamental intentions of its authors.”

    The other three members “were unable to share this opinion; they consider that existing circumstances would justify the policy of the White Paper, provided the Council did not oppose it.”

    111. It was the intention of His Majesty’s government to seek the approval of the League Council for their new policy. This, however, they were prevented from doing by the outbreak of war in September. Read More

  13. @ yamit82:

    Just saw Naftali Bennet on FoxTV, its dark in Jerulsalem and morning here,off to the flea market. Dr. says I must walk and the flea market is a good place for walking and talking. Thanks for the back up.

  14. dweller Said:

    The Jim Crow statutes were NOT legal. They were in violation of the US Constitution.

    Jim Crow law [ Pussly vs Furgusson ,separate but equal ] became unenforcable because the citizens refused [ under pain of imprisomment and death] to comply to those laws. The US law enforment was compilent with those very for years.

  15. @ Salubrius:
    Are you saying that the BWP39 was legal, illegal or you don’t know?
    and/or
    are you saying that the Mandate commission decision was an adjudication and that the BWP39 was illegal?

  16. Enforcement of a statute later found to be unconstitutional is said to be “under the color of the law”; it is not lawful.

  17. @ dweller: Under Article 27 the League had the right to modify the Palestine mandate. “ART. “27. The consent of the Council of the League of Nations is required for any modification of the terms of this mandate. ” At the meeting that was canceled because of the outbreak of war, the question that would have been before it was not whether the action of the Mandatory Power was outside its authority under the Mandate, but whether the League wanted to modify the Mandate to permit that action nonetheless. Unless someone can find that the League Permanent Council had authority to reverse the ruling of the League Permanent Mandates Commission, it seems to me that is not equivalent to saying that the ruling of the Mandates Commission on the scope of Britain’s authority was not a final ruling.
    The League had established the PCIJ. I suppose the Council could have referred the matter to the PCIJ but that would not have been in alignment with the then separation of law and equity. The question of the authority of the trustee was not then within the jurisdiction of a law court, only an equity court. The Permanent Mandates Commission appears to have been that equity court for the trusteeships developed under the mandate system. So the action of the Permanent Mandates Commission was probably final unless the Council wanted to change the terms of the Mandate as it did have the authority to do. But it never did.

  18. dweller Said:

    The Jim Crow statutes were NOT legal. They were in violation of the US Constitution.

    — That’s why they no longer exist.

    They were legal and enforced until they were challenged and rescinded. I dare say there are many laws enforce today that you and others might consider illegal and unconstitutional but they are still the law, so who the f8ck cares what you think, you are a wacko!!!

    How come you never duplicated your actions over any other actions and unconstitutional acts by the US Government? Because the Nam war threatened you physically and you covered that cowardice by invoking moralist excuses. Pathetic 🙁

  19. dweller Said:

    No one Is bound to obey an unconstitutional law and no courts are bound to enforce it.“

    Spoken like an experienced jailhouse lawyer and worth about as much. What does American constitutional law have to do with anything vis a vis the subject at hand?

    In the case of the United States government, implied powers are the powers exercised by Congress which are not explicitly given by the Constitution itself but necessary and proper to execute the powers which are.

    Guess you never heard of elasticity or implied powers? Implied powers, in the United States, are those powers authorized by a Bitychdocument (from the Constitution) which, while not stated, seem to be implied by powers expressly stated. When George Washington asked Alexander Hamilton to defend the constitutionality of the First Bank of the United States against the protests of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Attorney General Edmund Randolph, Hamilton produced what has now become the classic statement for implied powers. Hamilton argued that the sovereign duties of a government implied the right to use means adequate to its ends. Although the United States government was sovereign only as to certain objects, it was impossible to define all the means which it should use, because it was impossible for the founders to anticipate all future exigencies. Hamilton noted that the “general welfare clause” and the “necessary and proper clause” gave elasticity to the constitution. Hamilton won the argument with Washington, who signed his Bank Bill into law.

