The British Mandate in Palestine

A Centenary Volume, 1920–2020

Michael J Cohen, Michael J Cohen

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780429640483
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Arte
• Subtopic: Historia del arte contemporáneo

The British Mandate over Palestine began just 100 years ago, in July 1920, when Sir Herbert Samuel, the first British High Commissioner to Palestine, took his seat at Government House, Jerusalem. The chapters here analyse a wide cross-section of the conflicting issues --social, political and strategical--that attended British colonial rule over the country, from 1920 to 1948.

This anthology contains contributions by several of the most respected Israeli scholars in the field – Arab, Druze and Jewish. It is divided into three sections, covering the differing perspectives of the main 'actors' in the 'Palestine Triangle': the British, the Arabs and the Zionists. The concluding chapter identifies a pattern of seven counterproductive negotiating behaviours that explain the repeated failure of the parties to agree upon any of the proposals for an Arab-Zionist peace in Mandated Palestine.

The volume is a modern review of the British Mandate in Palestine from different perspectives, which makes it a valuable addition to the field. It is a key resource for students and scholars interested in international relations, history of the Middle East, Palestine and Israel.

Part I

British perspectives

1 Colonial intrigue in the Middle East

The Faysal – [Lawrence] – Weizmann Agreement, January 1919^*

Michael J Cohen

The negotiations between Chaim Weizmann and the Hashemite Emir Faysal, which resulted in a signed Agreement in January 1919, have been called by Neil Caplan, the scholar of Arab-Zionist negotiations, “perhaps the most famous of all” Arab-Zionist negotiations, which “might have become the basis of a long-term accord”. His view has been endorsed by Yosef Gorni, a scholar of Zionist ideology, who called their contacts

[t]he first and most important round of negotiations after World War 1, still spoken of as a missed opportunity for a Jewish Arab settlement.¹

The Arab scholar A.L. Tibawi referred to their Agreement as “The 1919 attempt to secure an Arab Balfour declaration”. In some contrast, Awni Abd al-Hadi, Faysal’s Sorbonne-educated Palestinian secretary, later denied that Faysal had ever put his name to the Agreement. No ‘authorised’ version of their contacts has in fact survived, largely because they all passed through the subjective filters of the parties involved.²

I refer to the episode as a colonial ‘intrigue’ – since the idea was conceived by British officials in Cairo, and T.E. Lawrence ‘of Arabia’, the Agreement’s midwife, helped secure it by deliberately mis-translating Faysal’s and Weizmann’s dialogue into what he believed would be acceptable to each side. At no juncture was this more pivotal than at the meeting at which the Agreement was signed.

In October 1918, the British completed the conquest of what had been Ottoman Syria. The territory came under the overall command of Gen. Allenby, with his HQ in Cairo.

Palestine was designated Occupied Enemy Territory Administration (OETA) South. The Military administration lasted less than two years. It was dismissed peremptorily after the first wave of Arab riots against the Jews in April 1920.

* I have transliterated Faysal’s name thus, but have retained other forms when quoting.

Muddled policy-making

Any attempt to analyse the Faysal-Weizmann Agreement must take into account the incoherence, confusion and conflicts of interest that affected British imperial policymaking in the Middle East.³

In London, the government’s realpolitik of supporting the Zionist cause in Palestine clashed with the Middle East Command’s goal to establish a viable Arab status quo under British hegemony. Cairo and Jerusalem tried repeatedly to persuade London to rescind the Balfour Declaration. The Cairo officials hoped that their inflation of the Arab Revolt’s achievements, together with Zionist support for Faysal might induce the French to accommodate Sherifian rule over the Syrian interior. But London adhered to the Foreign Office promise to the French in 1912 that Britain had no designs on Syria. In the summer of 1918, the cabinet decided to withdraw British forces from Syria.⁴

Two eccentric figures exerted a significant influence on Britain’s ‘desert war’ – T.E. Lawrence and Lt. Col. Sir Mark Sykes. Lawrence has been called a ‘tin-pot exhibitionist’, Britain’s ‘hero and poster boy in promoting the war in the desert. In contrast, Sykes was the eminence grise, working behind the scenes, not always in tandem with Lawrence. Sykes’ extensive reports from the Middle East – at times stretching the facts in order to sway his audience – established him as the government’s expert on the region, at least until 1918. The Cairo officials regarded Sykes as “intellectually shallow and hopelessly verbose … pretending to far more knowledge … than he actually possessed”. Lawrence called him a “bundle of prejudices and intuitions, half-sciences”.⁵

Cairo’s constant stream of warnings about Arab hostility to Zionism began on the morrow of the Balfour Declaration and continued throughout the period under discussion. Brigadier-General Gilbert Clayton (head of British intelligence in Egypt) complained that it was not easy “to switch over to Zionism all at once in the face of a considerable degree of Arab distrust and suspicion”.⁶ In a private letter to Gertrude Bell he wrote:

The Arabs of Syria and Palestine see the Jew with a free hand and the backing of H.M.G. and interprets it as meaning the eventual loss of its heritage…. The Arab is right and no amount of specious oratory will humbug him in a matter which affects him so vitally.⁷

It might be speculated that Clayton attempted to ‘square’ this particular ‘circle’ by promoting the Faysal-Weizmann Agreement. Clayton was apparently the first to recommend to Weizmann that he should meet with Faysal.⁸

The Military’s opposition to Zionism was tainted by anti-Semitic stereotypes. Major General Money (Chief Administrator of Palestine from 1918–19) believed that his work was being sabotaged by Jewish influence in London. He stayed just one year in Palestine. He explained to a friend:

I am the more inclined to go since I see every prospect of the edifice I have built with some labour being pulled down by Messrs. Balfour, Lloyd George and their long-nosed friends.⁹

The military were obsessed also with what has been called the ‘Judeo-Bolshevik bogey’ – the fear that Zionist immigrants from Russia and Eastern Europe would import revolution into Palestine.¹⁰ In April 920, following the Nebi Musa riots, Major-General Sir Louis Bols, Money’s successor, reported to Allenby on:

the undoubted existence of a ruling ring of Zionist Bolsheviks … [with] destructive, tyrannical, and anti-Christian aims … [who were] anti-British in every sense of the word…. The Jew should not be given any powers of government over Palestine.¹¹

But Foreign Secretary Balfour dismissed the rights of the Palestinian Arabs:

Zionism … was rooted in age-long traditions … and of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land.¹²

Weizmann – the Zionist autocrat

On the Zionist side, Weizmann’s leadership was virtually a one-man show. The author of his three-volume biography describes his life’s work as being “in many ways a history of the Zionist Movement”.¹³

Weizmann’s discovery of acetone in 1915 was a major contribution to the British war effort. His work for the government brought him into personal contact with three ministers who would exercise a significant influence on the Zionist cause: Balfour (Admiralty, 1915–16), Winston Churchill (Munitions, 1917–19) and David Lloyd George, Minister for Munitions (1915–16, Prime Minister, 1916–22).¹⁴

During the war, Weizmann enjoyed a meteoric rise in fame and fortune, from his government salaries and the income from his chemical patents. His new wealth brought a dramatic change in life-style, to a “magnificent establishment” in London, “serviced by a butler, a chauffeur [for his Rolls-Royce], a nurse-governess, cook and maids”. He mixed easily with the British elite, and conducted much of his personal diplomacy at London’s Savoy Grill. His social rise eased the way to his achievement in helping to secure the Balfour Declaration.¹⁵

After the war, intoxicated with success, Weizmann believed that he was uniquely equipped to understand the British. His complex personality has been described as “a combination of intellectual maturity and emotional instability”. He never stooped to “coalition building or power sharing”. His colleagues accused him of dictatorial megalomania. One could hardly imagine a deeper divide than that which separated Weizmann from the Yishuv (the Jewish community in Palestine). They took umbrage with his condescending, autocratic attitude. He did not apparently consult with any Yishuv leader about his démarche with Faysal.¹⁶

Weizmann gave only a cursory consideration to securing the agreement of the Palestinian Arabs to the Zionists’ return. He soon fell in with Cairo’s plan to promote the Hashemites over the heads of the Arabs.¹⁷

The Palestinian Arabs

In 1918, 650,000 Arabs lived in Palestine. Between 1882 and 1914, Palestine’s Jewish population increased from 23,000 to 85,000. Just 35,000 were Zionists, settled in 40 rural settlements. Opposition to Zionism served as the primary catalyst of the Palestinian Arabs’ national awakening, both before and after World War One. They supported a Greater Syria under Faysal, with local autonomy for Palestine.

Frequent Zionist statements about Jewish ambitions in Palestine were reproduced in the Arab press. In 1908, Dr Arthur Ruppin opened the first Zionist office in Jaffa. It monitored and translated relevant articles in the Arabic press, in Palestine, Egypt and Syria. It regularly sent German translations to the Zionist Head Office in Berlin, to Dr Jacobson in the Istanbul office, and to other Zionist leaders.¹⁸

In 1908 and again in 1913–14, Zionist representatives held talks with non-Palestinian Arab groups. These failed to produce any agreement. The Arabs insisted that the Jewish immigrants assimilate and become full Ottoman citizens. They expressed reservations about unlimited Jewish immigration and feared that the Jews would expropriate Arab lands.¹⁹

The last pre-war Zionist Congress, held in Vienna in September 1913, discussed future relations between Jews and Arabs in Palestine. But Weizmann adopted the set position – that it was just a question of ‘enlightening’ the Arabs about the benefits the Zionists would bring with them.²⁰

Afte...