Balfour Declaration Dbq

SECTION B

Introduction

The prolonged presence of the British Mandate for Palestine and its subsequent downfall played an essential role in the establishment of Israel in 1948. Britain’s role in the fragmentation of peace is relatively undisputed. However, circumstances independent of British intervention such as illegal Jewish immigration, Arab nationalism, and Britain’s economic and international standing had significant influence on the United Nations’ determination that partition of Palestine was their only viable option.

Perspectives on British Intentions

Broadly speaking, Britain’s conflicting promises and attempts to contain two nation-states under one mandate led to its fragmentation. Conflicting perspectives arise from views on Britain’s

true motivations for maintaining a presence in the Middle East. Historian Feith’s belief about Britain’s bias towards the Zionists rings true when the 1917 Balfour Declaration is taken into account, as it prematurely promised Zionists sovereignty in Palestine.

La Guardia regards the Balfour Declaration as a British instrument used for their own gain, affirming that they wanted to exploit the Jewish people and gain notoriety as supporters of the Zionists while simultaneously maintaining economic interests in the Arab world. Sachar concurs with La Guardia on the subject of Britain’s intentions to control Palestine in order to secure military interests in the Middle East through a Jewish state rather than an Arab state, reinforcing the idea that Britain saw a Jewish state as a strategic boon. Historian Reynold uses the Balfour Declaration to support his subjective argument that the failure was due to the lack of “genuine interest or initiative on the British side to make [the Mandate] work”. Additionally, he discounts the intricacies of the Zionist movement and

places the blame on Britain for failing to forge a trustworthy relationship with the Yishuv who falsely anticipated an easy route to the formation of a Jewish state due to the Balfour Declaration. According to Reynold, the Balfour Declaration existed merely to advance the interests of the British in the Middle East while maintaining international consent. While Britain’s selfish colonial tendencies played a role in the downfall of Mandatory Palestine, such a conclusion is incomplete as it fails to address the numerous unexpected factors that swayed Britain’s hand.

A further developed approach proposes that Britain’s decisions in Palestine grew increasingly dependent on maintaining their international standing and Anglo-American relations due to Palestine’s detrimental impact on Britain’s reputation and economy. Although Britain has an extensive history of self-serving imperialist tendencies to use a region for personal gain, due to the detrimental impacts of World Wars I and II, Britain had legitimate justification in the decision to exit and partition Palestine. Similarly, Ravndal and Sachar concluded that “economic and strategic considerations” led to the termination of Mandatory Palestine to guarantee a prosperous future of Anglo-Middle Eastern relations. Ultimately, relinquishing control to the United Nations was a strategic forfeit used to ensure that Britain would maintain an influence in the Middle East.

The Impact of Immigration
The unexpected issue of illegal Jewish immigration heightened tensions between the native Arabs and the Zionists and forced Britain to make compromises to temporarily stabilize Mandatory Palestine.

Historian Goldscheider proposes that problems caused by illegal immigration of Jews into Palestine forced Britain to choose between Arab and Zionist interests. Goldscheider’s suggestion that Britain was compelled by Arabs to take a stance against Jewish immigration represents a close-minded perspective that fails to incorporate the complexities of the issue. While presenting a subjective perspective similar to Goldscheider’s, Ravndal views immigration as the cause of international intervention, citing the significance of the international outcry against the British as a result of the restriction of Jewish immigration due to the 1939 White

Paper.

Discounting the ever-present need of the Jewish people for sanctuary due to persecution in World War II, the White Paper represented pragmatic decision making to maintain peace in Palestine. La Guardia takes a stance strongly against the White Paper, proposing that they were used to retain Arab allies with little concern for the international implications of the decision. In stark contrast to Goldscheider and Ravndal, but in a similarly close-minded manner, La Guardia argues that Britain restricted immigration purely for personal gain. In a more comprehensive approach, Margulies argues that the Zionists’ hostility towards the British through paramilitary attacks by the Yishuv during World War II in response to the White Paper incentivized the British to hand over control of Mandatory Palestine to the United Nations. Ultimately, Britain’s fragile post-war economy combined with their continuation of the White Paper despite the events of the Holocaust, Britain’s reputation grew vulnerable and led to their temporary relinquishment of power in the Middle East.

The Adverse Influence of Arab-Israeli Relations
By promising the land of the former Ottoman Empire to the Zionists, the French, and the Arabs, Britain placed itself in a precarious position in the Middle East with the 1917 Balfour Declaration. The British used promises of sovereignty to persuade the Arabs to fight against the Ottoman Empire during World War I, but by dividing power over the region with the French in the mandate system and designating sovereignty in Mandatory Palestine to the Zionists, Arabs were ultimately given no concrete power in their homeland. The struggle to satisfy British interests as well as the interests of dissimilar nations led to neglect of important sectors such as communication between Arabs, Jews, and the British which was ultimately a significant factor in the fall of Mandatory Palestine. The 1937 Peel Commission revealed that the mandate could not be sustained because of lack of stability of Palestine’s inhabitants, showing how the British acknowledged their own inability to mediate the conflicting groups. Historian Galnoor discounts the impact of the Peel Commission, arguing that it led to the internal turmoil in Palestine that necessitated partition and forced Britain to take action due to international support for a Jewish state, instead of merely reporting on the Mandate’s futility.

The action of creating new borders and nations with the Mandates of former Ottoman territory broke the historic connection between Arab peoples and further fragmented Mandatory Palestine. This forced separation resulted in poor communication between those inhabiting the Mandate and fostered contempt due to the undeclared sovereignty of the region. Kamel argues that the absence of an adequate advocate for Arab aspirations indicates that the League of Nations’ Mandate system favored Zionists from the start. Contrastly, Reynold argues that because Britain consulted both Arabs and Jews on the subject of Palestine, they created a state of perpetual unrest and dissatisfaction. By providing a voice to the indigenous Arabs, Britain fostered noncompliance which was exacerbated and made “the failure to reprimand the Arab leadership after 1929 riots, the British rejection of the partition plan, the 1929 white paper, and the policy of appeasing the Arabs at all costs” inevitable. By appeasing the Arabs and providing them with a level of sovereignty that was originally allocated to the Jewish people, Britain failed to fulfill the mandate established by the League of Nations in 1922. The initial failure to acknowledge Palestinian Arabs and to fulfill the behemoth promises to the Zionists for a homeland resulted in Britain’s inability to compromise the two nation’s interests of sovereignty into a single, peaceful state without the intervention of the United Nations.

It is important to acknowledge that as the mandate matured, both the concerns of the Arabs and the Zionists were ignored. For example, international plans for a unitary state persisted despite the Jewish Agency’s opposition to “a unitary state in Palestine” and the Arab Higher Committee’s refusal of anything resembling a plan for partition. The two nations ultimately failed to articulate their concerns to one another, a transgression that arose from the lack of transparency in Britain’s administration pertaining to the designated sovereignty of the region.

Conclusion
Britain’s interference in the Middle East through the Mandate for Palestine cannot sufficiently explain the mandate’s failure and the subsequent intervention of the United Nations. The interests of Britain to gain economic and political power in the Middle East undoubtedly influenced their actions in Mandatory Palestine. However, factors independent of Britain’s decisions such as the evolving worldview of Zionism due to the Holocaust, the augmentation of Arab nationalism in spite of the divisions of the mandate system, and necessary reactions to illegal immigration and revolutions together contributed more significantly to Britain’s actions and subsequent the intervention of the United Nations. As Britain grew more economically unstable following World War II and ultimately less capable of quelling the festering discord in the Middle East, an internationally overseen partition of Palestine appeared to be the optimal decision.