ABSTRACT
After World War One, strategic and political interests had sucked Britain into regions that lay outside its formal Empire. In the Middle East, both Egypt and Iraq were part of Britain's 'informal' Empire even if both states had formally been granted independence and neither had ever been technically part of the Empire. The defence of the Mediterranean and the Middle East was allotted a lower strategic priority than that of the British Isles and her Empire in the Far East. Until the very eve of World War Two, Britain had no plans for the defence of the Middle East. Palestine occupied a special place in Britain's Middle Eastern strategy. It was supposed to provide a reserve area and strategic depth, not only for the defence of Egypt and the Suez Canal, but for the Middle East as a whole. The Zionists were divided among themselves about the role to be assigned to the Jewish Division.
