Why zionists chose palestine

They enjoyed the same rights and privileges as their fellow Ottoman citizens, and never agitated for the Declaration of November It is the Zionists outside Palestine who worked for the Balfour Declaration ….

Because the immigrants dumped upon the country from different parts of the world are ignorant of the language, customs and character of the Arabs, and enter Palestine by the might of England against the will of the people who are convinced that these have come to strangle them. Two of the principal means advocated by the Zionist Organization for achieving the national home were large-scale immigration and land purchase. A third was the denial of employment to Palestinian labour.

The King-Crane Commission had reported that Jewish colonists were planning a radical transformation of Palestine:. Large scale immigration had started under the aegis of the Balfour Declaration soon after the war ended, and had already led to violent opposition by Palestinians in and With the endorsement of the Churchill policy, immigration accelerated, reaching a peak in , but soon sharply declined. At this point, Weizmann records:. Where are they, your Zionists?

Thus during the decade about , Jewish immigrants entered Palestine, far short of the numbers envisaged by the Zionist Organization, but substantial enough to make a marked impact in a country where the total population in was officially estimated at about , Immigration was virtually under the control of Zionist organizations, as described in the report of an official Commission:. Similarly, a number of Jewish organizations such as the Colonisation Department of the Zionist Organization, financed by the Keren ha-Yesod, were actively engaged in acquisition of land both for individual immigrant families as well as for the Yishuv or Jewish settlements.

With the British occupation of Palestine in all land transactions were suspended. The aim of ICA was to support Jewish emigration from Europe and Asia to other parts of the world; to create agricultural settlements in North and South America; and to obtain authorization and autonomy for these settlements. Only Jewish labour could service Jewish farms and settlements. The eventual outcome of this trend was a major outbreak of violence with unprecedented loss of life in , which was investigated by the Shaw Commission.

Another commission headed by Sir John Hope Simpson followed to investigate questions of immigration and land transfers. Certain observations of the Hope Simpson Commission are of interest, particularly on labour and employment policies. The Commission went into great detail in its report, dividing Palestine into areas according to cultivability, and estimating total cultivable land at about 6.

The report described in some detail the employment policies of the Zionist agencies quoting some of their provisions:. Commenting on the Zionist attitude towards the Palestinians, the report noted the Zionist policy of allaying Arab suspicions:.

The above-quoted provisions sufficiently illustrate the Zionist policy with regard to the Arabs in their colonies. Attempts are constantly being made to establish the advantage which Jewish settlement has brought to the Arab. The most lofty sentiments are ventilated at public meetings and in Zionist propaganda. This resolution is frequently quoted in proof of the excellent sentiments which zionism cherishes towards the people of Palestine. The provisions quoted above, which are included in legal documents binding on every settler in a Zionist colony, are not compatible with the sentiments publicly expressed.

At the same time, the Commission, rejecting Zionist arguments in support of their discriminatory policies, considered that they violated the Mandate:. The report noted in the strongest terms the effect on indigenous Palestinians of Zionist policies. Actually the result of the purchase of land in Palestine by the Jewish National Fund has been that land has been extraterritorialized. It ceases to be land from which the Arab can gain any advantage either now or at any time in the future.

Not only can he never hope to lease or to cultivate it, but, by the stringent provisions of the lease of the Jewish National Fund, he is deprived for ever from employment on that land. Nor can anyone help him by purchasing the land and restoring it to common use.

The land is in mortmain and inalienable. It is for this reason that Arabs discount the professions of friendship and goodwill on the part of the Zionists in view of the policy which the Zionist Organization deliberately adopted. It has emerged quite definitely that there is at the present time and with the present methods of Arab cultivation no margin of land available for agricultural settlement by new immigrants with the exception of such undeveloped land as the various Jewish agencies hold in reserve.

These developments in Palestine at the end of the s — the Palestinian revolt and the reports of the Shaw and Hope Simpson Commissions — heightened awareness of the dangerous situation in Palestine as the Zionist drive towards a Jewish State met increasing Palestinian opposition.

While reinforcing its military strength in Palestine, Great Britain issued a new statement of policy, called the Passfield White Paper of October , in an effort to control the pressures that were building.

