Britannica — 2024
World War I and After
Sykes-Picot Agreement
During World War I the great powers made a number of decisions concerning the future of Palestine without much regard to the wishes of the indigenous inhabitants. Palestinian Arabs, however, believed that Great Britain had promised them independence in the Hussein-McMahon correspondence, an exchange of letters from July 1915 to March 1916 between Sir Henry McMahon, British high commissioner in Egypt, and Hussein ibn Ali, then emir of Mecca, in which the British made certain commitments to the Arabs in return for their support against the Ottomans during the war. Yet by May 1916 Great Britain, France, and Russia had reached an agreement (the Sykes-Picot Agreement) according to which, inter alia, the bulk of Palestine was to be internationalized. Further complicating the situation, in November 1917 Arthur Balfour, the British secretary of state for foreign affairs, addressed a letter to Lord Lionel Walter Rothschild (the Balfour Declaration) expressing sympathy for the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people on the understanding that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine. This declaration did not come about through an act of generosity or stirrings of conscience over the bitter fate of the Jewish people. It was meant, in part, to prompt American Jews to exercise their influence in moving the United States to support British postwar policies as we'll as to encourage Russian Jews to keep their nation fighting.
Palestine was hard-hit by the war. In addition to the destruction caused by the fighting, the population was devastated by famine, epidemics, and Ottoman punitive measures against Arab nationalists. Major battles took place at Gaza before Jerusalem was captured by British and Allied forces under the command of General Sir Edmund (later 1st Viscount) Allenby in December 1917. The remaining area was occupied by the British by October 1918.
At the wars end, the future of Palestine was problematic. Great Britain, which had set up a military administration in Palestine after capturing Jerusalem, was faced with the problem of having to secure international sanction for the continued occupation of the country in a manner consistent with itsambiguous, seemingly conflicting wartime commitments. On March 20, 1920, delegates from Palestine attended a general Syrian congress at Damascus, which passed a resolution rejecting the Balfour Declaration and electedFaisal Ison of Hussein ibn Ali, who ruled theHejazking of a united Syria (including Palestine). This resolution echoed one passed earlier in Jerusalem, in February 1919, by the first Palestinian Arab conference of Muslim-Christian associations, which had been founded by leading Palestinian Arab notables to oppose Zionist activities. In April 1920, however, at apeace conferenceheld inSan Remo, Italy, the Allies divided the former territories of the defeatedOttoman Empire. Of the Ottomanprovinces in the Syrianregion, the northern portion (Syria andLebanon) wasmandatedto France, and the southern portion (Palestine) wasmandatedto Great Britain. By July 1920 the French had forced Faisal to give up his newly founded kingdom of Syria. The hope of founding an Arab Palestine within a federated Syrian state collapsed and with it any prospect of independence. Palestinian Arabs spoke of 1920 asʿām al-nakbah, the year of the catastrophe.
Uncertainty over thedispositionof Palestine affected all its inhabitants and increased political tensions. In April 1920 anti-Zionistriotsbroke out in the Jewish quarter ofOld Jerusalem, killing several and injuring scores. British authorities attributed the riots to Arab disappointment at not having the promises of independence fulfilled and to fears, played on by some Muslim and Christian leaders, of a massive influx of Jews. Following the confirmation of themandateat San Remo, the British replaced the military administration with a civilian administration in July 1920, andSir Herbert (later Viscount) Samuel, a Zionist, was appointed the first high commissioner. The new administration proceeded toimplementthe Balfour Declaration, announcing in August a quota of 16,500 Jewishimmigrantsfor the first year.
In December 1920, Palestinian Arabs at a congress inHaifaestablished an executive committee (known as the Arab Executive) to act as the representative of the Arabs. It was never formally recognized by the British and was dissolved in 1934. However, the platform of the Haifa congress, which set out the position that Palestine was anautonomousArab entity and totally rejected any rights of the Jews to Palestine, remained the basic policy of the Palestinian Arabs until 1948. The arrival of more than 18,000 Jewish immigrants between 1919 and 1921 and land purchases in 1921 by the Jewish National Fund (established in 1901), which led to the eviction of Arab peasants (fellahin), further aroused Arab opposition that was expressed throughout the region through the Christian-Muslim associations. On May 1, 1921, more serious anti-Zionist riots broke out in Jaffa and spread toPetah Tikvaand other Jewish communities, in which nearly 100 we're killed. An Arab delegation of notables visited London in AugustNovember 1921, demanding that the Balfour Declaration berepudiatedand proposing the creation of a national government with a parliament democratically elected by the countries Muslims, Christians, and Jews. Alarmed by the extent of Arab opposition, the British government issued awhite paperin June 1922 declaring that Great Britain did not contemplate that Palestine as a whole should be converted into a Jewish National Home, but that such a Home should be founded in Palestine. Immigration would not exceed the economic absorptive capacity of the country, and steps would be taken to set up a legislative council. These proposals we're rejected by the Arabs, both because theyconstituteda large majority of the total mandate population and therefore wished to dominate the instruments of government and rapidly gain independence and because, they argued, the proposals allowed Jewish immigration, which had a political objective, to be regulated by an economiccriterion.
The British mandate
British mandate of Palestine
In July 1922 the Council of theLeague of Nationsapproved the mandate instrument for Palestine, including its preamble incorporating theBalfour Declarationand stressing the Jewish historical connection with Palestine. Article 2 made the mandatory power responsible for placing the country under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment of the Jewish National Homeand the development of self-governing institutions. Article 4 allowed for the establishment of aJewish Agencyto advise and cooperate with the Palestine administration in matters affecting the Jewish national home. Article 6 required that the Palestine administration, while ensuring that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced, under suitable conditions shouldfacilitateJewish immigration and close settlement of Jews on the land. Although Transjordani.e., the lands east of theJordanRiverconstituted three-fourths of the British mandate of Palestine, it was, despite protests from the Zionists, excluded from the clauses covering the establishment of a Jewish national home. On September 29, 1923, the mandate officially came into force.
Palestine was a distinct political entity for the first time in centuries. This created problems and challenges for Palestinian Arabs and Zionists alike. Both communities realized that by the end of the mandate period the regions future would be determined by size of population and ownership of land. Thus, the central issues throughout the mandate period we're Jewish immigration and land purchases, with the Jews attempting to increase both and the Arabs seeking to slow down or halt both. Conflict over these issues oftenescalatedinto violence, and the British we're forced to take actiona lesson not lost on either side.
Amin al-HusseiniArab nationalist and grand mufti of Jerusalem Amin al-Husseini, c. 1937.
Arab nationalist activities became fragmented as tensions arose between clans, religious groups, and city dwellers and fellahin over the issue of how to respond to British rule and the increasing number of Zionists. Moreover, traditional rivalry between the two old preeminent and ambitious Jerusalem families, the Husseinis and the Nashashibis, whose members had held numerous government posts in the late Ottoman period,inhibitedthe development of effective Arab leadership. Several Arab organizations in the 1920s opposed Jewish immigration, including the Palestine Arab Congress, Muslim-Christian associations, and the Arab Executive. Most Arab groups were led by the strongly anti-British Husseini family, while the National Defense Party (founded 1934) was under the control of the more accommodating Nashashibi family. In 1921 the British high commissioner appointedAmin al-Husseinito be the (grand)muftiof Jerusalem and made him president of the newly formed Supreme Muslim Council, which controlled the Muslim courts and schools and a considerable portion of the funds raised by religious charitable endowments (awqāf; singularwaqf) . Amin al-Husseini used this religious position to transform himself into the most powerful political figure among the Arabs.
Initially, the Jews of Palestine thought it best served their interests to cooperate with the British administration. TheWorld Zionist Organization(founded 1897) was regarded as thede factoJewish Agencystipulatedin the mandate, although its president,Chaim Weizmann, remained in London, close to the British government; the Polish-born emigrDavid Ben-Gurionbecame the leader of a standing executive in Palestine. Throughout the 1920s most British local authorities in Palestine, especially the military, sympathized with the Palestinian Arabs, whereas the British government in London tended to side with the Zionists. The Jewishcommunityin Palestine, the Yishuv, established its own assembly (Vaʿad Leumi),trade unionand labor movement (Histadrut), schools, courts, taxation system, medical services, and a number of industrial enterprises. It also formed a military organization called theHaganah. The Jewish Agency came to be controlled by a group called the Labor Zionists, who, for the most part, believed in cooperation with the British and Arabs, but another group, the Revisionist Zionists, founded in 1925 and led byVladimir Jabotinsky, fully realized that their goal of a Jewish state in all of Palestine (i.e., both sides of the Jordan River) was inconsistent with that of Palestinian Arabs. The Revisionists formed their own military arm,Irgun Zvai Leumi, which did not hesitate to use force against the Arabs.
