Chapter 1: Before Hamas
Nearly a century before the state of Israel was founded in 1948, Palestine was under the control of the Ottoman Turkish Empire, consisting mostly of Arabs. During the 1850s, Jews began settling in small villages across the lands that once comprised Judea and Samaria, which the Jews considered their ancient Biblical homeland.
These efforts to buy property were driven by the motivation of some Jews to help reestablish the land as the Jewish homeland. These Jews became known as Zionists, in reference to Zion, which is often thought of as a reference to all of Israel but was in fact a reference to part of Jerusalem. The Zionists attempted to establish a Jewish National Fund that would assist Jews in buying land in Palestine for Jewish settlement.
Zionism as a political movement gathered steam in the 1890s, supported by Zionists, led by Theodore Herzl, who wished to found a Jewish state for the Jews in Palestine. The creation of a Jewish homeland also enjoyed strong support from many Christians who saw the reestablishment of Israel as fulfilling Biblical prophecy.
Leading up to World War I, Zionists across Europe and the United States began lobbying their countries for support to help reestablish a Jewish homeland.
During World War I, the Ottoman Turks joined the Central Powers against the Allies, which consisted of Great Britain, France, Russia, and later the United States. The fighting spanned the entire European continent, but it also raged across Turkey and the Middle East. British official T. E. Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia, went to Mecca, where he worked on causing dissension within the Ottoman Empire.
In the middle of World War I, the British pledged their support to the Zionist cause and the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine through the Balfour Declaration of November 1917. At the time, the British realized the strategic importance of Palestine because it was near the Suez Canal, and they saw the Zionists as potentially helpful allies in the region following the war. British foreign secretary Arthur James Balfour sent a letter to Lord Rothschild on November 2, 1917, declaring the government's "sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations," and favoring "the establishment in Palestine of a National Home for the Jewish People," with an intent to assist the Jews in achieving it.
It is a common misconception that the Europeans and the United States created Israel in response to the Holocaust, sympathizing with the plight of the Jews. There's no question that empathy with the Jews occurred because of historic anti-Semitism in Europe during the 19th and early 20th centuries, but the Balfour Declaration essentially guaranteed the modern State of Israel 27 years before the end of World War II.
The Ottoman Empire quickly collapsed after World War I, and its extensive lands were divvied up between the French and British. While the French gained control of the Levant, which would later become modern day nations like Syria, the British were given the Mandate for Palestine from the newly created League of Nations.
The British Mandate for Palestine gave the British control over the lands that have since become Jordan, Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. The terms of the British Mandate incorporated the language of the Balfour Declaration, recognizing the "historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine." The British were also tasked with creating a Jewish state, which the United States Congress endorsed in 1922.
During 1920, riots broke out in the Mandate that inflamed tensions between the Jews and Arabs. In response, in 1921 the British carved a large section out of the Mandate to establish the state of Transjordan, better known today simply as Jordan. Jordan comprised over 75% of the lands of the British Mandate. The following year, the Churchill White Paper banned Jews from immigrating into Jordan, thereby ensuring that its population would be heavily Hashemite and Palestinian.
Throughout the 1930s, there were restrictions on Jewish immigration to the British Mandate, which inadvertently consigned millions of European Jews to death in the Holocaust. Nevertheless, from 1918 to 1945 thousands of Jews made their way to the British Mandate.
The British Mandate of Palestine.
After the creation of Transjordan, Zionists were upset at what they felt was a betrayal of the principles of the Balfour Declaration. At the same time, as discussed next chapter, the United Nations Partition Plan would give more than half of the remaining 23% of the British Mandate to Israel, which would upset the Palestinians.
Even today, many Israeli politicians and supporters argue that a Palestinian state already exists in Jordan, and that the creation of Palestine would essentially create a second Palestinian state. For decades, Israeli politicians sought to have the Palestinian conflict resolved by having Jordan assimilate the Palestinians, under a plan known as the Allon Plan.
