Friday, December 11, 2015

Jews, Arabs, and Eretz Israel An Historical Perspective - Draiman


Jews, Arabs, and Eretz IsraelAn Historical Perspective
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The Palestine Mandate as it was granted in 1920 to Great Britain at the San Remo conference. It incorporated the terms of the Balfour Declaration, included the territory east and west of the Jordan River and the Dead Sea, and was designated "Palestine." The entire mandated territory had been established by international mandate as a "Jewish National Home.’ The United States declared at that time "...that it will be the policy of the League of Nations to recognize Palestine as a Jewish state as soon as it is a state in fact... England, as mandatory, can be relied upon to give the Jews the privileged position they should have without sacrificing the rights of non-Jews."The eastern portion of the mandated territory from the Red Sea up to the Sea of Galilee was separated by Great Britain from "Palestine" in 1921-22 and bestowed upon the Emir Abdullah as "Transjordan." The territory east and north of the Sea of Galilee (now known as the Golan Heights), was ceded by Great Britain in 1923 to the Syrian French Mandate.

The Arab Historical Claim to Israel

The geopolitical drama being played out in Israel is based partly around the question of ancestral rights, and partly around recent history. If an argument is to be made as to which people have the more ancient roots in the Land of Israel, it would not favor the so-called "Palestinians." We use the adjective "so-called" pointedly because no such ethnic entity exists. The term is purely a political designation.
The use of the word, "Palestine" is a tendentious anachronism. It has egregious political overtones, insofar as it implies that the "Palestinians," and not the Jews, are the legitimate inheritors of Eretz Israel, the Land of Israel. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
The word, "Palestine" is not Arabic! It is a Roman corruption of "Philistine," a Mediterranean island people who came to the southeast coast of Canaan from the opposite direction as did the "Palestinians." They were a sea people, whereas the progenitors of the "Palestinians," were nomadic desert tribesman who arrived two thousand years later.
The Philistines first appeared on the shores of Canaan in the thirteenth century BCE, during the same period in which hundreds of Israelite villages were being established atop the hills of Canaan. "From the middle of the twelfth to the end of the eleventh century, [the Israelites] fought with the Philistines for the political and cultural domination of the country... From the early tenth century on.. [the Philistines] gradually lost their cultural distinctiveness and merged with the Canaanite population."1
The Philistines were illiterate, so we do not know what language they spoke. It was definitely not Arabic!
The holy language of the Jews is Hebrew, a language of Canaanite origin. The ancestral tongue of the Jews was Aramaic, a Semitic language, whose roots lie in Arameia, the region from which the Bible tells us that the tribe of Abraham originated. The Bible informs us that when Abraham arrived in Canaan he "assumed the tongue of Canaan." Linguists confirm that etymology. The philological transformation to Hebrew took place 2500 years before the Arabs invaded the area. Judah became a nation about 1000 BCE, over 1700 years before the Arab incursion.
The native tongue of the "Palestinians" is Arabic, an import from Arabia.

Complicity of the Scientific Community

The word "Palestine" derives from "Provincia Syro-Palestina," a name coined by the Romans in 135 CE after crushing the Bar-Khochba revolt. The renaming was part of Rome’s campaign to obliterate the state of Judah from between Syria and Philistia.
The scientific community, to its shame, legitimized the obfuscating use of "Palestine" for pre-Roman Israel and Judah. Artifacts produced in Israel and Judah as far back as 1000 BCE are labeled "Syro-Palestinian," or simply "Syrian or "Palestinian," in crass disregard of the fact that such entities did not exist at the time.
It is a remarkable fact that objects are rarely to be found in museums labeled "Israelite" or "Judahite" notwithstanding that Israel and Judah were sovereign nations over many centuries. Judah endured as a sovereign nation for over five hundred years, twice as long as did the United States of America! From its inception about 1000 BCE to the time the Babylonians occupied the country Judah had all the attributes of a nation and of a culture. For five centuries Judah had its own language, territory, culture, and government. Judah retained its national and cultural identity for an additional seven hundred years under Assyrian, Babylonian, Greek and Roman domination. Each conqueror recognized and dealt with Judah as a nation under their rule. Judah was thus a continuous national and cultural entity for twelve hundred years, five centuries of which it was independent and sovereign. Few other nations can match that twelve-century-long history.
A clamor erupts from some scientific quarters as soon as the question of labeling products made in Judah as "Judahite" is raised. We are told that applying Judahite labels to objects made in Judah is being too ethnic! The Judahites, it would seem, never made a pot to piss in!
Such censure comes from scholars who have spent their lives extolling the cultural accomplishments of the Greeks, or the Romans, or the Philistines, or the Phoenicians, or the Nabateans, or the Edomites. The very scholars who reject the use of Judaic labels as being too ethnic tendentiously justify the use of "Palestinian" as an ethnic or cultural appellation.
We look for parallels in the treatment of other cultures of the very region renamed "Syro-Palestinian" by the Romans, and find none. The products of other peoples occupying portions of the regions are never referred to as "Syro-Palestinian." Edomite products are consistently labeled "Edomite." Nabatean, Phoenician, Philistine, and other cultures of the region and time are universally credited with their products in museums and scientific literature. Yet none of these cultures endured in that area anywhere near as long as did the Jews.
The Romans, Byzantines, Ottomans and other occupiers of Eretz Israel (until the British came along) commonly referred to the region and to the culture as "Judaic." In 301 CE, for example, Diocletian issued a decree fixing prices throughout the Empire. Glassware made in Judah (then officially "Syro-Palestine) was listed in his decree as vitri Ijudaici (Judaic glass), almost two centuries after the Romans had renamed Judah.
The anachronistic term "Syro-Palestinian," and the even less acceptable term "Palestinian" for pre-Roman period Israelite and Judahite products prevails over scientific integrity.

The Revisionist Rendition of History

Revisionist views on Judaic historiography made the rounds in scientific and intellectual circles. Among the positions held was that the Jews are largely descendant from the Khazars, a nomadic Asian Tatar tribe. The hidden agenda of this allegation is that the Jewish claim on Israel is tenuous because they are late interlopers into the area.
The argument effectively obfuscates Near-Eastern geopolitical issues. The allegation was voiced in 1947 in the United Nations when Sir Abdul Rahman, representative of India, opposed the partition of Palestine, arguing that Zionist claims to a homeland were invalid because it proponents were racially [sic] unqualified. The Jew’s claim of returning to the land of their ancestors, Sir Rahman argued, cannot be made by people of a Turco-Finnish race who had converted to Judaism about 690 AD.2
Thus, in 1962, Al-Nashashibi Nasir al-Din penned a treatise, Tadh-karat ‘Awda ("Return Ticket"), stating baldly that such eastern European Jews as Ben-Gurion, Ben-Zwi, Dizengoff, and Sharett, were all of Khazar descent. He held that it follows that, since the Jews derive from a nation of Asian Tatars, they are nor Semites and have no inherent rights to Israel. He was followed in 1964 by Alush Naji, who repeated and expanded on the thesis in his work, Al-Masira Ila Filastin ("The Journey to Palestine").
Some Khazar/Judaic assimilation undoubtedly took place, but to extrapolate from such unions that most Jews throughout the world are their descendants is so outlandish a proposition that one wonders how intelligent persons can lend credence to it.
The revisionists ignored the recurrent movement of masses of Jews from western Europe into Russia, and those who never left Europe and had no contact with the Khazars. They ignored the Sephardim of Spain, North Africa, Italy and Europe. They ignored the Ethiopian, Alexandrian, an Yemenite Jews.. They ignored the Jews of Judah itself, Jews who survived the Roman purge and enslavement, and whose descendants were continuously resident in the Land of Israel to the present day.
They ignored all the references to Jews in Pre-Khazar classical and, indeed, in Islamic literature. They ignored the anti-Semitic fulminations of (Roman) Tacitus and (Graeco-Egyptian) Manetho, who lamented over the influence of the Jews many centuries before the Khazars came into the scene. They ignored the testimony about the Jews in both the Old and the New Testaments, as well as in the Koran itself!
Archaeologists confirm, after all, that hundreds of Israelite villages arose atop the hills of Canaan one thousand eight hundred years before the Khazars swept into the steppes of Russia from Asia. The only dispute in archaeological circles is about how the Israelites got there, not about their existence.

