Posted on 06/26/2002 5:02:50 PM PDT by Phil V.
I supplied a link to the entire article - hence your assertion that I have selectively posted "out of context" so as to distort the essence of the article is horsepucky.
However so as to not subject myself to further silly accusations of distortion here is a substantial segment of hisstory from Britannica.com . . .
From the Arab conquest to AD 1900
The rise of Islam
The successful unification of the Arabian Peninsula by the first caliph, Abu Bakr (AD 632–Aug. 23, 634), made it possible to channel the expansion of the Arab Muslims into new directions. Abu Bakr, therefore, summoned the faithful to a holy war (jihad) and quickly amassed an impressive army. He dispatched three detachments of about 3,000 (later increased to about 7,500) men each to start operations in southern and southeastern Syria. He died, however, before he could witness the results of these undertakings. The conquests he started were carried on by his successor, the caliph ‘Umar I (634–644).
The first battle took place at Wadi al-‘Arabah, south of the Dead Sea. The Byzantine defenders were defeated and retreated toward Gaza but were overtaken and almost annihilated. In other places, however, the natural advantages of the defenders were more effective and the invaders were hard pressed. Khalid ibn al-Walid, then operating in southern Iraq, was ordered to the aid of his fellow generals on the Syrian front, and the combined forces won a bloody victory on July 30, 634, at a place in southern Palestine that the sources call Ajnadain. All of Palestine then lay open to the invaders.
In the meantime, the emperor Heraclius was mustering a large army and in 636 dispatched it against the Muslims. Khalid concentrated his troops on the Yarmuk, the eastern tributary of the Jordan River. The decisive battle that delivered Palestine to the Muslims took place on Aug. 20, 636. Only Jerusalem and Caesarea held out, the former until 638, when it surrendered to the Muslims, and the latter until October 640. Palestine, and indeed all of Syria, was then in Muslim hands. After the surrender of Jerusalem, ‘Umar divided Palestine into two administrative districts (jund), similar to the Roman and Byzantine provinces: they were Jordan (al-Urdunn) and Palestine (Filast in). Jordan included Galilee and Acre and extended east to the desert; Palestine, with its capital first at Lydda and later at Ramlah (after 716), covered the region south of the Plain of Esdraelon.
‘Umar lost no time in emphasizing Islam's interest in the holy city of Jerusalem as the first qibla toward which, until 623, Muslims had turned their faces in prayer and as the third holiest spot in Islam. (Muhammad himself changed the qibla to Mecca in 623.) On visiting the Temple area and finding the place suffering from neglect, ‘Umar and his followers cleaned it with their own hands and declared it a sacred place of prayer.
Under the Umayyads, a Muslim dynasty that gained power in 661 from the Meccans and Medinans who had initially led the Islamic community, Palestine formed, with Syria, one of the main provinces of the empire. Each jund was administered by an emir assisted by a financial officer. This pattern continued, in general, up to the time of Ottoman rule.
For various reasons, the Umayyads paid special attention to Palestine. The process of Arabization and Islamization was gaining momentum there. It was one of the mainstays of Umayyad power and important in their struggle against both Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula. The caliph ‘Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan (685–705) erected the Dome of the Rock in 691 on the site of the Temple of Solomon, which the Muslims believed had been the halting station of the Prophet on his nocturnal journey to heaven. This magnificent structure represents the earliest Muslim monument still extant. Close to the shrine to the south, ‘Abd al-Malik's son, al-Walid I (705–715), built the Aqsa mosque. The Umayyad caliph ‘Umar II (717–720) imposed humiliating restrictions on his non-Muslim subjects, particularly the Christians. Conversions arising from convenience as well as conviction then increased. These conversions to Islam, together with a steady tribal inflow from the desert, changed the religious character of Palestine's inhabitants. The predominantly Christian population gradually became predominantly Muslim and Arabic-speaking. At the same time, during the early years of Muslim control of the city, a small permanent Jewish population returned to Jerusalem after a 500-year absence.
‘Abbasid rule
Umayyad rule ended in 750. Along with Syria, Palestine became subject to ‘Abbasid authority, based in Baghdad, and, like Syria, it did not readily submit to its new masters. Unlike the Umayyads, who leaned on the Yemeni (South Arabian) tribes, the ‘Abbasids, in Syria, favoured and indeed used the Qays (North Arabian) tribes. Enmity between the two groups was, therefore, intensified and became an important political factor in Palestine. Pro-Umayyad uprisings were frequent and received Palestinian support. In 840/841 Abu Harb, a Yemenite, unfurled the white banner of the Umayyads and succeeded in recruiting a large number of peasant followers, mainly among the Palestinian population, who regarded him as the saviour whose appearance was to save the land from the hated ‘Abbasids. Though the insurrection was put down, unrest persisted.
