Sunday Roundup - June 29, 2014

This is the second of four special editions of the Sunday Roundup.  Today we begin a look at the historical roots of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  This first part covers the period from World War I through the Lausanne Conference of 1949.

For hundreds of years prior to World War I, Palestine was ruled by the Ottoman Empire. The late 19th and early 20th century saw the beginning of Arab nationalist and Zionist (i.e., Jewish nationalist) movements. Both groups were trying to create homelands for their peoples in the region. At the outbreak of WWI, the population of what would later become British-ruled Mandatory Palestine was about 800,000, 92% of whom were Arabs.

World War I - 1915-1918 - Conflicting and Broken Promises

July 1915-January 1916 - McMahon–Hussein Correspondence declared that the Arabs would revolt in alliance with the United Kingdom against the Ottoman Empire. In return the UK would recognize Arab independence in Palestine.

May 1916 - Sykes–Picot Agreement, a secret agreement between the UK and France, defining proposed spheres of influence and control in the Middle East should Ottoman Empire be defeated.

June 1917 to Sep 1918 (Battle of Megiddo) - Arab uprising and British campaign led by General Edmund Allenby, the British Empire's commander of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, drove the Turks out of the Levant, thereby fulfilling the conditions of the McMahon-Hussein correspondence.

November 1917 - the Balfour Declaration, a memorandum from the Paris Peace Conference in which the other Allies implicitly rejected the Sykes–Picot agreement by adopting a system of mandates for the region wrested from the Ottoman Empire. Balfour also stated that the Allies were committed to Zionism and had no intention of honoring their promises to the Arabs.

The Franco-Syrian War and the British Mandate

July, 1920 - Arab Kingdom of Syria is dissolved following the Franco-Syrian War. Palestinian Arab nationalists return from Damascus to Mandatory Palestine to continue the Arab nationalist struggle for a homeland. Amin al-Husseini, an architect of the Palestinian Arab national movement, declared the Jewish national movement an enemy to his cause.

1922 - British were formally awarded the mandate to govern Palestine.

1920, 1929 and 1936 - Palestinian uprisings

The Aftermath of World War II

1947 - In the aftermath of the Holocaust and the end of World War II, Great Britain announces its intention to end the Mandate for Palestine.

Nov 29, 1947 - UN General Assembly approves Resolution 181, which recommends the creation of independent Arab and Jewish States and the Special International Regime for the City of Jerusalem. The recommendations for partition were rejected by Arab representatives but accepted for the most part by Jewish representatives to the talks. Arab rejection was based to a considerable on the ceding to Israel of 55% of Mandate Palestine when the Jewish population was 32% of the total.  Fighting breaks out between Arab and Jewish militias.

April 9, 1948 - Zionist extremists massacre 107 Palestinian villagers in Deir Yassin. News of the killings sparked terror within the Palestinian community, encouraging them to flee from their towns and villages in the face of Jewish troop advances, and it strengthened the resolve of Arab governments to intervene.

Spring 1948 - Jewish forces continued to advance and take Palestinian territory, creating a large scale refugee problem of Palestinian Arabs (the Palestinian Exodus). Between 700,000 and 750,000 Palestinian Arabs fled or were forced to leave their homes. Palestinian villages were destroyed and abandoned Palestinian homes were taken by Jewish immigrants.

May 14, 1948 - Israel declares its independence. The ongoing civil war transformed into an inter-state conflict between Israel and the Arab states, becoming the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.

September 17, 1948 - The UN mediator for the conflict, Folke Bernadotte, is assassinated by Zionist extremists. Bernadotte had proposed a two-state solution for the region, with boundaries drawn by the UN if the combatants could not agree, and the refugees' right of return.

December 11, 1948 - UN adopts Resolution 194 on the right of return for Palestinian refugees.

January - July 1949 - Armistice agreements are signed between Israel and Arab countries, ending the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. As a result of the war, the State of Israel retained the area that the UN General Assembly Resolution 181 had recommended for the proposed Jewish state and also took control of almost 60% of the area allocated for the proposed Arab state. No Arab Palestinian state was established.

April-September 1949 - Lausanne Conference. Israel rejects UN resolutions 181 (the original partition of 1947) and 194 (which called for the right of return for Palestinian refugees). Israel stated that its admission to UN membership, after it had set forth Israel's views regarding the Resolutions, meant that the UN considered them satisfactory; a contention the US Government rejected.

The Evolution of Palestine and Israel 1922 - 1949 (maps adapted from Wikipedia)

Mandatory Palestine           Jewish settlements            UN Resolution 181             1949 Actual 
         1922                         shown in blue -1947          proposed a Palestinian        After the war  
                                         Jewish population had       Arab state (green), a            Israel (white)
                                         increased from                 Jewish state (white),             Gaza Strip -
                                         83,790 in 1922 to             and an internationally-          occupied by
                                         608,000 in 1946;              administered Jerusalem        Egypt; West
                                         from 10.3% to 32%          (1948)                                Bank by Jordan


The 1949 armistice lines defining Israel's boundaries held until the Six-Day War in 1967.

The second part of this discussion will be posted July 6 and will cover the period from 1950 to the Camp David 2000 Summit Conference.

References
Wikipedia articles on the topics related to Israeli-Palestinian conflict are the major source for these posts. The articles on Palestine and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were particularly useful.