The end of the British Mandate for Palestine was formally made by way of the Palestine bill of 29 April 1948. [1] A public statement prepared by the Colonial and Foreign offices confirmed termination of British responsibility for the administration of Palestine from midnight on 14 May 1948. [2] [3]
Mandatory Palestine was created at the end of the First World War out of the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. In 1920 Britain was awarded the mandate for Palestine by the League of Nations, to administer until such time as the territory was "able to stand alone". [4] The 1939 White Paper provided for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state within 10 years. [5] As explained by Malcolm MacDonald to the 1939 meeting of the Permanent Mandates Commission it was not clear at that stage what form such a state would take. [6] [lower-alpha 1]
The February 1945 Yalta Conference agreed that arrangements would be made to provide for UN trusteeships for existing League Mandates. [7]
In July 1945, the Harrison Report was published, [8] [lower-alpha 2] describing the conditions of the displaced persons camps in post-World War II Europe.
In October 1945, then Foreign Secretary Bevin told the cabinet that Britain intended to turn over the Palestine problem to the UN except that Britain would be accused of evading its responsibilities if it did not first make some efforts of its own in resolving the situation. [9]
The League of Nations at its last meeting on 18 April 1946 agreed to liquidate and transfer all of its assets to the UN. [10] The assembly also passed a resolution approving and welcoming the intention of the British government to grant independence to Transjordan. [11] [12]
The report of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry was published 20 April 1946. [13]
That part of the mandate in respect of Transjordan legally ended on 17 June 1946 with the ratification of the Treaty of London. [14]
In July 1946, a committee created to establish how the Anglo-American proposals would be implemented proposed the Morrison–Grady Plan.
Following the failure of the 1946–1947 London Conference on Palestine, at which the United States refused to support the British leading to both the Morrison–Grady Plan and the Bevin Plan being rejected by all parties, the British decided to refer the question to the UN on 14 February 1947. [15] [lower-alpha 3]
The United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) was created on 15 May 1947, reported on 3 September 1947 and on 29 November 1947, the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine was passed. It recommended that the Mandate terminate as soon as possible and not later than 1 August 1948. [16]
Two weeks later, on 11 December, Colonial Secretary Arthur Creech Jones announced that the British Mandate would terminate on 15 May 1948. [17] [lower-alpha 4]
The British requested that the Palestine question be placed on the agenda of the Second Regular Session of the General Assembly and that a Special Session be convened to constitute a Special Committee to prepare for Assembly consideration of the subject. The First Special Session of the General Assembly met between 28 April and 15 May 1947 to consider the British request. An attempt by the five Arab members of the UN (Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Syria) to add an item to the agenda addressing the "termination of the Mandate over Palestine and the declaration of its independence" was unsuccessful. [19]
Following the publication of the UNSCOP report, the Ad Hoc Committee on the Palestinian Question was formed by a vote of the Second Regular Session of the General Assembly on 24 September 1947.
Regulations governing land transfers and clauses relating to immigration were implemented although by 1944, 24,000 of 75,000 immigration certificates still remained for use. The immigration limits were relaxed to allow immigration at the rate of 18,000 a year as a reaction to the situation of Jewish refugees in Europe. [20]
With the end of the war, the new Labour Government, led by Clement Attlee, with Ernest Bevin as Foreign Secretary, decided to maintain the White Paper policy.
Immediately after the UN resolution, the 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine broke out between the Arab and Jewish communities. On the last day of the Mandate, the creation of the State of Israel was proclaimed, and the 1948 Arab–Israeli War began. In March 1948, the British Cabinet had agreed that the civil and military authorities in Palestine should make no effort to oppose the setting up of a Jewish State or a move into Palestine from Transjordan. [21]
Sir Henry Gurney served as Chief Secretary in Palestine from October 1946 to termination and wrote a diary covering the period. [22] A review by historian Rory Miller speaks approvingly of editor Golani's decision to include detailed scholarly annotations and perspectives to the diary. [23]
On 22 March 1945, the Arab league was founded. The Arab Higher Committee (AHC) was reconstituted in November 1945 to represent Palestinian Arabs [24] and met at the beginning of May 1946 to consider their response to the publication of the Anglo American report. [25] The Arab states reacted with summit meetings at Inshas at the end of May and Bloudan in June. [26] After the failure of the London Conference and UN referral the Arabs continued to press their demand for an immediate independent Arab Palestine. [27]
Abdullah had connections with Zionists and Palestine over many years, according to an account given by historian Mary Wilson. [28] Historians have described a meeting between Abdullah and the Jewish Agency on 17 November 1947 during which Abdullah is alleged to have reached an understanding in regard to Abdullah's intent to occupy the Arab territories of the partition plan. [29] [30] [31] Following the end of the mandate, the Jordanian Arab Legion, under the leadership of Sir John Bagot Glubb, known as Glubb Pasha, was ordered to enter Palestine and secure the UN designated Arab area. [32]
In May 1942, the Biltmore Conference in New York City with 600 delegates and Zionist leaders from 18 countries attending, demands "that Palestine be established as a Jewish Commonwealth" (state), rather than a "homeland". [33]
At the end of August 1945, U.S. President Harry Truman issues a statement requesting the British government to admit 100,000 Jewish refugees in Europe into Palestine. [34] On 14 May 1948, the United States de facto recognized the provisional Jewish government contemporaneously declared (de jure recognition on 31 January 1949).
