How did the British Mandate affect the relationship between Arabs and Jews living in interwar Palestine?

When discussing modern developments of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it is essential to keep in mind the historical heritage of the short but eventful period of the British Mandate, spanning little more than twenty years, during which the lands of Palestine and Trans-Jordan were assigned, or mandated, to the British Government. Britain had made its intentions vis-à-vis Palestine clear on November 2nd, 1917, when the foreign minister Lord Arthur James Balfour issued a declaration supporting the Zionist aim of establishing a ‘Jewish national home in Palestine’. [1] Studies on the interwar period in Palestine have traditionally followed the ‘dual society’ paradigm, focused on elite, diplomatic history: the Yishuv (Jews resident in Palestine) and the Palestinian Arabs are treated as separate entities, not interacting with each other. On the other side, the ‘relational’ paradigm acts on a ‘demythologized’ understanding of the communities’ past, attempting to grasp the cultural changes that have occurred as a result of the historic encounter between the two. [2] This paper will follow the latter paradigm.

The 1917 Balfour Declaration was the result of years of Zionist diplomacy, but also of a tradition of pro-Jewish British literature which over the centuries had been strongly sympathetic with the cause of the return of the ‘exiled’ Jews to the Land of Israel. [3] In 1903, the British government had offered parts of its East African domains for the resettlement of the Jews, in what was dubbed the ‘Uganda proposal’. [4] During World War I, Britain then agreed to split Palestine into areas of Anglo-French control. [5] Lord George Nathaniel Curzon’s memorandum had already warned the British government against the feasibility of such an undertaking. [6] Nevertheless, after having conquered Jerusalem in 1917, the League of Nations decided to give the mandate over the whole of Palestine to His Majesty’s Government; this was finally approved in 1922. [7] 

The British Mandate affected the relationship between resident Jews and Arabs both directly and indirectly. On the direct side, they favoured Jewish immigration into Palestine and land purchasing. This process had started before the British arrival, already in the 19th century, to such an extent that in 1901 the local Arab community had requested the Ottoman government to restrict Jewish and Zionist immigration, to no avail. [8] The arrival of the British cleared the obstacle created by Arab opposition to Jewish arrivals, and the process resumed and intensified over the years, despite periodic blocks and moratoria from the British High Commissioners at times of tensions and violence between Jewish and Arab communities. It is undoubtful that Jewish migration and land-purchasing did have a tremendous effect on the relationship between Jews and Arabs living in Palestine: Zionists like Chaim Weizmann even denied the existence of an Arab nation in Palestine. [9] As a matter of fact, despite the British attempts to portray Jewish and Zionist migration in a positive light, the Arab communities’ early suspicions never left. [10] Members of the Zionist movements founded the Jewish Agency, with its headquarters in London, for promoting immigration under the hope of a better life in Palestine. [11] Zionists also found subtle means of circumventing the wealth thresholds set by the mandate administration. [12] The influx of Jews from all over the world into Palestine made it necessary for the Zionists to establish the General Federation of Jewish Labour in Palestine, the Histadruth Ha Ovdim, which even managed to attract a few Arab workers, who saw it as a powerful and wealthy organization. [13] Arab movements, on the other side, were subjected to more strict controls by the authorities. [14] Jewish migration, land-purchasing, and the establishment of Zionist institutions are an effect of the pro-Jewish and pro-Zionist atmosphere in Mandated Palestine under British rule, and changed the way Jews and Arab related with each other.

Secondly, in a more indirect fashion, the very existence of the Mandate led to the forging and rethinking of identities under the nationality paradigm. The communities were dependent on British support to achieve their aims. The Mandate shifted the relationship between Arabs and Jews in so far as it severed the previous horizontal political and social ties between the various communities, shifting the focus of the political arena to vertical collaboration, opposition, or subservience to His Majesty’s Government. The British determined the basic rules of the ‘game’ that was developing in the political arena between the two groups, and regulated their interactions. The British rule had diverse effects on Arab and on Jewish communities, both bargaining for changes in the basic rules of the game, and fighting for recognition and legitimization. [15] The Arab communities discovered a sense of intercommunal and national unity, which led to the creation of the Arab Executive Committee. [16] In line with Wilson’s fourteen points, Palestinian Arabs had longed for independence and inclusion into Greater Syria. [17] A petition was signed to this effect by Arab notables to King George V, but to no avail. British promises had indeed fostered Arab nationalism since the British governor of Egypt, McMahon, had promised Sharif Hussein an Arab kingdom in 1915-6. [18] These promises were easily shattered by the Sanremo Conference of April 1920, since at the time the Arabs could boast no organized political movement. Despite these diplomatic failures, Arab nationalist feeling was on the rise, revolutionizing the way Arabs related to one another. [19] Arab-speaking Christians and Muslims found themselves united under a single banner of a Palestinian Arab identity, in direct political opposition to Britain. [20]