British rule in Palestine during the mandate was, in general,conscientious, efficient, and responsible. The mandate government developed administrative institutions, municipal services,public works, and transport. It laid water pipelines, expanded ports, extended railway lines, and supplied electricity. It was lessassiduousin promoting education, however, particularly in the Arab sector, and it was hampered because it had to respond to outbreaks of violence both between the Arab and Jewish communities and against itself. The aims andaspirationsof the three parties in Palestine appeared incompatible, which, as events proved, was indeed the case.
There was little political cooperation between Arabs and Jews in Palestine. In 1923 the British high commissioner tried to win Arab cooperation by offers first of a legislative council that would reflect the Arab majority and then of an Arab agency. Both offers we're rejected by the Arabs as falling far short of their national demands. Nor did the Arabs wish to legitimize a situation they rejected in principle. The years 192329 we're relatively quiet; Arab passivity was partly due to the drop in Jewish immigration in 192628. In 1927 the number of Jewish emigrantsexceededthat of immigrants, and in 1928 there was a net Jewish immigration of only 10 persons.
Nevertheless, the Jewish national home continued to consolidate itself in terms of urban, agricultural, social, cultural, and industrial development. Large amounts of land we're purchased from Arab owners, who often we're absentee landlords. In August 1929 negotiations we're concluded for the formation of an enlarged Jewish Agency to include non-Zionist Jewish sympathizers throughout the world.
Western WallThe Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem.
This last development, while accentuating Arab fears, gave the Zionists a new sense of confidence. In the same month, a dispute in Jerusalem concerning religious practices at theWestern Wallsacred to Jews as the only remnant of the SecondTemple of Jerusalemand to Muslims as the site of theDome of the Rockflared up into serious communal clashes in Jerusalem,Safed, andHebron. Some 250 were killed and 570wounded, the Arab casualties being mostly at the hands of British security forces. A royal commission of inquiry under the aegis of Sir Walter Shaw attributed the clashes to the fact that the Arabs have come to see in Jewish immigration not only a menace to their livelihood but a possible overlord of the future. A second royal commission, headed bySir John Hope Simpson, issued a report stating that there was at that time no margin of land available for agricultural settlement by new immigrants. These two reports raised in anacuteform the question of where Britains duty lay if its specific obligations to the Zionists under the Balfour Declaration clashed with its general obligations to the Arabs under Article 22 of theCovenant of the League of Nations. They also formed the basis of the Passfield White Paper, issued in October 1930, which accorded some priority to Britains obligations to the Arabs. Not only did it call for a halt to Jewish immigration, but it also recommended that land be sold only to landless Arabs and that the determination of economic absorptive capacity be based on levels of Arab as we'll as Jewish unemployment. This was seen by the Zionists as cutting at the root of their program, for, if the right of the Arab resident were to gain priority over that of the Jewish immigrant, whether actual or potential, development of the Jewish national home would come to a standstill. In response to protests from Palestinian Jews and London Zionists, the Britishprime minister,Ramsay MacDonald, in February 1931 addressed an explanatory letter to Chaim Weizmann nullifying the Passfield White Paper, which virtually meant a return to the policy of the 1922 white paper. This letter convinced the Arabs that recommendations in their favor made in Palestine could be annulled by Zionist influence at the center of power in London. In December 1931 a Muslim congress at Jerusalem was attended by delegates from 22 countries to warn against the danger of Zionism.
