William Tyler
Post-War Palestine, the Creation of Israel and War
William Tyler - Post-War Palestine, the Creation of Israel and War
- Hello everyone. There’s a map on your screen which was also sent out to you with your joining instructions for the day. It is a map, of course, a map of Israel. It’s a map of Israel in 1949, at the end of the Arab-Israeli War, which immediately followed Israeli independence in 1948. There are two things to point out which are pretty obvious on the map. The dotted line is the line of Israel. The West Bank is in this time part of Jordan, which we will come to. This is 1949. You could also see the Gaza Strip where it is bracketed Egyptian administration. So this is the map of Israel in 1949, and in a very real sense, the map that is being fought about in 2024, with Gaza and the West Bank. That’s all I want to say. You can keep it in your mind’s eye as I go through talking. Let’s see if I can bring my, ah, that’s better. Now I can see myself talking to you. Small things, please small minds. Now I’m talking about today, the years 1945, the end of World War II, to 1949, the end of the Arab-Israeli conflict, which followed immediately after the Declaration of Independence as a self ruling state by Israel on the 14th of May 48. Now, there are some history lectures that are hard to give. This is one of them, not because the subject matter is particularly complicated, but because it is a highly sensitive and it stirs up strong emotions on all sides. Perhaps, of course, that’s not surprising given that nearly three quarters of century on, events since Israel’s Declaration of Independence in 1948, have, what shall we say? From 1948 to date, we had nothing but conflict and botched peace attempts.
So it’s not surprising that people have strong views. And although I’ve just said that the subject matter isn’t complex, the interpretation placed on subject matter by individuals or groups of individuals, isn’t clear cut at all. All I can do is to tackle this lecture as I tackle all history lectures, by being as objective as possible. But as we’ve said in the past, no historian is 100% objective. That’s not possible. You have to take into account things like gender, religion, age, nationality, and so on. And I try as far as I can be, as far as I possibly can be, as inoffensive to everyone who listens to any talk I give as I can be. But on the other hand, I can’t say something that I don’t believe is true or correct. That would be equally unacceptable. So if you bear with me, this you can interpret as my view. Your view may differ at certain points. I’m trying to be as objective as I can be about the facts of the situation. The year is 1945, 1945, the year that the second World War ends. Yet, for the Middle East, it remains an area, a region, as unsettled as it had been after the end of the First World War and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. It has not reached a settled state. And I’m not just talking about Palestine, I’m talking about the Middle East as a whole. By 1945, the mandate system in the Middle East, which France and Britain had administered on behalf of the League of Nations, has failed, as indeed has the League of Nations itself in failing to prevent the Second World War. So let’s look at first at the timeline before I delve a little deeper into the story. The United Nations began officially on the 24th of October, 1945, when its charter was ratified by the majority of its members, including the five permanent members.
That is to say, the victors of the Second World War, America, Russia, China, France, and Britain. But the League of Nations continued on after that date through to the 20th of April, 1946. The reason that the United Nations began before the League of Nations ended, was to allow a transition period to hand over from the league to the UN. The post-World War mandate system effectively ended as the League of Nations ended. It was a League of Nations set up, not a UN one. What the UN did was to replace it with what was called a trusteeship, a trusteeship system. The trusteeship gave greater emphasis to the fact that the territories held under the trusteeship system of the United Nations would be brought without equivocation to independence, at some date. Interestingly, the last trusteeship held by the UN was Southwest Africa, which did not become independent, as Namibia, until the year 1990. A long time after World War II. Well, a long time after World War I, because that is where the mandate had begun for Southwest Africa, previously German Southwest Africa. The United Nations set up a trusteeship council to oversee territories still within the old mandate system. And if we look particularly at the Middle East, it sought in the Middle East to ensure that the countries that had originally been placed under mandate, but we’re still not fully independent, should be brought to independence. But aside from that, always separate is the question of Palestine.
Now, if I put myself Palestine on one side and we look at the independence of the countries in the Middle East, we can tell the story quite quickly. Iraq, which had been under a British mandate, was fully independent by 1932. So seven years before the Second World War began. If we take Transjordan, which was hived off by Britain from its mandate in Palestine as early as 1921, and was given partial self rule by Britain in 1923 under the supervision of the British High Commissioner in Jerusalem. In 1946, the UN simply put a knife to the situation and granted full independence. And its name changes to what we know today from Transjordan to Jordan in 1946. So Iraq, 1932. Jordan, 1946. Lebanon in 1944, after the defeat of Vichy France. Remember, Vichy France is the puppet state of Nazi Germany during the war. Syria is a very interesting story, and sadly we don’t have time to go into it. De Gaulle, of course not Vichy France. De Gaulle promised Syria independence, but he said there must be a transition period, and France demands that there should be a treaty in which France’s cultural, economic, and strategic interests are protected in Syria. This did not go down well with the Arabs of Syria. As the war ended in 1945, demonstrations took place in Damascus and Aleppo and in other places in Syria. And instead of accepting the inevitable, this is of course a story of European empires collapse post World War II across the world, France decided to act and it acted. De Gaulle ordered the bombing from the air of Damascus. Churchill, still prime minister in 1945 before the general election in Britain, was incensed at what De Gaulle was doing and threatened to send British troops to defend Damascus, unless De Gaulle ordered a ceasefire. De Gaulle backed down, and in February, 1946, as it had done with Transjordan, the United Nations called on France to evacuate Syria completely, and the French did so.
