Documents and Personalities of the 1936-1939 Arab RiotsCIE+
This analysis was undertaken and written at the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem by Jewish observers of the Arab riots and rebellion that took place between April 1936 and early 1939.
Sir Harold MacMichael, High Commissioner of Palestine, to Oliver Stanley, Colonial Secretary, 1944CIE+
Before ending his term in 1944 as Palestine’s High Commissioner, Sir Harold MacMichael suggested the partition of Palestine, “Jews and Arabs alike would enjoy the possession of their own respective territories, the former protected by international guarantees for their security, and the latter relieved from fear of further encroachments.”
Reasoned Views for Palestinian Arabs’ Dysfunctional Condition, 1945-1949
Steady disintegration of Palestinian Arab society from 1945-1949 is detailed by five Arab and non-Arab historians citing local social cleavages, economic impoverishment, fear, indebtedness, and political dysfunction.
Jewish Request at End of WWII: Let My People Go (to Palestine)! Moshe Sharett, 1945CIE+
Moshe Sharett urges the British and Americans to open Palestine to unimpeded Jewish immigration from Europe.
Jewish Cultural Life in Palestine, 1944-1945CIE+
Gerda Luft’s, “Cultural Life in Palestine,” is representative of the dozens of excellent analyses of Jewish life and politics in Palestine/Israel and the world located in the annual Palestine Yearbooks, later the Israel Yearbook, published from 1945 forward.
Land Transfer Inquiry Committee Report, 1945CIE+
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, 1946CIE+
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, 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.
Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Palestine, 1946CIE+
The report of a joint U.S.-British committee on the situation in Palestine and the fate of European Jewish refugees fails to offer solutions the British government will accept but does deliver vital data and insights on the situation between Arabs and Jews in the Land of Israel.
Foreign Relations of the United States in the Middle East and Israel, 1947-1978CIE+
These Foreign Relations of the United States collections provide an ongoing, in-depth view at issues and conflict in the Middle East and the U.S.-Israel relationship from 1947 to 1978.
1947 Truman DoctrineCIE+
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, 1947CIE+
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 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.
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)CIE+
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, 1947CIE+
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, 1947CIE+
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 Through 1947CIE+
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, 1948CIE+
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, 1948CIE+
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
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Israel State Archives, “Immigration of Ethiopian Jews to Israel, 1948-1985”CIE+
The Israel State Archives has collected government documents on the history of Israel’s interactions with the Beta Israel through the first operations to facilitate their emigration from Ethiopia in the 1980s.
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.