The Passfield paper commented:. The paper announced a renewed attempt to establish a legislative council. Further it gave notice of intent to reassert authority over the vital issues of immigration and land transfers, which had been dominated by the Jewish Agency, working heavily against Palestinian interests.

The Passfield White Paper drew strong criticism from the Zionist Organization and its supporters, and soon was virtually negated by a letter written in by the British Prime Minister to Dr. That attack, too, was successfully repulsed. It did not take the form of a retraction of the White Paper — that would have meant a loss of face — but of a letter addressed to me by the Prime Minister, read in the House of Commons and printed in Hansard.

I considered that the letter rectified the situation — the form was unimportant — and I so indicated to the Prime Minister. This sudden reversal of British policy, coming as it did after Palestinian hopes for fair play had been raised by the Passfield White Paper, did little to improve the deteriorating situation in Palestine.

The start of the notorious Nazi persecution of Jews in Europe brought repercussions to Palestine which were to exacerbate the mounting tensions. While the majority of European Jews fleeing the Nazi terror chose the United States and Britain, large numbers sought refuge in Palestine. Immigration thus sharply increased, as shown by the following figures:. Compared to the , in the s, Palestine received about , legal immigrants in the s.

The Jewish population in numbered over , out of a total of about 1,, — nearly 30 per cent compared to the less than 10 per cent 20 years before. Similarly, by the end of , Jewish holdings of land had risen to almost 1. Between and , the British Administration tried to initiate measures, such as the establishment of elected municipal councils, and later, a legislative council with a large majority of appointed members in an attempt to reduce political friction.

These measures were ineffective. The drive of political zionism to establish a settler State in Palestine was met by violent resistance from the Palestinians, and this situation simmered until it boiled over in Throughout the period of the mandate, Palestinian resentment against the denial of their inherent right of national self-determination, and against the colonization of their land by non-Palestinians, manifested itself in a series of outbreaks of violence which, becoming virtually endemic in Palestinian politics, mounted in intensity as the mandate prolonged.

But as long as the inherently conflicting lines of policy in the mandate were implemented, violence and resistance continued. On 2 November , non-violent protests marked the first anniversary of the Balfour Declaration. As early as April , while Palestine was still under military government, anti-Jewish riots broke out just as the San Remo Conference was finalizing the allocation of the Palestine Mandate to Great Britain.

The report of the military commission of inquiry was not published at the time, but was referred to in the report of the Royal Commission in The underlying causes of the riots were cited as:. There were 95 dead and injured. The clashes between Palestinians and Jews left dead and injured on both sides, and British reinforcements, including aircraft, naval vessels and armoured cars, had to be called in from outside Palestine before the situation was brought under control. The Shaw Commission observed:.

For 80 years before the first of these attacks there is no recorded instance of any similar incidents. It is obvious then that the relations between the two races during the past decade must have differed in some material respect from those which previously obtained. Of this we found ample evidence. The reports of the Military Court and of the local Commission which, in and in respectively, enquired into the disturbances of those years, drew attention to the change in the attitude of the Arab population towards the Jews in Palestine.

This unity of purpose may weaken but it is liable to be revived in full force by any large issues which involve racial interests. In , the Nazis took power in Germany, and their imminent infamous persecution of Jewry brought an exodus of Jews from Germany and other European countries.

Large numbers came to Palestine, exciting the already simmering resentment again into violence. No formal commission was appointed to inquire into this new outbreak in , which was surveyed in the Peel Report of All that the Arab leaders had felt in they now felt more bitterly … the greater the Jewish inflow, the greater the obstacle to their attainment of national independence.

And now, for the first time, a worse fate seemed to threaten them than the withholding of their freedom and the continuance of Mandatory rule. Hitherto, with the high rate of natural increase among the Arabs, it has seemed impossible that the Jews could become a majority in Palestine within measurable time. But what if the new flood of immigration were to rise still higher? That question gave a very different colour to the idea of self-government in Palestine as Arab nationalists had hitherto conceived it.

