https://www.humantruth.info/palestine_uk.html
By Vexen Crabtree 2026
#france #history #islam #israel #judaism #league_of_nations #ottoman_empire #palestine #UK #USA #zionism
The eastern coast of the Mediterranean, the Levant, found itself in a radically different situation after the fall of Ottoman empire1. Stability was gone and new borders appeared. After a secret deal with the French, the League of Nations gave a portion of the land to the UK, creating the British Mandated Palestine2, charging it with the task of protecting Arab civil and religious rights, but also, to create there a home for Jews.2,3. The call to migrate to Palestine was accepted by many Jews, especially the ultrareligious4.
The UK treated the Arabs poorly, with secret deals against them and a policy against allowing a Palestinian government to emerge, and promising (along with the USA Jews that they would have their own state3,5. Understandably, this led to the Arab Revolt (1936-1939), which the British crushed with much bloodshed. But they did compromise, and in 1939 imposed restrictions on further Jewish immigration6.
However, this was followed by a Jewish insurgency (1944-1948) against British restrictions. Palestine was the only place for many Jews to flee from European oppression by fascists, and so, the issue was of utmost, life-and-death importance to Jewish communities, who needed a place of self-rule; the horrors of the holocaust meant that the international community supported this migration7.
The UK flagged the impossibility of a solution to the UN and withdrew, resulting in the 1947 UN resolution on a 2-state solution (i.e., half of Palestine would become a Jewish state), triggering the Arab-Israeli war, and after that, the eternal stale-mate between hard-done-by Palestinians and a hardened Israel.
#france #history #italy #ottoman_empire #russia #UK
Western powers, including Britain and France, repeatedly promised Arab leaders that they would be given independence after in a post-Ottoman-Empire world. It helped keep them friendly. But with the confidence and arrogance that typified the colonialist-mindset and caused such resentment later, the secret Sykes-Picot agreement of 16 May 1916 was co-ordinated between Sir Mark Sykes of Britain and Charles François Georges-Picot of France. They divided Ottoman land between them2,7, with assent from Russia (and later Italy).
It formed part of a broader pattern of secret wartime diplomacy, in which the Entente powers planned the post-Ottoman Middle East without consulting the peoples of the region or even informing some of their own allies. After the Bolshevik Revolution, the new Soviet government published the archives of the previous tsarist rulers, which also happened to reveal the Sykes-Picot Agreement to the world.
After Sykes-Picot was revealed, the Arab rulers of the region had little trust in the UK, France, or the deceitful antics of the Western world.
#france #judaism #palestine #the_middle_east #UK #USA
The League of Nations did not take the Sykes-Picot deceit as a sign that Britain was unsuitable, and in 1920 granted it the British Mandated Palestine2, a piece of land much larger than envisioned in Sykes-Picot.
It incorporated the Balfour Declaration (1917), wherein Britain had committed to creating "a national home for the Jewish people". while also promising to protect the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish (Arab) communities.2,3
Without the Ottoman Empire, Palestine should have been settling as its own coherent state, however, Britain specifically had a colonial policy against developing governmental apparatus for Palestinians, preventing a Palestinian voice, and creating growing mistrust and resentment.
To fulfil its mandate for the Jews, the UK encouraged Jews to migrate to Palestine. This is what we now call the single-state solution, and the explicit aim was that Palestine would not be replaced, but that the Jewish people should live within a shared Palestine2.
The call was accepted by many Jews, but especially the "ultrareligious regarded the 'return' to Palestine as a strictly religious duty"4. Although many went simply because most other countries had closed their doors to Jews, "this was certainly true of most of the German and central European Jews who fled to Palestine in the period after Hitler's ascent to power in 1933"8. Knowing that a surge of immigration would cause destabilization, the UK maintained numerical limits to how many Jews could come, but campaigners marched in the USA and throughout Europe to create pressure for the removal of limits. Here's an excerpt from a New York Times article in 1935, at which time Jews already made up 32% of Palestine9:
“JEWS SEEK TO FORM STATE IN PALESTINE; Zionists Carrying Campaign to United States -- Also Ask Removal of Bars to Immigration. [...] A campaign [...] for support of Jewish immigration in Palestine and the establishment of a Jewish national state there, will be inaugurated shortly by Vladimir Jabotinsky, president of the World Union of Zionist Revision.”
