The British Mandate In Palestine

Name: Isabella Lorduy Ariza
* Asses the successes and failures of the British Mandate in Palestine.

THE BRITISH MANDATE IN PALESTINE

The history of the British mandate in Palestine is filled with several promises, agreements and assurances which have created a certainly tense atmosphere among multiple regions of the world; not only because these guarantees or declarations have beencontradicted, but also because they have led to various disagreements and violent outbreaks. By the other hand, it is noticeable that this specific mandate developed actions in order to maintain peace and control over the region; those attempts unquestionably demonstrated a convincing interest from the British to gain a good relationship with multiple areas of the world and at the same time theyironically represent the reason of the mandate’s failure. In this text, the miscarriages and successes of the British mandate will be exposed and analyzed in order to understand and comprehend the outcomes of this condition and the present situation of the Middle East.

The earning of this sacred territory starts soon after the end of the First World War, where the victorious allies portioned theland of the Ottoman Empire and designated Britain as the government in charge for numerous regions in the Middle East through the Sykes – Picot Agreement. In addition, The Palestine Mandate was appointed to Britain under the terms of the Balfour Declaration, accordingly, unlike the other territories, Palestine was to be prepared as a national home for the Jewish people, and the British people wereto guarantee conditions for Jewish immigration and colonization. It is important to highlight that before this important and controversial declaration became official, the British had established “serious” arrangements with the Arab community, assuring them their independence and freedom through different documents such as the McMahon and Sharif Hussein correspondence. Visibly, their promisedindependence was not secured and their apparent support later became a Jewish support. “As these promises were not honored, mainly because they contradicted the other promises that the British had made to the Jews and the French, there is a fair amount of controversy surrounding these letters”. As a result of this massive betrayal to the Arab community, the Arab revolt begins, bearing in mind thatthe members of this movement didn’t expect what was going to happen soon after their anger exposition, related to their territory and the Jewish community ideals. “Naomi Shepard, Bernard Wasserstein, Bernard Joseph, and A.W. Kayyali assert that the British Mandate failed because the British were unable to reconcile Jewish and Arab nationalism”.

It is of imminent importance to make clear thatthe British Mandate was a collection of colonial administrations, which independently made decisions based on their interests and perspective; from this, we can assume that most of the mistakes evidenced during this period of time were not representing Britain itself, instead they were representing each of the administrations individually; nevertheless, the main British government didn’t do anythingin order to control the administrators decisions and mistaken actions. “In dominions like Canada, British direct rule was virtually non-existent while in territories like the Gold Coast, British rule was absolute. In regards to Palestine, the British actor was the Mandate government itself”. It is the understanding and knowledge of each region and culture that structures the development ofstrategic solutions that can agree and correspond with “both sides”. As it has been evidenced through the several misunderstandings of the British control, the British governments from Asquith through Attlee and the colonial offices from Winston Churchill through Arthur Creech Jones did not understand who the Zionists and Arabs were. Because of this lack of understanding, the mandate failed. “Their...