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British Catastrophe: Zionist State in Palestine —by Tom O'Hanlon for The Sovereign Nation The article traces the chronology of events from the end of World War 1 to the partition of Palestine in November 1947. In the aftermath of World War 1 and the subsequent break-up of the defeated Ottoman Empire, the League of Nations placed Palestine under British mandatory control. After assuming control, the British government demonstrated its political bias by appointing the Zionist, Herbert Samuel, as first governor. This initial period of British rule was characterised by a huge increase in Jewish immigration. This policy was consistent with Britain's pre-war commitment to establish a Zionist state in Palestine; a policy which ran counter to the wishes of the native Arab population. In 1918, there were 50,000 Jews in Palestine, but by 1939, this number had increased to 443,000. This policy of Zionist immigration, facilitated and encouraged by the British government, transformed the political landscape of Palestine, and created a political cauldron of dispossession and discontent. From 1901, the Jewish National Fund set itself the task of purchasing Palestinian land from Arab feudal landlords. The purchased land was placed exclusively at the disposal of Jewish immigrants, who went on to own or work the land. The Palestinian peasants who previously occupied the land were ruthlessly expelled, and prevented from procuring employment on Jewish property. An exclusive Jewish Trade Union 'The Histadrat' was established. Its slogan was "Jewish land, Jewish Labour, Jewish produce". The Zionist leader, Joseph Weitz, clinically outlined the objectives of the Zionist movement when he stated that 'among our-selves it must be clear that there is no place in this country for both peoples together. Transfer the Arabs from here to the neighbouring countries, transfer all of them, not one village or tribe should remain'. In 1936, Palestinian anger and frustration at this evolving political catastrophe exploded into an open rebellion that took three years to quell. While suppressing the Palestinian uprising, the British government relied heavily on the assistance of Zionist organisations. The British government recruited large numbers of Zionists into the 'British settlement police'. By 1939, the ranks of this colonial militia had swelled to 21,500. The formation of the British settlement police and the defeat of the Palestinian rebellion were crucial factors in the eventual consolidation of the Zionist State in Palestine. The British were thoroughly ruthless in their suppression of the rebel-lion. The dynamiting of Arab homes and the criminalisation of Palestinian guerrillas were some of the tactics employed by the British. However, the creation of a Zionist death squad, infamously referred to as the 'special night squad' was the most sinister tactic of all. Over 5,000 Palestinians lost their lives during the three-year uprising - mostly at the hands of the special night squad and a further 15,000 Palestinians were maimed or injured. This Zionist death squad went on to form the core of the Zionist militias who drove Palestinians from their homes and villages during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.  With the commencement of the Second World War, Britain's global strategic interests clashed with its Zionist commitments in Palestine. On the one hand, it was imperative for Britain to maintain a secure route to India via the Suez Canal in Egypt, and to maintain its military bases throughout the Middle East during the war. But with the influx of Jews to Palestine reaching a pinnacle during the late thirties, Britain risked incur- ring the wrath of the Arab world, thus, threatening its strategic bases. Therefore, in 1939, the British attempted to placate the Arab world by belatedly placing restrictions on Jewish immigration to Palestine. This restriction of Jewish population movement into Palestine came at a time when the European Jewish community was suffering at the hands of European Fascism. The restrictions imposed by the British government angered and appalled the Zionist organisations. This anger manifested itself in the formation of Zionist paramilitary groups, who commenced attacks against the British government in Palestine, which they now viewed with increasing political hostility. The most notorious Zionist militias to emerge during this period were the Palmach, the Stern gang and the Irgun. These groups initiated attacks against British State institutions, military camps, railway lines and communication centres across Palestine, in response to the restrictive immigration controls. They also waged a terror campaign against Palestinian peasants, forcing them to flee their lands, thus paving the way for Jewish occupation of the vacated lands. By the summer of 1946 Britain had lost control of events in Palestine. British troops were unable to leave their compounds due to the threat posed by Zionist militias. On July 22nd 1946, the Irgun blew up the King David Hotel, the Headquarters of the British administration and its armed forces. Ninety-one people were killed in the explosion. British policy in Palestine lay in tatters. The British government announced its decision to withdraw from Palestine on May 15, 1948 as it had lost any vestige of control over the situation, and then proceeded to formally ask for the UN to intervene and produce a solution before the scheduled date of withdrawal. After a series of negotiations which excluded any Palestinian representation, the UN announced a proposal to partition Palestine into two separate states, one Zionist, the other Palestinian, with the Holy City of Jerusalem remaining under UN control. The UN decided to grant 57% of Palestinian territory to the Zionists. In doing so, the UN ignored the salient fact that Jews only constituted 30% of the population of Palestine, and that Zionists previously owned 8% of Palestinian land in 1947, prior to partition. While Zionism rejoiced at this fortuitous political out-come, the Arab world was filled with horror at the seizure of over half of Palestinian national territory by the forces of Zionism. On 29 November 1947, when the ratification of the UN partition vote was announced, the General Secretary of the Arab League, Abdul Rahman Azzam Pasha, led all of the Arab delegates out of the UN assembly hall in protest. Upon leaving the assembly hall, Abdul Pasha's parting words to an international journalist were an ominous warning of things to come: 'The partition line will be nothing but a line of fire and blood'. These words proved to be truly prophetic. In the period between the partition vote and its implementation on May 15 1948 [the date of British withdrawal], Palestine spiralled into civil war. When it emerged that the declaration of the State of Israel was scheduled to coincide with the withdrawal of the British forces from Palestine, the Arab world recognised this as its last opportunity to crush the Zionist State in its infancy. As several Arab armies mobilised to confront the forces of Israel, it became clear that the future of Israel and that of the Palestinian nation would be decided upon the battlefields of the first Arab-Israeli war.  Page updated 15 Mar 2008 Ireland's OWN Logo by Eamann Website Design and Celtic Background by Míchealín Daugherty Copyright © 2008 Ireland's OWN All Rights Reserved.