On the other side, the Jews, be they part of the long-standing Yishuv of Palestine or of the communities of newly-arrived immigrants, were reliant on and acquiesced to British rule in order to obtain the ‘fruits of Versailles’ and of British pro-Zionism. [21] Jewish communities started adopting British imperialistic mentalities, thus becoming the object of hatred by anti-imperialist Arabs. In a conversation with Martin Buber, a friend of his stated that ‘[the Arabs] are an inferior race’. [22] In this sense, the British could easily identify with the Zionist cause, being themselves loathful of the ‘backwardness’ of the local Arab locals, who in the Balfour Declaration were simply referred to as ‘non-Jewish communities’. [23] The Balfour Declaration itself had two effects on the Jews. Firstly, it portrayed them as a single people: this was in line with the British perception of the Jews as a single ‘race’, with its own history of persecutions and exile. [24] Jews as a single collectivity were also seen as a powerful influence on the global stage, and this led for instance to the establishment of a Jewish Legion within the British army fighting for Palestine. [25] This perceived unity eventually influenced Jewish self-perceptions and way of relating to their neighbours. Secondly, it strengthened the Jewish ties with the land. After the abortive 1903 Uganda proposal, the 1917 Balfour Declaration had reinvigorated Zionist hearts with the promise of the Promised Land being granted to the Jewish people again. [26] The unity within the Yishuv was further strengthened by the effects of Arab violence. The Jaffa massacre of 1921, the 1929 riots and 1936-39 Arab revolt were all conducive to greater unity among the Jews under the banner of Zionism. [27] These massacres were the ultimate consequence of the divisions the British had amplified within Palestinian society. The British affected the relationship between Arabs and Jews living in Palestine by influencing the social views of both Jews vis-à-vis the Arabs and Arabs vis-à-vis the Jews; by helping the Jews; and by denying the Arabs of Palestine independence within Greater Syria. By this, the British sowed the seed of intercommunal violence between Arabs and Jews in Palestine. 

Thirdly, Britain’s policy of apparently wanting to accommodate everyone led to frustration. At the beginning of the Mandate, the British attempted to foster a mixing of Jews and Arabs. A mixed Arab and Jewish union of railway and post-office was established, as well as the Jerusalem Council of Social Service, which drew members from British, Jewish and Arab communities; the Pro-Jerusalem Society promoted and encouraged both indigenous and imported cultures in Palestine. [28] These were however but sporadic attempts and not significant in scope, and this communal spirit eventually deteriorated as the years passed by. [29] British policy was generally extremely wavering, with one paper contradicting the preceding one, starting from a 1921 document providing a downsized interpretation of the Balfour Declaration. [30] A university student stationed as a soldier even wondered whether politicians in London had any sound policy vis-à-vis the future of Palestine, since the current policies were “absolutely incomprehensible” to him. [31] 

British policy was led by lofty ideals, but little practical sense. [32] Although the main ideal was of course the pro-Zionist cause, it must be noted that towards the end of the 1930s the British envisaged coordinating the growing pan-Arab movement. [33] With the 1939 MacDonald White Paper the British attempted with no avail to curry favour from the Arab delegation to London and placate the growing anti-British sentiments among Palestinian nationalists. This document instituted a five-year moratorium on Jewish immigration and land-purchasing, fixing a schedule for the establishment of an independent Palestinian State. [34] It was too little too late, and what Lord Curzon had foreseen in his October 1917 memorandum turned out to be true: what Britain had chosen to get itself into was risky and ultimately undoable. The British also greatly underestimated the power of religion in sparking revolts: this failure helped fuel greater tensions between the two communities. A commission on the holy places was only established after the 1929 riots. [35] This lack of a precise and logical policy affected the Arab and Jewish communities of interwar Palestine in a way which was surely not in the intentions of the British: by pushing them into resorting to violence. The frustration of seeing British indecisiveness induced for many the feeling that grants would only be won through open violence. [36] The British became political jugglers, making promises to both Arabs and Jews: during the negotiations for the above-mentioned 1939 White Paper, Malcolm MacDonald played the dangerous game of two-way diplomacy, proposing to the Arab delegation a veto on Jewish immigration and the creation of a restricted Jewish state on the coast of Palestine. [37] The unfortunate leaking of these proposals to the Jewish delegation and subsequently to the press led to anti-Arab terroristic attacks by Palestinian Zionists. [38] British indecisiveness led to both Arab and Jewish frustration and violence, thus contributing to the separation of the two religious groups. 

Alongside the strengthening of the lines of demarcation between Jews and Arabs, the British rule created a high society, involved in its decision-making. This is not specific to the British case: every centre of power creates a court around its nucleus. For instance, Weizmann did not represent the whole of Jewry, despite his attempts at spreading this idea among British officials. [39] This high society is specific in that it could show real solidarity and fraternity in the face of its British master: Jews and Arabs would be invited to social parties, and marriages would take place between Arabs and Jewish women. [40] Even this kind of relationship was disrupted by the deterioration of Jewish-Arab relations in the 1930s. We know however that Jews and Arabs did live next to each other: some Arabs were lukewarm or even supported Zionism on the claim that Jewish immigration was beneficial for the Arab economy by raising the wages of the Arab worker. [41] However, traditional mistrust eventually took the upper hand, and despite attempts at reconciling the two ‘national’ communities, peaceful attempts at creating harmony after the breakdown in relations in the 1930s have been unsuccessful, if not only because they were mostly impractical. For example, when David Avisar, a Zionist and Sephardi politician, listed his proposals in October 1930 for a reconciliation between the two communities, these were mostly pro-Zionist and anti-Arab. [42] 

From Avisar’s writings we can deduce that by the 1930s, society was increasingly polarized. While we cannot place all the blame on the British administration, the British regime during the interwar years contributed to worsening the relations between Arabs and Jews living in interwar Palestine. The British Mandate actively affected the relationship between Jews and Arabs by implementing controversial policies about immigration and land purchases by the Jewish and Zionist immigrants and by creating a social division between Jews and Arabs. In a more indirect way, different communities of men built and forged their communal and national identities in opposition to or in collaboration with the British regime. In a final evaluation, British policy was unclear and wavering, and this led to an exacerbation of the pre-existing tensions between the two main faiths. Polarization within Palestinian society was strongly aided by the lack of cultural and diplomatic sensibility displayed by the British administration. The violent clashes such as the Jaffa massacre and the 1929 riots were just a sign of what was to come later.

This piece was written by Luca Emanuele Pellegrino, and edited by Joss Harrison.

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About Our Author:

I'm Luca Emanuele Pellegrino, an Italian born in Luxembourg, currently studying for a Master's degree in History of International Relations at the London School of Economics.

Given that I spent my early life in a multicultural State squeezed in between France, Germany and Belgium, it is perhaps unsurprising that I am interested in reading about how different cultures mix (or fail to) while living and working in the same places. Currently, I am working for a dissertation on EU-Brazil relations following democratization in the 1980s and the end of the Cold War.

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Footnotes

[1] Denis Charbit, ‘The Balfour Declaration and Its Implications’, in Abdelwahad Meddeb and Benjamin Stora (eds.), A History of Jewish-Muslim Relations: From the Origins to the Present Day, transl, Jane Marie Todd and Michael B. Smith, (Princeton, 2013), 320-1; Ettore Anchieri and Basilio Cialdea, ‘Israele’, in Il Milione: Enciclopedia di tutti i paesi del mondo, vol. V, Asia (Novara, 1968), 383.

[2]  Zachary Lockman, Comrades and Enemies:  Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948, (Berkeley, 1996), 3-10.

[3] Albert M. Hyamson, Palestine Under the Mandate: 1920-1948, (Westport, 1976), 1-12.

