This document provides an overview of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the history of Israel/Palestine in three parts: 1) It outlines the geographical context and religious-historical origins of competing claims to the land. 2) It describes the rise of political Zionism in the late 19th century and the establishment of the British Mandate after World War I, exacerbating tensions between Jews and Arabs. 3) It details the major events from the 1920s to 1940s that led to increased violence and the declaration of Israel's independence in 1948, including immigration, uprisings, and Britain's shifting policies on Zionism.

1. MY LECTURE EIGHT ON “ARAB-ISRAEL
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2010
NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY, ORISSA
B.A. LL.B SEMESTER-III (2010): “GLOBAL POLITICS AND GOVERNANCE”
MY LECTURES ON “ARAB-ISRAEL CONFLICTS”
(PART-I)
LECTURE EIGHT
By
DR. AFROZ ALAM
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF POLITICS
NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY, ORISSA
MOBILE: +919438303041
E-MAIL: afrozalam2@gmail.com
afroz@nluo.ac.in
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2. MY LECTURE EIGHT ON “ARAB-ISRAEL
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AN OVERVIEW
The Arab–Israeli conflict refers to the political tensions and open hostilities between the Arab people of the Middle
East and the Jewish community of present-day Israel, that has lasted for over a century. Some trace the beginning of
the conflict to large-scale Jewish immigration to Palestine, which intensified with the creation of the modern State of
Israel in 1948. The territorial area of Israel is regarded by the Jewish people as their historical homeland, and by
the Pan-Arab movement as belonging to the Palestinians (as Muslim lands). The conflict, which started as a political
and nationalist conflict over competing territorial ambitions following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, has
shifted over the years from the large scale regional Arab–Israeli conflict to a more local Israeli-Palestinian conflict,
though the Arab World and Israel generally remain at odds with each other over specific territory.
GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION OF ISRAEL AND PALESTINE
The land variously called Israel and Palestine is a small, (10,000 square miles at present) land at the eastern end of the
Mediterranean Sea. During its long history, its area, population and ownership varied greatly. The present state of
Israel occupies all the land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean ocean, bounded by Egypt in the south,
Lebanon in the north, and Jordan in the East. The recognized borders of Israel constitute about 78% of the land. The
remainder is divided between land occupied by Israel since the 1967 6-day war and the autonomous regions under the
control of the Palestinian autonomy. The Gaza strip occupies an additional 141 square miles south of Israel, and is
under the control of the Palestinian authority.
Religious-Historical Context of the Israel/Palestine
According to the Bible, Moses led the Israelites, or a portion of them, out of Egypt. Under Joshua, they conquered the
tribes and city states of Canaan. Based on biblical traditions, it is estimated that King David conquered Jerusalem
about 1000 B.C. and established an Israelite kingdom over much of Canaan including parts of Transjordan. Jerusalem
remained the centre of Jewish sovereignty and of Jewish worship whenever the Jews exercised sovereignty over the
country in the subsequent period, up to the Jewish revolt in 133 AD.
The Assyrians conquered Israel in 722 B.C. The Babylonians conquered Judah around 586 B.C. They destroyed
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Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem, and exiled a large number of Jews. About 50 years later, the Persian King Cyrus
conquered Babylonia. Cyrus allowed a group of Jews from Babylonia to rebuild Jerusalem and settle in it. However,
a large number of Jews remained in Babylonia, forming the first Jewish Diaspora. The Persians ruled the land from
about 530 to 331 B.C. Alexander the Great then conquered the Persian Empire. After Alexander's death in 323 B.C.,
his general Seleucus, founded a dynasty that gained control of much of Palestine about 200 B.C. In 167 B.C., the
Jews revolted against Seleucids and established a large degree of autonomy, forming a kingdom with its capital in
Jerusalem. The kingdom received Roman "protection" in 164 B.C. and later under direct Roman control.
