The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict_A Very Short Introduction

by Martin Bunton

  Rebels also targeted Jewish property. The besieged Yishuv responded by strengthening both its determination and its capacity to become independent. For example, ‘Special Night Squads’ were created in 1938 under the guidance of Orde Wingate, a British soldier who within weeks of his arrival in Palestine zealously embraced Zionism. Wingate commanded small-scale operations to retaliate fiercely against Arab guerrilla attacks as well as to defend the Iraq oil pipeline that ended in Haifa. Meanwhile Jewish militias such as the Irgun grew and gained strength.

  By 1939, the revolt was cruelly crushed by British imperial authorities. Deploying over 20,000 soldiers, the British pursued a brutal policy of destruction and collective punishment. The consequences in Palestine were profound: 10 per cent of the Palestinian male population were reported to have been killed, wounded, imprisoned, or exiled; thousands of houses were destroyed; social structures were fractured and the economy reduced to chaos. At the political level, colonial political and administrative structures dissolved under the strain. Notables who were represented on the AHC were either deported or fled into exile.

  At the diplomatic level, the high toll of suppressing the revolt brought about a dramatic change in British plans for governing Palestine. Britain accepted the need to review the mandate and reconsider its support for building a Jewish national home in Palestine against the will of the Arab majority. Reinterpretations of the ambiguous Balfour Declaration lay at the centre of official debates at this time. Some officials stressed the provision for the protection of Arab interests; some argued that the obligations to build ‘a national home’ for the Jewish people had in fact now been redeemed; and some had become thoroughly disillusioned or worn down by the widespread accusations of betrayal coming from all sides. A particularly important consideration at this time was the prospect of war with Germany and the need to secure Britain’s communications and supply routes.

  Abandoning the idea of partition, London issued in 1939 a new White Paper that dealt individually with the three major issues of contention: immigration, land, and a constitution. Laying down limits on Jewish immigration, the White Paper announced that Jewish immigration would be restricted to 75,000 persons over a five-year period and then end (or, technically, be subject to the acquiescence of the Arab majority). Furthermore, the White Paper restricted the continued purchase of land by Zionists to specific geographical zones. Most importantly, the White Paper called for the establishment of a unitary Palestinian state in which Arabs and Jews would jointly exercise authority. It contemplated needing ten years to bring about an independent Palestinian state. But it was in this coming decade that Britain rapidly lost control of the situation in Palestine.

  The Second World War and the Holocaust

  The Second World War had an enormous impact on Palestine. The political landscape was completely transformed. Not only was Britain thoroughly distracted during the course of the war from implementing the constitutional recommendations of the White Paper, but by the end of the conflict it was also so weakened that it simply lacked the will and capacity to determine for itself Palestine’s future. The Palestinians too were depleted and exhausted. Still reeling from the brutal suppression of the Arab revolt, and further compromised by Hajj Amin al-Husayni’s attempt to seek assistance from Nazi Germany, the Palestinians lacked strong leadership. From exile, the largely discredited Mufti had failed to rally fellow Palestinian Arabs to support the Nazis, though his stubborn rejection of the 1939 White Paper, aimed above all at securing his own leadership, succeeded in intimidating anyone else from effectively negotiating with the British.

  The two main factors that gravely undermined Britain’s post-war position in Palestine were the power of the Yishuv and the influence of the United States. The Yishuv had deeply resented the 1939 White Paper and its plan to curtail immigration to Palestine just when European Jewry was most in need of sanctuary. But the Zionists still needed British patronage, and the subsequent outbreak of war made it imperative for Zionist leaders to support the British war against Germany. The Zionist response is best captured in David Ben Gurion’s famous call: ‘We will fight the war as if there was no White Paper and fight the White Paper as if there was no war.’ In the end, Zionist cooperation with the Allied war effort provided the Yishuv with an opportunity to both strengthen its military capabilities and build up, if secretly, its store of armaments. As the horrors of the Holocaust, in which six million European Jews would perish, gradually became known, Zionist resolve to create an independent state hardened. In May 1942 a conference was held at the Biltmore Hotel in New York City, the location itself representing the growing influence of the United States. The programme called for a Jewish state over the whole of Palestine, replacing the idea of a ‘home’ in part of it, and this remained official policy until 1947. Meanwhile, on the ground, British authorities were up against the by now unstoppable Jewish push, including brutal attacks by extremist factions calling for an independent state. Revisionist organizations such as the Irgun and the Stern Gang directed their attacks on British personnel, most famously assassinating Lord Moyne, the British minister of state resident in the Middle East, in November 1944 and in July 1946 demolishing a wing of Jerusalem’s King David Hotel where British administrative headquarters were based. Britain responded to these increasing hostilities by deploying 80,000 troops and 20,000 policemen, all to deal with a population in the Yishuv of approximately 600,000.

