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314 seats in the Assembly of Representatives | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
This lists parties that won seats. See the complete results below.
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The first elections to the Assembly of Representatives in Mandatory Palestine were held amongst members of the Jewish community on 19 April 1920, except in Jerusalem where voting took place on 3 May. Ahdut HaAvoda led by David Ben-Gurion emerged as the largest party, winning 70 of the 314 seats.
Following the British conquest of Ottoman Palestine in 1917, Jewish leaders met in Petah Tikva on 17 November to discuss the formation of a representative convention. [1] After Jerusalem fell to the British, another convention was held, this time in Jaffa, to discuss the establishment of an organisation for the Jews of Palestine. [2] A committee was formed with the mandate to hold elections to a Constituent Assembly. [2]
With northern Palestine still held by the Ottomans, a second convention was held in Jaffa in July 1918 and elections were scheduled to be held by the end of 1918. [2] However, after the armistice was signed in November, delegates were required to represent Palestinian Jews at the peace conference. [2] A third convention was held in Jaffa on 18 December, to which every settlement, community and political party were invited. [2] Chaim Weizmann and Nahum Sokolow were chosen to represent the community at the peace conference. [2]
The elections were then postponed several times, [3] before they were fixed for 26 October 1919. [4] However, they were postponed again as Weizmann was worried that internal divisions would weaken the Jewish negotiating position. [4] The date was finally set for 19 April 1920 after it was confirmed that the British would have the Mandate for Palestine. [4]
At the first meeting in Jaffa, it was decided that the election would be held using secret balloting, and would be direct. [2] However, no agreement was made on women's suffrage. [2] The second meeting confirmed that men and women over the age of 21 would be entitled to vote, although the issue of women candidates remained unresolved. [2] The issue was raised at the third Jaffa convention, and despite opposition from Orthodox Jews, it was decided that women would be allowed to stand as candidates. [2] However, ultimately the Orthodox held separate elections in Jerusalem on 3 May, from which women were banned from participating. [4]
Voters elected one member for every 80 voters, except for the Orthodox, who elected one for every 40 voters on the basis that women were banned from their vote. [4] A total of 263 delegates were elected in the general voting, and another 51 by Orthodox voters. [4]
Around 22,000 of the 26,000 registered voters participated in the election. [4]
 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Party | Seats | |
| Ahdut HaAvoda | 70 | |
| Histadrut HaSephardim | 54 | |
| Haredi Party | 53 | |
| Hapoel Hatzair | 41 | |
| Histadrut HaIkarim | 16 | |
| Advanced Party | 13 | |
| Yemenite Association | 12 | |
| Mizrachi | 9 | |
| Unnamed Group | 7 | |
| Craftsmen's Centre | 6 | |
| Women's Union | 5 | |
| Bukharan Jews | 5 | |
| Clerk's Union | 5 | |
| Youth of Israel Union | 4 | |
| Citizen's Union | 3 | |
| Mizrahi Youth Union | 2 | |
| Georgian Jews | 1 | |
| Maccabi Union | 1 | |
| Independents | 7 | |
| Total | 314 | |
The Assembly met for the first time on 7 October 1920, and voted to admit the 51 Orthodox representatives. [4] It also elected the Jewish National Council to serve as an executive committee. [4]
The Balfour Declaration was a public statement issued by the British government in 1917 during the First World War announcing support for the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine, then an Ottoman region with a small minority Jewish population. The declaration was contained in a letter dated 2 November 1917 from the United Kingdom's Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Lord Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish community, for transmission to the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland. The text of the declaration was published in the press on 9 November 1917.
The Land of Israel, also known as the Holy Land or Palestine, is the birthplace of the Jewish people, the place where the final form of the Hebrew Bible is thought to have been compiled, and the birthplace of Judaism and Christianity. It contains sites that are sacred to many Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Samaritanism, Christianity, Islam, Druzism, and the Baháʼí Faith. The region has come under the sway of various empires and, as a result, has historically hosted a wide variety of ethnic groups. The adoption of Christianity by the Greco-Roman world under the Roman Empire in the 4th century led to a Christian majority in the Levant, which remained largely unchallenged until the Arab conquest of the region following the rise of Islam in the 7th century. It persisted for another six centuries as Muslim rule was consolidated despite various Christian military expeditions; by the end of the Crusader period in 1291, the Levant had shifted towards a Muslim majority. By the 13th century, Arabic had become the region's clear dominant language. It was individually first a part of the Mamluk Sultanate, and after 1516, a Syria-region province of the Ottoman Empire. Muslim rule over the Land of Israel ended during World War I, with the successful Sinai and Palestine campaign of the Allies leading to the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire and the establishment of British rule.
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).
Chaim Azriel Weizmann was a Russian-born biochemist, Zionist leader and Israeli statesman who served as president of the Zionist Organization and later as the first president of Israel. He was elected on 16 February 1949, and served until his death in 1952. Weizmann convinced the United States government to recognize the newly formed state of Israel.
