Atlee as Gandhi's most important ally Actually, Gandhi had an ally in the British government itself, one that took control in London in the days immediately after the Nazi political collapse in Europe … namely the new Labour government led by Clement Atlee.  Atlee understood himself to be in power solely to represent the working classes of Great Britain … and little  beyond that.  He had no interest in supporting the larger world of the British Empire.  In fact, as already noted, he held the firm belief that it was the Empire itself that had served to keep the British worker in poverty … as Indian labor could always be counted on as being much cheaper for capitalism to find its profits.  Thus to Atlee's thinking, the best thing Britain could do was to send India on its way … as soon as possible.  Thus Gandhi's "Quit India" program had an invaluable ally at the very heart of Britain itself. Major difficulties with Gandhi's Indian nationalist dream A major problem, as also already noted, existed in the fact that India was not actually a nation at all, but a European-sized subcontinent made up of hundreds of long-standing states, large and small, ones that Britain had managed to bring together as a single political unit.  In eliminating that British-enforced unity, a huge problem of different languages, different religions, and long-standing local rivalries would be brought forward … violently.   Certainly Gandhi was aware of this potential for trouble ... horrible trouble.  But, like all such political "saviors," he somehow believed that he had the charismatic power to keep his India unified and moving forward once the British were out of the picture. In any case, the problems hit just as soon as there was some indication that the British were indeed going to Quit India.  Most importantly, there were numerous Muslim communities located here and there around the Indian subcontinent … Muslim communities that were concerned about what would happen to them in coming under the mastery of the very symbol of traditional Hinduism, Gandhi.   The British had been rather willing to let the various religious traditions of the Indians continue as before … not something that the Muslims expected to continue once the British departed.  Thus they immediately pressed the British for guarantees that they could go their own Muslim way with the British departure.  In short, they wanted separate Muslim states (or state) of their own to be set up – quite apart from Gandhi's India. But how that was to happen was not exactly clear.  Not only were there distinct Muslim states located here and there in both the East and the West of India, but Hindus and Muslims were to be found in some kind of combination mostly across all of India.  Thus to set up a separate Muslim State – which the Muslim were calling "Pakistan"1 – was not going to be an easy matter … especially with Gandhi deeply opposed to the idea. And what about the large community of Sikhs … found mostly in the also highly Muslim world of the Indian northwest … Sikhs who once had a huge empire reaching across northern India and southern Afghanistan?  Where did they belong in the midst of any Hindu-Muslim division of British India? But the British were quickly losing interest in resolving these difficult questions … being simply in a hurry to get out of the matter as soon as possible.  Thus British Lord Mountbatten (a member of the British royal family and Viceroy of India) was given instructions by Atlee's government to prepare India for independence by at least 1948 … but preferably sooner if possible.  Thus in June of 1947, Mountbatten pushed representatives of the various Indian communities (Gandhi did not participate – being adamantly opposed to any division of his India) to agree to accept various state boundaries … for the British would be soon departing (August 15 of that same year). Seeing this division headed their way, very quickly India became the scene of millions2 of Indians scurrying to relocate themselves to one or another community, according to their religious identities … with the Sikhs having no place in particular designated for them.  Tragically, hundreds of thousands3 would die in the chaos that accompanied this mass movement. Gandhi, not understanding the forces he had unleashed, tried to bring down the level of hatred involved in this new dynamic by going into another one of his fasts (merely five days, however) – which had been able previously to redirect British policies … but which had absolutely no impact whatsoever on the present chaos.   Gandhi is assassinated Then in early 1948, with popular passions still running hot, Gandhi himself was gunned down by a Hindu fanatic, Nathuram Godse, a Brahmin who was embittered by Gandhi's toleration of Muslims ... plus his own social slippage due to personal business failures and the general loss of Brahmin caste privilege under the impact of the modern world. Actually, it was merciful that it was a Hindu who gunned Gandhi down, for had it been a Muslim, the violence would have been explosive in the extreme.   But actually Gandhi's removal from the scene did India something of a favor … for not only did it sober up the extremists a bit, it brought Jawaharlal Nehru forward as India's new leader … someone ultimately dedicated to the idea of moving India forward into the rising industrial age – and not forcing it back into Gandhi's highly romanticized agrarian past – an issue that would soon have divided India into two strongly opposing pro-Gandhi and pro-Nehru parties.  