In the late 19th century, under Zionism, many European Jews purchased swamps and other desert land from the Ottoman sultan and his agents. At that time, Jerusalem did not extend beyond the walled area and had a population of only a few tens of thousands. Under the Zionists, collective farms, known as
kibbutzim, were established, as was the first entirely Jewish city in modern times,
Tel Aviv.
Before
World War I, the
Middle East, including
Palestine, had been under the control of the
Ottoman Empire for nearly 500 years. During the closing years of their empire the Ottomans began to espouse their Turkish ethnic identity, asserting the primacy of Turks within the empire, leading to discrimination against the Arabs.
[10] The promise of liberation from the Ottomans led many Jews and Arabs to support the allied powers during
World War I, leading to the emergence of widespread Arab nationalism.
In 1917, the British government issued the
Balfour Declaration, which stated that the government viewed favourably "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people" but "that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine". The Declaration was issued as a result of the belief of key members of the government, including Prime Minister
Lloyd George, that Jewish support was essential to winning the war; however, the declaration caused great disquiet in the Arab world.
[11] After the war, the area came under British rule as the
British Mandate of Palestine. The area mandated to the British included what is today Israel, Jordan, the
West Bank and Gaza.
Jewish immigration to
Palestine increased. By 1931, 17 percent of the population of Palestine were Jews, an increase of six percent since 1922.
[12] Jewish immigration increased soon after the Nazis came to power in Germany, causing the Jewish population in Palestine to double.
[13] Palestinian Arabs saw this rapid influx of Jewish immigrants as a threat to their homeland and their identity as a people. Moreover, Jewish policies of purchasing land and prohibiting the employment of Arabs in Jewish-owned industries and farms greatly angered the Palestinian Arab communities.[14] Demonstrations were held as early as 1920, protesting what the Arabs felt were unfair preferences for the Jewish immigrants set forth by the British mandate that governed Palestine at the time. This resentment led to outbreaks of violence. In March 1920, a first violent incident occurred in Tel Hai, later that year riots broke out in Jerusalem. Winston Churchill's 1922 White Paper tried to reassure the Arab population, denying that the creation of a Jewish state was the intention of the Balfour Declaration. In 1929, after a demonstration by Vladimir Jabotinsky's political group Betar at the Western Wall, riots started in Jerusalem and expanded throughout Palestine; Arabs murdered 67 Jews in the city of Hebron, in what became known as the Hebron Massacre.
A
Jewish bus equipped with wire screens to protect against rock, glass, and grenade throwing, late 1930s
A headline from
The Baltimore News following the
1929 Palestinian massacre of Jews in Hebron
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