ABSTRACT
FROM 1945 onwards Palestine was in the grip of internal tension which rose to a climax as the British Mandate drew to a close and which has never since entirely relaxed. The decision taken by the General Assembly on 29th November 1947, that the report of their Special Commission should be adopted and that Palestine should be partitioned between Jews and Arabs, was the signal for the terrorist campaign the Jews had been waging against the forces of the Government to explode into a civil war between the two factions. When the Mandate was formally, hurriedly and peevishly relinquished at the end of May 1948, the State of Israel came into being, and civil war turned into an international war. That, too, came to an end, but its repercussions are still bedevilling the Middle East and real peace is still as far away as ever. When the history of the post-war decade can be regarded in its proper perspective and from a reasonable distance of time, it will probably be realized that the Palestine question was immeasurably the most important issue in the Middle East and hastened and consolidated incipient Arab nationalism. It resulted in a deeper and more genuine dislike, even hatred, of Britain and the United States, twin midwives, in Arab minds, of the infant State of Israel, than had existed before; and let there be no mistake, the popular old bromide about the Arabs at heart liking the British is sheer nonsense: the British may have been admired and respected but they were never liked. Now, thanks, basically, to our handling of the Palestine problem and the ease with which we gave in to American pressure—to American policy dictated by a Jewish-inspired public opinion—respect and admiration have disappeared.
