Britain in Palestine 1917-1948

Between 1917 and 1948, Britain controlled the area of the Middle East, then known as Palestine. This chapter of history was to have a profound effect on both Arabs and Jews. Yet most British people know little about it. This film is a simple outline of a very complex story. So what took Britain to Palestine in the first place? For centuries, the region had been ruled by the Ottoman Turks. But when the First World War broke out in 1914, the Turks allied with Britain's enemies, Germany, and the other central powers. Palestine and the Middle East were regarded as highly strategic to the British Empire because of oil, and also because the Suez Canal controlled the sea route to India. The Middle East was now under the control of Britain's enemies. So Britain considered it vital to defeat the Turks and gain control for the Allies. In 1917, General Allenby and his troops advanced across southern Palestine. And in December, they captured Jerusalem. By the following year, all of Palestine had come under British control. Her troops were to remain there for the next 30 years. As the First World War came to an end, Britain and France issued a proclamation promising that former subjects of the Ottoman Empire would be able to determine their own futures. Briefly, freedom was in the air. However, a different reality lay behind the words. Long before the end of the war, the Allies had been planning who would control the Ottoman Empire when the Turks were defeated. These conflicting plans are often referred to as the Contradictory Promises. Firstly, in October 1915, Sir Henry McMahon, British High Commissioner in Egypt, had promised the Arabs in the person of Sheriff Hussein of Mecca that they could have an independent Arab state after the war if they would rise up against their overlords, the Turks. Believing that they were fighting for their freedom, some Arabs joined the Allied war effort and, assisted by Lawrence of Arabia, helped the Allies drive the Turks from their lands. However, for the last hundred years there has been controversy over how McMahon's letter to Hussein should be interpreted. Did he implicitly include Palestine in the proposed independent Arab state or did he not? Many Arabs and senior British figures have consistently maintained that Palestine was included, while British governments since 1920 have argued that it was excluded. But meanwhile, Britain had become party to two further wartime agreements, both of which seem to contradict the undertaking to Hussein. In 1916, the secret Sykes-Picot agreement between Britain and France allocated what is now Syria and Lebanon to France and what is now Jordan and Iraq to Britain, whilst proposing to keep Palestine under international control. Then, a year later, Britain made yet another undertaking concerning Palestine. In November 1917, the British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour wrote to Lord Rothschild, a leader of the Jewish community, his majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people. It being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country. This promise became known as the Balfour Declaration. The idea that the Jewish people should be restored to the Holy Land so that biblical prophecies could be fulfilled had been promoted by some Christians since the 1600s. Then, from the 1890s, the idea of Zionism began to take hold amongst some Jews, as Theodor Herzl argued that the Jewish people needed a political homeland of their own if they were to escape the horrific anti-Semitic persecution that was rife particularly in Russia and Central Europe. By the early 1900s, Herzl's successor, Chaim Weizmann, saw Britain as the power with a global influence to make the Zionist goal a reality. So he set out to convince leading politicians that the Jewish people needed a homeland in Palestine, where they had deep spiritual and historical bonds. The Balfour Declaration was the result. Why did the War Cabinet respond to Zionist pressure in this way? Foreign Secretary Balfour was one of the highly placed Christians in British society who believed that the Jewish people should be restored to the Prime Minister Lloyd George, who also came from a restorationist background, dreamt of putting Israel back on the map. Yet, at the same time, there were strategic calculations for issuing the Balfour Declaration. At this desperate point in the European conflict, the War Cabinet hoped that the promise of a Jewish homeland would win the Allies the However, the British government did not consult the people then living in Palestine about its plans to create a Jewish homeland there. Ninety percent of the population of Palestine were Arabs, who lived together with a small Jewish community. Palestine had been predominantly Arab in culture and language for many centuries. Yet, in private, Balfour wrote, The Balfour Declaration simply stated that the civil and religious rights of the non-Jewish population should not be prejudiced. So when the war came to an end, how would all these complex undertakings work out in practice? As the Western powers met in Paris to negotiate the peace settlement, Sherif Hussein sent his son Faisal to make sure Britain's promise of independence for the Arabs was not forgotten. But instead, the newly formed League of Nations handed control of Palestine to Under the terms of the League of Nations' mandate for Palestine, Britain was required to implement the Balfour Declaration by supporting the creation of a Jewish national home, and at the same time to prepare the people of Palestine for eventual self-government. The League of Nations stated that mandatory powers held a sacred trust to ensure the well-being and development of people in their care. What happened to the other areas that Sherif Hussein anticipated would gain independence? Transjordan, now Jordan, was made an autonomous emirate under Hussein's son, Abdullah. In