Timeline of intercommunal conflict in Mandatory Palestine

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

This is a timeline of intercommunal conflict in Mandatory Palestine.

Background

1897

1901

  • The Jewish Colonisation Association makes its first major purchase in the north of Palestine in an acquisition of 31,500 dunums of land near Tiberias from the Sursock family. This will go on to become one of the largest land purchases for the purposes of colonisation within Palestine.[2]

1907

  • September 28 - Founding of Bar-Giora an underground Zionist militia, in Jaffa.

1908

1909

  • April 12 - founding of
    Hagana

1910

  • al-Fula, the Palestinian peasants inhabiting the land petitioned the Ottoman government for assistance, but were ultimately unsuccessful and expelled by the Hashomer paramilitary group. This marks one of the first expulsions of Palestinians.[4]

1911

  • Muslim intellectuals and politicians from throughout the Levant formed al-Fatat ("the Young Arab Society"), a small Arab nationalist club in Paris. They also requested that Arab conscripts to the Ottoman army not be required to serve in non-Arab regions except in time of war. However, as the Ottoman authorities cracked down on the organization's activities and members, al-Fatat went underground and demanded the complete independence and unity of the Arab provinces.[5]
  • January/February - The new
    Young Turk
    authorities allow Zionist groups to purchase land in Ottoman Syria.
  • January - First edition of the Arabic-language newspaper
    Filastin published in Jaffa
    .

1913

1915

  • July 14 - First letter between the British Government and the Governor of Mecca. The exchange became known as the McMahon–Hussein Correspondence promises an Arab state in the Middle East in return for revolt against the Turks. That Palestine was part of this deal was confirmed during a 1918 War Cabinet meeting[8] but later denied by the British government.[9]

[2]

1916

  • January 30 - Final letter of the McMahon–Hussein Correspondence sent to the Governor of Mecca.
  • May 16 - The
    war
    the former Ottoman lands incorporating very roughly, modern Iraq, Jordan and much of Israel, would be controlled by Britain; France would take control of what is today Lebanon, Syria, part of Turkey, part of northern Iraq, and a small section of northern Israel. Russia would take large areas of Eastern Turkey and Istanbul.
  • June 10 - Beginning of the Arab Revolt against the Young Turk regime in Constantinople.

1917

1918

1919

Intercommunal violence in Mandatory Palestine

1920

1921

  • Between 1921 and 1925, 80,000 acres (320 km2) of land in the Jezreel Valley is bought up by the American Zion Commonwealth (AZC) for about nearly three-quarters of a million pounds as part of the Sursock Purchases.[20] Under British Mandate, the land laws were rewritten, and the Palestinian farmers in the region were deemed tenant farmers by the British authorities, and the rights of the new owners to displace its population is upheld.[21][22] In total 1,746 families were displaced from 240,000 dunums of land;[23][24][25] Despite this however, some of the native inhabitants refused to leave peaceably, and had to be expelled by force by the British colonial police.[26] The dispossessed would flee to shantytowns on the edges of Jaffa and Haifa.[27]
  • David Ben-Gurion appointed secretary of the Jewish labour organisation Histadrut.
  • March - Haganah, the Jewish underground military organisation, established.[28]
  • March 21 - Secretary of State for the Colonies, Winston Churchill, visits Jerusalem. Instals Abdullah Hussein as ruler of Transjordan.
  • May 1–7 - Jaffa riots resulted in the deaths of 47 Jews and 48 Arabs, with 146 Jews and 73 Arabs being wounded. Most Arab casualties resulted from clashes with British forces attempting to restore order.[29] Thousands of Jewish residents of Jaffa fled for Tel Aviv and were temporarily housed in tent camps on the beach.
  • May 8 - The High Commissioner appoints Amin al-Husseini as
    Mufti of Jerusalem.[30] al-Husseini turns from Damascus-oriented Pan-Arabism to a specifically Palestinian ideology centered on Jerusalem, which sought to block Jewish immigration to Mandatory Palestine. The frustration of pan-Arab aspirations lent an Islamic colour to the struggle for independence, and increasing resort to the idea of restoring the land to Dar al-Islam.[31]
  • May - Fourth Palestine Arab Congress agrees to send a delegation to London.
  • October - The
    Haycraft Commission of Inquiry publishes its report into the Jaffa riots concluding that they were spontaneous rather than premeditated.[32]
  • December - The Mandate authorities issue an order creating a Supreme Muslim Council to administer Muslim owned charitable properties, Awqaf, and appoint (or dismiss) judges and officials in the Sharia courts.[33]