It is not surprising, therefore, to find … the old antagonism growing hotter and hotter, till it bursts again into flames.

Clashes erupted mainly in Jerusalem and Jaffa, with considerable casualties, although not as heavy as those of The report continues:. And there was one feature of this last outbreak of Arab violence which was as unprecedented as it was significant.

In , and the Arabs had attacked the Jews. In they attacked the Government. The idea that the British authorities in London or Jerusalem were trying to hold the balance even between Arab and Jews was now openly scouted.

They were allies of the Jews, it was said, and the enemies of the Arabs. This Palestinian antagonism and resistance to the Mandate from then on gathered strength. By , the various Palestinian political parties and groupings had united to form an Arab Executive Committee, and showed more inclination to co-operate with the British authorities.

At this stage the Jews, still in a minority despite massive immigration, were the party to feel apprehension over representative government, and a new move in to set up a legislative council was defeated in Parliament after the Zionist Congress had:. In , the Palestinian resistance to foreign rule and to foreign colonization broke out into a major rebellion that lasted virtually until the outbreak of the Second World War.

Palestinian demands for independence drew impetus from the simultaneous nationalist agitations in Egypt and Syria which had forced Great Britain and France to open treaty negotiations with those two Arab countries neighbouring Palestine. In April , what started as minor Arab-Jewish clashes quickly flared into a widespread revolt.

The Committee called for a general strike to support the demand for national government. Despite strong Palestinian resistance to Jewish immigration, the British Government issued permits for several thousand new immigrants, offering further provocation to Palestinian nationalists. An unprecedented feature of this nationalist movement was the open identification with it by senior Arab officials of the Palestine administration who protested to the High Commissioner that Palestinians had been forced to violence because of loss of faith in British pledges and alarm at the extent to which Britain was susceptible to Zionist pressure.

As the strike prolonged, violence increased. There were attacks on British troops and police posts as well as on Jewish settlements, sabotage of roads, railways, pipelines and so on. The British administration imposed curfews, called in troop reinforcements from Britain, Egypt and Malta, and resorted to mass arrests, collective fines, and internments in concentration camps and other emergency measures.

Large parts of the Arab quarter in the town of Jaffa were demolished by the authorities on the grounds of urban improvement — in the midst of the revolt — but order could not be restored. During earlier Palestinian Arab uprisings, Jewish settlers often had restrained retaliation under the doctrine of the Havlaga, or restraint.

But now, not unexpectedly, there were Jewish reprisals. The principal vehicle was the Haganah, a covert paramilitary force formed early in the mandate years and which was to play a leading role in later events in Palestine.

The Jewish settlers also benefited from 2, of their number being enrolled in the police forces as supernumeraries. The failure of the Palestine authorities to suppress the revolt by military means led to political measures. The end of the strike was to prove a lull in the rebellion.

Although it was not conclusively established that the assassins were Arab, the High Commissioner declared the Arab Higher Committee proscribed, arresting its prominent leaders and deporting them to the Seychelles Islands, while the Mufti of Jerusalem was able to escape to Lebanon, from where he continued to direct the rebellion. Military courts were established, awarding 58 death sentences by the end of , apart from numerous life imprisonments.

In July , two additional infantry battalions, two squadrons of the Royal Air Force, an armoured car and cavalry unit, and a battle cruiser were endeavouring to suppress terrorism which, since April, had become open rebellion. By the end of October there were in the country eighteen infantry battalions, two cavalry regiments, a battery of howitzers, and armoured car units, or a total of 18, to 20, troops, while some 2, additional British police were recruited during the year.

A virtual military reoccupation of the country proved necessary to deal with the explosion of bombs and land mines, the murder and snipings which were almost daily occurrences. Heavy military concentrations alone preserved a semblance of order in the northern and central parts of the country, while the Jerusalem and southern districts were entirely out of hand … The main military campaign culminated during the first weeks of October, when troops peacefully occupied the old city — or Arab quarter — of Jerusalem.

This operation, which might have been dangerous owing to the narrow streets, was accomplished without serious loss, and by the end of that month all Palestine was under military control …. As in the first phase of the rebellion, the Jewish side also conducted its own retaliations and reprisals. By , the large-scale military operations by the British Government against the Palestinian nationalist guerrillas were showing success.

