User talk:Ashley kennedy3/Archive. Hist IP conflict

Arthur James Balfour. As Foreign Secretary, he issued the Balfour Declaration in 1917 as drafted by Lord Alfred Milner which supported the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine and protected the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities.

The History of the conflict in Palestine gives an overview from the end of the eighteenth century to the cessation of major European involvement with the termination of the British mandate in Palestine in 1948 and the concluding Arab-Israeli war. Major European Powers involvement in Palestine began with Napoleon's invasion, British annexation of Egypt and the Sinai, creeping Europeanisation and saw the birth of the two conflicting Nationalist ideologies of Zionism and Palestinian Nationalism with mutually exclusive claims to the area called Palestine (Arz-i Filistin) by the Ottomans and Palestinians and Land of Israel (Eretz Yisrael) by Israelis. With the final fiasco of the Suez Crisis.

Origins

In August 1797, in a letter to the Directory, Napoleon Bonaparte proposed a military expedition to seize Egypt, then a province of the Ottoman Empire, seeking to protect French trade interests and undermine Britain's access to India. European reports on the topography, population and natural resources of Palestine were at best fragmentary.

On 1 August 1798, the British fleet under Horatio Nelson captured or destroyed all but two French vessels in the Battle of the Nile and Napoleon's goal of a strengthened French position in the Mediterranean Sea was frustrated. Napoleon's army nonetheless succeeded in a temporary increase of French power in Egypt, though it faced repeated uprisings. In early 1799, Napoleon moved the French army into the vilâyet (province) of Damascus (Syria and Galilee). Bonaparte led a force of 13,000 soldiers in the conquest of the coastal towns of Arish, Gaza, Jaffa. The attack on Jaffa was particularly brutal: Napoleon, on discovering many of the defenders were former Turkish prisoners of war, ostensibly on parole, ordered the garrison and 1,400 prisoners to be executed by bayonet or drowning to save bullets. The city was pillaged over the course of three days. Napoleon moved north taking Haifa and the Jezreel Valley afterwards laid siege to Acre. al-Jazzar's troops refused to surrender and withstood the siege for one and a half months. A British naval force under the command of Admiral Sidney Smith came to Acre's defence. An artillery expert from the fleet, Antoine DePhelipoux, was able to redeploy artillery pieces, which the British had intercepted from the French at sea, against Napoleon's forces. After the failed assault on Acre Napoleon's forces headed south making camp at al-Tantura on May 21, 1799. Napoleon abandoned Palestine for Egypt, as a plague swept through Ramla Napoleon's Headquarters.

General Kléber defeated the Turkish force in Egypt at Heliopolis on 29 March 1800, he then brutally put down an Egyptian uprising in the Nile Delta and razed Cairo. In 1801 British and Ottoman forces arrived to drive the French forces out of Egypt. In 1805 Muhammad Ali, in command of a Battalion of Albanian mercenaries, was able to gain public support in expelling both the Mamluks and the unpopular Ottoman governor of Egypt. Ali was then proclaimed Wāli (governor) of Egypt by Sultan Salim III. The British temporarily occupied Alexandria on 17 March 1807, with a force of 5000 men (also temporarily gaining control of the ports of Suakin and Massawa on the Red Sea) only to be caught in an ambush at Rosetta and driven from Egypt.

Wāli Ali consolidated his power, favouring a style of autocratic despotism in his rule based on a European organisation of bureaucracy. Like other rulers of Egypt before him, Wāli Ali desired to control Bilad al-Sham (the Levant), both for its strategic value and for its rich natural resources. Wāli ambitions stemmed from his early years as Egypt's unofficial ruler. Not only did Syria have abundant natural resources, it also had a thriving international trading community with well developed markets throughout the Levant. In addition, it would be a captive market for the goods now being produced in Egypt. More importantly, Syria was desirable because it would serve as a buffer state between Egypt and the Ottoman Sultan.

A new fleet and army was built and raised, and on October 31, 1831, under Ibrahim Pasha, Wāli Ali's eldest son, the Egyptian invasion of Syria initiated the First Turko-Egyptian War. For the sake of appearance on the world stage, the pretext for the expedition was a quarrel with Abdullah Pasha of Acre. The Wāli Ali alleged that 6,000 fellahin had fled to Acre to escape the draft, corvée, and taxes, and he wanted them back. Ibrahim Pasha advanced through Palestine occupying Haifa in December 1831 using the city as a main military base.

With the annexation of Jerusalem by Wāli Ali in 1831, foreign missions and consulates began to establish a foothold in the city. In 1836, Ibrahim Pasha allowed Jerusalem's Jewish residents to restore four major synagogues, among them the Hurva. In the 1840s and 1850s, the international powers began a tug-of-war in Palestine as they sought to extend their protection over the country's religious minorities, a struggle carried out mainly through consular representatives in Jerusalem.

Conscription of ordinary subjects was part of Wāli Ali modernisation policies, traditionally soldiers were loot-seekers, mercenaries, slaves or members of a military caste, this led to the Palestinian Arab revolt of 1834. Baruch Kimmerling and Joel S. Migdal consider the 1834 Palestinian Arab revolt as constituting the first formative event of the Palestinian people. Under the Ottomans, Palestine's Arab population mostly saw themselves as Ottoman subjects. The revolt was precipitated by popular resistance against heavy demands for conscripts, as peasants were well aware that conscription was little more than a death sentence. Starting in May 1834 the rebels took many cities, among them Jerusalem, Hebron and Nablus. In response, Ibrahim Pasha sent in an army, finally defeating the last rebels on 4 August in Hebron. Nevertheless, Benny Morris argues that the Palestinian Arabs remained part of a larger Pan-Islamic or Pan-Arab national movement.

In 1838 the Sublime Porte felt strong enough to renew the struggle, and war broke out once more. Ibrahim won his last victory for his father, Wāli Ali, at Nezib on June 24, 1839. But the United Kingdom and the Austrian Empire intervened to preserve the integrity of the Ottoman Empire. Their squadrons cut his communications by sea with Egypt and a general revolt isolated him in Syria. Ibrahim Pasha was finally compelled to evacuate Syria in February 1841.

The al-Husayni clan were a major force in rebelling against Wāli Ali's governance of Palestine from Egypt. The al-Husayni clan's aid to the Ottoman Empire solidified a cooperative relationship with the returning Ottoman authority. The clan took part in fighting the Qaisi tribe in an alliance with a rural lord of the Jerusalem area Mustafa Abu Ghosh, who clashed with the tribe frequently.

In the 1860s, new neighborhoods began to go up outside the Old City walls of Jerusalem to house pilgrims, relieve the intense overcrowding and poor sanitation inside the city. The Russian Compound and Mishkenot Sha'ananim were founded in 1860.

In the 1880s, the Ottomans controlled Palestine and called it the Arz-i Filistin (Land of Palestine). Towards the end of the 19th century, Palestine and the area beyond was inhabited predominantly by Arab Muslims, Bedouin (principally in the Negev and Jordan valley) with smaller numbers of Christians (predominantly Arab), Druze, Circassians and Jews (predominantly Sephardic).

In the late nineteenth century most Jews lived outside Palestine, having migrated during the Jewish diaspora, predominantly in eastern and central Europe.

A large military demonstration in September 1881 forced the Khedive Tewfiq to dismiss his Prime Minister. In April 1882 France and Great Britain sent warships to Alexandria to bolster the Khedive amidst a turbulent climate, spreading fear of invasion throughout the country. Tawfiq moved to Alexandria for fear of his own safety as army officers led by Ahmed Urabi began to take control of the government. By June Egypt was in the hands of Egyptian nationalists opposed to European domination of their country. A British naval bombardment of Alexandria had little effect on the opposition which led to the landing of a British expeditionary force at both ends of the Suez Canal in August 1882. The British succeeded in defeating the Egyptian Army at Tel El Kebir in September and took control of the country putting Tawfiq back in control. The purpose of the invasion had been to restore political stability to Egypt under a government of the Khedive and international controls which were in place to streamline Egyptian financing since 1876. It is unlikely that the British expected a long-term occupation from the outset, however Lord Cromer, Britain's Chief Representative in Egypt at the time, viewed Egypt's financial reforms as part of a long-term objective. Cromer took the view that political stability needed financial stability, and embarked on a programme of long term investment in Egypt's productive resources, above all in the cotton economy, the mainstay of the country's export earnings.

Ottoman policy makers in the late 19th century were apprehensive of the growing penetration into the region by Russian and the central European powers, through intrusion of émigrés from the Russian Empire who were principally loyal to Russia. The reason being it followed the dismantling of Ottoman authority in the Balkan region. The initial hostility, in the 1880s, to Jewish immigration was on the grounds of them being Russian and European, not as Jews, it was seen as a threat to the cultural make-up of the region. The significance, to the region, of the anti-Jewish riots (pogroms) in Russia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and anti-immigration legislation being enacted in Europe was that a number of Russian Jews emigrated to Palestine. The Palestinian Arab protests against land purchases (mainly Jewish) led to the Ottoman authorities banning land sales to foreigners (who were principally European Jews of the first aliyah, Jewish immigration to Palestine) in 1892 as the extent of the various Zionist enterprises became apparent. The prohibition against land purchases by foreigners was more stringently adhered to in the Vilâyet of Beirut (covering northern Palestine) whereas in the Jerusalem area the land purchase regulations were not strictly enforced.

In the late 19th century the Jewish Colonization Association (ICA), founded by Baron Maurice de Hirsch, sought to create settlements in Palestine. In 1899 Edmond Rothschild transferred the titles to his colonies in Palestine as well as fifteen million francs to the ICA, that was reorganized as the Palestine Jewish Colonization Association (PICA) later in 1924. The PICA ran plantations using felaheen(cheap Palestinian Arab labour ). The working relationship between Jewish foremen and felaheen labour was in general functional but strained at times, however, there was minimal social interaction between the groups. The Jewish community (both old Yishuv and new Yishuv) always had a general sense of threat, that significantly increased in the early 20th century when Zionists attempted to develop an economy based on socialist principles. The communities were designed to resemble a Jewish proletariat and agrarian societies as previously proposed by Moses Hess. The Conquest through labour (kibush haavodah) philosophy of Aaron Gordon diverged from the colonialist mentality of the ICA plantations and during the second and third Aliya (Jewish immigration to Palestine) encouraged hiring of Jewish workers (avoda ivrit), blocking the hiring of felaheen. During the third Aliya the General Federation of Labour Union (Histadrut) replaced the old Agricultural Workers' Union and was formed under the influence of the Amlanim and Menora groups as part of the Nationalist Zionist and egalitarian socialist movements. The Histadrut was an all-Jewish union for the protection of Jewish workers rights.

