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Test only private use

This is only host­ed here by a mem­ber of pol B as a test and is not intend­ed to be an offi­cial resource. It is also filled with new infor­ma­tion on a dai­ly basis — the aim is to give an overview of events. Wikipedia is not the most trust­wor­thy source, this is meant to be the start­ing point for fur­ther research…
How cred­i­ble is Wikipedia?

Bor­ders of the region of Pales­tine and ori­gin of the name.

Ten­sions since Bal­four Dec­la­ra­tion 1917

Anti-Zion­ist movement/ Gen­er­al Strike ( April-Octo­ber 1936 )

  • 25 April 1936: Arab High­er Com­mi­ty is found­ed (Hus­sayni and Nasshashibi)
  • Attacks on Jew­ish civilians
  • The British have dif­fi­cul­ty putting down the upris­ing and arrest Pales­tin­ian lead­ers. Numer­ous set­tle­ments are destroyed in the process.
  • Zion­ist groups are com­mit­ted to Havla­gahi e.g: not to use counter-violence.

Ten­sions in con­nec­tion with Peel com­mis­sion (Octo­ber 1936 — August 1939)

  • Peel com­mis­sion rec­om­mends a two state solution
  • Reac­tions of Arab and Zion­ist frac­tions to the pro­pos­al by Peel Commission
    Nashashibi fam­i­ly favoured the par­ti­tion al-Husayni opposed.
  • rad­i­cal Zion­ist under­ground mili­tia Irgun is founded
  • Irgun breaks with Havla­gah and car­ries out numer­ous attacks (see also Black Sun­day, 1937)
  • 1918: Peel Commission’s par­ti­tion plan is giv­en up as not feasible.
  • July 1938: al-Husayni pro­claimes jihad against any­one who oppos­es him.
  • March 1938: annex­a­tion of Aus­tria by Ger­many led to 200 000 state­less Jews.
  • July 1938: Évian Con­fer­ence: 32 coun­tries, and 24 vol­un­tary orga­ni­za­tions, except Domini­can Repub­lic (agreed to take 100,000 refugees), reject the admis­sion of Jews.
  • Octo­ber 2, 1938 Tiberias mas­sacre on Jews
  • Octo­ber 1938: British troops cap­ture Jerusalem that was occu­pied by Pales­tin­ian rebels
  • Offi­cial­ly, the British seem to have brought the upris­ing under con­trol for the time being

Recall of the Bal­four Declaration: 

  • 23 May 1939: British issue White Paper against the two-state solu­tion, lim­it­ing Jew­ish immi­gra­tion and severe­ly restrict­ing the pur­chase of land for Jews.
  • Whitepa­per was reject­ed by Zion­ists reject­ed.
  • 1939 British arrest 378 Jew­ish refugees trav­el­ing by plane to Col­orado from Europe to Pales­tine. Two ships Aghios Nico­laus and Pari­ta brought 840 and 700 refugees to Palestine.
  • Start of the Aliya Bet: Ille­gal­ly orga­nized flight of Jews to Palestine
  • Irgun leader Avra­ham Stern plans to train Jews in Europe for the fight and bring them to Pales­tine. He is sup­port­ed by the Pol­ish gov­ern­ment — but the Sec­ond World War breaks out before he succeeds.

Sec­ond World War: 