They had no option, by April the 15th, 1946. So Syria and Lebanon, the French mandates, had gone, in 1944 in Lebanon’s case. And then in Syria’s case, in 1946. The British mandates of Iraq had gone in 1932 and Jordan, finally, in 1946. Saudi Arabia is an odd case, as we’ve said before, and again, it’s a story that I can’t get into in depth, but simply to say that the Saudi royal family united the country against the Hussein family and threw them out in 1927. And in 1932, the Saudi family proclaimed the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. And nobody was much bothered, frankly, in the West in 1932, because it wasn’t until 1938 that they struck oil in Saudi Arabia. And as we might say, the story of Saudi Arabia changes from that point to the present day, because of the presence of oil. Thus, the mandate system had ended in the Middle East. And of course, those Arab countries, which we specified, do not live from 1945 onwards, in a progressive democratic way, as we all know. Nothing was settled when the mandate system ended, as nothing had been settled by the mandate system itself. But that of course left the issue of Palestine. But before I go into the story of Palestine and the creation of the state of Israel, that is to say the period 1945 to 1948, I need to say a word, again, about the difficult term Palestine. A number of you have written about this word. Let’s be quite clear, Palestine was the name chosen by the League of Nations when it gave Britain the mandate for Palestine.
And at the time it gave it, it included in broad terms modern day Israel and modern day Jordan. And the name was chosen by the League of Nations, rather ironically now, because it was not to be, not to be in any way, difficult word to use because they chose a second century AD, Roman, Latin word when Palestine was designated by the Romans as Palestina. And they thought, well, this won’t cause any trouble. Well, little did they know, but the word now rattles across the world in all sorts of different ways, spelling, nevertheless, trouble. Some people today argue that there is already an Arab Palestine. That is to say, the bit the British split off in 1921, which today we call Jordan. But Abdullah, the king Emir who became king of Jordan, was reluctant to take this view. Why was he reluctant? Well, he supported Palestinian rights. Well, an easy thing to say, but he remained politically pragmatic about Jordan itself. He wanted Jordan to expand. Well, he could not expand in areas where he would seek to expand towards Syria and towards Lebanon, but he was to expand during the 1948-49 War as the map you saw at the beginning showed, into the West Bank. But I think in addition to wanting to expand Jordan into what is called greater Jordan, he was anxious to stabilise the country. Out of all the Arab countries, Jordan has remained the most stabilised and the most closely associated still with the man, with the mandated country, Britain, the country that has given the mandate. Today of course, Palestinian Arabs don’t want Jordan as a home, and Jordan doesn’t particularly want them either. Who would want Hamas and Hezbollah in modern day Jordan? At present, there is estimated to be, all these are estimates because there aren’t proper censuses.
There’s estimated to be something like 2.1, 2.3 million Palestinian Arabs living in Jordan who were displaced either at the end of the 48-49 War and their descendants, and those who came to Jordan after The Six Day War. Many of these have been granted Jordanian citizenship, others haven’t. Jordan has a population of about 11 million, thus, a figure of just under two and a half million Palestinian Arabs in the country is a sizeable minority. And from a Jordanian point of view, pose problems. Today, Palestinian Arabs declare that they want a Palestinian state separate from Germany, a Palestine. And the cry today across many university campuses in the West is the cry, “From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free,” but that, of course, would mean the destruction of the state of Israel, something that is an impossibility to imagine that the West would allow to happen. So some of our problems in the Middle East, if we think about how the Middle East can be settled, go. Well, we’ve talked about it going right back to the beginning of the story with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the various promises made by Britain. But here we can see that the very word Palestine adopted by the League of Nations has now become a chant in the universities and other places in the western world.
Let’s leave the semantics of the word Palestine, along with the modern division between Arab and Jew and view, and we’ll leave that view until our final lecture in a fortnight’s time. Instead, let us look at how the British mandate for Palestine ended. In 1947, Britain was withdrawing from India. It marked the end, or at least it marked the beginning of the end of the British Empire, and indeed, other European empires across the globe. And the mandate system was also ending by 1947 because the League of Nations no longer existed. The United Nations, under resolution 181, settled on a two nation solution in Palestine, an Arab state, and a Jewish state. Sometimes this is known as the partition resolution, to partition Palestine into two states. Craig Davis, in his “History of the Middle East,” writes this. 1947. “To resolution 181, the fledgling United Nations resolved a partition Palestine, giving roughly half of the Jews and half to the Arabs.” The Jewish half was actually 55%. The Jews accept, but the Arabs reject the resolution.“ We’re back to the from the river to the sea. The Arabs no longer are prepared to accept a two nation solution. This is now a weapon in their political armour. They want one nation. And thus, I’ve written on my notes here, the die is set, Arab refusal even to discuss the solution of the United Nations. On the 14th of May, 1948, the British mandate formally ended, and the last British High Commissioner left., On the same day, 14th of May, 1948, the Jewish National Council proclaimed Israel and independent state and recognised by President Truman on the same day, despite Roosevelt in 1945, saying that he would not recognise any state in Palestine unless all parties agreed and he would negotiate. Truman rides roughshod over that, because in his view, the situation changed.
