palestinehistory.com/palst.htm#05
Aided by the Arabs, the British captured Palestine from the Ottoman Turks in 1917-18. The Arabs revolted against the Turks because the British had promised them, in correspondence (1915-16) with Shareef Husein ibn Ali of Mecca (1856-1931), the independence of their countries after the war . Britain , however, also made other, conflicting commitments in the secret Sykes -Picot agreement with France and Russia (1916), it promised to divide and rule the region with its allies . In a third agreement , the Balfour Declaration of 1917, Britain promised the Jews a Jewish “national home” in Palestine.
This promise was subsequently incorporated in the mandate conferred on Britain by the League of Nations in 1922 . During their mandate (1922-48) the British found their contradictory promises to the Jewish and Palestinian communities difficult to reconcile. The Zionists envisaged large-scale Jewish immigration , and some spoke of a Jewish state constituting all of Palestine . Palestinians , however, rejected Britain’s right to promise their country to a third party and feared dispossession by the Zionists; anti-Zionist attacks occurred in Jerusalem (1920) and Jaffa (1921).
A 1922 statement of British policy denied Zionist claims to all of Palestine and limited Jewish immigration , but reaffirmed support for a Jewish national home. British proposed establishing a legislative council, Palestinians rejected this council as discriminatory.
After 1928, when Jewish immigration increased somewhat, British policy on the subject seesawed under conflicting Arab-Jewish pressures . Immigration rose sharply after the installation (1933) of the Nazi regime in Germany; in 1935 nearly 62,000 Jews entered Palestine.
Fear of Jewish domination was the principal cause of the Arab revolt that broke out in 1936 and continued intermittently until 1939. By that time Britain had again restricted Jewish immigration and purchases of land.
ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~mescha/bookrev/khalidi.html
Noting that “collective traumas and major obstacles” help to shape this identity the most, Khalidi still traces precursors to Palestinian identity during Ottoman times, which gives the book some of its originality. ** The local Arab elites’ relationship with the Ottoman central authority - especially the way in which their knowledge of Arabic proved to be to their advantage - were interesting to note, as was the metamorphosis of the court system from shari’a-based to secularly-oriented**. …Later, when he discusses the development of new social formations, classes, professional groups, and the impact of major institutions, we begin to see the semblance of present-day Palestinian makeup… the chapter about early peasant resistance to British colonialism, N-shaped colonial settlement, the impact of the Ottoman Land Code, and forcible seizure of Arab lands, did not reveal anything novel… . More than anything, his exploration of the refreshing Arabist elements of regional and transnational newspapers was consoling, even if he just traced and outlined the sentiments geographically instead of delving into their impact or ideological origins.
More noteworthy is Khalidi’s finding that Zionism was often times not even mentioned in highly patriotic Palestinian editorials and papers in the early years. I also found the infiltration of Arab Jews’ in the newspapers’ editorial staffs quite prophetic in that the only accounts sympathetic to the Zionist movement were written by them. Palestinians still grapple with the problem of integrating these voices (now considered “leftist” although probably not during the time Khalidi explores) in the movement today.** Kudos to Khalidi for making note of the ridiculous error of attributing degree of nationalist ties to religious affiliation: some of the most anti-Zionists papers were run by Christian editors, he writes.**