Under the ‘Abbasids, the process of Islamization gained momentum. The ‘Abbasid rulers encouraged the settlement and fortification of coastal Palestine so as to secure it against the Byzantine enemy. During the second half of the 9th century, however, signs of internal decay began to appear in the ‘Abbasid empire. Petty states, and some indeed not so petty, emerged in different parts of the realm. One of the first to affect Palestine was the Tulunid dynasty (868–905) of Egypt, which marked the beginning of the disengagement of Egypt and, with it, of Syria and Palestine from ‘Abbasid rule. During this period Palestine also experienced the destructive operations of the Qarmatians, an Isma‘ili Muslim sect that launched an insurrection in 903–906. After a brief restoration of ‘Abbasid authority, Palestine came under Ikhshidid rule (935–969).
The Fa timid dynasty
In the meantime, the Shi‘ite Fa timid dynasty was rising to power in North Africa. It moved eastward to seize not only Egypt but also Palestine and Syria and to threaten Baghdad itself. The Fa timids seized Egypt from the Ikhshidids in 969 and in less than a decade were able to establish a precarious control over Palestine, where they faced Qarmatian, Seljuq, Byzantine, and periodic Bedouin opposition. Palestine was thus often reduced to a battlefield. The country suffered even greater hardship, however, under the Fa timid caliph al- H akim (996–1021), whose behaviour was at times erratic and extremely harsh, particularly toward his non-Muslim subjects. He reactivated earlier discriminatory laws imposed upon Christians and Jews and added new ones. In 1009 he ordered the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
In 1071 the Seljuqs captured Jerusalem, which prospered as pilgrimages by Jews, Christians, and Muslims increased despite political instability. The Fa timids recaptured the city in 1098 only to relinquish it a year later to a new enemy, the crusaders of western Europe.
The Crusades
A year after the capture of Jerusalem by the crusaders, the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem was established (Christmas Day, 1100). Thereafter, there was no effective check to the expansion of the crusaders' power until the capture of their stronghold at Edessa (modern Urfa, Tur.) by the atabeg of Mosul, ‘Imad ad-Din Zangi ibn Aq Sonqur, in 1144. Zangi's anticrusader campaign was carried on after his death by his son Nureddin (Nur ad-Din Mahmud) and, more effectively, by the sultan Saladin, a protégé of the atabeg's family. After consolidating his position in Egypt and Syria, Saladin waged relentless war against the “infidel” Franks (Western Christians). On July 4, 1187, six days after the capture of Tiberias, he dealt the crusaders a crushing blow at the decisive battle of Hattin (Hittin). Most of Palestine was once again Muslim. Further attempts by the crusaders to regain control of Palestine proved ineffective, primarily because of incessant quarrels among the crusaders themselves. Ironically, it was left to an emperor of dubious Christian standing, Frederick II, to negotiate in 1229, while under excommunication, a 10-year treaty that temporarily restored Jerusalem, Nazareth, and Bethlehem to the Christians. In 1244, however, the Ayyubid sultan as-Salih Ayyub definitively restored Jerusalem to Islam.
While the Ayyubids of Saladin's house were losing ground to the Turkish-speaking Mamluks in Egypt, the Mongol sweep westward continued, placing the crusaders, as it were, between two fires. To make matters worse, the crusaders themselves were hopelessly riddled with dissension. In 1260 the Mamluk leader Baybars emerged as a champion of Muslim resurgence. After taking part in the defeat of the Mongols at ‘Ayn Jalut in Palestine, he became sultan; in the years 1263 to 1271 he carried out annual raids against the harassed Franks. His efforts were continued by the sultan al-Ashraf, during whose reign the last of the crusaders were driven out of Acre (May 18, 1291). A chapter in the history of Palestine thus came to an end. The Mamluks and subsequent Muslim regimes ruled the area with only brief interruptions for the next 600 years.
Palestine under the Mamluks in the 14th century saw a period of prosperity for some; this was especially notable in Jerusalem, where the government sponsored an elaborate program of construction of schools, lodgings for travelers and Muslim pilgrims, and renovation of mosques. Tax revenues, collected mainly from the villages, were spent largely on support of religious institutions. Palestine formed a part of the district of Damascus, second only to Egypt in the Mamluk domains. The region suffered the ravages of several epidemics, including the great pestilence, the same Black Death that in 1347–51 devastated Europe. The fall of the Bahri Mamluks and the rise of the Burji Mamluks (1382–1517) contributed to a gradual economic deterioration and a decrease in security. During the reign of the second Burji sultan, Nasir Faraj (1398–1405), the last onslaught of the Mongols, which made the name of Timur (Tamerlane) a synonym of destruction and plunder, took place. Although Palestine was spared the pillage of his hordes, it could not escape its disastrous repercussions as the Mamluks moved through in a vain attempt to defend Damascus against the invader. The death of Timur in 1405, and the weakness of Iran in the ensuing century, pitted the Mamluks against the rising power of the Ottoman Turks for the control of western Asia. Hostilities broke out in 1486 when Sultan Qait Bey contested with Bayezid II the possession of some border towns. The climax came three decades later on Aug. 24, 1516, when the Ottoman sultan, Selim I, routed the Mamluk armies. Palestine began its four centuries under Ottoman domination.