And it certainly spared India from the economic catastrophe (mass starvation) that would have occurred if Gandhi had succeeded in moving India in his direction. In any case, as it turned out, India would continue under the guidance of Nehru until his death in 1964 … and then under members of his family after that date. But as it also turned out, it would create a vicious rivalry between Hindu India and the two Muslim Pakistans (East and West) existing on both sides of India … a rivalry that produced numerous wars – and the decision of both India and Pakistan to go nuclear in their military programming … a program prompted by this same Indian-Pakistani rivalry. 1Part of the name came from istan meaning place or land; Pak has a dual source as both the Urdu word for pure (thus Land of the Pure) or simply the acronym for the northeast region of Punjab, Afghanistan and Kashmir ... or cleverly, both. 2The United Nations estimated that 14 million people were displaced during this migration. 3The exact death count is hard to calculate.  The numbers vary from a low of 200,000 to a high of 2 million. Gandhi after release from prison in May 1944 In early 1942, at a time when the Japanese were threatening to overrun the British Empire everywhere, Gandhi decided to resume his civil disobedience campaign to topple British authority in India.  He refused to cooperate with the British in fending off the Japanese - and was arrested and detained for the next 21 months. Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru confer at a meeting of the Congress Party - 1946 Muslim leader Muhammad Ali Jinnah meets with British officials to plead the cause of an independent Pakistan, a separate Muslim state carved out of British India – something which Gandhi hotly opposed Vultures and dead victims of religious rioting - August 1946. The rioting occurred when Ali Jinnah of the Muslim League called on his people to demonstrate against Hindu-dominated Indian Congress Party of Gandhi and Nehru Vultures preside over those killed in Muslim-Hindu violence in the approach to Indian independence Gandhi confers with Lord Louis Mountbatten in the days before Indian independence - 1947 Muslim refugees passing a shallow grave of victims of an attack by Sikhs Refugees making their way from Pakistan to India under military protection - 1947 Indian partition ... killing and cremation Refugee trains taking Indian Sikhs and Moslems in opposite directions Gandhi on the 5th day of his fast to compel the Indians to cease the Hindu-Muslim violence against each other - January 17, 1948 After only five days, he presents himself as if he were at the edge of death ... hardly the case, but very dramatic ... and supposedly politically very effective. Great political drama, Gandhi! He ended the fast the following day when leaders of both communities met to sign a peace agreement. 12 days later (January 30th) he was assassinated by a Hindu fanatic who was embittered by Gandhi's toleration of Muslims.  Ironic justice for the London-trained lawyer Gandhi ... in his highly Romanticized effort to bring down India's well-developed social system (which was too "English" for him personally). Hindi fanatic Nathuram Godse ... who assasinated Gandhi because of his call for religious tolerance Nehru and others in grief over the news of Gandhi's assassination Hindu women keeping vigil beside the body of Gandhi Mahandas "Mahatma" Gandhi lies in state - 1948 The funeral procession carrying Gandhi's body to the Jumna river where it is to be cremated By the spring of 1948 when the worst of the cross migration of Muslims into Pakistan and Hindus into India had finally slowed down (the Sikhs had no land of their own to migrate to) as many as 15 million people had been transplanted in the two new countries.  The figures of those who died in this massive upheaval are unknown:  estimates run from several hundred thousand to as many as a million.  And it left, deeply embittered,  even millions more ... Muslims versus Hindus. THE COLLAPSE OF THE DUTCH EAST INDIES EMPIRE On the other hand, the Dutch were not as ready to give up their overseas holdings in Asia as had been the British.  For the Dutch, their investment in their extensive holdings in Southeast Asia had been built up over a period of three centuries … much longer than even the British involvement in India.  And over that long period a very deep cultural, economic, and political link between the Netherlands and the Dutch East Indies had served both societies quite well … because the Dutch had proven very effective in keeping a quite tight control over the entire region. And the Dutch quite naturally felt that, with the war over, they would simply put that same relationship back in place. Of course the three-and-a-half-year period of Japanese occupation of that same region had done much (quite purposely on the part of the Japanese) to undermine that linkage between the Netherlands and its Asian colony.  And the Japanese, even in defeat, worked very hard in their last days of occupation of the region to leave behind as much of an anti-Western social legacy there as possible.  Indeed, still in occupation of the region after the formal surrender of Japan to the Allies, the Japanese supported strongly the efforts of a local nationalist leader, Sukarno (active even before the start of the war in an anti-Dutch independence movement) and his close associate Mohammad Hatta, to establish an independent "Indonesia" … Sukarno declaring himself president of the new republic and Hatta vice president.  