Balfour Declaration Dbq

The author notes that initially, Congress was compliant with Truman giving him most of the power when it came to decision making. Paterson also notes that the public were “yea-sayers.” Early in the chapter, it is said that occasionally Truman officials suggested that their decisions were influenced by the attitude of the American public. However, the author points out that in the majority, President Truman did what he thought he needed to do and “successfully persuaded the reluctant to walk his path.” The book summarizes that even though Truman and his Cabinet officials charted their own path, they were aware of public opinion and feared negative attitudes towards foreign policy.

For ages the Jewish population did not have a place to call home. They had been wandering around deserts, were once slaves in Egypt, but didn’t have any land to their name. Following the Holocaust, after many Jews had been persecuted by Hitler and the Nazis, a good portion of the overall amount of Jews in the world let alone Europe had been exterminated. As a result, Harry Truman and the UN suggested Israel, a homeland for the Jews. Tensions had been growing throughout the beginning of the 20th Century regarding the Palestinian area in the Middle East. This area was off to the side of Asia, near Africa. When the Jews and Arabs were offered part of this land, war broke out and still continues today. Even though a war happened as a result

in 1918 britain aided by the arabs captured palestine from the the ottoman turks but britain had now made too many promises that hey couldn't keep . Many Arabs opposed British troops because of England's failure to fulfill its promise and were also getting angry about the increase of jewish migrating to palestine. Arabs became concerned that Jewish immigration would threaten their position in Palestine which lead to large scale attacks on the jews. At the time of Hitler's dictatorship in Germany, Jewish immigration increased dramatically in 1933. An Arab revolt started which Britain suppressed with the help of Zionist militias. Zionist settlements climaxed in 1936. In 1947, Britain forbid Jewish refugees from nazi concentration camps to land in Palestine to prevent war between Jews and Arabs, which resulted in worldwide criticism of Britain. Britain withdrew itself from the situation handing over the mandate over Palestine, leaving the United Nations to deal with the situation. The United Nations proposed that Palestine was divided into two states, one for the Arabs and one for the Jews, however the Arabs opposed this idea claiming that the UN plan allotted too much territory to the Jews. the arabs thought it was unfair that the jews should get more land because the arabs were by far the larger population but because of the holocaust the was a lot of sympathy for the jews and this may be why the got more land.

• President Carter arranged the Camp David Peace Accords between Israel and Egypt. (In the Middle East, America favored the country of Israel. The Soviet Union favored Israel’s Arab neighbors.)

“The United States recognizes the provisional Government as the de facto authority of the new State of Israel.” These are the words of President Harry Truman from a speech he gave shortly after Israel became a recognized nation in 1948. Consequently, the political leaders of the United States have brought America on a rough journey to the current state of foreign policy and relationship with Israel. Since 1948, the United States’ active position in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has seen very little change or progress towards achieving settlement between these two nationalistic states. In the last 65 years, the majority of U.S. presidents repeated mistakes made by their predecessors in office, and this in turn has had little

Harry S. Truman was President of the United States from 1945-1953. President Truman presidency was marked throughout by important foreign policy initiatives. Central to almost everything Truman undertook in his foreign policy was the desire to prevent the expansion of influence of the Soviet Union. At the end of World War II it was immediately apparent that Russia was trying to draw as many countries as it could into its influence, if not total control. The United States became extremely alarmed as country after country did indeed fall under Russia’s

During World War I, the Ottoman Empire began to crumble, with skirmishes breaking out throughout the Middle East. During this turbulent time, Great Britain saw an opportunity to take advantage of Arabs as well as the land that they controlled. In some cases, their policies and treaties actually aimed to help specific groups like when they drew up the Balfour Declaration, supporting the Jews receiving Palestine as a sacred land. However, some of the documents drawn up during this period were disguised as giving aid to Arabs while the British used the treaties to gain political influence in Arabia.