Ottoman rule
Under the Ottoman Turks, Palestine continued to be linked administratively to Damascus until 1830, when it was placed under Sidon; then under Acre; then once again under Damascus until 1887–88, at which time the administrative divisions of the Ottoman Empire were settled for the last time. Palestine was divided into the mutasarrifiyahs of Nablus and Acre, both of which were linked with the vilayet of Beirut, and the autonomous mutasarrifiyah of Jerusalem, which dealt directly with Istanbul. With varying fortunes often accompanied by revolts, massacres, and wars, the first three centuries of Ottoman rule isolated Palestine from and insulated it against most outside influences. The prosperity of 16th-century Ottoman Palestine was followed by an economic and political decline in the 17th century. Ottoman control in the 18th century was indirect. D ahir al-‘Umar (c. 1737–75) dominated the political life of northern Palestine for nearly 40 years. Ahmad al-Jazzar, the Ottoman governor of Acre, had control of most of Palestine, and in 1799, with English and Ottoman help, he successfully defended Acre against Napoleon.
Both D ahir and al-Jazzar presided over a tightly controlled Palestine, where trade with Europe as well as taxation were growing. They used their new wealth from these sources to gain influence in Istanbul, which allowed them to gain local autonomy and even intermittent control of many areas outside Palestine.
This period came to an end with Napoleon's abortive attempt (1798–1801) to carve for himself a Middle Eastern empire. Egypt, always a determining factor in the fortunes of Palestine, was placed, after the French withdrawal, under the rule of the viceroy Muhammad (Mehmet) ‘Ali, who soon embarked upon a program of expansion at the expense of his Ottoman overlord. In 1831 his armies occupied Palestine, and for nine years he and his son Ibrahim gave it a centralizing and modernizing administration. Their rule increasingly opened the country to Western influences and enabled Christian missionaries to establish many schools; at the same time, however, taxes were increased, and urban rebellions broke out against the harshness of the regime. When in 1840 the British, the Austrians, and the Russians came to the aid of the Ottomans, the Egyptians were forced to withdraw and Palestine reverted to the Ottoman Empire. Increased European interest, however, led to the establishment of consulates by the powers in Jerusalem and in the ports.
After 1840 the reforms the sultan promulgated gradually took effect in Palestine. Increased security in the countryside and the Ottoman Land Law of 1858 encouraged the development of private property, agricultural production for the world market, the decline of tribal social organization, growth of the population, and the enrichment of the notable families. As the Ottomans extended the central government's new military, municipal, judicial, and educational systems to Palestine, the country also witnessed a marked increase in foreign settlements and colonies—French, Russian, and German. By far the most important, in spite of their initial numerical insignificance, were the Zionist agricultural settlements, which foreshadowed later Zionist endeavours for the establishment of a Jewish national home and still later a Jewish state in Palestine. The earliest of these settlements was established by Russian Jews in 1882. In 1896 Theodor Herzl issued a pamphlet entitled Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State) and advocated an autonomous Jewish state, preferably in Palestine. Two years later, he himself went to Palestine to investigate its possibilities and, possibly, to seek the help of the German emperor William II, who was then making his spectacular pilgrimage to the Holy Land.
Nabih Amin Faris
From 1900 to 1948
In the last years of the 19th century and the early years of the 20th, the Palestinian Arabs shared in a general Arab renaissance. Palestinians found opportunities in the service of the Ottoman Empire, and Palestinian deputies sat in the Ottoman parliament of 1908. Several Arabic newspapers appeared in the country before 1914. Their pages reveal that Arab nationalism and opposition to Zionism were strong among some sections of the intelligentsia even before World War I. The Arabs sought an end to Jewish immigration and to land purchases by Zionists. The number of Zionist colonies, however, mostly subsidized by the French philanthropist Baron Edmond de Rothschild, rose from 19 in 1900 to 47 in 1918, even though the majority of the Jews were town dwellers. The population of Palestine, predominantly agricultural, was about 690,000 in 1914 (535,000 Muslims; 70,000 Christians, most of whom were Arabs; and 85,000 Jews).
World War I and after
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 Husayn-McMahon correspondence, an exchange of letters from July 1915 to March 1916 between Sir Henry McMahon, British high commissioner in Egypt, and Husayn 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 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 U.S. government to support British postwar policies as well 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 war's end, the future of Palestine was problematic. Great Britain, which had set up a military administration in Palestine after the capture of Jerusalem, was faced with the problem of having to secure international sanction for the continued occupation of the country in a manner consistent with its ambiguous, 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 elected Faysal—son of Husayn ibn ‘Ali, who ruled the Hejaz—king 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 a peace conference held in San Remo, Italy, the Allies divided the former territories of the defeated Ottoman Empire. Of the Ottoman provinces in the Syrian region, the northern portion (Syria and Lebanon) was mandated to France, and the southern portion (Palestine) was mandated to Great Britain. By July 1920 the French had forced Faysal 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 as am an-nakba, the “year of catastrophe.”
Uncertainty over the disposition of Palestine affected all its inhabitants and increased political tensions. In April 1920 anti-Zionist riots in the Jewish quarter of Old Jerusalem led to the death of 5 Jews and the wounding of more than 200; 4 Arabs lost their lives and 21 were injured. 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 the mandate at San Remo, the British replaced the military administration with a civilian administration in July 1920, and Sir Herbert (later Viscount) Samuel, a Zionist, was appointed the first high commissioner. The new administration proceeded with the implementation of the Balfour Declaration, announcing in August a quota of 16,500 Jewish immigrants for the first year.
In December 1920, Palestinian Arabs at a congress in Haifa established an executive committee (known as the Arab Executive) to act as the representative of the Arabs. It was never formally recognized and was dissolved in 1934. However, the platform of the Haifa congress, which set out the position that Palestine was an autonomous Arab 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, which was expressed throughout the region through the Christian-Muslim associations. On May 1, 1921, anti-Zionist riots broke out in Jaffa, spreading to Petah Tiqwa and other Jewish communities, in which 47 Jews and 48 Arabs were killed and 140 Jews and 73 Arabs wounded. An Arab delegation of notables visited London in August–November 1921, demanding that the Balfour Declaration be repudiated and proposing the creation of a national government with a parliament democratically elected by the country's Muslims, Christians, and Jews. Alarmed by the extent of Arab opposition, the British government issued a White Paper in 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 were rejected by the Arabs, both because they constituted a 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 economic criterion.
The British mandate
In July 1922 the Council of the League of Nations approved the mandate instrument for Palestine, including its preamble incorporating the Balfour Declaration and 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 Home . . . and the development of self-governing institutions.” Article 4 allowed for the establishment of a Jewish Agency to 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 should facilitate Jewish immigration and close settlement of Jews on the land. Although Transjordan—i.e., the lands east of the Jordan River—constituted 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 Sept. 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 region's future would be determined by size of population and ownership of land. Thus the central issues throughout the mandate period were 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 often escalated into violence, and the British were forced to take action—a lesson not lost on either side.
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 al-Husaynis and the an-Nashashibis, whose members had held numerous government posts in the late Ottoman period, inhibited the 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 al-Husayni family, while the National Defense Party (founded 1934) was under the control of the more accommodating an-Nashashibi family. In 1921 the British high commissioner appointed Amin al-Husayni to be the (grand) mufti of 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. Amin al-Husayni 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. The World Zionist Organization (founded 1897) was regarded as the de facto Jewish Agency stipulated in the mandate, although its president, Chaim Weizmann, remained in London, close to the British government; David Ben-Gurion became 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, while the British government in London tended to side with the Zionists. The Jewish community in Palestine, the Yishuv, established its own assembly (Va‘ad Leumi), trade union and labour movement (Histadrut), schools, courts, taxation system, medical services, and a number of industrial enterprises. It also formed a military organization called the Haganah. Although the Jewish Agency was controlled by Labour Zionists who, for the most part, believed in cooperation with the British and Arabs, the Revisionist Zionists, founded in 1925 and led by Vladimir 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. They 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. But it was hampered because it had to respond to outbreaks of violence both between the Arab and Jewish communities and against itself. The aims and aspirations of 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 were 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 from 1923 to 1929 were relatively quiet; Arab passivity was partly due to the drop in Jewish immigration in 1926–28. In 1927 the number of Jewish emigrants exceeded that 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 were purchased from Arab owners, who often were absentee landlords. In August 1929 negotiations were concluded for the formation of an enlarged Jewish Agency to include non-Zionist Jewish sympathizers throughout the world.
The 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 the Western Wall (see )—sacred to Jews as the only remnant of the Second Temple of Jerusalem and to Muslims as the site of the Dome of the Rock—flared up into communal clashes in Jerusalem, Zefat, and Hebron, in which 133 Jews were killed and 339 wounded, the Arab casualties, mostly at the hands of British security forces, being 116 killed and 232 wounded. 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 by Sir 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 an acute form the question of where Britain's 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 the Covenant of the League of Nations. They also formed the basis of the Passfield White Paper, issued on Oct. 20, 1930, which accorded some priority to Britain's 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 well 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 British prime 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 favour made in Palestine could be annulled by Zionist influence at the centre 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. The Nazi accession to power in Germany in 1933 and the widespread persecution of Jews throughout central and eastern Europe gave a great impetus to 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 30 percent 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 90 percent) 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 Jewish urban centres. 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 the cessation of Jewish immigration, the prohibition of land transfer, and the establishment of democratic institutions. A boycott of 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 favoured the proposal, but the Zionists criticized it bitterly as an attempt to freeze the national home through a constitutional Arab stranglehold. In any event, London rejected the proposal. This, together with the example of rising nationalism in neighbouring Egypt and Syria, increasing unemployment in Palestine, and a poor citrus harvest, touched off a long-smoldering Arab rebellion.
The Arab Revolt
The Arab Revolt of 1936–39 was the first sustained violent uprising of Palestinian Arabs for more than a century. Thousands of Arabs from all classes were mobilized, and nationalistic sentiment was 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 ad-Din al-Qassam, who had been killed by the British in 1935. In April 1936 the murder of two Jews led to escalating violence, and Qassamite groups initiated a general strike in Jaffa and Nablus. At this point the Arab political parties formed an Arab High Committee presided over by the mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husayni. It called for a general strike, nonpayment of taxes, and the shutting down of municipal governments, although government employees were 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 neighbouring 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. The strike was called off in October 1939; however, even though the arrival of British troops restored some semblance of order, the armed rebellion, arson, bombings, and assassinations continued.
