Mandatory Palestine

Mandatory Palestine, officially called Palestine, was a British-controlled area from 1920 to 1948 in the region of Palestine. After World War I, British forces took over from the Ottoman Empire. The British had promised Arab independence but instead, together with France, divided the area. They also promised support for a Jewish “national home” in Palestine.

During this time, many Jewish people moved to the area, and both Jewish and Arab communities formed strong groups with different ideas about the future. This led to conflicts, including uprisings in the late 1930s and again in the 1940s.

In 1947, the United Nations suggested splitting the area into two states, one for Jews and one for Arabs. Fighting followed in 1948, and the land of Mandatory Palestine became parts of Israel, Jordan, and Egypt’s area in the Gaza Strip.

Etymology

See also: Timeline of the name "Palestine"

The land was called "Palestine," matching what local Arab people and old Ottoman rulers used, as well as European traditions. The British rulers decided that the three official languages of this area would be English, Arabic, and Hebrew.

Later, in 1926, the British used the traditional Arabic word for the land, Filasţīn (فلسطين), and its Hebrew form Pālēśtīnā (פּלשׂתינה). Jewish leaders wanted to use the Hebrew name ʾĒrēts Yiśrāʾel (ארץ ישׂראל), meaning Land of Israel. To make a compromise, the British added special Hebrew letters (א״י) after Pālēśtīnā in official documents when writing in Hebrew. Some Arab leaders were unhappy with this and suggested calling the land "Southern Syria" instead, but the British did not accept that idea. The word "mandatory" shows that the land’s rules came from a League of Nations mandate, meaning it was given permission to be managed by Britain, not that people had to follow it by force.

History

For the background to the creation of the mandate, see Mandate for Palestine.

For the period of Palestine's history between the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1917–18 and the beginning of British civil administration in July 1920, see Occupied Enemy Territory Administration.

1920s

Following the arrival of the British, Arab inhabitants established Muslim-Christian Associations in all of the major towns. In 1919 they joined to hold the first Palestine Arab Congress in Jerusalem. It was aimed primarily at representative government and opposition to the Balfour Declaration. Concurrently, the Zionist Commission formed in March 1918 and actively promoted Zionist objectives in Palestine. On 19 April 1920, elections took place for the Assembly of Representatives of the Palestinian Jewish community.

In April 1920, riots in Jerusalem caused the deaths of five Jews and four Arabs.

In July 1920, a British civilian administration headed by a High Commissioner replaced the military administration. The first High Commissioner, Sir Herbert Samuel, a Zionist and a recent British cabinet minister, arrived in Palestine on 20 June 1920 to take up his appointment from 1 July. Samuel established his headquarters and official residence in part of the Augusta Victoria Hospital complex on Mount Scopus on what was then the northeastern edge of Jerusalem, a building that had been constructed for the Germans circa 1910. Damaged by an earthquake in 1927, this building served as the headquarters and official residence of the British High Commissioners until 1933. In that year, a new, purpose-built headquarters and official residence for the High Commissioner was completed on what was then the southeastern edge of Jerusalem. Referred to as Armon HaNetziv by the Jewish population, this building, located on the 'Hill of Evil Counsel' on the ridge of Jabel Mukaber, remained in use as the headquarters and official residence of the British High Commissioners until the end of British rule in 1948.

One of the first actions of the newly installed civil administration was to begin granting concessions from the Mandatory government over key economic assets. In 1921 the government granted Pinhas Rutenberg – a Jewish entrepreneur – concessions for the production and distribution of electrical power. Rutenberg soon established an electric company whose shareholders were Zionist organisations, investors, and philanthropists. Palestinian-Arabs saw it as proof that the British intended to favour Zionism. The British administration claimed that electrification would enhance the economic development of the country as a whole, while at the same time securing their commitment to facilitate a Jewish National Home through economic – rather than political – means.

In May 1921, following a disturbance between rival Jewish left-wing protestors and then attacks by Arabs on Jews, almost 100 died in rioting in Jaffa.