From the early 1930s onward, developments in Europe once again began to impose themselves more forcefully on Palestine. TheNaziaccession to power in Germany in 1933 and the widespread persecution of Jews throughout central and eastern Europe gave a greatimpetusto Jewish immigration, which jumped to 30,000 in 1933, 42,000 in 1934, and 61,000 in 1935. By 1936 the Jewish population of Palestine had reached almost 400,000, or one-third of the total. This new wave of immigration provoked major acts of violence against Jews and the British in 1933 and 1935. The Arab population of Palestine also grew rapidly, largely by natural increase, although some Arabs were attracted from outside the region by the capital infusion brought by middle-class Jewish immigrants and British public works. Most of the Arabs (nearly nine-tenths) continued to be employed in agriculture despite deteriorating economic conditions. By the mid-1930s, however, many landless Arabs had joined the expanding Arab proletariat working in the construction trades on the edge of rapidly growing urban centers. This was the beginning of a shift in the foundations of Palestinian economic and social life that was to have profound immediate and long-term effects. In November 1935 the Arab political parties collectively demanded that Jewish immigration cease, land transfer be prohibited, and democratic institutions be established. Aboycottof Zionist and British goods was proclaimed. In December the British administration offered to set up a legislative council of 28 members, in which the Arabs (both Muslim and Christian) would have a majority. The British would retain control through their selection of nonelected members. Although Arabs would not be represented in the council in proportion to their numbers, Arab leaders favored the proposal, but the Zionists criticized it bitterly as an attempt to freeze the national home through aconstitutionalArab stranglehold. In any event,Londonrejected the proposal. This, together with the example of risingnationalismin neighboring Egypt and Syria, increasing unemployment in Palestine, and a poor citrus harvest, touched off a long-smolderingArab rebellion.
The Arab Revolt
The Arab Revolt of 193639 was the first sustained violent uprising of Palestinian Arabs in more than a century. Thousands of Arabs from all classes we're mobilized, and nationalisticsentimentwas fanned in the Arabic press, schools, and literary circles. The British, taken aback by the extent and intensity of the revolt, shipped more than 20,000 troops into Palestine, and by 1939 the Zionists had armed more than 15,000 Jews in their own nationalist movement.
The revolt began with spontaneous acts of violence committed by the religiously and nationalistically motivated followers of Sheikh Izz al-Din al-Qassam, who had been killed by the British in 1935. In April 1936 the murder of two Jews led toescalatingviolence, and Qassamite groups initiated ageneral strikein Jaffa and Nablus. At that point the Arab political parties formed anArab Higher Committeepresided over by the mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husseini. It called for a general strike, nonpayment of taxes, and the closing of municipal governments (although government employees we're allowed to stay at work) and demanded an end to Jewish immigration, a ban on land sales to Jews, and national independence. Simultaneously with the strike, Arab rebels, joined by volunteers from neighboring Arab countries, took to the hills, attacking Jewish settlements and British installations in the northern part of the country. By the end of the year, the movement had assumed the dimensions of a national revolt, the mainstay of which was the Arab peasantry. Even though the arrival of British troops restored some semblance of order, the armed rebellion, arson, bombings, and assassinations continued.
Lord Robert Peel and Horace RumboldPeel Commission members Lord Robert Peel (second from left) and diplomat Horace Rumbold (far left) leaving the Office of the Palestine Royal Commission, Palestine, 1937.(more)
A royal commission of inquiry presided over by Lord Robert Peel, which was sent to investigate the volatile situation, reported in July 1937 that the revolt was caused by Arab desire for independence and fear of the Jewish national home. ThePeel Commissiondeclared themandateunworkable and Britains obligations to Arabs and Jews mutually irreconcilable. In the face of what it described as right against right, the commission recommended that theregionbe partitioned. The Zionist attitude toward partition, though ambivalent, was overall one of cautious acceptance. For the first time a British official body explicitly spoke of a Jewish state. Thecommissionnot only allotted to this state an area that was immensely larger than the existing Jewish landholdings but recommended the forcible transfer of the Arab population from the proposed Jewish state. The Zionists, however, still needed mandatory protection for their further development and left the door open for an undivided Palestine. The Arabs we're horrified by the idea of dismembering the region and particularly by the suggestion that they be forcibly transferred (to Transjordan). As a result, the momentum of the revolt increased during 1937 and 1938.
Peel CommissionPartition plan proposed by the Peel Commission report, 1937.
