As World War I
came to an end, Palestine was placed under British rule, first in the form of the military administration of the Occupied Enemy Territory Administration
and later as a Class A Mandate of the League of Nations
. Palestinians were relieved that the hardships of the war and the Ottoman rule (which had become increasingly unpopular in the years preceding the war) were finally over, but their relief was quickly tempered by British commitments to the Zionist project in Palestine and the realization that efforts toward Arab independence would be undermined at all turns by the European powers. Jewish immigration, though uneven, significantly increased Palestine’s Jewish population, and Zionist institutions grew stronger and increasingly entrenched within the Mandate’s governing structures. As Palestinian political leaders sought to engage the British administration, popular forms of resistance periodically erupted into violent clashes, the most significant being the
In the summer of 1919, structures emerged through which the European powers would assert their control over the Arab provinces of the former Ottoman Empire
and undermine Arab efforts for self-determination. In June, the Treaty of Versailles
and the League of Nations Covenant
were signed, introducing a post–World War I order in which the Arab provinces were recognized as “independent nations,” to be assisted in their path toward independent statehood by a Mandatory. Meanwhile, in July, the
Palestinian concerns were inflamed further by the appointment of Sir Herbert Samuel , a prominent British Zionist, to the post of high commissioner of the Palestine Mandate. In May 1921, clashes between rival Zionist factions spilled into Jaffa and prompted Palestinian protests against Zionist immigration in which forty-six Jews and sixty-eight Palestinians were killed. Meanwhile, Palestinians were also mobilizing politically and diplomatically against British support for Zionism. They organized Christian-Muslim associations in major cities, which went on to hold four national congresses between January 1919 and August 1922 and elected an Executive Committee. In 1921 and 1922, three Palestinian delegations visited London to present their case for a policy that prioritized the rights and needs of Palestine’s Arabs. Undeterred, Britain forged ahead with its commitment to Zionism but attempted to clarify it: a 1922 White Paper declared that Britain’s intention was to support the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine, not the conversion of all of Palestine into such a home, and it linked the regulation of Jewish immigration into Palestine to the “economic absorptive capacity” of the country. In July 1922, the League of Nations approved the terms of Britain’s Mandate for Palestine, which reiterated Britain’s commitment to the Zionist project in multiple articles, and in September 1923 the Mandate officially came into effect.
Between 1923 and 1929, Zionists made steady progress in their project to establish a Jewish national home. From 1918 to 1929 some sixty new Zionist colonies were established, Zionist landownership rose from 2.04 percent of the total area of the country in 1919 to 4.4 percent in 1929, and immigration increased the Jewish proportion of the population from 9.7 percent to 17.6 percent during the same period. Zionist institutions in Palestine continued to assert themselves—in August 1929, the
In 1929, Palestinian frustrations boiled over after right-wing Revisionist Zionists led a demonstration to the
The Zionists made a number of gains in the 1930s, spurred forward by the rise of anti-Semitism—official and unofficial—in many European countries and Zionist efforts to channel Jews fleeing such oppression toward Palestine. Between 1931 and 1936, sixty-four new Zionist colonies were established, Zionist land ownership in Palestine rose to 5.4 percent of the total area, and the Jewish proportion of the population increased to 29.5 percent. The radical influx of Jewish immigrants invigorated Zionist institutions, including the illegal military organization
The early 1930s were also a period of increased Palestinian political activity. New political parties were formed and new newspapers were established; traditional elite-based politics were challenged and complemented by the rapid development of groups such as the
Bunton, Martin. Colonial Land Policies in Palestine, 1917–1936. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Huneidi, Sahar. A Broken Trust: Herbert Samuel, Zionism and the Palestinians, 1920–1925. London: I. B. Tauris, 2001.
Lesch, Ann M. Arab Politics in Palestine, 1917–1939: The Frustration of a Nationalist Movement. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1979.
Muslih, Muhammad. The Origins of Palestinian Nationalism. New York: Columbia University Press; Washington, DC: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1988.
Seikaly, May. Haifa: Transformation of an Arab Society, 1918–1939. London: I.B. Tauris, 1995.
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