50minutes - The 1948 Palestine War: The Launch of Conflict in the Middle East

Previously belonging to the Ottoman Empire, Palestine became a British protectorate in 1922.

While the outcome of the First World War (1914-1918) was still uncertain, the French and the British took part in the dismantling of the broad Ottoman Empire and signed the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement in 1916, which planned the division of the control over the Middle East between these two colonial powers. However, the League of Nations (international organization created at the end of the First World War in order to enforce international law and justice and put a stop to war) only officially gave Great Britain the necessary mandate to administer Palestine in July 1922. London was therefore required to deal with the difficult cohabitation involving the local Arab community and the Jews coming mostly from Europe and arriving in great numbers from the late 19 th century. This immigration intensified at the beginning of the 20 th century with the development of political Zionism.

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Zionism is a political movement advocating the creation of a Jewish State in Palestine. The Zionist demands, namely the desire to create a national Jewish homeland, were formulated by Austro-Hungarian journalist Theodor Herzl (1860-1904) during the Congress of Basel in 1897, the movements first international meeting. There, the territories of the Biblical Kingdom of Israel were chosen by the Jewish people who would thus be able to protect themselves from the rising antisemitism of the time. A Jewish National Fund was then created with the aim of purchasing land in that territory.

In 1917, the British Minister of Foreign Affairs, Arthur James Balfour (1848-1930), stated in a letter addressed to Baron Rothschild (1868-1937), the Vice President of the Jewish Knesset Committee, that the British Government intended to create a national Jewish homeland in Palestine, thus advocating a return of the Jews to their historic lands. Although this declaration generated the British support of the Zionist movement at first, the management of the region then forced them to consider the interest of the Arab inhabitants and the opinions of neighboring countries. In 1915, London had already promised independence and control of the territories that would be freed from Ottoman rule to the Egyptian King Hussein ibn Ali (c. 1856-1931), through the British High Commissioner of Egypt Henry McMahon (1862-1949). The Palestinian territories therefore became desireable objects.

The Jewish emigration towards Palestine grew even more during the thirties, and was reinforced by Adolf Hitlers accession to power and the enforcement of his anti-Jewish politics: pogroms, stigmatization, ghettoization, deportation and extermination generated a mass exodus. The Jewish population in the territory amounted to 28% in 1940. This important influx continued after the Second World War (1939-1945), but not without difficulty: conflict, strikes and hostilities erupted among the Palestinians between 1920 and 1947 and violence continued to grow between the two communities. However, from 1945, the British opposed the Jewish immigration more and more, as shown by the Exodus affair: a ship, which was carrying 4 500 Jews, was refused access to Palestine and brought back to France and Germany.

Although tensions were mainly felt between Arabs and Jews, incidents also broke out against the British colonial power, culminating in the Great Revolt of 1936 to 1939, an uprising that sought to establish an Arab Palestinian nation, and was severely repressed by the Zionist militia. In response to the uprising, Great Britain attempted to find a solution by announcing a series of laws called the White Paper (1939), which advocated a unitary, independent Palestine governed by the Arabs and the Jews, while restricting Zionist immigration. The measures planned, however, did not satisfy either of the two communities and even provoked further incidents. In view of this new rise of violence, the British attempted to resolve the problem. A report proposing a modification of the White Paper was released in July 1946: it proposed a plan for the separation of Palestine into two autonomous provinces whose collective interests would be handled by a mandatory foreign power. Nevertheless, disagreements persisted and a solution that would satisfy both parties seemed unreachable. Moreover, as the process of decolonization began in the Middle East, the British announced their forthcoming withdrawal from Palestine on 18 February 1947. As the end of their mandate was scheduled for 15 May 1948, a special commission of the United Nations (UN) was put in charge of finding a solution to the problem of cohabitation.

The Great Revolt of 1936 to 1939.