  • Sep­tem­ber 1, 1939: Ger­many invades Poland — start of the Sec­ond World War
  • Sep­tem­ber 1939: Auss­chwitz exter­mi­na­tion camp is dis­man­tled by the SS.
  • Sep­tem­ber 1939: David Ben-Guri­on declared, “We will fight the White Paper as if there is no war, and fight the war as if there is no White Paper.”
  • British autho­rized the enlist­ment of Pales­tin­ian vol­un­teers in the Roy­al Army Ser­vice Corps and in the Pio­neer Corps, on con­di­tion that an equal num­ber of Jews and Arabs was to be accepted
  • Peak phase of the Ali­ay Bet: Ille­gal­ly orga­nized flight of Jews to Palestine
  • 1940 al-Husayni  ini­tial­ly reject­ed White Paper, but then accept­ed it but then.
  • 1940: Estab­lish­ment of exter­mi­na­tion camps Chełm­no, Belzec, Sobi­bor, Tre­blin­ka, Maj­danek and Auschwitz-Birke­nau.
  • June 10, 1940: Italy declares war on Great Britain and bombs cities in Palestine
  • August 1940:  Zion­ist para­mil­i­tary mil­i­tant orga­ni­za­tion Lehi was found­ed. Their avowed aim was to evict the British author­i­ties from Pales­tine by use of vio­lence, allow­ing unre­strict­ed immi­gra­tion of Jews and the for­ma­tion of a Jew­ish state
  • French pro-Nazi Vichy regime occu­pies Syr­ia and Lebanon. Then tak­en by the British on June 8, 1941 (Oper­a­tion Exporter)
  • 22 June 1941: Ger­many and its allies Slo­va­kia, Hun­gary, Roma­nia, and Italy invade Sovi­et Union. The Nazis orga­nized mass shoot­ing in which 1.5 to 2 mil­lion Jews were killed.
  • Mai 9, 1941 al-Husayni called on Mus­lims to wage jihad against the British and Jews in a fat­wa that was broad­cast by Iraqi, Ger­man and Ital­ian radio stations.
  • May 1941: Pal­mach get estab­lished as an elite fight­ing force of the Haganah
  • June 2, 1941: Farhud pogrom against the Jew­ish pop­u­la­tion of Bagh­dad
  • Al-Hus­sei­ni fled to Iran, whose new ruler Reza Shah Pahlavi guar­an­teed him polit­i­cal asylum.
  • 25. August 1941
  • Novem­ber 1941 al-Husayni  arrives in Berlin. He becomes part of the SS and  recruits troops for the Nazis in the Balka­ns and builds a pro­pa­gan­da sta­tion with which he broad­casts to the Arab world.
  • 1942 Troops of the Ger­man Afri­ka Korps advance under Erwin Rom­mel towards Pales­tine
  • 26 Feb­ru­ary 1942: Announce­ment of the  Final Solu­tion: Nazi goal to exter­mi­nate all Jews in Europe and beyond.
  • March 1943: al-Husayni trav­elled through­out the Balka­ns to set up multi­ble Mus­lim SS divisions.
  • 9 to May 11, 1942 Bilt­more Con­fer­ence: fun­da­men­tal depar­ture from tra­di­tion­al Zion­ist pol­i­cy by its demand “that Pales­tine be estab­lished as a Jew­ish Commonwealth.
  • August 1942: the Pales­tine Reg­i­ment as an infantry reg­i­ment of the British Army was formed.
  • 1943: al-Husayni works with Ger­man author­i­ties to block flight routs through balkan to Palestine
  • July 1943,  counter-offen­sives of the Sovi­ets cause the east­ern front to collapse.
  • 1944: Jew­ish brigade in British Army was founded
  • March 1, 1944: al-Hus­sei­ni while speak­ing on Radio Berlin said: “Arabs, rise as one man and fight for your sacred rights. Kill the Jews wher­ev­er you find them. This pleas­es God, his­to­ry, and reli­gion. This saves your hon­or. God is with you.”
  • 6 June 1944: Allied inva­sion (D‑Day)of Nor­mandy.
  • Nov 1944 to Feb 1945 Sai­son activ­i­ties: Haganah coop­er­at­ed with the British in an attempt to crush the Irgun and Lehi
  • 8 May 1945: Ger­many sur­ren­ders unconditionally
  • 29 May 1945: al-Husayni  man­ages to flee from per­se­cu­tion in Europe to Cairo where he is grant­ed asylum.
  • 1945: Jew­ish pop­u­la­tion makes up 30 per­cent of the pop­u­la­tion in Palestine
  • August 1945 Pres­i­dent Tru­man asked for the admis­sion of 100,000 Holo­caust sur­vivors into Palestine
  • the world’s Jew­ish pop­u­la­tion was reduced by one-third, from rough­ly 16.6 mil­lion in 1939 to about 11 mil­lion in 1946.
  • July 1946: Pogrom of Kielce showed that jew­ish life was not secure in Poland and made 20,000 sur­vivors of the Holo­caust leave Poland
  • Gen­re­al reports on Post­war anti-Jew­ish vio­lence in cen­tral Europe:  here and here
  • Info on the sit­u­a­tion of sur­vivors of the Holo­caust in Ger­many here

civ­il war (1947–1948) 

