Britain controlled Palestine after World War I as part of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, gaining a League of Nations Mandate to administer the territory, driven primarily by strategic imperial interests like securing the Suez Canal and access to oil, while also making conflicting promises to both Arab leaders and Zionists, setting the stage for future conflict.
What was Israel before 1948 and how was it created? Britain took control of the area known as Palestine in World War One, following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, which had ruled that part of the Middle East. An Arab majority and a Jewish minority lived there, as well as other ethnic groups.
The total land area of all of Palestine west of the Jordan River under the British Mandate was some 26 million dunams. The remaining five-sevenths of the cultivable land was owned by Arabs or was administered by the British and previously by the Ottomans as state or dead lands.
The UK has formally recognised Palestine to protect the viability of a two-state solution and create a path towards lasting peace for the Israeli and Palestinian people.
How Britain Started the Arab-Israeli Conflict | Free Documentary History
Why did the British give Palestine land to Israel?
In an effort to win the support of Jewish communities in both Allied countries like the United States, and enemy countries like Austria Hungary, the UK foreign secretary signed the Balfour Declaration. Vowing to set up a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine.
Whose land was it originally, Israel or Palestine?
By more than 1,000 years, “Israel” predates “Palestine.” The land then became home primarily to an Arab population, again for more than a millennium. Both Jews and Arabs thus have a legitimate claim to the land. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has seen myriad wrongs and brutalities on both sides.
Though its occupation is illegal, Israel has cited several reasons for retaining the West Bank within its ambit: historic rights stemming from the Balfour Declaration; security grounds, both internal and external; and the area's symbolic value for Jews.
Balfour Declaration, statement of British support for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.” It was made in a letter dated November 2, 1917, from Arthur James Balfour, the British foreign secretary, to Lionel Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild (of Tring), a leader of the Anglo- ...
In 722 BCE, the Assyrians, under Sargon II, successor to Shalmaneser V, conquered the Kingdom of Israel, and many Israelites were deported to Mesopotamia. The Jewish proper diaspora began with the Babylonian exile in the 6th century BCE.
From the timeline above, it is clear that Jews preceded both Arabs and Muslims in Palestine by 2600 years if measured from the time of Abraham or by at least 1600 years if measured from the establishment of Kingdom of Israel.
In fact, historically, there was never an independent country named Palestine. There was for a time a Roman province named Palestine, when the Romans bestowed that name in the second century A.D. on an area that was previously called Judea, and which had been sovereign for a time.
Following World War II and the Holocaust, international pressure mounted for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, leading to the creation of Israel in 1948.
The British, who held a colonial mandate for Palestine until May 1948, opposed both the creation of a Jewish state and an Arab state in Palestine as well as unlimited immigration of Jewish refugees to the region.
The British army occupied Palestine, formerly part of Ottoman Syria, in 1917. The British mandate was granted on 25th April 1920 at the San Remo Conference (at which the term "Palestine" was used to denote the land west of the River Jordan).
The other five (Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea, and the U.S.) do not recognize Palestine, but Italy and Japan have indicated that they would, the former contingent on Hamas meeting certain conditions.
The Balfour Declaration, which resulted in a significant upheaval in the lives of Palestinians, was issued on November 2, 1917. The declaration turned the Zionist aim of establishing a Jewish state in Palestine into a reality when Britain publicly pledged to establish “a national home for the Jewish people” there.
There were Jewish communities across the Roman Empire before the Jewish-Roman wars. But those Jewish-Roman wars did accelerate the emigration, which in this case was both forcible and voluntary. Over the next few centuries, there were more wars, and the area was less well-off.
In the 1930s, most of the land was bought from landowners. Of the land that the Jews bought, 52.6% were bought from non-Palestinian landowners, 24.6% from Palestinian landowners, 13.4% from government, churches, and foreign companies, and only 9.4% from fellaheen (farmers).
Palestinians primarily want an end to the Israeli occupation and the establishment of their own independent state in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem, with East Jerusalem as its capital, but views vary, with some favoring a one-state solution for equal rights or the return of all historic Palestine, all while seeking self-determination, justice, and an end to the blockade and settlements. The two-state solution (an independent Palestine alongside Israel) is a common goal, though support fluctuates, with many desiring full liberation and an end to the occupation as the core objective.
And historian Shlomo Sand of Tel Aviv University in Israel argues in his book The Invention of the Jewish People, translated into English last year, that most modern Jews do not descend from the ancient Land of Israel but from groups that took on Jewish identities long afterward.
The arrival of Zionist settlers to Palestine during this period is widely seen as the start of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The Zionist claim to Palestine was based on the notion that the Jews' historical right to the land outweighed that of the Arabs.
In May of that year, according to Nathan Thrall, Israel had offered Palestinians 66% of the West Bank, with 17% annexed to Israel, and a further 17% not annexed but under Israeli control, and no compensating swap of Israeli territory.
This country received the name of Palestine, from the Philistines, who dwelt on the sea coast: it was called Judea, from Judah: and is termed the Holy Land, being the country where Jesus Christ was born, preached his holy doctrines, confirmed them by miracles, and laid down his life for mankind.
