3 minute read
The (Actual) History They Don't Tell You
WHAT THEY DON'T TELL YOU
It’s 1916, in the middle of World war I, and the United kingdom and France are aiming to defeat the Ottoman Empire. They decide to sign the Sykes-Picot agreement, a secret treaty dividing the lands ruled by the Ottoman Empire (the first of many agreements where neither of the parties own the land they’re distributing). However, it wasn’t until 2 years later when the British army managed to end the Ottoman Empire rule over Palestine. Originally, per the agreement, the Palestinian region was supposed to fall under an “international administration,” meaning that it would not fall under direct control of either country.
As you can probably guess, that did not happen. In 1917, in a letter between the British foreign secretary, Arthur Balfour to Lionel Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish community, the Balfour declaration was established. In it, he showed support for making Palestine a national home for Jewish people.
Palestine became a “mandated territory”, meaning that the League of Nations can authorize a member to govern it and it became a British mandate in 1923 (see a pattern yet?).
The League of Nations was established after WWI to deal with international disputes and try to prevent a second World war (we all know how that ended) and at that time it did not include any Arab state. The first one to join was Iraq in 1932 and the second and last to ever join was Egypt in 1937.
The Balfour declaration was included in the mandate and Jewish immigration to Palestine increased rapidly. Between 1919 and 1921, almost 18,000 Jewish immigrants arrived in Palestine, and they kept purchasing lands which lead to the eviction of Indigenous Palestinians. Watching their country being given away, Palestinians began protesting the mandate and trying to slow down the Jewish immigration while Jewish people fought back to continue to immigrate to Palestine and acquire more land.
In 1935, the Arab political parties demanded a stop to Jewish immigration and a stop of land transfer and between 1936 to 1939, there was a massive Arab revolt. The British, decided to send 20,000 troops to Palestine. Not to mention, Zionists armed more than 15,000 jews in a nationalist movement.
As world war II started, with the persecution of Jewish people, there was an extreme increase of Jewish immigration. In fact, by 1936, the Jewish population of Palestine reached 400,000 (approximately one third of the population).
In 1947, seeing no solution, the British government decided to refer the “Question of Palestine” to the UN and the answer to divide the land, giving Zionist immigrants 56% of the land while Palestinians were given 44% despite the Jewish population being only 678,000 compared to the 1,269,000 Arabs living there at the time, was reached.
Now, in 2023, the Israeli government in occupied Palestine possesses almost 77% of the land.