1922

  • February - A delegation of Palestinian Arab leaders, led by Musa al-Husayni, informs Winston Churchill at the Colonial Office that they cannot accept the Mandate or the Balfour Declaration and demand their national independence.[14]
  • June 3 - The
    Churchill White Paper, 1922
    clarifies the British position regarding Mandatory Palestine.
  • June 30 - The United States Senate and House of Representatives adopt a joint resolution favouring "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people."[14]
  • July 24 - The League of Nations approves the draft British Mandate for Palestine.
  • August 10 - The British authorities announce the setting up of a Legislative Council consisting of 11 British official and 12 elected members: 8 Muslims, 2 Christians and 2 Jews.[34]
  • August 22 - Fifth Palestine Arab Congress.
  • September 16 - The Council of the League of Nations accepts the British
    Transjordan memorandum defining the limits of Trans-Jordan and excluding that territory from the provisions in the Mandate concerning the Jewish national home.[35]
  • October - First British census of the population of Mandatory Palestine.

1923

1924

  • Collective Responsibility Ordinance issued giving powers of collective punishment in rural areas. Introduced to combat feuding between communities. The powers included application of fines and demolition of houses.[39]

1925

1926

1928

  • Muslim Brotherhood formed in Egypt. Promoted Islam as the basis of society. Became politicized after 1938, rejecting Westernization, modernization, secularization.
  • June 20 - Seventh Palestine Arab Congress.
  • December 6 -
    Sir John Chancellor
    becomes High Commissioner.

1929

  • The 1929 Palestine riots erupt due to a dispute between Muslims and Jews over access to the Western Wall. 133 Jews killed and 339 wounded ; 116 Arabs killed and 232 wounded.
  • Following the riots the British authorities agree to officially recognize the Executive Committee of the Palestine Arab Congress as representatives of Palestinian Arab opinion and to invite them to give evidence to the Commission of Inquiry.[41]

1930

1931

  • Irgun Zvai Leumi (National Military Organisation) founded by the Revisionists with Zeev Jabotinsky as commander-in-chief.
  • January 5 - Elections held for the third Jewish Assembly of Representatives.
  • February 14 - Prime Minister
    Passfield White Paper
    . The letter becomes known as the "Black Letter" amongst Palestinian Arabs.
  • April 11 - Three members of kibbutz Yagur were killed by members of a local Arab gang.
  • August - Demonstrations in Nablus against the storing of weapons in isolated Jewish settlements are broken up by police baton charges.
  • November 18 - Second British census of the population of Mandatory Palestine.[43]
  • November 20 - Sir Arthur Wauchope becomes High Commissioner.
  • December 16 - The Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husseini, chairs a Muslim Congress in Jerusalem which is attended by 145 delegates from all parts of the Islamic world.[44]

1932

The Congress Executive of Nationalist Youth established.

1933

  • The Nazi Party comes to power in Germany.
  • October 27 - Following the discovery in Jaffa harbour of a large shipment of weapons destined for an address in Tel Aviv the Arab Executive calls a general strike. A demonstration in Jaffa led by the president of the Executive, Musa al-Husayni, turns into a riot in which a crowd of several thousand attacked the small force of policemen, who responded with baton charges and gunfire. 26 demonstrators and one policeman were killed. Amongst the 187 injured was 80-year-old Musa al-Husayni, who never recovered and died the following year. There followed six weeks of rioting in all the major towns in which 24 civilians are killed. The disorders were suppressed by the police, not the army. They are different from earlier disturbances in that the targets were British Government institutions rather than Jews.[45][46]
  • November 25 - All the major Palestinian Arab political parties, with the exception of
    Istiqlal, address a memo to the High Commissioner calling for democratic government, prohibition of the sale of Arab land to Jews, and the cessation of Jewish immigration.[47]

1934

1935

  • Jewish Agency
    .
  • March 27 - Palestine Arab Party established.
  • June 23 -
    Reform Party
    established.
  • October 5 -
    National Bloc
    established.
  • October - The
    New Zionist Organisation
    .
  • November 20 - Izz ad-Din al-Qassam is killed by the British.

