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).
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.
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.
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The Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem.
© Don Smetzer/Stone |
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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 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.
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.
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.
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