Sultan Abdul Hamid II initiated a policy of sending members of his own palace staff to govern the mutasarrifiyah (District) of Jerusalem. The growing weakness and instability of the Ottoman Empire in the last years of the 19th century led to intervention by Central European powers precipitating its final collapse after World War I. During WWI the British cultivated Arab nationalism as a way of weakening the hold of the Ottoman authority in the Revolt in the Desert to open a middle east front against the Ottoman-German Alliance. The possible future of the Middle East was discussed in a protracted series of correspondence from July 14, 1915 up to January 30, 1916 between the Sharif of Mecca, Husayn bin Ali, and Sir Henry McMahon known as the McMahon-Hussein Correspondence. On the basis of the correspondence Sharif Hussein proclaimed Arab independence from Ottoman rule. The dismantling of the Ottoman Empire removed most of its territory beyond modern Turkey, with Iraq, Jordan and Palestine taken by the British and Syria by France.

The First Zionist Congress of the Zionist Organization (later renamed the World Zionist Organization, WZO), opened in Basel, Switzerland, in 1897. With Theodor Herzl as president, The 204 delegates to the congress adopted a programme calling for "a publicly recognized home for the Jewish people in Palestine". A flag and national anthem, the Hatikvah ("The Hope") is adopted by the congress. In reaction to the First Zionist Conference the Arabic press, The Cairo journal "Al-Manar", warns that Zionism aims to take possession of Palestine. The Second Zionist Congress, in 1898, authorised the incorporation of the Jewish Colonial Trust (Juedische Colonialbank, founded 1899), the founder share was held by the WZO, with the objectives of aiding settlement and a Hebrew cultural revival in Palestine. After the congress Herzl gained an audience with the German Kaiser Wilhelm while the Kaiser was in Constantinople, during meeting Herzl asked for his personal intervention with the Abdul Hamid and for the formation of a chartered company under German protection. The Kaiser was at first amenable to the suggestion as it raised the prospect of removing Jews from Germany, but he soon lost interest in the project.

The British sought Chaim Weizmann's aid in the production of Acetone. Acetone was used in the manufacture of cordite explosive propellants critical to the Allied war effort. Weizmann transferred the rights to the manufacture of acetone to the Commercial Solvents Corporation in exchange for royalties.. In 1917, Weizmann worked with Alfred Milner through Walter Rothschild to draft the Balfour Declaration. The Secretary of State for India and the only Jewish member of the British Cabinet, Edwin Montagu opposed the Foreign Office issuing the letter. Weizmann was credited later with persuading Balfour that a Jewish homeland should be established in Palestine. The support from Prime-Minister Lloyd-George for Zionism led to foreign minister, Lord Balfour issuing the Balfour Declaration of 1917, stating that the British Government "view[ed] with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people" and it was "clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine."

The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) or more simply "The Joint" was founded in 1914 by Henry Morgenthau, Sr., then American ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, to coordinate the distribution of charity from several Jewish organisations, Morgenthau also requested funds from Louis Marshall and Jacob H. Schiff. The charity was to alleviate famine among Palestinian Jews who had been displaced during WWI. Both the Yishuv and Palestinian nationalism were under threat with the arrival of the ardent Turkish nationalist Djemal Pasha as commander of the Ottoman 4th Army in Damascus. Djemal Pasha ordered the expulsion of all foreign Jews from Palestine in December 1914. International pressure from Turky's ally Germany and the still neutral United States soon had the order rescinded but not before several thousand Russian Jews had been expelled.

The Zionist commission was authorised to advise the British on policy decisions that would affect the Jewish community of Palestine in 1918.

Palestinian Nationalism

See also: Palestinian nationalism

The collapse of the Ottoman Empire was accompanied by an increasing sense of Arab identity in the Empire's Arab provinces, most notably Syria, then considered to include both Palestine and Lebanon. This development is often seen as connected to the wider reformist trend known as "al-Nahda" (sometimes called "the Arab renaissance"), which in the late 19th century brought about a redefinition of Arab cultural and political identities with the unifying feature of Arabic.

While Arab nationalism, at least in an early form, and Syrian nationalism were the dominant tendencies along with continued loyalty to the Ottoman state, Palestinian politics was marked by a reaction to Zionism. Zionist ambitions were increasingly identified as a threat by Palestinian leaders. Cases of land purchases by Zionist settlers and the eviction of feleheen that followed, aggravated the issue. This anti-Zionist trend became linked to anti-British resistance, to form a nationalist movement quite particular and separate from the pan-Arab trend that was gaining strength in the Arab world, and would later be headed by Nasser, Ben Bella and other anticolonial leaders.

The Husaynis later led resistance and propaganda movements against the Young Turks who controlled the Ottoman Empire and more so against the British Mandate government and early Zionist immigrants.

The High Commissioner of Palestine established a Supreme Moslem Sharia Council, to have authority over all the Moslem Waqfs and Sharia Courts in Palestine on 20th December, 1921. The members of the Council were elected by an electoral college and appointed Hajj Amin as president of the Council with the powers of employment over all Muslim officials throughout Palestine.

The Nashashibi family had particularly strong influence in Palestine during the British Mandate Period from 1920 until 1948. Throughout this period, they competed with the Husaynis, for dominance of the Palestinian Arab political scene. As with other "Notable" families their lack of identification with the Palestinian Arab population allowed them to rise as leaders but not as representatives of the Palestinian Arab community. The views of these two families largely shaped the divergent political stances of all Palestinian Arabs at the time. The Nashashibi family was led by Raghib Nashashibi, who was appointed by Ronald Storrs as Mayor of Jerusalem in 1920, replacing Mousa Kazzim after the Nabi Musa riots. Raghib was an influential political figure throughout the British Mandate period, and helped form the Palestinian Arab National Party in 1928 and the National Defence Party in 1934. He also served as a minister in the Jordanian government, governor of the West Bank, member of the Jordanian Senate, and the first military governor in Palestine.

Zionism

See also: Zionism

The Territorialist movement within the Jewish community that advocated the creation of a Jewish state split early on into pro Zionism and anti-Zionism. Zionists maintained that Jews had a right to a Jewish state in their historic homeland.

Modern Zionism addressed Jewish fears as well as aspirations. Nachman Krochmal (1785-1840) and Peretz Smolenskin (1842-1885) were among the many influential Jewish figures at the time who contributed to the build-up of Zionism as an ideology and a major component of Jewish identity. Krochmal attempted to establish the idea of peoplehood and emphasised the centrality of Jewish nationhood being the healthy environment that enabled the Jews throughout their history to contribute their wealth of knowledge and values to humanity. Smolenskin developed this argument and "strongly supported Jewish settlement in Palestine in his later years.....{and} began to assert that the genius of the Jewish people required for its full development the restoration to the Jews of the land that 'once was and still is our own.'" Others like Rabbi Judah Alkalai (1798-1878) called for the founding of Jewish colonies in Palestine also for the "revival of spoken Hebrew; breaking with orthodox tradition, which viewed the language as a sacred tongue inappropriate for everyday life, he insisted that a common use of Hebrew was the key to re-establishing unity among the Jews." Zvi Hirsch Kalischer (1795-1874), moreover, asserted himself with the view of Jews' right of national self-determination. He wrote in Seeking Zion (1862), "Let us take to heart the examples of the Italians, Poles, and Hungarians, who laid down their lives and possessions in the struggle for national independence, while we, the Children of Israel, who have the most glorious and holiest of lands as our inheritance, are spiritless and silent. We should be ashamed of ourselves." 1882 Leon Pinsker publishes pamphlet Autoemancipation urging the Jewish people to strive for independence and national consciousness.

Herzl, a journalist reporting for the Viennese newspaper Neue Freie Presse, was highly integrated into the Western Christian culture and with little Jewish education and had little interest in Jewish issues. But rising anti-Semitism attracted his attention, and he published The New Ghetto, "a play in which his diminishing faith in assimilation is expressed. One of the play's central characters is told that the Jews will never achieve total equality, no matter how educated and emancipated they might become: 'When there was a real ghetto, we were not allowed to leave it without permission, on pain of severe punishment. Now the walls and barriers have become invisible....Yet we are still rigidly confined to a moral ghetto. Herzl concluded that creation of a Jewish state in Palestine was the only viable and permanent solution to the problem of the Jews; and after reaching this conclusion, he immediately sought audiences with wealthy Jews who he hoped would assist in the creation of his proposed state." The World Zionist Organisation was founded in 1897 by Herzl and declared that the aim of Zionism was to establish 'a national home for the Jewish people secured by public law'. Zionism gained adherents amongst Polish and Russian Jews as a consequence of pogroms in the Russian Empire in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The early tendency towards economic self sufficiency of the Kibbutzim movement soon evaporated, as a rational division of labour and trading between the kibbutz became the norm.

After Word War 1, Ze'ev Jabotinsky was elected to the first legislative assembly in Palestine, and in 1921, he was elected to the executive council of the World Zionist Organization. He quit the latter group in 1923, however, due to differences of opinion between him and its chairman, Weizmann, and established the new revisionist party called Alliance of Revisionists-Zionists and its youth movement, Betar (a Hebrew acronym for the "League of Joseph Trumpeldor"). His new party demanded that the Zionist movement recognize as its objective the establishment of a Jewish state along both banks of the Jordan River. His main goal was to establish a modern Jewish state with the help and aid of the British Empire. His philosophy contrasted with the socialist oriented Labor Zionists, in that it focused economic and social policy on the ideal of the Jewish Middle class in Europe. An Anglophile, his ideal for a Jewish state was a variety of nation state based loosely on the British imperial model, whose waning self-confidence he deplored. His support base was mostly located in Poland, and his activities focused on attaining British support to help in the development of the Yishuv. Another area of major support for Jabotinsky was Latvia, when his fiery speeches in Russian made an impression on the largely Russian-speaking Latvian Jewish community.

