Mandate System
from student work
Comment
The Ottoman Empire was a vast one, and Israel – then known as Palestine – was a part of it from the beginning of the sixteenth century until the end of WWI, when the Ottoman Empire fell and Ottoman territories were split amongst the victors; Palestine (Israel) became a mandate of the British Empire in 1922. Mandate in this case means that Palestine (Israel) was supposed to be technically part of the British Empire, but provisionally recognized as independent until they proved able to self-govern. The British Mandate for Palestine included the areas now known as Israel, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and Jordan. England’s job here was to implement the Balfour Declaration of 1917 – a letter in which the British made public their support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine – but the British had also promised the Arabs their own autonomous area in Palestine, and failed to come through with their promise.
Arabs, the majority in the area, were angered that the British had not given them an independent Arab state. They were also opposed to the rising tide of European Jewish immigration, land purchases, and settlement in Palestine. Over 350,000 Jews immigrated to Palestine (Israel), and this number went up as anti-Semitism increased in the pre-WWII years. To smooth ruffled Arab feathers, the British placed quotas on Jewish immigration to Palestine (Israel), but this backfired and ended up amplifying Jewish-Arab unrest. In the summer of 1929, the infamous Hebron riots broke out.
The riots began as minor disputes over whether Jews should be allowed to pray at the Western Wall, as the Wall is holy to both Arabs and Jews and the Arabs resented the intrusion. Soon the minor disputes escalated into a full-scale massacre on both sides. 116 Arabs and 133 Jews died. The violence was encouraged by rumors that the Jews were defiling Islam holy places and mosques. The newly formed Israel guard force, Haganah, was able to hold back the tide of Arabs in Tel Aviv and Haifa, but other places were flooded; Hebron was actually purged of its Jews, and none dared to live there until the 1960s. The Haganah and the Irgun, which was created during WWII, together formed the basis of the modern-day Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
But during these same blood-covered years, great social, economic, and educational progress in Palestine (Israel) was made. In 1919, a centralized school system was established; in 1920, the Histadrut Labor Federation was founded, which organized the activities of Jewish workers and revved up the Jewish part of the economy; and the Technion and Hebrew University of Jerusalem were created.
In April of 1936, Arabs began protesting the spread of Zionism in Palestine (Israel) by boycotting Jewish products and demanding an end to Jewish immigration and a new representative government. Protests quickly turned into attacks, and only in August did the British respond – and only after the Arabs started attacked British citizens. Uneasy peace was held for a year, but the Peel Commission unintentionally restarted the violence.
The Peel Commission was a British committee whose aim was to find a long-term solution to the fighting between the Arabs and the Jews. It suggested freezing Jewish immigration at 12,000 per year for five years and thinking about a partition between the two countries, but the Arabs wanted all and nothing – all Jews gone from the area, and nothing could stop the Arabs from making that happen. The bloodshed began again, and by the time it tapered off in 1939, thousands on both sides had been killed, the numbers brought higher because of British involvement.
In 1939, the British called for a conference, known as the St. James conference, between Arabs and Jews to discuss their problems. Since the Arabs wouldn’t even meet directly with the Jews, and both parties refused to compromise, the British made up their own pro-Arab policy and issued it in the White Paper. As in so many other countries, the British decision turned out to be disastrous.
It made limitation on Jewish immigration permanent – little did the short-sighted British know that 6 million Jews could have used a place to flee in just a few years – and essentially broke every decree to support a Jewish state, including the actual Mandate, that England had ever made.
After WWII, the British ended the Mandate System in Palestine (Israel), and asked the United Nations (UN) to make the decision concerning the area, hoping that it would be unable to and would hand Palestine (Israel) back to the British. Over 1,000,000 Arabs and more than 600,000 Jews were living in the area at the time, and the UN decided that the only way to keep the peace between these volatile nations was to divide them. In 1947, the Partition Plan was adopted, which divided Palestine (Israel) into an Arab state, known as Palestine, and a Jewish state, known as Israel. Israel declared its independence in May of 1948.
But the Arab leaders in surrounding countries (Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq) invaded Israel immediately after it declared independence, in order to “save” Palestine from the Jews, and because the Arabs also didn’t want an Arab Palestine. The fighting was essentially equally matched until Israel received a shipment of arms from Czechoslovakia, which turned the tide of the war and led to Israel’s victory and subsequent conquest of areas outside the borders indicated in the Partition Plan.
In 1949, the first Arab-Israeli war ended with the signing of armistice agreements. Palestine was split into three separate parts; Jordan occupied East Jerusalem and the area now known as the West Bank; and Egypt entered the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian Arab state the UN had imagined was never to be.