Law professor Shabtai Rosenne says that there is no clear answer as to why the British took this step and lists miscalculation as well as political and military fatigue among others. [35] Ravndal cites works from the 1980s establishing that the British were motivated by "economic necessity and plain exhaustion" but then goes on to posit that the British were motivated by a Cold War desire to secure Britain's interests in the rest of the Middle East. [15] A summary of different views is given by Benny Morris. [24] : 38
Mandates were intended to end with the independence of the Mandated territory. The British government had taken the position that there was nothing in law to prevent termination due to frustration of purpose. [36] In the event, the UNSCOP report recommended both that the Mandate be terminated and independence granted at the earliest practicable dates with a transition period between these events. [16]
The United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine was a proposal by the United Nations, which recommended a partition of Mandatory Palestine at the end of the British Mandate. On 29 November 1947, the UN General Assembly adopted the Plan as Resolution 181 (II).
The Emirate of Transjordan, officially known as the Amirate of Trans-Jordan, was a British protectorate established on 11 April 1921, which remained as such until achieving formal independence in 1946.
Abdullah I bin Al-Hussein was the ruler of Jordan from 11 April 1921 until his assassination in 1951. He was the Emir of Transjordan, a British protectorate, until 25 May 1946, after which he was king of an independent Jordan. As a member of the Hashemite dynasty, the royal family of Jordan since 1921, Abdullah was a 38th-generation direct descendant of Muhammad.
The White Paper of 1939 was a policy paper issued by the British government, led by Neville Chamberlain, in response to the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine. After its formal approval in the House of Commons on 23 May 1939, it acted as the governing policy for Mandatory Palestine from 1939 to the 1948 British departure. After the war, the Mandate was referred to the United Nations.
The Jordanian annexation of the West Bank formally occurred on 24 April 1950, after the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, during which Transjordan occupied territory previously part of Mandatory Palestine and, excluding Jerusalem, earmarked by the UN General Assembly Resolution 181 of 29 November 1947 for an independent Arab state to be established there alongside a Jewish state mainly to its west. The annexation tripled the population of Transjordan, from 400,000 to 1,300,000.
The Arab League was formed in Cairo on 22 March 1945 with six members: Egypt, Iraq, Transjordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. Yemen joined on 5 May 1945. Since its formation the Arab League has promoted the Palestinian Arab cause in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, including by imposing the Arab League boycott of Israel. The Arab League opposed the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine in 1947. On 15 May 1948, the then seven Arab League members coordinated an invasion of what was by then the former British Mandate, marking the start of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.
The Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry was a joint British and American committee assembled in Washington, D.C., on 4 January 1946. The committee was tasked to examine political, economic and social conditions in Mandatory Palestine and the well-being of the peoples now living there; to consult representatives of Arabs and Jews, and to make other recommendations 'as may be necessary' to for ad interim handling of these problems as well as for their permanent solution. The report, entitled "Report of the Anglo-American Committee of Enquiry Regarding the Problems of European Jewry and Palestine", was published in Lausanne on 20 April 1946.
A successful paramilitary campaign was carried out by Zionist underground groups against British rule in Mandatory Palestine from 1944 to 1948. The tensions between the Zionist underground and the British mandatory authorities rose from 1938 and intensified with the publication of the White Paper of 1939. The Paper outlined new government policies to place further restrictions on Jewish immigration and land purchases, and declared the intention of giving independence to Palestine, with an Arab majority, within ten years. Though World War II brought relative calm, tensions again escalated into an armed struggle towards the end of the war, when it became clear that the Axis powers were close to defeat.
Naharayim, historically the Jisr Majami area, where the Yarmouk River flows into the Jordan River, was named by the Palestine Electric Company in a letter dated 27 February 1929 to Palestine Railways giving "proper names" to the "different quarters of our Jordan Works" one of these being the "works as a whole including the labour camp" to be called "Naharaim" and another being the site of the "Power House and the adjoining staff quarters, offices" to be called Tel Or. Most of the plant was situated in the Emirate of Transjordan and stretched from the northern canal near the Ashdot Ya'akov in Northern Mandatory Palestine to the Jisr el-Majami in the south.
