Cards List
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Documents and Sources
Europe and Israel
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

1914-1915 Hussein-McMahon CorrespondenceCIE+

The Sharif of Mecca and Sir Henry McMahon, a British official in Cairo speaking for the Foreign Office, exchange letters about the current war effort against the Turks and the future political status of specific Arab lands in the Ottoman Empire. McMahon says, as he repeats in 1937, that the area of Palestine is excluded from any area to be provided to an Arab leader after World War I. The British instead allow the area of Palestine to develop as a “national home for the Jewish people.”

Documents and Sources|October 24, 1915|Spanish
Sykes-Picot Agreement, 1916

Sykes-Picot Agreement, 1916CIE+

Britain and France secretly divide the Arab provinces of the reeling Ottoman Empire to meet their own geopolitical interests. They offer no concern for the political aspirations of indigenous populations.

Documents and Sources|May 15-16, 1916
1922 White Paper on Palestine

1922 White Paper on PalestineCIE+

With intentioned ambiguity, Britain asserts that its goal in Palestine is not to make it wholly Jewish or subordinate the Arab population. Self-determination is not promised. Britain wants to remain an umpire between the communities. Naively, it thinks it can control communal expectations and keep the peace.

Documents and Sources|July 1922
Government of Palestine, C.F. Strickland, “A Report on the Possibility of Introducing a System of Agricultural Cooperation in Palestine”

Government of Palestine, C.F. Strickland, “A Report on the Possibility of Introducing a System of Agricultural Cooperation in Palestine”CIE+

Correctly observing that the vast majority of Palestinian Arab peasants were trapped in debt with interest rates between 30% and 70%, this British civil servant suggested establishing agricultural cooperatives. But neither Arab leaders nor British bureaucrats wanted to provide the funding. For the duration of the Mandate, the Palestinian peasant remained hard-working, sullen and impoverished.

Documents and Sources|July 3, 1930
British Government: Policy Statement/Advice Against Partition, 1938

British Government: Policy Statement/Advice Against Partition, 1938CIE+

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|Spanish|Hebrew
HMG White Paper: Statement of Policy, 1939

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.

Documents and Sources|May 23, 1939
Pro-Zionist Remarks by Winston Churchill, 1939

Pro-Zionist Remarks by Winston Churchill, 1939CIE+

Over four decades, Winston Churchill’s views on Zionism and Jews varied greatly. Without knowing his long held personal beliefs or the policies he adopted while the Jewish state developed, and only reading this speech, one would not know that he was a political opportunist and certainly not a “Gentile Zionist.”

Documents and Sources|May 23, 1939
British Report Reveals “Separatist” Jewish Education System in Palestine, 1946

British Report Reveals “Separatist” Jewish Education System in Palestine, 1946CIE+

With the British spending local revenue on strategic needs — ports, roads and communication systems — scant funds were devoted to education in the Mandate. Already baked into diasporic habits, the Jewish community raced forward in educating its own in Palestine to inculcate penetrating attachments to Palestine as the Jewish national home. Arab youth literacy ran in place, with separatist education contributing mightily to communal divisions, as occurred simultaneously in the economic and geospatial spheres.

Documents and Sources|1946
Memorandum on the Administration of Palestine, June 1947

Memorandum on the Administration of Palestine, June 1947CIE+

Published by the British Administration of Palestine, this summary emphasizes attempts at impartiality in governing the Mandate. It notes that in 1922, the Jewish community already possessed ‘national’ characteristics, while the Arab community’s composition was sociologically and economically divided and to a large degree impoverished by the war.

Documents and Sources|June 1947
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