These apprehensions occurred when Palestine had a majority of Arabs and few Jews. In 1914, Palestine’s population numbered 798,389, with 657,377 [82.33%] being Muslim, 81,012 [10.14%] Christian, and 60,000 [7.51%] Jewish (McCarthy, 1990, p. 26). Around the same time period, the number of Zionist colonies, mostly subsidized by the French philanthropist Baron Edmond de Rothschild and later by the World Zionist Congress, rose from 19 in 1900 to 47 in 1918 (Brice et al., 2019). Arab opposition to Zionism increased and was expressed in a variety of forums, such as Arabic newspapers ←17 | 18→and in statements by Palestinian representatives to the Ottoman Parliament (Farsoun & Aruri, 2006, pp. 51–52).
The outbreak of the First World War in 1914 witnessed intense Western penetration of the Middle East. During 1915–1916, Sir Henry McMahon, British High Commissioner in Cairo, corresponded with Sherif Hussein Ibn Ali of Mecca regarding Hussein’s assistance to the British war effort against the Ottoman Empire in exchange for British support of Hussein’s restoration of the Caliphate and Arab independence within set boundaries. Soon thereafter, the British and the French, as represented by the British Mark Sykes and the French Charles Georges-Picot, prepared a draft agreement on May 15–16, 1916, which divided parts of the Middle East into direct British control and influence (mainly in most of Iraq, the land of the Persian Gulf, and around the Jordan River), French control and influence (mainly Syria, Lebanon, and parts of Anatolia), and an international zone encompassing the area extending from Haifa to the south of Jerusalem in historic Palestine. Eighteen months later, specifically on November 2, 1917, Arthur James Balfour, the British Foreign Minister, sent a letter to Lord Walter Rothschild, the British banker, politician, scion of the Rothschild family, and a leading Zionist, which expressed British favor toward “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people ….” (Jewish Virtual Library, n.d., Balfour Declaration, para. 2). The 130-word letter, consisting of only 67 words, was written at a time when the British neither had jurisdiction over Palestine nor consulted with the overwhelming Arab majority. The Palestinian Arabs were not even mentioned by name and their political rights were ignored and overridden.
The disintegration of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the First World War and the contradictory Allied promises led to an uneasy British Mandate over Palestine (1920–1948). This was formally confirmed by the Council of the League of Nations on July 24, 1922, and entered into effect on September 29, 1923. In time, a “vicious” triangle evolved with the British at the top vertex and the Palestinian Arabs and Jews on either side of the base. The Palestinian Arabs blamed the British for being pro-Jewish; the Jews blamed the British for being unduly influenced by the Palestinian Arabs; the Palestinian Arabs and the Jews fought each other; and the British sometimes on the defensive but other times on the offensive, tried to keep law and order.
The Jews, led by the World Zionist Organization and the Jewish Agency, engaged in nation-building in order to implement the Zionist project. In addition to settling Jewish immigrants and purchasing more land, they built ←18 | 19→separate educational, political, religious, and social institution. They organized an underground defense force (the Haganah) in 1920, a national military organization (the Irgun) in 1931. Similarly, the Palestinian Arabs organized themselves during the 1920s into national, religious, and social groupings. Their goal was to withstand the Zionist onslaught and influence British mandatory policy in their favor. In the 1930s, the Palestine Arab Congress was replaced by the Arab Higher Committee and several organizations began to form, including the militant Istiqlal (Independence) Party and underground religious groups that fought the Zionists and the British. During this time, the Palestinian Arabs believed that they had a right to their state and it will naturally evolve.
In addition to force, the British often resorted to commissions to discover solutions to antagonism between the Palestinian Arabs and Jews. In September 1929, the British dispatched the (Sir Walter) Shaw Commission. Its report, issued in March 1930, cited Arab fears of persistent Jewish immigration and land purchases as the main cause. This was followed by the creation of the (Sir John) Hope Simpson Enquiry in May 1930, which focused on the issues of immigration, land settlement, and development. Its report, dated October 1, 1930, recommended limiting Jewish immigration based on the economic absorptive capacity of Palestine. The same day, the Passfield White Paper was also issued and recommended restricting Jewish immigration.
Incessant Jewish immigration, extremism, and local militia actions resulted in rivers of blood and tears in the 1930s, with the fully-fledged Arab Revolt of 1936–1939 being the most disastrous to Arab-Jewish relations and peacebuilding up until that time. The British established the (William) Peel Commission to examine the reasons for the strife, which it did in November 1936. In July 1937, the commission presented partition as the solution to the Arab-Jewish conflict. The Arab leadership, as represented by both the Arab Higher Committee and the National Defense Party, opposed the recommendation on the grounds that it violated the rights of the Arab population. The (Sir John) Woodhead Commission in 1938 gave further consideration to the Peel Commission proposal and found it to be impractical given the administrative, financial, and political obstacles in the way of partition. In 1939, the British issued a White Paper that rejected partition and the establishment of a Jewish state. The latter could only happen with Arab support. It opted instead for the creation of a Jewish national home in an independent Palestinian state within 10 years. It also restricted Jewish immigration into Palestine and the Jewish ability to buy Arab land.
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As the 1940s were nearing their end, the British, who had fulfilled their mission by enabling the creation of a “national home” for the Jewish people, could no longer manage the daily affairs of Palestine. They asked that what was entrusted to them by the League of Nations be turned over to its successor organization, the United Nations.
The UN acted with General Assembly Resolution 181(II) of November 29, 1947, which called for partitioning Palestine into an Arab state and a Jewish state, for an economic union between them, and for Jerusalem to be a corpus separatum—a separate entity under a special international regime. It passed with 33 votes in favor, 13 against, and ten abstentions. The Arabs rejected the resolution as the Palestinians among them constituted the great majority in Palestine (at least two-thirds of the population, with ownership of over 90% of the land) and did not want to witness their land and homes be taken away and given to the Jewish minority. Fighting erupted between Palestinian militias and Jewish forces.
As the British Mandate flag was lowered over Palestine, David Ben-Gurion—the Chair of the Jewish Agency for Palestine and the Executive Head of the World Zionist Organization— proclaimed the State of Israel on May 14, 1948. This pushed Arab forces from Egypt, Syria, Transjordan (later Jordan), Lebanon, and Iraq to invade. The ensuing war gave Israel the opportunity to acquire 78% of historic Palestine, 22% more than what was allocated to it under the Partition Resolution. The remaining territory ended up under Jordanian and Egyptian jurisdictions, with the former keeping East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and the latter retaining control of the Gaza Strip. During this time of conflict and war, more than 500 Palestinian villages were destroyed and 726,000 Palestinians fled because of fear or were ejected from their homes by the Jewish or Israeli forces and became dispossessed, with many ending up living in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria, or elsewhere. In December 1948, the UN General Assembly passed 194 (III), which resolved that “the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible” (UN General Assembly, 1948, para. 19).
The Arab states and Israel stood eyeball to eyeball. East Jerusalem and the West Bank ended up within Jordanian jurisdiction, and the Gaza Strip within Egyptian jurisdiction. Israel took the remainder of what was to become the ←20 | 21→Arab (Palestinian) state. Bombastic talk and misguided policies in adjacent Arab states and in Israel resulted in the June 1967 War. This war lasted only six days but it enabled Israel to quadruple its size