NY Times (1935)
Encouraging them, UK Prime Ministers such as David Lloyd George, and USA's President Woodrow Wilson encouraged Zionist leaders to believe that they did indeed have "a promise that Palestine would become a Jewish state"2. Winston Churchill supported the Zionist Chaim Wiezmann who proposed importing 70-80k Jews per year, to create an overwhelming majority in Palestine3 within 10 years10. Sir Herbert Samuel, the British ruler of Palestine from 1920 to 1925 said in private letters he looked forward to a Jewish majority and a Jewish government of Palestine5. After those contradictory promises for a shared Palestine, Arab protections, and yet, a Jewish state, it was impossible to avoid disappointment.
#immigration #israel #palestine #the_middle_east #UK
Following the preference of the international community towards Jewish immigration and ignoring Britain's mandate to preserve Arab culture and rights, riots in 1921 and 1929 were followed by a period called the Arab Revolt (1936-1939). They opposed accelerating Jewish immigration, growing land dispossession, and Britain's refusal to grant meaningful political representation to the Arab majority.
The revolt began with a six-month general strike, followed by a widespread rural insurgency led by local militias. Britain responded with overwhelming force: mass arrests, home demolitions, curfews, and the deployment of tens of thousands of troops. By 1939 the revolt had been crushed, but at enormous social cost. Palestinian political leadership was decimated through exile, imprisonment and fragmentation.
Despite its ability to crush the Arab population, Peel Commission, an internal Britain review, in 1937 declared that it was impossible to reconcile Arab and Jewish interests, and that maybe Palestine should be partitioned, and a portion given exclusively to Jews. It was therefore, a two-state proposition and involved some mass-transfer of Jews and Arabs between different areas, to try to create sensible divisions, but this was intensely unpopular11. Trying to slow the disruption to Palestine, the UK also issued a 1939 White Paper which sharply restricted further Jewish immigration6, and promised eventual independence to an Arab-majority state, appeasing some of the Arab's concerns.
However, this was followed by a Jewish insurgency (1944-1948) against British restrictions. There was no Israel yet - Palestine was the only place for many Jews to flee from European oppression by fascists, and so, the issue was of utmost, life-and-death importance to Jewish communities, who needed a place where they were under self-rule. Britain's response was mass arrests, curfews, military tribunals and public hangings (causing retaliatory public hangings of captured British military), collective punishments, demolition of Jewish houses and general oppression. Rarely do such measures calm a population.
The core of the insurgency was Haganah, acting against the British Mandate in Palestine, seeking to remove immigration restrictions and trigger the emergence of a dominant Jewish State. They formed a coalition in 1945 with two more violent groups (mentioned below), and conducted attacks on British railways, radar stations and immigration offices.
A Jewish radical group commonly called Irgun12 had already been conducting armed attacks against Arab throughout Palestine since 1937, occasionally including British targets, but during WWII the greater threat from Nazi Germany led them to a ceasefire against the British. They also hoped that siding with the British "would later result in the recognition of Zionist claims to statehood"6. However come 1944, under the leadership of Menachem Begin (who would later be Israel's Prime Minister), Irgun resumed full-scale insurgency in tandem with Haganah. They bombed police stations, British administrative buildings and caused mayhem.
Another group, Lohamei Herut Yisrael (Freedom Fighters for Israel, known to Jews by its Hebrew acronym, Lehi13) had split off from Irgun, and were angrier6. They continued attacks during WWII, and assassinated Lord Moyne in 1944, conducted bombings, sabotage and murder in a campaign described simply as inhumane6.
After the infamous bombing of the King David Hotel in 1946, which killed 91 people, almost all civilians, Haganah ceased associating with Irgun and Lehi.
#cyprus #israel #nazis #palestine #UK
After World War Two and the defeat of the Nazis, who had conducted crimes against humanity in an attempt to annihilate as many Jews as possible with utmost irrational prejudice (the holocaust), a huge wave of survivors and refugees made their way to Palestine using any means necessary, and the horrors inflicted upon the Jews all-but guaranteed them international support7. The UK attempted to stem the tide, intercepting ships, detaining refugees in camps in Cyprus and hardening borders. But it was fruitless, and 1947 in particular saw controls overwhelmed.
The UK flagged the impossibility of a solution to the UN and withdrew, resulting in the 1947 UN resolution that proposed a 2-state solution (i.e., half of Palestine would become a Jewish state). In 1948 when Britain stepped back, "Israeli leaders immediately proclaimed their independence", to outrage of all of the Arab neighbours of Palestine who had been watching in horror. Together, they declared war on the new Israel, sparking the Arab-Israeli war.
This added to a long series of events, decade by decade, that prevented Palestine from settling as a viable state. See Why Does Palestine Struggle to Be a Recognized State?: