October 6, 1917 – War Cabinet Secretariat invites Jewish proponents and opponents to submit memoranda on the declaration draft. Chief Rabbi Hertz, Lord Rothschild, Nahum Sokolow, and Chaim Weizmann write in favor. Leonard Cohen, Philip Magnus, Claude Montefiore, wrote against. Stuart Samuel summarized the views of British Jews but did not take a stance. Opponents did not oppose Palestine as a sanctuary but objected to the “national home” idea.
January-July 1949 – Armistice Agreements signed with Egypt, Lebanon, Transjordan and Syria under UN auspices in Rhodes. The 1967 Six Day War begins from these boundaries
May 14, 1948 – British Mandate for Palestine ends. British troops evacuate country
June 11-July 9, 1947 – Arabs and Jews agree on truce
February 18, 1947 – Britain calls on the UN to decide Palestine’s fate. Ben-Gurion returns to Palestine. Clashes with British soldiers continue
Jewish refugees seek to break British maritime blockade of Palestine
>July 23, 1937 –Sir Henry McMahon writes in the Times: “It was not intended by me giving this pledge to [the Sharif] to include Palestine in the area in whuch Arab independence was promised.
In November 1936, Peel Commission arrives in Palestine to examine causes of Arab violence
Haganah continue policy of “Havlagah” or passive defense
In 1934, Zionist groups in Palestine organize “illegal” immigration circumventing British policies
From 1932 until 1939 the Fifth Aliyah (or immigration wave) brings nearly 250,000 Jews arrive into British-occupied Palestine
Jews now comprise 17 percent of population
Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald
Balfour dies
League of Nations forms commission to examine Arab-Jewish violence and rights to Jewish prayer at Western Wall
Lucien Wolf dies
Jerusalem stone
Arabs riot throughout Palestine; massacres in Jerusalem, Hebron (67 killed) and Safed
Balfour arrives in Damascus to protests outside his hotel
Hebrew University of Jerusalem officially opened by Lord Balfour
>1921 – The British engineer the election of Haj Amin al-Husseini as the Mufti of Jerusalem. He’d been appointed May 8, 1920.
>April 11, 1921 – Transjordan established under Crown Prince Abdullah after Britain granted the Eastern part of Mandatory Palestine to the Arabs
The San Remo Conference of the Allied Supreme Council in Italy endorses a Palestine Mandate based on Balfour Declaration
Lord Curzon succeeds Lord Balfour as Foreign Secretary
Weizmann meets two Muslim leaders in Jerusalem
At eleven o’clock on the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918, the World War ends as Germany and Allies sign an Armistice
Chaim Weizmann meets Feisal in Aqaba
Newspapers report on Balfour Letter to Rothschild favoring Zionism. ‘A State for the Jews’ (“Daily Express”); ‘Palestine for the Jews’ (“The Times”)
Balfour Declaration issued: Britain promises a national home for the Jews in Palestine
Balfour sends his own version of the Declaration based on previous Zionist drafts, to Lord Rothschild
Britain declares war on Turkey. Dismemberment of Turkey is a war aim, says PM Asquith
Lord Robert Cecil seeks Jewish support for British in Palestine
British fail to capture the Gaza Strip
Medications in short supply in Palestine
Pale of Jewish Settlement abolished
Tsar Nicholas II abdicates
British troops capture Sinai
Lloyd George establishes a War Cabinet
Asquith resigns; Lloyd-George becomes Prime Minister
McMahon-Hussein correspondence – Arabia to the Arabs
Sykes-Picot Agreement- France (Francois Georges Picot) and Britain (Sir Mark Sykes) concur on division of Ottoman Empire. Eretz Israel (Palestine) to be divided with France controlling the Galilee and Britain the Haifa area with Jerusalem under international control.
DECEMBER 24, 1915 – THE NEW YORK MORNING JOURNAL REPORTS THAT EIGHT MEMBERS OF THE BRITISH CABINET FAVOR ESTABLISHMENT OF A STRONG JEWISH SETTLEMENT IN PALESTINE AFTER THE WAR
locusts has devastated Palestine
October 24, 1915- Sir Henry McMahon writes to Sharif Hussein bin Ali of the Hashemite family of Mecca pledging British government to recognize and support the independence of the Arabs in return for Arab uprising against Ottoman Turks
Jabotinsky joins Trumpeldor to create Jewish Legion
Weizmann meets Herbert Samuel
“Guardian” editor C.P. Scott writes to Weizmann
Herbert Samuel talks to British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey about Palestine’s fate
SLIDE 3 Turkey entered the war on the axis side on 5 November 1914
Weizmann meets CP Scott
Slide 2 (B2) Outbreak of World War I. Britain declares war on Germany. US President Woodrow Wilson declares policy of US neutrality. Jewish world geographically divided among warring parties. Zionist programs paralyzed
January 9, 1906 – Weizmann holds conversation with Balfour on Zionism.
First Weizmann-Balfour Meeting
Herzl meets Kaiser Wilhelm II in Constantinople on his way to Palestine
First Zionist Congress held in Basle, Switzerland August 29-31, 1897 – urges “a publicly and legally assured home in Palestine” for Jews and establishes the World Zionist Organization. Theodor Herzl elected president
Herzl sees Baron Edmond de Rothschild
Herzl publishes “The Jewish State” (“Der Judenstaat”)
In June 1896, Herzl visits Constantinople for first time. Meets with Grand Vizier Khalil Rifat Pasha and other officials and proposes plan to finance Turkey’s debt in return for turning Palestine over to the Jews. The Grand Vizier is unenthusiastic.
Romans destroy Second Temple. Beginning of the Exile