An Arab Myth

The Arab claim to Jerusalem is based on their declaration that it is one of their ancestral holy cities. The claim is based on the tenuous grounds of a myth that even many Islamic scholars find untenable.
At an early period in Mohammed’s life, when he was courting Jewish support, Mohammed exhorted his followers to practice the fast of Yom Kippur and face ‘The Holy City of the Jews" at prayer. Thus Mohammed himself recognized the Judaic holy status of Jerusalem.
Mecca, the site of the Ka’ba stone, was then a holy city of Pagan idolaters. Mohammed inveighed against Meccan superstitions, entreating his followers to lead a pious life, and to believe in an indivisible, all-powerful, all-mighty, all-wise, all-just, but merciful Judaic God. He claimed that God had chosen him as prophet as he had chosen the prophets of the Bible before him. By following his precepts, Mohammed proclaimed, believers would escape the punishments of (Christian) hell and inherit everlasting life.
The Meccans, to preserve the sacredness of their city, arose in fierce opposition. Mohammed’s adherents fled to the Judaic city of Yathrib, and were given refuge. Mohammed followed them to Yathrib to continue his prophesy. There Mohammed was firmly rejected as a prophet by the Jews. He became their bitter adversary.
Claiming to have received God’s permission to make war upon the enemies of Islam, Mohammed warred against the Meccans. After bloody campaigns, he succeeded in making himself recognized by the Meccans as chief and prophet. He then turned his attention to the Jews of Yathrib. He massacred hundreds of Jews of the city’s three Judaic tribes. He buried 800 Jews in the central square, and subjugated the rest to his rule and taxation.
Mohammed made Yathrib his residence. The city was renamed Madinet al Nabi, "The Prophet’s City," shortened thereafter to Medina. The first mosque was erected at Quba in the Medina oasis. Mohammed designated Mecca as the Moslem cynosure, and issued a proclamation prohibiting the facing of Jerusalem at prayer.
Another "Mosque of the two Kiblas" was situated at Ruma, validating the change of the prayer direction from Jerusalem to Mecca. In 632 Mohammed made his final pilgrimage to Mecca, constituting his definitive rejection of Jerusalem as a holy site.
Here the facts end and the myth begins. The posthumous claim to Jerusalem was concocted on the basis of a vision Mohammed claimed to have had about the year 620, which fulfilled the Koran’s statement (Sura 17:1): "Glory be to Him who has made his servant go by night from the Sacred Mosque to the remotest Mosque."
All Islamic scholars agree that Ka’ba is the "Sacred Mosque." The difference of opinion relates to the identity of the "Remotest Mosque." Early Arab scholars maintained that Mohammed was dreaming of a sojourn in heaven. Other scholars, emphasizing that there was no mosque at the time in Jerusalem, hold that the reference was to the mosque at Medina, the first to be erected, and until after Mohammed’s death, the remotest from Mecca.
Most of these Islamic scholars presume that his journey was merely a dream or a vision, a position reinforced by the testimony of Mohammed’s young second wife, Ayesha. She avowed that on that night Mohammed had not left her bed. "He was sleeping soundly by her side."
A new tradition was then created, holding that Mohammed actually flew on a horse with a human face named Burak, first to pray at Mount Sinai and Bethlehem, and finally to the site of the Temple in Jerusalem. After tethering Burak, Mohammed entered the Holy of Holies, where he joined Abraham, Moses and Jesus in prayer. A ladder then descended to carry Mohammed to God’s House in the Seventh Heaven, where he was embraced by God himself. The ladder then returned him to Burak in Jerusalem, who flew him back to Mecca. Moslems point to a footprint presumably left by Burak when Mohammed leaped to his back for his return to Mecca.
The designation as Jerusalem as an Arab/Islamic holy site has no other claim to legitimacy!
The name of Jerusalem is absent from the Koran, whereas it appears almost a thousand times in the Bible. The el-Agsa mosque on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount was originally a Byzantine church.
One need hardly go through the exercise of documenting the Jewish claim to Shalem, "The City of Peace," as the name first appears in the Bible. It was Abraham who called it Yireh (God sees), and thus the remote hilltop village became known as Yerushalayim. Its Judaic history goes back to 1800 years before Mohammed was born. Suffice it to mention the Holy City as the site of the First and Second Temples and point to the massive documentation of its Judaic status in a book accepted by the Moslems themselves as the Bible.

