History of the Arab World: The Arab World and the Israeli Question

1917: BALFOUR DECLARATION ➔ decision to create a homeland for the Jews.
The problem is that the Syrian landlords have no interest for the destiny of the Palestinians: they are “selling” the land to the people, but they don’t care if the Arab inhabitants are to lose their identity
➔ creation of an historical problem through 3 elements:
1) Balfour Declaration;
2) British mandate in the area;
3) British in accord with the Jews.

At the time it was not strange to sell a piece of land to the Jews. But they didn’t understand what was going to happen in the next years. They were selling land to create a state. Few intellectual in Jerusalem knew what was going on and tried to write articles to advise; but newspapers were very few and few people could read them.
The British had promised to the Arabs independence if they helped them in the fight against the Ottoman empire. However, at the end of World War I they just went over their promises in order to maintain the contrasting promises made to the Jews. The influence and pressure of the Arabs was not so strong respect to the pressures of the Jews.