Attitudes to the establishment of a Jewish Homeland changed during and following World War II. In May, 1942, the Biltmore Program proclaimed a fundamental departure from traditional Zionist policy of a “homeland” with its demand "that Palestine be established as a Jewish Commonwealth." Opposition to official Zionism’s firm, unequivocal stand caused some prominent Zionists, Judah Magnes and Brit Shalom to establish their own party, Ichud (Unification), which advocated an Arab – Jewish Federation in Palestine. Opposition to the Biltmore Program also led to the founding of the anti-Zionist American Council for Judaism. The Nazi genocide of during World War II, where approximately six million Jews were murdered, enhanced international support for the creation of a Jewish state.

Christian Zionism

See also: Christian Zionism, Templers (religious believers), and Crusaders

From the late 18th century Palestine was increasingly the destination for geographical surveys looking for the Biblical associations in the Holy Land. Some Christian Zionist ideas favoured the restoration of the Jews in the Palestine, these had entered the British public discourse in the 19th century, though British reformationists had written about the restoration of the Jews as early as the 16th century, and the idea had strong support among Puritans. Not all such attitudes were favourable towards the Jews; they were shaped in part by a variety of Protestant beliefs, or by a streak of philo-Semitism among the classically educated British elite, or by hopes of Imperial expansionism.

John Adams wrote to Modechai Noah on 15 March 1819 “I really wish the Jews again in Judea an independent nation. For as I believe the most enlightened men of it have participated in the amelioration of the philosophy of the age, once restored to an independent government [and] no longer persecuted they would soon wear away some of the asperities and peculiarities of their character [and] possibly in time become liberal Unitarian Christians for your Jehovah is our Jehovah [and] your God of Abraham Isaac [and] Jacob is our God.”

International interest in Palestine, stimulated by French and British military adventures in the region, led to Palestine becoming part of the Grand Tour, with Benjamin Disraeli visiting in 1830. People associated with the evangelical movement made pilgrimages to Palestine in an effort to connect the Locus of sacred events and read the terrain as illustrations to the book. The travelogues of American and Europeans visiting Palestine, such as Mark Twain's The Innocents Abroad, portrayed the area as primitive and backward and only needing the redemption by Europeans. The British sponsored Palestine Exploration Fund, founded in 1865, carried out surveys of the topography and ethnography sending back reports on the need to salvage and modernise Palestine. Although British military surveyors had been conducting surveys in Jerusalem from 1864.

Some of the early American Christian Zionist settlements, such as George Adam's failed Sorona settlement and the American colony in Jerusalem, were to prepare a way for future Jewish settlement in Palestine. In 1917 David Ben-Gurion praised the Christian settlers for introducing modern farming methods into Ottoman Palestine.

The Templars built the first modern planned agricultural community in Ottoman Palestine. The Templars were a Christian sect who broke away from the Protestant Lutheran church and encouraged their members to settle in the Holy Land to prepare for Messianic salvation. The Templars were part of a wider Christian redemption of the Holy Land movement that had first started in the Crusades. Christoph Hoffmann and Georg David Hardegg from Wurttemberg, Germany, established the German colony of Templars at the foot of Mount Carmel, Haifa in 1868 after purchasing the land. The arrival of the Templars was seen as a further stage in the Europeanisation of a Muslim land. In 1873, after establishing further colony of Sarona near Jaffa on land vacated by an American settlement of Messianic colonists, members of the Templars sect settled on a large tract of land in the Refaim Valley, southwest of the Old City of Jerusalem. The land was purchased by one of the colonists, Matthaus Frank, from the Palestinian Arabs of Beit Safafa. They built their homes in the style to which they were accustomed in Germany - farmhouses of one or two stories, with slanting tiled roofs and shuttered windows, but using local materials such as Jerusalem stone instead of wood and bricks. Employing modern farming methods, the Templars introduced soil fertilization, better methods of crop rotation and new crops such as potatoes. They imported agricultural machinery and engaged in "mixed farming," combining dairy farming and field crops. Farming techniques that were then taught to Jewish settlers who began to arrive later in the first Aliyah.

Jewish immigration

Initially, the trickle of Jewish immigration emerging in the 1880s met little opposition from the local population, even though by 1914 the population of Jews in Palestine had risen to 60,000, with around 33,000 of these being recent settlers. Between 1919 and 1926, 90,000 immigrants arrived in Palestine because of the growth of anti-Semitism, such as in the Ukraine where 100,000 Jews were killed. This notable increase caused Palestinian Arab resentment of British policies on Jewish immigration. Zionist agencies legally purchased land from absentee landlords, such as the Jezreel Valley from the Sursuk family of Beirut, and replaced the fellahin tenants with European Jewish settlers which caused the palestinian Arabs to feel dispossessed.

The Mufti

See also: Hajj Mohammad Amin al-Husseini

Mohammad Amin al-Husayni

The British and Sherifian armies conquered Ottoman-controlled Palestine and Syria in 1918 with Palestinian Arab recruits also taking part in the offensive against the Turks, alongside Jewish troops. As a Sherifian officer, Hajj Amin recruited men to serve in Faisal bin Al Hussein Bin Ali El-Hashemi's army during the Arab Revolt, a task he undertook while employed as a recruiter by the British military administration in Jerusalem and Damascus. The post-war Palin Report noted that the English recruiting officer, Captain C.D.Brunton, found Hajj Amin, with whom he cooperated, very pro-English, and that, via the diffusion of War Office pamphlets dropped from the air promising them peace and prosperity under English rule, 'the recruits (were) being given to understand that they were fighting in a national cause and to liberate their country from the Turks'.

In 1919, Hajj Amin attended the Pan-Syrian Congress held in Damascus where he supported Emir Faisal for King of Syria. That year Hajj Amin, his brother Fakhri Al Husseini, Ishaaq Darweesh, Ibrahim Darweesh, Jameel Al-Husseini, Aref al-Aref, Sheikh Hassan Abu Al-So’oud and Kamel al-Budeiri founded the pro-British Jerusalem branch of the Syrian-based El-Nadi al-arabi ('Arab Club'), which then vied with the Nashashibi-sponsored Al-Muntada al-Adabi ('Literary Club') for influence over public opinion, and Hajj Amin soon became its President. At the same time Hajj Amin wrote articles for the Suriyya al-Janubiyya (Southern Syria). The paper was published in Jerusalem beginning in September 1919 by the lawyer Muhammad Hassan al-Budayri, and edited by Aref al-Aref, both prominent members of al-Nadi al-'Arabi.

After 1920, Hajj Amin became a focus of Palestinian opposition to Zionism. In 1921, the British made him Mufti of Jerusalem. The Hajj Amin stirred religious passions against Jews by alleging that Jews were seeking to rebuild the Jewish Temple on the site of the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque and responded by trying to gain control of the Wailing Wall (the al-Buraq al-Sharif or Kotel), saying that it was a sacred Muslim site.

Until late 1921, Hajj Amin focused his efforts on Pan-Arabism and the ideology of the Greater Syria in particular, with Palestine understood as a southern province of an Arab state whose capital was to be established in Damascus. Greater Syria was to include the territories of modern Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestinian National Authority and Israel. The struggle for Greater Syria collapsed after Britain ceded control over present day Syria and Lebanon to France in July 1920 in accordance with the prior Sykes-Picot Agreement. The French army entered Damascus at that time, overthrew King Faisal and put an end to the project of a Greater Syria.

Hajj Amin, like many of his class and period, then turned from Damascus-oriented Pan-Arabism to a specifically Palestinian ideology centred on Jerusalem, which sought to block Jewish immigration to Palestine. The frustration of pan-Arab aspirations lent an Islamic colour to the struggle for independence, and increasing resort to the idea of restoring the land to Dar al-Islam.

In the mid 30s the Hajj Amin, aided by Jewish backing, replaced Rahgib Nashashibi as mayor of Jerusalem.

In 1936, as Europe was preparing for war, the Supreme Muslim Council in Palestine, led by the Hajj Amin, instigated an Arab uprising which lasted for three years and significantly changed British attitudes. During the revolt, the Mufti was forced to flee to Iraq, where he was involved in a pro-Nazi coup during which the Jewish areas of Baghdad were subjected to a pogrom. In May 1941 Hajj Amin issued a fatwa for a holy war against Britain. After the British reoccupied Iraq, the Mufti joined the Nazis, serving with the Waffen SS in Bosnia. During the war he made requests to the German government to bomb Tel Aviv..

In 1948 Hajj Amin returned to Egypt from where he assumed command of the Palestinian Arab forces. According to Maurice Pearlman, in the Mufti's radio broadcasts to Palestinian Arabs where according to Pearlman the mufti called for genocide against the Jews.

Paris Peace Conference and the League of Nations

See also: Paris Peace Conference and League of Nations

The creation of Palestine and its boundaries was a product of the post-World War I Anglo-French partition of Ottoman Syria. British forces had advanced to a position at Tel Hazor against Turkish troops in 1918 and wished to incorporate all the sources of the Jordan River within the British controlled Palestine. Following the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, and the unratified and later annulled Treaty of Sèvres, stemming from the San Remo conference, the 1920 boundary extended the British controlled area to north of the Sykes Picot line, a straight line between the mid point of the Sea of Galilee and Nahariya. On 29 March 1921, the British reached a political settlement with Prince Abdullah calling for the establishment of the first unified national government in Trans-Jordan, over which he would preside, with participation by members of the Independence Party. The international boundary between Palestine and Syria was finally agreed by Great Britain and France in 1923 in conjunction with the Treaty of Lausanne, after Britain had been given a League of Nations mandate for Palestine in August 1922. The creation of the British Mandate of Palestine in 1922 based on the Declaration greatly increased Arab concerns.

In January 1919 King Faisal I of Iraq, who was King of Syria before the French expelled him, signed the Faisal-Weizmann Agreement outlining the relationship between the Arab State and Palestine. The opening preamble was:

"mindful of the racial kinship and ancient bonds existing between the Arabs and the Jewish people, and realising 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 State and Palestine, and being desirous further of confirming the good understanding which exists between them."

