Reading about the Mandate now. You probably have a lot of fair points. But I find it interesting that when the Brits initially set up the post-Ottoman government, even then the Arabs were doing their best to screw over the immigrants.
Samuel tried to establish self-governing institutions in Palestine, as required by the mandate, but was frustrated by the refusal of the Arab leadership to co-operate with any institution which included Jewish participation.
I won't argue that they should have welcomed them with open arms and put them in charge or anything but a little effort to get along before the endless cycle of killing starts would be nice instead of "we refuse to work with anyone who's a Jew."
Then they try to make a legislature:
The 1922 Palestine Order in Council[14] established a Legislative Council, which was to consist of 23 members; 12 elected, 10 appointed and the High Commissioner.[15] Of the 12 elected members, eight were to be Muslim Arabs, two Christian Arabs and two Jews.[16] Arabs protested against the distribution of the seats, arguing that as they constituted 88% of the population, having only 43% of the seats was unfair.[16] Elections were held in February and March 1923, but due to an Arab boycott, the results were annulled and a 12-member Advisory Council was established.
They give Arabs 11 of the 12 elected positions and they still pitch a fit. Presumably the Arabs expected the Brits to appoint 10 Jews for the latter part of the council...which may have been accurate, I suppose. But saying "we only get 43% of the seats" seems blatantly misleading unless somebody can actually show that all 10 of those appointed were Jewish.
In 1930, Sheikh Izz ad-Din al-Qassam arrived in Palestine from Syria and organised and established the Black Hand, an anti-Zionist and anti-British militant organisation. He recruited and arranged military training for peasants and by 1935 he had enlisted between 200 and 800 men. The cells were equipped with bombs and firearms, which they used to kill Zionist settlers in the area, as well as engaging in a campaign of vandalism of the settlers-planted trees and British constructed rail-lines.[18] In November 1935, two of his men engaged in a firefight with a Palestine police patrol hunting fruit thieves and a policeman was killed. Following the incident, British police launched a manhunt and surrounded al-Qassam in a cave near Ya'bad. In the ensuing battle, al-Qassam was killed.[18]
Oh, and the first mention of armed violence is some Arab guy bringing the ruckus. Although I strongly suspect that this is because we're talking Wikipedia so the pro-Israeli crowd is probably on the scene.
The death of al-Qassam in 1936 generated widespread outrage in the Arab community. Huge crowds accompanied Qassam's body to his grave in Haifa. A few months later, in April 1936, the Arab national general strike broke out. The strike lasted until October 1936, instigated by the Arab Higher Committee, headed by Amin al-Husseini. During the summer of that year, thousands of Jewish-farmed acres and orchards were destroyed, Jewish civilians were attacked and killed, and some Jewish communities, such as those in Beisan and Acre, fled to safer areas.(Gilbert 1998, p. 80) The violence abated for about a year while the British sent the Peel Commission to investigate.(Khalidi 2006, pp. 87–90)
So this al-Qassam guy is out there murderin' it up and when they catch him, the Arabs promptly revolt and start burning whatever Jewish land they can get at. Naturally.
Following the Arab rejection of the Peel Commission recommendation, the revolt resumed in autumn of 1937. Over the next 18 months, the British lost control of Nablus and Hebron. British forces, supported by 6,000 armed Jewish auxiliary police,[20] suppressed the widespread riots with overwhelming force. The British officer Charles Orde Wingate (who supported a Zionist revival for religious reasons[citation needed]) organised Special Night Squads composed of British soldiers and Jewish volunteers such as Yigal Alon, which “scored significant successes against the Arab rebels in the lower Galilee and in the Jezreel valley”(Black 1991, p. 14) by conducting raids on Arab villages. (Shapira 1992, pp. 247, 249, 350) The Jewish militia Irgun used violence also against Arab civilians as "retaliatory acts",[21] attacking marketplaces and buses.
And *now* they mention the Jews fighting back.
The attacks on the Jewish population by Arabs had three lasting effects: First, they led to the formation and development of Jewish underground militias, primarily the Haganah, which were to prove decisive in 1948. Secondly, it became clear that the two communities could not be reconciled, and the idea of partition was born.
In general I have a hard time not rolling my eyes whenever somebody says "the Israelis refuse to negotiate" when their opponents have shown over and over that they will stop at nothing to destroy them. So both sides become intractable.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...