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. It declared the mandate unworkable and Britain's obligations to Arabs and Jews mutually irreconcilable. In the face of what it described as “right against right,” the commission recommended the partition of the country. 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. The commission not only allotted to this state an area that was immensely larger than the existing Jewish landholdings but also 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 were horrified by the idea of the dismemberment of the region and particularly by the suggestion of their forcible transfer (to Transjordan). As a result, the momentum of the revolt increased during 1937 and 1938.
In September 1937 the British were forced to declare martial law. The Arab High Committee was dissolved, and many officials of the Supreme Muslim Council and other organizations were arrested. The mufti fled to Lebanon and then Iraq, never to return to an undivided Palestine. Although the Arab revolt continued well into 1939, high casualty rates and firm British measures gradually eroded its strength. According to some estimates, more than 5,000 Arabs were 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 had encouraged Zionist self-reliance, and the Arabs of Palestine were unable to recover from their sustained effort of defying the British administration. Their traditional leaders were either killed, arrested, or deported, leaving the dispirited and disarmed population divided along urban and rural, class, clan, and religious lines. The Zionists, on the other hand, were united behind Ben-Gurion, and the Haganah had been given permission to arm itself. It cooperated with British forces and the Irgun Zvai Leumi in 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 neighbouring countries. The Woodhead Commission was set up to examine the practicality of partition. In November 1938 it recommended against the Peel Commission's plan—largely on the ground that the number of Arabs in the proposed Jewish state would be almost equal to the number of Jews—and put forward alternative proposals drastically reducing the area of the Jewish state and limiting the sovereignty of 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. However, on May 17, 1939, the British government issued a White 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 favour of the new policy, rejected the White Paper, largely because they mistrusted the British government and opposed a provision contained 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 were 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 now constituted about one-seventh of the cultivatable land, and the Jewish population had grown from 83,790 to 467,000, or nearly one-third of a total population of about 1,528,000. Tel Aviv had developed into an all-Jewish city of 150,000 inhabitants, and £80,000,000 of Jewish capital had been introduced into the region. The Jewish literacy rate was high, schools were expanding, and the Hebrew language had 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 of World War II in 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 the stability of a region essential to the war effort. Ben-Gurion declared on behalf of the Jewish Agency: “We shall fight [with 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 the terrible tragedy befalling European Jewry led to the disastrous sinking of two ships carrying Jewish refugees, the Patria (November 1940) and the Struma (February 1942). In response, the Irgun, under the leadership of Menachem Begin, and a small terrorist splinter group, LEHI (Fighters for the Freedom of Israel), known for its founder as the Stern Gang, embarked on widespread attacks on the British, culminating in the murder of Lord Moyne, British minister of state, by two LEHI members in Cairo in November 1944.
During the war years the Jewish community in Palestine was vastly strengthened. Its moderate wing supported the British; in September 1944 a Jewish brigade was formed—a total of 27,000 Jews having enlisted in the British forces—and attached to the British 8th Army. Jewish industry in general was given immense impetus by 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 in New 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 largely quiescent throughout the war. Amin al-Husayni had fled—by way of Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and Italy—to Germany, whence he broadcast appeals to his fellow Arabs to ally with the Axis powers against Britain and Zionism. Yet the mufti failed to rally Palestinian Arabs to the Axis cause. Although some supported Germany, the majority supported the Allies, and approximately 23,000 Arabs enlisted in the British forces (especially in the Arab 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 institutions—the family and village—by fostering a large urban Arab working class.
The discovery of the Nazi death camps at the end of World War II and the undecided future of Holocaust survivors led to an increasing number of pro-Zionist statements from U.S. politicians. In August 1945 U.S. President Harry S. Truman requested that British Prime Minister Clement Attlee facilitate the immediate admission of 100,000 Jewish Holocaust survivors into Palestine, and in December the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives asked for unrestricted Jewish immigration to the limit of the economic absorptive capacity of Palestine. Truman's request signaled the United States' 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 neighbouring 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 Jewry by European dictatorships, the issue of European Jewish survivors ought not to be confused with Zionism. Solving the problem of European Jewry, they asserted, should not be achieved by inflicting injustice on Palestinian Arabs. The covenant of the League of Arab States, or Arab 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 a boycott of Zionist goods. The pattern of the postwar struggle for Palestine was unmistakably emerging.
