Palestine

From Left Space

Palestine describes the land area that includes present day Israel and the Palestinian Territories. Between the end of First World War and the partition of Palestine between Israel and Jordan in 1948, it was governed as a British League of Nations Mandate Territory. Unlike the other British League of Nations Mandate Territory, Iraq, and the two French League of Nations Mandate territories, Lebanon and Syria, Palestine was not given its independence as a nation.

Before being ruled as a British Mandate, Palestine was ruled from Istanbul as a province of the Ottomon Empire. The popualtion was overwhelmingly Arab, a majority of whom were Muslims and a minority Chrsitian. There were also small Jewish and even smaller Samaritan populations.

Large scale Jewish emigration from Europe did not begin until it was governed as a British Mandate. Because British regulations required immigrants to bring a minimim of 500 British pounds in capital with them, Jewish immigration to Isreal by poor central and eastern European Jews was subsidized by Zionist organizations in Europe and the United States. One result was that the urban population of Palestine grew. In 1920 there were only about 2000 people in Tel Aviv. By 1924 there were 20,000.

[edit] Sources

• Gershon Gorenberg. 2006. The Accidental Empire: Isreal and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967-1977. New York: Henry Holt. ISBN 0-8050-8241-8.
• Karl Sabbagh. 2006. Palestine: History of a Lost Nation. New York: Grove Press. ISBN 0-8021-4350-1.
• Tom Segev. 1999, 2000. One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate. New York: Henry Holt. ISBN 0-8050-6587-3.

[edit] See also