compass on the abc re israel, page-12

The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001.

TEHRAN CONFERENCE

Nov. 28–Dec. 1, 1943, meeting of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Premier Joseph Stalin at Tehran, Iran. The conference was held to strengthen the cooperation of the United States, Great Britain, and the USSR in World War II. It followed the Cairo Conference with Chiang Kai-Shek and was the first three-power war conference attended by Stalin. Agreement was reached on the scope and timing of operations against Germany, including plans for the Allied invasion of France. Stalin reaffirmed his pledge to commit Soviet forces against Japan after the defeat of Germany. The final communiqué also stressed the need for cooperation through the United Nations in meeting the problems of peace. A separate protocol pledged the three powers to maintain the independence of Iran.


The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001.

YALTA CONFERENCE

meeting (Feb. 4–11, 1945), at Yalta, Crimea, USSR, of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin. Most of the important decisions made remained secret until the end of World War II for military or political reasons; the complete text of all the agreements was not disclosed until 1947. The Yalta conferees confirmed the policy adopted at the Casablanca Conference of demanding Germany’s unconditional surrender. Plans were made for dividing Germany into four zones of occupation (American, British, French, and Soviet) under a unified control commission in Berlin, for war crimes trials, and for a study of the reparations question. Agreement was also reached on reorganizing the Polish Lublin government (supported by Stalin) “on a broader democratic basis” that would include members of Poland’s London government-in-exile, which the Western Allies had supported. The conferees decided to ask China and France to join them in sponsoring the founding conference of the United Nations to be convened in San Francisco on Apr. 25, 1945; agreement was reached on using the veto system of voting in the projected Security Council. Future meetings of the foreign ministers of the “Big Three” were planned. The USSR secretly agreed to enter the war against Japan within three months of Germany’s surrender and was promised S Sakhalin, the Kurile Islands, and an occupation zone in Korea. The secret agreement respecting the disposal of Japan’s holdings also provided that the port of Dalian (Dairen) should be internationalized, that Port Arthur should be restored to its status before the 1904–5 Russo-Japanese War as a Russian naval base, and that the Manchurian railroads should be under joint Chinese-Soviet administration. China later protested that it was not informed of these decisions concerning its territory and that its sovereignty was infringed. The United States and Great Britain also agreed to recognize the autonomy of Outer Mongolia, and to admit Ukraine and Belorussia (Belarus) to the United Nations as full members. The Yalta agreements were disputed even before the Potsdam Conference later in 1945. The subsequent outbreak of the cold war and Soviet successes in Eastern Europe led to much criticism in the United States of the Yalta Conference and of Roosevelt, who was accused of delivering Eastern Europe to Communist domination.


POTSDAM CONFERENCE

meeting (July 17–Aug. 2, 1945) of the principal Allies in World War II (the United States, the USSR, and Great Britain) to clarify and implement agreements previously reached at the Yalta Conference. The chief representatives were President Truman, Premier Stalin, Prime Minister Churchill, and, after Churchill’s defeat in the British elections, Prime Minister Attlee. The foreign ministers of the three nations were also present. The so-called Potsdam Agreement transferred the chief authority in Germany to the American, Russian, British, and French military commanders in their respective zones of occupation and to a four-power Allied Control Council for matters regarding the whole of Germany. The Allies set up a new system of rule for Germany, aimed at outlawing National Socialism and abolishing Nazi ideology, at disarming Germany and preventing its again becoming a military power, and at fostering democratic ideals and introducing representative and elective principles of government. The German economy was to be decentralized, and monopolies were to be broken up; the development of agriculture was to be emphasized in reorganizing the German economy. All former German territory E of the Oder and Neisse rivers was transferred to Polish and Soviet administration, pending a final peace treaty. The German population in these territories and in other parts of Eastern Europe was to be transferred to Germany. A mode for German reparations payments was outlined. A Council of Foreign Ministers was established to consider peace settlements. The so-called Potsdam Declaration issued (July 26) by the conference presented an ultimatum to Japan, offering that nation the choice between unconditional surrender and total destruction. (The atom bomb was not actually mentioned.) Rarely was any agreement so consistently breached as was the Potsdam Agreement. The work of the Allied Control Council for Germany was at first blocked by France, which did not feel bound by an agreement to which it had not been party; the council had not even begun to function when the rift caused by the cold war broke it up. The vague wording and tentative provisions of the Potsdam Agreement, allowing a wide range of interpretation, have been blamed for its failure.

PALESTINE AND THE BRITISH

2 November, 1917:
The Balfour Declaration

Foreign Office
November 2nd, 1917

Dear Lord Rothschild,

I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty's Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet.

"His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, 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."

I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.

Yours sincerely,
Arthur James Balfour


B, Either A.J. Balfour changed his name to Winston Churchill or you are an ignorant sod.

lrj