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Documents and Sources
Great Powers and the Middle East
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”

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
HMG White Paper: Statement of Policy, 1939

HMG White Paper: Statement of Policy, 1939CIE+

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
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
Loy Henderson, State Department Director of Near Eastern and African Affairs, Vehemently Opposes Jewish State in Memo to Secretary of State George Marshall, 1947

Loy Henderson, State Department Director of Near Eastern and African Affairs, Vehemently Opposes Jewish State in Memo to Secretary of State George Marshall, 1947CIE+

Loy Henderson, Director of the Office of Near Eastern and African Affairs, U.S. State Department, to U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall
Writing two months before the U.S. voted at the United Nations in favor of Palestine’s partition into Arab and Jewish states, Henderson voices profound dislike for Zionism and a Jewish state. He advocates for cultivating positive relations with Muslim and Arab states. He is one of many at the State Department at the time who saw Zionism as contrary to American national interests.

Documents and Sources|September 22, 1947
Saudi King Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud to President Truman, 1947

Saudi King Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud to President Truman, 1947

No document better reveals the hostility which most Arab leaders and Arab states had in 1947 for Zionism and for a possible Jewish state. The Saudi King notes “that US support for Zionists in Palestine is an unfriendly act directed against the Arabs.” The King’s views were totally supported by US State Department officials including Loy Henderson and George Kennan who advocated strongly against Truman’s support of a Jewish state.

Documents and Sources|October 26, 1947|Spanish
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