  • Novem­ber 29, 1947: Adop­tion of Res­o­lu­tion 181(II) Plan on how Pales­tine should be divid­ed into a Jew­ish and an Arab state after the British Mandate. 
    • Arab State: 43% of Manda­to­ry Pales­tine with 99% Arab and 1% jew­ish population
    • Jew­ish State: 56% of Manda­to­ry Pales­tine with 45% Arab and 55% jew­ish Population.
  • Novem­ber 27, 1947: al-Hus­sei­ni made con­tact with the Jew­ish Agency once and pro­posed secret talks with­out the medi­a­tion of Arab coun­tries. David Ben-Guri­on replied that they were pre­pared to nego­ti­ate with all Arab lead­ers except the Mufti.
  • Arab Lib­er­a­tion Army led by the Nazi Fawzi al-Qawuqji was found­ed by the Arab League. The mili­tia con­sist­ed of vol­un­teers and includ­ed main­ly Syr­i­ans, Lebanese, Pales­tini­ans and a few hun­dreds of Iraqis, Jor­da­ni­ans, Mus­lim Broth­er­hood from Egypt, Cir­cas­sians, and for­mer SS Mem­bers from Bosnia. There were also a few Ger­man, Turk­ish and British deserters.
  • Army of the Holy War  led by Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni and the Nazi Hasan Sala­ma. The Army of the Holy War had over 50,000 Pales­tin­ian Arabs avail­able for local defense but a force of only 5,000 to 10,000, both for­eign fight­ers from Arab states and Pales­tin­ian Arab militiamen.
  • The Arab lead­ers are hold­ing their armies ready. This can also be seen in the “Select­ed Doc­u­ments on the 1948 Pales­tine War” by Walid Khalidi.
  • The Zion­ists reor­ga­nized the Haganah mili­tia into a mil­i­tary in which men and women were conscripted.
  • 20–21 Jan­u­ary 1948: around 700 armed Syr­i­ans entered Pales­tine via Tran­sjor­dan.
  • Feb­ru­ary 1948, Arab mili­tias under Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni block­ad­ed the cor­ri­dor from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, pre­vent­ing essen­tial sup­plies from reach­ing the Jew­ish population.
  • March 10, 1948: The Zion­ist mil­i­tary called for Plan Dalet was pro­claimed. The Zion­ists want­ed to secure the ter­ri­to­ry in accor­dance with the UN par­ti­tion plan. This also includ­ed the con­quest of vil­lages and towns and the expul­sion of the inhab­i­tants if they were hos­tile. The plan also stip­u­lates that areas out­side the defined bor­der can be occu­pied if this is strate­gi­cal­ly nec­es­sary. Plan Dalet is very con­tro­ver­sial­ly dis­cussed Some his­to­ri­ans refer to it as ethinc-cleansing.
  • 5–16 April 1948:  Start of Oper­a­tion Nachshon to end the open the Tel Aviv – Jerusalem road block­ad­ed by Pales­tin­ian Arabs, and fur­nish arms and sup­plies to the besieged Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty of Jerusalem.
  • April 1, 1948: Overview of Israeli mil­i­tary oper­a­tions and mas­sacres,  between (April 1 — May 15, 1948)
  • From May 1948:  Zion­ist troops have secured the areas they have occu­pied. About 25 per­cent of the Pales­tini­ans fled or were expelled.
  • Here is some infor­ma­tion about the planned inva­sion by the mil­i­tary of the Arab states
  • On May 14, 1948, Ben Guri­on pro­claims the State of Israel. The bor­ders of the State of Israel were not spec­i­fied, but it was indi­cat­ed that the UN par­ti­tion plan would be followed.

1948 Arab-Israeli War

  • At mid­night on May 14, 1948, the date on which British Man­date rule offi­cial­ly end­ed, the Arab states declared war on Israel.
  • The troops of neigh­bor­ing Arab states Iraq, Egypt, Tran­sjor­dan and Syr­ia attack Israel from all sides.
  • July 1948: expul­sion of 70,000 Arab inhab­i­tants of the cities Lydia and Ramla
  • 1948: 700,000 Pales­tini­ans flee
  • Sep­tem­ber 22, 1948: Egypt­ian-con­trolled ter­ri­to­ry in Gaza, which Egypt had on the same day declared as the All-Pales­tine Pro­tec­torate with the All-Pales­tine Gov­ern­ment with Nazi al-Husayni as President
  • Here is some­thing about the Israeli and Arab nar­ra­tives around the expulsion

It is also worth talk­ing about the expul­sion of Jews from Mus­lim coun­tries to read up on. 900,000 Jews fled — 650,000 of them to Pales­tine. Here, as with the Nak­ba, the pull and push fac­tors are assessed dif­fer­ent­ly by both sides.

Here is an overview of pogroms (i.e. push fac­tors) against Jews:
Mid­dle East:

In North Africa:

Or in oth­er Mus­lim countries

Here is some infor­ma­tion on ara­biza­tion of coun­tries regions (for exam­ple in Roja­va/Syria , Irak,