On November 5, 1914, England in protecting her interests in the Suez Canal as well as benefitting from the System of Capitulations, declared war on Turkey, who had sided with the Central Powers. During 1915, the first plans were drawn up by Britain for the partition of the Turkish Empire. In an attempt to win Arab support in the war against Turkey, Britain began negotiations with the Grand Sherif of Mecca, Hussein, afterwards the King of Hedjaz. On October 25 of that year, the British High Commissioner in Egypt, Sir Henry MacMahon, informed Hussein that Britain was “prepared to recognize and support the independence of the Arabs.” But MacMahon also added that the areas of Palestine west of the Jordan River and parts of Lebanon would have to be entirely excluded from any future Arab State.
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On December 8, 1917 (the beginning of the Jewish holiday of Hanukah and few weeks after the Balfour Declaration), the Commander-in-Chief of the Egyptian-based expeditionary forces of Great Britain, General Edmund Henry Allenby triumphantly entered Jerusalem after defeating the Turkish forces. However, Palestine remained divided, with the British controlling the south while the Turks holding the north. This situation lasted until September 21, 1918 when a new offensive, centering in the valley of Jezreel in Samaria, threw back the Turkish armies, driving them out from Palestine and neighboring Syria. At the end of October, Turkey completely surrendered and the British conquest of Palestine was completed.
The period following World War I found Palestine, as well as the Near and Middle East, in a complex political situation. The area taken from Turkey was under the military control of Allied armies, and conflicts in claims were already arising between the various powers. Palestine proper, on both sides of the Jordan River, was under British military government, while Lebanon and Syria, to the north, were under French control. Disagreement between England and France over the exact boundary between Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria was not slow in arising, with both Arabs and Bedouins freely participating in the boundary dispute.
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The Palestine Mandate, which included the area of Cis-Jordan (later Transjordan), was granted to Great Britain, which already had been in military occupation since 1917. By the Treaty of Sèvres between the Allies and Turkey signed on August 10, 1920, Turkey now renounced her sovereignty over Palestine, thereby recognizing the mandatory settlement. However, this treaty was never ratified, being only until the ratification of the Treaty of Lausanne in 1924, did Turkey implicitly accept the Mandate.
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Legally, the Palestine Mandate was of the “Class A” Mandates in which the mandatory was regarded as the guardian of a people not yet able to stand by itself and which was to be trained for self-government. A Mandate was a system of trusteeship established by Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations for the administration of former Turkish territories and German colonies. It marked an important innovation of international law with respect to dependent territories, differing from a protectorate in that obligations were assumed by the Mandate power to the inhabitants and to the League.
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Until Transjordan acquired independence in May, 1946, the High Commissioner for Palestine was always the High Commissioner for Transjordan as well. The High Commissioner was assisted by an advisory council of government officials and an executive council. Consequently, he was the supreme head of Palestine, and had complete legislative and executive power subject only to control from London… The official British military occupation of Palestine ended with the appointment of Sir Herbert Samuel, himself an orthodox Jew, as the first High Commissioner on July 1, 1920.
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Despite the Balfour Declaration, England never sought to disguise or hide its primary intent in Palestine as an area of strategic importance to the British Empire. Palestine proved a valuable base of military operations in the protection of the Suez, making the Jewish National Homeland in Palestine legally more secure… The rivalry between Britain and France for control of the Middle East (e.g., in Lebanon and Syria), rising Arab nationalism as well as the rising ambitions of Arab leaders, all served to arouse Arab unrest and incite violence.
Following Arab riots in 1920 and 1921 on Jewish agricultural colonies in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Jaffa, which were sparked by the urgings of the Mufti Haj Amim al-Husseini, the (Winston) Churchill White Paper was issued by the British in July, 1922, setting forth official policy in a manner designed to limit the interpretations which had been previously cited in the Balfour Declaration. This, the first of the “White Papers” on the Mandate, diminished the area of Jewish Palestine by removing Transjordan, the country lying on both sides of the Jordan River and the Dead Sea from Palestine and making it a separate Arab territory. In Biblical terms, this included the lands of Ammon, Gilead, Moab, and Midian. To this territory, the “Jewish National Home” clause did not apply, such that a separate system of representative government under an Arab emir was established.
As Hitler and the Nazis rose to power in Germany, persecutions sent a stream of German Jews to Palestine. The Arabs reacted with new riots, foreseeing the day when the Jewish population would exceed their own. British action to eliminate the terror was neither forceful enough nor consistent to accomplish this aim, causing them to pursue another form of action. In November 1936, a new British Royal Commission headed by Lord William Robert Peel came to Palestine to investigate the causes of Arab terror. The Peel Commission stayed two months and issued its report in July, 1937 that the Arabs had gained materially and substantially from the presence of Jews in the country, and further declared that:
“Unquestionably…the primary purpose of the Mandate, as expressed in its preamble and its articles, is to promote the establishment of the Jewish National Home.”
However, because of lack of cooperation of the Arabs, the Peel Commission concluded that the Mandate was unworkable and recommended a partition plan that divided Palestine into separate Arab and Jewish states, as well as a neutral corridor and all Holy Places under British rule.
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The UNSCOP report, published August 31, 1947, recommended unanimously the termination of the British Mandate, the preservation of economic unity of Palestine, and the safeguarding of the Holy Places. However, UNSCOP was divided on the political future of Palestine. The majority favored separate Jewish and Arab states in Palestine with Jerusalem as an “international city.” The minority of three members (India, Iran, and Yugoslavia) recommended a federal Arab-Jewish state, while Australia abstained from voting. The Jews accepted the partition plan, for with all its territorial limitations and inequities, it nevertheless assured a Jewish state in Palestine with the backing of the world. The Arabs however acted to the contrary, rejecting the partition by unleashing a storm of violence through the country. For two months the UNSCOP report was debated by the UN General Assembly. On November 29, 1947, the final vote was taken, and the partition resolution based on the UNSCOP majority report was approved. Voting for partition was as follows:
For partition (33): Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Byelorussia, Canada, Costa Rica, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Equador, France, Guatemala, Haiti, Iceland, Liberia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, Sweden, Ukraine, Union of South Africa, U.S.S.R., United States, Uruguay, and Venezuela.
Against partition (13): Afghanistan, Cuba, Egypt, Greece, India, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, and Yemen.
Abstention (10): Argentina, Chile, China, Colombia, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Honduras, Mexico, United Kingdom, and Yugoslavia.
Absent (1): Siam.
Five months later on May 14, 1948, after most of the British Army had departed from Palestine, the British union jack was lowered and the seventh and last British High Commissioner, Lt. Gen. Sir Allen Gordon Cunningham, boarded a British naval vessel at Haifa. With his departure, the British Mandate of Palestine came to an end and the State of Israel - Medinat Yisrael, was formed.
I get the two of you easily confused - two red-headed Dopers who traveled across half a continent to marry other Dopers. I swear I’d typed “Ginger” in that rant and only realized my mistake later that morning when gobear pointed it out.