Palestine

• Historical claims to Palestine: Jewish

  The Jewish people lived in the land of Palestine from about 1500BC.
• Historical claims to Palestine: Jewish

  In AD 70 and again in AD 135, Jewish people rebelled against their Roman rulers. Roman soldiers crushed both revolts, destroyed the Jewish temple, the City of Jerusalem and expelled most Jews.
• Historic claim to Palestine: Jewish

  Many thousands fled to neighbouring countries and the Jews thus became a scattered people and only a few thousand remained in Palestine.
• Historic claim to Palestine: Persecution of Jewish

  When the Tsar was assassinated in 1881, the Jews that had settled in Russia faced anti-Jewish riots. Many people in the government blamed the Jews for the assassination and the new Tsar’s government encouraged the persecution of Jews.
• Historic claim to Palestine: Persecution of Jewish

  Nicholas II was personally anti-Jewish and pursued many of the same hostile policies as his father, Alexander III. The number of pogroms increased sharply, as ultra-conservative Russian nationalists in the ‘Black Hundreds’ were encouraged by the Tsar’s stance.
• Historic claim to Palestine: Persecution of Jewish

  Pogroms in Russia from 1881-82 led to the ‘The First Aliyah’ (1882-1903). This was the first wave of Jewish immigration into Palestine. Between 25,000-35,000 Jews emigrated from Russia and Romania.
• Historic claim to Palestine: Persecution of Jewish

  In 1881 the Diskin Orphanage was founded in Jerusalem for the arrival of Jewish children orphaned by Russian pogroms.
• Historic claim to Palestine: ‘Next Year in Jerusalem’ [Zionism]

  In 1896, Theodor Herzl, an Austrian Jew living in Paris, published a book entitled ‘The Jewish State’ arguing Jews should be granted ‘a portion of the globe large enough to satisfy the rightful requirements of a nation’.
• Historic claim to Palestine: ‘Next Year in Jerusalem’ [Zionism]

  Herzl laid the foundations of the Yishuv (Jewish settlement) in Palestine. The Second Aliyah started in 1904 and lasted until 1913. By 1914, 60,000 Jewish people had settled in Palestine.
• Historic claim to Palestine: ‘Next Year in Jerusalem’ [Zionism]

  1901: Jewish National Fund established to buy land and settle Jews in Palestine.
• Historic claim to Palestine: ‘Next Year in Jerusalem’ [Zionism]

  By 1914, Zionists agreed the homeland would have to be in Palestine - this was the ‘Promised land’, where the Jews had lived some 2,000 years before and where thousands remained. Jews traditionally prayed for ‘next year in Jerusalem’.
• Historic claim to Palestine: Arab

  In the Middle Ages, the Muslim Arabs produced one of the world’s richest civilisations. From their homeland in Arabia, they swept across the Middle East and North Africa. Palestine was one of the countries they took over.
• Historic claim to Palestine: Arab

  Then, in the 16th century, the Ottoman Turks (who were also Muslim, but not Arabs) conquered much of the Middle East. Thus, the Arabs had been conquered and Palestine was under Ottoman rule.
• Historic claim to Palestine: Arab

  In the late 19th century, the Arabs tried several times to remove their Turkish leaders. Their aim was to re-establish Arab rule in the Middle East, including Palestine.
• Historic claim to Palestine: Arab nationalism

  Arab nationalism that drew ideas from Western nationalism began to spread from the start of the 20th century. Arabs looked to the nationalist movements of the Slavic (and mostly Christian) minorities of the Ottoman Balkan territories, which had, by the end of 1912, all won their independence.
• Historic claim to Palestine: Arab nationalism

  There were 3 core concepts that embodied Arab nationalism:

  1. A strong anti-Turkish sentiment as a reaction to centuries of Ottoman control.
  2. The entrance of European colonial powers and foreign control of Arab land led to anti-colonial and anti-imperialist sentiments.
  3. Interaction and competition with Zionism also provided it with an anti-Zionist ideology.
• Historic claim to Palestine: Arab nationalism

  In 1913, the first Arab National Congress was held and a year later the Arab National Manifesto was published. This called for independence from Turkey and unity among the Arabs.
• Historic claim to Palestine: Arab nationalism

  According to historian Ernest Dawn, there were 126 members of Arab nationalist societies by 1914 of whom 22 were Palestinian.
• Historic claim to Palestine: Arab nationalism

  The Arabs believed that as they dominated Palestine, they had the stronger claim to the land. In 1914 Palestine had a population of 657,000 Muslim Arabs, 81,000 Christian Arabs, and 60,000 Jews.
• Historic claim to Palestine: Arab-Jewish hostilities in Palestine pre-1914

  According to historian Benny Morris, among the first recorded violent incidents between Arabs and the newly immigrated Jews in Palestine was the accidental shooting death of an Arab man in Safed, during a wedding in December 1882, by a Jewish guard of the newly formed Rosh Pinna (a new town established in 1878 by Jews). In response, about 200 Arabs descended on the Jewish settlement throwing stones and vandalising property.
• Historic claim to Palestine: Arab-Jewish hostilities in Palestine pre-1914