The Absent Arabs of Ancient Judah

Jews returned to Jerusalem soon after the Romans expelled them in the second century of the Common Era. The Jewish population burgeoned in Eretz Israel. Agriculture and industries flourished. Up to two million Jews resided in the region spanning Israel and Babylonia. In Sassanian Babylonia (Persia) great Judaic academies accommodated thousands of students from Eretz Israel and from throughout the Diaspora. The Persian Jews, after pioneering the "Silk Route" across Asia in the fifth century BCE, carried on a substantial intercontinental trade and the Jews of the Holy Land were active as middle men for trade with the West.
The Mishnah records this activity. Many of the Jewish sages made their living trading products from the East such as silk and spices for linens, glassware, and other products made in Eretz Israel. Babylonia hosted over a million Jews, and the Holy Land supported several million Jews and Byzantine Christians.
Until the Land of Israel was conquered by the Arabs in the year 640, only a few Bedouin Arabs resided in the southern desert now occupied by Israel. None were to be found in the so-called "West Bank" and the "Golan." The Arab forces confiscated all the land in Eretz Israel. Christians and Jews alike worked as serfs to the new landlords.
Booty and taxes, not artisanship is the goal to which conquerors aspire. The Arab overlords would never deign to dirty their hands with the soil of the Holy Land, nor grow callouses from manual labor of any kind. The hierarchy was Arab, but few Arabs could then be found working land, weaving at looms, or tending forges.
"A vast complex of lands and people had been united under Moslem rule... Jewish craftsmen were plentiful in the cities and made up a large part of the Jewish population. In fact, it appears that the economic class had existed as early as the end of the classical period. A hostile Moslem writer went so far as to claim that ‘among the Jews one finds only dyers, tanners, blood-letters (i.e., barbers and surgeons), butchers and waterskin repairers." However, he was referring to only those occupations to which he wished to draw attention. More objective sources also mention Jewish blacksmiths, gold and silversmiths, harness-makers, and shoemakers, some of which were itinerant craftsmen working in Moslem villages.""{Almost all the Jewish people lived in the area conquered [by the Arab forces] between 632 and 711; more than 90% of Jewry now lived within a single Empire... The new rulers, who were mostly former nomads from the arid lands of Arabia, ruined the agriculture of Babylonia by taxing according to area, instead of yield, and by neglecting the irrigation network during the early years of the conquest."
"Every city had Jewish shop-keepers, who dealt in everything that came to market... This large-scale Jewish trade was in part intercontinental, reaching across the Mediterranean and the oceans. They were also to be found in what is now termed the free professions - as physicians, astronomers, translators and the like."3
Throughout this period the Arab population of Eretz Israel consisted mainly of the overlords, their families and those of the retinue of guards, soldiers and tax-collectors. But a large portion of the indigenous population under Arab rule converted to Islam, with the notable exception of most Jews and some Christians.
In the tenth century, Eretz Israel, and especially Jerusalem, became host to a large number of Karaite immigrants, the first Judaic Zionists. According to the Karaites, the individual is bound to rely on his own intelligence and to understand the scriptures independently.
"Jerusalem became the focal point of these sectarian tendencies. Karaite thinkers of ascetic, individualistic, and rationalist orientation gathered there from all the Islamic countries, united as Avelei, Zion ('Mourners of Zion') or Shoshanim("Roses"), as their admirers called them."4
The invading Crusaders took the place of the Islamic overlords, further draining the land of its resources. The Jews and the land suffered even more as they were caught in the line of fire between the Crusaders and the aggressive forces under Saladin (of Kurdish origin). Soon thereafter the Mongolian invasion of 1260 left the land waste and its cities in ruins. Jerusalem suffered most of all.
"Everywhere was the wrack of demolished dwellings, the city was depopulated." In the house of two Jewish brothers, dyers by trade, ten men assembled on the Sabbath. Those Jews who had not been slain by the Tartars, fled to Shechem (Nablus), taking the sacred scrolls with them. The scared writings were fetched back by Moses ben-Nahman (Nahmanides), formerly the chief Rabbi of Gerona, a great Judaic academic center in Spain. Nahmanides made his home in Eretz Israel. He had been exiled from Spain because he had demolished the arguments of Dominican scholars arrayed against him in disputations ordered by King James.
The Judaic community of Jerusalem was reconstituted. "One of the demolished residences, with marble columns and a beautiful cupola, was repaired and made into a synagogue for the benefit of the many pilgrims from Damascus, Aleppo, and elsewhere... In addition Nahmani opened a school for Talmudic studies, which attracted young students from beyond the Euphrates."5
During the 2000 years of the Common Era, the Jews of the Holy Land were not confined to the portion later consigned to the Jews by the partition into Jordan and Israel under the British mandate. What is now referred to as the "Golan" and the western part of Jordan, always had been part of Eretz Israel.
Benjamin of Tudela reported in the twelfth century that three thousand families resided in Damascus.6 That figure was likewise reported by another intrepid Jewish traveler of the times, Petachia of Regensburg, who wrote, "There are about 10,000 Jews there, who have a prince."7 Sizable Judaic populations were also observed throughout Mesopotamia and Lower Egypt.
Eretz Israel has always been a homeland in which oppressed Jews could find refuge. After the massacres of 1391 in Spain, "Jews left Spain for Erez Israel throughout the century."8
When the Jews were expelled from Spain and Portugal, many Jews fled to the East, "In 1515 the Ottoman Empire gained control of Erez Israel; in 1517 Egypt was conquered. Thus regions populated by Jews, and the land to which Jews had always aspired, were incorporated into the larger framework of an Empire."9
Eretz Israel "became a lodestone for Marranos to repent and return to their former faith. The chronicler R. Elijah Capsali, a contemporary of the expulsion and a member of the Jewish population in the Ottoman Empire, relates that during the period after 1497 "there came [to the Ottoman Empire} thousands and myriads of the expelled Jews so that the county was filled with them."10
The kabbalist R. Hayyim in his Sefer Hahexyonot (Book of Visions) wrote: "Those Jews who arrived with the early stream of settlers, including craftsmen and traders, continued to engage in their previous occupations. A member of the generation of the expulsion 'who dwells in the Holy City of Jerusalem, Samuel ben Joseph Pijo... calls upon people to join them: 'whoever wishes to come, let them come, for here they can spend their entire lives supporting themselves by their handicrafts. And these are the crafts which are suitable - goldsmith and silversmith, tailor and sewer, carpenter, harness-maker, weaver and blacksmith, while as for buying and selling - every one who the Lord has graced with a little money. And also to tell the truth, everybody who knows how to study will find a sufficiency here for.. I who have no craft except my studies obtain my needs through studying Torah."11
"During the 1520's the traveler Moses Bassola found in Jerusalem 'about three hundred householders [1000-1500 persons]' and 'about five hundred widows who had a special status' and 'more than two hundred souls recipient of charity.' In 1650 a Jew from Prague noted that in Jerusalem 'Sephardi Jews had dwellings and shops... and among them are many craftsmen."12
What was true of Jerusalem was even more true of Safed, a city populated entirely by Jews, as were many of the villages around the city. "In 1522 more than 300 householders are spoken of in Safed. By the middle of the sixteenth century, travelers already reported the presence of 8 - 10,000 Jews in Safed - most of them Sephardim. By the early seventeenth century there were some 20.000 Jews in the city, and, according to some authorities the number even reached 30,000."13
Many of the villages around Safed lay in what has recently been designated the "West Bank," the "Golan Heights," and "Lebanon." "Moses Bassola... stressed the trade between Safed, Damascus and Beirut. He was also impressed by the Jewish hawkers and peddlers in the surrounding villages and the opportunities for craftsmen. He thought that [for Jews], 'in general this countryside is more commercial than Italy.' The scholars also had ties with the agricultural environment, which we learn from the story of a Rabbi Moses, against whom the complaint was lodged that he was not always engaged in the study of Torah. For he goes out ‘to the villages to bring in the honey of his bees... and his new wine and his grain.’"14
A significant textile industry flourished in Safed, and the sages of the city also engaged in international trade. R. Jacob Berab, for example, "was a wealthy dealer in spices, whose transactions involved great sums of money; even the sainted Isaac Luria dealt in pepper and other wares... In 1535 an Italian Jew was impressed enough to note 'that as in Italy improvements are being made and new plantations planted and th community is growing every day. So it is in this city. Anyone who saw Safed ten years ago and sees her now must marvel. For Jews are coming plentifully all the time and the garment-making industry is increasing every day.'15
During the sixteenth century the renowned Jewess Dona Gracia and her nephew Don Joseph Nasi financed the development of Tiberius. In 1561 a traveler said that the Jewish community in Tiberius regarded Dona Gracia as their patroness. A document states "A Jewess named Gracia has undertaken [to pay] a fixed annual sum of one thousand gold pieces [as rent for Tiberius], together with several small villages around it." The document refers to the physician David, who is in charge of these matters on behalf of the aforementioned Gracia Nasi."
"... The chronicler Joseph Hacohen recorded that, in Tiberius, Don Joseph Nasi appointed "his attendant Joseph ben Adret to build up the city’s walls. The construction of the walls was completed in 1565. Don Joseph gave orders to plant a vast number of mulberry trees to feed the silkworms, and he also commanded wool to be brought from Spain to make garments [in Tiberius] like the garments which are made in Venice."16 [see Fact Paper 15, Silkmaking and the Jews]
Recurrent period of Jewish settlement into the Holy Land continued into the twentieth century. Some immigrant groups, such as those in Safed and Tiberius, successfully established themselves, and others dissolved, but all left their imprint on and descendants in the land.
In vivid contrast, outside of the enclaves of Judaic settlement, the land occupied by the Arabs and others was desolate. "In 1590 a 'simple English visitor to Jerusalem wrote: 'Nothing here to be scene but a little of the old walls, which is yet remayning, and all the rest is grasse, mosse and weedes much like a piece of rank or moist grounde."17
"While Tiberius was being settled by Jews from Papal states... Nazareth [a Christian enclave] continued to decline." A Franciscan pilgrim translated a Latin manuscript that reported that "It is a lamentable thing to see thus such a town. We saw nothing more stony, full of thorns and desert.’18 A hundred years afterward, Nazareth was, in 1697, 'an inconsiderable village... Acre a few cottages... nothing here but a vast and spacious ruin.' Nablus consisted of but two streets with many people, and Jericho was a 'poor nasty village.'19
Joan Peters, in her comprehensive work, From Time Immemorial, goes on to quote a lengthy series of dignitaries and travelers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, all lamenting the dismal and desolate condition of the land adjoining the Judaic enclaves in the Holy Land.
Dr. C. Voss, a clergyman, and, in 1953, Chairman of the American Christian Palestine Committee, concluded that "between the Arab conquest... and the... Jewish return in the 1880's. Palestine was laid waste... Its ancient canals and irrigation systems were destroyed, and the wondrous fertility... vanished into desert and desolation... Under the Ottoman Empire of the Turks, the policy of disfoliation continued, the hillsides were denuded of trees and the valleys robbed of their topsoil."20
The British Consul reported in 1857 that "The country is in considerable degree empty... and therefore its greatest need is that of a body of population..."21
Mark Twain visited the Holy Land in 1867. "There is not a solitary village (throughout the Valley of Jezreel)... not for 30 miles in either direction... Nazareth is forlorn... Jericho the accursed lies a mouldering ruin today... Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes, desolate."22
Desolate is the description likewise applied to Palestine in nineteenth century encyclopedias. A German encyclopedia, for example, published in 1837, depicted Palestine as "desolate and roamed through by Arab gangs of robbers."23
In the mid-nineteen-thirties, Henry Wallace, then the U.S. Secretary of agriculture, sent the soil expert Dr. Walter Lowdermilk on a fact-finding mission to the Middle East to learn why a land where great agricultural civilizations once existed degenerated into desolation. Lowdermilk returned an enthusiastic Zionist, not for political reasons, but as a lover of the soil. After visiting Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Transjordan and North African countries, he observed that only the Zionists were devoted to the restoration of the soil.
Lowdermilk suggested that the Arabs should not be called "sons of the desert" but rather "fathers of the desert," for they were the ones who created desert conditions in a fertile country.
At the end of the nineteenth century, despite the claims of hundreds of thousands of Arab refugees to ancestral rights, the total Arab population of the entire Holy Land was no more than 300,000,24 a number less than half of those who are presently citizens of Israel!
An increase in Arab population began to take place at the beginning of the twentieth century. The influx of Arabs was a direct consequence of the activity of the Zionists who began to settle into and develop the land in the 1880's. The Jewish pioneers bought up swampy, desolate or desert land and proceeded under horrendous difficulties to restore it to productivity. The increase in the Arab population was directly proportional to the Zionist’s success in their endeavor " to make the swamps fruitful and the desert bloom."
New employment opportunities brought Arabs from Syria, Egypt, and even Saudi Arabia all underdeveloped lands. Thus, a major proportion of the 1948 Arab population of Israel is attributable to the backbreaking endeavors of the Zionists.
British government statistics substantiate the dramatic increase of Arab population in the new Jewish areas, an increase in sharp contrast to the relatively static number of Arabs in the non-Jewish areas,
In addition, the population statistics between 1893 and 1948 regarding the Arab presence are deceiving. All non-Jews are registered in one category and Jews in another. Thus Christians, Pagans, and Jews who did not declare their religion are registered as Arab! The Jewish population just prior to World War I nonetheless numbered in the skewed census as 85,000.
Under the British, Arab immigration was encouraged and Jewish immigration curtailed. Only 12,000 entry permits for Jews were allowed. The Jews who had escaped the Nazi death camps were forced to return to the charnal houses because entry permits had to be acquired in advance - evidently the Jews were to apply at the nearest gestapo headquarters! When Jewish leaders begged the British to forego "legal" entry permits and deduct the numbers from the allowable total of 12,000, the requests were denied.
The British did not merely encourage Arab immigration; They imported Arabs from other Arab countries! Clearly a large number of those who now claim "Palestinian" rights in Israel were among these immigrants and most others stem from Arabs who arrived after the Zionists had created a viable economy.

The C.I.A.’s Creation of the West Bank

A prime example of how misrepresentations can affect history is the use of the misnomer "West Bank," in reference to Samaria and Judah. The main issue to be resolved for the attainment of peace in Israel is the status of Jerusalem and the areas designated as the "West Bank."
The area on the west bank of the Jordan River should properly convey only a geographical, not a political connotation. The politicalization of the term was generated in 1971 by the U. S. State Department and the C.I.A. It was then that a mysterious agency, the "U.S. Board of Geographic names," approved the term "West Bank" for official U.S. Government usage as an area separate from Israel.
Until then, the term had never appeared on any map of the region. The fact is that after the cease fire in the 1948-49 war of the Arabs against the officially recognized State of Israel, the invader, Jordan, became the occupier of 2200 square miles of Israel's territory. Jordan's occupation was not recognized by the United States. In1967, Jordan was evicted from the occupied territory, that is, Israel's territory occupied by Jordan!
After the unilateral designation in 1971 of the area as the "West Bank" by the "U.S. Board of Geographical Names," and despite the fact that Jordan's occupation remained unrecognized, the State Department issued maps which included the area as part of Jordan!
Then in 1983, the C.I.A. produced two maps for the Map and Geography Room of the Library of Congress. One map is entitled "West Bank Population, 1967." The other, rendered in vivid color, is entitled "West Bank and Vicinity" and shows Jewish settlements in the area.
In 1984, a retired Treasury Department employee, Martin Miller, launched a campaign to persuade the State Department and the C.I.A. to correct publications showing Judah and Samaria as a "West Bank" part of Jordan. His search for the elusive "U.S. Board of Geographical Names" led him to Dr. Richard R. Randall, Executive Secretary of the board, and an employee of the Department of Defense. Randall searched for the origin of the name's application and found that it began at the behest of the State Department, which submitted a note to be filed with the minutes of the board for February 25, 1972. The note specified that the area occupied by Jordan west of the Jordan River be named the "West Bank." This was a gross departure from standard U.S. mapping practice. The agency itself declares that "in no case does it play a role in selecting names in foreign areas."
Until then, the area had always been designated as part of Samaria and Judea. Those names were used by the C.I.A itself on the two maps cited above, as a reference as to where the "West Bank" was located!
Martin Miller was named by the Newspaper Jewish Week as the "unsung Hero of 1985." The "West Bank" ceased thereafter to be designated as part of Jordan, but the term assumed a new political life as a Palestinian entity. Other countries and the media were quick to pick up the misnomer with all its innuendos. The State Department and the C.I.A. had established "a fact on the ground."
Israeli negotiators thereafter were constrained to deal with the distorted history of the region as if it were reality.

