第2章
The First Declaration of War: British Mandate and Balfour
Palestine at the turn of the twentieth century was undergoing significant transformation. The economy was integrating into global capitalism with increased export crops and wage labor. Infrastructure modernized with telegraphs, railways, and electricity. Education expanded through missionary and Ottoman state schools. Society remained predominantly rural and patriarchal, though coastal cities like Jaffa and Haifa saw the emergence of a commercial bourgeoisie and working class.
This development was violently disrupted by World War I, which brought devastating hardships to Palestine. The Ottoman Empire suffered catastrophic losses, with over three million dead (15% of the population). Palestine's population, previously growing at 1% annually, declined by 6% during the war. Even privileged families weren't spared - four of Khalidi's father's brothers were conscripted. Southern Palestine endured grinding battles with trench warfare and bombardments throughout 1917, with Gaza particularly devastated.
The Balfour Declaration of November 2, 1917 - a single sentence pledging British support for "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people" - fundamentally transformed Palestine's future. Though using diplomatic language, it effectively committed Britain to supporting Jewish statehood and control of immigration. The declaration notably referred to the Arab majority (94% of the population) only as "existing non-Jewish communities," promising them merely "civil and religious rights" rather than political or national rights.
For Palestinians, this declaration amounted to a gun pointed at their heads - a declaration of war by the British Empire launching a century-long assault on their existence. Palestinians' reaction was initially delayed, as wartime censorship prevented news from spreading until nearly two years after the declaration. When Palestinians finally learned of it, they were already prostrate from war's devastation.
World War I accelerated Palestinian national identity from localized loyalties to modern nationalism. Entering the post-war world, Palestinians faced a radically new reality: British rule and their country promised as a "national home" for others. The Palestinian press provides crucial insight into their evolving self-perception. Newspapers like 'Isa al-'Isa's 'Filastin' promoted Palestinian identity while criticizing the Zionist-British alliance. In 1929, al-'Isa warned of Palestinians becoming "Strangers in Our Own Land" as Jewish settlers seized every opportunity while Palestinians remained poorly organized.
After World War I, Palestinians organized politically against both British rule and the privileged position granted to the Zionist movement. Their efforts included petitions to British authorities, the Paris Peace Conference, and the League of Nations, alongside seven Palestine Arab congresses held between 1919-1928. These congresses consistently demanded independence for Arab Palestine, rejection of the Balfour Declaration, majority rule, and limits on Jewish immigration and land purchases.
This elite-led legal approach proved fruitless, as British officials refused to recognize the congresses' authority. Meanwhile, popular discontent erupted into increasingly intense demonstrations in 1920, 1921, and 1929. By the early 1930s, younger, middle-class Palestinians launched more radical initiatives, including Shaykh 'Iz al-Din al-Qassam's clandestine armed network and the Istiqlal ("independence") Party.
The Mandate essentially created a Zionist para-state parallel to British governance, exercising many sovereign functions for the Jewish population including representation, education, health, and international diplomacy. Article 4 gave the Jewish Agency quasi-governmental status as a "public body" with extensive economic and social powers. Article 6 facilitated Jewish immigration and land settlement, enabling strategic territorial control along Palestine's coast and fertile valleys.
Lord Balfour, in a confidential 1919 memo, candidly admitted the contradiction between League of Nations principles and Allied policy in Palestine: "We do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants." He acknowledged that the Powers had "made no statement of fact which is not admittedly wrong, and no declaration of policy which, at least in the letter, they have not always intended to violate."
The British treated Palestinians with the same contemptuous condescension they showed other colonial subjects. They monopolized top government positions, excluded qualified Arabs, censored newspapers, and banned political activities when inconvenient. Unlike typical colonial situations, Palestine experienced an influx of foreign settlers explicitly aiming to take over the country, establishing colonies in strategic locations to ensure territorial control.
Hitler's rise to power in 1933 dramatically changed Palestine's trajectory. With discriminatory immigration laws blocking entry to the US and UK, many persecuted German Jews fled to Palestine. In 1935 alone, over 60,000 Jewish immigrants arrived - more than the entire Jewish population of Palestine in 1917. By 1939, the Jewish population exceeded 30% of Palestine's total, and the Jewish economy overtook the Arab sector. Palestinians increasingly felt they were becoming "strangers in their own land," as journalist 'Isa al-'Isa had warned.
The Palestinians failed to develop an overarching framework for their national movement, undermined by their hierarchical society and sophisticated British divide-and-rule tactics. The British co-opted elite factions, set family members against each other, and invented "traditional institutions" like the position of grand mufti of all Palestine.
The 1936 six-month general strike erupted spontaneously from below, forcing the divided Palestinian elite to form the Arab Higher Committee. However, they brokered an end to the strike at the request of Arab rulers acting for the British, who promised redress of grievances. Instead, the 1937 Peel Commission proposed partitioning Palestine, creating a small Jewish state requiring the expulsion of over 200,000 Arabs.
This denial of Palestinian self-determination triggered a more militant uprising in October 1937. Britain's brutal suppression employed 100,000 troops, summary executions, hostage-taking, home demolitions, detention without trial, and mass exile of leaders. Despite temporary successes, the revolt had devastating consequences. British repression killed, wounded, jailed or exiled 14-17% of adult Palestinian males.