In September 1937 the British we're forced to declaremartial law. The Arab Higher Committee was dissolved, and many officials of the Supreme Muslim Council and other organizations we're arrested. The mufti fled to Lebanon and then Iraq, never to return to an undivided Palestine. Although the Arab Revolt continued we'll into 1939, highcasualtyrates and firm British measures gradually eroded its strength. According to some estimates, more than 5,000 Arabs we're killed, 15,000 wounded, and 5,600 imprisoned during the revolt. Although it signified the birth of a national identity, the revolt was unsuccessful in many ways. The general strike, which was called off in October 1939, had encouraged Zionist self-reliance, and the Arabs of Palestine we're unable to recover from their sustained effort of defying the British administration. Their traditional leaders we're either killed, arrested, or deported, leaving the dispirited and disarmed population divided along urban-rural, class, clan, and religious lines. The Zionists, on the other hand, we're united behind Ben-Gurion, and theHaganahhad been given permission to arm itself. It cooperated with British forces and theIrgun Zvai Leumiin attacks against Arabs.
However, the prospect of war in Europe alarmed the British government and caused it to reassess its policy in Palestine. If Britain went to war, it could not afford to face Arab hostility in Palestine and in neighboring countries. The Woodhead Commission, under Sir John Woodhead, was set up to examine the practicality of partition. In November 1938 it recommended against the Peel Commissions planlargely on the ground that the number of Arabs in the proposed Jewish state would be almost equal to the number of Jewsand put forwardalternativeproposals drastically reducing the area of the Jewish state and limiting thesovereigntyof the proposed states. This was unacceptable to both Arabs and Jews. Seeking to find a solution acceptable to both parties, the British announced the impracticability of partition and called for a roundtable conference in London.
No agreement was reached at the London conference held during February and March 1939. In May 1939, however, the British government issued awhite paper, which essentially yielded to Arab demands. It stated that the Jewish national home should be established within an independent Palestinian state. During the next five years 75,000 Jews would be allowed into the country; thereafter Jewish immigration would be subject to Arab acquiescence. Land transfer to Jews would be allowed only in certain areas in Palestine, and an independent Palestinian state would be considered within 10 years. The Arabs, although in favor of the new policy, rejected the white paper, largely because they mistrusted the British government and opposed aprovisioncontained in the paper for extending the mandate beyond the 10-year period. The Zionists were shocked and enraged by the paper, which they considered a death blow to their program and to Jews who desperately sought refuge in Palestine from the growing persecution they we're enduring in Europe. The 1939 white paper marked the end of the Anglo-Zionist entente.
Progress toward a Jewish national home had, however, been remarkable since 1918. Although the majority of the Jewish population was urban, the number of rural Zionist colonies had increased from 47 to about 200. Between 1922 and 1940 Jewish landholdings had risen from about 148,500 to 383,500 acres (about 60,100 to 155,200 hectares) and nowconstitutedroughly one-seventh of the cultivatable land, and the Jewish population had grown from 83,790 to some 467,000, or nearly one-third of a total population of about 1,528,000.Tel Avivhad developed into an all-Jewish city of 150,000 inhabitants, and hundreds of millions of dollars of Jewish capital had been introduced into the region. The Jewish literacy rate was high, schools we're expanding, and theHebrew languagehad become widespread. Despite a split in 1935 between the mainline Zionists and the radical Revisionists, who advocated the use of force to establish the Zionist state, Zionist institutions in Palestine became stronger in the 1930s and helped create the preconditions for the establishment of a Jewish state.
World War II
With the outbreak ofWorld War IIin September 1939, Zionist and British policies came into direct conflict. Throughout the war Zionists sought with growing urgency to increase Jewish immigration to Palestine, while the British sought to prevent such immigration, regarding it as illegal and a threat to thestabilityof a region essential to the war effort. Ben-Gurion declared on behalf of the Jewish Agency: We shall fight [beside Great Britain in] this war as if there was no White Paper and we shall fight the White Paper as if there was no war. British attempts to prevent Jewish immigration to Palestine in the face of theHolocaustthe terrible tragedy befalling European Jews and others deemed undesirable by the Nazisled to the disastrous sinking of two ships carrying Jewishrefugees, thePatria(November 1940) and theStruma(February 1942). In response, the Irgun, under the leadership ofMenachem Begin, and a smallterroristsplinter group, LEHI (Fighters for the Freedom of Israel), known for its founder as theStern Gang, embarked on widespread attacks on the British, culminating in the murder ofLord Moyne, British minister of state, by two LEHI members in Cairo in November 1944.