Post-World War II
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 following World War II was to secure British strategic interests in the Middle East and Asia. Because the cooperation of the Arab states was considered essential to this goal, British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin opposed 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 an Anglo-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 provincial autonomy for 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 underground's attacks culminated in Jerusalem on July 22, 1946, when the Irgun blew up a part of the King David Hotel containing 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 Bludan, Syria, at which secret resolutions were adopted threatening British and American interests in the Middle East if Arab rights were disregarded. In Palestine the Husaynis 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 were agitating, with increasing violence, for independence. When a conference called in London in February 1947 failed to resolve the impasse, Great Britain, already negotiating its withdrawal from India and 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 the United Nations. On August 31 a majority report of the UN Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) recommended the partition of the country into an Arab and a Jewish state, which, however, should retain an economic union (see ). Jerusalem and its environs were to be international. These recommendations were substantially adopted by a two-thirds majority of the UN General Assembly in a resolution dated Nov. 29, 1947, a decision made possible partly because of the agreement of the United States and the Soviet Union on partition and partly because of pressure 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 the International Court of Justice on the competence of the General Assembly to partition a country against the wishes of the majority of its inhabitants (in 1946 there were 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 55 percent of (west-of-Jordan) Palestine to it. As in 1937, the Arabs fiercely opposed partition both in principle and because a substantial minority of the population of the Jewish state would be Arab. Great Britain was unwilling to implement a policy that was not acceptable to both sides and refused to share with the UN Palestine Commission the administration of Palestine during the transitional period. It set May 15, 1948, as the date for ending the mandate.
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 a forcible implementation of partition, and on March 16 the UN Palestine Commission reported its inability, because of Arab resistance, to implement partition. On March 19 the United States called for the suspension of the efforts of the UN Palestine Commission and on March 30 for the declaration of a truce and the further consideration of the problem 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 Haemek, the death in battle of an Arab national hero, ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni, in command of the Jerusalem front, and the massacre, by Irgunists and members of the Stern Gang, of civilian inhabitants of the Arab village of Deir Yasin. 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 of psychological 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 last British high commissioner, General Sir Alan Cunningham, left Palestine. On the same day the State of Israel was declared and within a few hours won de facto recognition from the United States and de jure recognition from the Soviet Union. Early on May 15 units of the regular armies of Syria, Transjordan, Iraq, and Egypt crossed the frontiers of Palestine.
In a series of campaigns alternating with truces between May and December 1948, the Arab units were routed. By the summer of 1949 Israel had concluded armistices with its neighbours. It had also been recognized by more than 50 governments throughout the world, joined the United Nations, and established its sovereignty over about 8,000 square miles (21,000 square kilometres) of formerly mandated Palestine west of the Jordan River. The remaining 2,000 square miles were divided between Transjordan and Egypt. Transjordan retained the lands on the west bank of the Jordan River, including East Jerusalem, although its annexation of those lands in 1950 was not generally recognized as legitimate. In 1949 the name of the expanded country was changed to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Egypt retained control of, but did not annex, a small area on the Mediterranean coast that became known as the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian Arab community ceased to exist as a social and political entity.
Walid Ahmed Khalidi
Ian J. Bickerton
Make that 2 million Pallies. Most Jewish settlements are built on hills which the Pallies don't want. Less water up on the hill. Palestinians prefer the valleys. This is what you do in a desert environment where the water and morning dew goes to the valleys.
The entire world is made up of nations that built their governments and societies on ground they won in battle, why is Israel held to this double standard?
I wonder if His Majesty or Lord Balfour ever contemplated suicide bombings?
If the Israelis desprived Palestinians of their religious and civil rights arbitrarily and capriciously you would have a point, but since they didn't, you don't.
Well, that's a rather pi$$ poor analogy since no Jews are forcibly living inside the homes of Palestinians, They're living next door to them
That's what is happening to the Palestinians.
Right, it is. They're having to live next door to Jews. And the worthless little bigots can't handle it.
The settlements are illegal, and there will be no peace until they are removed.
Nothing Illegal at all. No more than it is illegal for Muslims to live in Israel next to Jews. Something which many of them do.
Like I said its a double standard. Double standards are the essence of liberalism. And I hate double standards.
This is false. See Acts 26:5, Galatians 1:13-14, and James 1:26-27.
And saying that Israel never saw itself as a religion flies in the face of the LORD telling them about the abominations of other "religions."
This doesn't wash.
So now you are spamming the forum with massive dumps from Britannica.com. I think you are in violation of copyright law, sir.
Bawahahahahaha....
Thank you for calling me, "Sir".
What if those Jews had legally bought your dining room? Would it still be yours, or would you object because they are Jews?
Previousspamarticle on the history of PALESTINE from (Britannica)
Palestine and the Palestinians (1948–67)
The partition of Palestine and its aftermath
If one chief theme in the post-1948 pattern was embattled Israel (for greater detail on the history of Israel, see Israel, history of) and a second the unremitting hostility of its Arab neighbours, a third was the plight of the huge number of Arab refugees. The violent birth of Israel led to a major displacement of the Arab population. Many wealthy merchants and leading urban notables from Jaffa, Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Jerusalem, disproportionately Christian, fled to Lebanon, Egypt, and Jordan, while the middle class tended to move to all-Arab towns such as Nablus and Nazareth. The majority of peasants ended up in refugee camps. More than 350 Arab villages disappeared, and Arab life in the coastal cities (especially Jaffa and Haifa) virtually disintegrated. The centre of Palestinian life shifted to the Arab towns of the hilly eastern region later called the West Bank.
