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Ottoman empire
Brfitish mandate
1922-39
1939-48
1948-77
Since the 1980s
Recent politics in Palestine
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British Mandate: 1922-39
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The hardest task confronting Britain is to keep the peace between the Jews and the more numerous population of Palestinian Arabs, resenting the arrival of so many foreigners and well aware of the Zionist dream of creating a state of Israel.
During the 1920s the policy of Britain in relation to these two rival communities is unclear and vacillating. At first Jewish immigration is encouraged, in keeping with the Balfour Declaration, but problems arising from Arab opposition soon modify this policy.
From the very start, from the announcement of the British mandate (not formally established until 1922), there are clear indications of the strength of hostility within the Arab community. As early as 1920 there are attacks on Jews, resulting in a few deaths, in four days of rioting during the annual Nebi Musa festival in and around Jerusalem. These attacks, followed by more serious ones in 1921, prompt the formation of the Haganah, a Jewish paramilitary group of volunteers committed to the defence of Jewish settlements.
They also prompt the first concession to Arab opinion. The British are well aware of the need to avoid giving offence to neighbouring Arab states and to the millions of Muslims in India. In the short term immigration is suspended, followed by a promise that henceforth it will be strictly controlled.
During the rest of the period between the wars there is a gradual increase in inter-communal violence. A particularly extreme outburst occurs in 1929. Beginning with an Arab attack on Jews at the Western Wall of the Temple (also known as the Wailing Wall), fighting rapidly spreads throughout Palestine. Within the next few days 133 Jews are killed and 87 Arabs, many of the latter by British troops trying to restore order.
An Arab general strike in 1936, accompanied by a demand for an immediate end to Jewish immigration, leads to another major outbreak of violence, resulting this time in 80 Jewish and`140 Arab deaths as the British struggle to maintain order.
The British response is to set up a Royal Commission, headed by Lord Peel, to investigate possible solutions to an increasingly dangerous situation. The Peel Report (1937) concludes that reconciliation is impossible and that the only solution is to set up two states, with the Jews occupying a small territory in the north of Palestine and Jerusalem retained as a permanent British mandate. Reluctantly the Jews accept this proposal, on the grounds that a small state is better than none, but it is categorically rejected by the Arabs.
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British Mandate: 1939-48
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With a greatly increased number of British troops during World War II in this strategically important region, the level of violence between the two communities of Palestine is much reduced. But this soon ceases to be the case after the war.
It is by now evident to both Palestinians and Jews that the departure of the British must soon be imminent and that this will inevitably be followed by armed conflict. This perception emphasizes the need for each side to increase their military strength. The Palestinians have the support of the recently formed Arab League of which all the neighbouring Arab states are members. They make preparations to provide support for the Palestinians when needed.
In May 1947 the British government, interested by now only in a rapid departure, hands over to the United Nations the problem of finding a peaceful way forward. The UN sets up a Committee on Palestine. In August the committee recommends that the region be partitioned into an Arab and a Jewish state, very much along the lines of the British Peel Report of 1937 except that Jerusalem is to be administered under an international rather than British mandate. This solution is adopted by the General Assembly in November. As with the Peel Report, it is welcomed by the Jewish community but strongly opposed by the Arabs. In practice, however, it is entirely disregarded in Palestine, where the violence between Jews and Arabs is dramatically increasing, so much so that the period between November 1947 and May 1948 is often referred to by historians as the Civil War.
Two atrocities stand out in particular as examples of the methods now employed by extremists on both sides. On 9 April 1948 the small Arab village of Deir Yassin stands in the way of a band of Jewish paramilitaries who are moving towards Jerusalem in an attempt to frustrate a Palestinian blockade. Their attack on the village leaves more than 100 people dead, including women and children. A few days later, in an ambush at Hadassah on a road into Jerusalem, an Arab reprisal is carried out on a medical convoy to a hospital on Mount Scopus, killing seventy-seven Jewish doctors and nurses. And there are many lesser acts of terrorism against both communities.
Early in 1948 Britain announces that the mandate will end on May 14. Knowledge of the date only serves to intensify the preparation of both sides for the conflict ahead.
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