1936

  • April 15 - Following the murder of 3 Jews in a robbery incident near Tulkarm, 2 Arabs are murdered near Petah Tikva.
  • April 17 - During the funeral in Tel Aviv of one of the Jewish victims serious rioting breaks out in which 3 Jews are murdered. The Mandate authorities bring in Emergency Regulations by proclamation and curfews are imposed across Mandatory Palestine.[49]
  • April 20 - An Arab National Committee is formed in Nablus, subsequently other committees are formed in all the Arab towns and villages.
  • April 21 - Five main Palestinian Arab political parties call for a general strike.
  • April 25 -
    Istiqlal
    and is led by Haj Amin al-Husseini. The committee calls for the strike to continue indefinitely.
  • May 6 - A meeting of the National Committees in Jerusalem announces a tax strike.
  • May 11 - British army reinforcements arrive from Egypt and Malta.
  • May/June - Jaffa port is closed, there are sporadic attacks on the railways and Jewish settlements. Armed bands appear in the hill country.
  • June 17 to 29 - large areas of Jaffa demolished by British Army.
  • August - Attempts by
    Nuri Pasha fail to calm the situation in Mandatory Palestine. There is an increase in the number of attacks on Palestinian Jews, and on the oil pipeline and the railways. In mid-August Jewish acts of retaliation begin.[50]
  • August 25 - Fawzi al-Qawuqji enters Mandatory Palestine with 150 volunteer Arab fighters.[51]

September 7 - An additional division of British troops arrives. General Dill becomes supreme military commander.

  • September 22 - The British army launches an offensive against Arab rebels.
  • October 11 -
    King Ghazi
    appeal to the Arab Higher Committee to call off the strike.
  • November - The Arab Higher Committee calls an end to the strike. Casualty figures taken from hospital records give the number of people killed during the six months of disturbances as: 195 Arabs, 80 Jews, 21 Army, 16 Police and Frontier Police, and 2 non-Arab Christians. In addition over 1,000 Arab rebels were killed.[52]

1937

1938

  • April – August: The Woodhead Commission reverses the Peel Commission's findings, considers two alternative partition plans, known as Plan B (map) and Plan C (map), and reports in November that partition was impracticable.[56]
  • October 2 -
    Tiberias massacre. Arab rioters kill 19 Jews, including 11 children, and set fire to synagogues and Jewish homes.[57]

1939

  • February – March 17 - The
    St. James Conference
    ends without reaching an agreement.
  • May 17 - The White Paper of 1939 calls for the creation of a unified Palestinian state. Even though the White Paper states its commitment to the Balfour Declaration, it imposed very substantial limits to both Jewish immigration (restricting it to only 75,000 over the next 5 years), and Jewish ability to purchase land.
  • June 19 - Twenty Arabs were killed by Jews who mounted explosives on a donkey at a marketplace in Haifa.
  • June 29 - Thirteen Arabs were killed in multiple shootings during a one-hour period.
  • September 1 - The Second World War erupts. The Haganah begins the smuggling of Jews from Europe to Mandatory Palestine to provide refuge from the
    Jewish exodus from Arab countries
    begins. Most Jewish and Arab Palestinian militant groups attain the policy of cease fire with each other and with the British.

1940

  • Lehi
    (also known as the Stern Gang) – the most radical Jewish organization splits from Irgun.

1941

  • October 11 - The exiled Arab Palestinian leader Haj Amin al-Husseini arrives in Rome with an attempt to form close ties with the Axis powers. al-Husseini meets Benito Mussolini.
  • November 27 - al-Husseini arrives in Germany for a meeting with
    Nazis
    and reach Palestine.

1942

  • Biltmore Conference, New York - for the first time, Zionists call for an independent state instead of a national home - cannot rely on Britain.
  • February 12 - Avraham Stern leader of the extremist Lehi group shot dead by British police whilst being arrested.
  • August 2 - British form the Palestine Regiment, consisted of 3 Jewish and 1 Arab battalions, which assist the British forces in North Africa against the Axis.

