Palestine Mandate Vocab

Diaspora

A community of people who reside outside their country of origin but manage to keep their cultural roots in a new land.

Ideological: Creating specific neighborhoods that provide access to their culture.

Economic: This is strongly economic because of remittances, which in some countries can make up 25%-40% of the entire national GDP. They often send more money to their family when there is a crisis.

Balfour Declaration

It was a public statement issued by the British Government in 1917 during the First World War announcing its support for the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine.

Economic: By establishing a pro-British population there, Britain remained in control of the Suez Canal. Britain had plans for a railway/oil pipeline connecting the oil fields of Iraq to the port of Haifa. British viewed the Zionist movement as partner in “modernizing”.

Political: They issued the declaration to influence the outcome of WW1. Political strategy by saying national home instead of state, so they avoided diplomatic confrontation.

The Jewish Agency

The Jewish Agency for Palestine was founded in 1922 as the official body of the Jewish population living in what was then Palestine. It represented their interests before the governing authorities of the British Mandate and the League of Nations.

Social: Its biggest task was Aliyah (immigration) and was difficult because there were people from over 50 different countries. They provided social and health services. 

Political: It wasn’t an official gov, it functioned as a gov in waiting. Article 4 of the British mandate for Palestine required the British to recognize an “appropriate Jewish agency”, which gave the agency a seat at the table with world powers.

The Jewish National Fund

The Jewish National Fund is a non-profit organization founded in 1901 to operate by buying land and encouraging Jewish settlement (aliyah) in Ottoman Syria.

Ideological: Biblical roots that land can never be sold and is held in trust for the nation was based on the concept of the Jubilee Year. They focused on Kibbutz because they valued socialism and communal bonding over individual wealth.

Economic: Created one of the most successful examples of micro-philanthropy. Their distinct feature was national leaseholds by leasing land to settlers for 49 year terms. They bought lots of “worthless” territory and made it high agricultural assets.

The Haganah

The Haganah was a Zionist military organization representing the majority of the Jews in Palestine from 1920 to 1948, the Haganah's original purpose was to defend Jewish settlements against Arab attacks.

Ideological: The policy of Havlagah was purely ideological. Even when attacked, they were ordered to not retaliate to maintain the “moral high ground”.

Political: Controlled by the Jewish Agency, specifically under David Ben Gurion. Their actions were always matched to the diplomatic goals of the Jewish Agency.

UNSCOP (The United Nations Special Committee on Palestine)

It was a United Nations special committee that

was formed in May of 1947, in response to the handover

of the British Mandate of Palestine to the United Nations

to vote upon which solution to use for partitioning the

land.

Political: They chose 11 neutral countries to avoid bias. Arab Higher Committee Boycott and they argued that the natural rights of the Arabs were self-evident and their self determination was being violated.

Economic: It was difficult to fully separate the two because their infrastructure and resources were too intertwined. Resulted in single monetary system for the both, no tariffs or trade barriers, joint development of water power and irrigation.

David Ben Gurion

A Zionist leader, head of the Jewish agency from 1935, he declared the independence of Israel, serving as the nation's first prime minister and defense minister.

Ideological: Because he was a Zionist leader,  all of his actions were led from a zionist-supported view. He was non-religious, but his ideology was deeply rooted in the Tanakh. He viewed it not as a religious text, but a historical and geographical guidebook.

Political:  He was willing to accept the 1947 UN Partition Plan, which offered much less land to the Zionists than they wanted, because he believed that having any sovereign state was better than the risk of having none.

Chaim Weizmann

He was a Zionist leader and the first president of the new nation of Israel. He was a chemist and developed a new way to produce acetone. He gained power by winning over Western elites.

Economic: His priority was to build the high level infrastructure and financial backing that would make a state possible. He believed that science was an economic shortcut, so he founded the Weizmann Institute to ensure the country could produce high-value exports like chemicals and pharmaceuticals.

Political: His political style was the opposite of Ben-Gurion. His political power didn’t come from leading a party or labor union, but from his role as a global diplomat. In 1948, Weizmann traveled to Washington and met President Harry S. Truman, and is credited with securing immediate US recognition of the new state.