1930s: The British Mandate over Palestine
1931: There are 174,610 Jews living in Palestine in 1931
Mohmsen Mohammed Saleh: 483,000 Jews migrated to Palestine during the British Mandate period and by 1948 they were 646,000 (31.7% of the population) and controlled 6% of the land holding 291 settlements. All the land the Jews purchased was sold by Arabs or Ottomans. Every large landowner knew he was making his tenants, the long-term clients of his family, landless. The fellaheen had already been steadily losing "their" land due to debt, drought and poor farming practices. The patron-tenant relationship was a one-way power relationship.
At the end of the British Mandate period only 25% of the land was registered for private ownership
- 12% of the land was owned by Palestinian Arabs
- 7.5% of the land was owned by Jews
The British government responded to the massacres of 1929 with a Commission of Enquiry.
Hope-Simpson Report 1930 on Immigration, Land Settlement and Development
London dispatched another delegation to determine what to do about it. Released in October 1930, the Hope Simpson report stated there was scarcely any land left for Jews to buy and without improvements in Arab farming methods, further Jewish purchases could create a serious landlessness crisis in the Arab peasantry. The British Government also issued the Passfield White Paper that severely restricted Jewish immigration and blamed Jewish land purchases for Arab landlessness and the Histradut "Jewish-only" labor policy for poor Arab economic development. The report stated the land could not support a larger population. There are now 15 million people living in "Palestine." Lord Passfield was the (in)famous Socialist Sidney Webb.
The Ramsey MacDonald Black Letter of 13th February 1931
The White Paper was issued by the Colonial Office. Intense Jewish lobbying of British politicians - who actually make the decisions that the Colonial Office has to obey - using influential figures like Churchill, Herbert Samuel, and Lloyd George pressured Ramsay MacDonald, Britain's politically vulnerable first Labour prime minister. In February 1931 MacDonald released the text of the "Black Letter" to Weizmann. The government did not intend to prohibit further land sales and large-scale immigration could continue. The Mandate's commitments were "solemn international obligations," and Jewish settlement was the Mandate's "primary purpose."
Sir Arthur Grenfell Wauchope was appointed and Commander-in-Chief for Palestine and TransJordan on November 20, 1931. He was a member of the British upper class, born to bear the White Man's Burden, a duty he took on willingly and with the best of intentions. He appeared to have no prejudices against Jews, took the Balfour Declaration as a binding commitment and was dedicated to improving the lot of the Arab peasants, the fellaheen. A commitment and dedication like those could destroy a lesser man and, indeed, his health suffered. He retired in 1938.
On January 30, 1933 Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. On March 31 the Mufti a-rranged a meeting in the German Consulate:
"Today the mufti told me that Muslims inside and outside of Palestine greet the new regime in Germany, and hope for the spread of Fascist and anti-democratic state authority to other lands," the consul cabled Berlin, and Amin was ready to promote any anti-Jewish boycotts the Nazis may lead.
Several weeks later the consul again met the mufti and other Palestinian notables, this time at the desert shrine at Nebi Musa. They proclaimed their admiration for the new Germany and sympathy for Hitler's anti-Jewish measures. They asked one thing: that the government do all it could to keep Jews from Palestine. - PALESTINE 1936: The Great Revolt and the Roots of the Middle East Conflict - Oren Kessler
In 1933 30,000 legal immigrant Jews arrived with another 22,000 illegally. In October, the notables called for a rally and a strike. The wrath of the Palestinian Arab Nation unexpectably struck the British, not the Jews. Protesters swinging clubs and throwing stones discovered that the British would not tolerate such actions against themselves. The strike lasted a week and 26 Arabs were killed and 200 wounded. This time, there was no Commission of Enquiry.
