Timeline 1900 – 1954 and the end of the Mandate

Posted on July 31, 2022 by admin
1901Keren Kayemeth [Jewish National Fund] founded as land-acquisition organ of WZO; land acquired by JNF in Palestine to be inalienably Jewish, and exclusively Jewish labour to be employed on it.
1903Lloyd George’s law firm acted for Herzl in negotiations on a Jewish community in Uganda. Lloyd George drafted a charter for the ‘Jewish settlement’
1904-6Weizmann moves to Manchester. Meets Balfour and Churchill whose constituences were in Manchester
1904Death of Theodor Herzl
1905/06Pogroms against Jews. Hundreds of thousands of Jews join 2.25 million non Jews fleeing to the West for a better life. Balfour as Prime Minister of the UK sponsored legislation limiting Alien immigration into Britain in 1905.
1906Balfour writes to his niece after meeting Weizmann. “…he could see no political problems in obtaining Palestine, only economic ones.”
1907First kibbutz, based on exclusive Jewish labour, established.
1908Palestinian deputies from Jerusalem, Jaffa, Nablus and Acre elected to Ottoman Parliament in Constantinople.
March – clashes between Zionist immigrants and Palestinians in Jaffa.
1909Tel Aviv founded north of Jaffa.
1910Arabic newspapers in Beirut, Damascus and Haifa express opposition to Zionist land acquisitions in Palestine.
1913January – Palestinian contributor to Filastin writes: ‘The Zionists will gain mastery over our country, village by village, town by town.’

1914		August 1st: Outbreak of World War I. [Between 1880s-1914, some 30 Zionist colonies founded; by 1914, Jewish population in Palestine about 80,000].
November 1914Palestine was first discussed at British Cabinet level on 9 November 1914. After the meeting Lloyd George assured Herbert Samuel, “he was very keen to see a Jewish state established in Palestine.”
January 1915Samuel, a member of the British cabinet, circulated a memorandum on ‘The Future of Palestine’ to the Cabinet.
1915The De Bunsen committee
In April 1915 Prime Minister Herbert Asquith appointed the de Bunsen Committee to identify the Ottoman territories that were of interest to Britain. They considered Haifa port in Palestine a useful transport link to Mesopotamia, but they did not see any value in the rest of Palestine.
1915The Damascus Protocol was a document given to Faisal bin Hussein on 23 May 1915 by the Arab secret societies al-Fatat and Al-‘Ah on his second visit to Damascus during a mission to consult Turkish officials in Constantinople.
1915Disastrous Gallipoli campaign, final British withdrawal December 1915
1915July 14: Correspondence between Sharif Hussein of Mecca and Sir Henry McMahon, British high commissioner in Egypt, begins.
August: Jemal Pasha, Ottoman military governor, hangs 11 Arab nationalists in Beirut.
191524 October 1915. With defeat in Gallipoli seeming inevitable, Sir Henry McMahon offers Sharif Hussein support for an Arab State excluding areas West of Damascus, if he helps the British against the Ottomans. [See Related Page]
1916January 30: McMahon-Hussein correspondence concludes; Arabs understand it as ensuring post-war independence and unity of Arab provinces of Ottoman Empire, including Palestine.
May: Jemal Pasha hangs 21 Arab leaders and intellectuals, including two Palestinians, in Beirut and Damascus.
May 16: Secret Sykes-Picot Agreement divides Arab provinces of Ottoman Empire between France and Britain.
June: Sharif Hussein proclaims Arab independence from Ottoman rule on basis of his correspondence with McMahon. Arab Revolt against Constantinople begins.
1917November 2. British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour sends letter to Baron Lionel Walter de Rothschild pledging British support for establishment of Jewish national home in Palestine [Balfour Declaration].
December 9: Surrender of Ottoman forces in Jerusalem to Allied forces under General Sir Edmund Allenby [See Related Page]”
1918Declaration to the Seven, Britain defines policy that Arab governments liberated by the action of Arab armies would be based on the principle of “consent of the governed”.
September: Whole of Palestine occupied by Allied forces under General Allenby
November: end of World War I.
November 1918The Anglo-French declaration implies that the indigenous populations, previously under the rule of the Ottoman Empire, would be granted self determination. [See Related Page]
1919January Paris Peace Conference opens.
February: First Palestinian National Congress, meeting in Jerusalem, sends two memoranda to the Peace Conference, rejecting the Balfour Declaration and demanding independence.
February 6: Emir Feisal appeared before the Supreme Council of the Conference, claiming independence and unity for the Arabic-speaking provinces of Asia.
February 27: Chaim Weizmann and other Zionist leaders (from Poland, Russia and France) speak to the Supreme Council.
March 25: Peace conference decides to send international committee of inquiry to ascertain aspirations of Near East peoples.
King Crane Commission set up by President Wilson. June-July: Henry C. King and Charles R. Crane, U.S. members of international commission of inquiry, proceed to Near East alone after failure of Britain and France to join commission. It recommended Syria and Palestine should be under a single mandate and serious modifications to the Zionist programme.
August 28: Report of King-Crane Commission of Inquiry, recommends that ‘the project for making Palestine distinctly a Jewish commonwealth should be given up’. The report was prepared in 1919 but suppressed until 1922.
1920
March: Emir Feisal proclaimed King of Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Transjordan by General Syrian Congress in Damascus.
April: Disturbances break out in Palestine due to fears of Zionism and non-fulfilment of promises of independence; five Jews killed and 200 wounded. British appoint Palin Commission of Inquiry but report suppressed.
The 1920 Jerusalem riots – Arab fears, Zionist pressures, faulty security cited in British Palin inquiry

