Class 6: The Thrice-Promised Land and British Dilemmas

British imperial policy 1915-1922

• de Bunsen commission March 1915: cutting up Ottoman Empire?
• Sykes-Picot agreement (map - or in color - also Smith p 69 map) May 1916
• but also Sharif Hussein- MacMahon correspondence, esp letter from Sir Henry M to SH of October 24, 1915 : "independence of the Arabs" except "west of the districts of Damascus, Homs, Hama, and Aleppo" (Smith, p.66) in what would become Lebanon. (see modern Near East map, Syria, and a time line of Syria)
• and also:

Balfour Declaration (Nov 2, 1917)

• British motives
• opposition from anti-Zionist Jews: Edwin Montagu et al
• the compromise: "a national home in..." and "not to predujuice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."

Versailles and San Remo Peace Settlement 1919-1920

• King-Crane Commission 1919
• San Remo
• British Class A Mandate for Palestine

British dilemmas

• governance: democracy vs. national home
• land
• people
• from Hope-Simpson 1930 to Peel Commission 1937 and the 1939 White Paper.

---

15 Sept. 2008

Department of Government, College of Liberal Arts, University of Texas at Austin.

Questions, Comments, and Suggestions to chenry@mail.utexas.edu