A series of events took place in the history of Palestine that drove the area into many conflicts and to escalate to it's current status. Most importantly, events that took place at the turn of the 20th century. In this segment that I collected from various resources and news media, I am hoping to help people who are interested in the subject to understand what is it all about.
Palestine Under British mandate
|
Palestine lies at a point linking Africa, Asia and Europe, and this strategic location was to determine much of its history. It was a thoroughfare, a corridor in constant use. In ancient times, it was coveted by the great empires of Egypt and the Middle East, lying as they did at the crossroads of the trade routes coming from Egypt, Mesopotamia and the Aegean. Palestine's role and its developing culture and trade gained strength in the periods of peace between Mesopotamia and Egypt. At such times it became a channel for busy exchanges between those countries and a forum for dialogue between civilizations. In ancient times, as well as subsequently, Palestine witnessed foreign invasions, occupations and the battles of great conquerors. By and large, however, the invaders of Palestine settled only in the towns and at strategic points in order to control trade routes while exploiting the population. One of the few exceptions were the Zionists, who attempted to replace the native population with a population of Jewish immigrants, primarily from Europe , North Africa, and the former USSR . Modern history has been particularly harsh to Palestine and the Palestinians. The fate of the Palestinians in the 20th century was profoundly altered against their will not only by geo-strategic factors and by international political motives, but also by the corollary of these-the Israeli occupation. The most serious feature of Israeli policies in Palestine, and one which distinguishes it from other conventional occupations resulting from armed conflicts, is the displacement of Palestinians from their land, the confiscation of Palestinian land, and its settlement with Jewish immigrants.
At the peace conference that followed World War I and that ended the 400-year period of Ottoman dominance in Palestine, the west divided up the region into mandates without consulting the inhabitants, and assigned Palestine to the British.
|
The Zionist movement was established in the late 19th century, to create a Jewish homeland in Palestine, it had established dozens of settlements in the region and had attracted influential supporters throughout Europe and the United States. Among them were members of the famous Rothschild banking family of France and Britain. In late 1917 the British foreign secretary, Arthur Balfour, wrote a letter to Baron Lionel Rothschild, in which Balfour declared Britain's support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine (but not, the letter stipulated, at the expense of the Palestinian Arabs). Thus the conceptual basis of the League of Nations mandate system "preparing populations of mandated territories for independence" was subverted in the case of Palestine. Balfour hoped the declaration would rouse Jewish support, particularly in the United States, for the Allies in the war. He also thought a pro-British Jewish presence in Palestine might help protect the Suez canal. The numerically dominant native Arab population (90% in 1917) mounted an unsuccessful campaign of resistance against British rule, while Jewish immigration into Palestine increased the level of instability there. In light of these tensions, the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 181 in November 29, 1947, which proposed the partitioning of Palestine into Arab and Jewish states, with Jerusalem and Bethlehem under a special international regime. The UN Partition Plan granted the Jews over 56% of the area at a time when they owned less than 7% of the land and constituted approximately one-third of the population. On May 14, 1948, the State of Israel was declared and the first Arab-Israeli War began. Three-quarters of the mandate was "Trans Jordan" (lands east of the Jordan River), which in 1921 the British reserved exclusively for Arabs and turned over to Hashemite family rule. Neither Arabs nor Jews were satisfied with the plan. Indeed, such was the case throughout Britain's turbulent and often violent 28-year rule of Palestine.
|
|
