Flashcards
Chapter 2 - The final years of the British mandate in Palestine 1945-8
Cards in this deck (16)
- 1What did the British announce in 1945?No change in their policy in Palestine:
- no major increase in immigration
- no separate Jewish state. - 2How did Zionists react? What was the climate at the time?Nazi holocaust - 6 million Jews killed
No patience
Determined
International support
August 1945 - Zionist conference
Active opposition to British rule in Palestine
Haganah co-operation with Irgun and Stern Gang.
Zionists turned to US support (4.5 million Jewish Americans) - 3What was the Biltmore Declaration?May 1942
American Zionist conference declared support for a 'Jewish commonwealth' in all of Palestine. - 4What did Harry Truman call for in April 1946?British government to allow the immediate entry of 100,000 Jewish refugees to Palestine.
- 5List the different acts of Jewish terrorism towards the British in Palestine.Attacked British forces in retaliation for death sentences passed on Jewish fighters.
April 1946 - 6 British soldiers were murdered in one incident.
July 1946 - King David Hotel, housed British military headquarters in Palestine.
Irgun dressed as Arabs, milk carton explosives.
Killed 88 people, 15 Jews.
February 1947 - 20 British soldiers killed in the officers' club in Jerusalem.
Summer of 1947 - Hanging of two British soldiers in revenge for the execution of three Irgun members. - 6Reasons British handed over Palestine to the UN in May 1948.Opposition by the Jews
Pressure
Worldwide criticism
Exhaustion from the war
(food shortages, rationing at home)
Could not afford to keep 100,000 troops and police in Palestine. - 7What did the UN partition of November 1947 entail?UNSCOP investivation
UN General Assembly November acceptance
Divide Palestine and set up both a Jewish and Arab state.
55% Jewish territory.
Jerusalem - International zone - 8What was the Arab response?Rejected it
Unjust - Jews were given a larger area
Many of the Palestinian cities contained large Arab majorities
like Haifa and Jaffa
that were allocated to the Jewish state - 9What was the Jewish response?Officially accepted
Wanted Jerusalem included in the Jewish state
Jewish settlements were included in the Arab state - 10What happened when the UN voted for partition?Arab Higher Committee proclaimed a three day-strike.
Outbreaks of violence against Jewish civilians.
Jewish Agency and its forces ready to respond. - 11Civil war in Palestine, November 1947 to May 1948. List main events.The Jews soon gained control of land allocated to the Arabs and roads that lead to them.
Palestinian Arabs had no military force and leaders were divided.
Jews in Palestine were united.
In 1948 - soldiers from Syria and Iraq crossed into Palestine to help.
March - Plan D
February 1948 - Many Palestinian elite left Palestine.
Heightened insecurity within the Arab masses.
April 1948 - Jewish forces began the forcible expulsion of Arabs from villages.
Nearly all villages along the coast from Tel Aviv to Haifa were cleared of their Arab populations.
Jewish forces took over mixed Jewish-Arab towns like Jaffa and Haifa.
In Haifa, explosions were set off by Jewish forces in Arab areas, nearly all of the Arab population of 100,000 fled.
April 1948 - Deir Yassin was part of Arab territory under UN plan but it was the last village on the western side of Jerusalem whose Arab inhabitants had not fled.
9th April - Irgun fighters attacked the village and killed 245 inhabitants. - 12By the 14th May 1948, when British finally withdrew from Palestine, how many Arab fled from the new Jewish state?300,000.
- 13Did the Palestinians leave voluntarily or were they expelled? What is the Zionist interpretation?Jewish military actions after November 1947 were largely defensive.
Designed to defend Jewish settlements and the roads linking them.
Jewish forces keen on opening roads to Jerusalem where 2500 Jews lived. - 14Did the Palestinians leave voluntarily or were they expelled? What was the Zionist interpretation?Jewish military actions after November 1947 were largely defensive.
Designed to defend Jewish settlements and roads linking them.
Keen on opening road to Jerusalem where 2500 Jews were living.
Arabs left because they felt they would be able to return with invading Arab armies when the British left and the state of Israel came into existence.
Arabs left because leaders called on them to leave in press and radio, assuring them that they would be able to return with conquering Arab armies and reclaim their property and their livelihoods. - 15Did the Palestinians leave voluntarily or were they expelled? What was the Revisionist interpretation?The Palestinians were expelled
The Haganah and Jewish forces condoned and turned a blind eye to some of the operations carried out by Irgun and Stern Gang.
The Jewish Agency did reprimand the perpetrators of the Deir Yassin massacre but the effect of the massacre was to make tens of thousands more Palestinians flee from surrounding Arab villages in the few weeks between the massacre and proclamation of the state of Israel. - 16What was Plan D?The expulsion of as many Arabs.
Take over any installations evacuated by the British, especially military bases.
'Paved way for the ethnic cleansing operation in Palestine' Historian Ilan Pappe.
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- Description
- This chapter focuses on the final years of British rule in Palestine, particularly on why, and with what effects, the British decided to hand over responsibility for Palestine to the United Nations. It explains how the plan to divide Palestine into Arab and Jewish states led to a civil war during which 300,000 Arabs left the land that was to become the state of Israel.
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- Karima Ranieri
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