ABSTRACT

Two major developments affected the Palestinian Arab cause during World War Two; the first was the disintegration and discrediting of their leadership in British eyes, a process that reached its climax with the flight of the Mufti to Berlin in 1941, and his wartime collaboration with the Nazis. The second development was the appropriation of the Palestinians’ cause by the Arab League in 1944. From 1940 to 1942, the period of maximum British vulnerability in the

Middle East, they sought to retain the goodwill of the Arab states at almost any cost. From mid-1943, after all Axis forces had been cleared from North Africa, the British began to plan for their post-war hegemony in the Middle East. Their main concern was the challenge expected from the Soviet Union, their current ally. By the summer of 1944, with Germany apparently defeated, the parameters of the Cold War were already taking shape, and with them, the threat of World War Three. The friendship of the Arab states rose to an even higher premium.