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40 British betrayal Preparations ✡

Following the conquest of Palestine, Britain took over the territory and was

granted a Mandate to govern by the League of Nations. But the British soon

discovered that Arab leaders were set against the return of the Jewish

people to their historic Homeland. Hugh Kitson recounts the sad

story of how Britain reneged on its promises

British betrayal

of the Palestine Mandate

he last day of October 1917 was truly momentous in history, both dendum to the Paris Peace Conference,
for Great Britain and the now re-born nation of Israel. On that day was to create the Mandates that would
T in Whitehall the War Cabinet met to decide on the final wording of eventually give self-determination to
what became known as the Balfour Declaration, which was communicated the Arab people who had lived under
to Lord Rothschild in a letter dated 2 November 1917. Simultaneously to Ottoman Turkish rule, and also to give
that War Cabinet meeting, the Allied forces captured the town of Beer- legal status to the policy of the Jewish
sheba, which dates back to early biblical times, from the Ottoman Turkish National Home in Palestine. In fact, the
forces. Without that victory on the ground in Beersheba it is very unlikely Balfour Declaration was incorporated
that the Balfour Declaration could ever have been implemented. into the Mandate for Palestine, along
with certain other provisions, thus
Six weeks later, on 11th December, effectively raising it to the status of a
General Sir Edmund Allenby stood on ‘The vast majority treaty legally binding under interna-
the steps of the Citadel in Jerusalem tional law.
and declared British rule over the part of British military In the run-up to the San Remo
of Palestine the Allies had conquered. Conference, certain officers in the
There is no doubt that the British personnel did not British military administration in Je-
Government in London at that time rusalem were determined to prevent
intended to fulfil the promise of facili- support the Balfour this outcome. In 1920 they encouraged
tating the establishment of the Jewish a pogrom in the Old City of Jerusalem.
National Home in Palestine. However, Declaration and The story is told in the documentary
the very sudden departure of the Ot- film ‘The Forsaken Promise’ . The main
1
toman Turkish administration left a were pro-Arab.’ instigator was someone we would
vacuum of governance in the Holy City, describe today as a radical Islamist –
which the British had to fill quickly, es- Haj Amin Al-Husseini. As a result of
pecially as the French were standing in Organisation, arrived in Jerusalem the this pogrom, which was encouraged
the wings poised to take over. In order following year, he was received with by a number of senior British Army
to fill that vacuum the Government in rapturous welcome by the local Jewish Officers, the military administration
London set up a military administration population, but the military administra- was disbanded by the Government in
in Jerusalem. It consisted of personnel tion under General Allenby’s leadership Whitehall. It was replaced with a civil
from other parts of the Middle East, were less than welcoming. administration under the leadership of
principally from Cairo. The Balfour Declaration, which in the first High Commissioner, Sir Her-
The vast majority of these British legal terms was nothing more than a bert Samuel.
military personnel did not support political letter of intent, was one of the Samuel, who was Jewish, had pro-
the Balfour Declaration at all – indeed main items on the agenda at the San posed the idea of a Jewish State in
most of them were pro-Arab. When Remo Conference of 1920. The purpose Palestine back in 1915 to the then For-
Chaim Weizmann, leader of the Zionist of this conference, which was an ad- eign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey – the