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.
The Arab Case for Palestine, 1946
From the beginning of the Palestine Mandate in 1920, Arabs in Palestine opposed Zionism; Arab states and leaders joined the opposition to Zionism in the 1930s. After WWII, Arab states were vehement in their opposition to Zionism, though the merits of their arguments were genuine, Arab leaders were more interested in controlling the land of Palestine than in the Palestinians themselves.
British Report Reveals “Separatist” Jewish Education System in Palestine, 1946
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.
Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Palestine, 1946
April 20, 1946 Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, Report to the United States Government and His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom, meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland, 1946. Unsure how to manage Palestine’s future, the British and…
Foreign Relations of the United States-FRUS
For information on accessing pre-1947 FRUS documents relating to Palestine, click here. FRUS 1947 Vol. V — The section on Mandatory Palestine, including the Arab-Zionist controversy and the United Nations, begins on Page 999 and ends…
1947 Truman Doctrine
Fearing Communist penetration of the Eastern Mediterranean, Truman at the beginning of the Cold War defines the region as a sphere of US national interest.
Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko’s Remarks to the U.N. Special Committee on Palestine, 1947
Despite an officially anti-Zionist stance, the Soviet Union, hoping to adopt Israel as a Soviet proxy, takes a pragmatic stance and supports the U.N. partition plan of Palestine into separate Arab and Jewish states.
Memorandum on the Administration of Palestine, June 1947
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.
Ben-Gurion and the Status-Quo Agreement: Jewish Laws to Be Protected in New State, 1947
The Status-Quo Agreement is an understanding reached between David Ben-Gurion, then the chairman of the Jewish Agency Executive, and the religious parties in the period before Israel became a state.
Volume XXIII, Series A (August 1947-June 1952)
The last of 23 volumes of Chaim Weizmann’s Letters summarized wonderfully by Aaron Klieman, recalls the Israeli first president’s views of those fateful years for Zionism and Israel from 1947-1952. Chaim Weizmann died at his home in Rehovot on 9 November 1952, shortly before his 78th birthday. All of the letters read together, provide ring side seat to Zionism as an idea to the reality of the Jewish state.
Report of the U.N. Special Committee on Palestine, 1947
Earlier in 1947, Great Britain turned the future of the Palestine Mandate over to the newly established United Nations. Then in August 1947, the UN suggested that establishing an Arab and Jewish state with a federal union would be the best solution for the communal unrest there.
Abdul Rahman ‘Azzam Pasha Rejects Any Compromise With Zionists, 1947
The head of Arab League says Palestine may be lost in a confrontation with the Zionists, but emphatically states that war is the Arab’s only option.
UNGA (Palestine Partition) Resolution 181, 1947
The UN recommended establishing Arab and Jewish states in Palestine, with an international regime for Jerusalem. Zionists were jubilant; Arab states and the Palestinians were indignant and rejected two state solution. No Arab state is established, Israel is in 1948
Hillel Cohen, “Army of Shadows,” Showing Regular Palestinian Arab Collaboration With Zionists Before Israel
Irrefutable evidence shows Palestinian Arab collaboration with Zionists during the British Mandate greatly assisted Jewish state building. Cohen further asserts a general absence among Palestinians of a sense of national feeling, with loyalties instead tied to families, villages and other localities. Quite certainly without Palestinian Arab collaboration, Zionists would not have succeeded in building a nucleus for the Jewish state. Arabic newspapers in Palestine and British scrutiny show the constancy of the Arab population’s engagement with the Zionists, and this included Arabs resident inside Palestine.
George Kennan Memorandum Urges U.S. Government to Reverse Support for Partition of Palestine, 1948
In March 1948, two months before Israel’s establishment, the US State Department sought to reverse the US vote in favor of partition for the creation of Arab and Jewish states in Palestine.
Israel’s Declaration of Independence, 1948
The Declaration recounts the Jewish connection to the Land of Israel, the birth of Zionism and U.N. recognition of a Jewish state’s legitimacy. It also promises that the state will be a democracy for all its citizens.
Great Britain — Palestine: Termination of the Mandate
This 10-page report, written by the British Colonial and Foreign Office, along with the 1937 Peel (Royal) Commission Report, is one of the two best summaries of the British presence in Palestine. Both are substantial in terms of content, detail and analyses; both were written from Britain’s perspective. Read these along with 1931 Census for Palestine to have a fuller grasp of the politics and the populations that shaped Britain’s Palestine’s administration from 1918-1948
Israel State Archives, “Immigration of Ethiopian Jews to Israel, 1948-1985,” and MFA Documents, 2022
Read full article at the Israel State Archives.
Proposed Constitution for State of Israel, 1948
This draft spoke eloquently about protecting individual, religious, and civil rights for all. Instead individual civil rights in Israel were protected by a series of Basic Laws.
Israeli-Egyptian General Armistice Agreement, Excerpts, 1949
One of four agreements Israel signed in 1949 with Arab neighbors, it does not end “state of war,” between Israel and Arab states. No treaty is signed until 1979.
Israel’s Law of Return
Jews worldwide are given the right to come to Israel and become citizens.
American Jewish Relationship With Israel: Speech by Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and Response by AJC President Jacob Blaustein, 1950
August 23, 1950 American Jewish Yearbook, Vol. 53. 1952. 64-8. Over time, world Jewish opinion became splintered not only about the nature of Zionism or the role of Israel in their identity, but the degree…
1950-1951 Israel Yearbook, “The Zionist Movement”
The Israel Year Book, 1950/51, Tel Aviv, Israel Publications Limited, 1951, pp. 23-34.,(reprinted with permission). The Zionist Movement, the unique instance in world history of a people without a land organizing itself for the rebuilding…
1951 U.N. Report, “The Situation of Jews in Moslem Countries”
This report submitted to the United Nations at the end of 1951 notes that “some one million Jews have become the victims of accelerated antiSemitism” since 1948 in the Muslim countries of the Arab League and North Africa, “communities which have existed for thousands of years.” The report analyzes the situation for Jews overall and explains restrictions and oppressive measures country by country.