Peel Commission Report 1937 on Immigration, Land Settlement and Development
In secret testimony to the Peel Commission in 1937, the former Prime Minister, David Lloyd George strongly defended the Mandate policy:
'The Palestinian Arabs fought for Turkish rule,' he emphasised, disregarding the 2,000 who had joined the British-sponsored anti-Ottoman revolt led by Hussein, Sherif of Mecca, and his son Feisal. Through Mark Sykes (of Sykes-Picot fame) and T.E. Lawrence ('of Arabia'), he said, Britain informed Hussein and Feisal of the planned Declaration.[11]
'We could not get in touch with the Palestinian Arabs as they were fighting against us. The Arab leaders did not offer any objections, so long as the rights of the Arabs were respected,' Lloyd George explained. 'There was a twofold undertaking given to them, that the establishment of a Jewish National Home would not in any way, firstly, affect the civil or religious rights of the general population of Palestine; secondly, would not diminish the general prosperity of that population. Those were the only pledges we gave to the Arabs.'
The ex-premier challenged any critic of Britain's Palestine policy to point to an instance in which non-Jewish civil or religious rights had been compromised, and he marshalled statistics on revenue, exports, wages, land prices, public health and a half-dozen other indicators of the land's newfound prosperity. 'There can be no doubt that the Arab population of Palestine has profited enormously by the Zionist enterprise.'[12]
Imperial Perceptions of Palestine: British influence and Power in Late Ottoman Times - Lorenzo Kemal
Arab nationalists express their utmost gratitude to Your Excellency [Adolf Hitler] for having brought up the issue of Palestine on many occasions. […] I take this opportunity to delegate my Private Secretary to the German Government in order that, in the name of the largest and strongest Arab organization and in my name, he can begin the negotiations required for sincere, loyal cooperation in all fields.3
The connivance of Hajj Amin with Nazism should be read in an anti-Zionist perspective, infused with anti-Semitic prejudices (he did not hesitate to cite on several occasions The Protocols of the Elders of Zion) and anti-British stands. His intransigence towards Jews had deep roots.
3. Al-Husayni to Hitler, 20 Jan. 1941. The following year the Mufti congratulated the 'Führer' for his victories in North Africa, speaking on behalf of the entire Arab world: 'Das arabische Volk wird daher an Ihrer Seite gegen den gemeinsamen Feind bis [zum] endgültigen Sieg weiterka¨mpfen [The Arab people will continue to fight by his side against the common enemy until the final victory]." CZA L35/59-4. Berlin, 4 July 1942. The position of Amin al-Husayni is particularly problematic considering that he wrote in his private diary the intentions outlined by Hitler during a meeting that they held on 21 November 1941: 'The objectives of my fight', Hitler explained, 'are clear. Primarily, I am fighting the Jews without respite […] I am resolved to find a solution for the Jewish problem, progressing step by step without cessation.' JMA - Box 7005 - Mishpacha Husayni ('Husayni Family').
provided for the ultimate establishment of a government with an Arab majority, and limitations on Jewish immigration and purchase of land. This would have been acceptable to the Arabs with some changes, but the Jewish community would not agree to a solution which would shut the gates of Palestine to most immigrants and prevent the emergence of a Jewish state. Armed Jewish resistance was beginning to show itself, when the outbreak of a new European war ended formal political activity for the moment. Hourani
George Rendel was a two-decade veteran of His Majesty’s Diplomatic Service. In 1937 he and his wife journeyed through Palestine and into Saudi Arabia where he was paricularly impressed by Ibn Saud who showed Rendel and his wife great courtesy. An devout ROman Catholic anti-semite Rendel was persuaded: Britain’s future lay with the king and with the Arab and Islamic civilization he embodied. Its endorsement of Zionism had been a profound blunder.65
In October 1937, five months after Peel had published his report, partition had become Crown policy. Rendel felt compelled to register his dissent.66
"I am more and more convinced that our present policy can only lead to disaster," he wrote colleagues.
The Arabs are not a mere handful of aborigines who can be disregarded by the "white colonizer." They do not represent a dying civilization. They have a latent force and vitality which is stirring into new activity. They have produced, and are still producing, great leaders, and are capable of patriotism, which it may be unwise to ignore and difficult to suppress . . . the ultimate importance of Arab patriotism and Moslem religious sentiment should not be underestimated.
