About this course
How did the State of Israel come to be? How is it that an idea, introduced in 19th century Europe, became a reality? And how does that reality prevail in the harsh complexities of the Middle East? Presented by Professor Eyal Naveh, with additional units from Professor Asher Sussers' "The Emergence of the Modern Middle East" course, This course will take you on a journey through the history of Modern Israel. In this 1st part of the course we will explore: How did the 19th century idea of a Jewish state become a reality? So the next time you hear about Israel in the news, you will be informed enough about the history of this area to comprehend the many sides and narratives that interact to shape the complex reality of Israel today. Please also join us in the 2nd part of this course: Challenges of Israel as a sovereign state * This course is a joint effort of Tel Aviv University & Israel Institute (www.israelinstitute.org) * This course uses media material from various archives, courtesy to Yad Vashem Archive for their help. * This course is self-paced. Once you register, you can participate in the course anytime, as often as you wish and over any stretch of time
Lecture transcript
World War I brought about the end of the Ottoman Empire and the end of 400 years of Ottoman Turkish rule over the Arab parts of much of the Middle East. From the ruins of the empire, the modern Middle Eastern state system was created. Before the war, the European powers sought to preserve the integrity of the Ottoman empire for the sake of European peace. The belief or the fear in Europe was that if the Ottoman Empire were to fall apart the European powers would find themselves very quickly in a disastrous war in the fight for the spoils of the Empire. After the outbreak of World War I, that logic was no longer relevant. Once there already was a war in place, there was no longer a fear of having to fight for the spoils of the Empire. The Ottoman decision to side with Germany and Austria sealed the fate of the Empire. The Western powers, Britain and France, and initially the Russians too, had every reason and interest to seek the Empire's defeat and dismemberment. And secret talks began between the powers on the carving up of the Ottoman Empire after the war. The Russians wanted the straits, the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, to enable them to get into the warm waters of the Mediterranean. The French wanted Syria, especially the coastal area and Palestine too. The British wanted Iraq because of the Persian Gulf in India and the connection from there to the Mediterranean which created a challenge to the French demands in that area. So there was a negotiation, a secret negotiation between the British and the French which led to the signing of what became the notorious Sykes-Picot Agreement. Signed between the British representative Mark Sykes and the French François Georges-Picot. The French were given a free hand in Cilicia, which is in southern Anatolia, and in coastal Syria and Lebanon, as well as a sphere of influence stretching eastwards all the way to Mosul. Britain got a free hand in Iraq, including Basra and Baghdad, and a sphere of influence going westwards towards the Mediterranean. Britain got the ports of Haifa and Acre in Palestine and much of the rest of Palestine too, under an international administration, to be shared with France and with Russian agreement. Russia was soon overtaken by the revolution and opted out of the colonial spoils. In the meantime, the British also conducted negotiations with the Arabs. Britain, because of her Indian interests, was deeply concerned by the sultan's appeal to the Muslims to join the jihad against the enemies of the empire. And as a result, the British were in a desperate search for an Arab-Muslim ally to join the war against the Ottomans. The connection with the Arabs was made through the Hashemites. Who were the Hashemites? The Hashemites were an Arab family, an Arab-Muslim family of very prestigious lineage, as descendants of the Prophet, who was himself of the House of Hashim. In the summer of 1915, in their negotiations with the British, the Hashemites under Hussein Ibn Ali who was the administrator of the holy cities Mecca and Medina on behalf of the Ottomans. Hussein Ibn Ali demanded a caliphate under Hashemite-Arab rule. The demand was for the Arab provinces of the empire from the southern border of Turkey to the Indian Ocean, and from the Mediterranean to the border with Iran. North Africa, including Egypt, were not seen as part of the Arab nation. There was an element of realism in this due to the fact that North Africa then was in the hands of a variety of colonial powers, France, Italy, and Britain. But also, the belief that the North Africans were actually not really part of the Arab nation. The correspondence was conducted by Sir Henry McMahon, who was the British high commissioner in Egypt. McMahon agreed to the Arab demands with a number of important reservations. But the question is, why did the British agree in the first place, albeit with various reservations? The British believed that cooperation with the Arabs would lead to an effective contribution to the war effort that would be made by an Arab uprising against the Turks. The British also believed that siding with Arab nationalism would serve Britain's post war interest in the Middle East in their competition with the French. And furthermore, the Middle East was critically important for British imperial communications. After all, the passage to India and oil for the great British fleet, the backbone of their imperial power, were all connected to the Middle East. So what were the reservations? These were mainly two. One was that certain areas were excluded on the grounds that they were not purely Arab. The second was that British promises related only to those portions of the territories wherein Great Britain was free to act, without detriment to her ally, France. These reservations were cause for great controversy after the war, especially over the question of Palestine.