Furthermore, the weapons that the Japanese had to turn over to their victors went mostly to arm the Indonesian nationalists. But the situation – for both Sukarno and the Dutch – was a very complicated matter ... because the region was hardly a unified social entity.  Languages across the region varied, as did the religion … though mostly it was Muslim in character.  But many of the islands making up the region were Christian.  And there was a huge Chinese sector of the population.  And of course there were many European Dutch who had long made the area their home.  Thus the region quickly became the scene of frequent ethnic massacres.4   And the Dutch, whose homeland had been demolished by the Germans, found themselves absorbed back in Europe with rebuilding their society.  Indeed, since the war's end, the Dutch had been forced to rely on the rather limited support of British Indian and Commonwealth troops in their East Indies colony … largely sent to the region just to oversee the Japanese surrender. And thus it was not until early 1946 that the Dutch were finally able to send their own troops to their colony in an effort to bring things back under full Dutch control. Actually, by 1947, the Dutch seemed to be largely succeeding in their effort, having brought the major islands of Java and Sumatra back under Dutch control.  But they found that local resistance was now being replaced by international resistance … in particular in the New United Nations, where Sukarno and his Republicans seemed to be finding a lot of support.  Australia, newly independent India, the Soviet Union – and even America – were tending to side with Sukarno and the Republicans.  Finally, the Dutch bent to U.N. efforts to secure a cease-fire between the two parties, put in place largely along the lines where one or the other party seemed to be in control.  But Sukarno, enjoying rather significant international support (and growing support at home), was not really interested in respecting the cease-fire … and continued to press forward his nationalist movement.   The Dutch, seeing themselves facing an increasingly desperate situation, thus decided in late 1948 to make a huge push to put themselves back in command – regaining much of the urban regions in the process, though finding themselves stalled in the countryside ... and worse, coming under ever-stronger opposition in the UN.  At this point, America not only cut off all Marshall Plan aid designated for the rebuilding of the Dutch colony, but threatened to do the same for the rebuilding of the Netherlands itself.  Americans were highly incensed by the idea that probably half of the budget designated for the rebuilding of Indonesia was going to support Dutch military efforts in the region.  That was imperialism … and there was no way that America would ever support such a program. By the summer of 1949, the Dutch were ready to quit.  They ultimately (November 1949) worked out an agreement recognizing an independent Indonesia, under the presidency of Sukarno … the man who would continue to rule the Republic of Indonesia as a dictator – all the way up until 1967, when he was forced out of power by another Indonesian strongman, Suharto – who would then rule Indonesia for the next thirty-one years.   So maybe European imperialism got put aside in Indonesia through this effort of America and others.  But that move hardly led automatically to the replacement of imperialism with national democracy.  But America largely ignored events in Indonesia in the days and years that followed ... thus learning nothing from the experience.  And the Netherlands – no longer a global power – had to decide how then to move into a deeply reshaped future. 4Tens of thousands were reported killed or missing in the first year after the war alone.  Several thousand Europeans were known specifically to have been tortured and executed and as many as 20,000 of mixed European-Asian ancestry were killed or went missing (those missing probably suffering a similar fate, though most likely their bodies were thrown into the sea; some mass graves were later uncovered). Sukarno (with Mohammed Hatta on the right) announcing Indonesian independence - August 17, 1945 - two days after the Japanese surrendered to the Allies British soldiers, acting on behalf of the Dutch, questioning Indonesians about nationalist activities - 1945 Not until September did the British arrive in Indonesia, to take over from a greatly demoralized Japanese occupational force – giving the Indonesian nationalists weeks of opportunity to establish themselves. British Indian troops encountering the first major uprising of the Indonesian nationalists - November 1945 Imperial War Museum, London When the Dutch finally were able to begin taking over from the British it was early 1946 -- and they found themselves facing a well-developed nationalist movement among the Indonesians Dutch soldiers and Indonesian civilians at a checkpoint in Djakarta Dutch Institute for Military History Skulls and bones of Dutch civilians murdered during Indonesian Independence-Day celebrations at Balapoelang - August 17, 1946 Government Institute for War Documentation, the Hague UN military observers checking up on a UN-sponsored cease-fire - 1948 National Archives Indonesians remove from the Djakarta palace portraits of their former Dutch governors - 1948 Aerial photo of Dutch parachutes and cargo planes at Maguwo