The End of the Palestine Mandate and the Creation of Israel IAFS/JWST 3650

Announcements Tues: Faculty Teaching Excellence Program will gather feedback Thurs: Library session in Norlin E303

Outline World War II events – Partition plans – Moyne assassination Post-war Palestine – External pressure – Arab-Jewish civil war – First Arab-Israeli war

World War II 1941: Mufti to Germany WWII: increase in British-Jewish tension Stern Gang attacks on British targets

Partition Discussions 1943: Churchill’s Cabinet Committee on Palestine proposes partition: —“The one thing that can make a judgment of Solomon possible is the swift and clean cut. What we cannot afford to do is to saw away slowly at a squealing infant in the presence of two hysterical mothers and amid the ululations of a chorus of equally hysterical relatives in the Arab and Jewish world.”

Partition Discussions Foreign Office opposition to partition Nov 1944: Lord Moyne’s assassination

Partition Discussions Churchill outraged —“If our dreams for Zionism are to end in the smoke of an assassin's pistol, and the labours for its future produce a new set of gangsters worthy of Nazi Germany, then many like myself will have to reconsider the position we have maintained so consistently and so long in the past.” End to any serious British consideration of partition

Postwar Palestine 1945: Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin on Britain’s difficulties in Palestine —“The lack of any clear definition of this dual obligation has been the main cause of the trouble which has been experienced in Palestine during the past 26 years.” Shifting demographic balance: Jewish population rises from 11% (1922) to 32% (1945)

Postwar Palestine Increasing American sympathy for Zionists, pressure on Britain Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry

Quickthink Why do you think the British used so many commission in Palestine?

Postwar Palestine Feb 1947: British request that UN solve Palestine problem Nov 1947: UN General Assembly approval of UNSCOP partition plan Arab-Jewish civil war in Palestine

Postwar Palestine May 1948: official end of Britain’s Palestine Mandate 14 May 1948: Israeli declaration of independence First Arab-Israeli war, Palestinian exodus

Origins of Palestinian Refugee Crisis Traditional Zionist narrative: Arab leaders urged Palestinians to leave Revisionist view (Morris): Zionist/Israeli forces used atrocities to terrify Palestinians into flight Deir Yasin massacre (9 Apr 1948)

Origins of Palestinian Refugee Crisis To Arabs, 1948 exodus = nakba (catastrophe) Role of diaspora in post-1948 Palestinian identity 133,000 of pre-war Arab population of 860,000 remained in Israel

UN Partition Plan and 1949 Armistice Lines

1949 Armistice Israel crushed Arab opposition in 1948 Jan-Jul 1949: ceasefire negotiations 1949 armistice lines function as Israeli boundaries (til 1967)