I'm having a tough time finding a non-subscription link to the sources I want, but the Wikipedia entry on Abdul Hamid II contains this unattributed quote (I think it is from the diary of Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism) of the Caliph's reply to Herzl request that he endorse the return of Jews to their ancestral home:
...to have the scalpel cut my body is less painful than to witness Palestine being detached from the Khilafah state and this is not going to happen ...let the Jews keep their millions and once the Khilafah is torn apart one day, then they can take Palestine without a price -Herzl thought it was a refusal. Yet it was not, for once the Ottoman Empire disintegrated, Caliph Muhammed VI explicitly endorsed Palestine as a Jewish National Home in Article 95 of the Treaty of Sevres. The terms regarding Palestine were incorporated into the British Mandate of Palestine by the League of Nations.
Thanks for providing a source to your statement. But I have reservation about the validity of the interpretation that led to your statement.
Let's see ... so we have an old man who possessed an expensive piece of heirloom. Someone came along and offered a princely sum for it. He said: "No - it ain't for sale. And in fact it's so not-for-sale that I'd rather cut off a piece of my own flesh than part with it ... and save you money! You can get it for free over my dead body!"
In my books that's hardly a consent to give it away upon his actual demise. To me that's a statement of emphatic refusal laced with extra vehemence ...
Anyhow, even if we go along with your interpretation of the Sultan's "bequeathment", it still doesn't make an exclusively Jewish land with everyone else cleaned out or rendered without status ...
Finally, the Treaty of Sèvres was signed when Istanbul was under occupation, which makes it as sound a legal basis as the Treaty of Versailles.
And legally it was annulled and superceded by the Treaty of Lausanne anyway thanks to the Turkish Independence War.
Now what does the Treaty of Lausanne say?
• Palestine was treated by the arbitrator as one of a number of successor states to the Ottoman Empire, being responsible for a share of its liabilities and taking a share of its assets. It was treated as a successor state to the Ottoman Empire in regard to citizenship in the Treaty of Lausanne, where Article 30 required it to treat Ottoman nationals inhabiting Palestine as nationals of Palestine. Article 30, moreover, referred to the "states" being detached hom the Ottoman Empire, a reference that was to the mandate territories.
• Palestine had a nationality separate from that of the mandatory, a nationality that was internationally recognized. Its status as a state is seen in the Palestine Mandate provisions on treaties. Arnold McNair makes a distinction, in his treatise on treaties, between the power to conclude a treaty and the capacity to do so. Under the mandate, Britain as mandatory had the power, while Palestine had the capacity. Under the Palestine Mandate, the power to conclude treaties was with the mandatory power, but the capacity to do so was that of Palestine. A considerable number of treaties were concluded by the mandatory in the name of Palestine.
• Palestine had a nationality separate from that of the mandatory, a nationality that was internationally recognized. Its status as a state is seen in the Palestine Mandate provisions on treaties. Arnold McNair makes a distinction, in his treatise on treaties, between the power to conclude a treaty and the capacity to do so. Under the mandate, Britain as mandatory had the power, while Palestine had the capacity. Under the Palestine Mandate, the power to conclude treaties was with the mandatory power, but the capacity to do so was that of Palestine. A considerable number of treaties were concluded by the mandatory in the name of Palestine.
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