  A major clash between Jewish settlers and Palestinian peasants took place in March 1886, when a mob of Palestinian Arabs from the village of Yahudiya attacked the Jewish settlement of Petah Tikva.
• Historic claim to Palestine: Arab-Jewish hostilities in Palestine pre-1914

  The first response to the influx of Jews into the towns occurred in 1891. On June 24th, 1891, a group of Arab Jerusalem notables sent a telegram to the Sultan's grand vizier which requested a halt to the immigration of Jews into Palestine and a ban on the purchase of land by Jews.
• Historic claim to Palestine: Young Turk Revolution

  • On July 24, 1908, the Ottoman Empire went through a dramatic series of changes due to the seizure of power by a group of Turkish officers (Young Turks). These developments increased the ability to express and expand anti-Zionist sentiments.
• Historic claim to Palestine: Young Turk Revolution

  While the official gazette of the Ottoman Empire had been the only Arab-language paper available in Palestine before 1908, 35 Arab newspapers began circulation in Palestine during the first year after the Young Turk Revolution.
• Historic claim to Palestine: Young Turk Revolution

  One such paper was Al-Asma'i, which was founded in Jaffa in 1908. In 1908 it reported that the Zionist immigrants ‘harm the local population and wrong them’.
• Historic claim to Palestine: Young Turk Revolution

  A vehemently anti-Zionist newspaper was founded in Haifa in 1908. Al-Karmil ran 134 articles about Zionism between 1908 and 1913.
• Balfour Declaration: Jewish favour

  On November 2, 1917,Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour sent his letter to Lord Rothschild, a prominent Zionist stating that:

  ’sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations’

  ‘With favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object’
• Balfour Declaration: Arab favour

  On November 2, 1917,Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour sent his letter to Lord Rothschild, a prominent Zionist stating that:

  ‘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’
• Role of WW1 in Arab-Israeli conflict - McMahon-Hussein Correspondence, 1915


  In July 1915, Hussein, Sharif of Mecca (most important Muslim leader of Hashemites ), sent a letter to the British High Commissioner, Sir Herbert McMahon detailing the conditions under which he would consider a partnership with the British.
• Role of WW1 in Arab-Israeli conflict - McMahon-Hussein Correspondence, 1915

  Hussein stated that he required Britain to ‘acknowledge the independence of the Arab countries’.
• Role of WW1 in Arab-Israeli conflict - McMahon-Hussein Correspondence, 1915


  McMahon, however, insisted that certain areas falling within the French sphere of influence would not be included. He did, however, state that if the Arabs fought against the Ottomans that Britain would ‘when the situation allows, assist the Arabs to establish what may appear to be the most suitable forms of government in those various territories.’
• Role of WW1 in Arab-Israeli conflict - Sykes-Picot Agreement, 1916


  The Sykes-Picot Agreement, also called Asia Minor Agreement (May 1916), was a secret treaty between the UK and France that defined their mutually agreed spheres of influence and control in the eventual dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire.
• Role of WW1 in Arab-Israeli conflict - Sykes-Picot Agreement, 1916


  The agreement led to the division of Turkish held Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine into various French and British administered areas.
• Role of WW1 in Arab-Israeli conflict - Arab resistance, June 1916


  In June 1916 an Arab army of 30,000 men moved against Turkish forces.
• Role of WW1 in Arab-Israeli conflict - Arab resistance, June 1916

  By September 1916, they had taken the Red Sea ports of Jeddah, Rabigh and Yanbu. They had also taken Mecca and Ta’if and had captured 6,000

  Ottoman prisoners.
• Role of WW1 in Arab-Israeli conflict - Arab resistance, June 1916

  They captured Aqabah in July 1917 and cut the Hejaz railway, a vital strategic link through the Arab peninsula. This enabled British troops to advance into Palestine and Syria.
• Role of WW1 in Arab-Israeli conflict - Arab resistance, June 1916


  The Arab rebels then aided British attacks on the Ottoman defensive line in Gaza-Beersheba and the Yarmuk River valley, which led to the British capture of Jerusalem in December 1917.
• Role of WW1 in Arab-Israeli conflict - Arab resistance, June 1916


  By 1918, the British were paying their Arab allies £220,000 a month in gold to fight the Ottoman Turks
• Role of WW1 in Arab-Israeli conflict - Arab resistance, June 1916

  With the capture of Damascus (1 October 1918), Turkish hold on the Middle East ended.
• Role of WW1 in Arab-Israeli conflict - role of Jewish community in WW1


  Jews from Palestine, Russia, and Turkey lobbied the British government to be allowed to join up despite not being British nationals. Eventually, they were formed into the Zion Mule Corps and went on to serve in Gallipoli, receiving praise from the British authorities.