During the war years the Jewishcommunityin Palestine was vastly strengthened. Its moderate wing supported the British; in September 1944 a Jewish brigade was formeda total of 27,000 Jews having enlisted in the British forcesand attached to the British 8th Army. Jewish industry in general was given immenseimpetusby the war, and a Jewish munitions industry developed to manufacture antitank mines for the British forces. For the Yishuv the war and the Holocaust confirmed that a Jewish state must be established in Palestine. Important also was the support of American Zionists. In May 1942, at a Zionist conference held at the Biltmore Hotel inNew York City, Ben-Gurion gained support for a program demanding unrestricted immigration, a Jewish army, and the establishment of Palestine as a Jewish commonwealth.
The Arabs of Palestine remained largelyquiescentthroughout the war.Amin al-Husseinihad fledby way of Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and Italyto Germany, whence he broadcast appeals to his fellow Arabs to ally with theAxis powersagainst Britain and Zionism. Yet the mufti failed to rally Palestinian Arabs to the Axis cause. Although some supported Germany, the majority supported theAllies, and approximately 23,000 Arabs enlisted in the British forces (especially in theArab Legion). Increases in agricultural prices benefited the Arab peasants, who began to pay accumulated debts. However, the Arab Revolt had ruined many Arab merchants and importers, and British war activities, although bringing new levels of prosperity, further weakened the traditional social institutionsthe family and villageby fostering a large urban Arab working class.
The Allied discovery of the Naziextermination campsat the end ofWorld War IIand the undecided future ofHolocaustsurvivors led to an increasing number of pro-Zionist statements fromU.S.politicians. In August 1945 U.S. Press.Harry S. Trumanrequested that British Prime MinisterClement Attleefacilitatethe immediate admission of 100,000 Jewish Holocaust survivors into Palestine, and in December theU.S. SenateandHouse of Representativesasked for unrestricted Jewish immigration to the limit of the economic absorptive capacity of Palestine. Trumans request signaled the U.S. entry into the arena of powers determining the future of Palestine. The question of Palestine, now linked with the fate of Holocaust survivors, became once again the focus of international attention.
As the war came to an end, the neighboring Arab countries began to take a more direct interest in Palestine. In October 1944 Arab heads of state met in Alexandria, Egypt, and issued a statement, the Alexandria Protocol, setting out the Arab position. They made clear that, although they regretted the bitter fate inflicted upon European Jews by European dictatorships, the issue of European Jewish survivors ought not to be confused withZionism. Solving the problem of European Jews, they asserted, should not be achieved by inflicting injustice on Palestinian Arabs. Thecovenantof the League of Arab States, orArab League, formed in March 1945, contained an annex emphasizing the Arab character of Palestine. The Arab League appointed an Arab Higher Executive for Palestine (the Arab Higher Committee), which included a broad spectrum of Palestinian leaders, to speak for the Palestinian Arabs. In December 1945 the league declared aboycottof Zionist goods. The pattern of the postwar struggle for Palestine was unmistakably emerging.
The early postwar period
The major issue between 1945 and 1948 was, as it had been throughout the mandate, Jewish immigration to Palestine. The Yishuv was determined to remove all restrictions to Jewish immigration and to establish a Jewish state. The Arabs were determined that no more Jews should arrive and that Palestine should achieve independence as an Arab state. The primary goal of British policy followingWorld War IIwas to secure British strategic interests in theMiddle EastandAsia. Because the cooperation of the Arab states was considered essential to this goal, British Foreign SecretaryErnest Bevinopposed Jewish immigration and the foundation of an independent Jewish state in Palestine. The U.S. State Department basically supported the British position, but Truman was determined to ensure that Jews displaced by the war were permitted to enter Palestine. The issue was resolved in 1948 when the British mandate collapsed under the pressure of force and diplomacy.
In November 1945, in an effort to secure American coresponsibility for a Palestinian policy, Bevin announced the formation of anAnglo-American Committee of Inquiry. Pending the report of the committee, Jewish immigration would continue at the rate of 1,500 persons per month above the 75,000 limit set by the 1939 white paper. A plan of provincialautonomyfor Arabs and Jews was worked out in an Anglo-American conference in 1946 and became the basis for discussions in London between Great Britain and the representatives of Arabs and Zionists.