  Following the Second World War, many countries, especially in the West, declared their full support for an independent Jewish state as a home for Jewish refugees who had survived the Holocaust. Most acutely, Britain faced a growing rift with the US President, Harry Truman, and his constant demand—driven in part by overwhelming sympathy for the plight of Jewish refugees and in part by domestic electoral politics—for the relaxation of the 1939 White Paper and the immediate entry into Palestine of 100,000 Jewish immigrants. It was a critical moment. Given the war weariness and financial destitution felt at home, Britain urgently needed US support and financial aid in order to retain any hope of maintaining its status as a great power.

  British withdrawal and the 1947 UN partition plan

  Historians agree that all of these issues led Britain in February 1947 to turn for help to the UN, the successor to the League of Nations and its flawed mandate system. But the exact nature of that decision is the source of some debate. Some view this turn to the UN as less an act of desperation than part of a longer-term strategy to secure British interests in Palestine while smoothing relations with the United States. According to this interpretation, Britain essentially challenged the body of world opinion either to come up with a responsible plan (and supply the forces necessary to bring it about) or to come around to supporting Britain’s actions (and leave it alone). Other historians, however, find no reason to view Britain’s decision as anything other than an attempt to wash its hands of an impossible and demoralizing problem. Having had enough of bearing the spiralling cost all by itself, Britain was now looking for someone else to take responsibility.

  Either way, handing over the problem of Palestine to the UN effectively introduced a new factor into the equation. The situation changed markedly once the UN set up a special committee on Palestine, known as UNSCOP (United Nations Special Committee on Palestine). UNSCOP’s wide terms of reference, which called for the future of Palestine to be determined in connection with the problem of Europe’s displaced Jews, angered the Palestinian Arab leadership. They argued that it was unfair to view Palestine as part of the solution for a European problem. When UNSCOP visited Palestine in June and July of 1947, Arab delegates refused officially to meet it, and their uncompromising leadership was again portrayed as constituting their own worst enemy. It was also evident, however, that Arab leaders were hamstrung by the unique absence in Palestine of a legislative assembly that would have granted Palestinian representatives, had they been serving as ministers of an elected government, much greater legitimacy in pressing their case for soverei
gnty.

  In addition to the legacy of constitutional impasse emerging from the mandate period, the issues of Jewish immigration and land purchase also loomed large. By far the most eventful moment of UNSCOP’s visit to Palestine was the arrival in Haifa of 4,500 Jewish displaced persons crammed into a boat renamed Exodus. UNSCOP members watched as British officials, upholding the policies of the 1939 White Paper, sent the captured illegal immigrants back to Europe, the continent of their persecution. Indeed, the dark shadow cast by the Holocaust ensured that UNSCOP members framed the partitioning of Palestine and the creation of new frontiers for a Jewish state in moral terms. As Ivan Rand, the Canadian committee member who as a representative of one of Britain’s ‘loyal dominions’ might otherwise have been expected to sympathize with British policy, told David Horowitz, a UN correspondent and ardent Zionist: ‘I won’t allow you to be placed in a territorial ghetto.’

  UNSCOP Report to the General Assembly, 1947

  In making its proposal for a plan of partition with economic union for Palestine, the members of the Committee supporting this plan are fully aware of the many difficulties of effecting a satisfactory division of Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab State. The main problems to be faced are the following:

  1. The problem of minorities

  The central inland area of Palestine includes a large Arab population and, leaving Jerusalem out of account, practically no Jews. This obviously is the main starting point in demarcating a possible Arab State. Further north, particularly in Western Galilee, and separated from the central area by a narrow belt of Jewish settlements, is another concentration of Arabs and very few Jews. These two areas form the main territory of an Arab State which has only a very small minority of Jews. The Jewish State, on the other hand, has its centre and starting point in the coastal plain between Haifa and Tel Aviv and even in this area there is also a considerable number of Arabs. Extensions of this area in the most suitable directions to include a larger number of Jews as well as a larger land area, increase the proportion of Arabs to Jews in the Jewish State.

  2. The problem of viability

  The creation of two viable States is considered essential to a partition scheme.

  3. The problem of development

  A partition scheme for Palestine must take into account both the claims of the Jews to receive immigrants and the needs of the Arab population, which is increasing rapidly by natural means. Thus, as far as possible, both partitioned States must leave some room for further land settlement.

  4. The problem of contiguity

  It is obviously desirable to create States with continuous frontiers. Due to geographic and demographic factors, it is impossible to make a satisfactory partition without sacrificing this objective to some extent.

  5. Access to the sea for the Arab State

  Even within the scheme for economic union, this is considered to be important for psychological as well as material reasons.

  In solving this complex of problems, a compromise is necessary and in suggesting the boundaries upon which this partition scheme rests all these matters have been given serious consideration so that the solution finally reached appears to be the least unsatisfactory from most points of view.

