ABSTRACT
One of the most important and enduring legal issues in the Arab-Israeli conflict involves the tension between the McMahon-Hussein Correspondence of 1915–16 and the Balfour Declaration of November 1917. The Arabs have argued for the past century that Britain promised them Palestine in an October 1915 letter from Sir Henry McMahon, the British High Commissioner in Cairo, to the Sherif Hussein of Mecca. The Palestinians claim the “McMahon Pledge” created a legally enforceable treaty between Britain and the Sherif. Therefore, the Arabs argue, the Balfour Declaration of November 1917 and everything following in its wake, including the relevant provisions of the Palestine Mandate and even the 1947 United Nations partition resolution, were legally null and void. The British and the Jews argued, on the other hand, that none of the correspondence between McMahon and Hussein formed a treaty or an otherwise legally binding instrument, but even if it did, nothing in the correspondence supports the Arab claim that Britain promised Palestine to the Arabs in 1915. Therefore, everything subsequent to the correspondence, including the Balfour Declaration and the Palestine Mandate, were legally valid and enforceable in their own right.
