Instant Access To 100,000+ Essays!

Prior to the Arab-Israeli War in 1948, important promises were made to both the Arabs and the Israelis. In order to receive Arab backing against the Ottoman Empire in WWI, the MacMahon-Hussein correspondence in 1915 mapped out the land that Britain was to cede to the Arabs upon allied victory. In 1917, however, the British also promised to make Palestine the national home for the Jewish people in the Balfour Declaration, possibly to coerce the Jewish lobby in the US to back Britain in WWI. Post-WWI Britain received Palestine as a mandate, and soon realized the problem of its earlier equal-obligation to both the Jewish and the Arabs. In 1922 Britain partitioned historic Palestine into two new areas, Transjordan and Palestine. Transjordan was 80% of historic Palestine, and the other 20% wass to be the national homeland for the Jewish people. (Bard 84-5) Jews were not allowed to buy land in Transjordan and Arabs were not allowed to buy land in Palestine. Major immigration of Jews began, and Arabs became increasingly concerned that these aliyahs would prevent them from returning to their homeland. Under the assumption that the British seemed to support the Arabs, Jews put together Haganah, an underground Jewish militia. The