Notes

Note: A masterful work on the subject was authored by Joan Peters, detailing a wealth of factual material and references, much of which has been quoted here. We obtained her book, From Time Immemorial, from Jonathan David Publishers [(718) 456-8611]
An extensive review of and bibliography on the Jews and the Khazars, the Judaic presence in Sassanian Babylonia, and the pioneering of the Silk Route by Persian Jews can be found in The Glassmakers; An Odyssey of the Jews, chs. 8,9 and 10.
  1. Trudy Dothan, The Philistines and Their Material Culture, Yale Un. Press, 1982,
  2. United Nations Special Committee on Palestine, Report to the General Assembly, vol 2, 1947
  3. H. H. Ben-Sasson, ed., A History of the Jewish People, Harvard Un. Press 1976, 393, 395, 396.
  4. Ben-Sasson, ibid., 449.
  5. Max L. Margolis and Alexander Marx, A History of the Jewish People, The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1927, 426-7.
  6. The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, ed. E.N. Daler, Oxford, 1907, 30.
  7. The Itinerary of Petachia, ed. E. N. Adler, 85.
  8. Ben-Sasson, ibid., 629.
  9. Ben-Sasson, ibid., 663/
  10. Ben-Sasson, ibid., 634, quoting R. Gottheil and W. Worrell, Fragments from the Cairo Geniza, NY 1927, 257.
  11. A Yaari, ed. Travelers and Tales from Erez Israel (Hebrew) Tel Aviv, 1946, 184.
  12. Yaari, Ibid., 149, 283.
  13. Ben-Sasson, ibid., 635.
  14. Ben-Sasson, ibid., quoting R. Gottheil and W. Worrell, Fragments from the Cairo Geniza, NY 1927,257
  15. Yaari, ibid., 184.
  16. Ben-Sasson, ibid., quoting Emekh Habakhah Chronicle, M. Letteris, ed., Cracow, 1985, 145-7.
  17. Joan Peters, From Time Immemorial, Harper and Row, 1984, 147, quoting from Gunner Edward Webe, Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement, appearing in De Haas, History, 338.
  18. Peters, ibid., 158, quoting De Haas, as in 17 above, 157
  19. Peters, ibid., 158, quoting Henry Maundrell, The Journal of Henry Maundrell from Aleppo to Jerusalem, 1697, Bohn’s edition, London 1948, 447,428, 450 respectively.
  20. Peters, ibid., quoting from Dr. D.C. Voss, The Palestine Problem Today, Israel and its Neighbors, Boston, 1953, 13
  21. Peters, ibid., 159
  22. Peters, ibid, 159-60.
  23. Peters, ibid., 158.
  24. David Landes, "Palestine Before the Zionists," Commentary, Feb. 1076, 48,9.

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Maps of Palestine Under the Mandate for Palestine; The December 1920 Franco British Boundary Convention - Draiman


Maps of Palestine Under the Mandate for Palestine; The December 1920 Franco British Boundary Convention


Map of the borders of the Jewish National Home in Palestine as demarcated in the December 1920 Franco-British Boundary Convention. (map courtesy of Eli Hertz, www.mythsandfacts.org )

Map of the borders of the Jewish National Home in Palestine after the British cut off the eastern 77% of the demarcated borders(Trans-Jordan). The truncating of the borders of Palestine violated article 5 of the Mandate for Palestine, which prohibited the ceding of any "Palestine territory." (map courtesy of Eli Hertz,www.mythsandfacts.org )






The Franco-British Boundary Convention
The San Remo Resolution (April 24-25, 1920) stipulated that the borders of the Jewish National Home in Palestine should be determined by the Principal Allied Powers.  On December 6, 1920 Britain and France signed a treaty delineating the borders of the territory that would be placed under the Mandates System.

The territory included in the 1920 convention included most of the land that had been under Jewish rule during Biblical times. However, there were some modifications. It was realized that much of the territory north of the Golan Heights was supposed to be part of the Syrian Mandate (see the Adam Smith map of the Kingdoms of David and Solomon). As a result, the Jewish National Home was given extra land in what today is eastern Jordan.

The Convention involved bitter negotiations. The French were opposed to giving up control of the Roman Catholic sites in Palestine. The Turks who ruled in Palestine for the four-hundred years prior to World War I did limited access to the sites. In the end, the British had guaranteed they would protect access of Catholics to their religious sites.

Additionally, the British gave the French administered mandates large amounts of land that were supposed to be included in the Jewish National Home. The land in the Upper Galilee, from what today is the Israel/Lebanon border extending north to the Litani River bend as well as the central Golan Heights was removed from the demarcated borders of Palestine.
…to postpone or withhold application of such provisions of this mandate
According to Article 25 of the Mandate for Palestine, the Mandatory (His Britannic Majesty) had the right to separate the administration of the Mandate in Trans-Jordan from the rest of the Palestine territory. This had to be done with the approval of the League of Nations:
"In the territories lying between the Jordan and the eastern boundary of Palestine as ultimately determined, the Mandatory shall be entitled, with the consent of the Council of the League of Nations, to postpone or withhold application of such provisions of this mandate as he may consider inapplicable to the existing local conditions, and to make such provision for the administration of the territories as he may consider suitable to those conditions, provided that no action shall be taken which is inconsistent with the provisions of Articles 15, 16 and 18."
The wording, "postpone or withhold application of such provisions of this mandate as he may consider inapplicable to the existing local conditions" is by the nature of the wording a temporary action. That action was only valid until there was a change in the conditions leading to that decision. It did not authorize the British to permanently cut off portions of the land and turn it over to a foreign people.


Furthermore, according to Article 25, the postponement or withholding of the application of the Mandate in Trans-Jordan could not be inconsistent with Article 15 of the Mandate for Palestine which states:
"No discrimination of any kind shall be made between the inhabitants of Palestine on the ground of race, religion or language. No person shall be excluded from Palestine on the sole ground of his religious belief."
The British "White Papers" policies, which prohibited Jewish settlement East of the Jordan, while allowing a foreign group of Arabs (the Hashemites) to settle and eventually be given all of Trans-Jordan, was in clear violation of Article 15, as well as Article 5 of the Mandate which stated that "no Palestine territory shall be ceded or leased to, or in any way placed under the control of the Government of any foreign Power.

The full text of  Articles 5, 15, and 25:
ARTICLE 5. The Mandatory shall be responsible for seeing that no Palestine territory shall be ceded or leased to, or in any way placed under the control of the Government of any foreign Power.

ARTICLE 15. The Mandatory shall see that complete freedom of conscience and the free exercise of all forms of worship, subject only to the maintenance of public order and morals, are ensured to all. No discrimination of any kind shall be made between the inhabitants of Palestine on the ground of race, religion or language. No person shall be excluded from Palestine on the sole ground of his religious belief.

ARTICLE 25. In the territories lying between the Jordan and the eastern boundary of Palestine as ultimately determined, the Mandatory shall be entitled, with the consent of the Council of the League of Nations, to postpone or withhold application of such provisions of this mandate as he may consider inapplicable to the existing local conditions, and to make such provision for the administration of the territories as he may consider suitable to those conditions, provided that no action shall be taken which is inconsistent with the provisions of Articles 15, 16 and 18.

