British Rule in Palestine

NB: We do not resell your papers. Upon ordering, we do an original paper exclusively for you.

NB: All your data is kept safe from the public.

The Origin and Rise of Political Zionism

Zionism is a Jewish political movement that emerged in 1880’s and 1890’s. The founders of this movement started it with a view to support the Jewish people enjoy a Jewish sovereign homeland. The main objective of this movement was to continue campaigning against any threats of insecurity as well as existence of Israel as a state.

The movement was started by secular Jews in the response to the Jewish in Diaspora who faced many uprisings against them. The Anti-Semitism, Anti-Jewish programs in the Russian empire and Dreyyfus affair in France are some of the reasons that saw the rise of Zionism. The problem that led to rise of Zionism started due to the way Jews were been assimilated in Europe. Some of them ended up losing their Faith to be modernists.

The group of assimilationists that depicted themselves as messianic had in mind a situation where Jews would totally integrate with the European society, leave their identity, and achieve homogeneity. However, there was another group of Jews in favor of cultural syntheses that campaigned for keeping the Jews’ tradition values and still conform to the modern society.

Their wish was to realize stability between transformation and traditional steadiness, which contrasted the assimilationists’ support for change. The meeting in Jerusalem, which was the 28th of the meetings, was a major breakthrough to this organization as it offered resolutions that were beneficial to Jews as a people, as well as a sovereign state (Laqueur, 2003).

Unity of the Jews, preservation of the identity through teachings, having a gathering in their homeland, and strengthening their member state were the main resolutions passed. The creation of the Israel as a state just meant that Zionism would learn as a peripheral factor. The support of this movement by Christians and other major religions has also helped much in Zionist’s development (Laqueur, 2003).

The Balfour Declaration

The Balfour declaration was dated November second 1997. It was a treaty deemed to declare Palestine as the home of the Jewish people. However, it was such that the existing non-Jews were not to be affected by it since their civil and religious rights were not to be affected.

The reason of signing this declaration by the British was because of two things: personal and political. The political reason was that the British were hoping that the declaration would please the American Jewry who would in turn pressure the American government to help them in the Allied war effort.

In addition, the British hoped that the Russian Jews would apply pressure on the Russian government to return the war theater from purely diplomatic to political view. It was also personal because the leaders of the Zionism movements were close friends to the members of the cabinet. For example, Zionist Chaim Weizmann who later became president of Israel was a close friend to the Prime Minister Lloyd George, an influential figure in British politics.

The signing of the Balfour Declaration led to an increase in migration of the Jews from Diaspora to Palestine. Moreover, in 1947 the Great Britain initiated the directive to be run by the United Nations which approved the Resolution 181 that was central to the subdividing of the Palestine into Jewish and Arabic territories. The Jewish territory was to become the modern day Israel (Kamrava, 2011).

British Mandate for Palestine From the End of WWI to the Creation of the State of Israel

The end of the First World War saw the splitting of the Ottoman Empire, three occupying enemy territory regions. The British controlled the section of the south, which covered the Egyptian boundary of Sinai to Palestine and Lebanon and as far north as Acre and Nablus including Jordan.

An Anglo-French settlement agreement was put in place December 1918 that allowed British to control the Palestine and support the French in Lebanon and Syria. The precision of boundaries was not known but was later done in Franco British boundary agreement of December 1920, which was approved by the two countries’ governments in 1923.

The treaty had given the Palestine mandate on all the policing of the lakes. The influence of the Zionist movement to both the French and the British led to inclusion of Sea of Galilee, Lake Hula Dan spring as well as both sides of river Jordan as part of Palestine. The signing of the 1926 agreement between the British and the French about good neighborhood between Palestine, Lebanon and Syria was to highlight this effect.

The statement “The claim that gives them to reconstitute it their national home…” (Ghazi-Bouillon, 2009) brought controversy as the Palestine committee felt that the doing so by the Jewish people would be on sentimental ground. They also feared that the Zionists in Palestine might turn the whole country into their home. Balfour carried out the rectification process and was accepted by both parties.

The Political Issues Among the Arab Community With the Coming of the State of Israel

To start with, there was the Arab-Israel war that immediately occurred after the independence of Israel. This was due to the Arab countries rejection of recognition of Israel as a sovereign country.

This war saw the Arab world acting like one political wing to fight what they did not consider right for them. The war ended after the Armistice Agreements between Israel and the Arabs countries got involved in the war. Arab nationalism rose up and continued to be empowered. The Arabic was the main language as Islam formed the culture and religion of this region.

However, Arab nationalism faced a major downfall that was due to the defeat by Israel in the six nation’s war. In turn, this lead to a great humiliation and abandonment of the movement by its leaders, like their leader Nasser. The Arabs grew allies with superpowers such as the Soviet Union who were against Israel and the Zionist movement. They also supplied them with weapons and trained them. However, this lasted up to 1980s when the United Nations started offering assistance to Israel (Adelman, 2008).

The First Arab-Israeli War

The Arab-Israel war started after the granting of independence of Israel in 15^th May of 1948.This was amidst civil wars between the years 1947-1948. Arab rejection on the U.N resolution 181 that created Arab state and Jewish State led to Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt and, Jordan to attack Israel.

The hostility occurred in the British previous region and stretched to the south of Lebanon over the Sinai Peninsula. The selection of the Arab leader (King Abdullah of Jordan) who was to lead the war, made some Arabs feel that it was the reason that led them lose the war. Some Jewish settlers also felt that he was as a result of negotiations with the Jewish leadership. Israel, though being a new nation was able to organize forces and expel tropes out of its territory.

Towards the end of the war, Israel had increased in size and many Palestinians had freed the war zone and over 700,000 people were displaced due to the war. The war ended in 1949 due to agreements between Israel and all the countries that it had entered into war with. The agreements were also called the Armistice Agreements (Ghazi-Bouillon, 2009).

References

Adelman, J. (2008). The rise of Israel:. New York: Taylor & Francis.

Ghazi-Bouillon, A. (2009). Understanding the Middle East Peace Process. New York: Taylor & Francis.

Kamrava, M. (2011). The Modern Middle East. California: University of California Press.

Laqueur, W. (2003). A history of Zionism. London: Tauris Parke Paperbacks.

Click Here To Order Now!