Mirroring the sentiments of Ber Borochov's writing where he stated "people akin to us in blood and spirit".

When a Zionist delegation appeared at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, the American Secretary of State (Mr. Lansing) asked them exactly what was meant by the phrase, a Jewish national home. Dr. Weizmann answered him as follows:-

"The Zionist organization did not want an autonomous Jewish Government, but merely to establish in Palestine, under a mandatory Power, an administration not necessarily Jewish, which would render it possible to send into Palestine 70 to 80,000 Jews annually. The Zionist Association would require to have permission at the same time to build Jewish schools, where Hebrew would be taught, and in that was to build up gradually a nationality which would be as Jewish as the French nation was French and the British nation British. Later on, when the Jews formed the large majority, they would be ripe to establish such a Government as would answer to the state of the development of the country and to their ideals."

During March 1919 Justice Felix Frankfurter and the Emir Feisal entered into correspondence, the Emir wrote:

"We Arabs, especially the educated among us, look with the deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement. Our delegation here in Paris is fully acquainted with the proposals submitted yesterday by the Zionist organization to the Peace Conference, and we regard them as moderate and proper."

Faisal's agreement with Weizmann led the Palestinian Arab population to reject the Syrian-Arab-Nationalist movement led by Faisal (in which many previously placed their hopes) and instead to agitate for Palestine to become a separate state, with an Arab majority. To further that objective, they demanded an elected assembly. In 1919, in response to Palestinian Arab fears of the inclusion of the Balfour declaration to process the secret society al-Kaff al-Sawada’ (the Black-hand, soon changed its name to al-Fida’iyya, The Self-Sacrificers) was founded, it later played an important role in clandestine anti-British and anti-Zionist activities. The society was run by the al-Dajjani and al-Shanti families, with Ibrahim Hammani in charge of training and ‘Isa al-Sifri developed a secret code for correspondence. The society was initially based in Jaffa but moved its headquarters to Nablus, the Jerusalem branch was run by Mahmud Aziz al-Khalidi.

The King-Crane Commission of 1919-1922 was originally proposed by the United States as an international effort to determine if the region was ready for self-determination and to see what nations, if any, the locals wanted to act as mandatory powers. The plan received little support from the other nations, with many claimed delays. The Americans gradually came to realize that the British and French had already come to their own back room deals about the future of the region, and new information could only serve to muddy the waters in their view. So, the commission was sent out sponsored by the United States alone. President Wilson picked Henry Churchill King, a theologian and fellow college president (of Oberlin College), and Charles R. Crane, a prominent Democratic party contributor.

The Commission, when touring Palestine, found that the Jewish colonists were similarly looking to a radical transformation of the country:

"The fact came out repeatedly in the Commission's conference with Jewish representatives, that the Zionists looked forward to a practically complete dispossession of the present non-Jewish inhabitants of Palestine, by various forms of purchase."

The commission came to the conclusion that the Zionists claim of a "right" to Palestine "can hardly be seriously considered."

British Occupation of Enemy territory

Winston Churchill viewed Zionism as serving the interests of western civilisation in being a bastion in the Muslim middle east. Zionist Commission was established by Chaim Weizmann to advise the British on policies regarding the establishment of the Jewish national home. The commission, headed by Weizmann with Zionist delegates from England, France, Italy, and the United States arrived in Palestine in April 1918 but had little affect on British policy. Weizmann was advised by a British officer to establish a modus vivendi, Weisman duly met Emir Faisal for the first time on 4 June 1918. The commission was transformed in 1923 to the Jewish Agency for Palestine when Menahem Ussishkin was elected to serve as the president of the agency. The agency was to function as the primary agency for facilitating Jewish immigration to Palestine, land purchase and planning the general policies of the Zionist leadership. The Jewish agency and the Histadrut advocated a policy of using Jewish only labour, this policy was heavily criticised in the Passfield white paper. The early Zionists also had a policy of buying Arab land for Jewish agricultural activity. When land was bought, the Arabs who previously worked the land were often unable to find work on the new Jewish settlement.

After Ze'ev Jabotinsky was discharged from the British Army in September 1919, he openly trained Jews in self-defence and the use of small arms.

In early 1920, the first Jewish-Arab dispute over the Wall occurred when the Muslim authorities were carrying out minor repair works to the Wall’s upper courses. The Jews, while agreeing that the works were necessary, appealed to the British that they be made under supervision of the newly formed Department of Antiquities, because the Wall was an ancient relic.

1920-1921

See also: 1920 Palestine riots

The annual Nabi Musa spring festival was instituted by Salah ad-Din to ensure a Muslim presence in Jerusalem during the influx of Christian pilgrims celebrating the Easter holiday. Arab educator and essayist Khalil al-Sakakini described how tribes and caravans would come with banners and weapons.

By 10:30 a.m. on April 4, 1920, 60,000-70,000 Arabs had already congregated in the city square, and groups of them had already been attacking Jews in the Old City's alleys for over an hour; the Jews hid. Inflammatory anti-Zionist rhetoric was being delivered from the balcony of the Arab Club. One inciter was Hajj Amin; his uncle, the mayor Muosa Kazzim, spoke from the municipal building's balcony. The editor of the newspaper Suriya al-Janubia (Southern Syria), Aref al-Aref, delivered his speech on horseback. The crowd shouted "Independence! Independence!" and "Palestine is our land, the Jews are our dogs!" Arab police joined in applause, and violence started. The Arab mob ransacked the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem, attacked pedestrians and looted shops and homes. They ripped open their quilts and pillows, sending up clouds of feathers associated by Jews with the Russian pogroms. The Torath Chaim Yeshiva was raided, and Torah scrolls were torn and thrown on the floor, and the building then set alight. During the next three hours, 160 Jews were wounded.

During the annual Nabi Musa procession in Jerusalem in April 1920, violent rioting broke out in protest at the Balfour Declaration's implementation. Much damage to Jewish life and property was caused. The Palin Report laid the blame for the explosion of tensions on both sides. Ze'ev Jabotinsky, organiser of Jewish paramilitary defences, received a 15-year sentence. Al-Husayni, then a teacher at the Rashidiya school, near Herod's Gate in East Jerusalem, was charged with inciting the Arab crowds with an inflammatory speech and sentenced by military court held in camera (private) to ten years imprisonment in absentia, since he had already violated his bail by fleeing to Transjordan to avoid arrest. It was asserted soon after, by both Chaim Weizmann and Lieutenant Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen , that al-Husayni had been put up to inciting the riot by Field-marshal Allenby 's Chief of Staff, Colonel Bertie Harry Waters-Taylor, to show the world Arabs would not tolerate a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The rumour was never proven, and Meinertzhagen was dismissed.

The Zionist conference in London on 19 July 1920 adopted a recommendation of the Commission of Forty on the question of Palestine property ownership be declared the property of the Jewish people, and that the control of this property be gradually assumed by the Palestinian state."

A committee of inquiry placed responsibility for the riots on the Zionist Commission, for provoking the Palestinian Arabs. After the Nabi Musa riots and at the demand of the Palestinian Arab leadership, the British searched the offices and apartments of the Zionist leadership, including Weizmann's and Jabotinsky's homes, for arms. At Jabotinsky's house they found 3 rifles, 2 pistols, and 250 rounds of ammunition. Nineteen men were arrested, including Jabotinsky. Jabotinsky was given a 15-year prison term for possession of weapons. The court blamed 'Bolshevism,' claiming that it 'flowed in Zionism's inner heart' and ironically identified the fiercely anti-Socialist Jabotinsky with the Socialist-aligned Poalei Zion ('Zionist Workers') party, which it called 'a definite Bolshevist institution.' Following the public outcry against the verdict, he received amnesty and was released from Acre prison.

After the April riots an event took place that turned the traditional rivalry between the Husayni and Nashashibi clans into a serious rift, with long-term consequences for al-Husayni and Palestinian nationalism. According to Sir Louis Bols, great pressure was brought to bear on the military administration from Zionist leaders and officials such as David Yellin, to have the Mayor of Jerusalem, Mousa Kazzim, dismissed, given his presence in the Nabi Musa riots of the previous March. Colonel Storrs, the Military Governor of Jerusalem, removed him without further inquiry, replacing him with Raghib. This, according to the Palin report, 'had a profound effect on his co-religionists, definitely confirming the conviction they had already formed from other evidence that the Civil Administration was the mere puppet of the Zionist Organization.'

The High Commissioner of Palestine, Herbert Samuel, as a counterbalance the Nashashibis gaining the position of Mayor of Jerusalem, established a Supreme Muslim Sharia Council (SMC) on 20th December, 1921. The SMC was to have authority over all the Muslim Waqfs and Sharia Courts in Palestine. The members of the Council were to be elected by an electoral college and appointed Hajj Amīn as president of the Council with the powers of employment over all Muslim officials throughout Palestine. The Anglo American committee termed it a powerful political machine. The Hajj Amin rarely delegated authority, consequently most of the council's executive work was carried out by Hajj Amīn. Nepotism and favoritism played a central part to Hajj Amīn's tenure as president of the SMC, Amīn al-Tamīmī was appointed as acting president when the Hajj Amīn was abroad, The secretaries appointed were ‘Abdallah Shafĩq and Muhammad al’Afĩfĩ and from 1928-1930 the secretary was Hajj Amīn's cousin Jamāl al-Husaynī, Sa’d al Dīn al-Khaţīb and later another of the Hajj Amīn's relatives ‘Alī al-Husaynī and ‘Ajāj Nuwayhad, a Druze was an adviser.

The Arab population in the Palestine opposed the increased immigration of the Jewish population because they perceived the massive influx of Jewish immigrants as a real threat to their national identity and to their attribution to the surrounding Arabic countries. Following this, during the 1920s the relations between the Jewish populations of the Arab population deteriorated and the hostility between the two groups intensified.

On the night before 1 May 1921, the Jewish Communist Party (precursor of the Palestine Communist Party) distributed Arabic and Yiddish fliers calling for the toppling of British rule and the establishing a "Soviet Palestine". The party announced its intention to parade from Jaffa to neighbouring Tel Aviv to commemorate May Day. On the morning of the parade, despite a warning to the 60 members present from one of Jaffa's most senior police officers, Toufiq Bey al-Said, who visited the party's headquarters, the march headed from Jaffa to Tel Aviv through the mixed Jewish-Arab border neighbourhood of Menashia.

