The Quest for a Homeland
SIS 150: Israel
Professor Noam Pianko
Herzl’s Diary, 1897
• “Were I to sum up the
Basel congress in a
word…it would be
this: At Basel I
founded the Jewish
State…Perhaps in five
years, and certainly in
50, everyone will
know it.”
Lecture Goals
1. Understand Jewish quest for a
homeland in larger context of
European Imperialism and world
history, 1917-1948
2. Compare conflicting Arab and Jewish
narratives of this process
Dream or Reality?
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Funds to Purchase Land
Alliance with Great Powers
Arab Population
What is his strategy?
The Ottoman Period (15171917)
Jews in the Turkish Empire
• Palestine in Province of Syria
• Population in 1880:
– 470,000 Arabs
– 24,000 Jews
Jews and Arabs Under Turkish
Rule
• Arabs
– Beduins turned sedentary
– Live in Hills, not in coastal areas
– Feuding villages, clans
– Land owners outside Palestine
• Jews
– Live in 4 “Holy Cities”
– Jews are “dhimini”-Second Class Citizens
The Palestinians?
• Arab Nationalism begins after Jewish
nationalism
• Begins as Pan-Islamic Unity against
Turkish Empire
Neguib Azoury, 1905
• “The reawakening of the Arab nation,
and the growing Jewish efforts at
rebuilding the ancient monarchy of Israel
on a very large scale—these two
movements are destined to fight each
other continually, until one of the
triumphs over the other.” , 1905
Zionism and the Arabs
– “A Land without people for a people without a
land” (1854 by Lord Shaftesbury.)
– “We abroad are used to believing that Eretz
Yisrael is now almost totally desolate, a desert
that is not sowed.. But in truth this is not the
case. Throughout the country it is difficult to
find fields that are not sowed. Only sand dunes
and stony mountains…are not cultivated.”
Ahad Ha-am 1891
Herzl and the Sultan, 1901
• No support for Jewish Homeland
• Jewish Immigration Banned
The British Empire
• 1903 Uganda Offer
– Split between territorialist and Zionist
– 1905 rejected at Zionist Conference
• Why help the Jews?
New Imperialism
World War I
• Central Powers (Germany, AustroHungarian Empire) versus Allies
(Britain, France, and Russia)
• Arab Lands Central
– Suez Canal
– Ottoman Empire
Hussein-McMahon
Correspondence, 1915
What About the French?
• Sykes-Picot Agreement in 1915
• “Hunters who divided up the skin of the
bear before they had killed it.”
Sykes-Picot, 1916
Balfour Declaration, 1917
• “His Majesty’s Government view with favor the
establishment in Palestine of a national home
for the Jewish people and will use their best
endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this
object, it being clearly understood that nothing
shall be done which may prejudice the civil and
religious rights of existing non Jewish
communities in Palestine..”
Why Promise a Homeland?
• Lord Balfour: “The vast majority of Jews
in Russia and America, as indeed all over
the world, now appear to be favorable to
Zionism. If we could make a declaration
favorable to such an ideal, we should be
able to carry on extremely useful
propaganda both in Russia and America.”
Philo-Zionism in British
Leadership
British Victory in Palestine
• General Allenby
defeats Turkish
Forces
• Takes Jerusalem in
December 1917
Paris Peace Conference,
1917
What did they do?
– “These three all-powerful, all-ignorant
men [Lloyd George, Clemenceau, and
Wilson] [were] sitting there and carving
up continents with only a child to lead
them.”
San Remo Conference and
the British Mandate, 1920-22
• Arab-Jewish Conflict in 1920-1921
• Immigration Curtailed
• British Appoint High Commissioner,
Herbert Samuel
1922, White Paper
– “The Balfour declaration…does not
contemplate that Palestine as a whole
should be converted into a Jewish
National Home, but that such a Home
should be founded in Palestine”
Two Perspectives on
Developments
Jewish Perspective
• 1903-1906 Renewed Pogroms
• Chalutzim Mentality
• Developments in Europe inlate 20s and
30s increases pressure for safe-haven
• Land is purchased
• Separate Jewish labor force
Arab Perspective
• Demographic Growth in Yishuv
– 1918 60,000 Jews and 700,000 Arabs
– 1922 84,000 Jews and 760,000 Arabs
– 1931 175,000 Jews and 880,000 Arabs
• Land Purchase and Displacement
• Blasphemous for Jews to have political
ambition on Muslim land
• Concerned about Minority Status
1929 Anti-Jewish Riots
• Sparked by Control of Religious Sites
• 133 Jews and 116 Arabs Killed (all but 6
by British Police)
• British lose control
1929 Hebron Massacre
• “On hearing screams in a room I went up a sort of
tunnel passage and saw an Arab in the act of cutting
off a child’s head with a sword. He had already hit
and was having another cut…Behind him was a
Jewish woman smothered in blood with a man I
recognized as an Arab police constable…He was
standing over the woman with a dagger in his hand.
He saw me and bolted into a room close by and tried
to shut me out—shouting in Arabic, “Your honor, I
am a policeman”
Response
• British: Balfour was a “colossal blunder”
• Jews-Haganah and Self-defense
• Arab-Pressure British to end Mandate
Global Perspective and
Palestine
• 1933 Nazis in Germany
• Rise in Aliyah
– 1932-1938- 197,235 European Jews make
Aliyah
– Equivalent to immigrants from 1882-1932
• Increased Land purchase by Jews
• Palestinian Arabs side with Hitler
Mufti of Jerusalem
• “The Muslims inside and outside Palestine
welcome the new regime of Germany and
hope for the extension of the fascist antidemocratic, governmental system to other
countries.”
1936-1939 Arab Revolt
• 1,000 Arabs and 400 Jews die
• Killings, Bombings, Armed Attacks
• Palestinian Arabs divided
Peel Commission, 1937
Response to Peel
Commission
• Arabs reject plan
• Jews accept Peel plan
Ben Gurion
• “A Jewish state in part of Palestine is not an
end, but a beginning..Our possession is
important not only for itself…through this
we increase out power, and every increase
in power facilitates getting hold of the
country in its entirety. Establishing a small
state …will serve as a very potent lever in
our historical efforts to redeem the whole
country.”
1939 White Paper
• New Policy
• Arab demands met
– Limit on Jewish immigration
– Prohibition of land purchase
Zionism and Colonialism
• No colonizing state
• Limited exploitation of Arab workers
• Jewish nationalism is anti-colonial