1944

1945

  • May 8 - Nazi Germany surrendered to the Allies. Haj Amin al-Husseini is imprisoned by the French, but eventually escapes to Egypt.
  • Arab League formed to strengthen political, cultural, social, and economic goals of members, and to mediate disputes. Later added military defense coordination.

1946

1947

  • February 18 - Great Britain announces intention to hand the Mandate to the United Nations.
  • March 1–17 -
    LHI launched large scale attacks against British targets. Twenty British personnel were killed on the 1 March. In total, 15 British soldiers and 15 civilians were killed and 60 British soldiers and 30 civilians were wounded from 1 March to 13 March.[58][59]
  • May 15 - United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) is created.[60]
  • September 3 - The majority of the members of UNSCOP, in Chapter VI of its report to UNGA, proposes the partition of Palestine into "an independent Arab State, an independent Jewish State, and the City of Jerusalem".[61]
  • November 19 - the Shubaki family assassination - the Lehi execute five members of the Shubaki family, having suspected one of the family to have been an informant for the British police
  • November 29 - With a two-thirds majority vote, the
    plan to partition the British Mandate of Palestine into "Independent Arab and Jewish States" and a "Special International Regime for the City of Jerusalem" administered by the United Nations.[62]
  • November 30 - Following the vote on the
    "Civil war"
    .
  • November 30 - the Fajja bus attacks
  • December 2–5 - 1947 Jerusalem riots. The Arab Higher Committee declared a strike and public protest of the vote. Arabs marching to Zion Square on December 2 were stopped by the British, and the Arabs instead turned towards the commercial center of the City where many buildings and shops were attacked. Violence continued for two more days, with Arabs and Jewish attacking each other. 70 Jews and 50 Arabs are killed.
  • December 30 - Haifa Oil Refinery massacre. Irgun militants hurl two bombs into a crowd of Arab workers from a passing vehicle, killing 6 workers and wounding 42, damaging the relative peace between the two groups in Haifa. Later that day the Arab crowd protested and broke into the refinery compound, killing 39 Jews and wounding 49. Skirmishes continued in Haifa and around the region.
  • December 31 - January 1 - Balad al-Shaykh massacre. The Palmach, an arm of the Haganah, attacked the town while the residents were asleep, firing from the slopes of Mount Carmel, in retaliation for the killing of 39 Jews during the Haifa Oil Refinery massacre the day before, 30 December 1947.

1948

  • January 4 - Lehi set off a truck bomb outside Jaffa's Town Hall, killing 26 civilians.
  • January 6 - Semiramis Hotel bombing carried out by Haganah.
  • January 16 - 35 members of the Haganah killed attempting to carry supplies across country to Kfar Etzion.
  • Winter and Spring - "Battle of the Roads". The Arab League sponsored Arab Liberation Army, composed of Palestinian Arabs and Arabs from other Middle Eastern countries, attacked Jewish communities in Mandatory Palestine, and Jewish traffic on major roads.
  • February 14 - 60 Arab villagers are killed by Palmach at Sa'sa'. Palmach sources report a battle with major casualties.
  • February 22 - In an operation organized by Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni with the help of British deserters, bombs placed in stolen British vehicles were exploded beside the Atlantic and Amdursky Hotels in Ben Yehuda Street, Jerusalem, which housed Palmach troops. However the troops were away on operations and almost all of the 58 dead and 32 seriously wounded were civilians. During the following week, Irgun and Lehi fighters killed 44 British troops and police in revenge.[63]
  • By late March 1948, the vital road that connected
    siege
    .
  • March 27 - 47 members of a Haganah convoy killed near the village of al-Kabri.
  • April 6 -
    al-Qastal, an important roadside town 2 kilometers west of Deir Yassin
    .
  • April 9 - Deir Yassin massacre. Around 120 fighters from Irgun and Lehi Zionist paramilitary groups attacked Deir Yassin near Jerusalem, a Palestinian Arab village of roughly 600 people. The assault occurred as Jewish militia sought to relieve Arab siege of Jews in Jerusalem. Around 107 villagers were killed during and after the battle for the village, including women and children—some were shot, while others died when hand grenades were thrown into their homes. 4 among the Irgun and Lehi forces were killed too.
  • April 13 - Hadassah medical convoy massacre. Claimed as retribution for the Deir Yassin massacre, Arab protesters attack a large convoy, mostly of unarmed Jewish doctors, and some military personnel set off carrying patients, equipment, and supplies, travel from Jerusalem to the besieged hospital which treated the majority of Jewish residents in Jerusalem. 79 Jews are killed. Road attacks continue and convoys were unable to reach the hospital for a week.
  • April 22 - Operation Yiftach launched, leading to the conquest of northeastern Galilee between the Lebanese and Syrian frontiers.
  • April 23 - Arab quarters of Haifa taken by the Haganah.
  • May 13 - Kfar Etzion massacre was an act committed by Arab forces, after the surrender of the Jewish village to Arab Legion. Out of 133 Jewish villagers and defenders, 129 were murdered in the massacre,[64] 4 survived. Bodies were left unburied until January 1949. 320 prisoners from the Etzion settlements were taken to the "Jordan POW camp at Mafrak", including 85 women.[65]