Like everything else in the Arab-Israeli conflict, population figures are hotly disputed. About 1,300,000 Arabs lived in Palestine before the war. Estimates of the number of Arabs displaced from their original homes, villages, and neighbourhoods during the period from December 1947 to January 1949 range from about 520,000 to about 1,000,000. 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 20 percent 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 term “Palestinian”
Henceforth the term Palestinian will be used when referring to the Arabs of the former mandated Palestine, 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, but it was rarely used by the Arabs themselves; mostly they saw themselves as part of the larger Arab or Muslim community. But after 1948—and even more so after 1967—for Palestinians themselves the term came to signify not only a place of origin but, more importantly, a sense of a shared past and future. The Arabs of Palestine, and then of the West Bank and Gaza only, began widely using the term Palestinian to indicate the nationalist concept of a Palestinian people and, after 1967, of a Palestinian state.
Diverging histories for Palestinian Arabs
The Israeli Arabs
Approximately 150,000 Arabs remained in Israel. The Israeli Arabs represented about one-eighth of all Palestinians and by 1952 roughly the same proportion of the Israeli population. The majority of them lived in villages in western Galilee. Because much of their land was confiscated, Arabs were forced to abandon agriculture and become unskilled wage labourers, working in Jewish industries and construction companies. As citizens of the State of Israel, in theory they were guaranteed equal religious and civil rights with Jews. In reality, however, until 1966 they lived under a military jurisdiction that imposed severe restrictions on their political options and freedom of movement. Most of them remained politically quiescent, and some accepted Zionist Israel as a reality and sought to ameliorate their circumstances through electoral participation, education, and economic integration.
Israel sought to impede the development of a cohesive national consciousness among the Palestinians by dealing with various minority groups, such as Druze, Circassians, and Bedouin; by hindering the work of the Muslim religious organizations; and by focusing on education as a means of creating a new Israeli-Arab identity. By the late 1960s, with the decline in agriculture and the breakdown in social customs related to such events as bride selection and marriage, the old patriarchal clan system had all but collapsed. For almost 20 years after Israel was established, Israeli Arabs were isolated from other Arabs.
West Bank (and Jordanian) Palestinians
The Jordanian monarchy saw in the events of 1948–49 the opportunity to expand Jordanian territory and to integrate Palestinians into its population and thereby create a new Jordanian nationality. Through a series of political and social policies, Jordan sought to consolidate its control over the political future of Palestinians and to become their speaker. It provided education and, in 1949, extended citizenship to Palestinians; indeed, two-thirds of all Palestinians became Jordanian citizens. However, tensions soon developed between original Jordanian citizens and the better-educated, more skilled newcomers. Wealthy Palestinians lived in the towns of the East and West banks, competing for positions within the government, while the peasants, fellahin, filled the UN refugee camps.
Palestinians constituted about two-thirds of the population of Jordan. Half the seats in the Jordanian Chamber of Deputies were reserved for representatives from the West Bank, but this measure and similar attempts to integrate the West Bank with the area lying east of the Jordan River were made difficult by the significant social, economic, educational, and political differences between the residents of each (for greater detail on the history of Jordan, see Jordan, history of). Jordanian Palestinians, other than the notable families favoured by the Jordanian monarchy, tended to support the radical pan-Arab and anti-Israeli policies of Egypt's President Gamal Abdel Nasser rather than the more cautious and conciliatory position of Jordan's King Hussein.
Palestinians in the Gaza Strip
During the 20 years the Gaza Strip was under Egyptian control (1948–67), it remained little more than a reservation. Egyptian rule was brutal and repressive. Palestinians living in the region were denied citizenship, which rendered them stateless (i.e., it left them without citizenship of any nation), and they were allowed little real control over local administration. They were, however, allowed to attend Egyptian universities.
In 1948 Amin al- Husayni declared a Government of All Palestine in the Gaza Strip. However, because it was totally dependent on Egypt, it was short-lived. The failure of this venture and al-Husayni's lack of credibility because of his collaboration with the Axis powers during World War II did much to weaken Palestinian Arab nationalism in the 1950s.
The Gaza Strip, 25 miles long and 4–5 miles wide, became one of the most densely populated areas of the world, with more than 80 percent of the population urban. Poverty and social misery became characteristic of life in the region. The rate of unemployment was high; many of the Palestinians lived in refugee camps, depending primarily on UN aid (see below). Most of the agricultural lands they had formerly worked were now inaccessible, and little or no industry was allowed, but commerce flourished, as Gaza became a kind of duty-free port for Egyptians. Although some Gaza Strip Palestinians were able to leave the territory and gain an education and find employment elsewhere, most had no alternative but to stay in the area, despite its lack of natural resources and jobs.
The UNRWA camps
In December 1949 the UN General Assembly created the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) to assist the Palestinian refugees. In May 1950 UNRWA established a total of 53 refugee “camps” in the West and East banks of Jordan, the Gaza Strip, Lebanon, and Syria to assist the 650,000 or more Arab refugees it calculated needed help. Initially refugees in the improvised camps lived in tents, but after 1958 these were replaced by small houses of concrete blocks with iron roofs. Conditions were extremely harsh; often several families had to share one tent, and exposure to the extreme winter and summer temperatures inflicted additional suffering. Loss of home and income lowered morale. Although the refugees were provided with rent-free accommodations and basic services such as water, health care, and education (UNRWA ran both elementary and secondary schools in the camps, teaching more than 40,000 students by 1951), poverty and misery were widespread. Work was scarce, even though UNRWA sought to integrate the Palestinians into the depressed economies of the “host” countries.