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Thursday, December 10, 2015

THE TREATY OF PEACE BETWEEN THE ALLIED AND ASSOCIATED POWERS AND TURKEY SIGNED AT SÈVRES AUGUST 10, 1920


THE TREATY OF PEACE BETWEEN THE ALLIED AND ASSOCIATED POWERS
AND TURKEY
SIGNED AT SÈVRES
AUGUST 10, 1920

Index | Parts: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
PART III.
POLITICAL CLAUSES.
SECTION I.
CONSTANTINOPLE.
ARTICLE 36.
Subject to the provisions of the present Treaty, the High Contracting Parties agree that the rights and title of the Turkish Government over Constantinople shall not be affected, and that the said Government and His Majesty the Sultan shall be entitled to reside there and to maintain there the capital of the Turkish State.
Nevertheless, in the event of Turkey failing to observe faithfully the provisions of the present Treaty, or of any treaties or conventions supplementary thereto, particularly as regards the protection of the rights of racial, religious or linguistic minorities, the Allied Powers expressly reserve the right to modify the above provisions, and Turkey hereby agrees to accept any dispositions which may be taken in this connection.
SECTION II.
STRAITS.
ARTICLE 37.
The navigation of the Straits, including the Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmora and the Bosphorus, shall in future be open, both in peace and war, to every vessel of commerce or of war and to military and commercial aircraft, without distinction of flag.
These waters shall not be subject to blockade, nor shall any belligerent right be exercised nor any act of hostility be committed within them, unless in pursuance of a decision of the Council of the League of Nations.
ARTICLE 33.
The Turkish Government recognises that it is necessary to take further measures to ensure the freedom of navigation provided for in Article 37, and accordingly delegates, so far as it is concerned, to a Commission to be called the "Commission of the Straits," and hereinafter referred to as 'the Commission," the control of the waters specified inArticle 39.
The Greek Government, so far as it is concerned, delegates to the Commission the same powers and undertakes to give it in all respects the same facilities.
Such control shall be exercised in the name of the Turkish and Greek Governments respectively, and in the manner provided in this Section.
ARTICLE 39.
The authority of the Commission will extend to all the waters between the Mediterranean mouth of the Dardanelles and the Black Sea mouth of the Bosphorus, and to the waters within three miles of each of these mouths.
This authority may be exercised on shore to such extent as may be necessary for the execution of the provisions of this Section.
ARTICLE 40.
The Commission shall be composed of representatives appointed respectively by the United States of America (if and when that Government is willing to participate), the British Empire, France, Italy, Japan, Russia (if and when Russia becomes a member of the League of Nations), Greece, Roumania, and Bulgaria and Turkey (if and when the two latter States become members of the League of Nations). Each Power shall appoint one representative. The representatives of the United States of America, the British Empire, France, Italy, Japan and Russia shall each have two votes. The representatives of Greece, Roumania, and Bulgaria and Turkey shall each have one vote. Each Commissioner shall be removable only by the Government which appointed him.
ARTICLE 41.
The Commissioners shall enjoy, within the limits specified in Article 39, diplomatic privileges and immunities.
ARTICLE 42.
The Commission will exercise the powers conferred on it by the present Treaty in complete independence of the local author ity. It will have its own flag, its own budget and its separate organisation.
ARTICLE 43.
Within the limits of its jurisdiction as laid down in Article 39 the Commission will be charged with the following duties:
(a) the execution of any works considered necessary for the improvement of the channels or the approaches to harbours;
(b) the lighting and buoying of the channels;
(c) the control of pilotage and towage;
(d) the control of anchorages;
(e) the control necessary to assure the application in the ports of Constantinople and Haidar Pasha of the regime prescribed in Articles 335 to 344, Part XI (Ports, Waterways and Railways) of the present Treaty;
(f) the control of all matters relating to wrecks and salvage;
(g) the control of lighterage;
ARTICLE 44.
In the event of the Commission finding that the liberty of passage is being interfered with, it will inform the representatives at Constantinople of the Allied Powers providing the occupying forces provided for in Article 178. These representatives will thereupon concert with the naval and military commanders of the said forces such measures as may be deemed necessary to preserve the freedom of the Straits. Similar action shall be taken by the said representatives in the event of any external action threatening the liberty of passage of the Straits.
ARTICLE 45.
For the purpose of the acquisition of any property or the execution of any permanent works which may be required, the Commission shall be entitled to raise such loans as it may consider necessary. These loans will be secured, so far as possible, on the dues to be levied on the shipping using the Straits, as provided in Article 53.
ARTICLE 46.
The functions previously exercised by the Constantinople Superior Council of Health and the Turkish Sanitary Administration which was directed by the said Council, and the functions exercised by the National Life-boat Service of the Bosphorus will within the limits specified in Article 39be discharged under the control of the Commission and in such manner as it may direct.
The Commission will co-operate in the execution of any common policy adopted by the League of Nations for preventing and combating disease.
ARTICLE 47.
Subject to the general powers of control conferred upon the Commission, the rights of any persons or companies now holding concessions relating to lighthouses, docks, quays or similar matters shall be maintained; but the Commission shall be entitled if it thinks it necessary in the general interest to buy out or modify such rights upon the conditions laid down in Article 311 Part IX (Economic Clauses) of the present Treaty, or itself to take up a new concession.
ARTICLE 48.
In order to facilitate the execution of the duties with which it is entrusted by this Section, the Commission shall have power to organise such a force of special police as may be necessary. This force shall be drawn so far as possible from the native population of the zone of the Straits and islands referred to in Article 178, Part V (Military, Naval and Air Clauses), excluding the islands of Lemnos, Imbros, Samothrace, Tenedos and Mitylene. The said force shall be commanded by foreign police officers appointed by the Commission.
ARTICLE 49.
In the portion of the zone of the Straits, including the islands of the Sea of Marmora, which remains Turkish, and pending the coming into force of the reform of the Turkish judicial system provided for in Article 136, all infringements of the regulations and by-laws made by the Commission, committed by nationals of capitulatory Powers, shall be dealt with by the Consular Courts of the said Powers. The Allied Powers agree to make such infringements justiciable before their Consular Courts or authorities. Infringements committed by Turkish nationals or nationals of non-capitulatory Powers shall be dealt with by the competent Turkish judicial authorities.
In the portion of the said zone placed under Greek sovereignty such infringements will be dealt with by the competent Greek judicial authorities.
ARTICLE 50.
The officers or members of the crew of any merchant vessel vwithin the limits of the jurisdiction of the Commission who may be arrested on shore for any offence committed either ashore or afloat within the limits of the said jurisdiction shall be brought before the competent judicial authority by the Commission's police. If the accused was arrested otherwise than by the Commission's police he shall immediately be handed over to them.
ARTICLE 51 .
The Commission shall appoint such subordinate officers or officials as may be found indispensable to assist it in carrying out the duties with which it is charged.
ARTICLE 52.
In all matters relating to the navigation of the waters within the limits of the jurisdiction of the Commission all the ships referred to in Article 37 shall be treated upon a footing of absolute equality.
ARTICLE 53.
Subject to the provisions of Article 47 the existing rights under which dues and charges can be levied for various purposes, whether direct by the Turkish Government or by international bodies or private companies, on ships or cargoes within the limits of the jurisdiction of the Commission shall be transferred to the Commisssion The Commission shall fix these dues and charges at such amounts only as may be reasonably necessary to cover the cost of the works executed and the services rendered to shipping, including the general costs and expenses of the administration of the Commission, and the salaries and pay provided for in paragraph 3 of the Annex to this Section.
For these purposes only and with the prior consent of the Council of the League of Nations the Commission may also establish dues and charges other than those now existing and fix their amounts.
ARTICLE 54.
All dues and charges imposed by the Commission shall be levied without any discrimination and on a footing of absolute equality between all vessels, whatever their port of origin, destination or departure, their flag or ownership, or the nationality or ownership of their cargoes.
This disposition does not affect the right of the Commission to fix in accordance with tonnage the dues provided for by this Section.
ARTICLE 55.
The Turkish and Greek Governments respectively undertake to facilitate the acquisition by the Commission of such land and buildings as the Commission shall consider it necessary to acquire in order to carry out effectively the duties with which it is entrusted.
ARTICLE 56.
Ships of war in transit through the waters specified inArticle 39 shall conform in all respects to the regulations issued by the Commission for the observance of the ordinary rules of navigation and of sanitary requirements.
ARTICLE 57.
(1) Belligerent warships shall not revictual nor take in stores except so far as may be strictly necessary to enable them to complete the passage of the Straits and to reach the nearest port where they can call, nor shall they replenish or increase their supplies of war material or their armament or complete their crews, within the waters under the control of the Commission. Only such repairs as are absolutely necessary to render them seaworthy shall be carried out, and they shall not add in any manner whatever to their fighting force. The Commission shall decide what repairs are necessary, and these must be carried out with the least possible delay.
(2) The passage of belligerent warships through the waters under the control of the Commission shall be effected with the least possible delay, and without any other interruption than that resulting from the necessities of the service.
(3) The stay of such warships at ports within the jurisdiction of the Commission shall not exceed twenty-four hours except in case of distress. In such case they shall be bound to leave as soon as possible. An interval of at least twenty-four hours shall always elapse between the sailing of a belligerent ship from the waters under the control of the Commission and the departure of a ship belonging to an opposing belligerent.
(4) Any further regulations affecting in time of war the waters under the control of the Commission, and relating in particular to the passage of war material and contraband destined for the enemies of Turkey, or revictualling, taking in stores or carrying out repairs in the said waters, will be laid down by the League of Nations.
ARTICLE 58.
Prizes shall in all respects be subjected to the same conditions as belligerent vessels of war.
ARTICLE 59.
No belligerent shall embark or disembark troops, munitions of war or warlike materials in the waters under the control of the Commission, except in case of accidental hindrance of the passage, and in such cases the passage shall be resumed with all possible despatch.
ARTICLE 60.
Nothing in Articles 57, 58 or 59 shall be deemed to limit the powers of a belligerent or belligerents acting in pursuance of a decision by the Council of the League of Nations.
ARTICLE 61.
