Thirty-Two Years To Be Re-Born Despite Road-Blocks Like A Mandate; Israel

 Nadene Goldfoot                                            

     The Sykes–Picot Agreement was a 1916 secret treaty between the United Kingdom and France, with assent from Russia and Italy, to define their mutually agreed spheres of influence and control in an eventual partition of the Ottoman Empire.   The agreement was based on the premise that the Triple Entente would achieve success in defeating the Ottoman Empire during World War I and formed part of a series of secret agreements contemplating its partition. The primary negotiations leading to the agreement took place between 23 November 1915 and 3 January 1916, on which date the British and French diplomats, Mark Sykes and François Georges-Picot, initiated an agreed memorandum. The agreement was ratified by their respective governments on 9 and 16 May 1916.  The British- and French-controlled countries were divided by the Sykes–Picot line. The agreement allocated to the UK control of what is today southern Israel, Jordan and southern Iraq, and an additional small area that included the ports of Haifa and Acre to allow access to the Mediterranean. France was to control southeastern Turkey, the Kurdistan Region, Syria and Lebanon.              

The Conference was held in San Remo, Italy during April 1920 to talk about problems rising from the Versailles Peace Treaty.  The Zionists proposed the Jewish right to Palestine to be recognized and that Great Britain administer the country to establish the Jewish National Home.  It was to eventually be an autonomous commonwealth.  As a result of this conference, the Palestine Mandate was awarded to Britain.  Key Attendees & Delegations:  Great Britain: Prime Minister David Lloyd George, Foreign Secretary Lord Curzon, and Arthur Balfour (as a consultant);  France: Prime Minister Alexandre Millerand and other French representatives. Italy: Prime Minister Francesco Nitti;  Japan: Ambassador Keishirō Matsui. United States: Present via neutral observers. Other Nations: Representatives from Greece and Belgium also attended. Zionist & Advisory Representatives: Zionist leaders including Chaim Weizmann, Nahum Sokolow, and Herbert Samuel attended to present cases regarding the Jewish national home in Palestine.

The British Mandate for Palestine lasted from 1920 to 1948, formally approved by the League of Nations in 1922 and entering into operation on September 29, 1923.     Key Elements of the Mandate

• San Remo and League of Nations: Britain was assigned the mandate at the San Remo Conference in April 1920 to administer former Ottoman territories. 
  
                                    Lord Arthur James Balfour  (1848-1930)
• The Balfour Declaration: The mandate incorporated the 1917 Balfour Declaration, which pledged British support for establishing a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine. The Balfour Declaration was a 117-word public statement issued by the British government on November 2, 1917, announcing its support for a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine.   It was written as a letter on November 2, 1917, by British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour.  Recipient: Addressed to Lord Lionel Walter Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish community, for transmission to the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland. Core Pledge: The British government promised to "use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object". Lionel was the son of Nathan Mayer Rothchild who was a dominent figure in English finance in the Napoleonic Wars.  Lionel financed the English purchase of the Suez Canal in 1875.  He was also the first Jewish  member of parliament in 1858.  
• Sir Mark Sykes and others held an unrealistic view of "world Jewry", the former writing "I do not think it is possible to exaggerate the international power of the Jews."  Prime Minister David Lloyd George and Foreign Secretary A.J. Balfour, believed that Jews possessed real and significant power that could be of use to them in the war.  Britain did have their anti-Semitism that the naive Jews thought they might use to their advantage.  
• Dual Obligation: Britain was tasked with a "dual mandate"—facilitating Jewish immigration, land settlement, and institution-building while simultaneously protecting the civil, religious, and political rights of the existing non-Jewish Arab majority. 

Escalating Tensions and Termination

• Immigration & Conflict: Large-scale Jewish immigration—accelerated by Nazi persecution in Europe during the 1930s—alongside land acquisitions triggered intense resistance, strikes, and major revolts from the Palestinian Arab community.                                   
  
  Initially sold as scrap for slightly more than $8,000, the ship was acquired by the Hagana (an underground Jewish military organization). Hagana personnel arranged to dock the ship in Europe in order to transport Jews who sought to illegally immigrate into Palestine. (Remember that Palestine was promised to Jews to be the Jewish Homeland ????)  Now It's become illegal for Jews to go there?????
                              