Meanwhile, Palestinian grievances were at last being heard in London at a conference attended by other Arab States. As war approached, Britain again turned to these friendly Arab States to intercede in Palestine, and the rebellion was ended after three and a half years.

The rebellion of culminated 15 years of Palestinian resistance to the Mandate, and was to bring far-reaching consequences in Palestine. The response of the British Government had been to propose, in place of the independence pledged two decades earlier, a plan to partition Palestine. Faced with this dilemma it recommended, in Solomonian fashion, the partition of Palestine. It would evidently make the operation of the Mandate at every point more difficult, and it would greatly complicate the question of its termination.

To foster Jewish immigration in the hope that it might ultimately lead to the creation of a Jewish majority and the establishment of a Jewish State with the consent or at least the acquiescence of the Arabs was one thing.

It was quite another thing to contemplate, however remotely, the forcible conversion of Palestine into a Jewish State against the will of the Arabs. For that would clearly violate the spirit and intention of the Mandates System.

It would mean that national self-determination had been withheld when the Arabs were a majority in Palestine and only conceded when the Jews were a majority. It would mean that the Arabs had been denied the opportunity of standing by themselves; that they had, in fact, after an interval of conflict, been bartered about from Turkish sovereignty to Jewish sovereignty.

It was the Balfour Declaration and its embodiment in the draft Mandate and nothing else which seemingly prevented their attaining a similar measure of independence to that which other Arab communities already enjoyed. And their reaction to this crux was logical.

They repudiated the Balfour Declaration. They protested against its implementation in the draft Mandate. In all of its constituent territories, except Transjordan, there were serious disturbances, and in all of them, except Palestine, there was a marked advance towards self-government.

It has been pointed out that the outbreak of was not only, or even mainly, an attack on the Jews, but an attack on the Palestine Government.

In this was still clearer. Jewish lives were taken and Jewish property destroyed; but the outbreak was chiefly and directly aimed at the Government. It was an open rebellion of the Palestinian Arabs, assisted by fellow-Arabs from other countries, against British Mandatory rule. They were:. The Balfour Declaration and the Mandate under which it was to be implemented involved the denial of national independence at the outset.

The subsequent growth of the national home created a practical obstacle, and the only serious one, to the concession later of national independence. It was believed that its further growth might mean the political as well as economic subjection of the Arabs to the Jews, so that if, ultimately, the Mandate should terminate and Palestine become independent, it would not be a national independence in the Arab sense but self-government by a Jewish majority.

All the other factors were complementary or subsidiary, aggravating the two causes or helping to determine the time at which the disturbances broke out.

We believe that not in Palestine only but in all the Middle East the Arabs might profit from the capital and enterprise which the Jews are ready enough to provide; and we believe that in ordinary circumstances the various Arab Governments would be ready enough on their side to permit a measure of Jewish immigration under their own conditions and control.

But the creation of the national home has been neither conditioned nor controlled by the Arabs of Palestine. It has been established directly against their will. And that hard fact has had its natural reaction on Arab minds elsewhere.

The Jews were fully entitled to enter the door forced open for them into Palestine. They did it with the sanction and encouragement of the League of Nations and the United States of America. But by doing it they have closed the other doors of the Arab World against them. And in certain circumstances this antagonism might become dangerously aggressive. About 1,, Arabs are in strife, open or latent, with some , Jews. There is no common ground between them.

The Arab community is predominantly Asian in character, the Jewish community predominantly European. They differ in religion and in language.

Their cultural and social life, their ways of thought and conduct, are as incompatible as their national aspirations. These last are the greatest bar to peace. In its essence it does not differ from similar movements amongst the Arabs in all other Arab territories.

The events of 17 years have only served to stiffen and embitter their resistance and, as they argue, to strengthen their case. And the core of their case, it must be stressed again, is political. There was little or no friction, as we have seen, between Arab and Jews in the rest of the Arab world until the strife in Palestine engendered it. Quite obviously, then, the problem of Palestine is political.

