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Final Exam: Arab-Israeli Relations, Mayir Vereté, ‘The Balfour Declaration…

- - - - "If I knew it was possible to save all the [Jewish] children of Germany by transfer to England and only half of the, by transferring them to Eretz-Yisrael, I would choose the latter - because we were faced not only with the accounting of these children but also with the historical accounting of the Jewish People.", December 1938 (a month after the Nazis' progrom against Germany's Jews, known as Kristallnacht)
      - "The catastrophe of European Jewry is not, in a direct manner, my business. [...] The destruction of European Jewry is the death-knell of Zionism.", December 1942 (eleven months after the Wannsee Conference where the Nazi elite determined the 'final solution to the Jewish question')
  - - - Ernest Bevin, the British foreign secretary, in a memorandum circulated to the Cabinet on 27 November 1950 "strategic emphasis has [...] shifted since 1936, [...] not so much the defence of the Suez Canal itself, as the maintenance of a base in Egypt capable of rapid expansion on the outbreak of war" (p. 168)
      - the influence of British Empire interests is also visible in this example and the probable ending of the British Mandate in Palestine: "retention of a British garrison in Egypt once the Labour government had decided in February 1947 to evacuate India" (p. 168) -- Britain announced the termination of its Mandate for Palestine, which became effective on 15 May 1948
      - as a 'broken-back' strategy towards the Middle East, p. 171
      - Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann's inner circle believed in 1939 that the Mandate of Palestine will be the next victim of Chamberlain's appeasement policies after the Czechs (p. 7)
      - Suez Canal Base: new strategic significance. Canal's historical function as a way station on the route to India - the 'jewel of the Crown' but (p. 168):
      - auch ein Teil unter Balfour Declaration zu finden
    - - before the beginning of the Mandate/establishment of the Mandate (p. 9): motion against the Mandate was carried by a handy majority of sixty to twenty-nine votes
      - Balfour
        
        regarding to Ms Tuchman in 1961: "never considered an effective politician, frequently left our of the inner workings of government" p. 9
        
        November 1917, 69 years old, respected elder stateman
        
        not the author of the Declaration accredited to his name
        
        after the war, he recommended that the Americans take on the Mandate for Palestine
        
        May 1922, he received an earldom and went to the House of Lords
      - Sir Mark Sykes in Februar 1917 to Emir Faysal: "is all-powerful and cannot be put down... Jews could be found in the councils of every state, in every business, in every enterprise"
      - Mayer Vereté, 1970: "Britain's strategic interest in Palestine was the key issuing of the Declaration. He stressed that it was the British not the Zionists, who initiated the talks that led to the Declaration, and added the memorable catchphrase: 'had there been no Zionists the British would have had to invent them' " p. 12
      - Mayer Vereté, 1970: 'strategic doctrine for the defence of the Suez Canal': was shattered in February 1915, when a small Turkish force led by German officers crossed the Sinai desert and reached the canal. The Turkish force did not archive any military gains, but it caused the British to determine that Palestine was required to secure the northern approaches to the canal" p. 12
      - main opposition to Britain's support of the Zionists came from the right wing of the Conservative Party and its influential press, and from British officials in the Middle East; after the first World War I, p. 13
      - "keep the French at a distance from the canal" partition of the Middle East between France and Great Britain, p. 13
      - "1922, the Declaration was endowed with international legitimacy, when it was enshrined in the League of Nations Mandate" p. 13
      - Lloyd George prime minister in December 1916, problem of Jewish pro-German sentiment
      - Weizmann 'convinced the British Foreign Office about Jewish influence', in Zionist influence upon the Jews, p. 14
      - believe of "effect on German-Jewish mentality both in the USA and in Germany", p. 15
      - frustrated Britain's Arabist officials, stationed mainly in Cairo p. 15
  - - - trigger of the Arab Revolt: 1936 village searches from British troops and police against the Arab population with 'moral effect' -> "terrorization of the population into obedience", p. 172
        
        "searches were supposed to ahbe been weapons and wanted men, but Peirse acknowledged that the searches' real purpose was "punitive", p. 5
        
        historical intellectual debate about whether there was British repression or not
        
        "Great Revolt began as largely peaceful general strike", p. 4
      - end of the Arab Revolt
        
        threat of another rising (April 1939): 'Central Committee of the Arab Revolt' posted to British troops that their attacks will " me[e]t by equal force", p. 173
        
        after the publication of the white paper in May 1939: "rebels themselves began to fragment along ideological, not merely territorial, lines. Many denounced the white paper and called for [...] rebellion", p. 175
        
        after publication white paper: "other high-ranking rebels (including former intimates of the mufti) issued a statement denouncing those who pressed for a renewed revolt and condemning the AHC", p. 175
      - role of the Arab 'peace bands' & National Defense Party (NDF) from Nashashibi
      - Konkurrenz, wer zu den Verhandlungen nach London mit darf. Nashashibi- gegen Mufti-Anhänger
        
