For the best understanding of the conflict, follow the fundamentals as they happened.
A: The history of the land.
B: The Muslims.
C: Zionism and through 1916.
D: World War I – 1922. Preview below.
E: 1922 – 1947. Preview below.
F: The War of 1948. Preview on Home.
G: The refugees after the war. Preview on Home.
H: 1949 – 1957.
I: The War of 1967. Preview on Home.
J: 1967-2005
Page D: World War I – 1922.
The heart of the conflict has been exactly the same since the developments in this handful of years.
In WWI, the Jews played a large role in the Arabs’ liberation from their despised Turkish rulers.
New York Times – May 19, 1919, page 32. Full page.
World Jewry also contributed much financially and it was the bio-chemist Chaim Weizmann who invented a new method to produce acetone, a vital ingredient in explosives and munitions, that ensured Allied victory.
Britain’s Royal Commission Report (aka Peel) – 1937, p. 24. Archive.org.
A. Henry McMahon refutes a promise for Palestine – July 22, 1937. Full letter.
In 1917, Sir Mark Sykes saw no confusion between Arabian independence and Zionism.
Rise of Israel: The Zionism Commission 1918 – 1987, p. 106. Full, Archive.
(The book is a collection of original documents.)
Drunk with euphoria over 1917’s Balfour Declaration and international support, many Jews took it to mean the most- statehood or a British commonwealth- and they barreled forward with development of the institutions of a government, some that duplicated the UK’s Palestine affairs. Some Muslims took it to mean the worst.
Just like antisemitism in the late 1800s spawned Zionism, even worse atrocities at this time added fuel to their cause.
Reuter (in Australia’s Daily Mail) – January 10, 1922. Full page.
(It started in 1918, but wasn’t originally covered by the press.)
There were numerous issues, mostly manageable or temporary. Turmoil was worsened by propaganda and lies, including the mother of all conspiracy theories: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
The pamphlet purporting to reveal that Jews were secretly plotting to dominate the world raced around the globe starting in 1903 and by 1917 was a best-seller in Europe and the United States. It was championed by the likes of American car magnate Henry Ford. Russia’s Orthodox Church distributed it. The Times (London) newspaper wrote favourably of it in 1920 (and a year later acknowledged that it was a fabrication).
While Egypt was the first to translate it into Arabic in 1925, the gist of it spread verbally before then.
MEMRI and ArabNews.com have reports on the Arab angle.
Atlantic Magazine has a good article about the rest.
The League of Nations and Britain’s Mandate for Palestine and Trans-Jordan.
Top: Page 1- full page, full doc (.pdf) or online; Bottom: Page 2.
Minutes from a 1922 meeting between Jewish and moderate Arab leaders, quoted in
UN Special Committee on Palestine – 1947, A_364 Add-2, p. 196. UN.org.
E: 1922 – 1947.
In 1947, after passing the matter of Palestine to the newly formed United Nations, Britain blamed both sides for the lack of peace, though violence was an especially terrible complication. In response, a representative from the League of Jewish-Arab Rapprochement and Co-Operation blamed Britain. He downplayed particular moments when one side or the other affected relations.
UN Special Committee on Palestine – 1947, A_364 Add-2, p. 195. UN.org.
He went on to list a number of instances where one British official or another interfered in discussions between Zionists and Arabs. We don’t believe that Britain deliberately divided the two and feel it happened due to the conflicting perspectives of many of the English involved.
The takeaway is that it’s wrong to accuse the Zionists of being unjust. They had good reasons for seeking autonomy, but they were not in charge. As evidenced by the Mandate, many in Britain and the world supported them, and a majority of Arabs in the 1930s and ’40s felt it best to accomodate the Jews instead of fight them. as they knew it would lead to ruin.
World Report magazine – June 27, 1946 – page 34. Full page.
One of the many topics that gets little attention is that the Mufti’s motivation was impure: He wanted to rule the Muslim world as its new Caliph and that needed to start with one state.
The Washington Times – Sep. 24, 1938. Full page.
(By H.R. Knickerbocker, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1931.)
The Mufti’s violence and control over the path of the conflict was not for the sake of the residents.
The page delves into the Jewish underground and the various Zionist perspectives.
The end of 1928 was a critical point in the build-up to the Palestine Riots and Hebron Massacre of 1929 that saw 133 Jews murdered and their ethnic cleansing from Hebron. 116 Arabs were killed, the vast majority by British police.
Britain’s Royal Commission Report (aka Peel) – 1937, page 67. Archive.org.
What caused such alarm? A screen was placed between men and women at the Western Wall on Yom Kippur.
Any little truth was blown out of proportion and other scandals were fabricated.
Peel. p. 66.
The Times (London) – November 7, 1929. From the British Auxiliaries site.
Raymond Cafferata was the head of Hebron’s police force and an eyewitness to the hate and savagery.
Testimony by Raymond Cafferata. The Auxiliaries site.
The death toll would have been higher had not some Arabs protected Jews.
Over the decades, lies like these not only radicalized many moderates, but they seeped into the mainstream of the international community. Israel has certainly engaged in propaganda like every democracy, though she should be better than that. Still, there is a world of difference between lies that are meant to incite violence and those that attempt to cover up a mistake or exception.
UN Special Committee on Palestine – 1947, A_364_Add-2, p. 196. UN.org.
Britain’s 1937 Partition Plan would have seen 75% of Palestine join Trans-Jordan.
Associated Press (in Washington Evening Star) – Oct. 1, 1937. Full page.
It also called for some degree of population exchange.
Peel, p. 389.
Practical ideas for dividing the land and/or its corollary of population exchange or transfer also came from Arabs.
Ahmed Saleh Al-Khalidi’s cantonization proposal – July 1934. PDF (page 2/3).
The concept of transfer has been one of the most harmful attacks against Zionism. Many people in those days had the idea- for the sake of peace. There had been a precedent with Greece and Turkey (Peel, p. 390.) and the talk often involved Jews from Arab lands who were being threatened. That many Arabs were displaced years later was a consequence of the 1948 Arab-Muslim war against the Two-State Solution.
In 1939, Britain dropped the obligation to establish the Jewish National Home and proposed that all of Palestine become an Arab state over a ten-year transitional period (they weren’t ready for statehood). Jewish immigration would be limited for the first five years and then stopped, thus ensuring an Arab majority. For the first time in their history, Muslims in Palestine would have sovereignty over it .
Arab Higher Committee reply to British White Paper of 1939. Full page, doc.
Shortly after, the King of Saudi Arabia, Ibn Saud, sent delegates to plead with the Mufti to reconsider. He did not and the King predicted that the fanatical Mufti would unwittingly bring about a Jewish state. (Article.)
The anti-Israel crowd either lacks this knowledge or disregards it, and persists in blaming the Jews for the lack of a viable state of Palestine. If not for their extremists, the Muslims would have had all or the vast majority of it.