High Commissioner Samuel tried to establish self-governing institutions in Palestine, as required by the mandate, but the Arab leadership refused to co-operate with any institution which included Jewish participation. When Kamil al-Husayni, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, died in March 1921, High Commissioner Samuel appointed his half-brother, Mohammad Amin al-Husseini, to the position. Amin al-Husseini, a member of the al-Husayni clan of Jerusalem, was an Arab nationalist and Muslim leader. As Grand Mufti, as well as in the other influential positions that he held during this period, al-Husseini played a key role in violent opposition to Zionism. In 1922, al-Husseini was elected President of the Supreme Muslim Council which had been established by Samuel in December 1921. The Council controlled the Waqf funds, worth annually tens of thousands of pounds, and the orphan funds, worth annually about £50,000, as compared to the £600,000 in the Jewish Agency's annual budget. In addition, he controlled the Islamic courts in Palestine. Among other functions, these courts had the power to appoint teachers and preachers.

The 1922 Palestine Order in Council established a Legislative Council, which was to consist of 23 members: 12 elected, 10 appointed, and the High Commissioner. Of the 12 elected members, eight were to be Muslim Arabs, two Christian Arabs, and two Jews. Arabs protested against the distribution of the seats, arguing that as they constituted 88% of the population, having only 43% of the seats was unfair. Elections took place in February and March 1923, but due to an Arab boycott, the results were annulled and a 12-member Advisory Council was established.

At the First World Congress of Jewish Women which was held in Vienna, Austria, 1923, it was decided that: "It appears, therefore, to be the duty of all Jews to co-operate in the social-economic reconstruction of Palestine and to assist in the settlement of Jews in that country."

In October 1923, Britain provided the League of Nations with a report on the administration of Palestine for the period 1920–1922, which covered the period before the mandate.

In August 1929, there were riots in which 250 people died.

1930s: Arab armed insurgency

In 1930, Sheikh Izz ad-Din al-Qassam arrived in Palestine from Syria, then part of the French-ruled Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon, and organised and established the Black Hand, an anti-Zionist and anti-British militant organisation. He recruited and arranged military training for peasants, and by 1935 he had enlisted between 200 and 800 men. They used bombs and firearms against Zionist settlers and vandalised settlers' orchards and British-built railway lines. In November 1935, two of his men engaged in a firefight with a Palestine Police patrol hunting fruit thieves and a policeman was killed. Following the incident, British colonial police launched a search and surrounded al-Qassam in a cave near Ya'bad. In the ensuing battle, al-Qassam was killed.

The Arab revolt

Main article: 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine

The death of al-Qassam on 20 November 1935 generated widespread outrage in the Arab community. Huge crowds accompanied Qassam's body to his grave in Haifa. A few months later, in April 1936, the Arab national general strike broke out. The strike lasted until October 1936, instigated by the Arab Higher Committee, headed by Amin al-Husseini. During the summer of that year, thousands of Jewish-farmed acres and orchards were destroyed. Jewish civilians were attacked and killed, and some Jewish communities, such as those in Beisan (Beit She'an) and Acre, fled to safer areas. The violence abated for about a year while the British sent the Peel Commission to investigate.

During the first stages of the Arab Revolt, due to rivalry between the clans of al-Husseini and Nashashibi among the Palestinian Arabs, Raghib Nashashibi was forced to flee to Egypt after several assassination attempts ordered by Amin al-Husseini.

After the Arab rejection of the Peel Commission recommendation, the revolt resumed in autumn 1937. Over the next 18 months, the British lost Nablus and Hebron. British forces, supported by 6,000 armed Jewish auxiliary police, suppressed the widespread riots with overwhelming force. The British officer Charles Orde Wingate (who supported a Zionist revival for religious reasons) organised Special Night Squads of British soldiers and Jewish volunteers such as Yigal Allon; these "scored significant successes against the Arab rebels in the lower Galilee and in the Jezreel valley" by conducting raids on Arab villages. Irgun, a Jewish militia group, used violence also against Arab civilians as "retaliatory acts", attacking marketplaces and buses.

The revolt had also a negative effect on Palestinian Arab leadership, social cohesion, and military capabilities, and it contributed to the outcome of the 1948 War because "when the Palestinians faced their most fateful challenge in 1947–49, they were still suffering from the British repression of 1936–39, and were in effect without a unified leadership. Indeed, it might be argued that they were virtually without any leadership at all."