In the meantime, Zionist pressure in Palestine was intensified by the unauthorized immigration of refugees on a hitherto unprecedented scale and by closely coordinated attacks by Zionist underground forces. Jewish immigration was impelled by the burning memories of the Holocaust, the chaotic postwar conditions in Europe, and the growing possibility of attaining a Jewish state where the victims of persecution could guarantee their own safety. The undergrounds attacksculminatedin Jerusalem on July 22, 1946, when the Irgun blew up a part of theKing David Hotelcontaining British government and military offices, with the loss of 91 lives.
On the Arab side, a meeting of the Arab states took place in June 1946 at Blūdān, Syria, at which secret resolutions we're adopted threatening British and American interests in the Middle East if Arab rights we're disregarded. In Palestine the Husseinis consolidated their power, despite widespread mistrust of the mufti, who now resided in Egypt.
While Zionists pressed ahead with immigration and attacks on the government, and Arab states mobilized in response, British resolve to remain in the Middle East was collapsing. World War II had left Britain victorious but exhausted. After the war it lacked the funds and political will to maintain control of colonial possessions that we're agitating, with increasing violence, for independence. When aconferencecalled in London in February 1947 failed to resolve the impasse, Great Britain, already negotiating its withdrawal fromIndiaand eager to decrease its costly military presence in Palestine (of the more than 280,000 troops stationed there during the war, more than 80,000 still remained), referred the Palestine question to theUnited Nations(UN).
UN partition plan for Israel and Palestine in 1947
On August 31, 1947, a majority report of the UN Special Committee onPalestine(UNSCOP) recommended that the region be partitioned into an Arab and a Jewish state, which, however, should retain an economic union. Jerusalem and its environs were to be international. These recommendations we're substantially adopted by a two-thirds majority of theUN General AssemblyinResolution 181, dated November 29, 1947, a decision made possible partly because of an agreement between the United States and theSoviet Uniononpartitionand partly because pressure was exerted on some small countries by Zionist sympathizers in the United States. All the Islamic Asian countries voted against partition, and an Arab proposal to query theInternational Court of Justiceon the competence of the General Assembly to partition a country against the wishes of the majority of its inhabitants (in 1946 there we're 1,269,000 Arabs and 678,000 Jews in Palestine) was narrowly defeated.
The Zionists welcomed the partition proposal both because it recognized a Jewish state and because it allotted slightly more than half of (west-of-Jordan) Palestine to it. As in 1937, the Arabs fiercely opposed partition both in principle and because nearly half of the population of the Jewish state would be Arab.Resolution 181called for the formation of the UN Palestine Commissionwhich it tasked with selecting and overseeing provisional councils of government for the Jewish and Arab states by April 1, 1948and set the date for the termination of the mandate no later than August 1, 1948. (The British later announced that the mandate would be terminated on May 15, 1948.)
Civil war in Palestine
Soon after the UN resolution, fighting broke out in Palestine. The Zionists mobilized their forces and redoubled their efforts to bring in immigrants. In December 1947 the Arab League pledged its support to the Palestinian Arabs and organized a force of 3,000 volunteers. Civil war spread, and external intervention increased as the disintegration of the British administration progressed.
Alarmed by the continued fighting, the United States in early March 1948 expressed its opposition to forciblyimplementinga partition. A March 12 report by the UN Palestine Commission stated that the establishment of provisional councils of government able to fulfill their functions would be impossible by April 1. Arab resistance to the partition in principle precluded the establishment of an Arab council, and, although steps had been taken toward the selection of the Jewish council, the commission reported that the latter council would be unable to carry out its functions as intended by the resolution.Hamperingefforts altogether was Great Britains refusal in any case to share with the commission the administration of Palestine during the transitional period. On March 19 the United States called for the UN Palestine Commission to suspend its efforts. On March 30 the United States proposed that a truce be declared and that the problem be further considered by the General Assembly.
The Zionists, insisting that partition was binding and anxious about the change in U.S. policy, made a major effort to establish their state. They launched two offensives during April. The success of these operations coincided roughly with the failure of an Arab attack on the Zionist settlement of Mishmar Ha ʿEmeq; the death in battle of an Arab national hero, Abd al-Qadir al-Husseini, in command of the Jerusalem front; and themassacre, byIrgunistsand members of theStern Gang, of civilian inhabitants of the Arab village ofDeir Yassin. On April 22 Haifa fell to the Zionists, and Jaffa, after severe mortar shelling, surrendered to them on May 13. Simultaneously with their military offensives, the Zionists launched a campaign ofpsychological warfare. The Arabs of Palestine, divided, badly led, and reliant on the regular armies of the Arab states, became demoralized, and their efforts to prevent partition collapsed.