The Romans called the large central area of the land, which included Jerusalem, Judea. According to Christian belief,
Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem, Judea, in the early years of Roman rule. Roman rulers put down Jewish revolts
in about A.D. 70 and A.D. 132. In A.D. 135, the Romans drove the Jews out of Jerusalem, following the failed Bar
Kochba revolt. The Romans named the area Palaestina, at about this time. The name Palaestina, which became
Palestine in English, is derived from Herodotus, who used the term Palaistine Syriato refer to the entire southern part
of Syria, meaning "Philistine Syria." Most of the Jews who continued to practice their religion fled or were forcibly
exiled from Palestine, eventually forming a second Jewish Diaspora. However, Jewish communities continued to
exist, primarily in the Galilee, the northernmost part of Palestine. Palestine was governed by the Roman Empire until
the fourth century A.D. (300's) and then by the Byzantine Empire. In time, Christianity spread to most of Palestine.
The population consisted of Jewish converts to Christianity and paganism, peoples imported by the Romans, and
others who had probably inhabited Palestine continuously.
During the seventh century (A.D. 600's), Muslim Arab armies moved north from Arabia to conquer most of the
Middle East, including Palestine. Jerusalem was conquered about 638 by the Caliph Umar (Omar) who gave his
protection to its inhabitants. Muslim powers controlled the region until the early 1900's. The rulers allowed Christians
and Jews to keep their religions. However, most of the local population gradually accepted Islam and the Arab-
Islamic culture of their rulers. Jerusalem (Al-Quds) became holy to Muslims as the site where, according to
tradition, Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven after a miraculous overnight ride from Mecca on his horse Al-
Buraq. The al-Aqsa mosque was built on the site generally regarded as the area of the Jewish temples.
In the mid-1200's, Mamelukes, originally soldier-slaves of the Arabs based in Egypt, established an empire that in
time included the area of Palestine. Arab-speaking Muslims made up most of the population of the area once called
Palestine. Beginning in the late 1300's, Jews from Spain and other Mediterranean lands settled in Jerusalem and other
parts of the land. The Ottoman Empire defeated the Mamelukes in 1517, and Palestine became part of the Ottoman
Empire. The Turkish Sultan invited Jews fleeing the Spanish Catholic inquisition to settle in the Turkish empire,
including several cities in Palestine.
In 1798, Napoleon entered the land. The war with Napoleon and subsequent misadministration by Egyptian and
Ottoman rulers, reduced the population of Palestine. Arabs and Jews fled to safer and more prosperous lands. Revolts
by Palestinian Arabs against Egyptian and Ottoman rule at this time may have helped to catalyze Palestinian national
feeling. Subsequent reorganization and opening of the Turkish Empire to foreigners restored some order. They also
allowed the beginnings of Jewish settlement under various Zionist and proto-Zionist movements. Both Arab and
Jewish population increased. By 1880, about 24,000 Jews were living in Palestine, out of a population of about
400,000. At about that time, the Ottoman government imposed severe restrictions on Jewish immigration and land
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purchase, and also began actively soliciting inviting Muslims from other parts of the Ottoman empire to settle in
Palestine. The restrictions were evaded in various ways by Jews seeking to colonize Palestine, chiefly by bribery.
JEWS NATIONALISM
The liberal concepts introduced by emancipation and modern nationalist ideas were blended with traditional Jewish
ideas about Israel and Zion. The marriage of "love of Zion" with modern nationalism took place first among the
Sephardic (Spanish and Eastern) Jewish community of Europe. There, the tradition of living in the land of the Jews
and return to Zion had remained practical goals rather than messianic aspirations, and Hebrew was a living language.
Rabbi Yehuda Alcalay, who lived in what is now Yugoslavia, published the first Zionist writings in the 1840s.
Though practically forgotten, these ideas took root among a few European Jews. Emancipation of Jews triggered a
new type of virulent anti-Jewish political and social movement in Europe, particularly in Germany and Eastern
Europe. Beginning in the late 1800's, oppression of Jews in Eastern Europe stimulated emigration of Jews to
Palestine.
The Zionist movement became a formal organization in 1897 with the first Zionist congress in Basle, organized
by Theodor Herzl. The Zionists wished to establish a "Jewish Homeland" in Palestine under Turkish or German rule.
