Assembled here are key sources that have shaped the modern Middle East, Zionism and Israel. We have included items that give texture, perspective and opinion to historical context. Many of these sources are mentioned in the Era summaries and contain explanatory introductions.

1914-1915 Hussein-McMahon Correspondence

The Sharif of Mecca and Sir Henry McMahon, a British official in Cairo, speaking for the Foreign Office exchanged letters about the current war effort against the Turks, and the future political status of specific Arab lands in the Ottoman Empire. McMahon said then and he repeated the statement again in 1937, that the area of Palestine was definitely excluded from any area to be provided to an Arab leader after WWI. The British allowed the area of Palestine to develop as a “national home for the Jewish people.”

Sykes-Picot Agreement

Sykes-Picot Agreement, 1916

Britain and France secretly divide the Arab provinces of the former Ottoman Empire to meet their own geopolitical interests; no concern offered to political aspirations of indigenous populations.

Documents and Sources|May 15-16, 1916
Faisal-Weizmann agreement

Faisal-Weizmann Correspondence, Agreement, 1919

Emir Feisal, acting on behalf of Sherif of Mecca and Chaim Weizmann on behalf of the Zionist Organization exchange recognition of cordiality and kinship between a future Arab state and Palestine, where Zionists seek to establish their national home. Mutual assistance is offered by one of the other.

Documents and Sources|January-March 1919

Vladimir Jabotinsky, “The Iron Wall,” 1923

April 11, 1923 Vladimir “Ze’ev” Jabotinsky (October 17, 1880-August 3, 1940) was a Russian-Jewish intellectual, writer, soldier and political activist who founded the Revisionist Zionist movement. A charismatic orator and prolific author, Jabotinsky broke with…

Documents and Sources|April 11, 1923

Secret Intelligence on Arab Leaders Meeting in Damascus, 1938

This document was secured at the Central Zionist Archives in Jerusalem. Less than a year before Hitler invaded Poland, Arab leaders with an interest in Palestine are starkly disappointed that the the German government did not go to war against the Zionists in Palestine. The same leaders give the Zionist national builders high marks for their perseverance against terrorist bands in the Palestinian countryside. They worry that unless Arab states come to the Palestinians’ assistance, Palestine will be lost to the Zionists. A remarkable assessment for Palestinian Arab leaders and their supporters.

Documents and Sources|September 30, 1938

British Government: Policy Statement/Advice Against Partition

Pressure from Arab leaders in states surrounding Palestine, growing instability in the eastern Mediterranean, and a firm opposition voiced by the British High Commissioner in Egypt, Miles Lampson, caused the British to withdraw the idea of resolving the Arab-Zionist conflict with a two-state solution. Instead, heavy restrictions were imposed in 1939 on the growth of the Jewish National home. Coincidently this policy statement is issued, two days after Nazi Germany attacks Jewish, homes, businesses and synagogues, in what came to be known as Kristallnacht.

Documents and Sources|November 11, 1938

HMG White Paper: Statement of Policy, 1939

Zionist leaders—David Ben-Gurion, Chaim Weizmann and Eliezer Kaplan—learning of the British intent to limit severely the Jewish national home’s growth. Increasingly, they are also aware of the German government’s hostilities towards European Jewry.