N. Africa & SW Asia:
Arab - Israeli Conflict
[mandate] During world War I Britain and France decided to partition the Arab world and make the various provinces into countries. They did this through the "Mandate" system created after World War I by the League of Nations , which Britain and France controlled. Initially the area was broken into three Mandates: Palestine under Britain, Mesopotamia under Britain, Syria under France. But in the 1920s Syria and Palestine were subdivided, Syria into the countries of Syria and Lebanon, Palestine into the countries of Jordan and Palestine. Also, Kuwait was kept separate from Mesopotamia.
To the south of Mesopotamia the independent Arabian peninsula (whose oil resources had not yet been discovered) was not brought under the mandate system. On the west side of that peninsula was the kingdom of Hejaz, which contained the famous holy cities of Mecca and Medina. Hejaz was ruled by Sherif Hussein of the Hashem family. But elsewhere in Arabia, the dynamic Ibn Saud was working to unite the peninsula under his leadership. Through arms and tribal alliances, Ibn Saud took over most of Arabia and created a country which he named Saudi Arabia after his family. In the act of uniting so much of Arabia he displaced the Hashemites, who had become allies of Britain during the war.
At the end of the war, the new League of Nations (under the leadership of Britain and France) created the Mandate System. Under this system, conquered lands were placed into one of three categories (A, B, C) and were assigned to a victorious power to govern. The countries of the Arab world were declared to be Level A Mandates, meaning that they were at a very advanced stage of development and would have only a short period of British or French control. Level A Mandates were to be autonomous (self-governing) within a short time and were to choose their own leaders and shape their own destiny. (Mandates of the B and C levels were declared to be less advanced. Most of Africa was in the B category, some small islands in the Pacific were C, meaning that independence was unlikely in the foreseeable future).
In 1922 Palestine (west of the Jordan River) became a Level A Mandate under British control. (The original draft of the Mandate included Jordan and Palestine in one entity but this was changed in the final 1922 version.) The Mandate agreement specified that there would be a Jewish "homeland" inside of Palestine but that the rights of the native Palestinians would not be affected. These vague and contradictory statements were to cause much trouble.
[UN plan]
In 1936 Palestinians began what is called the Arab Uprising against British colonial authority. By 1939, 2,287 Arabs, 520 Jews, and 140 Britons had been killed. In 1937, a British government study (the Peel Report) concluded that Jews and Arabs could not live peacefully together in one state and suggested that Britain partition Palestine into two states, one Jewish, one Arab, with Jerusalem a separate city under international control. The report suggested that up to 250,000 Palestinians be removed from the proposed Jewish area. The report was controversial and before anything could be done World War II intervened. As the war ended, Jewish leaders in Palestine began a military campaign to expel Britain. Britain sent nearly 80,000 soldiers to Palestine to control the situation but was not successful.
In 1947 Britain gave up and turned the question of Palestine over to the newly created United Nations. In November 1947 the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 181, partitioning Palestine into two states, one Jewish (Israel), one Arab (Palestine) with an international enclave in the Jerusalem area, including Bethlehem. Arabs opposed this decision for four reasons: First, 66% of the population was Arab,
According to the UN Plan, the new state of Israel would receive a little more than half of Palestine divided into three discontinuous areas. At this time Jews actually owned only 8% of the land territory of Palestine and they constituted one third of the population.
Prior to the implementation of the UN's plan, Israel declared independence (May 14, 1948) and was attacked by neighboring Arab countries (the First Arab-Israeli War 1948-49). Israel won the war and gained territory [1949] so that they controlled 80% of Palestine. The remaining territory was divided into two parts: the Gaza Strip which fell under the control of Egypt and the West Bank (east of Israel, but on the west side of the Jordan River) which was annexed to Jordan in 1950.
Of the Palestinians living in what is now Israel proper on January 1, 1948, approximately 85% were refugees by December 31. Most ended up in Jordan, Gaza or the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, or Kuwait. (During 1948 the population of Jordan more than doubled to 850,000; Jordan also acquired the West Bank which had 400,000 more Palestinians, many also refugees).
In 1967 Israel launched a "preemptive" attack which became known as the "six-Day War". "Within a week, Israel had defeated the combined armies of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria (plus smaller units from Iraq and Saudi Arabia). Israel was in control of Egypt's Sinai peninsula [1967], about 2/3 of Syria's Golan province (commonly called the Golan Heights by Americans), the Palestinian West Bank, Palestinian East Jerusalem, and the Palestinian Gaza Strip. Over 200,000 additional Palestinian refugees had fled or were forced into Jordan."
It is interesting that a Israeli government map following the Six-Day War [Israel 1967] does not indicate the locations of the newly conquered territories of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights.
During the short Ramadan or Yom Kippur War in October of 1973 Egypt and Syria attempted to regain their territories of the Golan heights (Syria) and the Sinai Peninsula (Egypt). Initially the Arabs gained territory, but the United states aided Israel who returned the borders to those following the 1967 war [1967]. Following this war the Arab oil producing countries refused to export oil to all countries helping Israel.
In 1978 US President Jimmy Carter, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin met in the American presidential retreat of Camp David, Maryland which resulted in the first treaty between the State of Israel and an Arab State. This treaty included the return of the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt in a series of stages [1982].
1993 Handshake [1993]
In 1987 the Palestinians living in Israeli occupied territories began the Intifada (uprising) against Israel to gain a "Palestinian Homeland" or a State of their own in the west bank and the Gaza Strip. Israel has always opposed the idea of Palestinian statehood. The Israeli government is opposed this idea and Jewish settlements in the West Bank have encouraged a migration of Jews into this area. Jews now make up 15% of the population of the West Bank.
In the early 1990's secret talks between Israel and the PLO were held in Oslo, Norway. these talks culminated in a publicized meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat. These two leaders shook hands for the first time on the lawn of the White House in Washington DC
As a result of these, and later, talks a devolution of authority is occurring in the occupied territories. Initially, the Gaza Strip and the town of Jericho in the West bank came under the control of Palestinians. As talks continued more territory in the West Bank was returned to the Palestinians.
Talks between the State of Israel and the "Palestinian Authority" in Gaza and parts of the West Bank continue at a very slow pace. The future of these talks is unknown. Current Palestinian leaders appear to have accepted a "Two-State" solution to the conflict: the State of Israel and a new Palestinian State. Israel has yet to agree to this, however. Also, not all Palestinians agree to the "Two-State" solution. Hamas, another Palestinian organization, vows never to accept the existence of the State on Israel in Palestine. Periodic acts of terrorism and often harsh responses from the Israeli government make any solution difficult at best.
The Palestinians are a Arab speaking, Muslim, people who trace their heritage back to the land of Palestine. They are a nation without a state. At the time of the formation of Israel in 1948, there were approximately 860,000 Palestinians inside today's Israel. About 700,000 were driven out or fled during the war that followed.
Today, of the 7,450,00 Palestinians, 3,275,000 live in Israel [1993] and the occupied territories ( 975,000 in Israel, 1,450,000 in the West Bank, 850,000 Gaza). Of the remainder most (2,300,000) live in Jordan. 450,000 live in Lebanon, 400,000 in Syria, and 300,000 in Saudi Arabia.
In 1964 the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) was formed. Under the leadership of Yasser Arafat the PLO has been the primary voice of the Palestinian people. Initially accused of being a terrorist organization, the PLO is now the majority political party in the "Palestinian Authority", the name given to the former occupied territories where the Palestinians now have self-rule
Students who want more information may want to check out this web site: THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT-University of Michigan Site