Palestinian-Israeli Conflict
Main Players•Zionists- Jews from across Europe and the
United States primarily.
•Palestinian- the Arab population of the Palestinian Mandate
•British- Desires geo-political positioning for trade and to coax the Jewish lobby into their camp.
•Newly Formed Arab States- see the Balfour Declaration as a clear violation of pan-arab sovereignty and use the Palestinian plight to invoke favor among their own population.
Palestinian Mandate
Jewish Oppression- Pogroms
Russia Poland
Jewish Oppression- Ghettos
Venice Poland
Zionism- Theodor Herzl
Zionist Congress
Balfour Declaration“His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a National Home for the Jewish people, and will use
their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it
being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious
rights of existing non-jewish communities in Palestine, or the
rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”
Chaim Weizmann
“The Zionist objective was gradually to make Palestine as Jewish as England was English.”-
Weizmann
Legitimacy
•San Remo Conference (1920)
•League of Nations (1922)
Musa Kazim al-Husseini
Mufti of Jerusalem- Haj amin al-
Husseini
Kibbutzism
Haganah
David Ben Gurion
Mapai Party
Revisionist Zionism-
Jabotinsky
The Irgun and Begin
Wailing Wall
Shaw Commission
•Findings: Landless Class of Palestinian Arabs
•Fear of more Jewish settlement
•Recommendations: Passfield White Paper (1931)-
•British control of Jewish immigration
•U.S. and British Zionist Lobby => Rejected White Paper (creating the Black Paper)
Peel Commission
Findings and Recommendation
•The premise of the mandate was untenable
•A unitary state could not exist under the obligations of the Balfour Declaration
•The Mandate created antagonism between Jews and Arabs
•Mandate to be terminated
•Partition into two states
•Britain would continue to control Jerusalem
White Paper (1939)
•A Jewish state was not a policy of the British within the Palestinian Mandate.
•Limit Jewish immigration = cease in 5 years
•In 10 years, Palestine was to be granted independence.
WWII- Dillema
Intercommunal War