Yishuv, Ha-Yishuv, or Ha-Yishuv Ha-Ivri is the body of Jewish residents in the Land of Israel prior to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. The term came into use in the 1880s, when there were about 25,000 Jews living across the Land of Israel and continued to be used until 1948, by which time there were some 630,000 Jews there. The term is still in use to denote the pre-1948 Jewish residents in the Land of Israel.
The 1920 Nebi Musa riots or 1920 Jerusalem riots took place in British-controlled part of Occupied Enemy Territory Administration between Sunday, 4 and Wednesday, 7 April 1920 in and around the Old City of Jerusalem. Five Jews and four Arabs were killed, and several hundred were injured. The riots coincided with and are named after the Nebi Musa festival, which took place every year on Easter Sunday, and followed rising tensions in Arab-Jewish relations. The events came shortly after the Battle of Tel Hai and the increasing pressure on Arab nationalists in Syria in the course of the Franco-Syrian War.
Herbert Louis Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel, was a British Liberal politician who was the party leader from 1931 to 1935.
Musa Kazim Pasha al-Husayni held a series of senior posts in the Ottoman administration. He belonged to the prominent al-Husayni family and was mayor of Jerusalem (1918–1920). He was dismissed as mayor by the British authorities and became head of the nationalist Executive Committee of the Palestine Arab Congress from 1922 until 1934. His death was believed to have been caused by injuries received during an anti-British demonstration.
The First Zionist Congress was the inaugural congress of the Zionist Organization (ZO) held in Basel (Basle), from August 29 to August 31, 1897. 208 delegates and 26 press correspondents attended the event. It was convened and chaired by Theodor Herzl, the founder of the modern Zionism movement. The Congress formulated a Zionist platform, known as the Basel program, and founded the Zionist Organization. It also adopted the Hatikvah as its anthem.
Zionist Commission for Palestine was a commission chaired by Chaim Weizmann, president of the British Zionist Federation following British promulgation of the pro-Zionist, Balfour Declaration. The Commission was formed in March 1918 and went to Palestine to study conditions and submit recommendations to the British authorities.
Zionism as an organized movement is generally considered to have been founded by Theodor Herzl in 1897. However, the history of Zionism began earlier and is related to Judaism and Jewish history. The Hovevei Zion, or the Lovers of Zion, were responsible for the creation of 20 new Jewish towns in Palestine between 1870 and 1897.
The intercommunal conflict in Mandatory Palestine was the civil, political and armed struggle between Palestinian Arabs and Jewish Yishuv during the British rule in Mandatory Palestine, beginning from the violent spillover of the Franco-Syrian War in 1920 and until the onset of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.
Socialist Workers Party was a political party in the British Mandate of Palestine from 1919–1922. Its followers were known as Mopsim.
The Assembly of Representatives was the elected parliamentary assembly of the Jewish community in Mandatory Palestine. It was established on 19 April 1920, and functioned until 13 February 1949, the day before the first Knesset, elected on 25 January, was sworn in. The Assembly met once a year to elect the executive body, the Jewish National Council, which was responsible for education, local government, welfare, security and defense. It also voted on the budgets proposed by the Jewish National Council and the Rabbinical Council.
Events in the year 1920 in British-administered Palestine.
Elections to the Assembly of Representatives in Mandatory Palestine were held on 6 December 1925, electing the legislature of the Yishuv. Around half the votes went to parties associated with trade unions. Ahdut HaAvoda remained the largest party in the Assembly.
The Palestine Arab Congress was a series of congresses held by the Palestinian Arab population, organized by a nationwide network of local Muslim-Christian Associations, in the British Mandate of Palestine. Between 1919 and 1928, seven congresses were held in Jerusalem, Jaffa, Haifa and Nablus. Despite broad public support their executive committees were never officially recognised by the British, who said they were unrepresentative. After the British defeat of Ottoman forces in 1918, the British established military rule and (later) civil administration of Palestine. The Palestine Arab Congress and its organizers in the Muslim-Christian Associations were formed when the country's Arab population began coordinated opposition to British policies.
The London Conference (1939), or St James's Palace Conference, which took place between 7 February-17 March 1939, was called by the British Government to plan the future governance of Palestine and an end of the Mandate. It opened on 7 February 1939 in St James's Palace after which the Colonial Secretary, Malcolm MacDonald held a series of separate meetings with an Arab and a Jewish delegation, because the Arab delegation refused to sit in the same room as the Jewish delegation. When MacDonald first announced the proposed conference he made clear that if no agreement was reached the government would impose a solution. The process came to an end after five and a half weeks with the British announcing proposals which were later published as the 1939 White Paper.
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.
This is a timeline of intercommunal conflict in Mandatory Palestine.
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| Prime ministerial | |
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* Assembly of Representatives elections ** Legislative Council elections See also: Indirect Presidential and State Comptroller elections • Histadrut elections | |
