An excellent article, and an excellent followup to Professor Kramer's revelation of the collaboration of the Allies in the acceptance of the Balfour Declaration. Not everyone knows that the Balfour Declaration was incorporated into an international peace agreement at San Remo in 1920.

While many of us have studied about the Balfour Declaration and understand that what was legal under the League of Nations became accepted as international law under the United Nations, after 70 + years with the more recent trends in the UN to back away from Balfour as a British Colonial decision that discriminated against the former colonies (i.e.: an excuse for former colonials to seek reparations from the former Colonial Powers, etc) how can Israel then convince/persuade other UN Member states (especially those politicly correct European States whose agenda is primarily maintaining access to oil at all costs) as well as turning their backs against supporting the legitimacy granted to both Jewish and Palestinians as agreed to by the Balfour Declaration? Most countries today say Balfour is illegal because it was a colonial era agreement and not relevant today. My concern is that the anti-colonial era position taken by the UN member states today is only delegitimizing the right of existence of Israel as a Nation State and Jews to have their own homeland. Can we argue that the Roman invasion of the ancient Kingdom of Israel and expulsion of its legal inhabitants also was an act of colonialism and illegal, and the expulsion of Jews was an example of ethnic cleansing too? How about the Australian aborigines or the Native Americans or Hawaiians, or even the Ainu who once ruled Northern Honshu and were pushed into living in Hokkaido, Japan. Why are we not drawing a line in the sand and state that colonialism and the upheaval it caused was a tragedy, but history is history. Today, we need a solution that is respectful of both Israel and the separate "future" Palestinian State. The land space is limited and Right of Return is not possible without changing the demographics of Israel. Full stop. Palestinian militia factions must disarm and accept the borders based on Balfour, albeit the rightful gains when Arab aggressors invaded in the 1948 and 1967 Wars and lost. The territories such as the Golan Heights, Western Jerusalem rightfully belong to Israel. Gaza and East Jerusalem belong to Palestine. Whether Gaza and East Jerusalem can operate as a single nation state remains to be seen. The example of the two states of Pakistan that eventually became Pakistan and Bangladesh would serve to suggest that contiguous borders would be far more secure for both the Palestinians and for Israel. That may become another future issue, but first, we need limits on the debate regarding the illegality of past colonialism. Former Colonial powers have a duty to pay reparations and most have done so to one extent or another. Life is full of inequities, but relations among international powers must continue, and a resolution to the Palestinian and Israeli conflict needs to be expedited so we can close this sorry chapter. There will be no clear winners or losers. But there must be a Peace Treaty and not simply a Peace Agreement. Compromises on both sides requires genuine leadership from within both the Palestinians and Israelis, as well as a recognition that outside interference from either the Arab States or from the Permanent members of the UN Security Council will not be accepted. This is ultimately a bilateral problem that cannot be imposed from or by outside parties. The question is do either politicians / leaders in Israel or in Palestine want the hostilities to end or continuous bloodshed. Terrorism on either side is illegal and unjustifiable. Continued occupation is unjustifiable. Doing nothing but blaming one another is unjustifiable for respective citizens on both sides. Are the parties willing to act as adults like the Irish did in Northern Ireland and the end of the sectarian terrorism? I certainly hope so. The process of peace requires open communications and a willingness to comprise.

an excellent article but misleading on two points:
"Similar mandates for Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and what became Jordan were intended to result in Arab self-determination."
As Prof Rostow acknowledges further on in the article, there was no mandate for Jordan or Transjordan, as it was called at the time. Transjordan was part of the Palestine Mandate/Jewish National Home [JNH]. However, the League's Palestine Mandate in its Article 25 gave the mandatory power, the UK, the right to postpone temporarily east of the Jordan the application of the provisions of the Jewish National Home as spelled out in the League's Mandate for the JNH, for 25 years, as I recall.
Prof Rostow does not mention that the Mandate itself gave the UK a loophole for setting up a non-Jewish state entity east of the Jordan, that is, in Transjordan [article 25]

I am not sure about your basic motivation, Matt. But the British military and civil officials governing the Land of Israel from 1917 into the early 1920s were mainly hostile to Jews and Zionism. And Storrs was one of those who made things difficult for Jews in the country.

Since you mention Ulster, let us be honest about history. Unlike the Ulster situation, the Jews are the indigenous people of the country as recorded in the written historical record and in archeological findings. There never was a "palestinian people" in all history. After 1948, Jew-haters in the British govt, like Christopher Mayhew, had the psychological warfare experts in the Foreign Office invent and elaborate the notion of a "palestinian people" that had never existed and that did not fit the Palestinian Arabs' image of themselves as loyal pan-Arabists. But the Arab leadership first and later on Western academia and the journalists were persuaded to use the term "palestinian people" [around the year 1969 or 1970]. The PLO of course made its initial appearance in 1964 with the blessing not only of Nasser but of certain powerful Western governments and institutions.

Wonderful article
Martin Kramer is right the parties involved must make the peace.