The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1900-1948

Catalog description

The British Empire took control of Palestine after driving the Germans and Turks from the region near the end of World War I. From that moment on, the British had an increasingly difficult time administering the region. Jewish colonists had already been settling in the land for decades, and with their takeover, the British gave them and other Zionists reason to believe that the Empire would facilitate Jewish efforts. At the same time, the indigenous Arabs of Palestine appealed to the British to protect their very birthright, to keep their country from passing into someone else's hands. The British gave Arabs, too, reason to believe that they would recognize and defend their claims. In the few decades that the British Mandate governed Palestine it oversaw riots, revolution, and terrorist bombings. When it withdrew from Palestine, its legacy was a brutal war between Arabs and Jews; and the legacy of that war holds an iron grip on the course of world history to this day. Had the British Empire not been in Palestine, and not made the fateful decisions that it did, there would be no Israel and no Arab-Israeli conflict as we know them. Course materials include histories of Zionism, pre-Zionist Palestine, the British Mandate years, the British Empire in other Arab lands, and the 1948 war and aftermath. Primary sources from the perspective British officials on the ground in Palestine receive much attention. The histories of engineering and agriculture are highlighted alongside traditional social and political perspectives. Counts as a CAS Global & Cultural Diversity course.