In any case, they envisioned the population of Palestine by millions of European Jews who would soon form a
decisive majority in the land. The Zionists established farm communities in Palestine. Later they established the new
city of Tel Aviv. By 1914, the total population of Palestine stood at about 700,000. About 615,000 were Arabs, and
85,000 to 100,000 were Jews.
WORLD WAR I
During World War I (1914-1918), the Ottoman Empire joined Germany and Austria-Hungary against the Allies. An
Ottoman military government ruled Palestine. The war was hard on both Jewish and Arab populations, owing to
outbreaks of cholera and typhus; however, it was more difficult for the Jews. A large number of Jews were Russian
nationals. They had been able to enter Palestine as Russian nationals because of the concessions Turkey had granted
to Russian citizens, and they had used this method to overcome restrictions on immigration. They had also
maintained Russian citizenship to avoid being drafted into the Turkish army. Therefore, a large number of Jews were
forced to flee Palestine during the war.
Britain and France planned to divide the Ottoman holdings in the Middle East among themselves after the war.
The Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 called for part of Palestine to be under British rule, part to be placed under a
joint Allied government, and for Syria and Lebanon to be given to the France. However, Britain also offered to back
Arab demands for post-war independence from the Ottomans in return for Arab support for the Allies and seems to
have promised the same territories to the Arabs. The promise of liberation from the Ottomans led many Jews and
Arabs to support the allied powers during World War I, leading to the emergence of widespread Arab nationalism.
THE BRITISH MANDATE FOR PALESTINE
In November 1917, before Britain had conquered Jerusalem and the area to be known as Palestine, Britain issued
the Balfour Declaration. The declaration was a letter addressed to Lord Rothschild, based on a request of the Zionist
organization in Great Britain. The declaration stated Britain's support for the creation of a Jewish national home in
Palestine, without violating the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities. The declaration was
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the result of lobbying by the small British Zionist movement, who had emigrated from Russia to Britain, but it was
motivated by British strategic considerations. Paradoxically, perhaps, a major motivation for the declaration may
have been the belief, inspired by anti-Semitism, that international Jewry would come to the aid of the British if they
declared themselves in favour of a Jewish homeland, and the fear that the Germans were about to issue such a
declaration.
This declaration exacerbated tensions between the Arabs living in Mandate Palestine and the Jews who emigrated
there during the Ottoman period. The Arabs opposed the idea of a Jewish national home, considering that the areas
now called Palestine were their land. The Arabs felt they were in danger of dispossession by the Zionists, and did not
relish living under Jewish rule.
Signed in January 1919, the Faisal-Weizmann Agreement promoted Arab-Jewish cooperation on the development of
a Jewish National Homeland in Palestine and an Arab nation in a large part of the Middle East, though this event had
little to no effect on the conflict.
In 1920, Britain received a provisional mandate over Palestine, which would extend west and east of the River
Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea, and Iraq. In 1922, the League of Nations formally established the British Mandate
for Palestine and Transjordan. In 1922 itself, the British declared that the boundary of Palestine would be limited to
the area west of the river Jordon. The area east of the river, called Transjordan (now Jordan), was made a separate
British mandate and eventually given independence.
British Mandate in Palestine in 1922
In the spring of 1920, spring of 1921 and summer of 1929, Arab nationalists opposed to the Balfour declaration, the
mandate and the Jewish National Home, instigated riots and pogroms against Jews. The violence led to the formation
of the Haganah Jewish militant organization in 1920. The riots of 1920 and 1921 reflected opposition to the Balfour
declaration and fears that the Arabs of Palestine would be dispossessed, and were probably attempts to show the
British that Palestine as a Jewish National home would be ungovernable. The riots of 1929 occurred against the
background of Jewish-Arab nationalist antagonism. The Arabs claimed that Jewish immigration and land purchases
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were displacing and dispossessing the Arabs of Palestine.
Jewish immigration swelled in the 1930s, driven by persecution in Eastern Europe, even before the rise of Nazism.
Large numbers of Jews began to come from Poland owing to discriminatory laws and harsh economic conditions.