Airport near Jogjakarta after Dutch paratroopers and regular troops attacked the nationalist position there - December 19, 1948 Crowds in Djakarta celebrating the 4th anniversary of Indonesian independence - August 17, 1949 National Archives Achmed Sukarno challenging his Indonesian countrymen to grand acts of patriotism THE FRENCH STUMBLE IN INDOCHINA Troubles in French Indochina Also naturally, the French had the full intention after the war, as had the Dutch, to return to their holdings in Southeast Asia … to French Indochina.5  But there too the European colonials found independence movements well underway … helped greatly by Japan's encouragement – but also by the weak hand there of the wartime French Vichy government … which had simply let the Japanese take over their colony during the war. But even before the end of the war, Roosevelt had made it quite clear to the French that America would oppose any effort of the French to retake their colony in Indochina.  In addition to the fact that America was deeply opposed to such imperialism, the Roosevelt government had been working closely with the anti-Japanese resistance – the Viet Minh, made up of Vietnamese nationalists led by the Communist Hồ Ch Minh.  This group was expecting international recognition of the region's independence from the French.  And America was willing to accord them just such recognition. Thus just as the Japanese issued their formal surrender (September 1945) – and also turning their weapons over to the Viet Minh – Ho declared the independence of a Vietnamese Republic.  He quickly took control of the city of Hanoi in the North … just as the French (also assisted by British colonial troops) arrived on the scene to receive the Japanese surrender. At first Hồ hoped that the mutual sufferings of the French and the Vietnamese would incline the French to be sympathetic toward his efforts on behalf of Vietnamese independence.  He also placed high hopes in the French Communist Party and their electoral victory back in France as insurance against a resurgent French colonialist impulse. But negotiations over the summer of 1946 began to reveal to him that the French had no intentions of granting the Vietnamese their independence. Fighting thus broke out (mostly in Tonkin in the North) not only between the Viet Minh and the French but also between the Viet Minh and the supporters of the young Vietnamese Emperor Bảo Đại – a curious political figure who had served as a Japanese puppet during the war but who now found himself in alliance with the French after the war (willing to serve again as a puppet?). The fighting was mostly sporadic …except for the one incident in 1946 in which the French bombed the port city of Haiphong, killing 6,000 citizens and scattering the Viet Minh into the countryside ...  making the ability of the French to run down their enemy even more complicated. In 1949, the French attempted to counter Hồ's nationalist appeal by establishing the Republic of Vietnam – under the Emperor Bảo Đại – as an Associated State within the French Union.  They also set up a Vietnamese National Army to support the new regime.  Likewise, Laos and Cambodia were also set up separately as Associated States within the French Union. But the victory in China of Mao's Communists that same year (1949) encouraged the Viet Minh enormously.   Meanwhile, Truman had been approached for support of the Vietnamese independence movement.  But by the late 1940s the idea of supporting any independence movement that might benefit the Communists was now politically taboo in America.  Indeed, by the early 1950s, America was now also supporting the other side – that of the French ... as clearly a "Cold War" had set in dividing the world into the "Free" and their opponents, the "Communists."  Things now turned very messy in the region. 5Laos and Cambodia, plus the three Vietnamese coastal regions of Tonkin in the north, Annam in the center, and Cochinchina in the south./font> A Japanese soldier posts Proclamation No. 1 declaring martial law – in English, French and Vietnamese – September 1945 Imperial War Museum, London Japanese commander of a military police unit in Saigon submitting his sword to a Indian officer in the British army - November 1945 U.S. Army The British were the first to enter the Japanese-held former French and Dutch colonies. The British kept the Japanese military in place  for several months to help keep order until their European allies could retake their former colonies. Nguyen That Thanh or "Ho Chi Minh" ("He who enlightens") addressing the 1920 meeting which gave rise to the French Communist Party, of which he was a founding member Ho Chi Minh (center) and Vo Nguyen Giap (far left) with American OSS agents planning coordinated action against the Japanese - 1945  Ho Chi Minh proclaiming Vietnamese independence - 1945 Under British command, former French prisoners confront their former Japanese captors Vietnamese nationalists in Saigon taken prisoner by the French - September 1945 French troops leaving Marseilles France for Indochina to retake control of the French colony - November 1945 The first National Assembly of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam meeting in January 1946 French Commissioner of Tonkin, Jean Sainteny; Vo Nguyen Giap, Ho Chi Minh's Minister of the Interior; and General Jacques Philippe Leclerc, commander of the French  forces in the Far East, lead a contigent to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Hanoi, March 1946 Ho Chi Minh arriving in Paris to discuss Vietnamese independence In a cave north of Hanoi, and under a portrait of himself, Ho Chi Minh meets council The Vietnamese Emperor Bao Dai – in exile in Hong Kong – 1948. He was returned to Saigon in 1949 in a French effort to form a new non-Communist government MAO TAKES CONTROL IN CHINA At war's end in 1945, Chiang Kai-shek's government faced a serious problem:  the loss of deep esteem in the eyes of the Chinese themselves.  The failure of his Nationalist or Kuomintang army to stop the Japanese takeover of the highly urbanized coastal regions of China – and having to rely on foreigners (principally the Americans) and local warlords – were matters of deep shame in the Chinese political honor code. To most Chinese, such failure indicated Chiang's loss of the sacred Tianming (Mandate of Heaven), that is, the powers of Heaven that Chinese dynasties traditionally built their moral and thus political foundations on.   Meanwhile Mao and his Communist troops, who had retreated deep into the Chinese rural interior, had carefully avoided serious engagement with the Japanese, merely conducting local hit and run tactics … thus not tarnishing their reputation.  Of course that was of little help to Chiang in his struggles with the Japanese.  But Mao knew exactly what he was doing.  He had built up his political reputation considerably in the world of rural China … at the same time that Chiang had lost that reputation in the world of urban China – formerly Chiang's power base. Also, the huge inflation that hit China at the war's end destroyed the life savings of that same urban middle class … making Chang's inability to bring it under control – as any political leader was expected to do – weaken even further his all-important urban support. Then too, Mao promised his peasant followers that, once in power, he would confiscate the large holdings of the Chinese landowners, and distribute their lands to the peasants as their own personal property … making Mao very popular among rural Chinese. There were attempts at war's end to bring Mao and Chiang together in some kind of political settlement – especially by U.S. General George Marshall, sent to China for that express purpose.  But Chiang hated Mao deeply.  And Mao sensed that he had the political future on his side.  And Stalin, although he supposedly supported the Allied-recognized government of Chiang, did the same thing as the Japanese had done in Dutch Indonesia and French Indochina:  see that surrendered Japanese weapons fell into the right hands.  And for Stalin, that meant Mao … not Chiang.  And having been given occupational rights in the vital province of Manchuria, Stalin turned as much as he could of the area of Manchuria over to Mao.   Meanwhile, the Americans airlifted thousands of Chiang's Nationalist troops into eastern Manchuria to "balance" the picture.  But beyond that, there was little that the Americans felt that they could do to improve the situation for Chiang.  They were quite aware of how bad things were for Chiang.  And choices would have to be made … and the "Realist" Truman and his advisors6 were keenly aware that American interests in European recovery were far greater than those they held for China. Step by step, China found itself caught in a widening civil war … with Chiang on the retreat widely across the countryside and Mao continuing to build the size of his army and its holdings of Chinese territory.  Then by 1948, Mao was ready to take on urban China, one city after another falling to Mao's Communist troops.  In the time period alone running from early December to late January, numerous cities fell to the Communists, including the key city of Beiping (Beijing).  And by April, Mao's troops were able to capture the Republic's capital of Nanjing … forcing Chiang and what was left of his army to retreat south all the way to Canton.  From there (and other places) some two million Chinese were able to escape the Chinese mainland and make their way to the island of Taiwan. On October 1st (1949), Mao announced the creation of the new People's Republic of China … bringing China fully into a Russian-American Cold War that was well underway by that point.  The Soviet Russians would give full support to Mao's China … whereas America (and its allies) would continue to support Chiang as the only legitimate voice of China – even though his political base was now located at Taipei, the capital of Taiwan. 6Truman’s small society of foreign policy advisors was outstanding:  besides George Marshall, Dean Acheson, Robert Lovett and George Kennan, the list included Chip Bohlen, Averell Harriman, Paul Nitze, John McCloy and many other highly talented American statesmen.  Most of these men served as advisors in some capacity from the Roosevelt Administration in the 1930s all the way to the Johnson Administration in the mid-1960s. US C-54 plane transporting Nationalist troops to Shanghai - October 1945 Bitter foes, Mao Tse-tung and  Chiang Kai-shek, putting on smiles at a reconciliation conference called by the United States in August and September of 1945 Russian soldiers, who entered the war against Japan a week before Japan's surrender, mixing with Chinese in Manchuria, which they have just taken over from the Japanese - 1945 Fotokhronika-TASS, Moscow The British were quick to retake the valuable Hong Kong colony after Japan's surrender in 1945 National Archives Gen. George Marshall meeting in Nanking in 1946 with Generalissimo and Madam Chiang Kai-shek in the hopes of negotiating a peace settlement between the Nationalists and Communists Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and his wife with General George Marshall U.S. Gen. George Marshall brings together the Nationalists and Communists - March 1946 (Communist Chou En-lai, Gen. Marshall, Communist Gen. Chu Teh, Nationalist Gen. Chang Chih-chung and Communist Mao Tse-tung) Chinese warlord Ma Hung-kuei - powerful ally of Chiang's Chiang Kai-shek being declared President of China - 1947 Mao Tse-tung addressing his followers as his move to oust Chiang Kai-shek gathers momentum - December 1948 Conscripts for the Nationalist's last-ditch stand in Beijing against the Communists - December 1948 Chinese Communist troops entering Beijing - February 1949 The Communists take over Beijing – 1949 Dejected Nationalist soldiers awaiting transportation out of Nanking Nationalist Chinese fleeing Nanking - 1949 Beneath a portrait of Sun-Yat-sen the Nationalist parliaments ends its last session - shortly before the Communists take over Nanking - April 1949 Curious citizens of Nanking getting their first look at Communist troops Mao's Red Army Some of Chiang Kai-Shek's Nationalist Chinese troops streaming across the border into northern Vietnam – 1949 Chinese refugees (at right) stream into Hong Kong from China in 1950 – passing others going the opposite direction THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN QUESTION The region known variously as Palestine or Israel has long been sacred to three major religions … religions seldom in agreement about matters – but especially about the matter of which of those religions does this vital area belong to.  To the Jews, this is their homeland, the place of birth of their very religion.  To the Christians, this is where their Lord and Savior Jesus was born, raised, taught, died and was resurrected as the birthing of their Christian religion.  And to the Muslims, Jerusalem is the third most holy city in all of Islam … because (among other things) of the nighttime ride of their founding Prophet Muhammad in and around Jerusalem.  And basically, it has been the Muslims (minus the brief period of the crusades) that have been the victors in this debate since the 600s. But the Great War changed matters … deeply.  When the Ottoman Turks joined Germany in that war, they decided the fate of both Islam's political presiding Ottoman Sultan and its religiously presiding Ottoman Caliph.  As losers in that war they lost to both a modern Britain abroad and a modernizing Turkish leader Atat rk at home … leaving Islam headless – and the Holy Land of Palestine in British hands as its mandated "protector." Actually (as already noted), problems had already begun to arise a bit earlier when persecuted Jews decided to leave Europe (late 1800s and early 1900s) and head to their holy homeland, "Zion."  Thus the Zionist Movement was born. The Palestinian issue was not, however, a religious matter … but simply one of property rights … at least not originally.  Something resembling religious toleration had actually long existed in the land.  The capital city, Jerusalem, was itself divided into religious quarters, one Jewish, one Muslim, one Christian, and one Armenian (but also Christian).  And relations among those groups tended to be friendly … if not a bit distant.   Most unsurprisingly, immigrants coming from Europe to Palestine found the region fully occupied.  The only uninhabited areas where Zionists could possibly settle were basically desert. True, Zionists did set up numerous small communities (Kibbutzim), sustained by channeling water from the Jordan River – which flowed right through the middle of that desert, from the heights of the mountains in the north to the Dead Sea in the south.  But this method could support only small numbers of those trying to settle in Palestine ... and would also drain down the river deeply.   But the Zionists also knew that the peasants working the farmlands of Palestine did not generally own the land.  Land-ownership belonged to wealthy families, living not locally – but off in one or another city.  So the Zionists used funds to purchase that land from these absentee landlords … and then remove the Palestinian peasants working the lands in order to make way for Jewish settlers.  Needless to say, this stirred up considerable anger … and the beginning of an ongoing war over the land (much like the one between the Indians and the European settlers in America). Then during the Great War, the British took it upon themselves to take charge of the region, using that position to get various war support against the Turks … in exchange, promising British support of the ambitions of one group and then another involved in the Palestinian question.  To the Jews, they promised (the 1917 Balfour Declaration) to support the idea of a Jewish homeland somewhere in Palestine … in exchange for much-needed financial support from the fabulously wealthy Jewish Rothschild banking family of Paris.  But they made a similar offer to local Palestinians … in exchange for their rising up against their former Ottoman Turkish rulers.  And they made the same offer to themselves … in their own desire to expand their British Empire into the coastlands of the Eastern Mediterranean – close to their Suez Canal and the Egyptian government they already had under British wings. This triple promise only guaranteed that even greater political confusion would follow in the postwar years.  