The entire Arab world had reacted violently to partition. "Are we not, then, by creating this little Jewish state, simply placing on the coast of Asia a kind of time-bomb, which must inevitably explode?"67
In later decades, Rendel's perspective would be known as "linkage" - the conviction that Palestine is central to the Arab and Islamic worlds, and that trouble there could mean trouble wherever Arabs and Muslims predominated. But in 1937 it was an unorthodox, nearly radical proposition; Britain ran Palestine policy through the Colonial Office, not as part of any wider regional strategy. Now, with Hitler and Mussolini ascendant and Palestine's neighbors moving toward independence, Rendel believed that paradigm was not just outdated but strategically calamitous. "It is a thankless task to prophesy disaster, but I have seldom seen a case where disaster is approaching more inexorably."68
He maintained the pressure over the following months. The Peel report's call for population transfer was particularly dangerous-he had not forgotten the Greek tragedy in Anatolia; he knew such mass removals were rarely "clean cuts." The report had to be binned, he argued, and the only feasible solution was keeping the Jews a perpetual minority, preferably under 40 percent.69 In Jerusalem, Acting High Commissioner Battershill thought otherwise. Yes, he acknowledged, virtually the only Arab leader backing partition was Emir Abdullah of Transjordan. But if Britain showed determination, the Arabs would acquiesce. "Fractious infants have to swallow unpalatable medicines. … The East does not understand compromise but merely accounts it as weakness."70
But Rendel's entreaties were winning over Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, just forty and in his first Cabinet role. Rendel's memos soon became Eden's. A paper war ensued between Eden's Foreign Office and the Colonial Office led by Ormsby-Gore, the longtime Zionist ally who still clung to partition.71
Eden told the Cabinet that Palestine's Arabs uniformly opposed partition, and worse, so did the entire Arab world. Such a policy must not be pursued against the inhabitants' will-that was neither Balfour's intention nor Peel's -and it was imperative the Arabs be persuaded the Jews would never form a majority. The alternative was too grim to contemplate: earning the "permanent hostility" of the Arab and Muslim worlds.72
On December 8 the Cabinet convened in secret. Each minister received a stack of five memos: One from the colonial secretary pushing partition, another from the foreign secretary urging its reversal, then a rebuttal to that rebuttal and so on. Neville Chamberlain opened the proceedings. Even more than Eden he was green, having occupied the prime minister's office for just half a year. Palestine was for him a footnote; his foreign agenda centered on conciliating the FOhrer and Duce to avoid another war. But as the meeting opened, he made clear he had adopted Eden's (that is, Rendel's) view: Palestine was key to the region, partition would likely antagonize the Arabs without even satisfying the Jews, and it would let Fascism expand its influence in the Levant by exploiting Arab outrage. Eden heartily agreed: Without the Palestine troubles, he could envision "the whole of the Middle East as being in a peaceful condition." Still, Chamberlain cautioned that summarily announcing the abandonment of partition would look like capitulation to violence. If Britain were to renounce a two-state solution, it had to make a compelling case why.73
The Peel report had recommended sending a follow-up delegation, a so-called technical commission, to draw Palestine's new borders and address the manifold logistical issues that partition entailed. Half a year had passed and nothing had yet been done. The Cabinet was now ready to appoint just such a body, but its task would be not to prepare the ground for division but to decide whether to pursue it at all. All present understood the answer was expected to be "no."74
At Eden's insistence the statement on the technical commission's appointment made clear that "His Majesty's Government are in no sense committed" to partition, and that the new deputation would be reviewing the "practical possibilities" of any such scheme.75
The White Paper did not resolve Britain's Palestine predicament, but it did postpone its reckoning. That, after all, was the objective: providing the diplomatic backing that, combined with military force and the Arabs' own dissension, would bring the Great Revolt to a close before the start of a world war. For it was now evident to everyone-even to Neville Chamberlain himself-that a global confrontation was inevitable. The only question was when.
1939: There are 449,000 Jews living in Palestine in 1939.