BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee

1.2 From Mandate to Partition
From the Nakba to the Present Day – Ongoing Displacement
From the beginning of the British Mandate in Palestine in 1922, through to the end of 1947, when the United
Nations recommended that the country be partitioned into two states, nearly one-tenth of the Palestinian Arab
population was forced to leave home, expelled, or denationalized. Tens of thousands of Palestinian Arabs were
also internally displaced during this period as a result of Zionist colonization, the eviction of tenant farmers,
and punitive home demolitions by the British administration.
During the First World War, Allied forces under British command occupied Palestine, which was then one of
several Arab territory that were part of the Ottoman Empire. In November 1917, the British cabinet issued
the Balfour Declaration. 10 The one-page letter from Arthur Balfour, the British Secretary of Foreign Affairs to
Lord Rothschild, head of the British Zionist Federation, granted explicit recognition of and support for the
idea of establishing a Jewish “national home” in Palestine through immigration and colonization.
At the time, Jews constituted only 8% of the population of Palestine, 11 and owned less than 3% of the total
land in the country. 12 The majority of the indigenous Jewish community of Palestine did not support the
Zionist idea of creating a separate and exclusive Jewish state in the country. 13 Despite widespread Palestinian
Arab opposition to the Balfour Declaration, Great Britain viewed Zionist colonization as a way to advance
British interests in the region. 14
A year later, in November 1918, France and Great Britain signed the Anglo-French Declaration, which affirmed
that their goal “[... was] the complete and final liberation of the peoples who have for so long been oppressed
by the Turks, and the setting up of national governments and administrations deriving their authority from
the free exercise of the initiative and choice of the indigenous populations” [emphasis added]. 15
In 1919, the Allied powers met in Paris to determine the status of those non-self-governing territory that
had been part of the former Ottoman Empire. Member states of the League of Nations decided to establish
a temporary “Mandate System” in accordance with the Covenant of the League of Nations to facilitate the
independence of these territory. 16 The August 1920 Treaty of Sèvres between the Allied Powers and Turkey
affirmed that Palestine “be provisionally recognised as an independent State subject to the rendering of
administrative advice and assistance by a Mandatory until such time as they are able to stand alone.” 17
In 1920, the League of Nations entrusted the temporary administration (“Mandate”) of Palestine to Great
Britain, as a “Class A” Mandate (one perceived to be closest to independence). 18 The Mandate for Palestine,
however, aimed to facilitate the colonization of the country through Jewish immigration, settlement, and
colonization in order “to secure the establishment of the Jewish national home”, in line with the political
commitment set out in the Balfour Declaration. The Mandate accorded the Jewish minority in the country
and non-resident Jews residing elsewhere full political rights; it granted the Palestinian Arab majority only
civil and religious rights.
“[I]n the case of the ‘independent nation’ of Palestine,” observed the British Secretary of Foreign Affairs,
“we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the
country” (as was required by the League of Nations). “Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted
in age-long traditions, in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder import than the desires and
prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land.” 19 These conflicting intentions gave rise
to the inherent contradiction of the Mandate of Palestine: the simultaneous establishment of an independent
state of Palestine for all its citizens on the territory of Mandate Palestine, and a Jewish national home within
or on that same territory.
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