The bitterness deepened in Palestine even further in the 1930s when the global Great Depression upset the economies of people everywhere.  In 1936, the British had to put down a major Arab revolt against the incoming Jews, leading the Jews to form David Ben-Gurion's Jewish Agency, and the development of a skilled Jewish army, the Haganah … set up supposedly to help the British put down the revolt.  But the British then (1939) put in place a 15,000-person limit to Jewish immigration into British Palestine … deeply upsetting the Jewish world which was suffering from the intense Nazi persecution of Jews in Europe.  But even 15,000 new settlers coming into Palestine annually would mean a somewhat similar number of Palestinians displaced from their homes and lands. Then World War Two hit … and much of the movement was blocked by military developments. But after the war, the situation would become explosive … on a monumental basis.  Opening the Nazi concentration camps put muscle behind the Zionist movement … that plus the reluctance of others, even those who had themselves suffered under the Nazis, to receive the Jews back to their homes (Poland was highly problematic in this regard).  Thus tens of thousands of Jews became determined to reach a place of greater security, a place they could truly call their Jewish homeland. But the British were caught in the middle … with not only their Arab friends furious that the British would allow this mass migration (the British were actually doing all they could to slow down the movement) … and getting shot at now by their wartime allies, the Jewish Haganah – and the Jewish terrorist organizations, Irgun and the Stern Gang (or Lehi).  And this came at a time when the British Prime Minister Atlee was doing everything he could to get Britain out of its international commitments ... so that it could focus on problems at home.  Thus the decision was finally announced in London (February 1947) that Britain was turning the matter over to the new United Nations … and would be getting out of Palestine as soon as possible. But the new U.N. found itself in no better of a place than the British in taking on this political challenge.  Efforts were made to divide Palestine into distinct Arab and Jewish territories, the foundations for future states.  But neither party was willing to give up its goal of holding the entire region … and thus the fighting merely worsened. At this point Britain announced that it would be leaving the area as of May 14th 1948.  This it did … and on that same day the Jews announced the establishment of the Jewish state of Israel.  Both Soviet Russia and America were quick to recognize the new government. But this did not mean the end of the fighting … for all of the Arabs, including those of the surrounding states, refused to recognize the State of Israel.  And thus the fighting merely intensified.  And it also meant the disregard by the Jews of even the borderlines set out by the U.N. in its proposal to divide Palestine into two states. Meanwhile Palestinians fled the scenes of battle, especially after the rumor spread rapidly of the massacre of an entire Palestinian village (Deir Yassin) by Jewish terrorists.  And the Mediterranean coastal city of Jaffa – supposedly designated by the U.N. plan to be included in the new Palestinian state – was terrorized by Irgun and Lehi7 ... and the city's Arab population of 70,000 was soon reduced to a mere 4,000.  And across the countryside, some 700,000 Arabs that had fled their homes would find themselves blocked by Israeli authorities from returning to their homes – despite a U.N. resolution calling on Israel to allow them to return to their homes.  Instead, the refugees would have to take "temporary" residence in UN-run refugee camps … camps which would in fact become permanent homes to a huge Palestinian society unable to take care of itself (these camps were mostly located on desert land). No soil for farming, no jobs of any kind, no hope at all awaited these lost Palestinians.  This was perfect material for a long and lasting Arab-Israeli conflict. 7It is interesting to note that the Irgun leader Menachem Begin, who ordered the destruction of the King David Hotel (and 91 lives, including even Jews as well as British and Arabs) would become Israeli Prime Minister in 1977... and ironically become winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979.  Also a former Lehi leader Yitzhak Shamir would follow Begin as Israeli Prime Minister in 1983, a man who ordered the assassination in 1944 of the British Minister for Middle East Affairs, Lord Moyne, and in 1948 the United Nations peace negotiator, Swedish Count Bernadotte. Jews mourning relatives killed in anti-Semitic violence in Kielce, Poland - 1946. The leaders were tried and convicted; but this nonetheless persuaded thousands of Jews to emigrate. A party of rather young and very determined Jews sailing to British-held Palestine to start a new life there - 1946  3 million Jews survived the War ... out of the original 10 million of Europe's original population.  To many – if not most – Jews, an independent Jewish state in Palestine seemed to be the only guarantee that this would never happen again to their people. A Jewish husband and wife - separated by the Nazis since 1941 - reunited in Haifa - May 1946 A British soldier at the Haifa docks guarding Jews barred from entering Palestine Fearing a massive rebellion from the Arab Palestinians who were irate at the post-War flood of immigrants into their land, the British began to seriously enforce an immigration restriction: only 1500 Jews per month.  