British policy changes in Palestine – a brief summary.

1915 – McMahon-Husseini correspondence – Correspondence between Sir Henry McMahon, the British British High Commissioner in Egypt and the Shariff of Mecca, Husseini ben Ali promising British support for Arab independence.

1916 – Sykes-Picot agreement – division of former Ottoman territories planned, between French and British – both agreed to set up and protect an Arab state in Palestine

1917 – Balfour declaration – Letter to Lord Rothschild, Leader of British Jewry, promising British support for a Jewish homeland ‘without prejudice’ to the rights of peoples already living in Palestine. The declaration was at least partly motivated by a desire to get Jews in America to encourage their government to join the war effort.

Together, these statements committed Britain to two completely different policies – on the one hand, backing a Palestinian Arab state; on the other backing an independent Jewish state.

1919 – Treaty of Versailles – Wilson’s idea of Self-Determination was embraced by both Zionists and Arabs and both believed that they would get it in Palestine.

The 1922 Mandate – Class A – meaning that Britain was responsible for controlling Palestine until it was able to stand alone as a state.

Immigration and violence – British tried to control immigration as a means of preventing violence which erupted in 1921 at Jaffa (Haifa) and in 1929 in Jerusalem.

1923 – Proposed legislative Assembly for Palestine rejected by Arabs – a fateful decision which would deprive the Palestinian representatives of legitimacy. Palestine was the only Middle Eastern state not to have a legislative assembly during the interwar period.

1930s – Anti-Semitism in Germany led to increased immigration to Israel/Jerusalem: by 1939 Palestine had 450,000 Jews who brought about $250 million with them to invest in their ‘homeland’.

1936 – Arab General Strike and rebellion - in response to the purchasing of the land, the Arabs organised a general strike. A virtual Civil War broke out. 20,000 British troops were sent in to keep order and Orde Wingate organised Jewish Special Night Squads to attack Arab villages. Arabs believed that the British were giving more help to the Jews by helping them develop the Haganah.

1937 – Peel Commission – recommended partition – an Arab state in the North and a Jewish state in the South - but recognised that this would involve the forcible movement of Arab populations out of their homelands. Understandably the Arabs rejected the plan, although the Jews accepted it.

1938 – Another commission recommended partition – this time giving less land to the Jews, but it was again rejected by the Arabs.

1939 – McDonald Report – abandoned the idea of partition and an independent Jewish state, but instead committed the British to creating a single state ruled by both Jews and Arabs within 10 years. This became the basis for a White Paper which called for this plus a quota on immigration was at 75,000 over five years after 1939. After that date, no further Jewish immigration unless Arabs agreed.

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The 1939 White paper:

Section I. The Constitution: It stated that with over 450,000 Jews having now settled in the mandate, the Balfour Declaration about "a national home for the Jewish people" had been met and called for an independent Palestine established within 10 years, governed jointly by Arabs and Jews.

Section II. Immigration: Jewish immigration to Palestine under the British Mandate was to be limited to 75,000 over the next five years, after which it would depend on Arab consent.Section III. Land: Previously no restriction had been imposed on the transfer of land from Arabs to Jews, while now the White Paper stated: "The Reports of several expert Commissions have indicated that, owing to the natural growth of the Arab population and the steady sale in recent years of Arab land to Jews, there is now in certain areas no room for further transfers of Arab land, whilst in some other areas such transfers of land must be restricted if Arab cultivators are to maintain their existing standard of life and a considerable landless Arab population is not soon to be created. In these circumstances, the High Commissioner will be given general powers to prohibit and regulate transfers of land.'

Together, the Peel Commission and the McDonald Report succeeded in antagonising both Arabs and Jews.

But even the British themselves were divided:

British Reactions to the White Paper

In a U.K. Parliamentary debate, Lloyd George called the White Paper an "act of perfidy" while Winston Churchill voted against the government in which he was a minister.

The Liberal MP James Rothschild stated during the parliamentary debate that "for the majority of the Jews who go to Palestine it is a question of migration or of physical extinction".

Some supporters of the U.K. National Government were opposed to the policy on the grounds that it appeared in their view to contradict the Balfour Declaration. Several government MPs either voted against the proposals or abstained, including Cabinet Ministers such as Leslie Hore-Belisha, as well as Winston Churchill.

League of Nations’ Reaction

The supervising authority of the League of Nations, the Permanent Mandates Commission abstained unanimously from endorsing the White Paper, though four members thought the new policy was inconsistent with that mandate. The League of Nations commission held that the White Paper was in conflict with the terms of the Mandate as put forth in the past. The outbreak of the Second World War suspended any further deliberations

Arab reactions

The Arab Higher Committee argued that the independence of a future Palestine Government would prove to be illusory, as the Jews could prevent its functioning by withholding participation, and in any case real authority would still be in the hands of British officials. The limitations on Jewish immigration were also held to be insufficient, as there was no guarantee immigration would not resume after five years. In place of the policy enunciated in the White Paper, the Arab Higher Committee called for "a complete and final prohibition" of Jewish immigration and a repudiation of the Jewish national home policy altogether.

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Hajj Amin al-Husayni "astonished" the other members of the Arab Higher Committee by turning down the White Paper. Al-Husayni, according to Benny Morris, turned the advantageous proposal down for the entirely selfish reason that "it did not place him at the helm of the future Palestinian state."

In 1940, after two weeks of meetings with a British representative, the leader of the Palestinian Arab delegates to the London Conference, Jamal al-Husseini and fellow delegate Musa al-Alami, agreed to the terms of the White Paper and both signed a copy of it in the presence of the Prime Minister of Iraq, Nuri as-Said.

On 27 February 1939, in response to enthusiastic Arab demonstrations following reports that the British were proposing to allow Palestine independence on the same terms as Iraq, a coordinated bombing campaign across the country killed 38 Arabs and wounded 44.

Jewish Reaction

Zionist groups in Palestine immediately rejected the White Paper and began a campaign of attacks on government property and Arab civilians which lasted for several months. On 18 May a Jewish general strike was called.

On 13 July the authorities announced the suspension of all Jewish immigration into Palestine until March 1940. The reason given for this decision was the increase in illegal immigrants arriving.

The Jewish Agency for Palestine

After the outbreak of war in September 1939, the head of the Jewish Agency for Palestine David Ben-Gurion declared: 'We will fight the White Paper as if there is no war, and fight the war as if there is no White Paper.' Cooperation with the British would enable the Yishuv (the Jewish community in Palestine) to strengthen its military capability and build up its store of armaments (secretly).

Radicals: Irgun and the Stern Gang

Two Jewish terrorist organisations were set up, Irgun (Irgun Zvai Leumi) led by Menachem Begin and the Stern Gang (Lohamei Herut Israel – or Lehi – fighters for the Freedom of Israel) led by Avraham Stern. In 1944, Menachem Begin openly proclaimed revolt against the British.

WWII and the Holocaust

1942 Changed international perspectives on Jerusalem.

Biltmore Programme The American-Zionist committee met at the Biltmore Hotel in New York city in 1942 called for a Jewish state over the hwole of Palestine, replacing the idea of a ‘home’ in part of it and this remained official policy of the Yishuv until 1947. During WWII the Yishuv became a state-in-the-making.

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1945 David Ben Gurion, leader of the Jewish Agency in Palestine, sanctioned a Jewish revolt against British rule. The Haganah, the Agency’s militia, sabotaged British military installations and shared information wit hthe Zionist terrorist group Irgun.

1945 The British set up a committee of enquiry with America (Anglo-American Committee) which called for the immediate lifting of restrictions on immigration, but the British government refused to implement this and several boatloads of refugees were sent back.

1946 Because the British refused to lift limitations the Stern Gang and Irgun took more extreme measures against the British, including the bombing of the David Hotel in Jerusalem, the British Headquarters. 91 were killed and 45 injured.

Many countries (especially in the West) declared their full support for an independent Jewish state as a home for Jewish refugees. The British meanwhile faced a growing rift with President Truman.

1947 July - the Sergeant’s Affair: two British Sergeants were hung by Irgun in retaliation forhte execution by the British of three of their members. Politically, this was single most important act of Jewish resistance and helped to turn British public opinion in favour of withdrawal.

1947 September - the British government announced it was giving up its mandate and called on the UN for help. The United Nations Special Commission on Palestine (UNSCOP) was set up.

1947 June and July – UNSCOP visit to Palestine.

UNSCOP called for the future of Palestine to be determined in connection with the problem of Europe’s displaced Jews and framed their plans for the partitioning of Palestine in moral terms.

Arab leadership refused to meet with them. Arabs were hamstrung by this, by the support their leadership had for the Nazis during WWI and by the absence of a legislative assembly that would have granted them greater legitimacy in pressing their case for sovereignty.

The most eventful moment - UNSCOP witnessed the British refusing entry to the Exodus containing 4,500 refugees in accordance with the 1939 White Paper.

UNSCOP submitted two reports to the UN – a majority report calling for a partition and a minority report calling for a single federated state which received little attention.

UNSCOPO went much further than the Peel Commission, proposing 55% of territory for the Jews, including vital water supplies, most citrus plantations and the unpopulated Negev desert, even though Jews constituted only 33% of the Palestine’s population and owned less than 10% of the total land area. Each state consisted of three separate parts, creating a criss-crossing arrangement with two meeting points.

Jewish land acquisition during the mandate period played the key role in determining the contours of the proposals, and the central mountainous areas of Biblical antiquity –known to Jews as Judea and Samaria – ended up begin located in the areas designated for Palestinian Arab state.

1947 – 29 November The vote - required 2/3rds majority and the Zionist case was helped by US/USSR accord on the issue. The tally was 33-13 with 10 abstentions (including Britain). It was called Resolution 181 (II) the Future Government of Palestine.

Fighting began the morning after. Arab Palestinian state never came into being.

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Britain – dependent upon US aid – could hardly oppose these these proposals. The British response was merely to announce its intention to withdraw entirely by 15 May 1948.

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1948 – 14th May – the British pulled out of Palestine; the Yeshuv Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel occurred on the same day.

Britain quit Palestine because of a lack of resources and strategic overstretch. By 1947 100,000 British troops – about a tenth of the armed forces of the British Empire, were stationed in an area the size of Wales for a territory with a population in the Yishuf of just 600,000. Britain had other priorities. The British Prime Minister, Clement Attlee hoped that British evacuation of Palestine would compel Jews and Arabs to find their own solution.

The concept of a national homeland for the Jewish people in the British Mandate of Palestine was enshrined in Israeli national policy and reflected in many of Israel's public and national institutions. The concept was expressed in the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel on 14 May 1948 and given concrete expression in the Law of Return, passed by the Knesset (the Israeli parliament) on 5 July 1950, which declared: "Every Jew has the right to come to this country as an Aliyah."

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