ABSTRACT
The Boundaries of Mandatory Palestine: How the Past Influences the Future
Gideon Biger
This article examines one of the most complex, delicate and antagonistic aspects of Britain's post-First World War presence in the Middle East: the negotiations over Palestine's borders. It examines the arguments and claims of the primary parties to the negotiations — the British who held the mandate, the French who had the mandate of the adjacent territories of Syria and Lebanon, and the local players: the Zionist Movement and the Arab states. It looks at the strategic, historical and geographic factors, all of which played a part in the final decision on the border lines. However, by analyzing the claims of the various participants in negotiations and comparing them with the final boundary lines for Palestine, the author concludes that by far the most significant factor in determining these borders were neither historic nor strategic, but geographic.
