page_title: Mandatory Palestine
section_title: 1920s
hierarchical_section_title: Mandatory Palestine / History / 1920s
caption_attribution_description: English: Identifier: worldinperplexit00dani (find matches) Title: A world in perplexity Year: 1918 (1910s) Authors: Daniells, Arthur Grosvenor, 1858- (from old catalog) Subjects: Bible World War, 1914-1918 Publisher: Washington, D.C., New York city (etc.) Review and herald publishing assn Contributing Library: The Library of Congress Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation View Book Page: Book Viewer About This Book: Catalog Entry View All Images: All Images From Book Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book. Text Appearing Before Image: taken root and grown upthrough years of emigration, territorial expansion, andindustrial and commercial development. They are thewarp and woof of the ambitions and policies of thesenations. They have been established by the ablest di-plomacy and statesmanship these nations could pro-duce, and they are interwoven with the treaties andalliances of centuries. Grave Questions Involved Are these statements true? If so, they involve ques-tions of the gravest possible character. What prize canbe offered to Great Britain that will tempt her to aban-don the ambitions and policies of centuries that havebuilded for her a mighty empire? There is nothing tooffer England that is as great to her as her empire. And what will induce Germany to abandon hercherished ambitions, her long, careful preparations,and her enormous expenditures for an empire stretch-ing from the North Sea to the Persian Gulf? All that is here said of Great Britain and Germanyis equally true of the Russian people. In case Russia Text Appearing After Image: Obstacles to Peace 53 should be reconstructed, what could the powers offerthat would induce her to surrender her century-oldclaim to the free passage of the Dardanelles and theMediterranean to the open sea and the markets of theworld&#160;? From the standpoint of national interests and hu-man ambition, it surely seems that the only way thesevital, conflicting interests can be adjudicated is by thesword. That is unquestionably the conviction of thenations at war. For that reason little, if any, ap-proach to peace has yet been made by any of the termsthat have been proposed. Is there, then, to be no peace for the world? nodeliverance from this hate, this killing, this mourning?Must this slaughter of men go on as long as there aremen in the world? What is the truth, the absolute,reliable truth, concerning this great, increasingly se-rious situation? Note About Images Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original work.
context_page_description: Mandatory Palestine was a geopolitical entity established between 1920 and 1948 in the region of Palestine under the terms of the Mandate for Palestine.
  During the First World War, an Arab uprising and the British Empire's Egyptian Expeditionary Force under General Edmund Allenby drove the Turks out of the Levant during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign. The United Kingdom had agreed in the McMahon–Hussein Correspondence that it would honour Arab independence if they revolted against the Ottomans, but the two sides had different interpretations of this agreement, and in the end, the UK and France divided up the area under the Sykes–Picot Agreement—an act of betrayal in the eyes of the Arabs. Further complicating the issue was the Balfour Declaration of 1917, promising British support for a Jewish "national home" in Palestine. At the war's end the British and French set up a joint "Occupied Enemy Territory Administration" in what had been Ottoman Syria. The British achieved legitimacy for their continued control by obtaining a mandate from the League of Nations in June 1922.
context_section_description: Following the arrival of the British, the inhabitants established Muslim-Christian Associations in all the major towns. In 1919 they joined to hold the first Palestine Arab Congress in Jerusalem. It was aimed primarily at representative government and opposition to the Balfour Declaration.
  The Zionist Commission formed in March 1918 and became active in promoting Zionist objectives in Palestine. On 19 April 1920, elections took place for the Assembly of Representatives of the Palestinian Jewish community.
  In July 1920 a civilian administration headed by a High Commissioner replaced the military administration. The first High Commissioner, Herbert Samuel, a Zionist and a recent British cabinet minister, arrived in Palestine on 20 June 1920 to take up his appointment from 1 July.
  One of the first actions of the newly installed civil administration was to begin granting concessions from the Mandatory government over key economic assets. In 1921 the government granted Pinhas Rutenberg — a Jewish entrepreneur — concessions for the production and distribution of electrical power. Rutenberg soon established an electric company whose shareholders were Zionist organisations, investors, and philanthropists. Palestinian-Arabs saw it as proof that the British intended to favour Zionism. The British administration claimed that electrification would enhance the economic development of the country as a whole, while at the same time securing their commitment to facilitate a Jewish National Home through economic—rather than political—means.
  In March 1920, there was an attack by Arabs on the Jewish village of Tel Hai. In April, there was another attack on Jews, this time in Jerusalem. In May 1921, almost 100 died in rioting in Jaffa after a disturbance between rival Jewish left-wing protestors was followed by murderous attacks by Arabs on Jews.
  Samuel tried to establish self-governing institutions in Palestine, as required by the mandate, but the Arab leadership refused to co-operate with any institution which included Jewish participation. When Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Kamil al-Husayni died in March 1921, High Commissioner Samuel appointed his half-brother Mohammad Amin al-Husseini to the position. Amin al-Husseini, a member of the al-Husayni clan of Jerusalem, was an Arab nationalist and Muslim leader. As Grand Mufti, as well as in the other influential positions that he held during this period, al-Husseini played a key role in violent opposition to Zionism. In 1922, al-Husseini was elected President of the Supreme Muslim Council which had been established by Samuel in December 1921. The Council controlled the Waqf funds, worth annually tens of thousands of pounds and the orphan funds, worth annually about £50,000, as compared to the £600,000 in the Jewish Agency's annual budget. In addition, he controlled the Islamic courts in Palestine. Among other functions, these courts had the power to appoint teachers and preachers.
  The 1922 Palestine Order in Council established a Legislative Council, which was to consist of 23 members: 12 elected, 10 appointed, and the High Commissioner. Of the 12 elected members, eight were to be Muslim Arabs, two Christian Arabs, and two Jews. Arabs protested against the distribution of the seats, arguing that as they constituted 88% of the population, having only 43% of the seats was unfair. Elections took place in February and March 1923, but due to an Arab boycott, the results were annulled and a 12-member Advisory Council was established.
  At the First World Congress of Jewish Women which was held in Vienna, Austria, 1923, it was decided that: "It appears, therefore, to be the duty of all Jews to co-operate in the social-economic reconstruction of Palestine and to assist in the settlement of Jews in that country."
  In October 1923, Britain provided the League of Nations with a report on the administration of Palestine for the period 1920–1922, which covered the period before the mandate.
  In August 1929, there were riots in which 250 people died.
caption: The formal transfer of Jerusalem to British rule, with a "native priest" reading the proclamation from the steps of the Tower of David
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