April 25: San Remo Conference. Supreme Council ‘divide the spoils of conquest’: Britain acquires the Mandate for Palestine and Iraq; France takes the Mandate for Syria, including Lebanon.
France and Italy agree that the Balfour Declaration be integrated into the draft British Mandate for Palestine, a triumph for Weizmann and his colleagues.
July 1: British civilian administration inaugurated in Palestine. Sir Herbert Samuel appointed first high commissioner. Wyndam Deedes appointed Chief Secretary He was a committed believer in Zionism as the fulfilment of the Old Testament prophecies. Norman Bentwich, Jewish and Zionist was the Attorney General.
August 26: First Immigration Ordinance sets quota of 16,500 Jewish immigrants for the first year.
1921May. First Palestinian Delegation arrives in London to explain Palestinian case against Balfour Declaration to British government.
May: Disturbances in Jaffa, protesting Zionist mass immigration; 46 Jews killed and 146 wounded.
October: Haycraft Commission of Inquiry attributes Jaffa disturbances to Palestinian fears of increasing Zionist mass immigration.
November: The Rutenberg concession: Britain granted the Jewish owned Palestine Electricity Corporation, founded by Zionist Pinhas Rutenberg, a 70 year monopoly concession to utilize the Jordan and Yarmouk Rivers’ water for generating electricity.Thus awarding a Jewish syndicate wide powers over the economic, social and industrial conditions of an Arab community…for no less than seventy years – in the process ignoring a whole stream of quite reliable applications…from native sources in Palestine in line with a deliberate policy of economic preference to the Zionists. The concession denied Arab farmers the right to use the Yarmouk and Jordan Rivers without permission. Permission was never granted. JMN Jeffries, Palestine the Reality Chapter 25
1922February, London: Second Palestinian Delegation’s demands rejected by Winston Churchill (Colonial Secretary).
June 3 Churchill’s White Paper on Palestine issued, interpreting British concept of Jewish ‘national home’ and excluding Transjordan from scope of Balfour Declaration.
July 24 League of Nations Council ratifies British Mandate for Palestine; Palestinians not consulted.
[1922 British census of Palestine shows total population of 757,182 (78% Muslim, 11% Jewish, and 9.6% Christian]
January to March 1923JMN Jeffries publishes a series of articles in the Daily Mail. These presented a hitherto uninformed British readership with details of official promises made to the Arabs in 1915-16 of post-war independence for Palestine in exchange for their support in the struggle against the Ottoman Empire and its German ally – something that London later reneged on.
3rd June 1922Churchill White Paper. asserting, among other things, that there had been no promise of political independence to Palestine in the form of the war-time McMahon-Hussein correspondence
21st June 1922Palestine Mandate defeated in the House of Lords 60-29 The motion read: That the Mandate for Palestine in its present form is inacceptable to this House, because it directly violates the pledges made by His Majesty’s Government to the people of Palestine in the Declaration of October, 1915, and again in the Declaration of November, 1918, and is, as at present framed, opposed to the sentiments and wishes of the great majority of the people of Palestine
22nd July 1922Meeting at Balfour’s home in London. Foreign Secretary Balfour and Prime Minister Lloyd George confirm verbally to Weizmann that ‘by the Declaration they always meant an eventual Jewish state’. Colonial Secretary, Churchill [responsible for Palestine] also present at the meeting when Lloyd George tells Churchill that ‘we’ must not allow such a thing as representative government to happen in Palestine. Sahar Huneidi, A Broken Trust p 59
24 July 1922Palestine Mandate ratified when Churchill succeeded by a House of Commons vote in overturning June 21st vote in the House of Lords in which a clear majority of peers had rejected Britain`s Palestine policy.
1923 SeptPalestine mandate comes into force.
1929The Palestine riots in August 1929 in Jerusalem, Hebron and Safed
1929Shaw Commission Report established to investigate the riots.
1930On January 1, 1930, Palestine Potash Limited given the “Concession for the extraction of salts and minerals in the Dead Sea”. Moshe Novomeysky was one of the directors and the company had been incorporated in England in 1929. The company became of great importance during the second World war when German and French supply of crucial chemicals stopped. Nationalised by Israel 1951.
1930Hope Simpson Enquiry The report recommended limiting Jewish immigration based on the economic absorptive capacity of Palestine.
1930Passfield White Paper was a formal statement of British Policy in Palestine. Zionists claimed that it backtracked on commitments in the Balfour Declaration’
1931MacDonald letter was a letter written by the Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald which was considered a withdrawal of the Passfield White Paper.
1933Adolf Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany. Security services (SD) begin plans for “final solution”.
1936Palestinian Arabs demand a halt to Jewish immigration and a ban on land sales to Jews. British troops brutally suppress the revolt. Britain hangs, exiles or imprisons most of the Arab leadership. See Hughes for more detail.
1937The Peel Commission recommends partition of Palestine between Arabs and Jews.
1937Palestine (Defence) Order in Council 1937 enacted emergency laws such as House Demolitions, Administrative detention and many more
1938Captain Orde Wingate, a Christian Zionist intelligence officer, sets up Special Night Squads, a joint British Jewish unit for night operations against Arabs. Described as a form of state terrorism.
1938Woodhead Commission Report was instructed to gather evidence from the various parties and to recommend boundaries for two self-sufficient states, one Arab and one Jewish, to replace the British Mandate
1938Kristallnacht marks intensification of anti-Semitism, with increasingly violent attacks on Jewish people and property. Plans for deportation of Jews from Germany and Austria, and seizure of their assets, by SD. Concentration camps planned. Jewish refugees fled to several countries, including Britain, the Americas, South Africa, Australia, and Palestine.
1939In the British White Paper of 1939 Britain announces severe restrictions on Jewish immigration and land purchases in Palestine. Violence erupts from Jewish militants.
1939-45Second World War follows German invasion of Poland. Polish Jews ghettoised, deported to concentration camps, and exterminated, along with those of Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Netherlands, Belgium, and the occupied parts of France and Russia. Further migration to Palestine and elsewhere when concentration camps liberated.
1942-47France funds Jewish extremist organisations, Stern Gang and Irgun, against the British.
1944Murder of Lord Moyne by the Stern Gang.
1945Britain creates the Defence (Emergency) Regulations which were an expansion of the laws first created in 1937. Many were incorporated into Israeli law.
29th November
1947		Britain lets the United Nations decide what to do about Palestine, which is partitioned into Jewish, Arab, and international areas (Jerusalem and Bethlehem). Fifty-five percent of the territory is allocated to the Jewish state.
 Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan are now independent states.
December 1947 – April 1948
Nakba commences. Mass expulsion of Palestinians by Jewish forces. ie whilst the British were still there.
By April 1948 Palestinians driven from 13 main cities including Haifa, Nazareth and Jaffa (See Wikipedia)
22nd February 1948The United Kingdom Government announced that Palestine would no longer form part of the sterling bloc. Palestinian pounds no longer convertible to Sterling at parity as they had been previously. (See UN paper)

