This post is part of a long series I plan to report about Palestine as a country, culture, and humans across multiple communities in hopes that I spread the word about Palestine and what is happening there.

The fact that I am an Arab obviously comes with perceived bias which is a perception that I accept considering that most of the people on this platform are not Arabs. As much as I believe it is something I am able to refute using my own history, I prefer to keep the focus of this series on Palestine itself and let the series speak for itself.

However, considering the aforementioned fact of my identity, I have challenged myself and limited myself to use mostly sources that are outside of the Arab world when it comes to facts. Therefore, all the events mentioned here come from non-Arab sources which you will be able to verify yourself by reading the sources below. In fact, I implore you to check out those sources regardless of the series.

In the Zionist narrative, Britain is the enemy that's been trying to hinder Israel from establishing its own state. A simple look at the history doesn't even require a lot of research to find out that it was exactly the opposite. However, this story is one filled with politics, therefore, you know it is filled with lies and people changing alliances or making decisions under false pretences. However, we simply know that without Britain, there would be no Israeli state.

Until before 1914, World War 1 to be specific, and after years of European Jews travelling to Palestine, their numbers still didn't exceed 50 thousand people. This was around the time when the Palestinian population was 500,000 people. Those numbers simply don't the criteria of the Zionist project as it believes that as long as the Jews are a minority, they'd be oppressed.

This is the point where Chaim Weizmann would lean on Britain to say, "Hey, don't you wanna help us leave you alone and go to Palestine? Also, we're all Europeans, so we will be your Middle East branch to keep your interest", this approach helped Zionism as it made the Jewish immigration to Palestine easier. But, considering how much Britain is helping, one might wonder;

What's In It For Britain?

That's a fair question, but it is easy to answer if you're aware of history. Britain was fighting Germany in the First World War. Who was Germany's ally in that period? The Ottoman Empire before it fell apart. Britain as a colonial force in its prime, had its eye on some of the Ottoman states, to be honest, it was actually most of the states. One of those states is, of course, Palestine.

Britain had intense fear during that time that Germany would invade Palestine, the reason being that it would be close to the Suez Canal. A quick look at the map would help you realize that the Suez Canal was Britain's route to its colonies in India.

Another reason is Palestine in particular has a very important geographical position to both the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. It was also in the middle of the most important Arab capitals at the time, Cairo and Damascus. So, if you were Britain and you seized control of it then implanted your European settlers there, ones that would be loyal to you since you helped them get there was a no-brainer. Here, the Zionist movement and Britain have found interest in each others' goals.

The Future of Palestine

In 1915, British Zionist minister, Herbert Samuel, submitted a secret document to the British Cabinet titled "The Future of Palestine". In that document, he said that the idea of establishing a state for Jews in Palestine was a perfect idea. However, it can't be done without full British Mandate over the land. That mandate would make the immigration of 4 million Jews easier. In 1917, this document into a British declaration in the form of the Balfour Declaration.

In a letter written by the British Exterior Minister, Arthur Balfour, who was, and this is true and funny, a Zionist Antisemitic Christian. How is that possible? You might ask, the answer is simple. If you paid attention to the previous two posts, you would find that Zionism wouldn't even exist without Antisemitism. Simply put, Zionism owes its very existence to Antisemitism.

Anyway, the Balfour Declaration promised to establish a national state for Jews. This begs the question:

What Exactly is a National State for Jews?

Does it mean that European Jews would come to live in Palestine under the British Mandate? Or does it mean an actual Jewish state with only a Jewish population that is ruled by Jewish people? The answer to that question isn't clear now for a reason as it wasn't clear then as well, but it didn't matter at the time, at least not for Britain.

The British plan continued to support Jewish immigration. In the same year, British General Allenby invaded Jerusalem with a Jewish military corps. Among those corps was a young man called David Ben Gurion. You might actually believe that it was smooth sailing for them, but no, at that time, Jews made up 15% of the Population while Palestinians made up 85%, and 85% rejected the idea of a Jewish state.

US President Woodrow Wilson sent a committee to examine the situation and the committee concluded that Britain would need 50,000 soldiers in order to execute Balfour's Declaration. However, despite all that, Britain didn't give up and carried on with its plan. Especially since Britain won the First World War and the Ottoman Empire was defeated.