Any differences which may arise between the Powers as to the interpretation or execution of the provisions of this Section, and as regards Constantinople and Haidar Pasha of the provisions of Articles 335 to 344, Part XI (Ports, Waterways, and Railways) shall be referred to the Commission. In the event of the decision of the Commission not being accepted by any Power, the question shall, on the demand of any Power concerned, be settled as provided by the League of Nations, pending whose decision the ruling of the Commission will be carried out.
ANNEX
1
The Chairmanship of the Commission of the Straits shall be rotatory for the period of two years among the members of the Commission entitled to two votes.
The Commission shall take decisions by a majority vote and the Chairman shall have a casting vote. Abstention shall be regarded as a vote against the proposal under discussion.
Each of the Commissioners will have the right to designate a deputy Commissioner to replace him in his absence.
2
The salary of each member of the Commission will be paid by the Government which appointed him; these salaries will be fixed at reasonable amounts agreed upon from time to time between the Governments represented on the Commission.
3
The salaries of the police officers referred to in Article 48, of such other officials and officers as may be appointed under Article 51, and the pay of the local police referred to in Article 48, shall be paid out of the receipts from the dues and charges levied on shipping.
The Commission shall frame regulations as to the terms and condltions of employment of all officers and officials appointed
4
The Commission shall have at its disposal such vessels as may be necessary to enable it to carry out its functions as laid down in this Section and Annex.
5
In order to carry out all the duties with which it is charged by the provisions of this Section and Annex and within the limits therein laid down the Commission will have the power to prepare, issue and enforce the necessary regulations; this power will include the right of amending so far as may be necessary or repealing the existing regulations.
6
The Commission shall frame regulations as to the manner in which the accounts of all revenues and expenditure of the funds under its control shall be kept, the auditing of such accounts and the publication every year of a full and accurate report thereof.
SECTION III.
KURDISTAN.
ARTICLE 62.
A Commission sitting at Constantinople and composed of three members appointed by the British, French and Italian Governments respectively shall draft within six months from the coming into force of the present Treaty a scheme of local autonomy for the predominantly Kurdish areas lying east of the Euphrates, south of the southern boundary of Armenia as it may be hereafter determined, and north of the frontier of Turkey with Syria and Mesopotamia, as defined in Article 27, II (2) and (3). If unanimity cannot be secured on any question, it will be referred by the members of the Commission to their respective Governments. The scheme shall contain full safeguards for the protection of the Assyro-Chaldeans and other racial or religious minorities within these areas, and with this object a Commission composed of British, French, Italian, Persian and Kurdish representatives shall visit the spot to examine and decide what rectifications, if any, should be made in the Turkish frontier where, under the provisions of the present Treaty, that frontier coincides with that of Persia.
ARTICLE 63.
The Turkish Government hereby agrees to accept and execute the decisions of both the Commissions mentioned in Article 62 within three months from their communication to the said Government.
ARTICLE 64.
If within one year from the coming into force of the present Treaty the Kurdish peoples within the areas defined inArticle 62 shall address themselves to the Council of the League of Nations in such a manner as to show that a majority of the population of these areas desires independence from Turkey, and if the Council then considers that these peoples are capable of such independence and recommends that it should be granted to them, Turkey hereby agrees to execute such a recommendation, and to renounce all rights and title over these areas.
The detailed provisions for such renunciation will form the subject of a separate agreement between the Principal Allied Powers and Turkey.
If and when such renunciation takes place, no objection will be raised by the Principal Allied Powers to the voluntary adhesion to such an independent Kurdish State of the Kurds inhabiting that part of Kurdistan which has hitherto been included in the Mosul vilayet.
SECTION IV.
SMYRNA.
ARTICLE 65.
The provisions of this Section will apply to the city of Smyrna and the adjacent territory defined in Article 66, until the determination of their final status in accordance with Article 83.
ARTICLE 66.
The geographical limits of the territory adjacent to the city of Smyrna will be laid down as follows:
From the mouth of the river which flows into the Aegean Sea about 5 kilometres north of Skalanova, eastwards,
the course of this river upstream;
then south-eastwards, the course of the southern branch of this river;
then south-eastwards, to the western point of the crest of the Gumush Dagh;
A line to be fixed on the ground passing west of Chinar K, and east of Akche Ova;
thence north-eastwards, this crest line;
thence northwards to a point to be chosen on the railway from Ayasoluk to Deirmendik about 1 kilometre west of Balachik station,
a line to be fixed on the ground leaving the road and railway from Sokia to Balachik station entirely in Turkish territory;
thence northwards to a point to be chosen on the southern boundary of the Sandjak of Smyrna,
a line to be fixed on the ground;
thence to a point to be chosen in the neighbourhood of Bos Dagh situated about 15 kilometres north-east of Odemish,
the southern and eastern boundary of the Sandjak of Smyrna;
thence northwards to a point to be chosen on the railway from Manisa to Alashehr about 6 kilometres west of Salihli,
a line to be fixed on the ground;
thence northwards to Geurenez Dagh,
a line to be fixed on the ground passing east of Mermer Geul west of Kemer, crossing the Kum Chai approximately south of Akshalan, and then following the watershed west of Kavakalan;
thence north-westwards to a point to be chosen on the boundary between the Cazas of Kirkagach and Ak Hissar about 18 kilometres east of Kirkagach and 20 kilometres north of Ak Hissar,
a line to be fixed on the ground;
thence westwards to its junction with the boundary of the Caza of Soma,
the southern boundary of the Caza of Kirkagach,
thence westwards to its junction with the boundary of the Sandjak of Smyrna,
the southern boundary of the Caza of Soma;
thence northwards to its junction with the boundary of the vilayet of Smyrna,
the north-eastern boundary of the Sandjak of Smyrna;
thence westwards to a point to be chosen in the neighbourhood of Charpajik (Tepe).
the northern boundary of the vilayet of Smyrna;
thence northwards to a point to be chosen on the ground about 4 kilometres southwest of Keuiluje,
a line to be fixed on the ground;
thence westwards to a point to be selected on the ground between Cape Dahlina and Kemer Iskele,
a line to be fixed on the ground passing south of Kemer and Kemer Iskele together with the road joining these places.
ARTICLE 67.
A Commission shall be constituted within fifteen days from the coming into force of the present Treaty to trace on the spot the boundaries of the territories described in Article 66. This Commission shall be composed of three members nominated by the British, French and Italian Governments respectively, one member nominated by the Greek Government, and one nominated by the Turkish Government.
ARTICLE 68.
Subject to the provisions of this Section, the city of Smyrna and the territory defined in Article 66 will be assimilated, in the application of the present Treaty, to territory detached from Turkey.
ARTICLE 69
The city of Smyrna and the territory defined in Article 66remain under Turkish sovereignty. Turkey, however, transfers to the Greek Government the exercise of her rights of sovereignty over the city of Smyrna and the said territory. In witness of such sovereignty the Turkish flag shall remain permanently hoisted over an outer fort in the town of Smyrna. The fort will be designated by the Principal Allied Powers.
ARTICLE 70.
The Greek Government will be responsible for the administration of the city of Smyrna and the territory defined in Article 66, and will effect this administration by means of a body of officials which it will appoint specially for the purpose.
ARTICLE 71.
The Greek Government shall be entitled to maintain in the city of Smyrna and the territory defined in Article 66 the military forces required for the maintenance of order and public security.
ARTICLE 72.
A local parliament shall be set up with an electoral system calculated to ensure proportional representation of all sections of the population, including racial, linguistic and religious minorities. Within six months from the coming into force of the present Treaty the Greek Government shall submit to the Council of the League of Nations a scheme for an electoral system complying with the above requirements; this scheme shall not come into force until approved by a majority of the Council.
The Greek Government shall be entitled to postpone the elections for so long as may be required for the return of the inhabitants who have been banished or deported by the Turkish authorities, but such postponement shall not exceed a period of one year from the coming into force of the present Treaty.
ARTICLE 73.
The relations between the Greek administration and the local parliament shall be determined by the said administration in accordance with the principles of the Greek Constitution.
ARTICLE 74.
Compulsory military service shall not be enforced in the city of Smyrna and the territory defined in Article 66pending the final determination of their status in accordance with Article 83.
ARTICLE 75.
The provisions of the separate Treaty referred to in Article 86 relating to the protection of racial, linguistic and religious minorities, and to freedom of commerce and transit, shall be applicable to the city of Smyrna and the territory defined in Article 66.
ARTICLE 76.
The Greek Government may establish a Customs boundary along the frontier line defined in Article 66, and may incorporate the city of Smyrna and the territory defined in the said Article in the Greek customs system.
ARTICLE 77.
The Greek Government engages to take no measures which would have the effect of depreciating the existing Turkish currency, which shall retain its character as legal tender pending the determination, in accordance with the provisions of Article 83, of the final status of the territory.
ARTICLE 78.
The provisions of Part XI (Ports, Waterways and Railways) relating to the regime of ports of international interest, free ports and transit shall be applicable to the city of Smyrna and the territory defined in Article 66.
ARTICLE 79.
As regards nationality, such inhabitants of the city of Smyrna and the territory defined in Article 66 as are of Turkish nationality and cannot claim any other nationality under the terms of the present Treaty shall be treated on exactly the same footing as Greek nationals. Greece shall provide for their diplomatic and consular protection abroad.
ARTICLE 80.
The provisions of Article 241, Part VIII (Financial Clauses) will apply in the case of the city of Smyrna and the territory defined in Article 66.
The provisions of Article 293, Part IX (Economic Clauses) will not be applicable in the case of the said city and territory.
ARTICLE 81.
Until the determination, in accordance with the provisions of Article 83, of the final status of Smyrna and the territory defined in Article 66, the rights to exploit the salt marshes of Phocea belonging to the Administration of the Ottoman Public Debt, including all plant and machinery and materials for transport by land or sea, shall not be altered or interfered with. No tax or charge shall be imposed during this period on the manufacture, exportation or transport of salt produced from these marshes. The Greek administration will have the right to regulate and tax the consumption of salt at Symrna and within the territory defined in Article 66.
If after the expiration of the period referred to in the preceding paragraph Greece considers it opportuhe to effect changes in the provisions above set forth, the salt marshes of Phocea will be treated as a concession and the guarantees provided by Article 312, Part IX (Economic Clauses) will apply, subject, however, to the provisions ofArticle 246, Part VIII (Financial Clauses) of the present Treaty.
