Palestinian-Israeli
Conflict
Main Players
• Zionists- Jews from across Europe and the
United States primarily.
• Palestinian- the Arab population of the
Palestinian Mandate
• British- Desires geo-political positioning for trade
and to coax the Jewish lobby into their camp.
• Newly Formed Arab States- see the Balfour
Declaration as a clear violation of pan-arab
sovereignty and use the Palestinian plight to
invoke favor among their own population.
Palestinian Mandate
Jewish OppressionPogroms
Russia
Poland
Jewish OppressionGhettos
Venice
Poland
Zionism- Theodor
Herzl
Zionist Congress
Balfour Declaration
“His Majesty’s Government view with
favour 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, or the rights
and political status enjoyed by Jews in
any other country.”
Chaim Weizmann
“The Zionist objective was gradually to make Palestine
as Jewish as England was English.”- Weizmann
Legitimacy
• San Remo Conference (1920)
• League of Nations (1922)
Musa Kazim alHusseini
Mufti of JerusalemHaj amin al-Husseini
Kibbutzism
Haganah
David Ben Gurion
Mapai Party
Revisionist ZionismJabotinsky
The Irgun and Begin
Wailing Wall
Shaw Commission
• Findings: Landless Class of Palestinian Arabs
• Fear of more Jewish settlement
• Recommendations: Passfield White Paper
(1931)-
• British control of Jewish immigration
• U.S. and British Zionist Lobby => Rejected White
Paper (creating the Black Paper)
Peel Commission
Findings and
Recommendation
• The premise of the mandate was untenable
• A unitary state could not exist under the
obligations of the Balfour Declaration
• The Mandate created antagonism between Jews
and Arabs
• Mandate to be terminated
• Partition into two states
• Britain would continue to control Jerusalem
White Paper (1939)
• A Jewish state was not a policy of the
British within the Palestinian Mandate.
• Limit Jewish immigration = cease in 5
years
• In 10 years, Palestine was to be
granted independence.
WWII- Dillema
Intercommunal War