The huge additional flow of Jews that arrived were at first sent to Cyprus to await their place in the quota -- a process that promised to be years in the making.  Soon overwhelmed in Cyprus, the British took to returning the Jews to Europe. A ragtag Szold being blocked by British troops from disembarking its passengers into Palestine A Haganah soldier - with Auschwitz tattoo – doing sentry duty in Jaffa The 60,000-man army-like Haganah, led by officers who had fought alongside the British towards the end of the War, now turned its wrath upon its former ally. The Haganah blew up British radar stations, sank British boats patroling the Palestinian coastline, blew up oil refineries, British troop trains, RAF airfields and bridges, cut phone lines and oil pipelines – and succeeded in isolating Palestine ... and the British authority overseeing it. A wing of the King David Hotel being blown up by the Irgun terrorist organization - July 22, 1946.  91 Britons, Arabs and Jews died in the explosion. While the Haganah attempted to focus on military targets and minimize human casualties, the 2000-man Irgun - led by the Polish refugee Menachem Begin - and the much smaller Lehi or "Stern Gang" worked in quite the opposite fashion.  They gunned down their opponents on the streets, sent letter bombs, dressed themselves as Arabs or British soldiers in robbing banks, bombing train stations, attacking police stations and government offices, etc.  By the end of 1946 they had also assassinated 373 people as part of their strategy of terror. British police about to invade a suspected terrorist hideout in Jerusalem - October 1946 An Orthodox Jew being searched before being admitted into a British compound for questioning about the bombing of a British officers' club by terrorists – on a day (March 1, 1947) in which 16 attacks were carried out against British targets, resulting in the deaths of 22 people A Palestinian policeman guards workers clearing wreckage of a train wreck - April 1947 The Cairo to Haifa express train carrying British troops was sabotaged by the Jewish underground, killing five soldiers and 3 civilians. Two British soldiers executed by the Jewish terrorist organization Irgun - after the British executed two Jewish terrorists - July 1947 A copy of the Irgun's execution orders is pinned to one of the soldiers.  When the first body was cut down it exploded, wounding a British officer.  The Irgun had mined the surrounding ground.  On hearing of this atrocity, off-duty British troops in Tel Aviv rioted, killing 5 Jews and wounding 15 more. A Haganah refugee ship Exodus-1947 impounded by the British at Haifa - July 1947 To discourage further immigation of Jews, the British decided to make an example of this ship - ramming and crippling it just outside Haifa - and then transporting its 4500 passengers back to Europe in three prison ships. Defiant young Jews of the Exodus-1947 being held in the Poppendorf D.P. [Displaced Persons] camp in Germany The British guards at Poppendorf were less than enthusiastic about this assignment and the Jews were able simply to slip away.  Within a year the camp was empty -- and the former detainees finally reached Palestine. Violence breaks out upon the UN decision of November 30, 1947 that Britain's mandate in Palestine will end the following Mayand that Palestine will be divided into two states – with the coastal areas going to the Jews and the interior and Gaza to the Arabs. The Jews are elated; the Arabs are furious. ... what gives the United Nations the right to give Arab land away to European Jews?  It was the Europeans, not the Arabs, that mistreated the Jews.   Now the Europeans are making the Arabs pay for the European atrocities. A Jewish journalist stabbed by an Arab during the riots in Jerusalem that followed the November 30, 1947 announcement of the UN-sponsored partition of Palestine A Jewish-owned taxi burns outside the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem in retaliation for a drive-by shooting conducted by Jewish terrorists which killed 15 people in the Arab market. During the month after the announcement of the pending partition, 489 people died in the violence. Jews fleeing a bombing of Ben Yehuda Street in Jerusalem - February 22, 1948 Jews surveying some of the damage caused by the Ben Yehuda bombing. The bombing was undertaken by Arab terrorists dressed up in British uniforms. 57 people died.  Angry Jews, taken in by the deception, killed 9 Britons in retaliation. On May 14th, 1948 Britain's mandate over Palestine ended.  That afternoon the Jews announced the creation of Israel.   On the following day the Arab-Israeli war began. Official UN mediator, Count Folke Bernadotte, assassinated by Jewish terrorist organization Lehi (the Stern Gang) in September 1948 U.S. diplomat Ralph Bunche, who replaced Bernadotte, mediating the Palestinian conflict United Nations Palestinian refugees "Making their way from Galilee in October-November 1948". Front cover of The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem by Benny Morris Israelis raise their national flag at the United Nations Jaramana Refugee Camp for Palestinian refugees, Damascus, Syria - 1948 Palestinian refugees in Zerka refugee camp - 1949 Refugee routes of Palestinians Wikipedia - "Palestinian refugee" Go on to the next section:  The Cold War – An Overview   Miles H. Hodges