Talk:The Inquiry

A fact from The Inquiry appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 3 October 2017 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that The Inquiry, a study group established by US President Woodrow Wilson to make recommendations for the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, suggested that Crimea should be given to Ukraine?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2017/October. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/The Inquiry.

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Military history: North America / United States / World War I

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Double entendre

The article contains the following sentence:

The group worked from the premises of the American Geographical Society of New York.

The meaning of this appears to be ambiguous. As I see it, this could mean

The group worked at the headquarters (or building) of the American Geographical Society of New York, or
The group worked from a set of ideas laid out by the American Geographical Society of New York

Anyone know? 98.82.0.102 (talk) 02:03, 10 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding Palestine

The Three sentences directed to Palestine provided an inaccurate account of the Inquiry advice. The knowledgeable reader may even notice that inaccuracies embedded in that text obscure the fact that the Inquiry’s advise intended to support the creation of Palestine as a Jewish state. The Inquiry’s position is particularly noteworthy as it went considerably beyond the Balfour Declaration and even beyond the desires of the Zionists of that time by (a) recommending explicitly a Jewish state, in contrast to a “national home” for the Jewish people, and (b) by allocating all of Palestine for that purpose, in contrast to the phrase “in Palestine” in the Balfour declaration, that opened the door to the existence of additional political entities on the same land.

Amendments are made as follows:

1. In the first sentence, the word “Palestinian” is deleted and the new sentence reads “As for Palestine, it was advised that an independent state under a British League of Nations mandate be created”.

Point 1 of the Advice (as appears in Ref 26) states “That there be established a separate state of Palestine”. The sentence relates to “Palestine” as defining a geographical piece of land, and only says that this land should be independent.

In contrast, the first of the three sentences said (before amendment) “As for Palestine, it was advised that an independent Palestinian state […] be created”. The term “Palestinian state” is clearly not adequate here, because, for today’s Wikipedia reader, “a Palestinian” is an Arab resident of Palestine (or an Arab originating from Palestine), and “a Palestinian state” means an Arab state for such Palestinians.

The fact that the advice did not intend to support a Palestinian state as we understand it today is made even clearer in view of the next points in the Advice.

2. Point 3 of the Advice begins with “That the Jews be invited to return to Palestine and settle there…”. Point 3 thus supports Jewish immigration into Palestine, and describes such immigration as “return”. Neither of the two notions have appeared in the second sentence (before amendment) that begun with “Jewish settlement would be allowed and encouraged in this state…”.

3. Point 3 further calls to ensure protection of the “personal, religious and property rights of the non-Jewish population”, which was missing from the previous text and is added now.

The second sentence is thus amended to read “Jews would be invited to return to Palestine and settle there, provided the protection of the personal, religious and property rights of the non-Jewish population is assured”.

4. Finally, the last of the three sentences said “Indeed, the Inquiry spoke positively about the possibility of a Jewish state eventually being created in Palestine if the necessary demographics for this were to exist”. This is a far softer and even vague translation of the Advice which states in this regard that it ”…being further assured 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”. The last sentence was thus amended to read “The League of Nations was to recognize Palestine as a Jewish state as soon as it was a Jewish state in fact.” 109.186.49.75 (talk) 07:13, 7 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]