How England Got The Mandate Over Palestine: What Transpired Inbetween?

Nadene Goldfoot       

    The capture of Jerusalem by General Allenby during World War I
              

Great Britain took control of Palestine after World War I when the four-century-old Ottoman Empire collapsed.  

During World War I in 1917, British forces led by General Edmund Allenby captured Jerusalem and drove Ottoman forces out of the region.

 Even before the war ended, Britain and France secretly planned to divide the Middle East under the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement, placing Palestine under British sphere influence. They were secret agreements between Britain, France, and Russia, later included Italy between 1914-1916.  partition of Ottoman Turkish Empire.  Insofar as it affected Palestine and Syria, the Treaty was an Anglo-French memorandum started March 9, 1916 after Sir Arthur Nicolson and then Sir Mark Sykes-for Britain and Georges Picot for France;  It had complete dismemberment of Palestine, with Upper Galilee under French, (the Hauran a French--protected Arab State).  Transjordan and the Negev a British-protected Arab State, the Haifa Bay area under British control, and the remained of central Palestine (from Nazareth to Hebron) an Anglo-French Russian condominium.  

The Zionist leaders discovered the terms of this arrangement early in 1917, and sharply protested both against the condominium (which they believed would expose the Jewish population to the dangers of a constant power conflict) and against the radical dismemberment of the country.  The treaty was partly responsible for the form of the post-war frontiers of Palestine.                               

 In 1917, Britain also issued the Balfour Declaration, which promised support for "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people." It was issued on November 2, 1917 by the British foreign secretary, Arthur James Balfour.  This had come about through long negotiations initiated by Chaim Weizmann, Nahum Sokolow and others shortly after the outbreak of WWI, with the support of Herbert Samuel, Chief Rabbi JH Hertz, the Hinaham Moses Gaster, etc.  There was much discussion on both the formula of the Declaration and its timing.  Balfour's visit to the US in the Spring of 1917 and his meeting with President Wilson, who supported the efforts of the American Zionists headed by Brandeis, expedited the final decision of the British government.  The document was approved by other Allied governments and incorporated in the Mandate in 1922.  "Giving recognition to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country." That was the deal.   

Chaim Weizmann and Feisal met Dr. Weizmann in Transjordan in 1918 and Paris in 1919 where they reached an agreement on mutual aid, conditional on the implementation of British promises to the Arabs.  later, owing to his expulsion from Syria by the French in 1920, and the influence of the Palestinian Arab leadership like Husseini, his attitude to Zionism became hostile. The 1919 meeting between Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann and Emir Faisal (the son of King Hussein of Hejaz) resulted in the Faisal–Weizmann Agreement, which was about outlining a framework for mutual cooperation, Arab independence, and Jewish settlement in Palestine ahead of the Paris Peace Conference.

Feisal in Hussein (1855-1933)  King of Iraq from 1921, eldest son of Hussein, sherif of Mecca Saudi Arabia who led the uprising against Turkey (Ottoman Empire) and was supposed to also be King of Syria.  

Dr. Weizmann(1874-1952) Chemist, Dr. Chaim Weizmann invented an industrial fermentation process using bacteria to turn corn or potatoes into large quantities of acetone during World War, which helped Britain to win their share of the war of WWI.  1st president of Israel, born in Motel, near Pinsk, studied in German and Swiss Univ. and in 1904, lecturer in biological chemistry.  Influential personality. His discoveries in organic chemistry were amazing. 

The San Remo conference assigned the mandate to Britain in 1920, and the League of Nations officially formalized the British Mandate for Palestine in 1922. The mandate required Britain to govern the region and facilitate a Jewish national home while protecting the rights of the non-Jewish majority.  It was a 30 year lasting mandate.  

Conflict and End of British Rule

While “Under the British mandate, European Jews began immigrating to Palestine and acquiring land, because of bad conditions in the land they had been living in, causing the Jewish population to increase tenfold between 1918 and 1947.” -- [YouTube]. Jews had been under the pressure of persecution and expulsion before and now Jews moved from the 1880's to World War I;  a period of free migration, chiefly to the US, caused by anti-Semitism and economic factors;  From the 1920's onward, migration was characterized by western restrictions on immigration and its consequent global dispersal, contrasting with the migration to Israel, now the chief country absorbing Jewish migrants.  This development is reflected in the following tables:

Total Jewish Migration, 1881-1951

1881 (Aliyah) ---1914 (beginning of WWl) 2,370,000 migrants

1919-1932- 759,970 migrants

1933-1951 - 1,551,440migrants

total:  4,681,410 migrants

Immigration to Israel (Palestine) 1881-1951

1881-1914      50,000

1919-1932    125,250

1933-May 1948 Birth of Israel  389,055

May 1948--1951    678, 116 

total:  1,242,321 Jewish migrants

(1919-1951 only)   1,191, 421

This rapid demographic shift led to severe tensions, major riots, and the major Arab Revolt from 1936 to 1939, frantic time trying to get out of Germany, anti-Semitism at worst,  which Britain suppressed. Unable to reconcile the competing national aspirations of Arabs and Jews, Britain handed the issue to the United Nations in 1947. The UN proposed partitioning Palestine.The United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine was a 1947 proposal to divide British Mandatory Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states. 

Overview of Resolution 181

Date Adopted: November 29, 1947, by the UN General Assembly as Resolution 181 (II). 
Core Proposal: Terminate the British Mandate and split the region into independent Arab and Jewish states linked by economic union, with Jerusalem under international administration. 
Land Allocation: Roughly 55% of the land was assigned to the Jewish state and 42% to the Arab state, with the remaining area forming the Jerusalem international zone. 
Demographics at the Time: The population was approximately 67% Arab and 33% Jewish, with Jewish landowners holding about 7% of the total land at that time. Jews were being physically kept from entering by the British at a period most deadly for Jews needing safety of their ancient lands.   !!!

      Golda Meir nee Meyerson (1898-1978) born in Russia, lived in US as a child, settled in Palestine in 1921, active in Labor Zionism, 1st minister to USSR, Minister of Labor, foreign minister (1956-66).  Prime Minister during Yom Kipppur War, retired in 1974, wrote MY LIFE, a must read.  
 The British Mandate officially ended on May 15, 1948, with the birth of Israel.           

 immediately preceding the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and the creation of Israel