The rise of Hitler in Germany added to this tide of immigration. The Jewish Agency made a deal, the Hesder, that
allowed Jews to escape Germany to Palestine in return for hard currency that the Reich needed.
In 1936 widespread rioting, later known as the Arab Revolt or Great Uprising, broke out. Thousands of Arabs and
hundreds of Jews were killed in the revolt, which spread rapidly owing to initial unpreparedness of the British
authorities. About half the 5,000 residents of the Jewish quarter of the old city of Jerusalem were forced to flee, and
the remnant of the Hebron Jewish community was evacuated as well.
The Peel commission of 1937 recommended partitioning Palestine into a small Jewish state and a large Arab one.
The commission's recommendations also included voluntary transfer of Arabs and Jews to separate the populations.
The Jewish leadership considered the plan but the Palestinian and Arab leadership, including King Saud of Saudi
Arabia rejected partition and demanded that the British curtail Jewish immigration.
In response to the riots, the British began limiting immigration and the 1939 White Paper decreed that 15,000 Jews
would be allowed to enter Palestine each year for five years. Thereafter, immigration would be subject to Arab
approval.
The Jews of Palestine responded to the White Paper and the Holocaust by organizing illegal immigration to Palestine
from occupied Europe, through the "Institution for Illegal Immigration". Additionally, there were private initiatives,
an initiative by the Nazis to deport Jews and an initiative by the US to save European Jews.
However, the Zionist leadership met in the Biltmore Hotel in New York City in 1942 and declared that it supported
the establishment of Palestine as a Jewish Commonwealth. This was not simply a return to the Balfour declaration
repudiated by the British White Paper, but rather a restatement of Zionist aims that went beyond the Balfour
declaration, and a determination that the British were in principle, an enemy to be fought, rather than an ally.
After the war, it was discovered that the Germans had murdered about six million Jews in Europe, in the
Holocaust. These people had been trapped in Europe, because virtually no country would give them shelter. The
Zionists felt that British restriction of immigration to Palestine had cost hundreds of thousands of lives. The Jews
were now desperate to bring the remaining Jews of Europe, about 250,000 people being held in displaced persons
camps, to Palestine.
In the summer of 1945, the Labor party came to power in Great Britain. They had promised that they would reverse
the British White Paper and would support a Jewish state in Palestine. However, they presently reneged on their
promise, and continued and redoubled efforts to stop Jewish immigration. The Haganah attempted to bring
immigrants into Palestine illegally. The rival Zionist underground groups now united, and all of them, in particular
the Irgun and Lehi ("Stern gang") dissident terrorist groups, used force to try to drive the British out of Palestine.
The US and other countries brought pressure to bear on the British to allow immigration. An Anglo-American
Committee of Inquiry recommended allowing 100,000 Jews to immigrate immediately to Palestine. The Arabs
brought pressure on the British to block such immigration. The British found Palestine to be ungovernable and
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returned the mandate to the United Nations, successor to the League of Nations.
On 15 May 1947 the UN appointed a committee, the UNSCOP, composed of representatives from eleven states. To
make the committee more neutral, none of the Great Powers were represented. After five weeks of in-country study,
the commission recommended creating a partitioned state with separate territories for the Jews and the Arabs in
Palestine. This "two state solution" was accepted with resolution 181 by the UN General Assembly in November
1947 by 33 votes to 13 with 10 abstentions. The Arab states, which constituted the Arab League, voted against. On
the ground, Arab and Jewish Palestinians were fighting openly to control strategic positions in the region. Several
major atrocities were committed by both sides.
UN Partition
Plan 1947
In the months prior to the end of the Mandate the Haganah launched a number of offensives in which they gained
control over all the territory allocated by the UN to the Jewish State, creating a large number of refugees and
capturing the towns of Tiberias, Haifa, Safad, Beisan and, in effect, Jaffa.
On May 14, 1948, one day before the end of the British Mandate of Palestine, Israel declared its independence and
sovereignty on the portion partitioned by UNSCOP for the Jewish state. The next day, the Arab League reiterated
officially their opposition to the "two-state solution" in a letter to the UN.
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