        MacDonald announced around 23th of November "that the high commissioner would shortly commence negotiations with leading Palestinian Arabs, with the object of selecting an Arab delegation to London"
      - course, p. 3
        
        revolt's outbreak in April 1936
        
        recommencement in September 1937
        
        collapse in 1939
        
        murderous assaults on Safed in August 1939 and in Tiberias in October 1938 against Jews
        
        episodes of collisions between British soldiers and Arab rebels at pivotal Battles of Bal'a (near Tulkarm) and Beit Imrin (near Nablus) in September 1936 or at the Battle of al-Yamun (near Jenin) in November 1937
        
        intellectual debate if revolt was top-down or bottom-up
        
        began as a largely peaceful general strike
        
        October 1938, number of deaths was the highest for any month of the rebellion; revolts reached its apex, p. 141
        
        bis zur kurzfristigen Einigung 1938: probable conflict of Great Britain with the Third Reich -> British could not send extra troops to Palestine (p. 143)
        
        in coordination with RAF, British soldiers blasted through the city gates, removed inhabitants from their homes for use as human shields, and retook the Old City on 18 October 1938
        
        colonial secretary denounced involved Arabs as "bands of bandits who had no genuine political significance" and not "a spontaneous national movement of Palestinian Arabs" p. 146
        
        "The British considerarbly increased the number of village searches in the last quater of the year 1938, and began placing Arab men in cages while conducting them. Given the poverty of British intelligence on insurgent activities, the authorities resorted to mass arrests to locate 'the true rebels'. Bowden notes that 'anything non-military which moved at night, or moved by day without pass, was fair game for imposition of arrest' ", p. 148
    - - 7 February 1939, conference in London at St. James Palace
        
        goal: "British government would negotiate its way to an understanding with the Zionists and the Palestinians regarding the future of the mandate" p. 161
        
        new: several other Arab states were involved in the progress and had sometimes different opinion than Palestinian negotiatiors
        
        "started well", only to deterioate into a "strained atmosphere" due to "two rather ill-advised speeches by Mr. Ben Gurion and [the American Jewish Congress's] Dr. [Stephen] Wise" p. 163
        
        statements of the Zionist leaders
        
        Ben Gurion
        
        on involvement of other Arab states: "it was legitimate for the Government and people of Egypt to say whether or not they would accept further [Jewish] 'guests' within their fronteirs this was not the case with Palestine." p. 163
        
        "Only British bayonets can prevent the immigration of Jews" on the contrary, he suggested, immigration should be accelerated p. 164
        
        "[T]here can be no question of slowing down immigration." about the course of the negotiations p. 164
        
        declared himself bound to "something... higher than the law" p. 165
        
        appealed to international law; British fulfill their duty as described in the mandate instrument; p. 166
        
        Weizmann
        
        in the beginning of the conference: "We can reach an understanding in this spirit... if we are told that an agreement can be reached by slowing down immigration a little, we will find common ground for negotiations" p. 164
        
        during the negotiations: Balfour Declaration had a divine warrant, and that the British should force it upon the Arabs - with bayonets, if necessary p. 164
        
        after proposal to Arabs: accused MacDonald of "betraying the Jews... under a semblance of legality" p. 167
        
        Zionist delegation to the government's plan for future immigration into Palestine: "delegation rejected that a limit be placed on Jewish immigration going forward, and that the Arabs be given a veto over Jewish immigration above that quota" p. 165
        
        after they have accidently received MacDonald's most recent proposal to the Arabs(shorten the periods of Jewish immigration preceding the Arab veto from ten to five years): was the last straw; withdrew from the conference, although they continued to participate informally p. 167
      - even before. jettison Balfour Declaration; agreeing to a limit on Jewish immigration, p. 161
        
        "London would retain control of Palestine, but it would lock in the demographic balance between Arabs and Jews
      - Why does London has an interest on retaining the Mandate in Palestine? - strategic considerations from colonial secretary p.162
        
        footing in the Eastern Mediterranean; beside Cyprus
        
        "buffer" state between [Suez] Canal and possible enemies to the northward
        
        alternative for maintaining troops in the Middle East (beside Egypt)
        
        protection of the pipeline to Haifa
      - motives
        
        "snubbing the Zionists was unlikely to cause them to turn against the British Empire" reason: collision course with the Third Reich . p. 162; "previous three years had made plain, lay in thwarting Arab demands, not Jewish ones"
      - reactions of the Zionist leaders to the results of the conference in London at St. James Palace & the 1939 White Paper
        
        Weizman: "[to] resist with every resource at their proposal"
        
        Histadrut: issued a manifesto calling on Jews everywhere to "aid in a campaign of resistance to any limitation on the National Home"
        
        Ben Gurion: spoke to Haganah leadership, telling them: "From now on, some of our activities will be directed against the law and with the aim of making that law powerless"; did not mean strikes or demonstrations
        
        same strategy of the Arabs in the Arab revolt: first; non-participation in the political institutions that would eventually constitute the Palestinian state; second: violent resistance
        
        Haganah: braced itself for future armed conflict
        
        Irgun: launched attacks
      - content
        
        on the 17th of May 1939
        
        symbolizes a policy reversal, this time officially
        
        limited the Jewish population of Palestine to one third of the total, p. 169
        
        cap of 75,000 Jewish immigrants over the next ten years
        
        any further immigration would be subject to Arab approval