Palestine and the British Betrayal

In the late 1800’s a movement began to develop called Zionism. It was based on the general notion that Jews around the world should have their own homeland. It took decades for the idea to gain traction, but significant populations of Jews were suffering persecution at the hands of the communists and liked the idea of returning to their biblical roots — Israel. The problem, however, was that Israel no longer existed. The land that was Israel 2000 years ago became Palestine and in the early 20th century it was primarily occupied by Palestinian Arabs. Prior to WWI, all of the middle east was under Ottoman (Turkish) rule.

World War I extended into the Middle East and Great Britain was having difficulty fighting the Turks who were allied with Germany. The British High Commissioner in Egypt made a deal with the Sharif of Mecca in what was known as the McMahon–Hussein Correspondence. The letters comprised an agreement that if the Arabs would revolt against the Ottoman Empire in alliance with the United Kingdom, in return the UK would recognize Arab independence. Later, the 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement, between France and the United Kingdom, conspired to split and occupy parts of the already promised Arab territory. So, after betraying the Arabs, Great Britain took control of Palestine by virtue of the Sykes-Picot deal. Then, to complicate matters in 1917 Great Britain and the United States agreed to the Balfour Declaration, which intended to establish a national home for Jewish people in Palestine. To soften the blow, the declaration stated: “nothing should be done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine”.

From the beginning the plan was bitterly opposed by Arab leaders and by the Palestinian people who, for obvious reasons objected to the idea of a Jewish State or any significant immigration of Jews on to what was their land. Keep in mind that in 1917 Palestine, the Arab population was about ten times greater than the Jewish population. Therefore in 1918 the British government made assurances to the Arabs that no actions would be taken that would infringe on their economic, political rights or the self-determination of the existing population. Given that proviso, Britain was to facilitate the limited immigration of Jews into Palestine so long as the rights and position of other sections of the population were not prejudiced.

In 1920 Great Britain convinced the League of Nations to place Palestine under British control, known as the British Mandate for Palestine.

It should be noted that Great Britain was still an imperial power and as such really didn’t give too much thought or consideration to any of the indigenous populations under its authority.

For the next two decades Britain walked a fine line between the Jews who demanded unlimited immigration and the Arabs who wanted none. In 1936 the Arabs staged a revolt, followed by Zionist (Jewish) terrorist attacks. In 1939 Britain established a five-year plan limiting annual immigration to 15,000. The Jews responded by ignoring the ban and pursued illegal immigration; they also began an undeclared war of terror against Great Britain. The Jewish population of Palestine grew from about 50,000 at the end of WWI to 500,000 at the start of WWII and as many as 600,000 by 1948.

Persecutions in Eastern Europe and Germany sent wave after wave of new immigrants to Palestine, but during WWII the situation became more desperate as German and Polish immigrants were forced to flee or be slaughtered by the Nazis. Thousands of Jews were dying in overloaded boats that were either capsizing or being sunk by torpedoes. Tens of thousands were being detained or in hiding. The British were holding to their immigration ban and no other country would accept them as refugees.

It was against this backdrop that in the spring of 1942, Zionist leaders met in New York City at the Biltmore Hotel. 600 delegates in all, from 18 different countries were in attendance. The purpose of this conference was to notify the world of their intent to pursue the establishment of a Jewish National Home in Palestine, with or without British consent. Their goal was to go beyond the Balfour Declaration which merely approved restrictive immigration of Jews into Palestine. The Zionists were establishing their own Nation! While they did not outline specific borders, it is quite apparent that they intended to take as much of the Promised Land as possible. The declaration that resulted from the conference was for consumption by the United Nations in general and the United States in particular; promising to play nice with their Arab neighbors:

· Point 1: American Zionists assembled in this Extraordinary Conference reaffirm their unequivocal devotion to the cause of democratic freedom and international justice to which the people of the United States, allied with the other United Nations, have dedicated themselves, and give expression to their faith in the ultimate victory of humanity and justice over lawlessness and brute force.

· Point 5: In the new values thus created, their Arab neighbours in Palestine have shared. The Jewish people in its own work of national redemption welcomes the economic, agricultural and national development of the Arab peoples and states. The Conference reaffirms the stand previously adopted at Congresses of the World Zionist Organization, expressing the readiness and the desire of the Jewish people for full cooperation with their Arab neighbours.

· Point 8: The Conference declares that the new world order that will follow victory cannot be established on foundations of peace, justice and equality, unless the problem of Jewish homelessness is finally solved. The Conference urges that the gates of Palestine be opened; that the Jewish Agency be vested with control of immigration into Palestine and with the necessary authority for upbuilding the country, including the development of its unoccupied and uncultivated lands; and that Palestine be established as a Jewish Commonwealth integrated in the structure of the new democratic world.

I’m not sure if anyone at the time picked up on the inherent contradiction between democracy and the establishment of a Jewish Commonwealth. You see, at the time this declaration was written, the Arab population of Palestine was about 1,600,000 or double the Jewish population. And almost none of the Jews were indigenous to Palestine. The Zionists had left unsaid the obvious problem of being a democratic minority in a mostly Arab land.

The solutions were to first drive out the British and then expel the Arab majority; this meant first, terrorism and second, ethnic cleansing. The plan worked brilliantly, to drive out the British they needed to raise the costs of occupation beyond a level that was politically palatable. This included the bombings of police stations, trains, train stations, buses, marketplaces; an officer’s club and the British headquarters in the King David Hotel where 91 people were killed and 46 injured. They also kidnapped and murdered British personnel, most notoriously, was the 1944 assassination of Walter Edward Guinness, 1st Baron Moyne, who at the time was serving as the British minister of state in the Middle East. By 1947 the British had had enough; the long struggle against the Nazis, the constant attacks by Jewish terrorists; pressure from the United States to loosen immigration policies; and pressure from the Arabs, with whom they had promised to restrict Jewish immigration had all taken an unbearable toll; besides there was no oil or significant natural resources to exploit. Speaking of exploitation, Britain was playing the role of puppet-master in the politics of Iran, wishing to maintain complete control of its oil reserves.

The British ended their “Mandate” and turned Palestine over to the United Nations. The U.N. plan called for a partition of Palestine into relatively equal slices. The partition roughly divided areas that were majority Jewish and majority Arab. Jerusalem was to be an international city under U.N. control. At the time of the plan less than half of the land in Palestine was owned by Arabs, slightly less than half was owned by the British Crown, and only about 8% was owned by Jews or the Jewish Agency. In any case, the Arabs rejected the plan outright and the Jews only accepted the part that provided for the establishment of a Jewish State. The Assembly had no power to implement its resolution and the Security Council would assume none… so the plan was dropped.

The United States had a great amount of sympathy for the plight of Jews, particularly after six million had died as a result of the Holocaust. U.S. politicians were falling all over themselves in support of a Jewish State, not in small part from the growing influence of wealthy and powerful Jewish –Americans. The Truman Administration was skeptical. Both the Departments of State and Defense were adamantly against the creation of a Jewish State, believing it to be a potential source of great regional instability. Nevertheless, 1948 was a presidential election year and Harry Truman was expected to lose his office to Republican Thomas Dewey. Truman knew that antagonizing Jewish-American opinion-makers in an election year could spell defeat… So, on May 14, 1948 the British left Palestine; Israel declared its Independence, and it took Harry all of eleven minutes to officially recognize the new State of Israel! On November 2, 1948 Harry Truman was elected President of the United States in what is considered the greatest election upset in American history.