Just as they continued trying to "biff the French bit of Syria," they applied themselves to biffing the Zionists out of Palestine. While their government was still canvassing international support to grant Britain the Mandate in order to implement the Zionist policy, and while the Zionists were urging Britain’s claims, the first British administration in […]

The purposes of the administration were now pursued by a stream of memoranda of protest and demands by the several branches of the MCA, dutifully forwarded to London with accompanying evaluations of their originality, spontaneity, sincerity, and the representative character of their signatories. Memoranda, however, were not enough to generate quick action; a "situation" had […]

In the the first flush of enthusiasm, a British military compounded the offense in traditional fashion: The defenders were punished. Jabotinsky was sentenced to fifteen years’ imprisonment and twenty of his followers were given lesser terms. But Haj Amin and el Aref had operated too openly for any government publicly to ignore their guilt. Though […]

Haj Amin el-Husseini received the lowest number of votes and thus could not be included in the recommended list of three. Richmond launched an energetic campaign to get Samuel to appoint him nevertheless. He urged upon him the "expert" view that the poll was unimportant, that Haj Amin was the man the "Moslem populations insisted […]

In Palestine, the measures to confine and restrict Jewish reconstruction slowly tightened. The British government was not free to make drastic changes since Britain had no sovereignty in Palestine. She was there constitutionally to fulfill the Mandate and was answerable to the League of Nations for her actions. As long as the League had prestige […]

which had in fact never existed and which could not be conjured up. Whenever, therefore, a reaction was to be provoked in the more militant, or more unruly, section of the Arab population, it was the vaguer generality of Islam or of pan-Arabism that was invoked. Thus, the disturbances in 1929 were organized on a […]

The sanctity of the minutes of the British Cabinet in London has, however, saved one item of direct docuinentary evidence on the British government’s relationship to the “‘revolt” and to the “rebels.” The disturbances were not even mentioned when the Cabinet met soon after they broke out. Nor was the outbreak discussed at the next […]

The Jewish Presence in Palestine Promoted by two such powerful forces as Soviet assertions and Arab propaganda, the claim of Arab historical rights has become a central element in the international debate. By sheer weight of noise, it has impressed many otherwise knowledgeable and well meaning people. The facts of history are thus a vital […]

The emergence and the progressive intensification of Jewish national identification in the Soviet Union has seemed miraculous even To many historically minded people. It is, in fact, merely an expression sharpened, deepened, and concentrated by the circumstances of the central fact of 3,500 years of Jewish history: the passion of the Jewish people for the […]

The history of the second half of the sixteenth century illustrates the dynamism of the Palestinian Jews their prosperity, their progressiveness, and their subjugation. In 1577, a Hebrew printing press was established in Safed. The first press in Palestine, it was also the first in Asia. In 1576, and again in 1577, the Sultan Murad […]