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Palestine 1939-48
During the Second World War Britain established armed control in the Middle East - occupying Egypt, Syria and Lebanon, holding to Jewish immigration quotas, and failing to reach agreement with the Zionists, the Arabs or the United States about future policy. Britain now identified her medium-term interests with supporting Arab opinion - especially to secure access to the oil-fields of Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf. Within Palestine both Zionists and Arabs prepared for a future war, and the Jewish community (the Yishuv), under the leadership of David Ben-Gurian, formed an official defence organisation (the Hagannah), as well as spawning serious terrorist organisations (notably the Irgun and the Levi).
After 1945 the problem of Palestine became bound up with the issue of the Jewish survivors of the Holocaust in Europe (known as the DPs - Displaced Persons). Zionists pushed for further immigration; the British resisted this to appease the Arabs. Zionists lobbied world opinion (especially in the United States) and the terrotist organisations in Palestine launched a campaign against British personnel. By 1947 the British Government had come to the conclusion that it could no longer maintain order in Palestine - partly because it was too expensive to do so, and partly because continued involvement in Palestine would jeopardise British relations with Arab states elsewhere in the Middle East. In February 1947 the British Government announced that they would hand the Palestine mandate back to the United Nations (the same month in which they took the decision to announce the Transfer of Power in India). The UN response was to propose the partition of Palestine (supported by both the USA and the USSR); Britain announced that they would give up the mandate in May 1948 and withdraw troops (in other words, they were not going to be responsible for imposing the Partition plan). The Arab states opposed Partition. In early 1948 widespread fighting took place in Palestine; the Zionists declared the creation of the state of Israel in May (with a specific reference to the Balfour Declaration), when the British mandate ended. The result was an invasion by the armies of a number of Arab states which was initially successful. But by October 1948 the Israelis were winning the war. By the end of 1948 Israel had occupied almost the whole of Palestine west of Jerusalem, and the Jordanian army had occupied the ‘West-Bank’ territories around Nobles and Hebron, where most of the Palestinian Arabs now lived, and where there were few Jewish settlements. The city of Jerusalem was partitioned between Israel and Jordan. The Palestinian Arabs were left without a state, or a home-land.
Chronology:
1946 May 1: Both Arabs and Jews are offended by an Anglo-American plan to partition Palestine between Arabs and Jews, which recommends that the present British Mandate should continue "until Arab-Jewish hostility disappears".July 22: Irgun, Jewish hardliners, launch a successful bomb attack on the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, the HQ of the British Palestine Army Command.
August 11: British clampdown on Jewish immigration by blockading port of Haifa. October 4: US President Harry Truman urges Britain to admit more Jews and create viable Jewish state in an "adequate" area of Palestine.
November 17: Jewish terrorists kill eight British troops in Jerusalem as part of intensified shooting and bombing campaign.
1947 January 31: B
ritish families and ‘non-essential civilians’ are evacuated from Palestine.
March 2: British declare Martial Law in five Jewish areas, including Tel Aviv.April 24: Stern Gang blow up a British police barracks at Sarona, east of Tel Aviv.
May 4: Irgun blow up the British jail in Acre; 251 Jewish and Arab prisoners are freed.
July 18: The Exodus, a converted troopship, arrives in Haifa with its cargo of nearly 5,000 European Jews. The 1½ hour-long fight with British naval ratings, who wish to stop the immigrants from disembarking, leaves three Jews dead and 22 seriously injured.
July 31: Jewish terrorists kidnap two British soldiers and hang them as "spies".
August 5: 35 Zionist leaders are detained for terrorist activities.
September 26: Colonial Secretary, Arthur Creech-Jones, announces to the UN General Assembly that Britain has decided to get out of Palestine in the near future.
November 30: UN votes to partition Palestine between the Jews and the Arabs and create a separate regime for the city of Jerusalem. Jewish leaders are jubilant; the enraged Arabs call for a "crusade against the Jews".
December 7: Arabs and Jews "call up" young men to fight.
1948 January 9: British and Haganah jointly repel 600 Arabs who have crossed over the Syrian border to attack Jewish settlements.
January 16: Bombs in Jerusalem and Haifa mark an escalation of Arab-Jewish violence. In six weeks the death toll is: 1,069 Arabs, 769 Jews, 123 British, 23 others.
March 11: Offices of the Jewish Agency are blown up in Jerusalem.
March 22: Jews blow up the Arab quarter in Haifa. Fighting continues until the Jews take the port a month later. British artillery pounds Arab positions in the hills of Har Tuv, 20 miles west of Jerusalem.
April 29: Jewish leaders agree to halt their five-day attack on the port of Jaffa after the British Army threatens to drive them out.
May 5: Ben-Gurion chairs a meeting of a provisional Jewish government of Palestine.
May 14: David Ben-Gurion proclaims the State of Israel, eight hours before the British Mandate in Palestine is due to end. US President Harry Truman immediately announces American recognition of the Israeli Provisional Government. The Union Jack is lowered in Jerusalem as the British High Commissioner, General Sir Alan Cunningham, sails from Haifa. Sporadic fighting breaks out as Jews and Arabs move to consolidate their strategic positions.
June 1: Israel and the seven states of the Arab League agree to a UN request for a month’s truce.
July 9: Egypt and Iraq attack Jewish positions as the truce ends.
July 17: A new truce is agreed.
August 15: Two Jewish soldiers are killed in fierce fighting in Jerusalem.
August 29: Special Branch and MI5 in London uncover an explosive cache, believed to belong to the Irgun.
September 17: UN mediator, Count Folke Bernadotte, dies in a gun attack on his car by Jewish terrorists.
September 20: Stern Gang terror group is outlawed.
