Palestine & the Middle East

Test yourself on Palestine & the Middle East

After reading these notes, test your knowledge with free interactive questions on Seneca — used by over 10 million students.

Palestine

The strained relations in the Middle East, which have become such a key feature in 20th and 21st-century geopolitics, are rooted in part in the decisions made during and after WW1.

Palestine and the Suez Canal

Palestine before WW1

In 1914, Palestine was just east of Egypt, next to the Suez Canal. It connected Egypt with the Middle East and Asia overland.
The Suez Canal was one of the main reasons that Britain was interested in Egypt. Britain owned part of the Suez Canal and transporting goods through the Suez Canal meant that ships could sail from Britain to the Mediterranean to India through the Red Seas, without having to go around the whole of Africa.
Before WW1, Palestine was under Ottoman rule.
In 1914, Britain promised the independence of Arab lands under Ottoman rule, including Palestine, in return for Arab support against Turkey which had entered the war on the side of Germany.

Hussein-McMahon correspondence

Between 1915 and 1916, there was an exchange of letters between Sharif Hussein ibn Ali, ruler of Mecca and the Hejaz, and Sir Henry McMahon, the British high commissioner in Egypt, regarding the future political status of the Arab lands of the Middle East.
- Britain aimed to bring about an armed revolt against Ottoman rule in order to try to weaken the Ottoman Empire in the war.
However, the declaration was deliberately vague. Britain committed to ‘recognise and uphold the independence of Arabs’.

Sykes-Picot Agreement

On the 16th of May 1916, Britain and France sign a secret pact, pioneered by Sir Mark Sykes.
The agreement drew a line through the Middle East, separating local people and families, but planned to divide the region into an area of British influence and an area of French influence.
In the 2010s, ISIS marked the crossing of the Sykes-Picot line, showing the historical significance of the pact even to this day.
Palestine and Jordan were allocated to Britain. France would control the north of Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon.
The Hussein-McMahon correspondence agreed to Arab self-determination in exchange for support against the Ottoman Empire. This agreement completely undermined this promise.

The Balfour Declaration

In November 1917, Balfour promised to support the establishment of a ‘national home for the Jewish people’ in Palestine.
Again, given the promises for self-determination for Arab states after the war, this stirred up anti-British sentiment.
The motives for this declaration are very opaque. Some believe that it was a commitment in order to win Jewish support for the British-French-Russian Axis.
Montagu disagreed with Balfour's declaration, so Balfour then disagreed with Montagu's vision of granting India a 'responsible government'. It is unclear how much of this political squabbling focused on the desires of local populations.

Forming a mandate in Palestine

In 1920, Britain granted a mandate for Palestine.
The mandate provided a guarantee by the British to support the religious, political, and civil rights of the non-Jewish people living in Palestine.