Conflict Background

Question 1

Who lived in Palestine before WW1?

Answer 1

• The majority of the population was Arabs (650,000 people) with a minority of Jews (85,000)
• The Arabs had inhabited Palestine for centuries had had been mostly Muslim since the 7th century
• They wanted independence from Turkish rule

Question 2

What was the Zionist Movement?

Answer 2

• The Zionist movement aimed to allow the Jewish people to return to Palestine
• Palestine/Israel was the historic homeland of the Jewish people in biblical times but they had been forced to leave during the Roman occupation
• In Europe they faced persecution due to their lack of homeland e.g. periodic ‘pogroms’ in Tsarist Russia
• In the 19th century, the political movement emerged when a Hungarian Jewish writer and activist organised a Zionest world congress in Switzerland in 1896
• By 1914, 75,000 Jews had emigrated to Palestine, which caused resentment from the Arabs

Question 3

What were the McMahon Letters (1915)?

Answer 3

• Britain tried to win the support of the Arabs against the Ottoman Empire, which was on Germany’s side in WW1
• Sir Henry McMahon, the British High Commissioner of Egypt promised Sharif Hussein of Mecca (the most important Arab leader) that the British people would support the independence of the Arab people
• In return, the Sharif’s son Prince Faisal formed a guerrilla army with Colonel T.E Lawrence to fight the Turks

Question 4

What was the Sykes-Picot agreement (1916)?

Answer 4

• Britain and France secretly agreed to partition the Middle East between them