Another large May Day parade had also been organised for Tel Aviv by the rival socialist Ahdut HaAvoda group, with official authorisation. When the two processions met, a fistfight erupted, and the Palestine police chased the communists back to Jaffa.

Hearing of the fighting and believing that Arabs were being attacked, the Arabs of Jaffa went on the offensive. Dozens of British, Arab, and Jewish witnesses all reported that Arab men bearing clubs, knives, swords, and some pistols broke into Jewish buildings and murdered their inhabitants, while women followed to loot. They attacked Jewish pedestrians and destroyed Jewish homes and stores. They beat and killed Jews in their homes, including children, and in some cases split open the victims' skulls.

As a result of the Jaffa riots, the Hashomer was transformed into the Haganah, as a defense force for the Jewish population of the British Mandate for Palestine. The British responded to these outbreaks of violence with the Haycraft Commission of Inquiry, the Shaw Report.

Churchill to calm Palestinian Arab fears of a Zionist takeover of their country issued with the Churchill White Paper.

The British responded to these outbreaks of violence with the Haycraft Commission of Inquiry, the Shaw Report,

British Mandate

In 1922, the government of Yemen, under Imam Yahya reintroduced an ancient Islamic law entitled the "orphans decree". The law dictated that, if a Jewish boy or girl under the age of twelve was orphaned, they were to be forcibly converted to Islam, their connection to their family and community was to be severed and they had to be handed over to a Muslim foster family. The rule was based on the law that the prophet Mohammed is "the father of the orphans," and on the fact that the Jews in Yemen were considered "under protection" and the ruler was obligated to care for them.

The Jewish immigration to Israel continued to grow significantly during the period of British Mandate following which the Jewish population in Palestine was doubled.

1929-1936

Wailing Wall

Religious tension over the "wailing wall", a retaining wall, built to support the extensive renovations of Herod the Great construction on the temple mount (also know as; Hebrew Kotel Hebrew: הכותל המערבי, Arabic al-Buraq al-Sharif)

The Great Depression affecting crop prices, and nationalist tension over Zionist immigration led to the 1929 Palestine riots. In these religious-nationalist riots, Jews were massacred in Hebron, and the survivors were expelled from the town. Devastation also took place in Safed and Jerusalem. This violence was directed against the non-Zionist orthodox communities; Zionist communities were able to defend themselves and had established defence organizations. As a result, the orthodox community in Palestine was increasingly dependent on Zionist support.

A British commission was established to investigate the riots, and throughout his interview the Hajj Amin held a copy of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

1936-1939 Palestinian Arab revolt

Main article: 1936-1939 Arab revolt in Palestine

1936-1939 Arab revolt in Palestine. A Jewish bus equipped with wire screens to protect against rock, glass, and grenade throwing. The Jewish community adopted the policy of restraint.

During 1936-1939, an upsurge of militant Arab nationalism came as Palestinian Arabs of the lower classes felt that they were being marginalized. In addition to non-violent strikes and protests, some resorted to acts of violence targeting British military personnel, Jewish civilians, and other Arabs in the upper classes. The uprising was put down largely by the British forces.

In response, the British government issued a white paper that placed restrictions on Jewish immigration and Jewish land purchases in the remaining land in an attempt to limit the socio-political damage already done. This white paper also noted the need for a Palestine state that could accommodate both Palestinians and Jews without further conflict, yet ruled out the option of partition. Jews alleged that this contradicted the League of Nations Mandate which said: "the administration of Palestine ... shall encourage, in cooperation with the Jewish Agency ... close settlements by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not acquired for public purposes." Jews argued that the British had allotted twice as much land to Arabs as Jews instead of the same amount. Arabs held that the contract was disproportionately in favour of Jewish settlement when the relative size of the two populations at the time was considered.

Ben-Gurion said he wanted to "concentrate the masses of our people in this country [Palestine] and its environs." When he proposed accepting the Peel proposals in 1937, which included a Jewish state in part of Palestine, Ben-Gurion told the twentieth Zionist Congress:

The Jewish state now being offered to us is not the Zionist objective. [...] But it can serve as a decisive stage along the path to greater Zionist implementation. It will consolidate in Palestine, within the shortest possible time, the real Jewish force, which will lead us to our historic goal.

In a discussion in the Jewish Agency he said that he wanted a Jewish-Arab agreement "on the assumption that after we become a strong force, as a result of the creation of the state, we shall abolish partition and expand to the whole of Palestine." In a letter to his son Amos he wrote in 1937 that a Jewish state in part of Palestine was "not the end, but only the beginning." It would give a "powerful boost to our historic efforts to redeem the country in its entirety". He wrote that he had "no doubt that our army will be among the world's outstanding - and so I am certain that we won't be constrained from settling in the rest of the country, either by nutual agreement and understanding with our Arab neighbours, or by some other way."

World War II and its aftermath

During WWII and after, the British forbade European Jews entry into Palestine. This was partly a calculated move to maximize support for their cause in the war among Arabs. That the extremist Zionists Stern Gang (Lehi) sought support from the anti-Semitic Axis is known. The need to keep Arab nationalism suppressed was of greater importance to the war effort than the consideration of Jewish support. The Palestinian Jews were in a paradoxical position where support for Britain may have endangered the Zionist movement in Palestine. The immigration policy was also in response to the fact that security in Palestine had begun to tie up troops much needed at the fronts.

After Night of the bridges the British authorities in Palestine carried out Operation Agatha, on June 29, 1946, in which about 2,700 Jewish activists and fighters, led members of the militant Zionist group Irgun were arrested. Irgun then controversially bombed the King David Hotel in Jerusalem on July 22, 1946, which was the base for the British Secretariat, the military command and a branch of the Criminal Investigation Division (police). Ninety-one people were killed, most of them civilians: 28 British, 41 Arab, 17 Jewish, and 5 other. Around 45 people were injured. Lehi attacked Jewish agency targets and openly declared Golda Meir a traitor. 5 August Jewish Agency executive voted to end armed opposition to the mandate. This escalation of violence may have decreased British resolve to continue their presence in Palestine.

The Zionist leadership decided to begin an illegal immigration (haa'pala) using small boats operating in secrecy. About 70,000 Jews were brought to Palestine in this way between 1946 and 1947. A similar number were captured at sea by the British and imprisoned in camps on Cyprus.

Details of the Holocaust had a major effect on the situation in Palestine. It propelled large support for the Zionist cause and led to the 1947 UN Partition plan for Palestine.

1947 partition plan

The UN partition plan (1947)

Main articles: 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine and 1947 UN Partition plan

The newly-formed United Nations appointed a committee, UNSCOP, to try to solve the dispute between the Zionists and the Arabs. UNSCOP recommended that Mandatory Palestine be split into three parts, a Jewish State with a majority Jewish population, an Arab State with a majority Arab population, and an International Zone comprising Jerusalem and the surrounding area where the Jewish and Arab populations would be roughly equal. Under the plan, the proposed Jewish State would comprise of the coastal plain (where the majority of Jewish settlements were located), as well as the eastern part of the Galilee and the Negev desert. The proposed Arab State would encompass roughly a section of the Mediterranean coast from what is now Ashdod (Isdud) to the Egyptian border, a section of the Negev desert adjacent to the Egyptian border, the West Bank highlands to the lower hills including Lydda, Ramla and Beersheva, and the eastern part of the Galilee including the town of Acre. The town of Jaffa would be an enclave of the proposed Arab State. Resolution 181 decided the size of land allotted to each party. The Jewish State would be roughly 5,700 square miles (15,000 km²) in size (including the large Negev desert which could not sustain agriculture at that time, but also controlling the fertile coastal areas) and would contain a sizeable Arab minority population. The Arab state would comprise roughly 4,300 square miles (11,000 km²) and would contain a tiny Jewish population. Neither state would be contiguous. Jerusalem and Bethlehem were not included and were to be internationalised under the control of the United Nations.

On 2 October 1947 Dr Abba Hillel Silver, Chairman of the American Section of the Jewish Agency partially accepted the Partition plan in a speech to the Ad Hoc committee on Palestine announces acceptance of 10 of the eleven unanimous recommendations rejection of the non-unanimous recommendation of the UN partition plan, rejects the 12 non-unanimous recommendation and rejection of the minority report. Of the Majority report (the Partition Plan areas) Dr Able Hillel Silver vacillates saying that he was prepared to “recommend to the Jewish people acceptance subject to further discussion of the constitutional and territorial provisions”.

"On the majority proposals [the partition plan]...These proposals", said Dr. Silver, "did not represent satisfaction of the rights of the Jewish people. They were a serious attenuation of these rights."

"The first partition of Palestine," Dr Silver Declared; "took place in 1922 when Transjordan, representing three-fourths of the original area of Palestine, was cut off and was afterwards set up by the British as an Arab Kingdom."

"It is now proposed to carve a second Arab state out of the remainder of the country, said Dr Silver. In other words," he said, "the Jewish National home is now to be confined to less than one-eighth of the territory originally set aside for it. This, he declared, was a sacrifice which the Jewish people should not be asked to make."

Within the Yishuv there some opposition, mainly from small groups of supporters of a binational solution such as the Jewish communist party of Palestine (PKP), and the militant groups Irgun and Lehi, who advocated restoring Eretz Israel (the British mandated Palestine) to the Jewish people. . Begin warned that the partition would not bring peace because the Arabs would also attack the small state and that "in the war ahead we'll have to stand on our own, it will be a war on our existence and future". Ben-Gurion argued forcefully for its acceptance because a war was foreseeable, and, 'in the course of the war, the borders will be changed'.

The UN General Assembly voted on the Partition Plan on November 29, 1947. Thirty-three states, including the U.S. and the USSR, voted in favour of the Plan, while 13 countries, many of them with largely majority Muslim populations, opposed it. Ten countries abstained from the vote.

In the immediate aftermath of the United Nations' approval of the Partition plan, the explosions of joy amongst the Jewish community were counterbalanced by the expression of discontent amongst the Palestinian Arab community. The Arab leadership (in and out of Palestine) opposed the plan.. The Arab leadership argued that it violated the rights of the majority of the people in Palestine, which at the time was 67% non-Jewish (1,237,000) and 33% Jewish (608,000). Arab leaders also argued a large number of Arabs would be trapped in the Jewish State. Every major Arab leader objected in principle to the right of the Jews to an independent state in Palestine, reflecting the policies of the Arab League.

The approval of the plan sparked the Jerusalem Riots of 1947 and gave great legitimacy to the future state of Israel.

The violence became more prevalent. Murders, reprisals, and counter-reprisals came fast on each other's heels, resulting in dozens of victims killed on both sides in the process. The sanguinary impasse persisted as no force intervened to put a stop to the escalating cycles of violence. During the first two months of the war, around 1,000 people were killed and 2,000 people injured. By the end of March, the figure had risen to 2,000 dead and 4,000 wounded. These figures correspond to an average of more than 100 deaths and 200 casualties per week in a population of 2,000,000.

Neither side was happy with the Partition Plan. The Jews disliked losing Jerusalem—which had a majority Jewish population at that time—and worried about the tenability of a non-contiguous state. However, most of the Jews in Palestine accepted the plan, and the Jewish Agency (the de facto government of the Yishuv) campaigned fervently for its approval. The more extreme Jewish groups, such as the Irgun, rejected the plan. The Partition Plan was rejected entirely by the Palestinians and the surrounding Arab states who felt it was unfair that the Zionists should receive so much of Palestine when they owned about 6% of land and constituted only one third of the population. (Proponents of the resolution pointed out that 70% of the land was state owned).

The "battle of roads" consisted mainly of ambushes against logistical convoys and travelling Jews. Gush Etzion similar tactics on Palestinian Arab roads around Jerusalem. Jewish underground groups carried out attacks on civilian targets, such as the Lehi bombing of Haifa Oil refinery workers, where the palestinian Arabs reciprocated with a riot murdering 39 Jews the Haganah then perpetrated the Balad al-Shaykh massacre in retaliation. Palmach attacked the wrong target village, Al-Khisas and Lehi at the Deir Yassin massacre.

In April 1948 operation Plan Dalet was launched by Zionist forces that aimed to take control of the state of Israel as stated in the UN Partition Plan, and Jewish settlements a proposed Jewish state and roads leading to them—effectively calling for the annexation of much of Palestine.

Intense negotiations between representatives of the provisional government, headed by Ben-Gurion, and the Irgun, headed by Menachem Begin followed the departure of Altalena from France. The Altalena was directed to land at Kfar Vitkin beach with its cargo of 5,000 rifles, 250 Bren guns, 5 million bullets, 50 bazookas, 10 Bren carriers and bringing 800-900 men. After the shelling of the Altalena, more than 200 Irgun members were arrested. Most of them were released several weeks later, with the exception of five senior commanders; Moshe Hason, Eliyahu Lankin, Yaakov Meridor, Bezalel Amitzur, and Hillel Kook, were detained for more than two months, until 27 August 1948. The Irgun soldiers were then integrated with the IDF and did not operate as separate units. The Altalena Affair exposed deep rifts between the main political factions in Israel, Proponents of Ben-Gurion's actions praised them as essential to establishing the Government's authority and discouraging factionalism and formation of rival armies. Ben-Gurion's supporters have argued that a state must have a monopoly over the use of force and that Irgun, by attempting to import weapons to use as a private militia, was undermining the legitimacy of the fledgling State of Israel.

1948 Arab-Israeli war

Main articles: 1948 Arab-Israeli war and Palestinian Exodus

Full scale war erupted after May 14, 1948, when Britain terminated its mandate over Palestine and the Zionists announced the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel. Palestine's Four Arab neighbour states - Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Iraq - then entered Palestine. It is disputed if Lebanon entered Palestine. The Arab League states were quickly defeated by the better trained and armed Israeli forces.

European Intervention 1956

The final European military intervention involved British, French allied with Israel in an invasion of Egypt during the Suez Crisis.

World War II and its aftermath

During WWII and after, the British forbade European Jews entry into Palestine. This was partly a calculated move to maximize support for their cause in the war among Arabs. That the extremist Zionists Stern Gang (Lehi) sought support from the anti-Semitic Axis is known. The need to keep Arab nationalism suppressed was of greater importance to the war effort than the consideration of Jewish support. The Palestinian Jews were in a paradoxical position where support for Britain may have endangered the Zionist movement in Palestine. The immigration policy was also in response to the fact that security in Palestine had begun to tie up troops much needed at the fronts.

After Night of the bridges the British authorities in Palestine carried out Operation Agatha, on June 29, 1946, in which about 2,700 Jewish activists and fighters, led members of the militant Zionist group Irgun were arrested. Irgun then controversially bombed the King David Hotel in Jerusalem on July 22, 1946, which was the base for the British Secretariat, the military command and a branch of the Criminal Investigation Division (police). Ninety-one people were killed, most of them civilians: 28 British, 41 Arab, 17 Jewish, and 5 other. Around 45 people were injured. Lehi attacked Jewish agency targets and openly declared Golda Meir a traitor. 5 August Jewish Agency executive voted to end armed opposition to the mandate. This escalation of violence may have decreased British resolve to continue their presence in Palestine.

The Zionist leadership decided to begin an illegal immigration (haa'pala) using small boats operating in secrecy. About 70,000 Jews were brought to Palestine in this way between 1946 and 1947. A similar number were captured at sea by the British and imprisoned in camps on Cyprus.

Details of the Holocaust had a major effect on the situation in Palestine. It propelled large support for the Zionist cause and led to the 1947 UN Partition plan for Palestine.

1947 partition plan

The UN partition plan (1947)

Main articles: 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine and 1947 UN Partition plan

The newly-formed United Nations appointed a committee, UNSCOP, to try to solve the dispute between the Zionists and the Arabs. UNSCOP recommended that Mandatory Palestine be split into three parts, a Jewish State with a majority Jewish population, an Arab State with a majority Arab population, and an International Zone comprising Jerusalem and the surrounding area where the Jewish and Arab populations would be roughly equal. Under the plan, the proposed Jewish State would comprise of the coastal plain (where the majority of Jewish settlements were located), as well as the eastern part of the Galilee and the Negev desert. The proposed Arab State would encompass roughly a section of the Mediterranean coast from what is now Ashdod (Isdud) to the Egyptian border, a section of the Negev desert adjacent to the Egyptian border, the West Bank highlands to the lower hills including Lydda, Ramla and Beersheva, and the eastern part of the Galilee including the town of Acre. The town of Jaffa would be an enclave of the proposed Arab State. Resolution 181 decided the size of land allotted to each party. The Jewish State would be roughly 5,700 square miles (15,000 km²) in size (including the large Negev desert which could not sustain agriculture at that time, but also controlling the fertile coastal areas) and would contain a sizeable Arab minority population. The Arab state would comprise roughly 4,300 square miles (11,000 km²) and would contain a tiny Jewish population. Neither state would be contiguous. Jerusalem and Bethlehem were not included and were to be internationalised under the control of the United Nations.

On 2 October 1947 Dr Abba Hillel Silver, Chairman of the American Section of the Jewish Agency partially accepted the Partition plan in a speech to the Ad Hoc committee on Palestine announces acceptance of 10 of the eleven unanimous recommendations rejection of the non-unanimous recommendation of the UN partition plan, rejects the 12 non-unanimous recommendation and rejection of the minority report. Of the Majority report (the Partition Plan areas) Dr Able Hillel Silver vacillates saying that he was prepared to “recommend to the Jewish people acceptance subject to further discussion of the constitutional and territorial provisions”.

"On the majority proposals [the partition plan]...These proposals", said Dr. Silver, "did not represent satisfaction of the rights of the Jewish people. They were a serious attenuation of these rights."

"The first partition of Palestine," Dr Silver Declared; "took place in 1922 when Transjordan, representing three-fourths of the original area of Palestine, was cut off and was afterwards set up by the British as an Arab Kingdom."

"It is now proposed to carve a second Arab state out of the remainder of the country, said Dr Silver. In other words," he said, "the Jewish National home is now to be confined to less than one-eighth of the territory originally set aside for it. This, he declared, was a sacrifice which the Jewish people should not be asked to make."

Within the Yishuv there some opposition, mainly from small groups of supporters of a binational solution such as the Jewish communist party of Palestine (PKP), and the militant groups Irgun and Lehi, who advocated restoring Eretz Israel (the British mandated Palestine) to the Jewish people. . Begin warned that the partition would not bring peace because the Arabs would also attack the small state and that "in the war ahead we'll have to stand on our own, it will be a war on our existence and future". Ben-Gurion argued forcefully for its acceptance because a war was foreseeable, and, 'in the course of the war, the borders will be changed'.

The UN General Assembly voted on the Partition Plan on November 29, 1947. Thirty-three states, including the U.S. and the USSR, voted in favour of the Plan, while 13 countries, many of them with largely majority Muslim populations, opposed it. Ten countries abstained from the vote.

In the immediate aftermath of the United Nations' approval of the Partition plan, the explosions of joy amongst the Jewish community were counterbalanced by the expression of discontent amongst the Palestinian Arab community. The Arab leadership (in and out of Palestine) opposed the plan.. The Arab leadership argued that it violated the rights of the majority of the people in Palestine, which at the time was 67% non-Jewish (1,237,000) and 33% Jewish (608,000). Arab leaders also argued a large number of Arabs would be trapped in the Jewish State. Every major Arab leader objected in principle to the right of the Jews to an independent state in Palestine, reflecting the policies of the Arab League.

The approval of the plan sparked the Jerusalem Riots of 1947 and gave great legitimacy to the future state of Israel.

The violence became more prevalent. Murders, reprisals, and counter-reprisals came fast on each other's heels, resulting in dozens of victims killed on both sides in the process. The sanguinary impasse persisted as no force intervened to put a stop to the escalating cycles of violence. During the first two months of the war, around 1,000 people were killed and 2,000 people injured. By the end of March, the figure had risen to 2,000 dead and 4,000 wounded. These figures correspond to an average of more than 100 deaths and 200 casualties per week in a population of 2,000,000.