  Though united in calling for an end to the British mandate, UNSCOP submitted a majority and a minority report. The minority report, which called for the establishment of a single federated state, attracted little attention. The majority report, supported by eight of the eleven members, revived the idea of partitioning Palestine raised ten years earlier by the Peel Commission. It outlined the terms of partition and prepared the way for the UN General Assembly to vote in November 1947. A watershed in the history of the conflict, the UN vote was both controversial and indeterminate. To achieve the required approval of a two-thirds majority in the General Assembly, extensive lobbying was undertaken. The Zionist campaign was also helped enormously by the singular appearance of Soviet-US harmony. Soviet endorsement of partition emerged out of both a feeling of sympathy for Jewish suffering and a cold calculation of how best to undermine Britain in this strategically important region. In many official circles Palestine came to be regarded as a test case of whether the new UN was to be a more effective world organization than the League of Nations, and people desperately wanted the UN to work. On 29 November the tally in the General Assembly was thirty-three to thirteen in favour of partition, with ten abstentions (including Britain).

  The 1947 UN plan was officially entitled ‘Resolution 181 (II) Future Government of Palestine’. It proposed the partitioning of the unitary state of Palestine into two countries, one Jewish and one Arab, and the establishment of a special international regime over the Jerusalem area and its religious sites. UNSCOP went much further than the Peel Commission in accommodating Zionist aims. On paper, the areas proposed for the Jewish state comprised 55 per cent of Palestine’s territory, including vital water supplies, most citrus plantations (both Arab and Jewish), and the largely unpopulated Negev desert, even though Jews constituted only 33 per cent of Palestine’s population and owned less than 10 per cent of the total land area. This inequitable distribution was determined in large part by the anticipated need of the new Jewish state to absorb hundreds of thousands of Holocaust survivors. The population embraced by the proposed frontiers of the projected Jewish state comprised approximately 500,000 Jews and a very large minority of 400,000 Arabs. The proposed Arab state, on the other hand, was almost entirely Arab.

  Partition plans are, by their very nature, offensive and destructive. In the valleys and plains of western and northern Palestine, Jewish settlements and Arab villages were thoroughly intermingled. There simply was no way of drawing straightforward boundaries that brought together the largely urban Jewish populations without including a large proportion of the Arab population. Instead of aiming for contiguity, the UN proposal, as shown in Illustration 7, envisaged each state consisting of three separate parts, creating a criss-cross arrangement with two meeting points where the Jewish and Arab territorial units would overlap. The unnatural borders separating the Arab and Jewish territories were described by George Kirk as an entwining of the two communities ‘in an inimical embrace like two fighting serpents’.

  Jewish land acquisition during the mandate period played the key role in determining the contours of UNSCOP’s proposed Jewish state. As has been shown in previous chapters, a combination of economic, legal, and political processes had significant implications for the settlement patterns of Jewish immigrants. Jewish land purchasers gravitated towards Palestine’s more agriculturally productive coastal plains and inland valleys where settlers could focus on building citrus plantations. This notable shift in the definition of the Jewish homeland had an important impact on the drawing of new political boundaries aimed at partitioning the land. UNSCOP’s proposed borders for a Jewish state aimed only at consolidating the various districts in Palestine with the highest relative percentage of Jewish holdings (plus the southern Negev desert). As a result, the central mountainous areas of Biblical antiquity, known to Jews as Judea and Samaria, ended up being located in the areas designated for a Palestinian Arab state.

  Although arrangements were made for a UN commission to oversee the transfer of administrative powers to two new states, the commission achieved nothing. Its failure was due in part to lack of resources and in part to Britain’s refusal to cooperate in any way. Britain was not prepared to implement a plan that would both damage its wider objectives in the Arab world and result in further sacrifices. It had responded to the UNSCOP report by announcing its decision to withdraw entirely by 15 May 1948, leaving the UN to figure out how to carry out its own schemes: the last British chief secretary in Palestine would leave the keys to his office under the mat. ‘Experiment in anarchy’ is how Richard Graves, a senior British official in Jerusalem during the troubled last months of mandatory rule, described the chaos into which Palestine had been plunged: ‘the contestants who are supposed to have had their cause settled in a
court of law will be left to fight it out’.

  7. The 1947 UN partition plan

  Conclusion

  Following the Second World War the Yishuv became a state-in-the-making and Britain, with its diminishing resources vastly overstretched, could not succeed in fighting the militant Zionist campaign. The world’s indignation had been aroused by British efforts to prevent Jewish survivors from entering Palestine. The tragedy of the Holocaust had become a deep source of emotive power and moral conviction, for both Zionists and non-Zionists: the world’s sympathy was now with the idea of recognizing a Jewish state where the Jewish people could be safe from a repetition of the horrors of the death camps. Nor could Britain, wholly dependent on US aid as it adjusted to a new international climate, afford a confrontation with the United States and the external pressure it exerted to allow for greater immigration.

  In the fighting that began on the morning after the UN vote, ‘Palestine’ disappeared from the map. For reasons discussed in the following chapter, the proposed Palestinian Arab state never came into being. Many observers blame the Palestinians themselves, and its leadership’s history of continually rejecting proposals preferable in hindsight to the solutions that would be presented afterwards. Their counterfactual assumption is that, had Palestinians accepted the 1947 UN partition plan or the 1937 Peel Commission, the territory on which Palestinians would gain independence would have been much larger.