Summaries
http://www.ifcj.org/site/PageNavigator/sfi_about_history_british
http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_mandate_overview.php
http://www.merip.org/palestine-israel_primer/brit-mandate-pal-isr-prime.html
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Facts+About+Israel/Israel+in+Maps/British+Mandate.htm
www.aish.com/h/iid/48961161.html
Brief Descriptions
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/brigade.html
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/biltmore.html
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/paper39.html
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/Palestine_Mandate.html
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/balfour.html
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/Palestine_Mandate.html
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/weizmann.html
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/alpart.html
Comment
The Ottoman Empire was a vast one, and Israel – then known as Palestine – was a part of it from the beginning of the sixteenth century until the end of WWI, when the Ottoman Empire fell and Ottoman territories were split amongst the victors; Palestine (Israel) became a mandate of the British Empire in 1922. Mandate in this case means that Palestine (Israel) was supposed to be technically part of the British Empire, but provisionally recognized as independent until they proved able to self-govern. The British Mandate for Palestine included the areas now known as Israel, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and Jordan. England’s job here was to implement the Balfour Declaration of 1917 – a letter in which the British made public their support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine – but the British had also promised the Arabs their own autonomous area in Palestine, and failed to come through with their promise.
Arabs, the majority in the area, were angered that the British had not given them an independent Arab state. They were also opposed to the rising tide of European Jewish immigration, land purchases, and settlement in Palestine. Over 350,000 Jews immigrated to Palestine (Israel), and this number went up as anti-Semitism increased in the pre-WWII years. To smooth ruffled Arab feathers, the British placed quotas on Jewish immigration to Palestine (Israel), but this backfired and ended up amplifying Jewish-Arab unrest. In the summer of 1929, the infamous Hebron riots broke out.
The riots began as minor disputes over whether Jews should be allowed to pray at the Western Wall, as the Wall is holy to both Arabs and Jews and the Arabs resented the intrusion. Soon the minor disputes escalated into a full-scale massacre on both sides. 116 Arabs and 133 Jews died. The violence was encouraged by rumors that the Jews were defiling Islam holy places and mosques. The newly formed Israel guard force, Haganah, was able to hold back the tide of Arabs in Tel Aviv and Haifa, but other places were flooded; Hebron was actually purged of its Jews, and none dared to live there until the 1960s. The Haganah and the Irgun, which was created during WWII, together formed the basis of the modern-day Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
But during these same blood-covered years, great social, economic, and educational progress in Palestine (Israel) was made. In 1919, a centralized school system was established; in 1920, the Histadrut Labor Federation was founded, which organized the activities of Jewish workers and revved up the Jewish part of the economy; and the Technion and Hebrew University of Jerusalem were created.
In April of 1936, Arabs began protesting the spread of Zionism in Palestine (Israel) by boycotting Jewish products and demanding an end to Jewish immigration and a new representative government. Protests quickly turned into attacks, and only in August did the British respond – and only after the Arabs started attacked British citizens. Uneasy peace was held for a year, but the Peel Commission unintentionally restarted the violence.
The Peel Commission was a British committee whose aim was to find a long-term solution to the fighting between the Arabs and the Jews. It suggested freezing Jewish immigration at 12,000 per year for five years and thinking about a partition between the two countries, but the Arabs wanted all and nothing – all Jews gone from the area, and nothing could stop the Arabs from making that happen. The bloodshed began again, and by the time it tapered off in 1939, thousands on both sides had been killed, the numbers brought higher because of British involvement.
In 1939, the British called for a conference, known as the St. James conference, between Arabs and Jews to discuss their problems. Since the Arabs wouldn’t even meet directly with the Jews, and both parties refused to compromise, the British made up their own pro-Arab policy and issued it in the White Paper. As in so many other countries, the British decision turned out to be disastrous.
It made limitation on Jewish immigration permanent – little did the short-sighted British know that 6 million Jews could have used a place to flee in just a few years – and essentially broke every decree to support a Jewish state, including the actual Mandate, that England had ever made.
After WWII, the British ended the Mandate System in Palestine (Israel), and asked the United Nations (UN) to make the decision concerning the area, hoping that it would be unable to and would hand Palestine (Israel) back to the British. Over 1,000,000 Arabs and more than 600,000 Jews were living in the area at the time, and the UN decided that the only way to keep the peace between these volatile nations was to divide them. In 1947, the Partition Plan was adopted, which divided Palestine (Israel) into an Arab state, known as Palestine, and a Jewish state, known as Israel. Israel declared its independence in May of 1948.
But the Arab leaders in surrounding countries (Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq) invaded Israel immediately after it declared independence, in order to “save” Palestine from the Jews, and because the Arabs also didn’t want an Arab Palestine. The fighting was essentially equally matched until Israel received a shipment of arms from Czechoslovakia, which turned the tide of the war and led to Israel’s victory and subsequent conquest of areas outside the borders indicated in the Partition Plan.
In 1949, the first Arab-Israeli war ended with the signing of armistice agreements. Palestine was split into three separate parts; Jordan occupied East Jerusalem and the area now known as the West Bank; and Egypt entered the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian Arab state the UN had imagined was never to be.
Summaries
http://www.ifcj.org/site/PageNavigator/sfi_about_history_british
http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_mandate_overview.php
http://www.merip.org/palestine-israel_primer/brit-mandate-pal-isr-prime.html
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Facts+About+Israel/Israel+in+Maps/British+Mandate.htm
www.aish.com/h/iid/48961161.html
Brief Descriptions
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/brigade.html
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/biltmore.html
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/paper39.html
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/Palestine_Mandate.html
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/balfour.html
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/Palestine_Mandate.html
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/weizmann.html
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/alpart.html