Palestine,
Israel and the Arab-Israeli Conflict
A Primer
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The
British Mandate in Palestine
By
the early years of the 20th century, Palestine was becoming a trouble
spot of competing territorial claims and political interests. The
Ottoman Empire was weakening, and European powers were entrenching
their grip on areas in the eastern Mediterranean, including Palestine.
During 1915-16, as World War I was underway, the British High Commissioner
in Egypt, Sir Henry McMahon, secretly corresponded with Husayn ibn
`Ali, the patriarch of the Hashemite family and Ottoman governor
of Mecca and Medina. McMahon convinced Husayn to lead an Arab revolt
against the Ottoman Empire, which was aligned with Germany against
Britain and France in the war. McMahon promised that if the Arabs
supported Britain in the war, the British government would support
the establishment of an independent Arab state under Hashemite rule
in the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire, including Palestine.
The Arab revolt, led by T. E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia")
and Husayn's son Faysal, was successful in defeating the Ottomans,
and Britain took control over much of this area during World War
I.
Britain
made other promises during the war that conflicted with the
Husayn-McMahon understandings. |
But
Britain made other promises during the war that conflicted with
the Husayn-McMahon understandings. In 1917, the British Foreign
Minister, Lord Arthur Balfour, issued a declaration (the Balfour
Declaration) announcing his government's support for the establishment
of "a Jewish national home in Palestine." A third promise,
in the form of a secret agreement, was a deal that Britain and France
struck between themselves to carve up the Arab provinces of the
Ottoman Empire and divide control of the region.
After
the war, Britain and France convinced the new League of Nations
(precursor to the United Nations), in which they were the dominant
powers, to grant them quasi-colonial authority over former Ottoman
territories. The British and French regimes were known as mandates.
France obtained a mandate over Syria, carving out Lebanon as a separate
state with a (slight) Christian majority. Britain obtained a mandate
over the areas which now comprise Israel, the West Bank, the Gaza
Strip and Jordan.
In
1921, the British divided this region in two: east of the Jordan
River became the Emirate of Transjordan, to be ruled by Faysal's
brother 'Abdullah, and west of the Jordan River became the Palestine
Mandate. This was the first time in modern history that Palestine
became a unified political entity.
Arabs
were angered by Britain's failure to fulfill its promise to
create an independent Arab state. |
Throughout
the region, Arabs were angered by Britain's failure to fulfill its
promise to create an independent Arab state, and many opposed British
and French control as a violation of their right to self-determination.
In Palestine, the situation was more complicated because of the
British promise to support the creation of a Jewish national home.
The rising tide of European Jewish immigration, land purchases and
settlement in Palestine generated increasing resistance by Palestinian
Arab peasants, journalists and political figures. They feared that
this would lead eventually to the establishment of a Jewish state
in Palestine. Palestinian Arabs opposed the British Mandate because
it thwarted their aspirations for self-rule, and opposed massive
Jewish immigration because it threatened their position in the country.
In
1920 and 1921, clashes broke out between Arabs and Jews in which
roughly equal numbers of both groups were killed. In the 1920s,
when the Jewish National Fund purchased large tracts of land from
absentee Arab landowners, the Arabs living in these areas were evicted.
These displacements led to increasing tensions and violent confrontations
between Jewish settlers and Arab peasant tenants.
In
1928, Muslims and Jews in Jerusalem began to clash over their respective
communal religious rights at the Wailing Wall (al-Buraq in the Muslim
tradition). The Wailing Wall, the sole remnant of the second Jewish
Temple, is one of the holiest sites for the Jewish people. But this
site is also holy to Muslims, since the Wailing Wall is adjacent
to the Temple Mount (the Noble Sanctuary in the Muslim tradition).
On the mount is the site of the al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the
Rock, believed to mark the spot from which the Prophet Muhammad
ascended to heaven on a winged horse.
On
August 15, 1929, members of the Betar youth movement (a pre-state
organization of the Revisionist Zionists -- click
here for more info) demonstrated and raised a Zionist flag over
the Wailing Wall. Fearing that the Noble Sanctuary was in danger,
Arabs responded by attacking Jews throughout the country. During
the clashes, sixty-four Jews were killed in Hebron. Their Muslim
neighbors saved others. The Jewish community of Hebron ceased to
exist when its surviving members left for Jerusalem. During a week
of communal violence, 133 Jews and 115 Arabs were killed and many
wounded.
European
Jewish immigration to Palestine increased dramatically after Hitler's
rise to power in 1933, leading to new land purchases and Jewish
settlements. Palestinian resistance to British control and Zionist
settlement climaxed with the Arab revolt of 1936-39, which Britain
suppressed with the help of Zionist militias and the complicity
of neighboring Arab regimes. After crushing the Arab revolt, the
British reconsidered their governing policies in an effort to maintain
order in an increasingly tense environment. They issued a White
Paper (a statement of political policy) limiting future Jewish immigration
and land purchases. The Zionists regarded this as a betrayal of
the Balfour Declaration and a particularly egregious act in light
of the desperate situation of the Jews in Europe, who were facing
extermination. The 1939 White Paper marked the end of the British-Zionist
alliance. At the same time, the defeat of the Arab revolt and the
exile of the Palestinian political leadership meant that the Palestinian
Arabs were politically disorganized during the crucial decade in
which the future of Palestine was decided.
Page
4 | The
United Nations Partition Plan
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