History - Arab Israeli Course

• Today the Middle East is one of the most unstable and violent parts of the world; the Arab-Israeli conflict is one of the longest and bitterest struggles of the C20th and it is the cause of much, but not all, of the tension that exists there to this day
• Middle East

  • Important location being the meeting points of three different continents – Europe, Asia and Africa
  • Important crossroads for trade between these continents dating back hundreds of years
  • Site of two of the world's earliest civilisations, Mesopotamia and Iraq
  • Source of three of the world's different religions - Judaism, Christianity and Islam
  • Jerusalem has deep religious significance for all three of them
• Most people living in the Middle East today are Muslim, but there are significant Jewish and Christian minorities
• Its location and its oil have made it a place of particular interest to colonial and superpowers in the past and it still plays a pivotal role in international politics today
• Jews


  • Had lived in Palestine at the time of the Romans but had been expelled after two revolts in A.D.70 and A.D.135
  • Then lived where they could and were often persecuted
  • Known as 'Christ killers' and as money lenders
  • Hatred of Jews (anti-semitism) became common in Europe and by the end of the nineteenth century violent attacks on them frequently occurred
  • About three million Jews escaped eastern Europe at the beginning of the twentieth century and large numbers emigrated to the USA
• Zionism


  • Idea that the Jews were a people who deserved their own homeland
  • Organised by Theodore Herzl in 1896
  • Reason was the fact that Jews were often persecuted
• By 1914, about 75,000 Jews had arrived in Palestine and there were about 650,000 Arabs living in the area
• In 1909, Tel Aviv, an entirely Jewish town, was founded
• Attacks on Jews by Arabs began at the same time and by 1914, there were four anti-Zionist organisations in Palestine
• McMahon-Hussein Agreement

  Arabs agreed to help the British defeat the Turks in return for Arab independence after the war
• The Arabs carried out their part of the bargain and, by 1918 the entire Ottoman Empire had collapsed. Ten million Arabs had been freed from Turkish rule and most, including those living in Palestine, believed they had won their independence
• Sykes-Picot Agreement


  • Britain and France are prepared to set up and to protect an Arab state in Palestine
  • The two countries are prepared to negotiate the boundaries of the Arab state
• Balfour Declaration


  British government policy to support a Jewish state in Palestine
• The Balfour Declaration contradicted the promises made to the Palestinian Arabs in the McMahon-Hussein and the Sykes-Picot Agreements that Britain would back a Palestinian state in return for Arab support against Turkey during the First World War
• In 1919 Britain was given a mandate to govern Palestine by the League of Nations
• Both the Arabs and Jews in Palestine thought that President Wilson's idea of self-determination would bring them independence. They were disappointed that the peace settlement gave them a new master – Britain
• In the period immediately after the end of the First World War, more than 10,000 Jewish immigrants arrived in Palestine
• Arab leaders asked the British to set up an Arab state before even more Jews arrived. The British refused
• The years from 1919 to 1939 were a time of violence between the Arab and Jewish communities. Both communities began to rebel against the British
• In 1921 the British banned all immigration in order to calm the situation, but immigrants kept arriving
• The rapid influx of immigrants in the 1930s strengthened the claim for a Jewish homeland. By 1939, there were nearly 450,000 Jews living in Palestine and the immigrants who had arrived after 1920 had brought with them about $250million to invest in their 'homeland'
• In 1936 a general strike (refused to work or pay taxes/boycott trade with the British) was organised by the Arabs to try and bring an end to Jewish immigration, an end to land sales and a national government of their own. A virtual civil war broke out
• The Arab revolt lasted for three years. In the first six months of the Arab revolt, 89 Jews were killed and more than 300 were injured. 20,000 British troops were sent in to keep order, but they struggled to control the situation
• The Arabs thought that the British favoured the Jews by helping develop their defence force (the Haganah), fining Arabs disproportionately, destroying Arab houses which were thought to contain arms or terrorists, torturing Arab prisoners and arresting Palestinian leaders
• The Peel Commission suggested two states, an Arab state in the south and a Jewish state in the north. This was accepted by the Jews, but rejected by the Arabs, who were unwilling to hand over any territory that they considered to be theirs by right
• The Arabs then resumed their revolt and continued their policy of assassination and terrorist attacks
• The Macdonald Report announced the British government's plan to establish an independent Palestinian state within 10 years, with Arabs and Jews sharing government to ensure the essential interests of each community were safeguarded
• The Peel Commission and the Macdonald Report had angered and annoyed both the Arabs and the Jews
• A particularly brutal massacre of Palestinian Arabs took place at Al-Bassa where British troops, in retaliation against an Arab attack that killed four soldiers, sprayed the village with machine gun fire for 20 minutes and then burned it down. 20 Arabs were rounded up and put on a bus, which was forced over a land mine laid by the soldiers. All inside were killed
• Elsewhere, curfews were put in place, thousands of Arabs were arrested without trial, and villages were destroyed
• The British government set a quota of 10,000 Jewish immigrants per year for five years after 1939 and after that date, no further Jewish immigration was to be permitted unless the Arabs of Palestine allowed it.
• It left the Palestinian side in a particularly weak position.
• The war with Germany led to a sudden change in British policy in Palestine in 1939. For the British to win a war, oil would be needed from the Middle East and this would require Arab co-operation.
• The Peel Plan was shelved and the suppression of the Arabs stopped.
• About 27,000 Jews from the Haganah and Irgun fought with the British against the Nazis, but a few members of Irgun disagreed with this and set up the extremist group Lehi or Stern Gang and continued the struggle against Britain.
• The Holocaust had shown that the need for a Jewish homeland was greater than ever.
• At a Conference held in London in 1945, Zionists demanded the immediate creation of a Jewish state in Palestine.
• The new Labour government under Clement Attlee had to tackle the Palestine issue immediately. With 250,000 Jews in 'displaced persons' camps in Europe, the problem of balancing the conflicting demands of Jews and Arabs remained.
• Ernest Bevin


  The new British foreign secretary
• Ernest Bevin set a strict limit of 1,500 Jewish immigrants a month into Palestine.