A Brief History of Palestine
1895 - 1917:
=========
1895:
The total population of Palestine was 500,000 of whom 47,000 were Jews who owned 0.5% of the land.
1896:
Following the appearance of anti-Semitism in Europe, Theodore Herzl, the founder of Zionism tried to find a political solution for the problem in his book, 'The Jewish State'. He advocated the creation of a Jewish state in Argentina or Palestine.
1897:
The first Zionist Congress was held in Switzerland, which issued the Basle Programme on the colonization of Palestine and the establishment of the World Zionist Organization (WZO).
1904:
The Fourth Zionist Congress decided to establish a national home for Jews in Argentina.
1906:
The Zionist congress decided the Jewish homeland should be Palestine.
1914:
With the outbreak of World War I, Britain promised the independence of Arab lands under Ottoman rule, including Palestine, in return for Arab support against Turkey which had entered the war on the side of Germany.
1916:
Britain and France signed the Sykes-Picot Agreement, which divided the Arab region into zones of influence. Lebanon and Syria were assigned to France, Jordan and Iraq to Britain and Palestine was to be internationalized.
1917:
Lord Balfour, the British Foreign Secretary sent a letter to the Zionist leader Lord Rothschild which later became known as "The Balfour declaration". He stated that Britain would use its best endeavors to facilitate the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people. At that time the population of Palestine was 700,000 of which 574,000 were Muslims, 74,000 were Christian, and 56,000 were Jews.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1919 - 1967
=========
1919:
The Palestinians convened their first National Conference and expressed their opposition to the Balfour Declaration.
1920:
The San Remo Conference granted Britain a mandate over Palestine and two years later Palestine was effectively under British administration, and Sir Herbert Samuel, a declared Zionist, was sent as Britain's first High Commissioner to Palestine.
1922:
The Council of the League of Nations issued a Mandate for Palestine. The Mandate was in favor of the establishment for the Jewish people a homeland in Palestine.
1936:
The Palestinians held a six-month General Strike to protest against the confiscation of land and Jewish immigration.
1939:
The British government published a new White Paper restricting Jewish immigration and offering independence for Palestine within ten years. This was rejected by the Zionists, who then organized terrorist groups and launched a bloody campaign against the British and the Palestinians. The aim was to drive them both out of Palestine and to pave the way for the establishment of the Zionist state.
A Brief History of Palestine « FiLiSTiN – Palestine –