the same way, the new Kingdom of Iraq was given to his brother, Faisal. These were the rewards Hussein received for his loyalty to the British war effort, but they did not include Syria or Palestine. Angry Arab crowds soon massed in Jerusalem, denouncing the Balfour Declaration and demanding the self-determination that had been promised by Britain and France in 1918. Having made conflicting promises, Britain now had to face up to their consequences. She had created a contradiction. Just how unworkable this situation was, it took her thirty years to accept. Both communities, Jews and Arabs, believed they had been promised the land. As the Zionists swiftly began to implement their objectives, the Arabs were the first to conclude they had been deceived. Riots broke out in 1920. In 1921, there was even greater violence as Arabs attacked Jews and the British tried to regain order. After a period of relative calm, mutual suspicion between the Arab and Jewish communities flared up again in 1929, and rapidly escalated into mob violence with horrific consequences. 133 Jews and 116 Arabs were killed. Britain's response was slow and inadequate. Calm was finally restored by a show of British force. Meanwhile, the Jewish community was forging ahead under the umbrella of the British mandate, securing major economic concessions and establishing its own elected assembly and institutions of government. The Arab majority, on the other hand, felt left behind economically and politically. To be granted democratic representation, they were effectively required to accept the Balfour Declaration. But the Arabs rejected this, fearing that a Jewish national home would lead to the creation of a Jewish state in their land. For their part, the British feared that an elected Arab majority would oppose Jewish demands for land and immigration. And so they held back the democratic progress they were supposed to foster under the mandate. Britain was upholding the first part of the declaration, to establish a home for the Jewish people. But the second undertaking in the declaration, to protect the rights of the Arab population, proved to be hollow. Arab alarm grew still further in the 1930s, when increasing numbers of Jews sought sanctuary in Palestine, as the spectre of anti-Semitism grew in Nazi Germany. As more and more land passed into Jewish hands, the sense of Arab dispossession grew. By May 1936, Palestine was in open rebellion. And it was not just Jewish communities who were being attacked, it was the British too. Increasingly losing control, the British authorities resorted to ruthless methods to put down the revolt, including hangings, house demolitions, and the use of civilians as human shields. For a period, British and Jewish men fought the Arabs jointly in a counter-insurgency force known as the Special Night Squads. By 1939, the rebellion was suppressed, leaving the Palestinian leadership weakened for years to come. To try to address the underlying deadlock between Arabs and Jews, London had responded with a succession of inquiries and commissions through the 1930s. Their dilemma was that any attempt to placate one community would provoke the anger of the other. At a loss for a solution, the Peel Commission of 1937 proposed to partition Jews and Arabs into two states. But Arab opinion, led by the vehemently anti-Zionist Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husseini, denounced any idea of conceding territory to Jews as unthinkable. However, as Europe slid towards war, the British government changed course. A government white paper of 1939 abandoned partition and proposed that in 10 years Palestine would become independent, representatively governed by Arabs and Jews. Controls were now put in place over how many Jews could immigrate to Palestine, and how much land could pass into Jewish hands. For the first time, Arabs were to be given a say over Jewish immigration. The reason Neville Chamberlain's government swung in favour of Arab opinion at this point was the prospect of war. London feared that in a global conflict, the Arab world might turn against Britain, whilst the support of Jews would be guaranteed in view of their persecution by the Nazis. Jewish opinion immediately condemned the white paper as an act of British betrayal and a retreat from the Balfour Declaration. There was fury that Jewish people would be restricted from finding sanctuary at their hour of greatest need. Nevertheless, Britain upheld the limits on Jewish immigration into Palestine, right through the war. As refugees fleeing the course were arrested trying to enter Palestine, or were even sent back to Germany, as in the case of the exodus, the Jewish community turned against Britain and the mandate. Sections of Jewish opinion became increasingly militant and violent, and Britain suffered heavy losses from terrorist atrocities. In February 1947, Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin stated that Britain was referring responsibility for the Palestinian problem to the United Nations. By September, as the situation continued to worsen, Britain announced that she would terminate her mandate for Palestine in May 1948. The UN solution to the Palestine problem was partition, but this was again rejected by the As British forces beat an ungainly retreat, and the mandate came to an end, partition was abandoned, leading Jews and Arabs to an undeclared war for domination. On the 14th of May 1948, Israel declared itself a state, and was immediately recognized by America. The events of this time are known to some as the War of Independence, and to others as the Nakba, or the Catastrophe, when about 60% of the Palestinian population became refugees, as they fled or were expelled. Today's conflict between Israelis and Palestinians had begun. Britain's direct involvement in Palestine ended in 1948. But how should British people today respond to the story of Britain in Palestine?