Throughout the 1800’s to the mid-1900’s one problem restricted and threatened the Jewish race. Through trials, battles, immigration, and more the jews couldn’t catch a break. They were a despised people suffering due to an inability of the Jewish people to fully assimilate into other societies. This issue highlighted the political and cultural atmosphere and events throughout the time periods we studied. From beneath all the destruction and chaos occurring during this time period lies an important message.

Despite current misconceptions of the tensions between Muslims and Jews, the current political conflict began in the early 20th century. The Palestinians, both muslims and christians, lived in peace for centuries. Control of the city had historically, since 637 AD, been under Muslim control with guarantee of Christians’ safety, right to property, and right to practice religion. The collapse of the Ottoman Empire led to European nations colonizing many of its former lands, and the British gained control of Palestine. Social and political issues prompted European jews to flee from political unrest from their homes in Europe, and migrate to Palestine. Seeing the influx of Jews as a European colonial movement, the Arabs fought back. The British couldn’t control the violence, and in 1947 the United Nations (UN) voted to split the land into two countries. The continued political unrest in the Middle East is the cause of United States involvement.

Since the Sykes-Picot Agreement at the beginning of the war, Palestine had taken on increasing strategic importance for Britain at this time. The British kept troops in Palestine because of its proximity to the Suez Canal and its location in the Ottoman Empire. The Zionists, who lived there, appeared as a potential ally that could provide a safeguard through the canal region. It was also felt that supporting Palestinian Jews would mobilize the Americas Jewish community and bring a stronger American support to the war. Furthermore, Although the British had committed to helping the Abrab motive in gaining independence, the much smaller Jewish community had strong political intellectuals that were incredibly persuasive. In November of 1917, one year before the end of the war, the British publicly declared their allegiance to the Zionist Jews with the Balfour Declaration. Among much surprise, the British in doing this pledged their allegiance to the Jewish State of Israel, which at the time was home to around 657,000 Muslims and only 59,000

The Balfour declaration was intended to bring together Arabs and Jewish by making a home for the Jewish population in Palestine. However, after the Balfour declaration was implemented Britain was being pressured to allow more Jews into Palestine during WWII. Britain realized that this might cause tension if they increased the influx of Jews into the state. This was the spark of the conflict between Palestinians and the Jewish communities. The conflict increased between Palestine and the Jewish populations, especially the Zionist, after Britain tried once again to settle peace for the situation with the Morrison-Grady Plan.

In 1917 the British government started to bring their own ideas on how history of Palestine should emerge. For gaining Jews support they issued “Balfour declaration”, which promised establishment of Jewish people in territory of Palestinians. Which meant developing state for Jews. Of course we can see that British government were over promising, because at that time results of First World War were unknown and unseen for participants. Palestine was still under the Ottoman Empire. British government was confident about wining in war, so they started to dream about what they will do after it and how they will divide territories. This emerged in there communication with France. A year before they issued “Balfour declaration” they already deviated

The General Assembly of the UN adopted the partition plan, but the UN Security Council never enforced the plan. After Britain left Palestine, fighting between Arabs and Jews immediately broke out (ibid.; 82-83).

The Balfour Declaration is a perfect example of political ambiguity that is, politicians deliberately choose their language to avoid future responsibility or liability. In his declaration Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour writes a letter to Lord Rothschild expressing the government’s support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The declaration demonstrates political ambiguity in that the author is deliberately trying to avoid taking specific actions. He is hoping that this letter will put the future responsibility in the hands of others rather than Great Britain. With that being said, the phrase that demonstrate most political ambiguous was in the beginning and end of the declaration. For instance, the declaration starts off with “His Majesty’s

The conflict between Israel and Palestine is just one of the many facets that have shaped modern day politics in the Middle East. It is a conflict rooted in generations of violence, discrimination and prejudice that is complicated by a history older than any of the modern day superpowers. Ever since the creation of the state of Israel by the 1947 UN partition of Palestine