    Later, directly borrowing from Hamilton, Chief Justice John Marshall invoked the implied powers of government in the court decision of McCulloch v. Maryland. This was used to justify the denial of the right of a state to tax a bank, the Second Bank of the United States, using the idea to argue the constitutionality of the United States Congress creating it in 1816.

    The Necessary and Proper Clause, also known as the Elastic Clause, the Basket Clause, the Coefficient Clause, and the Sweeping Clause, is a provision in Article One of the United States Constitution, located at section 8, clause 18.

    The War Powers Resolution there is controversy as to whether the provisions of the resolution are consistent with the Constitution. Presidents have therefore drafted reports to Congress required of the President to state that they are “consistent with” the War Powers Resolution rather than “pursuant to” so as to take into account the presidential position that the resolution is unconstitutional.
    http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/crs/rl32267.htm

    Your black and white faith in constitutional law of the USA is about as valid and sound as your blind faith in the man/god on a stick.

  20. @ CuriousAmerican:

    “Yes, you will find many who said the [1939 White] paper was illegal. Obviously the British home office considered it legal. It never got adjudicated in the League of Nations.”

    It was up for REVIEW, but wasn’t reviewed because the war intervened. However, an illegal piece of legislation is unlawful not merely from the point at which it is so adjudicated, but from the moment of its enactment. It may be that, as a practical matter, the provisions by which it is removed — and the consequent new conditions attendant to its recission — will not be enforceable until it is adjudged unlawful. But if it IS indeed illegal, then it WAS illegal from the very day it was declared to be Law, and not merely from the day it was found to be un-lawful.

    The following was written explicitly in re a matter of US law, using the US Constitution as its authority. However, the principle would appear to be universal in application to any legislation in relation to whatever is held to be the authoritative standard (in this case, the Mandate) which is specific to it.

    “16 Am Jur 2d, Sec 177 late 2d, Sec 256:

    The general misconception is that any statute passed by legislators bearing the appearance of law constitutes the law of the land. The U.S. Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and any statute, to be valid, must be In agreement. It is impossible for both the Constitution and a law violating it to be valid; one must prevail. This is succinctly stated as follows:

    The General rule is that an unconstitutional statute, though having the form and name of law is in reality no law, but is wholly void, and ineffective for any purpose; since unconstitutionality dates from the time of its enactment and not merely from the date of the decision so branding it. An unconstitutional law, in legal contemplation, is as inoperative as if it had never been passed. Such a statute leaves the question that it purports to settle just as it would be had the statute not been enacted.

    Since an unconstitutional law is void, the general principles follow that it imposes no duties, confers no rights, creates no office, bestows no power or authority on anyone, affords no protection, and justifies no acts performed under it…..

    A void act cannot be legally consistent with a valid one. An unconstitutional law cannot operate to supersede any existing valid law. Indeed, insofar as a statute runs counter to the fundamental law of the lend, it is superseded thereby.

    No one Is bound to obey an unconstitutional law and no courts are bound to enforce it.

  21. @ honeybee:

    “I lived in the ‘Old South’ during the time of ‘Jim Crow’ laws.Darlin. Legal yes, law and order yes, justice no!”

    The Jim Crow statutes were NOT legal. They were in violation of the US Constitution.

    — That’s why they no longer exist.

  22. Felix Quigley Said:

    Without your contribution CA nothing would be learned.

    you chat utter rubbish! CA hardly contributed anything more than false statements of “fact” and one or 2 links. Yamit, Salubrius and others contributed much more towards the subject in which you appear interested. My interest was to show that CA intentionally declared a falsehood when he declared that the BWP 1939 was LEGAL and no more.
    You stumble into the china shop at the end of the story and, true to form, fulfill your role as the “bull”.

  23. Felix Quigley Said:

    The Yamit clique is disreputable.

    more than the Butch Cassidy clique?
    Felix Quigley Said:

    They use the “you are an antisemite” to settle arguments.

    When the shoe fits it should be worn
    Felix Quigley Said:

    Without your contribution CA nothing would be learned.

    After all, you learned here that the BWP of 1939 was LEGAL from CA. That was the point of discussion between him and I.

  24. CuriousAmerican Said:

    Yes, you will find many who said the paper was illegal. Obviously the British home office considered it legal. It never got adjudicated in the League of Nations.

    therefore you decide to support the British claim even though one of the “many who said it was illegal” was the Mandate commission and:
    Salubrius Said:

    The changes to the mandate in 1939 were adjudicated by the only agency having jurisdiction over mandatories and their administration of what was entrusted to them. They were not adjudicated in a law court because law courts have no jurisdiction over disputes between beneficiaries and trustees having legal dominion over the trust res.

    Apparently it was adjudicated, what’s your story now?

  25. Felix Quigley Said:

    All you guys are losing the plot in this debate. All of Ross crap on was the White Paper legal is part of it.

    You cam late.. I wrote regarding what was of interest to me and that was pointing out CA’s falsse claim that the BWP 1939 was legal.. You speak of contributions, what is your contribution? I did not see you post anything until ong after and what did you post of value? Whining about a “clique” who gangs up on you? we all have our separate interests which sometimes agree. There’s a great deal of agreement regarding your trotsky story. How does Trotsky figure in this one and what do you advise?

  26. yamit82 Said:

    I don’t much care, debating the issue will NOT turn the clock

    Didn’t I say this many post ago,!!!! Waylon Jennings play on the radio, must dance,Darlin,move those stiff leggs of mine.

  27. Felix Quigley Said:

    Completely exposed by this debate. Ted you need to jettison these people and appeal to a new layer

    Why are you ALWAYS trying to steifull speach, unless one agress with you. Communist tatic.Darlin

  28. yamit82 Said:

    Love deviled eggs with chives.

    I don’t use chives. I make two types of stuffed eggs, mustard & sweet pickles and worchester sauce & horseradish. As for sex its ruting season and the deer are just as foolish as humans. I had a friend who bred and raised quarter horses, their stud was ageing and they purchased a new stud [ beautifu and vitale animal],a rebelleon ensued, the mares abolutely refused him. The experienced stud was,once again, pressed into service. A lesson for all of us,experience trumps youthful enthusiam in life.

    yamit82 Said:

    Masters always discard vassals when they no longer serve for them a useful function

    See above!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  29. CuriousAmerican Said:

    Rabbi Berel Wein said the same thing.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dN-ietLpUw8&t=28m13s (I set it to start at the important part)

    Explain what they thought were the weaknesses?

    But were they really weaknesses in view of the overall British Imperial/colonial positions?

    Was it not true that the British used the Zionist Jews as a club to deny the mandate to France and no matter the wording of the Declaration, they had no intention of ever acceding to it no matter how strongly the wording of the text may have been in the Zionists favor. Just like France opposed the Mandate to Britain because it was given to Britain and less so because of Zionist ambitions. In 1919- 1922 – Britain was still the dominant world Power and who was there to oppose them? What ever they said was the law.

  30. Felix Quigley Said:

    Without your contribution CA nothing would be learned.

    So what have you learned?

    What Felix???

    Where is your commie commie (immoral compass?) You support every fascist regime in the world. Like Assad of Syria, Mubarak of Egypt, Gaddafi of Libya and serbian dictator Slobodan Milosovic. I don’t think there is a fascist dictator in the world you don’t or wouldn’t support if they were even a teensy weensy bit, anti-American.

    vintage Trotskyism:

    The governments of the world, all the political parties and movements, whether left, right, or center, are thoroughly evil. Only the international revolutionary proletariat, yet to be awakened from its slumber by a yet-to-created mass Trotskyist party, can save the world from otherwise certain barbarism.

    Trotsky himself, when asked in 1932 about the 1929 Arab riots in Hebron, had thought that they combined elements of an ‘Arab national liberation (anti-imperialistic) movement … combined with elements of Islamic reaction and anti-Jewish pogromism.”

  31. Felix Quigley Said:

    Without your contribution CA nothing would be learned.

    So what have you learned?

    What Felix???

    Where is your commie commie (immoral compass?) You support every fascist regime in the world. Like Assad of Syria, Mubarak of Egypt, Gaddafi of Libya and serbian dictator Slobodan Milosovic. I don’t think there is a fascist dictator in the world you don’t or wouldn’t support if they were even a teensy weensy bit, anti-American.

    vintage Trotskyism:

    The governments of the world, all the political parties and movements, whether left, right, or center, are thoroughly evil. Only the international revolutionary proletariat, yet to be awakened from its slumber by a yet-to-created mass Trotskyist party, can save the world from otherwise certain barbarism.

    Trotsky himself, when asked in 1932 about the 1929 Arab riots in Hebron, had thought that they combined elements of an ‘Arab national liberation (anti-imperialistic) movement … combined with elements of Islamic reaction and anti-Jewish pogromism.”

  32. Felix Quigley Said:

    Without your contribution CA nothing would be learned.

    So what have you learned?

    What Felix???

    Where is your commie commie (immoral compass?) You support every fascist regime in the world. Like Assad of Syria, Mubarak of Egypt, Gaddafi of Libya and serbian dictator Slobodan Milosovic. I don’t think there is a fascist dictator in the world you don’t or wouldn’t support if they were even a teensy weensy bit, anti-American.

    vintage Trotskyism:

    The governments of the world, all the political parties and movements, whether left, right, or center, are thoroughly evil. Only the international revolutionary proletariat, yet to be awakened from its slumber by a yet-to-created mass Trotskyist party, can save the world from otherwise certain barbarism.

    Trotsky himself, when asked in 1932 about the 1929 Arab riots in Hebron, had thought that they combined elements of an ‘Arab national liberation (anti-imperialistic) movement … combined with elements of Islamic reaction and anti-Jewish pogromism.”

    Gerry Healy, now deceased was the head of Britain’s leading Trotskyist party was found to have during the 1970s and early 1980s received secret funds from Colonel Gaddafi’s Libya, other Arab governments, and from the Palestine Liberation Organization. Some of the money from Libya, it was alleged, was payment for spying on prominent British Jews. There were also charges from party members that Healy had sexually exploited no fewer than twenty-eight young women in his organization.

    Don’t preach to us Felix if there anything or anyone bankrupt here it’s you.

    “All Trotskyist groups declare their staunch opposition to anti-Semitism while being hostile to the Zionist enterprise. Most of the groups wish the destruction of Israel and, toward that end, support Israel’s most irreconcilable enemies. In theory, most of the Trotskyist groups regard the Jews of Israel as an ‘oppressor nation,’ but this phrase does not occur very often in the Trotskyist propaganda. Beyond these positions there is a certain ambiguity about the image of the Jewish people. The groups promote and pay homage to the work of Abram Leon. But Leon’s specific accusation — that ‘usury’ constitutes the central phenomenon of Jewish history, in effect that Jew means Shylock — is neither explicitly endorsed nor ever repudiated by today’s Trotskyist writers”

  33. Felix Quigley Said:

    All you guys are losing the plot in this debate.

    Bring us back to the plot Felix. What is the Plot????

    All of Ross crap on was the White Paper legal is part of it. Completely losing it.

    CA does not say it but he introduces the idea that the whole set up was an Imperialist set up from the very beginning

    Why include me in this case. I have mostly stayed out of the arguments because for me it’s a boring and non relevant topic. I don’t much care, debating the issue will NOT turn the clock back nor change anything on the ground. If a Jew and Israeli is still ignorant of the facts it’s because he /she wants to be or they are too lazy and unconcerned to seek out the historical background under discussion.

    Those who place their trust in Imperialism are gonna come a cropper.

    This is your main point isn’t it???? 🙂
    Masters always discard vassals when they no longer serve for them a useful function.

    But what a bunch of phonies around Yamit.

    Name dropper!!!! 😛

  34. Everyone here agrees the WHITE PAPER OF 1939 was immoral.

    But it may have been legal.

    Rabbi Wein spotted the weakness and ambiguity.

    Weizmann spotted the ambiguity.

    Meinertzhagen spotted the ambiguity.

    But not por old Ross and not honeybee and the rest of the clique around Yamit

    Without your contribution CA nothing would be learned. Ted you need to get rid of the clique, these slanderers of good people like CA, who can open the discussion up.

    The Yamit clique is disreputable. They use the “you are an antisemite” to settle arguments. What a bunch.

  35. The changes to the mandate in 1939 were adjudicated by the only agency having jurisdiction over mandatories and their administration of what was entrusted to them. They were not adjudicated in a law court because law courts have no jurisdiction over disputes between beneficiaries and trustees having legal dominion over the trust res

    .

    All you guys are losing the plot in this debate.

    All of Ross crap on was the White Paper legal is part of it. Completely losing it.

    CA does not say it but he introduces the idea that the whole set up was an Imperialist set up from the very beginning

    Those who place their trust in Imperialism are gonna come a cropper. I think that may apply to CA also but at least he brought up the weaknes of the Jews in going that route. But what a bunch of phonies around Yamit.

  36. honeybee Said:

    Yamit82 Sugar, how do you make your post so pretty. You like deviled eggs, I making deviled eggs tonight. I am ignoring CA,by talking about food. Last night subject s was sex, tonight food.

    Love deviled eggs with chives. Sex and food two of my favorite interests and loves. Can’t get better than that. Anybody who says differently is a liar or delusional.

  37. The changes to the mandate in 1939 were adjudicated by the only agency having jurisdiction over mandatories and their administration of what was entrusted to them. They were not adjudicated in a law court because law courts have no jurisdiction over disputes between beneficiaries and trustees having legal dominion over the trust res.

  38. @ honeybee:

    @ honeybee:
    If I called you unkind names in Spanish or English,despensame!!!!!!!!!

    @CuriousAmerican

    Do you mean disculpame?

    si

    Apology accepted. Thanks!

  39. I must agree with Curious American in one sense. The terms were not clear and unambiguous in my view. When the Balfour policy was framed, the British did not want to rile up the Arabs unnecessarily. Meinertzhagen was concerned they might have gone too far in the ambiguity so as to make it easy for anti-zionists and anti-semites to frustrate the project.

    Rabbi Berel Wein said the same thing.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dN-ietLpUw8&t=28m13s (I set it to start at the important part)

    Everyone here agrees the WHITE PAPER OF 1939 was immoral.

    But it may have been legal.

    Rabbi Wein spotted the weakness and ambiguity.

    Weizmann spotted the ambiguity.

    Meinertzhagen spotted the ambiguity.

    Churchill, in his WHITE PAPER of 1922 said they were not interested in making Palestine as Jewish as England is English.

    It was ambiguous enough that the British in 1939 were able to say the Arabs had to be considered, too. The claimed the Arabs were party to the trust.

    His Majesty’s Government believe that the framers of the Mandate in which the Balfour Declaration was embodied could not have intended that Palestine should be converted into a Jewish State against the will of the Arab population of the country.

    It was terrible, but do not confuse morality with legal.

    Yes, you will find many who said the paper was illegal. Obviously the British home office considered it legal. It never got adjudicated in the League of Nations.

    But if you are so sure … call Shurat HaDin and sue.

  40. Salubrius Said:

    I must agree with Curious American in one sense. The terms were not clear and unambiguous in my view.

    this was not the point of disagreement I was having with him. My point of disagreement was simple: he declared here that the british white paper 1939 was LEGAL as if it were an undisputed fact. The preponderance of evidence and authority, especially the Mandate Commission judgement was to consider it illegal. To unequivocally declare it LEGAL on this forum knowing full well the history and background was dishonest. My point was to show that Curio makes such statements often with an agenda, that they are predictable, and that they are always accompanied with a “bone”:e.g. “it was immoral but it was legal”. His unequivocal statement of legality and his continuing defense of that position was misleading. He veered to stating it wan’t illegal later but went back to stating it was LEGAL when he dug up 1922 white paper.