It is, as elsewhere, the problem of insurgent nationalism. The only difference is that in Palestine Arab nationalism is inextricably interwoven with antagonism to the Jews. And the reasons for that, it is worth repeating, are equally obvious. In the first place, the establishment of the national home involved at the outset a blank negation of the rights implied in the principle of national self-government.

Secondly, it soon proved to be not merely an obstacle to the development of national self-government, but apparently the only serious obstacle.

Thirdly, as the home has grown, the fear has grown with it that, if and when self-government is conceded, it may not be national in the Arab sense, but government by a Jewish majority. That is why it is difficult to be an Arab patriot and not to hate the Jews. It was there at the beginning; its strength and range have steadily increased; and it seems evident to us from what we saw and heard that it has not yet reached its climax.

Nor is there any need to emphasize the undesirable reactions of such a course of policy on opinion outside Palestine. However vigorously and consistently maintained, it will not solve the problem. It will not allay, it will exacerbate the quarrel between the Arabs and the Jews.

The establishment of a single self-governing Palestine will remain just as impracticable as it is now. It is not easy to pursue the dark path of repression without seeing daylight at the end of it.

We can see none in any other plan. This public recognition that the irreconcilable terms of the Mandate had made it unworkable signalled its imminent end. The radical recommendation of partition was accepted by the British Government in a White Paper in July In the light of experience and of the arguments adduced by the Commission, they are driven to the conclusion that there is an irreconcilable conflict between the aspirations of Arabs and Jews in Palestine, that these aspirations cannot be satisfied under the terms of the present Mandate, and that a scheme of partition on the general lines recommended by the Commission represents the best and most hopeful solution of the deadlock ….

The Arabs would obtain their national independence, and thus be enabled to co-operate on an equal footing with the Arabs of neighbouring countries in the cause of Arab unity and progress. They would be finally delivered from all fear of Jewish domination … On the other hand, partition would secure the establishment of the Jewish national home and relieve it from any possibility of its being subject in the future to Arab rule.

Partition was unacceptable to the Palestinians, whose struggle for self-determination had brought the British Government to admit the unworkability of the Mandate. The rebellion flared up again, lasting until The Arab Higher Committee formally reasserted the right of Palestinians to full independence in the whole of Palestine, and the replacement of the Mandate by a treaty between Great Britain and an independent Palestine.

Weizmann urged acceptance of the partition plan with fundamental modifications since the world was now viewing the problem in terms of a Jewish State. However, the Congress apparently did not consider that the time had come to accept a Jewish State in only part of Palestine.

It was too early — the ultimate aim was to establish the Jewish State in all of Palestine, and at this point the numbers of immigrants were too small and, in Zionist eyes, the mission of the Mandate was unfulfilled. The Congress declared that it:. The Congress directs the Executive to resist any infringement of the rights of the Jewish people internationally guaranteed by the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate. The Commission proposed two other plans. The other proposed that virtually the southern half of Palestine, the Jerusalem enclave, and a large area in the north remain under mandate, the Jewish State occupying the coastal plain north of Jaffa, with the Arab state being allotted the remainder of the territory annex IX.

The Commission itself expressed reservations over the viability of any partition scheme, and with the resurgence of the Palestinian rebellion, the British Government abandoned the idea of partitioning Palestine, announcing in a new statement of policy that:. To discuss alternatives, a round-table conference in London was held to which the British Government invited representatives of Palestinians excluding those held responsible for violence , Jews who could select whichever representatives they wished and Arab States.

If the Conference could not produce an agreement, the British Government announced, it would decide and implement its own policy. It was for this conference, which reached to the roots of the Palestine issue, that the British Government made public the Husain-McMahon correspondence, which was examined by the Anglo-Arab Committee. The Arabs were determined to secure the inherent right of the Palestinians to their independence, which had been pledged 20 years earlier and for which the Palestinians had risen up in arms.

The Jews, backed by the Balfour Declaration and its incorporation in the Mandate, were determined to achieve a Jewish State, particularly at a time when Nazi persecution of Jewry in Europe was inflicting its notorious excesses and his people were facing what Dr. Although meetings between all three sides took place towards the end of the London Conference, British proposals for an agreement were first rejected by the Jewish side and, after revision to partially meet the Jewish objections, by both sides.

