WHM: Official Documents Exercise Question 5 - How did the document affect the flow of events?

The Principal Allied Powers were those who had emerged on the winning side at the end of World War I: Great Britain, France, Italy, and Japan. Though the United States did not participate officially in the League of Nations, the U.S. Congress supported the terms of the Mandate.

Article 22 established League of Nations Mandate territories—territories that were former colonies of the German and Ottoman empires, which collapsed at the end of World War I. There were 14 Mandate territories that were governed by one of six Mandatory powers (the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, New Zealand, Australia, and Japan). Article 22 was written based on “the principle that the well-being and development of such peoples form a sacred trust of civilisation and that securities for the performance of this trust should be embodied in this Covenant.”

[Ottoman Empire map from Dina’s interview]

This statement refers to the Balfour Declaration, an official letter from Britain’s official Foreign Secretary, Arthur Balfour, to Lord Rothschild, who had once been a member of the British Parliament. It read: “His Majesty’s Government views with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

Notice how this language is repeated verbatim in the Mandate for Palestine. Essentially, the Mandate for Palestine enacted the Balfour Declaration.

This statement implies the eventual creation of a Jewish state in a territory inhabited by Jews, Arabs, and others. Because it is to be a “Jewish national home,” the political status of non-Jews living in this state is left unclear.

Notice the repetition of the phrase “Jewish national home.”

The Zionist Organization was founded by the Austrian journalist Theodor Herzl in Basle, Switzerland in 1897. The Organization’s stated goal was to “establish a home for the Jewish people in Palestine, secured under public law.” Zionist leaders promoted the idea of European (and later other) Jews emigrating to Palestine to populate a Jewish national state there. The Mandate gives elevated status to this organization and does not provide for Arab representation in these new governing organs.

In enacting a nationality law for Jews, the Mandate is facilitating the immigration of Jews to Palestine.

This statement is a clear concession to the non-Jewish residents of the territory. Their cultural rights are guaranteed in these Articles, but note that no mention is made of their political rights.

How did the document affect the flow of events?

Diplomatic arrangements over the shape of governments in regions beset by conflict are rarely simple and straightforward. Historians are interested in these documents for what they tell us about the creation of official policy, and also because these agreements often exert a powerful influence on future events. Understanding those more recent developments often requires us to return to the earlier documents, to read them carefully, and to look for wording in those documents that might influence future events.

In this exercise you are presented with one such document—the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine of July 24, 1922. The British government controlled this territory under the Mandate until 1948. Between 1922 and 1948, land rights in Palestine were hotly contested. And, they remain contested today. The conflict has been primarily between Jews and Palestinian Arabs. The Mandate for Palestine is one of the sources of this conflict.

After the Mandate was created, violent conflicts between Arab groups and Zionists (those advocating for a Jewish state in Palestine) broke out in the region periodically. In the 1940s, the level of violence rose, and in 1947, the United Nations proposed to divide Palestine into Jewish and Arab states. Arab groups rejected the proposal, and on May 14, 1948, Zionist leaders proclaimed the State of Israel. After a short war between the Israeli army and the combined armies of Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq, Israel won, and thousands of Palestinians fled or were forced to leave.

The Task:
Read the following excerpt from the Mandate for Palestine. Which phrase do you think became the most important in future disputes over Palestine, setting the precedent for the 1948 declaration of the State of Israel?

Read the Mandate