ISRAEL vs. PALESTINE
PART 3
The Balfour Declaration and the British Mandate Period
Well, here we are, a Part 3 now, and as I have said before, I had no idea that this was going to be so many parts. In order to provide a better understanding of the situation, just too many moving parts and history to take a look at.
We have already visited some of the history of the region, looking at views from the Arab (aka Palestinians), and Jews. Part 3 is going to focus on the period of the Balfour Declaration and the time period of he British Mandate years. Why you may ask, there are some things that happened during this time that have helped shape the current situation we are seeing in Israel now.
As we all know, Israel/Palestine/Holy-land was part of the Ottoman Empire until the end of World War I and the dividing up of the region, between the French and the British. One of the agreements was the Balfour Declaration of 1918, which created the Mandate of Palestine and future home for the Jewish people.
This had been agreed on by the British, the League of Nations until Winston Churchill who was at the time was the Colonial Secretary, decided to sever some four fifths of the some 35,000 square miles and form a new Arab Country, Trans Jordan. A consolation prize for the Hejaz and Arabia people, which is now Saudi Arabia, going to th4 Saud Family. He then rewarded Sheriff Hussein son of Abdullah for his assistance against Turkey in the First World War, and installing him as Trans Jordan Emir.
The British went further and placed restrictions on Jewish land purchases in what remained of Palestine, contradicting the provision of the Mandate (Article 6) stating that “the Administration of Palestine . . . shall encourage, in cooperation with the Jewish Agency . . .close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not acquired for public purposes.” By 1949, the British had allot ted 87,500 acres of the 187,500 acres of cultivable land to Arabs and only 4,250 acres (2 percent) to Jews.2
Moshe Aumann, “Land Ownership in Palestine 1880–1948,” in Michael Curtis, et al., The Palestinians (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1975), 25.
Ultimately, the British admitted that the argument about the absorptive capacity of the country was specious. The Peel Commission said, “The heavy immigration in the years 1933–36 would seem to show that the Jews have been able to enlarge the absorptive capacity of the country for Jews.
Palestine Royal Commission Report (the Peel Report), (London: 1937), 300. Hence forth, Palestine Royal Commission Report.
So here with the above information, and map that the British were not keeping up the original deal
Emir Faisal, son of Sherif Hussein, the leader of the Arab revolt against the Turks, signed an agreement with Chaim Weizmann and other Zionist leaders during the 1919 Paris Peace Conference supporting the implementation of Balfour. It acknowledged the “racial kinship and ancient bonds existing between the Arabs and the Jewish people” and concluded that “the surest means of working out the consummation of their national aspirations is through the closest possible collaboration in the development of the Arab states and Palestine.” Furthermore, the agreement called for all necessary measures “ . . . to encourage and stimulate immigration of Jews into Palestine on a large scale, and as quickly as possible to settle Jewish immigrants upon the land through closer settlement and intensive cultivation of the soil.
Howard Sachar, A History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to Our Time (NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979), 129
Faisal had made a condition of his acceptance of the Balfour Declaration contingent of the independence of the Arabs, which was not kept. Seems that the British for whatever reason did not keep to the promise of Wartime Assurances.
During the 1920s, it was said that the Jewish population exploded, which is not true, in fact, the Jewish population declined during WW1. Well as we will see that the British, place restrictions on Jewish immigration while allowing unlimited immigration of the Arabs to the area. Seems that the Brits were appeasing the Arabs, why, I do not know. In fact, there is this further giving in to the Arabs
In the mid-1920s, Jewish immigration to Palestine increased primarily because of anti-Jewish economic legislation in Poland and Washington’s imposition of restrictive quotas.5 The record number of immigrants in 1935 (see table) was a response to the growing persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany. The British administration considered this number too large, however, so the Jewish Agency was informed that less than one-third of the quota it asked for would be approved in 1936.
Yehoshua Porath, Palestinian Arab National Movement, 1929–1939: From Riots to Rebellion, vol. 2 (London: Frank Cass and Co., Ltd., 1977), 17–18, 39
Also during this period, the British implemented further restrictions by restricting some 95% of land purchases by Jews there, further adding more frustration to the situation. I understand that the Arabs in surrounding countries, Egypt, Trans-Jordan, and Syria were in a sad state and miserable, but so were the Jews in Europe. I wonder, how many of those who were not able to seek refuge in Palestine, perished in the camps.
After the ending of World War II in Europe, the discovery of the Death Camps, and the large-scale attempt at the extermination of the Jews and others, one would think that the British would allow the survivors refuge there. That, however, was not the case. The gates to Israel/Palestine were closed. ON 6 June of 1946, President Truman urged the British to allow those in the DP Camps to immigrate there.
Britain’s foreign minister Ernest Bevin replied sarcastically that the United States wanted displaced Jews to immigrate to Palestine “because they did not want too many of them in New York
Hillel Cohen, Army of Shadows (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008), 15
However there were many that did make there, by being smuggled aboard barely seaworthy ships, just like the SS Exodus July, 1947
Between August 1945 and the establishment of the State of Israel in May 1948, sixty-five “illegal” immigrant ships, carrying 69,878 people, arrived from European shores. In August 1946, however, the British began to intern those they caught in camps on Cyprus. Approximately fifty thousand people were detained in the camps, twenty-eight thousand of whom were still imprisoned when Israel declared independence
George Lenczowski, American Presidents and the Middle East (NC: Duke University Press, 1990), 23. . Aharon Cohen, 174
During this time period, there are stories that with the arrival of the Jews, that they stole the land. Not true, a lot of the land that was purchased was land that was swamps and not cultivated by anyone. A lot of the land that was purchased was from absentee landlords who lived in Damascus and elsewhere who lost out when the Ottoman Empire fell.
I believe, and this is my thoughts, that with all of the promises that were either kept or not kept to all sides led to the confusion and confrontations between Arabs and Jews. Seems that the Brits were playing both sides against each other. Just my opinion.
From 1945 on, it seems that the heat was turned up and resulted in turbulent times. In the next part I will discuss these issues and hopefully some answers, or maybe even more questions.
If, you have not read my parts One and Two, here are the links for them.
I appreciate all who have stopped by and read these, I also like your replies and thank all of you.
Chuck Harrill
