Mandatory Palestine
Mandatory Palestine[a][4] was a geopolitical entity that existed between 1920 and 1948 in the region of Palestine under the terms of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine.
This article is about the geopolitical entity. For the document granting Britain a mandate over both Palestine and the Emirate of Transjordan, see Mandate for Palestine.
Palestine
Mandate of the United Kingdom
Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Baháʼí Faith, Druze faith
25 April 1920
29 September 1923
14 May 1948
25,585.3 km2 (9,878.5 sq mi)[2]
757,182 (1922)[3]
Egyptian pound
(until 1927)
Palestine pound
(from 1927)
After an Arab uprising against the Ottoman Empire arose during the First World War in 1916, British forces drove Ottoman forces out of the Levant.[5] The United Kingdom had agreed in the McMahon–Hussein Correspondence that it would honour Arab independence in case of a revolt but, in the end, the United Kingdom and France divided what had been Ottoman Syria under the Sykes–Picot Agreement—an act of betrayal in the eyes of the Arabs. Another issue was the Balfour Declaration of 1917, in which Britain promised its support for the establishment of a Jewish "national home" in Palestine. Mandatory Palestine was then established in 1920, and the British obtained a Mandate for Palestine from the League of Nations in 1922.[6]
During the Mandate, the area saw successive waves of Jewish immigration and the rise of nationalist movements in both the Jewish and Arab communities. Competing interests of the two populations led to the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine and the 1944–1948 Jewish insurgency in Mandatory Palestine. The United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine to divide the territory into two states, one Arab and one Jewish, was passed in November 1947. The 1948 Palestine war ended with the territory of Mandatory Palestine divided among the State of Israel, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, which annexed territory on the West Bank of the Jordan River, and the Kingdom of Egypt, which established the "All-Palestine Protectorate" in the Gaza Strip.
Mandatory Palestine was designated as a Class A Mandate, based on its social, political, and economic development. This classification was reserved for post-war mandates with the highest capacity for self-governance.[7] All Class A mandates other than mandatory Palestine had gained independence by 1946.[8]
Under the terms of the August 1922 Palestine Order in Council, the Mandate territory was divided into administrative regions known as districts and were administered by the office of the British High Commissioner for Palestine.[176]
Britain continued the millet system of the Ottoman Empire whereby all matters of a religious nature and personal status were within the jurisdiction of Muslim courts and the courts of other recognised religions, called confessional communities. The High Commissioner established the Orthodox Rabbinate and retained a modified millet system which only recognised eleven religious communities: Muslims, Jews and nine Christian denominations (none of which were Christian Protestant churches). All those who were not members of these recognised communities were excluded from the millet arrangement. As a result, there was no possibility, for example, of marriages between confessional communities, and there were no civil marriages. Personal contacts between communities were nominal.
Apart from the Religious Courts, the judicial system was modelled on the British one, having a High Court with appellate jurisdiction and the power of review over the Central Court and the Central Criminal Court.
The five consecutive Chief Justices were:
The local newspaper The Palestine Post was founded in 1932 by Gershon Agron. In 1950, its name was changed to The Jerusalem Post. In 1923, Pinhas Rutenberg founded the Palestine Electric Company (to become the Israel Electric Corporation in 1961).
Education
Under the British Mandate, the country developed economically and culturally. In 1919, the Jewish community founded a centralised Hebrew school system, and the following year established the Assembly of Representatives, the Jewish National Council and the Histadrut labour federation. The Technion university was founded in 1924, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1925.[188]
There were several attempts by the Arab Palestinians to establish an Arab higher education institution, starting from the 1920s, but it did not materialise. Israeli historian Ilan Pappé attributed this to "Zionist pressure, British anti-Arab racism, and lack of resources." He added that "the colonial mentality of the British authorities who deemed the Palestinians yet another colonized people who had to be oppressed, while regarding the Zionist settlers as fellow colonialists, feared that such a university would enhance the Palestinian national movement."[189]
Literacy rates in 1932 were 86% for the Jews compared to 22% for the Palestinian Arabs, but Arab literacy rates steadily increased thereafter. By comparison, Palestinian Arab literacy rates were higher than those of Egypt and Turkey, but lower than in Lebanon.[190]
General Sir Edmund Allenby's final attacks of the Palestine Campaign gave Britain control of the area.
General Allenby entering Jerusalem with British troops on 11 December 1917 (Allenby was later created a field marshal, in April 1919)
The surrender of Jerusalem by the Ottomans to the British on 9 December 1917 following the Battle of Jerusalem
The Palestine Archaeological Museum (PAM; known since 1967 as the Rockefeller Archaeological Museum), built in Jerusalem during the British Mandate
1941 currency coin
Movement and curfew pass, issued under the authority of the British Military Commander, East Palestine, 1946