Palestinians who continued to live in refugee camps felt a greater sense of alienation and dislocation than the more fortunate ones who found jobs and housing and became integrated into the national economies of the countries in which they resided. Although the camps strengthened family and village ties, their demoralized inhabitants were isolated from mainstream Palestinian political activities during the 1950s.
Palestinians outside mandated Palestine
Palestinians found employment in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and the Persian Gulf states, but only a few were able to become citizens of these countries. Often they were the victims of discrimination, as well as being closely supervised by the respective governments intent on limiting their political activities.
Emergence of a Palestinian identity
The catastrophe of 1948 (also called an-nakba) and the experience of exile shaped Palestinian political and cultural activity for the next generation. The central task of reconstruction fell to Palestinians living outside Israel—both in the West Bank and Gaza communities and in the new Palestinian communities outside the former British mandate. (Arabs living within the State of Israel remained in an ambiguous, isolated situation and were regarded with some suspicion by both Israelis and Palestinians.) The new leaders came disproportionately from among those who had moved to various Middle Eastern states and to the West, even though four out of five Palestinians had remained within the borders of the former mandate. By the mid-1960s, despite Israeli efforts to forestall the emergence of a new Palestinian identity, a young, educated leadership had arisen, replacing the discredited traditional local and clan leaders.
The role of camps
Palestinian refugee camps differed depending on the country in which they were located, but they shared one common development—the emergence of a “diaspora consciousness.” In time this consciousness grew into a new national identity and reinvigorated social institutions, leading to the establishment of more complex social and political structures by the 1960s. A new Palestinian leadership emerged from the schools UNRWA had established, as well as from the universities of Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, western Europe, and the United States. Palestinians living in the UNRWA-administered refugee camps felt isolated, politically powerless, disoriented, bitter, and resentful. They remained unassimilated and were generating a new sense of identity based on a Nasser-inspired pan-Arabism, the cultivated memory of a lost paradise (Palestine), and an emerging pan-Islamic movement.
The role of Palestinians outside formerly mandated Palestine
By the late 1960s a class of educated and mobile Palestinians had emerged, with fewer than half of them living in the West Bank or Gaza. They were working in the oil companies, civil services, and educational institutions of most Arab states in the Middle East. Having successfully resisted the efforts of Amin al-Husayni, Jordan, and Egypt to control and speak for them, they joined the process of reshaping Palestinian consciousness and institutions. Thus, Palestinians entered a new stage of the struggle for nationhood.
The Palestine Liberation Organization
An Arab summit meeting in Cairo in 1964 led to the formation of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). A political umbrella organization of several Palestinian groups, the PLO thereafter consistently claimed to be the sole representative of all Palestinian people. Its first leader was Ahmad Shuqayri, a protégé of Egypt. In its charter (the Palestine National Charter, or Covenant), the PLO delineated its basic principles and goals, the most important of which were the right to an independent state, the total liberation of Palestine, and the destruction of the State of Israel.
A Palestine National Council (PNC) was established to serve as the supreme body, or parliament, of the PLO, and an executive committee was formed to manage PLO activities. Initially, the PNC consisted of civilian representatives from various areas, including Jordan, the West Bank, and the Persian Gulf states, but representatives of guerrilla organizations were added in 1968.
Fatah and other guerrilla organizations
Several years before the creation of the PLO, a secret organization had been formed: the Palestine National Liberation Movement (Harakat at-Tahrir al-Watani al-Filast ini), known from a reversal of its Arabic initials as Fatah. Both the PLO and Fatah undertook the training of guerrilla units for raids on Israel. In addition to Fatah, the largest and most influential guerrilla organization, several others emerged in the late 1960s. The most important ones were the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP); the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine–General Command (PFLP–General Command, a splinter group from the PFLP); as-Sa‘iqah, backed by Syria; the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP); and the Popular Struggle Front (PSF). These groups joined forces inside the PLO despite their differences in ideology and tactics (some were dedicated to openly terrorist tactics). In 1969 Yasir ‘Arafat, leader of Fatah, became chairman of the PLO's executive committee and thus the chief of the Palestinian national movement.
Despite their differences in tactics and ideology, the guerrilla organizations were united in rejecting any political settlement that did not include what they characterized as the total liberation of Palestine and the return of the refugees to their homeland, goals that were to be achieved through armed struggle. Palestinian spokesmen claimed, however, that, while they aimed at dismantling Israel and purging Palestine of Zionism, they also sought to establish a nonsectarian state in which Jews, Christians, and Muslims could live in equality. Most Israelis doubted the sincerity or practicality of this goal and viewed the PLO as a terrorist organization committed to destroying not only the Zionist state but also Israeli Jews.
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