Long-Term Causes of the War Between Israel and the Arabs

Long-Term Causes of the War Between Israel and the Arabs

After the first world war the former Turkish empire got split up into

mandates, a mandate is when one country rules over another until they

are ready to rule for themselves. Source B1 is a map showing the

mandates in the middle east in 1923. The 'Arab Israeli conflict' (the

map) by S.J. Perkins, 1987, is a secondary source but although it is,

it is an extremely useful and quite reliable source in showing the

boarder lines of the mandates.

Source B2 is a letter to Lord Rothschild from Lord Balfour written on

the November 2nd, 1917, this is called the Balfour Declaration. This

source is also very reliable and is useful in helping us understand

why the Jews read into the letter more than was there. In the letter

was a promise to Lord Rothschild from Lord Arthur James Balfour, it

stated that the government was in favour of "the establishment in

Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their

best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object," it also

said in " it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which

may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish

communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed

by Jews in any other country."

'Conflict in the Promised Land' by Bill Mandle, 1976, is both useful

and reliable in helping us understand the McMahon letters. In a series

of letters, the McMahon letters, Sheriff Hussein of Mecca- the most

widely recognised Muslim leader in the middle east- agreed with Sir

Henry McMahon- British High Commissioner in Egypt- that the Arabs

would rebel against the Turks. In return the British, at the end of

the war, would help the Arabs to form a united Arab state out of the

Arab lands of the Ottoman Empire. The Arabs assumed that Palestine

would be part of their new state, although the Hussein-McMahon letters

did not state that precisely.

Both sources B2 and B3 tell us about Britain's policies and their