page_title: History of the Arab–Israeli conflict
section_title: British Mandate (1920–1948)
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Arab–Israeli conflict / Background / British Mandate (1920–1948)
caption_attribution_description: en:Emir Feisal I (right) and Chaim Weizmann (also wearing Arab dress as a sign of friendship) in Syria. At this time Feisal was living in Syria not Iraq. Português: 1918. Emir Faisal I e Chaim Weizmann
context_page_description: The Arab–Israeli conflict is a modern phenomenon, which has its roots in the end of the 19th century. The conflict became a major international issue with the birth of Israel in 1948. The Arab–Israeli conflict has resulted in at least five major wars and a number of minor conflicts. It has also been the source of two major Palestinian uprisings.
context_section_description: During the time of the Mandatory Palestine, the Balfour Declaration signed in 1917, stated that the government of Great Britain supported the establishment of a "Jewish national home" in Palestine. This exacerbated tensions between the Arabs living in Mandate Palestine and the Jews who emigrated there during the Ottoman period. Signed in January 1919, the Faisal–Weizmann Agreement promoted Arab-Jewish cooperation on the development of a Jewish national homeland in Palestine and an Arab nation in a large part of the Middle East, though this event had little to no effect on the conflict.
  In 1920, the San Remo conference largely endorsed the 1916 Anglo-French Sykes–Picot Agreement, allocating to Britain the area of present-day Jordan, the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, and Iraq, while France received Syria and Lebanon. In 1922, the League of Nations formally established the British Mandate for Palestine and Transjordan, at least partially fulfilling Britain's commitments from the 1915–16 McMahon–Hussein Correspondence by assigning all of the land east of the Jordan River to the Emirate of Jordan, ruled by Hashemite king Abdullah but closely dependent on Britain, leaving the remainder west of the Jordan as the League of Nations Mandatory Palestine. While the British had made promises to give both Arabs and Jews land, the British claimed they had never promised to give either side all of the land. Rising tensions had given way to violence, such as the 1920 Nebi Musa riots, and Jaffa riots of 1921. To assuage the Arabs, and due to British inability to control Arab violence in the Mandatory Palestine any other way, the semi-autonomous Arab Emirate of Transjordan was created in all Palestinian territory east of the Jordan river (roughly 77% of the mandate).
  The conflicting forces of Arab nationalism and the Zionist movement created a situation which the British could neither resolve nor extricate themselves from. Pogroms in Russia and the Ukraine as well as Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Germany created a new urgency in the Zionist movement to create a Jewish state, and the evident intentions of the Zionists provoked increasingly fierce Arab attacks against the Jewish population (most notably in the preceding 1929 Hebron massacre, the activities of the Black Hand, and during the 1936–39 Arab revolt in Palestine). The British-appointed Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, led opposition to the idea of turning part of Palestine into a Jewish state.
  In search for help in expelling British forces from Palestine, thus removing the enforcer of the Zionist enterprise, the Grand Mufti sought alliance with the Axis Powers. The response of the British government was to banish the Mufti (where he spent much of World War II in Germany and helped form a Muslim SS division in the Balkans), curb Jewish immigration, and reinforce its police force. The Jewish leadership (Yishuv) "adopted a policy of restraint (havlaga) and static defense in response to Arab attacks" and criticized the British for "what they regarded as Britain's retreat from the Balfour Declaration and its conciliation of Arab violence." It was at this time that critics of this policy broke away from the Hagana (the self-defense organization of the Yishuv) and created the more right-wing militant Irgun, which would later be led by Menachem Begin in 1943. For a list of Irgun attacks on Palestinian civilians and policemen during this period, see List of Irgun attacks during the 1930s.
  A British Royal Commission of Inquiry that came to be known as the Peel Commission was established in 1936. In its 1937 report, it proposed a two-state solution that gave the Arabs control over all of the Negev, much of the present-day West Bank, and Gaza and gave the Jews control over Tel Aviv, Haifa, present-day northern Israel, and surrounding areas. The British were to maintain control over Jaffa, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and surrounding areas. The two main Jewish leaders, Chaim Weizmann and David Ben-Gurion had convinced the Zionist Congress to approve equivoca
caption: 1918. Emir Faisal and Chaim Weizmann (left, also wearing Arab outfit)
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