• The ship EXODUS, formerly the President Warfield, which carried 4,554 Jewish refugees to Palestine under Haganah auspices in 1947, was seized by the BRITISH in the Mediterranean after a battle in which 3 Jews were killed.  The refugees, returned forcibly from Haifa to Port de Bouc, France, refused to land there;  in spite of their resistance they were disembarked at Hamburg, Germany  by British soldiers.  The incident did much to swing world opinion against Britain's Palestine policy.  This is but one story of Jews trying to leave Germany, then more of Europe for a safe haven.  
• Policy Shifts: Faced with widespread violence and competing nationalist goals, the British later restricted Jewish immigration and land sales, which in turn drew armed opposition from Jewish groups. Jewish land purchases in Palestine began in the late 19th century under Ottoman rule and continued through the British Mandate, culminating in Jewish ownership of roughly 5.67% to 6.6% of the total land area by the end of 1947.  
• Late 19th Century – 1918 (Ottoman Period): Jewish land acquisition started around the 1880s with the growth of the early Zionist movement (the Yishuv). The Ottoman government placed various restrictions or prohibitions on land sales to non-Ottoman Jews, though sales still occurred. 
• 1917–1948 (British Mandate): The British facilitated and regulated land transactions through an official Land Register. By April 1945, Jewish buyers held about 5.67% of the total land in Palestine, rising to approximately 6.6% (roughly 2 million dunams) by late 1947.   
• Institutions & Private Buyers: Land was acquired through organizations such as the Jewish National Fund (JNF) (founded in 1901), the Palestine Jewish Colonization Association (PICA), and private individuals or companies. Until 1939, more than two-thirds of the land was bought by private buyers and independent investors rather than national institutions. 
• Absentee Landlords: A significant portion of the land—such as the large-scale Sursock Purchases in the Jezreel Valley and Haifa Bay during the 1900s–1920s—was purchased from wealthy, non-Palestinian absentee landowners living abroad (such as in Beirut or Damascus)

• Tenant Displacement and Opposition: When large estates were sold by absentee owners, the resident Palestinian tenant farmers (fellahin) who farmed the land were often displaced or evicted. This caused early local economic disruption and fueled anti-Zionist opposition among the Arab population.  From  what I've learned, however, is that they had asked for outlandish prices and got them from Jews, only too happy to sell and make such a profit so they could go live in Damascus or Paris.  The Arabs could not pay the prices of taxes on the property that the Ottoman Empire expected.  
• Legal and Economic Viewpoints: Proponents and historical analyses note that these transactions were legal purchases of private or concessionary property, frequently involving high market prices paid for underdeveloped, swampy, or arid land that required intensive labor and capital to reclaim. Critics and alternative historians emphasize that even legal market transactions under a colonial or mandatory framework resulted in the structural dispossession of local agrarian communities. 
• Post-1948 Shift: Following the 1948 war and the establishment of Israel, the balance of land control shifted drastically through subsequent Israeli state legislation and military ordinances (such as the Absentees' Properties Law), placing the vast majority of territory under state or national control.
  

• End of Rule: Unable to resolve the conflict, Britain handed the matter over to the United Nations at end of mandate in 1947, terminating the mandate on May 14, 1948, which led to the Israeli Declaration of Independence and the outbreak of war.  The British Mandate for Palestine formally came to an end , concluding nearly 30 years of British rule.  
  
              The announcement of birth of a Nation:  and 5 minutes later the Attack
• David Ben-Gurion (not Golda Meir) formally declared the establishment of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948, in Tel Aviv, as the British Mandate ended. Golda Meir was one of the key leaders who signed the Israeli Declaration of Independence and played a crucial role in raising funds in the U.S. to support the newborn state. 

• Invasion by Arab States: On May 15, 1948—just one day after independence—the armies of neighboring Arab nations (including Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon, with support from other forces) invaded Israel.
• The 1948 Arab–Israeli War: This triggered a full-scale war (known in Israel as the War of Independence and in the Arab world as the Nakba or "Catastrophe") that lasted into 1949.