Page 8 - SAN REMO 100_PREVIEW BOOKLET

indigenous self-rule and national President Woodrow Wilson) and
self-determination, the victorious prominent Pan-Arab nationalists
Allied Powers sought to steer the quickly endorsed the wartime
former Ottoman colonies into Balfour Declaration, at the Paris
independence rather than carve up peace negotiations in 1919 the
the defeated empire for themselves. Jewish national cause fell victim to
great-power rivalries and intrigues.
Within this framework, the April Reluctant to acquiesce to British
1920 San Remo peace conference predominance in the Middle East,
determined to appoint Britain the French, while acknowledging
as the Mandatory for Palestine, that “the whole world was
tasked with putting into effect “the sympathetic to the aspiration of
declaration originally made on the Jews to establish a national Lloyd George, Orlando, Clémenceau, Wilson (Paris, 1919)
November 2, 1917, by the British home in Palestine” and promising
Government, and adopted by the
other Allied Powers, in favour of “the whole world was sympathetic to
‘the establishment in Palestine
of a national home for the Jewish the aspiration of the Jews to establish
people’, ‘it being clearly understood a national home in Palestine”
that nothing shall be done which
may prejudice the civil and religious
rights of existing non-Jewish “to do their utmost to satisfy their
communities in Palestine, or the legitimate desire,” sought to revive
rights and political status enjoyed by the 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement
Jews in any other country’.” that internationalised most of
Palestine so as to prevent its
The decision was approved by the placement under a British mandate.
League of Nations’ Council, who For his part, President Wilson
entrusted the Mandate to Britain on obstructed the proposal of his
24 July 1922. British and French war allies for
an immediate allocation of the
From Balfour to San Remo mandates, and instead demanded
The road to this decision, however, to send an enquiry commission
was not easy. While in 1917 to elucidate the state of opinion
Britain’s war allies (notably US in Syria. Even the British military Gates of San Remo Conference (1920)

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