Partition proposals

In 1937, the Peel Commission proposed a partition between a small Jewish state, whose Arab population would have to be transferred, and an Arab state to be attached to the Emirate of Transjordan, this emirate also being part of the wider Mandate for Palestine. The proposal was rejected outright by the Arabs. The two main Jewish leaders, Chaim Weizmann and David Ben-Gurion, had convinced the Zionist Congress to equivocally approve the Peel recommendations as a basis for more negotiation. In a letter to his son in October 1937, Ben-Gurion explained that partition would be a first step to "possession of the land as a whole". The same sentiment was recorded by Ben-Gurion on other occasions, such as at a meeting of the Jewish Agency executive in June 1938, as well as by Chaim Weizmann.

Following the London Conference in February and March 1939, the British Government published a White Paper which proposed a limit to Jewish immigration from Europe, restrictions on Jewish land purchases, and a programme for creating an independent state to replace the Mandate within ten years. This was seen by the Yishuv as betrayal of the mandatory terms, especially in light of the increasing persecution of Jews in Europe. In response, Zionists organised Aliyah Bet, a programme of illegal immigration into Palestine. Lehi, a small group of extremist Zionists, staged armed attacks on British authorities in Palestine. However, the Jewish Agency, which represented the mainstream Zionist leadership and most of the Jewish population, still hoped to persuade Britain to allow resumed Jewish immigration and cooperated with Britain during the Second World War.

Second World War

Allied and Axis activity

On 10 June 1940, during the Second World War, the Kingdom of Italy declared war on the British Empire and sided with Nazi Germany. Within a month, the Italians attacked Palestine from the air, bombing Tel Aviv and Haifa, inflicting multiple casualties.

In 1942, there was a period of great concern for the Yishuv, when the German forces of General Erwin Rommel advanced east across North Africa towards the Suez Canal, raising a fear that they would conquer Palestine. This period was referred to as the "200 days of dread". This event was the direct cause for the founding, with British support, of the Palmach – a highly trained regular unit belonging to Haganah (a paramilitary group composed mostly of reserves).

The Yishuv rallied around the Allied war effort despite anger over British restrictions on Jewish immigration in the White Paper of 1939. David Ben-Gurion, Chairman of the Jewish Agency, declared that "We will fight the White Paper as if there is no war, and fight the war as if there is no White Paper." About 30,000 Jews from Mandatory Palestine served with the British Armed Forces during the war, more than 700 of whom were killed in action.

As in most of the Arab world, there was no unanimity amongst the Palestinian Arabs as to their position regarding the belligerents in the Second World War. A number of leaders and public figures saw an Axis victory as the likely outcome and a way of securing Palestine back from the Zionists and the British. Even though Arabs were not highly regarded by Nazi racial theory, the Nazis encouraged Arab support as a counter to British hegemony. On the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration in 1943, Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler and Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop sent telegrams of support for the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Mohammad Amin al-Husseini, to read out for a radio broadcast to a rally of supporters in Berlin. On the other hand, as many as 12,000 Palestinian Arabs, with the endorsement of many prominent figures such as the mayors of Nablus and Gaza and media such as "Radio Palestine" and the prominent Jaffa-based Falastin newspaper, volunteered to join and fight for the British, with many serving in units that also included Jews from Palestine. 120 Palestinian women also served as part of the Auxiliary Territorial Service. However, this history has been less studied, as Israeli sources put more focus in studying the role played by Jewish soldiers. Meanwhile, Palestinian sources "were not eager to glorify the names of those who cooperated with Britain not so many years after the British put down the Arab Revolt of 1936–1939, and thereby indirectly helped the Jews establish a state."

Mobilisation

On 3 July 1944, the British government consented to the establishment of a Jewish Brigade within the British Army, with hand-picked Jewish and also non-Jewish senior officers. On 20 September 1944, an official communiqué by the War Office announced the formation of the Jewish Brigade Group of the British Army. The Jewish Brigade was shipped to Italy, where it joined the British Eighth Army under the 15th Army Group, and fought in the Spring Offensive of the Italian Campaign. The Jewish Brigade was then stationed in Tarvisio, near the border triangle of Italy, Yugoslavia, and Austria, where it played a key role in the Berihah's efforts to help Jews escape Europe for Palestine, a role many of its members would continue after the brigade was disbanded. Among its projects was the education and care of the Selvino children. Later, veterans of the Jewish Brigade were to play a major role in the foundation of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

From the Palestine Regiment, two platoons, one Jewish, under the command of Brigadier Ernest Benjamin, and another Arab, were sent to join Allied forces on the Italian Front, having taken part in the final offensive there.