And Israel is recognised, as I say, on the same day that it is declared. The state that was set up, and I didn’t want to confuse people with maps, is smaller than the one that is shown on the map I gave you, which is the 1949 map. Now, all of that, and those of you know me, know I have long introductions and long conclusions and very little middle. Well, this is the middle and there’s no conclusion today. The middle is in three parts. The first part is the story of the end of the British mandate, 1945-48. The second is the creation of Israel in May ‘48. And the third is the Arab Israeli War of 48-49. And and I’m teaching grandmothers to suck eggs. You all know that. But let me just repeat that so we are all on the same sheet. The first part is the British in Palestine 45-48. The second is the creation of Israel May '48, and the third is the Arab Israeli War of 1948-49. I sometimes, I may be a rather old fashioned historian in a, I like to keep a chronology clear in my head. One of the things I have against modern history teaching in schools today is they take a, they take a rather odd approach. They don’t take a chronological approach. They take themes. And I’m much against that. I think it confuses everyone. And I think unless you know the events that follow other events, you don’t get a sense of why things happen. But that’s my what would be described by many, teacher historians today as old fashioned. I’m sorry, I’m not going to apologise. So the period then of British rule, 45-48.
By the end of 45, the government of Britain is no longer the coalition government of the war, but is now a labour government led by Clement Attlee. And the Jewish agency is very optimistic that they can achieve what had been promised by Britain under the Balfour, recommendations of 1917, that there would be a Jewish homeland in the Middle East. I’m using Gordon Kerr’s book. And in this, he writes of the following, he writes this, "The Jewish Agency had done all it could during the war,” World War II, “to ingratiate itself with the British. It provided hospitality for troops on leave and disseminated propaganda designed to persuade them of the success of the Jewish national home, and to convince them that the Jews in Palestine could get on with the Arabs in Palestine, when the latter were not being encouraged to act against them by their leaders and by the British.” The British are caught in this three way entanglement between Jews and between Arabs. And after the second World War, Britain is bust, the torch of Western liberal democracy has passed to the United States, but the United States is playing a very distant game over all of this, supporting the UN, recognising Israel. But yeah, but keeping outside of most of the decision making. Let me just read on a little bit from where I just finished.
“The collective settlements,” that is the kibbutzes, “and the contribution to daily life made by the trade union organisation of the Jews were particularly impressive to those of a socialist tendency. Thus, when a labour government was elected in July 1945 in Britain, actually comes to power, the Zionists were excited because they thought this was a British government that they could deal with. And carats, after all, this was the party that only a few months previously had declared itself in favour of unlimited migration of Jews to Palestine.” Remember that under the British mandate, there had been severe restrictions placed upon Jewish immigration before, during, and after the war. And this had met with enormous opposition in what is to become Israel, enormous frustration and anger, and leading also to a great deal of what the British described as illegal immigration. “But little changed in British government policy. The labour government didn’t reverse all those decisions, and the Zionists became even more angered.” Bad enough dealing, they would’ve said, with Churchill, but surely actually would’ve dealt with him better, but no. “The Jewish agency was at the time collaborating with Jewish groups such as the Stern Group and Avraham, even though they officially denounced them, and it was proposed by one member of the Jewish Agency that they caused quote, 'one serious incident that would serve as a warning to the British.’” In other words, look, we can’t negotiate with the labour government. We thought we could, but we can’t. Therefore we will do something. And it will demonstrate to the British, they’ve got to get out quick, and they’ve got to be honest to their promise of a Jewish homeland. Well, on the night of the 31st of October, 1945, railway lines in 153 different places in Palestine were blown up.
And three police patrol boats, British patrol boats were destroyed. Now the patrol boats were operating off the coast of what is to become Israel to stop illegal immigrants, much as the boats operate off the southern British coast today, with about as much success you might add. Meanwhile, adds Graham Kerr, the following takes place. “The British government meanwhile had come under pressure from the American President, Truman, to open the doors to around a hundred thousand displaced European Jews. And this could not be ignored. It could not be ignored by Britain,” because who controls the purse strings for Britain? America. So the British set up, what do the British always do in a crisis? If you don’t know what to do, set up a committee. So the British set up a committee of inquiry, “To examine the position of Jews in those countries in Europe where they have been victims of Nazi persecution and the political, economic, and social condition in Palestine as they bear upon the problem of Jewish immigration and settlement therein, and the wellbeing of the peoples now living therein.” Well, that’s very typically British. If you analyse it, doesn’t really say anything very much because the people living therein means Arabs as well as Jews.
Although the Jewish Agency denounced Jewish attacks on British institutions and British personnel, they continued. And as I said earlier, Britain found itself squashed between Arab and Jewish violence against each other and against the British. The CID police headquarters in Jerusalem was blown up, killing seven people. The British Committee of Inquiry that had been set up, reported, finally reported, so it’s going to solve everything. Well, think again. It said quote, “It was a continuation of the mandate, until the hostility between Jews and Arabs disappears.” So it’s saying into quite, post-War, 46, it’s saying, look, we aren’t going to run away until the violence between Arab and Jew stops. But the British had no means of stopping it. The situation has moved on. Britain sought to suppress the violence by appealing to the Jewish agency, but the Jewish Agency has now had enough of Britain. Britain has not done what has happened elsewhere in the Middle East, given independence. It simply hasn’t done it. The Palestinian Arabs demand also an immediate end to the mandate and the withdrawal of British troops and an Arab state. So the Jews are arguing for a Jewish state. The Arabs were an Arab state. Britain had run out of options, ideas, and I think also the will to do anything. It was beyond Britain’s capabilities, but it has one last attempt to impose British control of the mandate, a draconian answer. And this happened across the decaying Empire of Britain. It meets all of this by force. And Kerr says in this way, “British troops occupied the offices of the Jewish Agency, arresting prominent Zionists, including the agency’s head. Arms caches were seized, commanders apparently in organisations arrested.”
Does that help? No, of course it doesn’t help. It doesn’t help in Israel. It doesn’t help across the British Empire. Those who are demanding independence and self rule across the British Empire, only become more determined if their leadership is placed in prison by the British. It simply doesn’t work. And anyhow, violence, as we know, always breeds more violence. And on the 22nd of July, 1946, the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, the British headquarters for the administration of Palestine was bombed, killing 91 people. Ironically, the majority of them were Jewish and Arab civil servants. But Britain was horrified as Britain is going to be horrified in other withdrawals from empire in Cypress, in Kenya, etcetera, etcetera. And I’m putting this in that wider context because both the Arabs and the Jews in Palestine regarded the mandate as little more than being part of the British Empire. And this is part of that story from a British point of view, is that this is trying to hold the empire together at a point at which it can’t be held together. So Britain, back in here in Britain, the press public opinion parliament, still with the labour government, is outraged by the bombing of the King David Hotel. On the last day of July, 1946, America announced a federal plan in a bid to try and resolve the issue. It’s not one, let just check the time. I’ve got time to do this. It isn’t going to really resolve anything. But let me just say what they said. “The federal plan issued by the states for the division of Palestine into two districts, an Arab and a Jewish.
Each grouping would manage its own affairs, including immigration, which in the meantime continued illegally many times the permitted quota. When the British came up with a plan to transfer illegal immigrants to Cyprus, the ships used for this purpose were attacked by Zionist power and militaries. Negotiations on the federal plan continue with the Arab proposing a state offering equal rights for all citizens, but ending Jewish immigration.” The American plan is, I think one might say naive. The problem of immigration or the issue of immigration is the more Jews that come in, then the majority, the balance between Jew and Arab alters. The Arabs saying they don’t want more Jewish immigrants, of course, because that gives the Arabs, the majority population, more Jewish immigrants coming in would give Jews the greater population. And thus, any argument for one state in which you had two groups, well, it simply doesn’t work. It simply doesn’t work. And the violence didn’t stop. No one has an answer to this. The violence continues. The rest of 1946 and into ‘47. But in December '46, the 22nd World Zionist conference met, and delegates then demanded very clearly that Palestine be made a Jewish state, no division, no two nation solution, one nation, Jewish, and that 700,000 Jews be allowed to come immediately into what is still Palestine. Thus creating, as I just said, a Jewish majority. So just to sort of take a breath, Britain has no answer, period. America’s answer is very naive. The Arabs have an answer. One nation, an Arab nation.
The Jews have an answer, one nation, a Jewish nation, as promised by Britain long ago in 1970, and as supported then and later by the United States. In order now to resolve anything, the United Nations steps in. And in September, 1947, Britain told the United Nations it couldn’t implement policy, which was not acceptable to both sides, Jew and Arab. Now you remember in previous lectures I kept saying to you that the whole British approach to the mandate was to be a very sort of British one. We will talk them. That is to say, Jews and Arabs, into a compromise that traditional British compromise. We will seek a middle way, but without a policy that is agreeable and acceptable to both, Britain couldn’t see its way. Now that is putting, as it were, a positive slant on Britain. There is, of course, a negative slant on what Britain was doing. Britain overriding purpose was to preserve good relations with the Arabs because the Arab states are far more numerous than Israel. And it’s vital for political interest, the British thought, to keep the Arabs on the side and of course publish it not in the streets of Gath, but they have oil. Never trust the British. What they might say might sound fantastically, what shall I say, moral and appropriate. But there’s maybe always a second agenda. And the second agenda here’s those three letters I’ve talked about so often, O-I-L, oil. And that’s on the 29th of November, 1947, United Nations put forward the second, sorry, the two state solution. The resolution, 181, and just quote Graham Kerr. Let me just read you this. “When it became evident that the partition could not be achieved peacefully, which is what Britain told the UN, the United Nations recommended that Palestine be placed under temporary UN trusteeship. And that was due to happen on the 14th of May, 1948. British mandate would end and United Nations trusteeship would begin.” But of course this did not happen.
And why did it not happen? Because simply, because Israel jumps the gun, if you like, or preempts the question because Israel declares its independence on that same date, the 14th of May, 1948. So Israel has outwitted, a Britain, or at least Britain has been outwitted by both Jew and Arab and can find no solution. But Israel has outwitted the United Nations by acting on its own on the very day that the mandate ends before the United Nations can impose a trusteeship. Not that the trusteeship, may I add, would’ve solved anything. It would just have been the British mandated minister by, well, I don’t know, a United Nations force movement, which would largely have been American. Well, that would not have worked either. It’s been a terrible story from a British point of view of total failure since 1921. To find that middle way, to allow Jew and Arab to live together in Palestine. It’s failed. There can be no living together. There can be no two nations solution. And the Arabs were too slow, too unorganised, too divided to act. Whereas Israel acted on the 14th of May, 1948, and Britain leaves a nasty taste in the mouth of both Jew and Arab. We had promised way back in 1917, under the Balfour recommendation, a Jewish homeland. And we had not given it. We had not done it because the Jews had to create their own homeland. And with Lawrence and others, we had made so many promises to Hussein of a United Arab state in the Middle East. And we had gone back on that. And we are now left with a tapestry of Arab states, which is going to cause major problems in the years ahead. And we have annoyed everyone. And the League of Nations must take responsibility and the United Nations must take responsibility. It’s not Britain’s responsibility alone, it is out of the United Nations and of the League of Nations.
And you could reasonably argue, there must be responsibility amongst Jews and Arabs. Okay, I’m not getting involved in the argument that you have to have two to tango, which is a perfectly valid argument, which is put forward that the Arabs rejected the two nations solution. And one of the worst things in terms of the sour taste left in Jewish mouths by Britain was Britain’s refusal to allow immigration, unlimited immigration. Why? Because Britain was anxious not to create that majority Jewish population that they thought would make a settlement more unlikely, instead of which it made Britain more unpopular with the Jews. And I suppose the story of the ship, Exodus 1947, tells you all that you need to know about British and immigration post World War II. The ship Exodus 1947, which had been lent to Britain under the Lend-Lease system during World War II by the Americans, was returned to America after the war, and the Americas were going to scrap it, but Haganah purchased it from the Americans. They arranged, that is Haganah arranged to dock the ship in Europe in order to transport Jews who sought to immigrate to Palestine illegally, because it was way beyond the figures established by the British mandate. And it was a tragedy. In July, 1947, the ship left France for Palestine, it carried 4,500 approximately, men, women, and children. Jews who were either displaced persons or survivors of the Holocaust itself. Even before the ship reached Palestine’s territorial waters, British destroyers surrounded it. On the 18th of July, a struggle ensued between British naval forces and passengers on the ship.
A Jewish crew member on the ship and two Jewish passengers were killed by the British, and dozens of other Jews suffered bullet wounds and other injuries. Britain, and remember, this is a neighbour government. Britain sought to make an example of the ship. They towed it to Haifa, they transferred the passengers, four and half thousand of them, onto three Navy transports and took them back to Europe. Many of them were orphan children, orphaned by the Holocaust. The Jews on board the British ships being taken back to Europe, went on a hunger strike for 24 days. There was mounting international pressure on Britain to find a solution. The ships sat for three weeks in sweltering summer heat. The passengers refused to voluntarily disembark off the coast of Mediterranean France. The French were unwilling to force them to leave. And now the worst part of the story, the British ships sailed out of the Mediterranean through the channel to Hamburg, where they were interned in camps in the British zone of occupation in Germany. There were huge protests on both sides of the Atlantic. Huge international condemnation of Britain. It was a dreadful, dreadful thing to have done. And it reverberated in Palestine amongst the Jews enormously. There is no solution from Britain or the United Nations or from America for that matter. And so, the Jews take the decision into their own hands. And as I’ve said before in this call, on the very day the British mandate ends, which has been publicised, of course it has, is the day that Israel declares its independence.
And let me just read you a little piece of this, if I may. Again, I’m using Graham Kerr. On the 15th of May, sorry. “When it became evident the partition could not be achieved peacefully, the United Nations recommended that Palestine be placed under temporary UN trusteeship. But on the 14th of May, 1948, the day that the British mandate expired, the Jewish state of Israel was proclaimed by David Ben-Gurion of the World Zionist Organisation. And so the world, the UN, faces a new situation. They face a new situation. "On the 15th of May, 1948, one day after Israel’s Declaration of Independence, the UN Secretary General received a letter from the Secretary General of the League of Arab States, which said,” and this is what the communication said, “The Nations of the Arab League themselves are compelled to intervene for the sole purpose of restoring peace and security and establishing law and order in Palestine. The governments of the Arab states hereby confirm at this stage the view that had been repeatedly declared by them on previous occasions. The only fair and just solutions of the problem of Palestine is the creation of the United States of Palestine based upon democratic principles,” i.e. Arab control. War breaks out. War breaks out. But it had broken out before. Prior to the declaration of Israel’s independence, there had been attacks by irregular bands of Palestinian Arabs composed of volunteers from both Palestine and other Arab countries nearby, launching their attacks against Jewish cities, settlements, armed forces. It had begun before independence. The war itself, well, the war itself was tragic, of course. On the eve of the 14th of May, the Arabs launched an air attack on Tel Aviv.
That is before Israeli independence. It was followed once Israel is declared independence by the invasion of what had been the British mandate of Palestine, what is now Israel by Arab armies from Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Egypt. Even Saudi Arabia sent a unit which fought under Egyptian command. Even British trained forces under Glubb in Jordan eventually intervened, but only in that part that the United Nations had designated if there a two nation solution would be Arab. This is Abdullah playing a very clever political game. He joins, but only to acquire what the Arabs would’ve got in a two nation solution, but he doesn’t give it to Palestinian Arabs. This is the West Bank, of course, because when the war has ended, it’s simply taken over by Jordan itself. The United Nations intervened and brokered two cease fires, but the fighting nevertheless continue to 1949. It finally came to an end. You could say that it was an Israeli victory. Israel controlled more of the land, the 75%, than the 55% the two nations solution of the United Nations would’ve given it. But Israel had lost 6,000 of its citizens. That is about just under 1% of its entire population.
In the book, “Palestinians and Israelis” by Michael Scott-Baumann, I read this, “A separate agreement between King Abdullah of Jordan and the government of Israel. The king wanted his forces to keep control of the West Bank, the name given to the Palestinian Arab land west of the Jordan River. This area would now be governed as part of his kingdom. In this way, most of Arab Palestine, including the old city of Jerusalem, now became part of the new enlarged kingdom of Jordan. Giving rise to this issue of, well, Palestinian Arabs have a state, it’s Jordan. Except, of course, Jordan now no longer controls the West Bank. The Israelis were eager to make peace with the king, so that they could keep control of the newer western part of Jerusalem.” They preferred a partition Jerusalem to what the United Nations have proposed, which was a independent, UN controlled city of Jerusalem. Outside of it. 400,000 Palestinian Arabs fled between May, 1948 and January, 1949. Most fled to Gaza or the land bordering the West Bank. In Arabic, this diaspora is known as nakba or the catastrophic disaster, feeding in to the Palestinian Arab narrative of the story of the Middle East post 1945. Remember, I have said many times that history when used in a political argument is difficult because people can see the same events, through different spectacles.
And of course, this is precisely the case here with Palestine and Israel. So immediately after Israel’s declaration of Independence, well, at least the declaration forced the world’s hand to recognise the Jewish homeland, which Britain had so catastrophically failed to create. But by doing so, it angered all of the Arab world who rise in support of Palestinian Arabs. But at the end of the conflict, Jordan takes the West Bank, which previously the United Nations said would’ve been in a divided Palestine, a palace, a Arab country, an Arab nation, separate from the Jewish nation, and Jordan takes it, doesn’t declare it Palestine. Doesn’t rule it in the name of Palestine, incorporates it within greater Jordan. There are so many different forces at work over all of this, and none of them are going to reach a settlement, a further 65 years on in 2024. The scene is set in 1959 with that map, which of course is also going to change through the decades, as we shall see next week. But the scene is set for a further 65 years of conflict and failed peace negotiations. And we still, we, the world, do not have a solution. We do not have a solution to that problem. It is hopefully somewhere available. Now, I could end with all sorts of statements by Jews and Arabs, by the United Nations, by United Nations Secretary Generals and so on. But instead, I’m going to read you a true story and it’s from mediaeval England and 19th century England. You all know that Jews were expelled from England in 1290.
This is a book called, “The King’s Jews,” which is the story of Jews in mediaeval England by Robin Mundill and Mundill writes, 560 years later, that is 560 years after 1290, “One Jew returned to the small Lincolnshire Hamlet of Hawthorn in England, some seven miles north of Lincoln, where his forebears had lent money to the local inhabitants.” Jews were the bankers in mediaeval England. In 1850, the the Anglican Christian Church of St. Michael’s was being rebuilt and wooden furnishings had been commissioned for the interior. However, in the summer of that year, the proprietor of the business that was working on the decorations died and they became part of his estate. Subsequently, the furnishings became 10 lots in a sale due to be held on the 31st of October, 1850. At the sale, a Mr. Benjamin described as a Jew of commanding stature asked that the 10 lots be put into one lot. He purchased all of them saying, I offer 10 pounds for the lot, and where is the Christian who dare bid against me? The furnishings are still in the church at Hawthorn. They were saved by a Jew whose predecessors had been expelled from Lincoln on the 1st of November, 1290.“ That story gives us hope. Hope that we can, as human beings, find a settlement that provides peace in the Middle East. Next week’s story is certainly not one of peace, it’s one of peace attempts, interspersed with wars. And the final talk. We will look at where we are, where we want to get to, and what is the roadmap to get there. Thanks very much for listening. I’m sure I’ve got lots of comments and questions. Let’s have a look and see what I have got. Let’s go.
Q&A and Comments:
Q: Michael, I find it strange in an extreme manner that Jews have one state to which they returned after 1008, 50 years. The Arabs, including Palestinians, who are Arabs, have 22 states and another 35 Muslim countries that they can go to. Jews, as we learned in the Second World War, have no state without Israel, and cannot, will not, be permitted to enter anywhere else. He goes on to say, Michael goes on to say, furthermore, Britain by Churchill created Jordan as a Palestinian state separate from the Jewish state, as in fact the majority of Jordanians are Palestinians. Why is Jordan ignored as the home of the Palestinians once and for all?
A: Because Jordanians do not accept, Michael, that they are Palestinians, and who would want, let me repeat, who would want Hamas and Hezbollah in Jordan, which is perhaps the most stable of Middle Eastern societies. It’s very difficult. And if we ask. We’re back also to the question of what is a Palestinian? And it simply meant somebody who lived in Palestine. Johnny says, after The Six Day War, I haven’t got there yet. After The Six Day War, the resounding silence of Jordan Egypt to recover their territories is utterly depressing. We’ll get there. Jonathan, hi, Jonathan. Does the Latin word Palestinian come from Philistine? Yes, I think it does originally.
Who says I can’t? It’s IPAD? No, well, it’s an acronym. Aren’t Palestinian Arabs related to Jordanian Arabs? All Arabs are related. That doesn’t help the solution of where we are. Noah says, Earnest Bevin wrote while returning the mandate to the United Nations, this is an irreconcilable conflict. The Jews want a state, the Arabs want that the Jews will not have a state, to which he could have added, and the Arabs wants a state. You could argue as those of you argue about Palestine and Jordan, that the mistake was in back in 1921 when Britain split the Palestine mandate into Jordan and Palestine. But we have to be where we are.
Melvin writes Britain were not impartial actors in the 48 War since they supported Jordan’s Arab lead and was authorised by Britain and led by Glubb Pasha. Yes, but they’re not Britain’s operating for Britain. Glubb Pasha was employed by Abdullah, and they were, they were involved simply in the expansion of Jordan into the land, which the United Nations had said they would give to Palestine to a state of Palestine. Jordan was not going to give it to Palestinians, but to keep it with Jordan. Glubb believed that he owed his allegiance, not to Britain, his allegiance was to Abdullah. That’s whom he had sworn allegiance to. So to say that Britain. It’s not entirely fair.
Carly. Oh, well that’s nice of you, Carly Grant. I’m glad you felt you could follow in the story.
Q: A Zoom user said, why did the the League of Nations allow illegal British policing?
A: No, no, no. It wasn’t illegal. Britain could, and indeed that is exactly what the French did in Syria and Lebanon. Britain had the authority to split it. You could say that the League should have have stopped them, but that is with hindsight. It just simply to the British made sense.
Q: Is there any evidence supporting the Jewish Agency knew in advance and supported the attack against King David Hotel?
A: I’ll leave that for Trudy to answer tomorrow.
Gerald, as all, oh, sorry. Oh, well thank you Gerald. That’s nice of you. As an aside and maybe some interest, my grandmother, sixth generation, born in Palestine, and my mother’s seventh generation immigrated to South Africa in 1913 following my grandfather. I guess that means 1911, not 2011. They belonged to an association with other immigrants who would form the Palestinian Society, which lasted beyond the establishment of Israel. Ironic or what? Gerald, plays a large role in all of this story. Estelle, I had a Jewish friend who was serving in the British Navy when it was under order to shoot at folk people trying to enter Israel, Illegal immigrants according to Britain. He and some others shot into the water where they were sure there were no people. They did not dare to disobey orders completely and refuse to shoot at all.
Q: This is most, this Estelle, is an appalling position that British Jews or some British Jews were placed in. It was dreadful. Tony, was Israel off a membership of the Commonwealth?
A: No. No, and as far as I know, Israel has never sought membership of the Commonwealth. It was not an imperial territory. It was simply a mandated territory. And although the Arabs like to portray it as an imperial territory and indeed some Israelis, it was not an imperial territory. It was a mandated territory. Thus, the issue of Commonwealth did not arise. Although, as you well know and imply other countries have subsequently, like Mozambique, joined the British Commonwealth. Melvin, an Haganah member, Adina, gave warnings to the Palestine post French Consulate and the King David Hotel, all of which were ignored. Thank you.
Q: Robin, as a matter of job for UN Partition Plan 947 was ridiculous. Would it have worked as a two nation with the partition more geographically sensible and better sold to the Arabs?
A: Well, that, Robin is an extremely important point because the point rests today in 2024. I don’t understand how you have a two nation solution if you are talking about the two geographically separated territories of Gaza and the West Bank. You are absolutely right. I think you and I, we may be the only ones, but we are absolutely in agreement on that.
Melvin, the promise made to Sharif Hussein, oh, sorry, was fulfilled not in Syria, but in a sense by rule in Mesopotamian Transjordan. No, it wasn’t. That’s no. Hussein wanted one Arab kingdom to go back into history, and he wanted the entire Middle East, and he did not want it split up between Iraq, Iran, and all the rest. He wanted the lot, and that’s where part of the, well, we will, I probably won’t go too far down that route next week, but there have been these unipolar Arab state proposition, one Arab state. It will never come now, but it had been talked about.
Sorry, Ingrid. Hello, Ingrid. I think it, oh, well, that’s very nice of you. Thank you.
Andrea, no, I haven’t mentioned Ernest Bevin for the simple reason I can’t mention everything. And you are right. had I got two, three hours or four lectures, yes, I could, but there is a limit to what you can do. As I’ve said to many times, I have to provide a logical and as understandable a text as I can, and I didn’t put Bevin into that picture. Bevin, is a well, yeah, quite.
Florence. Oh, that’s nice of you. Both of you. Richard. The point was made last week that the Arabs were envisioning a large Arab state that would draw the Jews like any other nation had done and give them good minority rights. In other words, the Arabs would finally take its place on a par with other nations. Israel had no choice. Yes, because Richard, no one believed in the West or Jews in Palestine, that Palestine would ever, would ever give a good minority rights, as you say, they simply wouldn’t have done, and no one was under any illusion about that.
Oh, David, how did the 48 War form in. With treaties between the participants, but the separate treaty between Abdullah’s Jordan and Israel, which is why Abdullah was such a clever manoeuvre. Remember that Abdullah himself is assassinated by a Palestinian Arab in 1951 in the presence of his grandson, Hussein, who was given a medal to wear his grandfather. Well, they were in the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, and a bullet actually hit the medal, but didn’t kill Hussein. Hussein, the grandson succeeded Abdullah eventually, because Hussein’s father was mentally unbalanced, and that’s the Hussein that we all know. Thanks everyone.
I can’t, Johnny, I’m sorry, I just can’t read what you’ve written. It’s such a pity that your fair and sober analysis isn’t something by so many academics and students. I dunno what that other word is.
Thank you, Rita. Zoom. Thanks, that’s nice of you. Zoom user says such stupid people, ignorant people. I dunno who you are referring to. Maybe me. I think I’ll lead Trudi to answer your question about UN.
Q: What did Christian Arabs think of the various partition plans?
A: Stuart, that is a good question. Basically, the Christians believe they will be better treated under a Jewish state than an Arab state for reasons that are clear in other parts of the Middle East where they had been in difficulties, not least in Lebanon.
Oh, Vivian, I’m glad somebody agrees with me, with how history is now taught. Yeah, I mean, I’m really, yeah, it’s a bee in my bonnet, Jacob. The reason the Arab Israeli conflict is not being resolved was best summed up by. The Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Yeah, that was a very clever statement and in so many ways is correct. So many reasonable Israeli officers settled a conflict being rejected out of hand. Most note that we in 2000 we’ll come to that when Prime Minister Barak offered Arafat 90%, 7% of the West Bank Gaza for Palestinians today. Arafat turned it down. We will come to that and it is this, from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free business. That completely destroys any possibility of negotiation at present.
People forget says Denise, that the past always affects the future new and well. Thanks very much.
I can’t follow the next two bits. I’m sorry. I just don’t know what what is meant.
Judy, it is ironic that oil is helping to destroy the world. The interesting question, of course, is Judy, what happens when the oil runs out. If you look at Dubai, Dubai is very fastly, in a very fast way, manoeuvring out of oil into mass and up market tourism. In Britain, at least, I’m sorry Judy. I dunno whether you are British or not in Britain, we’ve got huge and lush adverts about holidays in Dubai. They are aware that oil is on the way out. If Britain was supporting John Club to implement the mandate in the West Bank, not really. Why then did Britain not not use its military to implement the Jewish national home? Because Britain had had enough of war and the labour government certainly wouldn’t take us to war. Remember also that a couple of years later, or a year later than the Arab-Israeli conflict, we were involved in a massive cold war in Korea. Surely it was Jerusalem. Oh, hang on. That’s an important point. I’ve lost it now. Where is it? Yeah, Judy. Surely it was Jerusalem, which caused the difficulty of a split. Well, the United Nations had an answer to Jerusalem that Jerusalem will be taken out of the split, but the war left Jerusalem undivided, which suited at the time both parties. I don’t personally think Jerusalem needed to have been a problem.
Q: David, how can you have our people living next to those who are raised to want to kill us all?
A: Well, that’s a more difficult question than I want an answer. It’s a question of how many people want to kill you all? How many other people want to kill them? That is where a two state solution. No, no, no. If you do have a two-state solution, you have to have total agreement by both parties.
That goes without saying, but Mann wrote says, Melvin, Palestine was not included in a promise to Sharif Hussein. Well, yeah. Well, all sorts of things were said. Oh dear. Somebody’s asking about Trump. Well, a quick response to the question is obviously the attempt on Trump’s life is going to play out massively in his favour. That seems very clear. It’s a gift he’s been given and he’s unlikely not to use it.
Yeah, well. I don’t think Denise, they need a better marksman would be an answer in a democracy. They need no marksman. They need to deal in America with the gun laws if they’re going to keep a democracy alive.
Michael, the Arabs have always had a maximalist position. Their idea now of the two state solutions prerequisite that Israel provides a right of return to the millions of descendants or Arabs or so-called refugees. Well, yes, there is a major problem about the shifting of peoples in the Middle East. Jews, Christians, Arabs all being shifted. Yeah, everyone has made very interesting comments and sensible comments, but if we disagree, we are all agreed that the situation today is as difficult as it was in 1918 and in 1945 and in 1948. If there was a simple solution, it would’ve been found. There isn’t, but please, please remember the story of Mr. Benjamin and the church furnishings in a little village in Lincolnshire. Now the problem is, it was between 1290 and 1850 . Many centuries before that particular ghost was laid in Lincolnshire. Are we to wait quite so long? Well, we’ll see what happened after this, next week. Wars and peace attempts, intifadas, the whole lot, and hopefully I can make it as simple as I can in the sense of creating a story that leads from one situation to the next, so that we can all of us attempt to understand it a little better. Can I thank you all for listening. Can I thank those of you who participated in making comments, whether I’ve agreed or disagreed, whether I’ve given you a satisfactory answer or not. I appreciate the questions.
Bye, lots of love, bye, bye.
[Speaker] Bye, everyone, have a lovely week.