[4] Tom Segev, One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate, transl. Haim Watzmann, (London, 2000), 40; Charbit (2013), 322.

[5] Segev (2000), 42. 

[6] Segev (2000), 45-6.

[7] Charbit, ‘Zionism and the Arab Question’, in Meddeb and Stora (2013), 340.

[8] Segev (2000), 105.

[9] Segev (2000), 109.

[10] Nadine Picadou, ‘”The Arabs” as a Category of British Discourse in Palestine’, in Meddeb and Stora (2013), 335, on a speech by High Commissioner Sir Herbert Samuel, trying to convince the Arabs that Jewish immigration was essential for the economic development of Palestine and for the welfare of its inhabitants.

[11] Hyamson (1976), 17.

[12] Hyamson (1976), 52-3.

[13] Lockman (1996), 98; Hyamson (1976), 182.

[14] Hyamson (1976), 181.

[15] Baruch Kimmerling, Clash of Identities: Explorations in Israeli and Palestinian Societies (New York, 2008), 2-3.

[16] Hyamson (1976), 109.

[17] Segev (2000), 106; Hyamson (1976), 30.

[18] Charbit (2013), 326-8.

[19] Segev (2000), 105.

[20] Charbit (2013), 343.

[21] Hyamson (1976), 111; Charbit (2013), 343.

[22] Charbit (2013), 346.

[23] Picadou (2013), 335.

[24] Charbit (2013), 320-1.

[25] Segev (2000), 43.

[26] Segev (2000), 40. 

[27] Segev (2000), 177; Hyamson (1976), 137.  

[28] Hyamson (1976), 183-190.  

[29] Kimmerling (2008), 17. 

[30] Segev (2000), 9; Hyamson (1976), 109. 

[31] Segev (2000), 63. 

[32] “few governments are clear in their collective mind about their basic purposes and foreign observers intent on understanding what they are about make the common error of ascribing consistency and rationality to a pattern of administration which owes more to chance, emotion and intuition”, David Vital, quoted by Michael J. Cohen, Palestine: Retreat from the Mandate: The Making of British Policy, 1936-45, (London, 1978), xiii.

[33] Cohen (1978), 71.

[34] Cohen (1978), 76-8. 

[35] Hyamson (1976), 196.

[36] Hyamson (1976), 146.  

[37] Cohen (1978), 72. 

[38] Cohen (1978), 78. 

[39] Segev (2000), 41.  

[40] Charbit (2013), 344; Hyamson (1976), 191-2.

[41] Lockman (1996), 98, Segev (2000), 13-5, 27-30, for an example of solidarity between a Jew and an Arab in 1917.  

[42] Moshe Benar, Zvi Ben-Dor Benite (eds.), Modern Middle Eastern Jewish Thought: writings on identity, politics, and culture 1893-1958, (Waltham, 2013), 115-8.

Bibliography

1. Anchieri, Ettore and Cialdea, Basilio, ‘Israele’, in Il Milione: Enciclopedia di tutti i paesi del mondo, vol. V, Asia (Novara, 1968), 381-389.

2. Benar, Moshe and Benite, Zvi Ben-Dor, (eds.), Modern Middle Eastern Jewish Thought: writings on identity, politics, and culture 1893-1958 (Waltham, 2013).

3. Cohen, Michael J., Palestine: Retreat from the Mandate: The Making of British Policy, 1936-45, (London, 1978).

4. Hyamson, Albert M., Palestine Under the Mandate: 1920-1948, (Westport, 1976).

5. Kimmerling, Baruch, Clash of Identities: Explorations in Israeli and Palestinian Societies, (New York, 2008).

6. Lockman, Zachary, Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948, (Berkeley, 1996)

7. Meddeb, Abdelwahab and Stora, Benjamin (eds.), A History of Jewish-Muslim Relations: From the Origins to the Present Day, transl. Jane Marie Todd and Michael B. Smith, (Princeton, 2013). 

8. Charbit, Denis, The Balfour Declaration and Its Implications’, 320-328.

9. Charbit, Denis, ‘Zionism and the Arab Question’, 340-345.

10. Picaudou, Nadine, ‘”The Arabs” as a Category of British Discourse in Palestine’, 329-339.

11. Segev, Tom, One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate, transl. Haim Watzman, (London, 2000).