Lecture transcript
But it was not that the British had promised the same territories to different players. As some people say, Palestine, the twice promised land. In fact, there was no substantial discrepancy between the documents and the British had generally been quite consistent. The British could not have promised Palestine to the Arab state without consulting France, their ally. And therefore Palestine was not promised to the Arabs, but Palestine was not promised to the Jews either. In reference to Zionist demands, what the British did do in the Balfour Declaration was to express their sympathy for a national home for the Jews in Palestine. So let's look at the Balfour Declaration. The war itself had its impact on the impending dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. This offered the Zionists the opportunity they were looking for to possibly obtain Palestine for themselves. The British themselves had their own interest in Palestine, particularly in connection to the protection of the Suez Canal and the passage to India. Prime Minister Lloyd George certainly recognized this British imperial interest. Lloyd George however also had a religious upbringing and because of his knowledge of the bible the appeal of a British protected Jewish colony in Palestine made sense to the British Prime Minister. In 1917 the Allies were in a sorry state in the prosecution of the war. And the British believed issuing a declaration on behalf of Zionist aspirations in Palestine would improve the position of the Allies in the war. They believed that the United States could become more involved in the war. And that Russia would stay in the war thanks to Jewish influence that would be exerted on these great powers to participate more actively in the war because of Zionist aspirations that would be promised by the British. That the support for Zionist aspirations would help propaganda in the U.S. and Russia and thus the war effort thanks to the great effect of Jewish influence. However exaggerated this British opinion of Jewish influence may have been, and exaggerated it definitely was. This was a factor in their decision to issue the Balfour Declaration. So what did the Declaration say exactly? In this letter by the British Foreign Minister, Lord Balfour, to the leader of the Jewish community in Great Britain, Lord Rothschild, the British government declared its sympathy for Zionist aspirations in Palestine. The British government in this expression of sympathy viewed with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people. It is interesting to note, view with favor, sympathy, somewhat less than outright express support and endorsement. Secondly, it was not entirely clear what a national home really meant. And thirdly, what ever this national home was to be it was to be in Palestine. Not the conversion of Palestine into a Jewish national home. These are two very different things. Furthermore, the Declaration noted that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine. That is, whatever the Jews did establish in Palestine could not be damaging to the rights of the Arab people who already lived there. This was all in a letter as we have seen by Balfour to Lord Rothschild, a rather low-key expression of British policy. It was not, for example, a declaration of policy given in Parliament. But nevertheless, for the Zionists this was understood to mean support for a Jewish state. But as the British historian Malcolm Yapp has summarized, the Declaration was virtually meaningless and committed Britain to nothing. When the war came to an end in the Middle East, Britain was by far the superior power in that part of the world. This, as the British historian and journalist Elizabeth Monroe has written, this was Britain's moment in the Middle East. The Ottoman Empire had come to an end. The French were completely preoccupied at the front in France and they could only spare token forces for the Middle East. Russia was preoccupied by revolution and her opting out of the war. So British occupation forces took over most of the Arab areas of the empire in Syria, Iraq, and Palestine, and there was only a small French force in Lebanon. So the great powers and especially Britain could shape the region more or less as they wished. And the drawing of the borders of the future Arab states in the Middle East were very much part of British-French trade-offs. And it was the French, the weaker party, who made concessions to the British in both Palestine and Mosul. As you may recall from the Sykes-Picot Agreement, Palestine was shared by the French and the British. It was now given over by the French solely to Britain. Mosul became part of British-ruled Iraq rather than French-ruled Syria. These areas of the the Sykes-Picot Agreement were now divided up by the victorious powers into mandates that were handed over to the French and to the British. At the Conference of the European Victorious Powers that was held in San Remo in April 1920, the mandates were delivered to Britain and France. Lebanon and Syria became French mandates. Britain controlled Palestine, Transjordan and Iraq. In this creation of the mandate system there was a very significant upgrading of the British commitment to the Zionists. The British mandate for Palestine as published officially in July 1922 transformed the commitment made in the Balfour Declaration to a British commitment to the international community, to the League of Nations, much more than a letter to Lord Rothschild. Moreover, the formal document of the mandate also recognized the historical ties of the Jewish people to Palestine. So while the mandate upgraded the British commitment to the Zionists, the mandate also determined finally that the area lying to the east of the Jordan would become an Arab state, that is Transjordan. And that area would be from the very outset excluded from the British commitments to the Zionists. Therefore, Transjordan as an Arab state would not be a zone of Jewish settlement or creation of the Jewish national home, which was now restricted to western Palestine only. And eastern Palestine now became Transjordan and destined to become an independent Arab state.
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