The Mandate for Palestine was a League of Nations mandate for British administration of the territories of Palestine and Transjordan, both of which had been conceded by the Ottoman Empire following the end of World War I in 1918. The mandate was assigned to Britain by the San Remo conference in April 1920, after France's concession in the 1918 Clemenceau–Lloyd George Agreement of the previously-agreed "international administration" of Palestine under the Sykes–Picot Agreement. Transjordan was added to the mandate after the Arab Kingdom in Damascus was toppled by the French in the Franco-Syrian War. Civil administration began in Palestine and Transjordan in July 1920 and April 1921, respectively, and the mandate was in force from 29 September 1923 to 15 May 1948 and to 25 May 1946 respectively.
Mandatory Palestine was a geopolitical entity established between 1920 and 1948 in the region of Palestine under the terms of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine.
The All-Palestine Government was established on 22 September 1948, during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, to govern the Egyptian-controlled territory in Gaza, which Egypt had on the same day declared as the All-Palestine Protectorate. It was confirmed by the Arab League and recognised by six of the then seven Arab League members, with Transjordan being the exception. Though it claimed jurisdiction over the whole of the former Mandatory Palestine, its effective jurisdiction was limited to the All-Palestine Protectorate, which came to be called the Gaza Strip. The President of the protectorate was Hajj Amin al-Husseini, former chairman of the Arab Higher Committee, and the Prime Minister was Ahmed Hilmi Pasha. The legislative body was the All-Palestine National Council.
The Arab Higher Committee or the Higher National Committee was the central political organ of the Arab Palestinians in Mandatory Palestine. It was established on 25 April 1936, on the initiative of Haj Amin al-Husayni, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, and comprised the leaders of Palestinian Arab clans and political parties under the mufti's chairmanship. The committee was outlawed by the British Mandatory administration in September 1937 after the assassination of a British official.
This is a timeline of intercommunal conflict in Mandatory Palestine.
The United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) was created on 15 May 1947 in response to a United Kingdom government request that the General Assembly "make recommendations under article 10 of the Charter, concerning the future government of Palestine". The British government had also recommended the establishment of a special committee to prepare a report for the General Assembly. The General Assembly adopted the recommendation to set up the UNSCOP to investigate the cause of the conflict in Palestine, and, if possible, devise a solution. UNSCOP was made up of representatives of 11 countries. UNSCOP visited Palestine and gathered testimony from Zionist organisations in Palestine and in the US. The Arab Higher Committee boycotted the commission, explaining that the Palestinian Arabs' natural rights were self-evident and could not continue to be subject to investigation, but rather deserved to be recognized on the basis of the principles of the United Nations Charter.
The 1948 Palestine war was fought in the territory of what had been, at the start of the war, British-ruled Mandatory Palestine. It is known in Israel as the War of Independence and in Arabic as a central component of the Nakba. It is the first war of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and the broader Arab–Israeli conflict. During the war, the British terminated the Mandate and withdrew, ending a period of rule which began in 1917, during the First World War. Beforehand, the area had been part of the Ottoman Empire. In May 1948, the State of Israel was established by the Jewish Yishuv, its creation having been declared on the last day of the Mandate. During the war, around 700,000 Palestinian Arabs were displaced.
The Morrison–Grady Plan, also known as the Morrison Plan or the Provincial Autonomy Plan was a joint Anglo-American plan announced on 31 July 1946 for the creation of a unitary federal trusteeship in Mandatory Palestine.
The London Conference of 1946–1947, which took place between September 1946 and February 1947, was called by the British Government of Clement Attlee to resolve the future governance of Palestine and negotiate an end of the Mandate. It was scheduled following an Arab request after the April 1946 Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry report.
The Bevin Plan, also described as the Bevin–Beeley Plan was Britain's final attempt in the mid-20th century to solve the troubled situation that had developed between Arabs and Jewish people in Mandatory Palestine.
The Ad Hoc Committee on the Palestinian Question, also known as the Ad Hoc Committee on Palestine or just the Ad Hoc Committee was a committee formed by a vote of the United Nations General Assembly on 23 September 1947, following the publication of the report of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) on 3 September 1947, which contained majority and minority proposals.
The Assembly...Recalls the role of the League in assisting Iraq to progress from its status under an "A" Mandate to a condition of complete independence, welcomes the termination of the mandated status of Syria, the Lebanon, and Transjordan, which have, since the last session of the Assembly, become independent members of the world community.
In order to try and mitigate these fears and to alleviate some of the ill-will that was disrupting US– UK relations in the wake of the Harrison Report, in November 1945 the British government set up the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Palestine (AACI) to investigate Harrison's claims.
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Works related to United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 at Wikisource