Besides Jews and Arabs from Palestine, in total by mid-1944 the British had assembled a multiethnic force consisting of volunteer European Jewish refugees (from German-occupied countries), Yemenite Jews and Abyssinian Jews.

The Holocaust and immigration quotas

In 1939, as a consequence of the White Paper of 1939, the British reduced the number of immigrants allowed into Palestine. The Second World War and the Holocaust started shortly thereafter and once the 15,000 annual quota was exceeded, Jews fleeing Nazi persecution were interned in detention camps or deported to places such as Mauritius.

Starting in 1939, a clandestine immigration effort called Aliya Bet was spearheaded by an organisation called Mossad LeAliyah Bet. Tens of thousands of European Jews escaped the Nazis in boats and small ships headed for Palestine. The British Royal Navy intercepted many of the vessels; others were unseaworthy and were wrecked; a Haganah bomb sunk the SS Patria, killing 267 people; two other ships were sunk by Soviet submarines: the motor schooner Struma was torpedoed and sunk in the Black Sea by a Soviet submarine in February 1942 with the loss of nearly 800 lives. The last refugee boats to try to reach Palestine during the war were the Bulbul, Mefküre and Morina in August 1944. A Soviet submarine sank the motor schooner Mefküre by torpedo and shellfire and machine-gunned survivors in the water, killing between 300 and 400 refugees. Illegal immigration resumed after the end of the Second World War, especially by the Haganah, who carried mostly illegal Jewish immigrants in the period 1945-47.

After the war, 250,000 Jewish refugees were stranded in displaced persons (DP) camps in Europe. Despite the pressure of world opinion, in particular the repeated requests of the U.S. President, Harry S. Truman, and the recommendations of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry that 100,000 Jews be immediately granted entry to Palestine, the British maintained the ban on immigration.

Beginning of Zionist insurgency

The Jewish Lehi (Fighters for the Freedom of Israel) and Irgun (National Military Organisation) movements initiated violent uprisings against the British Mandate in the 1940s. On 6 November 1944, Eliyahu Hakim and Eliyahu Bet Zuri (members of Lehi) assassinated Lord Moyne in Cairo. Moyne was the British Minister of State for the Middle East and the assassination is said by some to have turned British Prime Minister Winston Churchill against the Zionist cause. After the assassination of Lord Moyne, the Haganah kidnapped, interrogated, and turned over to the British many members of the Irgun ("The Hunting Season"), and the Jewish Agency Executive decided on a series of measures against "terrorist organisations" in Palestine. Irgun ordered its members not to resist or retaliate with violence, so as to prevent a civil war.

After the Second World War: Insurgency and the Partition Plan

Main articles: 1947 UN Partition Plan and 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine

The three main Jewish underground forces later united to form the Jewish Resistance Movement and carry out several attacks and bombings against the British administration. In 1946, the Irgun blew up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, the southern wing of which was the headquarters of the British administration, killing 92 people. Following the bombing, the British Government began interning illegal Jewish immigrants in Cyprus.

On 12 November 1947, two weeks before the United Nations voted on partitioning British soldiers attacked a house in Ra'anana where a Lehi training course for young people was being held. Four trainees aged 16–18 and their 19-year-old instructor were murdered as a calculated retribution against Lehi during the attack known as Murder of Youths in Ra'anana by British Soldiers. In 2001 over 5,000 documents that were declassified by the Israeli State Archives revealed deaths and killing of Jews at the hands of British soldiers, which were covered up by claiming self defense acts or accidents. This included the shooting of the 5 teenagers in Raanana.

In 1948, the Lehi assassinated Count Bernadotte, the UN mediator, in Jerusalem. Yitzak Shamir, a future Prime Minister of Israel, was one of the conspirators.

The negative publicity resulting from the situation in Palestine caused the Mandate to become widely unpopular in Britain itself and caused the United States Congress to delay granting the British vital loans for reconstruction. The British Labour Party had promised before its election in 1945 to allow mass Jewish migration into Palestine but reneged on this promise once in office. Anti-British Jewish militancy increased, and the situation required the presence of over 100,000 British troops in the country. Following the Acre Prison Break and the retaliatory hanging of British sergeants by the Irgun, the British announced their desire to terminate the mandate and to withdraw by no later than the beginning of August 1948.

The Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry in 1946 was a joint attempt by Britain and the United States to agree on a policy regarding the admission of Jews to Palestine. In April, the Committee reported that its members had arrived at a unanimous decision. The Committee approved the American recommendation of the immediate acceptance of 100,000 Jewish refugees from Europe into Palestine. It also recommended that there be no Arab or Jewish state. The Committee stated that "in order to dispose, once and for all, of the exclusive claims of Jews and Arabs to Palestine, we regard it as essential that a clear statement of principle should be made that Jew shall not dominate Arab and Arab shall not dominate Jew in Palestine". U.S. President Harry S. Truman angered the British Government by issuing a statement supporting the 100,000 refugees but refusing to acknowledge the rest of the committee's findings. Britain had asked for U.S. assistance in implementing the recommendations. The US War Department had said earlier that to assist Britain in maintaining order against an Arab revolt, an open-ended US commitment of 300,000 troops would be necessary. The immediate admission of 100,000 new Jewish immigrants would almost certainly have provoked an Arab uprising.

These events were the decisive factors that forced Britain to announce their desire to terminate the Palestine Mandate and place the Question of Palestine before the United Nations, the successor to the League of Nations. The UN created UNSCOP (the UN Special Committee on Palestine) on 15 May 1947, with representatives from 11 countries. UNSCOP conducted hearings and made a general survey of the situation in Palestine and issued its report on 31 August. Seven members (Canada, Czechoslovakia, Guatemala, Netherlands, Peru, Sweden, and Uruguay) recommended the creation of independent Arab and Jewish states, with Jerusalem to be placed under international administration. Three members (India, Iran, and Yugoslavia) supported the creation of a single federal state containing both Jewish and Arab constituent states. Australia abstained.

On 29 November 1947, the UN General Assembly, voting 33 to 13, with 10 abstentions, adopted a resolution recommending the adoption and implementation of the Plan of Partition with Economic Union as Resolution 181 (II), while making some adjustments to the boundaries between the two states proposed by it. The division was to take effect on the date of British withdrawal. The partition plan required that the proposed states grant full civil rights to all people within their borders, regardless of race, religion or gender. The UN General Assembly is only granted the power to make recommendations; therefore, UNGAR 181 was not legally binding. Both the US and the Soviet Union supported the resolution. Haiti, Liberia, and the Philippines changed their votes at the last moment after concerted pressure from the US and from Zionist organisations. The five members of the Arab League, who were voting members at the time, voted against the Plan.

The Jewish Agency, which was the Jewish state-in-formation, accepted the plan, and nearly all the Jews in Palestine rejoiced at the news.^{[citation needed]}

The partition plan was rejected by the Palestinian Arab leadership and by most of the Arab population. Meeting in Cairo on November and December 1947, the Arab League then adopted a series of resolutions endorsing a military solution to the conflict.^{[citation needed]}

Britain announced that it would accept the partition plan, but refused to enforce it, arguing it was not accepted by the Arabs. Britain also refused to share the administration of Palestine with the UN Palestine Commission during the transitional period. In September 1947, the British government announced that the Mandate for Palestine would end at midnight on 14 May 1948.

Some Jewish organisations also opposed the proposal. Irgun leader Menachem Begin announced, "The partition of the Homeland is illegal. It will never be recognised. The signature by institutions and individuals of the partition agreement is invalid. It will not bind the Jewish people. Jerusalem was and will forever be our capital. Eretz Israel will be restored to the people of Israel. All of it. And for ever."

Termination of the mandate

See also: End of the British Mandate for Palestine

When the United Kingdom announced the independence of the Emirate of Transjordan as the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan in 1946, the final Assembly of the League of Nations and the General Assembly both adopted resolutions welcoming the news. The Jewish Agency objected, claiming that Transjordan was an integral part of Palestine, and that according to Article 80 of the UN Charter, the Jewish people had a secured interest in its territory.

