Arab-Israeli Politics

Class 7: The Issue of Autonomy: British dilemmas over Palestine: conflicting commitments concerning political representation, land, and people.

Readings:

Smith, pp. 109-158, 461-468 ("Oslo 2" of September 28, 1995).

You may also want to read more recent documents from the Israeli foreign ministry's home page, such as the latest disengagement plans of April 2004, revised in June (no. 51 and 52). Also you may study Smith, p. 465, outlining the areas A and B from which the Israeli army was redeployed. under Oslo 2, before the troubles began in 2000-01. You may view lots of maps at our PCL and also at the Foundation for Middle East Peace. And here is how one Palestinian research center views the situation of the "Segregation Wall" on the ground.

 Recall British dilemmas over Palestine (How square the circle of commitments to Arabs, French, and Zionist Jews?)

1) governance: democracy vs. national home

Was Palestine to become "as Jewish as England is English" (Chaim Weizmann, Paris 1919)?
 
Representation? March 1920 Syrian National Congress, followed by Nebi Musa violence (5 Jews and 4 Arabs killed, many wounded)...and much worse in 1921 vs Jewish immigrants. White Paper of July 1, 1922 ("not that Palestine as a whole should be converted into a Jewish National Home but that such a Home should be founded in Palestine." Leg Council designs of 1922..1929...1935 all failed.

2) The issues of land (absentee Arab sales to Jews of former musha'a = collective village ownership) and people (Jewish immigration quotas)

Violence over Western ("Wailing") Wall/Haram al-Sharif (al-Buraq) in 1928, 1929, leading to from Hope-Simpson, Passfield White Paper of 1930, and MacDonald repudiation to Arab Revolt of 1936 and Peel Commission 1937 ( Smith map p 143) and - with specter of world war - the 1939 White Paper reversal. Jewish population increased 1917-1938 from 60,000 to over 400,000 (for details see Mark Tessler, A History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, pp. 266-268). Landless Palestinians were maybe 30% of rural population in 1930.

3) World War II:

1939 White Paper and Zionist response: Biltmore (NY) Program of 1942. Internal Zionist politics: David Ben Gurion's victory over Chaim Weizmann.
15 Sept. 2008
Department of Government, College of Liberal Arts, University of Texas at Austin.
Questions, Comments, and Suggestions to chenry@mail.utexas.edu