Neither side was happy with the Partition Plan. The Jews disliked losing Jerusalem—which had a majority Jewish population at that time—and worried about the tenability of a non-contiguous state. However, most of the Jews in Palestine accepted the plan, and the Jewish Agency (the de facto government of the Yishuv) campaigned fervently for its approval. The more extreme Jewish groups, such as the Irgun, rejected the plan. The Partition Plan was rejected entirely by the Palestinians and the surrounding Arab states who felt it was unfair that the Zionists should receive so much of Palestine when they owned about 6% of land and constituted only one third of the population. (Proponents of the resolution pointed out that 70% of the land was state owned).

The "battle of roads" consisted mainly of ambushes against logistical convoys and travelling Jews. Gush Etzion similar tactics on Palestinian Arab roads around Jerusalem. Jewish underground groups carried out attacks on civilian targets, such as the Lehi bombing of Haifa Oil refinery workers, where the palestinian Arabs reciprocated with a riot murdering 39 Jews the Haganah then perpetrated the Balad al-Shaykh massacre in retaliation. Palmach attacked the wrong target village, Al-Khisas and Lehi at the Deir Yassin massacre.

In April 1948 operation Plan Dalet was launched by Zionist forces that aimed to take control of the state of Israel as stated in the UN Partition Plan, and Jewish settlements a proposed Jewish state and roads leading to them—effectively calling for the annexation of much of Palestine.

Intense negotiations between representatives of the provisional government, headed by Ben-Gurion, and the Irgun, headed by Menachem Begin followed the departure of Altalena from France. The Altalena was directed to land at Kfar Vitkin beach with its cargo of 5,000 rifles, 250 Bren guns, 5 million bullets, 50 bazookas, 10 Bren carriers and bringing 800-900 men. After the shelling of the Altalena, more than 200 Irgun members were arrested. Most of them were released several weeks later, with the exception of five senior commanders; Moshe Hason, Eliyahu Lankin, Yaakov Meridor, Bezalel Amitzur, and Hillel Kook, were detained for more than two months, until 27 August 1948. The Irgun soldiers were then integrated with the IDF and did not operate as separate units. The Altalena Affair exposed deep rifts between the main political factions in Israel, Proponents of Ben-Gurion's actions praised them as essential to establishing the Government's authority and discouraging factionalism and formation of rival armies. Ben-Gurion's supporters have argued that a state must have a monopoly over the use of force and that Irgun, by attempting to import weapons to use as a private militia, was undermining the legitimacy of the fledgling State of Israel.

1948 Arab-Israeli war

Main articles: 1948 Arab-Israeli war and Palestinian Exodus

Full scale war erupted after May 14, 1948, when Britain terminated its mandate over Palestine and the Zionists announced the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel. Palestine's Four Arab neighbour states - Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Iraq - then entered Palestine. It is disputed if Lebanon entered Palestine. The Arab League states were quickly defeated by the better trained and armed Israeli forces.

Border wars

Main article: 1949–1956 Palestinian exodus

The creation of Israel, initially, brought the arrival of about 50,000 Yemeni Jews who fled or were recruited to immigrate to Israel. The Israeli census in 1949 showed that the population was 782,000 Jews, 69,000 non-Jews and within the 18 months from the declaration of independence 350,000 Jewish people had immigrated to Israel, mainly from Arab countries.

While most of the Palestinian Arab population which had remained in Israel after the war were granted Israeli citizenship, Arab Israelis were subject to a martial law up to 1966. Travel permits, curfews, administrative detentions and expulsions were part of life until 1966. A variety of legal measures facilitated the transfer of land abandoned by Palestinian Arabs to Israeli state ownership. These included the Absentee Property Law of 1950 which facilitated the Israeli state taking control of land belonging to land owners who were present absentees, had fled, who were expelled or had emigrated to other countries, and the Land Acquisition Law of 1953 which authorized the Ministry of Finance to transfer expropriated land to the state.

After the 1948 war some of the Palestinian refugees whom lived in camps in the West Bank within Jordanian, controlled territory, the Gaza Strip Egyptian controlled territory and Syria tried to return into the Israel’s territory, by what Israel termed infiltration. The estimates for 1949 to 1956 was that 90% of all infiltration was motivated by social and economic concerns. It was naturally difficult to prevent refugees who were living on a bare subsistence level, from crossing lines beyond which they hope to find fodder for their hungry sheep, or for scarce fuel. Additionally there occurred occasional nightly clandestine smuggling between Gaza and Hebron. The smuggling was largely motivated by the great discrepancy of prices prevailing in the two areas. Most of these complaints in 1950 concerned the shooting by Israelis of refugee civilians and livestock, said to have illegally crossed the demarcation lines. In the most serious case of this kind, Egypt complained that Israeli military Forces, on the 7 and 14 October 1950, had shelled and machine-gunned the Arab villages of Abassan and Beit Hanoun in Egyptian controlled territory of the Gaza strip. This action caused the death of seven and the wounding of twenty civilians. Israel on the other hand complained of infiltration incidents which had resulted in the death of four Israeli settlers and the wounding of twenty others.

The pejorative term infiltrator was also applied to refugee non-residents who had not left Israel as in the case in Nazareth. On the 21 November 1949 the Arab member of the Knesset Mr. Amin Jarjura (Mapai) asked in the Knesset permission for the refugees (6,000) of Nazareth to be allowed to return to their surrounding villages; at the same time the IDF were conducting a sweep through the city of Nazareth rounding up non-residents who the Palestine Post then termed infiltrators.

The build up of the conflict along the Jordanian border went through a gradual stages. Building up from small Israeli raids with Palestinian counter raids through to the major Israeli incursions, Beit Jalla, Qibya massacre ,Ma'ale Akrabim massacre, Nahalin reprisal raid, Rantis and Falameh reprisal raid

The Israeli Unit 101 raid on Bureij refugee camp led to an escalation of the conflict between Egypt and Israel. From the statistics taken from the official records of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan/Israel Mixed Armistice Commission for the period of June 1949 through December 1952 it is found that Jordan complained of 37 instances of expulsion of Arabs from Israel. For the period 1 January 1953 through to 15 October 1953 it is found that Jordan complained of 7 instances of expulsion of Arabs from Israel involving 41 people. After 1955 raid on Gaza Egypt trained and armed the Palestinian volunteers from Gaza as Fedayeen units.

Arab Countries anti-infiltration policies

The Israeli Government position was that the Arab countries were aiding and abetting the infiltrators in an extension of the Arab Israeli conflict by using the infiltrators as guerillas. This was grossly inaccurate.

The problem of establishing and guarding the demarcation line separating the Gaza Strip from the Israeli-held Negev area, proved a vexing one: largely due to the presence of more than 200,000 Palestinian Arab refugees in this Gaza area. The terms of the Armistice Agreement restricted Egypt’s use and deployment of regular armed forces in the Gaza strip. In keeping with this restriction the Egyptian Government’s answer was to form a Palestinian para-military police force. The Palestinian Border police was created in December 1952. The Border police were placed under the command of ‘Abd-al-Man’imi ‘Abd-al-Ra’uf, a former Egyptian air brigade commander, member of the Muslim Brotherhood and member of the Revolutionary Council. 250 Palestinian volunteers started training in March 1953 with further volunteers coming forward for training in May and December 1953. Part of the Border police personnel were attached to the Military Governor’s office and placed under ‘Abd-al-‘Azim al-Saharti to guard public installations in the Gaza strip.

On the Egyptian cease fire line and DMZ to try to avoid future incidents caused by infiltration the Mixed Armistice Commission finally decided that a system of mixed border patrols comprising officers and enlisted men from each side would decrease tension and lessen infiltration. Initially The mixed patrols along the Egyptian demarcation line worked satisfactorily. The Egyptian Authorities maintained a policy of "incarcerating" the inhabitants of the Gaza strip until 1955.

Israeli free fire policy

A free fire policy was adopted by the IDF. The policy included patrols, ambushes, laying mines, setting booby traps and carrying out periodic search operations in Israeli Arab villages. The "free fire" policy in the period of 1949 to 1956 has been estimated to account for 2,700 to 5,000 Palestinian Arab deaths. According to Meron Benvenisti, New Historians Avi Shlaim, Benny Morris, Ilan Pappé and UN observers, during anti-infiltration operations the Israeli forces sometimes committed atrocities with reports of gang rape, murder and dumping, in the Avara desert without water, of 120 people who were suspected by Israel of infiltration into Israel.

Additionally the IDF carried out operations, mainly, in Jordanian held territory and Egyptian held territory. The early reprisal raids failed to achieve their objectives and managed to increase hatred for Israel amongst the Arab countries and the refugees. The disruptive and destabilising nature of the raids put the western plans for the defence of the Middle East in jeopardy, the western powers then applied pressure on Israeli to desist.

Continued displacement and dispossession

From November 1948 through to the summer of 1949 and the signing of the General Armistice Agreements a further 87 villages were occupied; 36 being emptied by force.

On 17 August 1950 the remaining Palestinian Arab population of Majdal were served with an expulsion order (The Palestinians had been held in a confined area since 1948) and the first group of them were taken on trucks to the Gaza Strip. Majdal was then renamed Ashkelon by the Israelis in an on going process of de-Arabisation of the topography as described by Meron Benvenisti. Egypt accepted the expelled civilian Palestinian Arabs from Majdal on humanitarian grounds as they would otherwise have been exposed to "torture and death". That however did not mean their voluntary movement. Furthermore, testimony of the expelled Arabs and reports of the Mixed Armistice Commission clearly showed that the refugees had been forcibly expelled.

Ilan Pappé reports that the last gun-point expulsion occurred in 1953 where the residents of Umm al-Faraj were driven out and the village destroyed by the IDF. "

Founding of the PLO

Main articles: Fedayeen (Palestinian) and Palestine Liberation Organization

Following years of attacks by the Palestinian Fedayeen the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was founded in 1964. It was the first Palestinian organization that worked for the right of Palestinian refugees to return and maintained a charter for the destruction of Israel for decades. The organization deliberately targets civilian and military assets in the conflict with Israel. From 1969 to 2004 the PLO was led by Yasser Arafat.