ARTICLE 82.
Subsequent agreements will decide all questions which are not decided by the present Treaty and which may arise from the execution of the provisions of this Section.
ARTICLE 83.
When a period of five years shall have elapsed after the coming into force of the present Treaty the local parliament referred to in Article 72 may, by a majority of votes, ask the Council of the League of Nations for the definitive incorporation in the King dom of Greece of the city of Smyrna and the territory defined in Article 66. The Council may require, as a preliminary, a plebiscite under conditions which it will lay down.
In the event of such incorporation as a result of the application of the foregoing paragraph, the Turkish sovereignty referred to in Article 69 shall cease. Turkey hereby renounces in that event in favour of Greece all rights and title over the city of Smyrna and the territory defined in Article 66.
SECTION V.
GREECE.
ARTICLE 84.
Without prejudice to the frontiers of Bulgaria laid down by the Treaty of Peace signed at Neuilly-sur-Seine on November 27, 1919, Turkey renounces in favour of Greece all rights and title over the territories of the former Turkish Empire in Europe situated outside the frontiers of Turkey as laid down by the present Treaty.
The islands of the Sea of Marmora are not included in the transfer of sovereignty effected by the above paragraph.
Turkey further renounces in favour of Greece all her rights and title over the islands of Imbros and Tenedos. The decision taken by the Conference of Ambassadors at London in execution of Articles 5 of the Treaty of London of May 17-30, 1913, and 15 of the Treaty of Athens of November 1-14, 1913, and notified to the Greek Govermnent on February 13, 1914, relating to the sovereignty of Greece over the other islands of the Eastern Mediterranean, particularly Lemnos, Samothrace, Mytilene, Chios, Samos and Nikaria, is confirmed, without prejudice to the provisions of the present Treaty relating to the islands placed under the sovereignty of Italy and referred to in Article 122, and to the islands lying less than three miles fron the coast of Asia.
Nevertheless, in the portion of the zone of the Straits and the islands, referred to in Article 178, which under the present Treaty are placed under Greek sovereignty, Greece accepts and undertakes to observe, failing any contrary stipulation in the present Treaty, all the obligations which, in order to assure the freedom of the Straits, are imposed by the present Treaty on Turkey in that portion of the said zone, including the islands of the Sea of Marmora, which remains under Turkish sovereignty.
ARTICLE 85.
A Commission shall be constituted within fifteen days from the coming into force of the present Treaty to trace on the spot the frontier line described in Article 27, 1 (2). This Commission shall be composed of four members nominated by the Principal Allied Powers, one member nominated by Greece, and one member nominated by Turkey.
ARTICLE 86.
Greece accepts and agrees to embody in a separate Treaty such provisions as may be deemed necessary, particularly as regards Adrianople, to protect the interests of inhabitants of that State who differ from the majority of the population in race, language or religion.
Greece further accepts and agrees to embody in a separate Treaty such provisions as may be deemed necessary to protect freedom of transit and equitable treatment for the commerce of other nations.
ARTICLE 87.
The proportion and nature of the financial obligations of Turkey which Greece will have to assume on account of the territory placed under her sovereignty will be determined in accordance with Articles 241 to 244, Part VIII (Financial Clauses) of the present Treaty.
Subsequent agreements will decide all questions which are not decided by the present Treaty and which may arise in consequence of the transfer of the said territories.
SECTION VI.
ARMENIA.
ARTICLE 88.
Turkey, in accordance with the action already taken by the Allied Powers, hereby recognises Armenia as a free and independent State.
ARTICLE 89.
Turkey and Armenia as well as the other High Contracting Parties agree to submit to the arbitration of the President of the United States of America the question of the frontier to be fixed between Turkey and Armenia in the vilayets of Erzerum, Trebizond, Van and Bitlis, and to accept his decision thereupon, as well as any stipulations he may prescribe as to access for Armenia to the sea, and as to the demilitarisation of any portion of Turkish territory adjacent to the said frontier.
ARTICLE 90.
In the event of the determination of the frontier underArticle 89 involving the transfer of the whole or any part of the territory of the said Vilayets to Armenia, Turkey hereby renounces as from the date of such decision all rights and title over the territory so transferred. The provisions of the present Treaty applicable to territory detached from Turkey shall thereupon become applicable to the said territory.
The proportion and nature of the financial obligations of Turkey which Armenia will have to assume, or of the rights which will pass to her, on account of the transfer of the said territory will be determined in accordance with Articles 241 to 244, Part VIII (Financial Clauses) of the present Treaty.
Subsequent agreements will, if necessary, decide all questions which are not decided by the present Treaty and which may arise in consequence of the transfer of the said territory.
ARTICLE 91.
In the event of any portion of the territory referred to inArticle 89 being transferred to Armenia, a Boundary Commission, whose composition will be determined subsequently, will be constituted within three months from the delivery of the decision referred to in the said Article to trace on the spot the frontier between Armenia and Turkey as established by such decision.
ARTICLE 92.
The frontiers between Armenia and Azerbaijan and Georgia respectively will be determined by direct agreement between the States concerned.
If in either case the States concerned have failed to determine the frontier by agreement at the date of the decision referred to in Article 89, the frontier line in question will be determined by the Pricipal Allied Powers, who will also provide for its being traced on the spot.
ARTICLE 93.
Armenia accepts and agrees to embody in a Treaty with the Principal Allied Powers such provisions as may be deemed necessary by these Powers to protect the interests of inhabitants of that State who differ from the majority of the population in race, language, or religion.
Armenia further accepts and agrees to embody in a Treaty with the Principal Allied Powers such provisions as these Powers may deem necessary to protect freedom of transit and equitable treatment for the commerce of other nations.
SECTION VII.
SYRIA, MESOPOTAMIA, PALESTINE.
ARTICLE 94.
The High Contracting Parties agree that Syria and Mesopotamia shall, in accordance with the fourth paragraph of Article 22.
Part I (Covenant of the League of Nations), be provisionally recognised as independent States subject to the rendering of administrative advice and assistance by a Mandatory until such time as they are able to stand alone.
ARTICLE 95.
The High Contracting Parties agree to entrust, by application of the provisions of Article 22, the administration of Palestine, within such boundaries as may be determined by the Principal Allied Powers, to a Mandatory to be selected by the said Powers. The Mandatory will be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 2, 1917, by the British Government, and adopted by the other Allied Powers, in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.
The Mandatory undertakes to appoint as soon as possible a special Commission to study and regulate all questions and claims relating to the different religious communities. In the composition of this Commission the religious interests concerned will be taken into account. The Chairman of the Commission will be appointed by the Council of the League of Nations.
ARTICLE 96.
The terms of the mandates in respect of the above territories will be formulated by the Principal Allied Powers and submitted to the Council of the League of Nations for approval.
ARTICLE 97.
Turkey hereby undertakes, in accordance with the provisions of Article 132, to accept any decisions which may be taken in relation to the questions dealt with in this Section.
SECTION VIII.
HEDJAZ.
ARTICLE 98.
Turkey, in accordance with the action already taken by the Allied Powers, hereby recognises the Hedjaz as a free and indepedent State, and renounces in favour of the Hedjaz all rights and titles over the territories of the former Turkish Empire situated outside the frontiers of Turkey as laid down by the present Treaty, and comprised within the boundaries which may ultimately be fixed.
ARTICLE 99.
In view of the sacred character attributed by Moslems of all countries to the cities and the Holy Places of Mecca and Medina His Majesty the King of the Hedjaz undertakes to assure free and easy access thereto to Moslems of every country who desire to go there on pilgrimage or for any other religious object, and to respect and ensure respect for the pious foundations which are or may be established there by Moslems of any countries in accordance with the precepts of the law of the Koran.
ARTICLE 100.
His Majesty the King of the Hedjaz undertakes that in commercial matters the most complete equality of treatment shall be assured in the territory of the Hedjaz to the persons, ships and goods of nationals of any of the Allied Powers, or of any of the new States set up in the territories of the former Turkish Empire, as well as to the persons, ships and goods of nationals of States, Members of the League of Nations.
SECTION IX.
EGYPT, SOUDAN, CYPRUS.
1. EGYPT.
ARTICLE 101.
Turkey renounces all rights and title in or over Egypt. This renunciation shall take effect as from November 5, 1914. Turkey declares that in conformity with the action taken by the Allied Powers she recognises the Protectorate proclaimed over Egypt by Great Britain on December 18, 1914.
ARTICLE 102.
Turkish subjects habitually resident in Egypt on December 18, 1914, will acquire Egyptian nationality ipso facto and will lose their Turkish nationality, except that if at that date such persons were temporarily absent from, and have not since returned to, Egypt they will not acquire Egyptian nationality without a special authorisation from the Egyptian Government.
ARTICLE 103.
Turkish subjects who became resident in Egypt after December 18, 1914, and are habitually resident there at the date of the coming into force of the present Treaty may, subject to the conditions prescribed in Article 105 for the right of option, claim Egyptian nationality, but such claim may in individual cases be refused by the competent Egyptian authority.
ARTICLE 104.
For all purposes connected with the present Treaty, Egypt and Egyptian nationals, their goods and vessels, shall be treated on the same footing, as from August I, 1914, as the Allied Powers, their nationals, goods and vessels, and provisions in respect of territory under Turkish sovereignty, or of territory detached from Turkey in accordance with the present Treaty, shall not apply to Egypt.
ARTICLE 105.
Within a period of one year after the coming into force of the present Treaty persons over eighteen years of age acquiring Egyptian nationality under the provisions ofArticle 102 will be entitled to opt for Turkish nationality. In case such persons, or those who under Article 103 are entitled to claim Egyptian nationality, differ in race from the majority of the population of Egypt, they will within the same period be entitled to opt for the nationality of any State in favour of which territory is detached from Turkey, if the majority of the population of that State is of the same race as the person exercising the right to opt.
Option by a husband covers a wife and option by parents covers their children under eighteen years of age.
Persons who have exercised the above right to opt must, except where authorised to continue to reside in Egypt, transfer within the ensuing twelve months their place of residence to the State for which they have opted. They will be entitled to retain their immovable property in Egypt, and may carry with them their movable property of every description. No export or import duties or charges may be imposed upon them in connection with the removal of such property.
ARTICLE 106.
