The Israeli-Palestine conflict is one that is incredibly complex and borne of sophisticated and difficult-to-resolve religious, political and cultural differences in the Middle East. The area has been subject to substantial examples of violence, imperialism, and religious extremism to the level where the conflict has escalated to near-unsolvable levels. However, the history of the divisions that take place in the West Bank and adjacent areas must be understood and explored, in order to solidify our perceptions of how the conflict was created. Here, the Balfour Declaration, Henry McMahon's Letter to Ali ibn Husain, and the British Mandate for Palestine are all compared and contrasted in terms of how they affected the area, as well as other important questions relating to their role in the Israeli-Palestine conflict.
In the Balfour Declaration, UK Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour describes the view of the British government, which favors "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people" (Balfour). It also states that, while it will do everything it can to establish a Jewish home in Palestine, it will not do anything that would violate the "civil and religious rights" of non-Jewish communities in Palestine - namely the Palestinian Arabs. Therefore, the Balfour Declaration itself sought to find a way to have both Israelis and Palestinians live in the area as they saw fit. Its overall goal was to provide Israelis with what they thought was a legitimate state in Palestine, which was formerly Jerusalem - their home.
However, this conflicts somewhat with Sir Henry McMahon's letters to Hussein bin Ali, who was the Sherif of Mecca in World War I; in these letters, McMahon purports to assure him of the "sympathy of Great Britain towards the aspirations of her friends the Arabs and will result in a firm a lasting alliance" (McMahon), thus establishing support of an independent Arab state in Palestine. With the Balfour Declaration and these letters, British officials were promising two different parties ownership and control of Palestine, thus exacerbating this already-tense conflict.
What articles do you find in the text "??The Mandate for Palestine"?? that may make you think that way?
The British ended up ruling a significant number of peoples in their Mandate; not only were they chiefly in charge of the Israeli and Palestinian states, they held sway over Arabs of other persuasions in the area, and also warned against customs violations on the part of Asiatic Turkey or Arabia. This resulted in an overall British-controlled area, replete with mandates for behavior for both Israel and Palestine, two groups of people that did not want the other there. This administration was problematic for many reasons - for one, it thrust two peoples together against their will; the Palestinians did not want the Israelis to take their land, and the Israelis did not think the Palestinians deserve to be there. Furthermore, both groups were removed of any sense of autonomy by British rule, as the Mandatory supervised all of their actions and took advantage of the supplies and natural resources of the area. Both Israelis and Palestinians ostensibly got what they wanted, but Britain forced them to get it in a way that turned them against each other.
In essence, the British Mandate, and British involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict altogether, was extremely problematic. the dichotomy between the promises afforded by the Balfour Declaration and McMahon's letters confused Israelis and Palestinians as to who the British supported, and the Mandate itself simply established that the British would rule over both equally. It was a tenuous and poorly-thought out administration that exacerbated tensions in the Israeli-Palestinian area that persist even to this day.
Works Cited
Balfour, Arthur James. "Balfour Declaration." Modern History Sourcebook. 1917.
Council of the League of Nations. "League of Nations: The Mandate for Palestine." Modern
History Sourcebook. 1922.
McMahon, Henry. "Sir Henry McMahon: Letter to Ali ibn Husain." Modern History
Sourcebook. 1915.