Aftermath

References

  1. Jewish Agency. Archived from the original
    on 2010-09-22. Retrieved 2012-12-27.
  2. ^ . In 1897, the year of the first Zionist Congress, a commission was set up in Jerusalem to scrutinise land sales to Jews... the commission effectively halted land sales to Jews in the Mutasarriflik for the next few years. Thus, when the Jewish Colonization Association (JCA — an organisation founded by Baron Maurice de Hirsch in 1891 and un-connected with the Zionist Movement) began to interest itself in Palestine in 1896, it very quickly discovered that the possibilities of buying land were wider in the north of the country... The breakthrough, from JCA's point of view, came in 1901 when the Council of Ministers ruled that JCA's President, Narcisse Leven, could, as a foreigner, buy land in the Vilayet of Beirut under the Ottoman Land Code of 1867, provided that he undertook not to install foreign Jews on it. The very fact that this concession could be granted shortly after the 1901 regulations went into force points to another weakness in the Government's handling of its own policy. Under this concession, JCA acquired 31,500 dunams of land near Tiberias in the early part of 1901, mainly from the Sursuq family of Beirut.
  3. ^ Khalidi. Diaspora. p.38
  4. ^ Beska, Emanuel (2014). "Political Opposition to Zionism in Palestine and Greater Syria: 1910–1911 as a Turning Point". Institute for Palestine Studies. Retrieved 2021-11-26.
  5. ^ Choueiri, pp.166–168.
  6. . Retrieved 14 October 2014.
  7. ^ La Guardia, Anton (2002). War without end: Israelis, Palestinians, and the struggle for a promised land. Macmillan. p. 113.
  8. ^ UK National Archives CAB 27/24, EC-41.
  9. ^ Memorandum by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Lord Halifax), January 1939, UK National Archives, CAB 24/282, CP 19 (39).
  10. .
  11. ^ Isaiah Friedman,Palestine: A Twice-Promised Land? The British, the Arabs & Zionism, 1915–1920, Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick and London, 2000 vol. 1 pp. 239–40
  12. ^ Eliezer Tauber, The Formation of Modern Iraq and Syria, Routledge, London 1994 pp. 79ff., esp. 96ff.
  13. ^ a b Cmd. 5479, 1937, p. 28.
  14. ^ a b c Cmd. 5479, 1937, p. 29.
  15. .
  16. ^ Wasserstein, 1991, pp. 59–60.
  17. ^ a b Wasserstein, 1991, p. 60.
  18. p. 349
  19. . p.17
  20. ^ Safarix.com Archived 11 February 2007 at the Wayback Machine, pg. 49
  21. ^ Kenneth W. Stein, The Land Question in Palestine, 1917–1939, UNC Press Books, 1987 p.60.
  22. ^ Barbara Jean Smith, The Roots of Separatism in Palestine: British Economic Policy, 1920–1929, Syracuse University Press, 1993 pp.96–97;
  23. ^ ESCO Foundation (1947), Palestine – A Study Of Jewish Arab And British Policies, vol. II, Yale University Press
  24. ^ Hadawi, Sami (1970). Village Statistics, 1945: A Classification of Land and Area Ownership in Palestine, with Explanatory Notes. PLO Research Center.
  25. ^ List of villages sold by Sursocks and their partners to the Zionists since British occupation of Palestine, evidence to the Shaw Commission, 1930, p.1074, exhibit 71
