Balfour Declaration, 1917
British Foreign Ministry promises to set up a Jewish National Home in Palestine with no harm to non-Jewish populations, or to Jews living elsewhere who might want to support a Jewish home.
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.
San Remo Conference Agreement, 1920: Borders Set for Postwar Middle Eastern Mandates
April 25, 1920 In April 1920, the San Remo Conference in Italy determined the boundaries of the territories captured by the allies during World War I. These included boundaries for the political existence of Syria,…
Composite Statements in KKL/JNF Discussions About Lands to Purchase, 1926-1948
Dr. Kenneth Stein, Professor Emeritus, Emory University, kenstein@israeled.org, November 2024 Sources: Minutes of JNF meetings, statements by JNF officials, comments in the Palestinian Arab Press, remarks by British Colonial officials, and official reports. All KKL…
Jewish Agency’s Margalith Identifies Arab Peasant Displacement From Arab Landlord Sales to Jewish Buyers, 1930
Two letters detail how Arab peasants are sometimes swindled out of their lands by Arab land brokers and effendis, noting economic harm to them, and how they learn to avoid landlords and sell directly to Jewish buyers. Intra-Arab communal tension rises.
Zirin Village Land Sales
The sale of Zirin Village to the Jewish National Fund was collusively undertaken by a local Arab family through the British Courts in Palestine. The process intentionally avoided financial compensation to the resident Arab occupants.
1931-1949: Arab Land Sales to Jews — Palestine Arab Press, British Reports and Zionist Accounts
These Palestinian Arab newspaper materials and other quotations about Arab land sales to the Zionists during the British Mandate were first read and collected at the National Library at the Hebrew University on the Givat…
Ken Stein: Socio-Economic Differences Preface Palestine’s Political Partition — The Mandate
Primary sources, reputable scholarship and archival materials collectively show major communal (Arab-Jewish) socio-economic separation, factors that foreshadowed geo-spatial partition.
Systematic Agricultural Colonization in Palestine
August 21, 1933 J. Elazari – Volcani (Issac Vilkanski) SYSTEMATIC AGRICULTURAL COLONIZATION IN PALESTINE REPORT PRESENTED AT THE XVIIITH ZIONIST CONGRESS PRAGUE, 1933 Special Printing from the Protocol of the XVIIIth Zionist Congress 1934 Published…
Political Significance of JNF Land Purchase, 1937
With more Arab sale offers than funds for purchases, Zionist leaders decide on strategic priorities and designate areas around Haifa, Jerusalem-Jaffa road, and the Galilee near headwaters of the
Jordan River.
Britain in 1939 Reaffirms Area of Palestine Was Not Promised to Sharif of Mecca During World War I
March 16, 1939 Was the area of Palestine excluded from British promises made to Sharif Hussein of Mecca during World War I? A British investigation in 1939 said it was not part of a British…
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.
Land Transfer Inquiry Committee Report, 1945
Circumventing the existing law on prohibition of land sales to Jews, Palestinian Arabs are found selling lands regularly and furtively to Zionists.
Jewish National Fund — Minutes of a Meeting of Those Involved in Purchasing Lands, November 1946
The JNF estimated that up to 250,000 dunams (a dunam was a quarter of an acre) could be purchased if funds were available despite Arab opposition to sales and a steep rise in prices. By then, Jews owned 1.6 million dunams of land, with more than half of Palestine not owned by anyone.
Israeli Government-Designed Peace Plan After June 1967 War
Following the conclusion of the June 1967 War, the Israeli government sent word to Egypt and Syria seeking peace plan that was intended to jumpstart a peace process with Israel’s belligerent neighbors, Egypt and Syria. The messages were sent through the US, but no response was apparently received.
The Allon Plan, 1967
July 26, 1967: The Alon Plan reflects a response to Israel’s pre-1967 war border vulnerability seeking a future west bank arrangement that is not a strategic/geographic threat to Israel and its coastal plain population centers.
U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, 1967
The Resolution calls for unspecified Israel withdrawal from territories in return for right of all states to live in peace. It does not call for full withdrawal. It is the basis of Egyptian (1979) and Jordanian (1994) Treaties with Israel, and PLO (1993) recognition of Israel.
The “Galili Plan”
With less than three dozen Israeli settlements in the territories taken in the June War, the proposal is not for a vast settlement increase, but for economic, infrastructure, and industrial development of the areas.
President Carter’s Meeting With Israeli Foreign Minister Dayan, September 1977
The vast gulf in US and Israeli positions about Palestinian self-determination, the degree of withdrawal from the West Bank, and future borders is precisely stated. A year later at the end of the Camp David negotiations, Israeli and US views had not changed at all.
Egyptian President Sadat’s Knesset Address, November 1977
Sadat tells the Israeli people and world that he seeks a just and durable peace, which is not a separate peace, between Israel and Egypt. He equates statehood for the Palestinians as their right to return.
Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin’s Palestinian Autonomy Plan, 1977
Five weeks after Egyptian President Anwar Sadat flew to Jerusalem in November 1977, to accelerate Egyptian – Israeli negotiations, Begin brought to President Jimmy Carter, Israel’s response to Sadat’s peace initiative: political autonomy for the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. No Palestinian state was considered.
U.N. Security Council Resolution 446: Territories Occupied by Israel, 1979
Carefully sandwiched between Carter’s high-risk presidential visit to Egypt and Israel on March 10, 1979—to solve contentious disagreements between Sadat and Begin—and the Peace Treaty signing on March 26, 1979, his administration gladly votes at the UN to deplore Israeli settlement building; including demographic changes in Jerusalem. After the Peace Treaty signing, until it leaves office in 1981, the Carter administration will continue to barrage Israel with condemnation for settlement building.
U.N. Security Council Resolution 452, 1979
This was the second UNSC Resolution within four months supported by the Carter administration condemning Israel’s settlement building in the territories. It too greatly angered the Israeli government and American supporters of Israel.
U.N. Security Council Resolution 465 on Jerusalem, Settlements and Territories, 1980
Showing its public opposition to Israeli actions in the lands taken in the June 1967 war, an area that the Carter Administration
wanted reserved for Palestinian self-rule, it ‘strongly deplores’ Israel’s settlement policies. Passage of the resolution three weeks
prior to the New York and Connecticut presidential primaries, cause many Jewish voters to vote in favor of Ted Kennedy
and not for Carter, helping to splinter the Democratic Party.
U.N. Security Council Resolution 478 on Territories Taken in June 1967, Enacted 1980
The United States abstains on a Security Council resolution declaring Israel’s Basic Law on Jerusalem to be in violation of international law.
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