In 1920, the League of Nations, that's the United Nations before the update, granted Britain the Mandate over Palestine. That's when Britain appointed the first High Commissioner, Herbert Samuel. Samuel made everything easier for Zionists and Britain as Jewish immigration increased between 1919 and 1921 by a great margin as 185 thousand Jewish people arrived in Palestine during a time when the Jewish National Fund bought 240,000 acres in Marj Bin Amer, north of Palestine.

With that, settlement turned into a full-scale Europan project. That's when violent protests began in Palestine, starting from Jaffa. Those protests led to the death of 95 Jewish settlers and 64 Arabs. That's when Churchill announced the Churchill White Paper in 1922.

The White Paper basically said, "Why are you angry? Don't be so angry. I see no reason for you to be worried", I think after the displacement of a million people and the death of 200,000 people, I think the Arabs may have had a reason to be worried. Bear in mind, those numbers come from Israeli sources, so I don't personally buy into them, but alas, it's the commitment I made. By the way, there are many sources that say Churchill himself was Antisemitic.

So, Churchill tried to calm Arabs and said that Jews wouldn't occupy Palestine but would only create a society that is within what works in the nature of the country, its economy, and its population. The truth is that the reality of those times, and the future of it as we see today, simply disagrees with what Churchill has to say.

Jewish communities were building isolated communities, communities that didn't blend or associate with Palestinians as it was there to replace them. This statement is only proved by the fact that some Jewish towns were granted local autonomy like Tel Aviv. Tel Aviv developed a separate ministry of Works, Energy, and water. It even had education in a different language. They also build universities like the Hebrew University. That University's opening had Balfour in attendance.

Things remained that way for a while until 1929 when the Jewish immigrant numbers started to double. Not only that, in 1929, a Jewish prayer was organized in Jerusalem calling for the revival of the temple and claiming its historical right in the "Wailing Wall", or what Palestinians called the "Buraq Wall". The Jewish Day of mourning the Temple destruction coincided with the Muslim Mawlid, so Muslims revolted in what's known as the Buraq Uprising in 1929.

That's when Muslims were dismayed by the violent oppression led by the British as the British didn't jail hundreds of people but also publicly executed the leaders of the Uprising. The British treated Palestinians as if they were the "Red Indians" in America or "Black Australians", those are British colonizer terms given to who the British deem as barbaric people. Meanwhile, Jewish immigrants were treated differently as they were civilized white Europeans in the eyes of the British.

One side, which was the vast majority and the people who have been living there for hundreds of years were treated as barbaric and uncivilized, while European Jews, people who weren't living in this land 10 years prior in most cases were treated as the civilized side. That mentality and its subsequent actions will be made more apparent in the upcoming parts.

Previous Parts

The Tragic Story of Palestine - Part 1: Tantura
The Tragic Story of Palestine - Part 2: Protecting The Israel Mythology
The Tragic Story of Palestine - Part 3: The Israel Foundation Myth
The Tragic Story of Palestine - Part 4: The "One People" Myth
The Tragic Story of Palestine - Part 5: The "Zionism is Judaism" Myth
The Tragic Story of Palestine - Part 6: The "Land Without a People" Myth

Follow-up parts

Sources

The Arabs: A History - Eugene Rogan
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine - Ilan Pappe
Ten Myths About Israel - Ilan Pappe
Palestine: ...it is something colonial (Decolonizing the mind)
One hundred questions and answers about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - Pedro Brieger
Tantura Documentary
Executions and Mass Graves in Tantura - Forensic Architecture
Israel’s 55-year occupation of Palestinian Territory is apartheid – UN human rights expert
"Nakba Law" - Amendment No. 40 to the Budgets Foundations Law
Eye Witnesses Statments
Al-Nakba: The Palestinian catastrophe - Episode 1 | Featured Documentary
Al-Nakba: The Palestinian catastrophe - Episode 2 | Featured Documentary
Al-Nakba: The Palestinian catastrophe - Episode 3 | Featured Documentary
Al-Nakba: The Palestinian catastrophe - Episode 4 | Featured Documentary
Anatomy of the Israeli mind
Collusion Across The Jordan: King Abdullah, The Zionist Movement, And The Partition Of Palestine - Avi Shlaim

The Tragic Story of Palestine - Part 7: The "Independence" Myth (Chapter 1)