  26. ^ "Buying the Emek by Arthur Ruppin, 1929 (with an introduction)". Zionism-israel.com. Retrieved 24 March 2013.
  27. ^ The above two books are quoted in
    David Gilmour
    : Dispossessed: the Ordeal of the Palestinians. Sphere Books, Great Britain, 1983, pp. 44–45.
  28. . p.573
  29. ^ Report of the Commission of Enquiry into the disturbances in Palestine in May, 1921, with correspondence relating thereto (Disturbances), 1921, Cmd. 1540, p. 60.
  30. ^ a b Khalidi. Remains. p.573
  31. ^ Nicosia, Francis R. "Hajj Amin al-Husayni: The Mufti of Jerusalem." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. May 20, 2008. June 17, 2008.
  32. ^ Survey. p.18
  33. ^ Survey. p.19
  34. ^ Survey. p.21
  35. ^ Cmd. 5479, 1937, p. 37.
  36. ^ Survey. pp.21,22
  37. ^ Cmd. 5479, 1937, p. 43.
  38. ^ a b Survey p.22
  39. . p.197
  40. .
  41. ^ Survey. p.24
  42. ^ "United Nations Maintenance Page". maintenance.un.org. Retrieved 2022-03-28.
  43. ^ Khalidi. Diaspora. p.90
  44. ^ Survey. p, 30
  45. ^ Survey. pp.31,32
  46. . pp.193.194,199
  47. ^ Survey. p.33
  48. ^ Khalidi. Diaspora. p.91
  49. ^ Survey. p.35
  50. ^ Survey. p.37
  51. ^ Khalidi. Remains. p.574
  52. ^ Survey. p.38
  53. ^ William Roger Louis, Ends of British Imperialism: The Scramble for Empire, Suez, and Decolonization, 2006, p.391
  54. ^ Benny Morris, One state, two states:resolving the Israel/Palestine conflict, 2009, p. 66
  55. ^ Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, p. 48; p. 11 "while the Zionist movement, after much agonising, accepted the principle of partition and the proposals as a basis for negotiation"; p. 49 "In the end, after bitter debate, the Congress equivocally approved –by a vote of 299 to 160 – the Peel recommendations as a basis for further negotiation."
  56. ^ "Britain Drops Partition, Maps Peace Parleys; Agency Rejects Woodhead Report As Talks Basis". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. 1938-11-10. Retrieved 2016-09-03.
  57. ^ "League of Nations Archives". Archived from the original on 2019-06-08. Retrieved 2013-10-11.
  58. ^ Motti Golini, Palestine Between Politics and Terror, 1945-1947], Brandeis University Press, 2013, p.192.
  59. ^ Haim Levenberg, [Military Preparations of the Arab Community in Palestine, 1945-1948], Psychology Press, 1993, pp.83-84.
  60. ^ A/RES/106 (S-1) Archived 2012-08-06 at the Wayback Machine of 15 May 1947 General Assembly Resolution 106 Constituting the UNSCOP
  61. ^ UNSCOP Report Archived 2012-06-10 at the Wayback Machine. Doc.nr. A/364 d.d. 3 September 1947
  62. ^ A/RES/181(II) of 29 November 1947". United Nations. 1947. Retrieved 30 December 2012
  63. ^ Benny Morris. 1948 : The First Arab-Israel War. Yale University Press. pp. 107–108.
  64. ^ James Cameron, (British journalist), "The making of Israel", published by Martin Secker & Warburgh Ltd, 1976. SBN 436 08230 6. Page 51. "Seventy Jews were killed, many of them after surrendering, many of them finished off most barbarously by Arab villagers instructed by legionaries."
  65. . Page 130. Out of a total of 670 prisoners released.