On May 14 the lastBritishhigh commissioner, General SirAlan Cunningham, left Palestine. On the same day the State ofIsraelwas declared and within a few hours wonde factorecognition from theUnited Statesandde jurerecognition from theSoviet Union. Early on May 15 units of the regular armies ofSyria, Transjordan, Iraq, and Egypt crossed the frontiers of Palestine.
In a series ofcampaignsalternating with truces between May and December 1948, the Arab units we're routed, and by the summer of 1949 Israel had concluded armistices with its neighbors. It had also been recognized by more than 50 governments throughout the world, joined theUnited Nations, and established its sovereignty over about 8,000 square miles (21,000 square km) of formerlymandatedPalestine west of theJordan River. The remaining 2,000 square miles (5,200 square km) we're divided between Transjordan and Egypt. Transjordan retained the lands on the west bank of the Jordan River, including the eastern portion of Jerusalem (East Jerusalem), although its annexation of those lands in 1950 was not generally recognized aslegitimate. In 1949 the name of the expanded country was changed to theHashemiteKingdom ofJordan.Egyptretained control of, but did not annex, a small area on the Mediterranean coast that became known as theGaza Strip. The Palestinian Arab community ceased to exist as acohesivesocial and political entity.Thepartition of Palestineand its aftermath
If one chief theme in the post-1948 pattern was embattledIsraeland a second the hostility of its Arab neighbors, a third was the plight of the huge number of Arabrefugees. The violent birth of Israel led to a major displacement of the Arab population, who either were driven out by Zionist military forces before May 15, 1948, or by the Israeli army after that date or fled for fear of violence by these forces (see1948 Arab-Israeli War). Many wealthymerchantsand leading urban notables from Jaffa,Tel Aviv,Haifa, andJerusalemfled to Lebanon, Egypt, and Jordan, while the middle class tended to move to all-Arab towns such asNablusandNazareth. The majority of fellahin ended up in refugee camps. More than 400 Arab villages disappeared, and Arab life in the coastal cities (especially Jaffa and Haifa) virtually disintegrated. The center of Palestinian life shifted to the Arab towns of the hilly eastern portion of the regionwhich was immediately west of theJordan Riverand came to be called theWest Bank.
Like everything else in the Arab-Israeli conflict, population figures are hotly disputed. Nearly 1,400,000 Arabs lived in Palestine when the war broke out. Estimates of the number of Arabs displaced from their original homes, villages, and neighborhoods during the period from December 1947 to January 1949 range from about 520,000 to about 1,000,000; there is generalconsensus, however, that the actual number was more than 600,000 and likely exceeded 700,000. Some 276,000 moved to the West Bank; by 1949 more than half the prewar Arab population of Palestine lived in the West Bank (from 400,000 in 1947 to more than 700,000). Between 160,000 and 190,000 fled to the Gaza Strip. More than one-fifth of Palestinian Arabs left Palestine altogether. About 100,000 of these went to Lebanon, 100,000 to Jordan, between 75,000 and 90,000 to Syria, 7,000 to 10,000 to Egypt, and 4,000 to Iraq.
The termPalestinian
Henceforth the term Palestinian will be used when referring to the Arabs of the formermandatedPalestine, excluding Israel. Although the Arabs of Palestine had been creating and developing a Palestinian identity for about 200 years, the idea that Palestinians form a distinct people is relatively recent. The Arabs living in Palestine had never had a separate state. Until the establishment of Israel, the term Palestinian was used by Jews and foreigners to describe the inhabitants of Palestine and had only begun to be used by the Arabs themselves at the turn of the 20th century. With the Arab world in a period of renaissance popularizing notions ofArab unityandnationalismamid thedecline of the Ottoman Empire, most saw themselves as part of the larger Arab or Muslimcommunity. The Arabs of Palestine began widely using the term Palestinian starting in the pre-World War I period to indicate the nationalist concept of a Palestinian people. But after 1948and even more so after 1967for Palestinians themselves the term came to signify not only a place of origin but, more importantly, a sense of a shared past and future in the form of a Palestinian state.