Bibliography

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• Brandeis, Louis Dembitz (1973). Letters of Louis D Brandeis. SUNY Press. ISBN 0873952316
• Gelvin, James L. (2005) The Israel-Palestine conflict: one hundred years of war Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0521852897
• Karády, Viktor (2004) The Jews of Europe in the Modern Era: A Socio-historical Outline Central European University Press, ISBN 9639241520
• Karsh, Efraim (2002) Israel: the First Hundred Years Routledge, ISBN 0714649619
• Khalidi, Walid. (1984) Before Their Diaspora: A Photographic History of the Palestinians, 1876-1948 Institute for Palestine Studies, ISBN 0887281435
• Lockman, Zachary (1996) Comrades and enemies: Arab and Jewish workers in Palestine, 1906-1948 University of California Press, ISBN 0520204190
• Mandel, Neville J. (1976) The Arabs and Zionism Before World War I University of California Press, ISBN 0520024664
• Medding, Peter Y. Makhon le-Yahadut zemanenu ʻa. sh. Avraham Harman (2008) Sephardic Jewry and Mizrahi Jews Oxford University Press US, ISBN 0195340973
• Poole, Michael (1975) Workers' Participation in Industry Routledge, ISBN 0710080042
• Rabinovich, Itamar and Reinharz, Jehuda (2008) Israel in the Middle East: documents and readings on society, politics, and foreign relations, pre-1948 to the present UPNE, ISBN 0874519624
• Shapira, Anita (1999) Land and Power; The Zionist Resort to Force, 1881-1948. Stanford University press, ISBN 0-8047-3776-2
• Scheel, H. Spuler, Bertold and. Jaschke, G Bagley, F R C. Braun, H. Kahler, H Halle W. M. and Koszinowski T.(1997) Modern Times: A Historical Survey Translated by F R C Bagley Brill Archive, ISBN 9004061967
• Sela, Avraham. "Arab-Israeli Conflict." The Continuum Political Encyclopedia of the Middle East. Ed. Avraham Sela. New York: Continuum, 2002.
• Thane, Pat ‘Hirsch, Maurice de , Baron de Hirsch in the Bavarian nobility (1831–1896)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 ISBN 0198613776
• Norman, Theodore (1985). An Outstretched Arm: A History of the Jewish Colonization Association. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. ISBN 0710202539
• Porath, Yehoshua, (1974) "The Emergence of the Palestinian-Arab National Movement 1918-1929", London, ISBN 0714629391
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External links

• Yahoo News Full Coverage: Mideast Conflict
• BBC News, Mideast conflict
• Israeli Minitry of Foreign Affairs Palestine Conciliation Commission, Fourth Progress Report, A/922, 22 September 1949

Nebi Musa procession - April 4, 1920

Details of the Holocaust had a major effect on the situation in Palestine and propelled large support for the Zionist cause. In addition, the British government which tried to resolve the issue through the years in the means of diplomacy eventually decided to return the mandate of Palestine to the Council of the United Nations.

UN 1947 partition plan for Palestine

David Ben-Gurion publicly pronouncing the Declaration of the State of Israel, May 14, 1948

This violence and the heavy cost of World War II led Britain to turn the issue of Palestine over to the United Nations. In November 1947, the U.N. approved the partition of the British Mandate of Palestine into two states: one Jewish and one Arab. The Jewish leadership of the Yishuv accepted the plan with reservations or as Golda Meir expressed it when meeting the press at just after the announcement of the UN Partition plan vote; "We have no alternative." , Within the Yishuv some opposition, mainly from small groups of supporters of a binational solution such as the Jewish communist party of Palestine (PKP), and the militant groups Irgun and Lehi, who advocated restoring Eretz Israel, British mandated Palestine, to the Jewish people. . Ben-Gurion argued forcefully for its acceptance because a war was foreseeable, and, 'in the course of the war, the borders will be changed'. The general mood and support for the Partition plan by the Jewish population of Palestine was evidenced by the mass public displays of rejoicing in the streets at announcement of the voting at the UN. The split in the ranks of the Arab High Committee ( which was nothing more than a group of traditional Notables") between rejectionists and pro Partitionists led to Mohammad Amin al-Husayni taking control of the AHC and with the support of the Arab League, rejected the plan, however many Palestinians, principally Nashashibis clan and the Arab Palestinian Communist Party, accepted the plan. Ben-Gurion expected a violent reaction to the UN partition plan and so he and his commanders mobilized the Haganah on 30 November 1947. "At the same time," Benny Morris wrote, "IZL and LHI acting independently beginning in early December 1947 reverted to their 1937-1939 strategy of placing bombs in crowded markets and bus stops. The Arabs retaliated exploding bombs of their own."

On 2 December, Palestinian Arabs reacted as many in the Zionist leadership predicted and as they made declared that they would with riots in Jerusalem, which were retaliated with attacks by the Hagana on Dayr Ayyub, and events quickly degenerated into a civil war. The Yishuv gained the upper hand in the later stages of inter-communal fighting where "Jewish forces exceeded the UN-proposed boundaries for the Jewish state, which were militarily indefensible .... Part of Palestine had now become Israel, while the area to be known as the West Bank ... was annexed by Jordan ..., and what became the Gaza Strip ... remained militarily governed by Egypt." Israel declared its independence on May 14 1948. Furthermore, as Benny Morris wrote, "Midway in the Hostilities, the civil war gave way to the interstate Israeli-Arab war. On 14 May, the State of Israel was declared and the British left-and, on 15-16 May, the [four] armies of Jordan, Syria, Egypt and Iraq [entered] Palestine. Units from five Arab League countries (Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Iraq) then reluctantly invaded precipitating the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The Arab league had no intentions of allowing Hajj Amin to control Palestinian affairs. The war resulted in an Israeli victory, with Israel annexing territory beyond the partition borders for a proposed Jewish state and into the borders for a proposed Palestinian Arab state. and leaving Jerusalem as a divided city; the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Old City of Jerusalem was taken over by Jordan and the Gaza Strip was taken over by Egypt. The pretext for Jordans entering Palestine was to save the Palestinian Arabs. However the target off Jordans efforts was for territorial expansion at the expense of Palestinian Arabs and not Israel. The war also resulted in the 1948 Palestinian exodus, known to Palestinians as Al-Naqba.

The newly-formed United Nations appointed a committee, UNSCOP, to try to solve the dispute between the Jewish and Arab population in Palestine. UNSCOP recommended that Mandatory Palestine be split into three parts, a Jewish State with a majority Jewish population, an Arab State with a majority Arab population, and an International Zone comprising Jerusalem and the surrounding area where the Jewish and Arab populations would be roughly equal. Resolution 181 decided the size of land allotted to each party. The Jewish State would be roughly 5,700 square miles (15,000 km²) in size (including the large Negev desert which could not sustain agriculture at that time, but also controlling the fertile coastal areas) and would contain a sizeable Arab minority population. The Arab state would comprise roughly 4,300 square miles (11,000 km²) and would contain a tiny Jewish population. Neither state would be contiguous.

Neither side was happy with the Partition Plan. The Jews disliked losing Jerusalem - which had a majority Jewish population at that time - and worried about the tenability of a noncontiguous state. However, most of the Jews in Palestine accepted the plan, and the Jewish Agency (the de facto government of the Yishuv) campaigned fervently for its approval. The more extreme Jewish groups, such as the Irgun, rejected the plan. The Partition Plan was rejected entirely by the Palestinians and the surrounding Arab states who felt it was unfair that the Jewish population should receive so much of Palestine when they owned about 6% of land and constituted only one third of the population.

The UN General Assembly voted on the Partition Plan on November 29, 1947. Thirty-three states, including the U.S. and the USSR, voted in favor of the Plan, while 13 countries, many of them with largely majority Muslim populations, opposed it. Ten countries abstained from the vote. The Yishuv accepted the division plan but the Arab leadership in Palestine as well as the Arab League rejected it. The Arab countries (all of which had opposed the plan) proposed to query the International Court of Justice on the competence of the General Assembly to partition a country against the wishes of the majority of its inhabitants, but were again defeated. The division was to take effect on the date of British withdrawal from the territory (15 May 1948).

The approval of the plan sparked attacks carried out by an Arab gang against the Jewish population in Palestine. Those attacks consisted mainly of ambushes against logistical convoys and travelling Jews. As the British evacuation from the region progressed, both parties started fighting openly against each other over the control of the strategic transportation routes in the Palestine.

1948

The creation of Israel, initially, brought the arrival of about 50,000 Yemeni Jews who fled or were recruited to immigrate to Israel.

While most of the Palestinian Arab population which remained in Israel after the war was granted an Israeli citizenship, this population was subject to a martial law up to 1966. Travel permits, curfews, administrative detentions and expulsions were part of life until 1966. A variety of legal measures facilitated the transfer of land abandoned by Arabs to state ownership. These included the Absentee Property Law of 1950 which allowed the state to take control of land belonging to land owners who emigrated to other countries, and the Land Acquisition Law of 1953 which authorized the Ministry of Finance to transfer expropriated land to the state.

After the 1948 war some of the Palestinian refugees whom lived in camps in the West Bank within Jordanian, controlled territory, and the Gaza Strip Egyptian controlled territory, and Syria tried to return into the Israel’s territory, by what Israel termed infiltration. The estimates for 1949 to 1956 was that 90% of all infiltration was motivated by social and economic concerns. It was naturally difficult to prevent refugees who were living on a bare subsistence level, from crossing lines beyond which they hope to find fodder for their hungry sheep, or for scarce fuel. Additionally there occurred occasional nightly clandestine smuggling between Gaza and Hebron. The smuggling was largely motivated by the great discrepancy of prices prevailing in the two areas. Most of these complaints in 1950 concerned the shooting by Israelis of refugee civilians and livestock, said to have illegally crossed the demarcation lines. In the most serious case of this kind, Egypt complained that Israeli military Forces, on the 7 and 14 October 1950, had shelled and machine-gunned the Arab villages of Abassan and Beit Hanoun in Egyptian controlled territory of the Gaza strip. This action caused the death of seven and the wounding of twenty civilians. Israel on the other hand complained of infiltration incidents which had resulted in the death of four Israeli settlers and the wounding of twenty others.