During the General Assembly deliberations on Palestine, there were suggestions that it would be desirable to incorporate part of Transjordan's territory into the proposed Jewish state. A few days before the adoption of Resolution 181 (II) on 29 November 1947, US Secretary of State Marshall noted frequent references had been made by the Ad Hoc Committee regarding the desirability of the Jewish State having both the Negev and an "outlet to the Red Sea and the Port of Aqaba". According to John Snetsinger, Chaim Weizmann visited President Truman on 19 November 1947 and said it was imperative that the Negev and Port of Aqaba be within the Jewish state. Truman telephoned the US delegation to the UN and told them he supported Weizmann's position. However, the Trans-Jordan memorandum excluded territories of the Emirate of Transjordan from any Jewish settlement.

Immediately after the UN resolution, civil war broke out between the Arab and Jewish communities, and British authority began to break down. On 16 December 1947, the Palestine Police Force withdrew from the Tel Aviv area, home to more than half the Jewish population, and turned over responsibility for the maintenance of law and order to Jewish police. As the civil war raged on, British military forces gradually withdrew from Palestine, although they occasionally intervened in favour of either side. Many of these areas became war zones. The British maintained strong presences in Jerusalem and Haifa, even as Jerusalem came under siege by Arab forces and became the scene of fierce fighting, though the British occasionally intervened in the fighting, largely to secure their evacuation routes, including by proclaiming martial law and enforcing truces. The Palestine Police Force was largely inoperative, and government services such as social welfare, water supplies, and postal services were withdrawn. In March 1948, all British judges in Palestine were sent back to Britain. In April 1948, the British withdrew from most of Haifa but retained an enclave in the port area to be used in the evacuation of British forces, and retained RAF Ramat David, an airbase close to Haifa, to cover their retreat, leaving behind a volunteer police force to maintain order. The city was quickly captured by the Haganah in the Battle of Haifa. After the victory, British forces in Jerusalem announced that they had no intention of overseeing any local administration but also that they would not permit actions that would hamper the safe and orderly withdrawal of their forces; military courts would try anybody who interfered. By this time British authority in most of Palestine had broken down, with most of the country in the hands of Jews or Arabs, but the British air and sea blockade of Palestine remained in place. Although Arab volunteers were able to cross the borders between Palestine and the surrounding Arab states to join the fighting, the British did not allow the regular armies of the surrounding Arab states to cross into Palestine.

The British had notified the UN of their intent to terminate the mandate not later than 1 August 1948. However, early in 1948, the United Kingdom announced its firm intention to end its mandate in Palestine on 15 May. In response, President Harry S. Truman made a statement on 25 March proposing UN trusteeship rather than partition, stating that "unfortunately, it has become clear that the partition plan cannot be carried out at this time by peaceful means... unless emergency action is taken, there will be no public authority in Palestine on that date capable of preserving law and order. Violence and bloodshed will descend upon the Holy Land. Large-scale fighting among the people of that country will be the inevitable result". The British Parliament passed the necessary legislation to terminate the Mandate with the Palestine Bill, which received Royal assent on 29 April 1948.

By 14 May 1948, the only British forces remaining in Palestine were in the Haifa area and in Jerusalem. On that same day, the British garrison in Jerusalem withdrew, and the last High Commissioner, General Sir Alan Cunningham, left the city for Haifa, where he was to leave the country by sea. The Jewish leadership, led by the future Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, declared the establishment of a Jewish State in Eretz-Israel, to be known as the State of Israel, on the afternoon of 14 May 1948 (5 Iyar 5708 in the Hebrew calendar), to come into effect at the moment of termination of the Mandate at midnight. Also on the 14th, the Provisional Government of Israel asked the US Government for recognition, on the frontiers specified in the UN Plan for Partition. The United States immediately replied, recognizing "the provisional government as the de facto authority".

At midnight on 14/15 May 1948, the Mandate for Palestine expired, and the State of Israel came into being. The Palestine Government formally ceased to exist, the status of British forces still in the process of withdrawal from Haifa changed to occupiers of foreign territory, the Palestine Police Force formally stood down and was disbanded, with the remaining personnel evacuated alongside British military forces, the British blockade of Palestine was lifted, and all those who had been Palestinian citizens ceased to be British protected persons, with Mandatory Palestine passports no longer giving British protection. The 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight took place both before and after the end of the Mandate.