The end of this attempt to reach an agreement left the British Government facing the situation which its policies of two decades had created in Palestine, and now it presented its unilateral policy. A new White Paper was issued in May , disclaiming any intention to create a Jewish State, rejecting Arab demands that Palestine become independent as an Arab State, and envisaging the termination of the mandate by with independence for Palestine in which both Palestinians and Jews would share in government.

Immigration would end, after the admission of 75, new immigrants over the first five years. The Government would strictly regulate transfer of land. Important excerpts from this last major British policy statement on Palestine before the Second World War deserve note:.

Nor do they find anything in the Mandate or in subsequent Statements of Policy to support the view that the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine cannot be effected unless immigration is allowed to continue indefinitely. If immigration has an adverse effect on the economic position in the country, it should clearly be restricted; and, equally, if it has a seriously damaging effect on the political position in the country, that is a factor that should not be ignored … it cannot be denied that fear of indefinite Jewish immigration is widespread amongst the Arab population and that this fear has made possible disturbances which have given a serious setback to economic progress, depleted the Palestine exchequer, rendered life and property insecure, and produced a bitterness between the Arab and Jewish populations which is deplorable between citizens of the same country.

If in these circumstances immigration is continued up to the economic absorptive capacity of the country, regardless of all other considerations, a fatal enmity between the two peoples will be perpetuated, and the situation in Palestine may become a permanent source of friction amongst all peoples in the Near and Middle East ….

The proposal of participation recommended by the Royal Commission would have afforded such clarity, but the establishment of self-supporting independent Arab and Jewish States within Palestine has been found to be impracticable. After two decades of Mandatory rule and colonization from abroad, the inherent rights of the Palestinians finally had been acknowledged.

But the independence now being pledged was to a country where population and land patterns had been so transformed while it had been a territory under a League of Nations mandate, that the road to independence was full of pits and obstructions.

For the Zionist movement the White Paper was a severe setback to their plans, and a new strategy was to be devised outside the framework of the Mandate of the League of Nations which, in any event, was nearing its end. The question of where the ultimate sovereignty of a Mandated Territory lay has been the subject of varying interpretations, which need not be examined in this study. Several authorities, basing their views on the wording of Article 22 of the Covenant, and stressing that the League was founded on the principle of non-annexation of territories and that the mandates prohibited the alienation of territory article 5 of the Palestine Mandate , have ruled that sovereignty rested with the people of a Mandated Territory, albeit in suspense since they could not exercise it.

One representative view may be quoted:. The view taken by the International Court of Justice in the question of the status of South-West Africa is that sovereignty was not transferred to the Mandatory Power:. In practice this meant that the PMC required annual reports from the Mandatory Power and offered comment on policies and developments in the mandated territory. Only when there was a major outbreak of violence, as in or in , did the PMC exercise the functions in any wider manner. In its very first meeting after the Palestine mandate came into effect in , the PMC noted its sui generis nature and recorded its concern over its inherent contradictions, observing:.

According to the fundamental principle of Article 22 of the Covenant the paramount duty of the Mandatory Power is to ensure the development of the mandated territories by administering them in conformity with the interests of their inhabitants.

In the following years the reports from the Mandatory Power were treated in a routine fashion. They were preceded during the last four months of and in the early part of by a number of premonitory incidents which were usually connected with the Wailing Wall …. All the declarations by persons and organizations representing the Arab section tend to emphasize the fact that the Arab movement was a movement of resistance to the policy of the Mandatory Power solely in its capacity as mandatory.

This has never been more clearly stated than in a letter from the Palestinian Arab delegation, and in a telegram from the Arab Executive, both received by the members of the Permanent Mandates Commission during the extraordinary session. The first reads as follows:. Yet, paradoxically, the principle of self-determination was not upheld by the Commission. While it expressed understanding of the Palestinian desire for self-government, it warned that this was contrary to the terms of the Mandate, and that therefore the Commission could not support those aspirations:.

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