The Egyptian Government shall have complete liberty of action in regulating the status of Turkish subjects in Egypt and the conditions under which they may establish themselves in the territory.
ARTICLE 107.
Egyptian nationals shall be entitled, when abroad, to British diplonlatic and consular protection.
ARTICLE 108.
Egyptian goods entering Turkey shall enjoy the treatment accorded to British goods.
ARTICLE 109.
Turkey renounces in favour of Great Britain the powers conferred upon His Imperial Majesty the Sultan by the Convention signed at Constantinople on October 29, 1888, relating to the free navigation of the Suez Canal.
ARTICLE 110.
All property and possessions in Egypt belonging to the Turkish Government pass to the Egyptian Government without payment.
ARTICLE 111 .
All movable and immovable property in Egypt belonging to Turkish nationals (who do not acquire Egyptian nationality) shall be dealt with in aecordance with the provisions of Part IX (Economie Clauses) of the present Treaty.
ARTICLE 112.
Turkey renounces all claim to the tribute formerly paid by Egypt.
Great Britain undertakes to relieve Turkey of all liability in respect of the Turkish loans secured on the Egyptian tribute.
These loans are:
The guaranteed loan of 1855;
The loan of 1894 representing the converted loans of 1854 and 1871;
The loan of 1891 representing the converted loan of 1877.
The sums which the Khedives of Egypt have from time to time undertaken to pay over to the houses by which these loans were issued will be applied as heretofore to the interest and the sinking funds of the loans of 1894 and 1891 until the final extinction of those loans. The Government of Egypt will also continue to apply the sum hitherto paid towards the interest on the guaranteed loan of 1855.
Upon the extinction of these loans of 1894, 1891 and 1855, all liability on the part of the Egyptian Government arising out of the tribute formerly paid by Egypt to Turkey will cease.
2. SOUDAN.
ARTICLE 113.
The High Contracting Parties declare and place on record that they have taken note of the Convention between the British Government and the Egyptian Government defining the status and regulating the administration of the Soudan, signed on January 19, 1899, as amended by the supplementary Convention relating to the town of Suakin signed on July 10, 1899.
ARTICLE 114.
Soudanese shall be entitled when in foreign countries to British diplomatic and consular protection.
3. CYPRUS
ARTICLE 115.
The High Contracting Parties recognise the annexation of Cyprus proclaimed by the British Government on November 5, 1914.
ARTICLE 116.
Turkey renounces all rights and title over or relating to Cyprus, including the right to the tribute formerly paid by that island to the Sultan.
ARTICLE 117.
Turkish nationals born or habitually resident in Cyprus will acquire British nationality and lose their Turkish nationality, subject to the conditions laid down in the local law.
SECTION X.
MOROCCO, TUNIS.
ARTICLE 118.
Turkey recognises the French Protectorate in Morocco, and accepts all the consequences thereof. This recognition shall take effect as from March 30, 1912.
ARTICLE 119.
Moroccan goods entering Turkey shall be subject to the same treatment as French goods.
ARTICLE 120.
Turkey recognises the French Protectorate over Tunis and accepts all the consequences thereof. This recognition shall take effect as from May 12, 1881.
Tunisian goods entering Turkey shall be subject to the same treatment as French goods.
SECTION XI.
LIBYA, AEGEAN ISLANDS.
ARTICLE 121.
Turkey definitely renounces all rights and privileges which under the Treaty of Lausanne of October 18, 1912, were left to the Sultan in Libya.
ARTICLE 122.
Turkey renounces in favour of Italy all rights and title over the following islands of the Aegean Sea; Stampalia (Astropalia), Rhodes (Rhodos), Calki (Kharki), Scarpanto, Casos (Casso) Pscopis (Tilos), Misiros (Nisyros), Calymnos (Kalymnos) Leros, Patmos, Lipsos (Lipso), Sini (Symi), and Cos (Kos), which are now occupied by Italy, and the islets dependent thereon, and also over the island of Castellorizzo.
SECTION XII.
NATIONALITY.
ARTICLE 123.
Turkish subjects habitually resident in territory which in accordance with the provisions of the present Treaty is detached from Turkey will become ipso facto, in the conditions laid down by the local law, nationals of the State to which such territory is transferred.
ARTICLE 124.
Persons over eighteen years of age losing their Turkish nationality and obtaining ipso facto a new nationality underArticle 123 shall be entitled within a period of one year from the coming into force of the present Treaty to opt for Turkish nationality.
ARTICLE 125.
Persons over eighteen years of age habitually resident in territory detached from Turkey in accordance with the present Treaty and differing in race from the majority of the population of such territory shall within one year from the coming into force of the present Treaty be entitled to opt for Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Greece, the Hedjaz, Mesopotamia, Syria, Bulgaria or Turkey, if the majority of the population of the State selected is of the same race as the person exercising the right to opt.
ARTICLE 126.
Persons who have exercised the right to opt in accordance with the provisions of Articles 124 or 125 must within the succeeding twelve months transfer their place of residence to the State for which they have opted.
They will be entitled to retain their immovable property in the territory of the other State where they had their place of residence before exercising their right to opt.
They may carry with them their movable property of every description. No export or import duties may be imposed upon them in connection with the removal of such property.
ARTICLE 127.
The High Contracting Parties undertake to put no hindrance in the way of the exercise of the right which the persons concerned have under the present Treaty, or under the Treaties of Peace concluded with Germany, Austria, Bulgaria or Hungary or under any treaty concluded by the Allied Powers, or any of them, with Russia, or between any of the Allied Powers themselves, to choose any other nationality which may be open to them.
In particular, Turkey undertakes to facilitate by every means in her power the voluntary emigration of persons desiring to avail themselves of the right to opt provided byArticle 125, and to carry out any measures which may be prescribed with this object by the Council of the League of Nations.
ARTICLE 128.
Turkey undertakes to recognise any new nationality which has been or may be acquired by her nationals under the laws of the Allied Powers or new States and in accordance with the decisions of the competent authorities of these Powers pursuant to naturalisation laws or under Treaty stipulations, and to regard such persons as having, in consequence of the acquisition of such new nationality, in all respects severed their allegiance to their country of origin.
In particular, persons who before the coming into force of the present Treaty have acquired the nationality of one of the Allied Powers in accordance with the law of such Power shall be recognised by the Turkish Government as nationals of such Power and as having lost their Turkish nationality, notwithstanding any provisions of Turkish law to the contrary. No confiscation of property or other penalty provided by Turkish law shall be incurred on account of the acquisition of any such nationality.
ARTICLE 129.
Jews of other than Turkish nationality who are habitually resident, on the coming into force of the present Treaty, within the boundaries of Palestine, as determined in accordance with Article 95 will ipso facto become citizens of Palestine to the exclusion of any other nationality.
ARTICLE 130.
For the purposes of the provisions of this Section, the status of a married woman will be governed by that of her husband and the status of children under eighteen years of age by that of their parents.
ARTICLE 131.
The provisions of this Section will apply to the city of Smyrna and the territory defined in Article 66 as from the establishment of the final status of the territory in accordance with Article 83.
SECTION XIII.
GENERAL PROVISIONS.
ARTICLE 132.
Outside her frontiers as fixed by the present Treaty Turkey hereby renounces in favour of the Principal Allied Powers all rights and title which she could claim on any ground over or concerning any territories outside Europe which are not otherwise disposed of by the present Treaty.
Turkey undertakes to recognise and conform to the measures which may be taken now or in the future by the Principal Allied Powers, in agreement where necessary with third Powers, in order to carry the above stipulation into effect.
ARTICLE 133.
Turkey undertakes to recognise the full force of the Treaties of Peace and Additional Conventions concluded by the Allied Powers with the Powers who fought on the side of Turkey, and to recognise whatever dispositions have been or may be made concerning the territories of the former German Empire, of Austria, of Hungary and of Bulgaria, and to recognise the new States within their frontiers as there laid down.
ARTICLE 134.
Turkey hereby recognises and accepts the frontiers of Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Roumania, the Serb-Croat-Slovene State and the Czecho-Slovak State as these frontiers may be determined by the Treaties referred to in Article 133 or by any supplementary conventions.
ARTICLE 135.
Turkey undertakes to recognise the full force of all treaties or agreements which may be entered into by the Allied Powers with States now existing or coming into existence in future in the whole or part of the former Empire of Russia as it existed on August 1, 1914, and to recognise the frontiers of any such States as determined therein.
Turkey acknowledges and agrees to respect as permanent and inalienable the independence of the said States.
In accordance with the provisions of Article 259, Part VIII (Financial Clauses), and Article 277, Part IX (Economic Clauses), of the present Treaty, Turkey accepts definitely the abrogation of the Brest-Litovsk Treaties and of all treaties conventions and agreements entered into by her with the Maximalist Government in Russia.
ARTICLE 136.
A Commission composed of four members, appointed by the British Empire, France, Italy and Japan respectively, shall be set up within three months from the coming into force of the present Treaty, to prepare, with the assistance of technical experts representing the other capitulatory Powers, Allied or neutral, who with this object will each be invited to appoint an expert, a scheme of judicial reform to replace the present capitulatory system in judicial matters in Turkey. This Commission may recommend, after consultation with the Turkish Government, the adoption of either a mixed or an unified judicial system.
The scheme prepared by the Commission will be submitted to the Governments of the Allied and neutral Powers concerned. As soon as the Principal Allied Powers have approved the scheme they will inform the Turkish Government, which hereby agrees to accept the new system.
The Principal Allied Powers reserve the right to agree among themselves, and if necessary with the other Allied or neutral Powers concerned, as to the date on which the new system is to come into force.
ARTICLE 137.
Without prejudice to the provisions of Part VII (Penalties), no inhabitant of Turkey shall be disturbed or molested, under any pretext whatever, on account of any political or military action taken by him, or any assistance of any kind given by him to the Allied Powers, or their nationals, between August 1, 1914, and the coming into force of the present Treaty; all sentences pronounced against any inhabitant of Turkey for the above reasons shall be completely annulled, and any proceedings already instituted shall be arrested.
ARTICLE 138.
No inhabitant of territory detached from Turkey in accordance with the present Treaty shall be disturbed or molested on account of his political attitude after August 1, 1914, or of the determination of his nationality effected in accordance with the present Treaty.
ARTICLE 139.
Turkey renounces formally all rights of suzerainty or jurisdiction of any kind over Moslems who are subject to the sovereignty or protectorate of any other State.
No power shall be exercised directly or indirectly by any Turkish authority whatever in any territory detached from Turkey or of which the existing status under the present Treaty is recognised by Turkey.
Index | Parts: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
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