Over the next few days, approximately 700 Lebanese, 1,876 Syrian, 4,000 Iraqi, and 2,800 Egyptian troops crossed over the borders into Palestine, starting the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Around 4,500 Transjordanian troops, commanded partly by 38 British officers who had resigned their commissions in the British Army only weeks earlier, including overall commander, General John Bagot Glubb, entered the corpus separatum region encompassing Jerusalem and its environs (in response to the Haganah's Operation Kilshon) and moved into areas designated as part of the Arab state by the UN partition plan. The war, which was to last until 1949, would see Israel expand to encompass about 78% of the territory of the former British Mandate, with Transjordan seizing and subsequently annexing the West Bank and the Kingdom of Egypt seizing the Gaza Strip. With the end of the Mandate, the remaining British troops in Israel were concentrated in an enclave in the Haifa port area, through which they were being withdrawn, and at RAF Ramat David, which was maintained to cover the withdrawal. The British handed over RAF Ramat David to the Israelis on 26 May and on 30 June, the last British troops were evacuated from Haifa. The British flag was lowered from the administrative building of the Port of Haifa and the Israeli flag was raised in its place, and the Haifa port area was formally handed over to the Israeli authorities in a ceremony.

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Politics

The British administered Palestine from 1920 to 1948. The government was weak and divided, especially between Jewish and Arab communities. Both groups formed their own organizations, acting almost like separate governments.

The Arab community wanted more control and rights, but the British often did not listen. They tried to set up a council for Arabs, but many refused to take part.

The Jewish community grew quickly, with many people moving there from other countries. They built farms, schools, and hospitals. Some groups used force to protect themselves or push for more land.

Land ownership was a big issue. Much of the land was still owned by Arab families or groups, but Jews also bought and farmed a lot of land, especially in certain areas. The British made rules about who could buy land where to try to balance things out.

Demographics

Main article: Demographic history of Palestine (region) § British Mandate era

In 1920, about 750,000 people lived in this area with many different backgrounds. Most spoke Arabic and were Muslim, including Bedouin groups near Beersheba. There were also Jewish people making up about 11% of the group, plus smaller numbers of Druze, Syrians, Sudanese, Somalis, Circassians, Egyptians, Copts, Greeks, and Hejazi Arabs.

The first census in 1922 counted 757,182 people: 78% Muslim, 11% Jewish and 10% Christian. A later census in 1931 counted 1,035,154 people: 73.4% Muslim, 16.9% Jewish and 8.6% Christian. By the end of 1936, the population grew to about 1,300,000 with Jews estimated at 384,000. The Arab population also grew quickly because health services improved. By 1945, the population reached 1,764,520 with 1,061,270 Muslims, 553,600 Jews, 135,550 Christians and 14,100 others.

The next table shows the religious groups in each of the 16 districts in 1945.

Government and institutions

During this time, the area of Palestine was split into different districts, each managed by a British official called the High Commissioner.

Religious groups had their own courts to handle personal matters, following a system started by the old Ottoman rulers. Only certain religious groups were recognized, which meant people from other groups did not have the same options for things like marriage.

The rest of the courts were set up in a British style, with a High Court that could review decisions from lower courts. There were five main judges over the years who led these courts.

A local newspaper called The Palestine Post began in 1932 and later changed its name. In 1923, a company was created to provide electricity to the area.

Economy

Main article: Economy of Mandatory Palestine

During the time when Britain managed the land called Palestine, most people worked on farms and lived in the countryside. The Jewish community grew quickly, with help from new people moving in and money from other countries. By 1936, Jewish workers were making much more money than Arab workers.

New companies started during this time, like the Jaffa Electric Company in 1923 and Palestine Airways in 1934. Many factories and homes were built in the city of Haifa.

Education

During the time when Britain was in charge of Palestine, the area grew in ways like money and learning. In 1919, Jewish people set up a system of schools that taught in Hebrew. Soon after, they created groups to help manage community affairs and support workers.

In 1924, a university called the Technion was started, and another university, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, began in 1925. Arab Palestinians tried to start their own university in the 1920s, but it didn’t happen. Some believe this was because of difficulties with resources and attitudes at the time. By 1932, most Jewish people could read and write, but only a small part of Arab Palestinians could. However, the ability to read and write among Arab Palestinians kept getting better over time.