Tensions between Jews and Arabs persisted throughout the Middle East, and the Zionists were growing exceedingly frustrated with the British, who had created Transjordan and were limiting Jewish immigration. As a result, Zionist militias, including the Haganah and Irgun, began attacking British targets in the 1940s. The most famous act of terrorism took place on July 22, 1946, when the Irgun blew up a section of the King David Hotel, killing nearly 100 people. Jewish terrorism in Palestine compelled the British to disentangle themselves from the British Mandate, but the Jews and Arabs were not able to formalize any deal for carving up the remaining portion of the Mandate into two separate states.
In 1947, the British delegated the issue of partitioning the British Mandate to the United Nations, and the U.N. General Assembly set up the Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP). UNSCOP eventually came up with what is now known as the U.N. Partition Plan of 1947:
The Partition Plan carved up two strange looking states, but their motive was to create an Israel in which the Jewish population was a 55% majority, while Palestine had an over 90% Palestinian Arab majority. Meanwhile, the city of Jerusalem would be administered internationally, due to the sensitive religious concerns of Muslims, Christians, and Jews. In addition to several Christian holy spots, Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque is the third holiest site in Islam, and it is situated right next to the Western Wall, the Jews' holiest remaining site.
The proposed plan was accepted by the Jewish Agency, which represented the leaders of the Jewish community in Palestine. However, it was rejected by Palestinian leaders in the Mandate, and it was also rejected by the newly formed Arab League, a confederation of Middle Eastern Arab states led by Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Yemen. Although the partitioned state of Israel would have had a Jewish majority, the remainder of the British Mandate after the partition of Jordan was about 2/3 Palestinian, and they viewed the plan as being unfairly advantageous to the Jews.
The British were still in control of the Mandate, and they accepted the U.N. Partition Plan, but they had no interest in attempting to enforce the partition of the two states, especially not over the objections of one side after British forces had already been subjected to violence by Jewish groups. And without the British, there was no way for the United Nations to enforce the partition.
Therefore, in September 1947, the British announced that they would be wiping their hands clean of the entire Mandate on May 14, 1948.
On May 14, 1948, the British Mandate officially expired. That same day, the Jewish National Council issued the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel. About 10 minutes later, President Truman officially recognized the State of Israel, and the Soviet Union also quickly recognized Israel.
However, the Palestinians and the Arab League did not recognize the new state, and the very next day, armies from Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq invaded the former British Mandate to squelch Israel, while Saudi Arabia assisted the Arab armies. Jordan would also get involved in the war, fighting the Israelis around Jerusalem. Initially, the Arab armies numbered over 20,000 soldiers, but the Zionist militia groups like the Lehi, Irgun and Haganah made it possible for Israel to quickly assemble the Israel Defense Forces, still known today simply as the IDF. By the end of 1948, the Israelis had over 60,000 soldiers and the Arab armies numbered over 50,000.
The Israelis began pressing their advantages on both land and air by the fall of 1948, bombing foreign capitals like Damascus while overrunning Arab armies in the British Mandate. In towns like Ramat Rachel and Deir Yassin, close quarter combat in villages led to civilian casualties and charges of massacres. In particular, the Jewish assault on Deir Yassin, which led to the death of about 50 Palestinians, is often labeled a massacre by the Palestinians, although the Israelis asserted that house to house combat made fighting difficult.
Regardless, Palestinians who heard of the news of Jewish attacks on places like Deir Yassin were afraid for their lives and began to flee their homes. At the same time, Palestinians were encouraged by commanders of the Arab armies to clear out of the area until after they could defeat Israel. Palestinians and Jews had been fighting since 1947, and over 250,000 Palestinians had already fled their homes by the time the 1948 War had started. It is unclear how many Palestinians fled from Jewish forces and how many left voluntarily, but by the end of the war over 700,000 Palestinians had fled from their...