Bevin the British Foreign Secretary negotiates with King Abdullah for Jordan to take over the parts of Palestine not in a Jewish state.
April 1948Massacre of Deir Yassin.
Jaffa, Haifa and Jerusalem depopulated.
May 1948The British mandate over Palestine terminates. Around 250,000 Palestinians already expelled.
 Israel declares independence and Truman recognises Israel. Count Bernadotte appointed as UN mediator. 
12 June 1948Israel ordered all commercial banks operating within its territory to “freeze the accounts of all their Arab customers and to stop all transactions on all Arab accounts.” and threatened to revoke the licenses of all banks found to be in non-compliance. By the end of December 1948, every bank operating in what had become Israel had obeyed the order, and thus, barely six months after the creation of the state of Israel, all Arab Palestinians, almost all of whom were already homeless and scattered in refugee camps throughout the Arab world, had lost access to the money and valuables which they had deposited in their banks for safe- keeping. (See A History of Money in Palestine from 1900 to Present p-105)1948
Nakba continuesArab armies attack, mainly outside the area proposed for a Jewish State. Israel fights to extend beyond what it was offered and prevails.
September 1948Count Bernadotte assassinated by Jewish extremist Stern Gang.
Dec 2nd 1948Israel passes Emergency Regulations on the Property of Absentees rendering legal under Israeli law the freeze order of June 12th. All banks complied.
Dec 11th 1948U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194 establishes a conciliation commission and asserts that refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace should be allowed to do so, that compensation should be paid to others, and that free access to the holy places should be assured.
February 1949Israel orders banks to transfer frozen accounts to the Custodian of Absentee Property.
1950All Arab accounts paid to Israeli authorities
1952The Custodian withdrew a substantial amount to finance an irrigation scheme. The Israelis were irrigating stolen Palestinian orchards with Palestinian funds.
1954 Successful case brought against Barclays Bank to recover the frozen funds of one Palestinian. This led to many more being refunded.

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