chronicles events leading to the Balfour declaration in 1917 and its catastrophic consequences for Palestinians and the region
The Balfour declaration
1516
Apr 10 1st Jewish ghetto established: Venice compels Jews to live in a specific area
The Ottomans seize Palestine from the Mamelukes and incorporate it within the Empire
1596
Oct 24 -26 Battle at Kerestes: Ottoman beat Austria-Hungary & Germany
The Ottomans begin compiling detailed taxation records and conduct a census in Palestine. The latter reveals a Muslim majority, a Christian minority and a tiny Jewish minority.
1871
Apr 16 German Empire ends all anti-Jewish civil restrictions
The Palestine Exploration Fund, a British society based in London which undertakes topographical and ethnographic surveys of Ottoman Palestine, begins producing detailed documentation of Palestine’s Arab, mainly Muslim population, and its majority Arab villages.
1882
May 15 May Laws-Tsar Alexander III bans Jews from living in rural Romania
Jul 6 14 Russian Jews from Bilu arrive in Jaffa, Palestine
Russia issues laws prohibiting Jews from living or owning property outside specific areas. In response Lovers of Zion organisations are formed to organise emigration to Palestine.
Sep 10 1st international conference to promote anti-semitism meets Dresden Germany (Congress for Safeguarding of Non-Jewish Interests)
1896
Apr 19 Herzl's "The Jewish State" is published
Austro-Hungarian writer Theodor Herzl, the father of modern Zionism, publishes Der Judenstaat (The State of the Jews), in which he argues that Jews who want to leave Europe should head either to Argentina or, preferably, Palestine. Jews already had a nationality, he wrote, but they needed a homeland. Only the latter, he argued, would allow them to escape anti-Semitism and practice their faith freely.
1897
Mar 20 1st US orthodox Jewish Rabbinical seminary (RIETS) incorporates in NY
Apr 22 NYC Jewish newspaper "Forward" begins publishing (still active)
Jul 26 37.5 cm rainfall at Jewell, Maryland (state record)
Jul 27 14.75" (37.5 cm) of rainfall, Jewell, Maryland (state 24-hr record)
Dec 12 Anti-Jewish violence breaks out in Bucharest, Romania
At Herzl’s initiative the World Zionist Organisation is founded in Basle Switzerland. Its mandate, to establish a legal home for Jews in Palestine, sets the stage for the occupation of Palestine and the ensuing conflict.
1901
Jun 24 Jewish National Fund starts
The Jewish National Fund is founded. Focused on buying Palestinian land on which to build Jewish colonies, it becomes one of the principal conduits of colonization.
1903
Apr 6 The Kishinev pogrom in Bessarabia begins, forcing tens of thousands of Jews to later seek refuge in Israel and the Western world.
Aug 23 6th Zionist Congres, Theodor Herzl declares Jewish state
Oct 16 Homel, 1st Jewish self defense organization founded in Russia
The Zionist movement begins approaching European governments asking them to allocate territory for a Jewish state. Herzl asks King Victor Emmanuel of Italy about territory in North Africa (present-day Libya), an approach the king flatly rejects.
The British government offers the World Zionist Organisationland from itscolonies in east Africa to establish a homeland for Jews. The offer is rejected by a group led by Russian-British chemist Chaim Weizmann who insists on Palestine.
1914
Feb 28 Construction begins on Tower of Jewels for the Exposition (SF)
Ottoman Turkey enters World War I, siding with Germany, Austro-Hungary and Bulgariaagainst the Allies, Britain, France, Russia, Italy and the United States.
The Jewish population in Palestine is 38,754 (5 per cent of the total) of which 12,332 are Ottoman subjects and the remainder new immigrants from Europe.
The Ottoman Empire formally enters WWI, 1914
1915
Jan 1 Jews of Laibach Austria expelled
Jan 4 1st elected Jewish governor, Moses Alexander, takes office in Idaho
Mar 2 Vladmir Jabotinsky forms a Jewish military force to fight in Palestine
Aug 17 Mob lynches Jewish businessman Leo Frank in Cobb County, Georgia, after death sentence for murder of 13-year-old girl commuted to life
Henry McMahon, Britain’s High Commissioner in Egypt, begins exchanging letters with Emir Hussein bin Ali,the Sharif of Mecca, encouraging him to revolt against Ottoman Turkey. McMahon promises Hussein London will recognise an independent Arab state which includes the Arabian Peninsula, Iraq, El-Sham (Syria, Lebanon and Palestine) if the Arabs help the Allies in the war against Turkey.
Home Secretary Herbert Samuel, the first British government figure to espouse Zionism, puts forward a proposal for a British protectorate over Palestine to facilitate the establishment of a Jewish state there.
1916
19 May: Mark Sykes and Francois Georges Picot, representing the British and French foreign ministries, secretly reach an agreement dividing Arab lands under Ottoman rule into French and British spheres of influence.
They decide Iraq will go to Britain and France will take Syria and Lebanon. It is decided that Palestine will be placed under international administration since other Christian powers, most notably Russia, maintain an interest in the area.
10 June: Sharif Hussein officially proclaims his revolt against the Ottomans with the help of his two sons Ali and Faisal. By October they have Hijaz under their control, with eventual help from British forced who are keen to keep 12,000 Ottoman troops tied down in Medina ahead of the British invasion of Palestine.
Sharif Hussein of Mecca
1917
Mar 28 Jews are expelled from Tel Aviv & Jaffa by Turkish authorities
May 20 Turkish government authorizes Jews to return to Tel Aviv & Jaffa
Nov 2 Balfour Declaration proclaims support for a Jewish state in Palestine
2 November:The British government issues the Balfour Declaration announcing: “His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object.”
The document neglects to mention Palestine’s indigenous Arab inhabitants by name. It refers to them instead as “non-Jewish communities”.
The declaration is addressed to Lord Walter Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish community,for transmission to the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland. The text of the declaration is published in the press on 9 November 1917.
Nov 18 Sigma Alpha Rho, a Jewish high school fraternity, is founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
23 November: Revolution erupts in Russia and the Bolsheviks take power. They discover the Sykes-Picot agreement and make it public by publishing it in the press 556 days after it was signed.
9 December: Jerusalem falls to British troops under general Edmund Allenby’s command who proclaims: “the wars of the crusades are now complete"
Allenby enters Jerusalem after it fell to British troops, 1917 proclaiming "“the wars of the crusades are now complete."
1918
Jan 12 Finland's "Mosaic Confessors" law went into effect, making Finnish Jews full citizens.
Mar 9 Ukrainian mobs massacre Jews of Seredino Buda
Mar 13 American Red Magen David (Jewish Red Cross) forms
Aug 4 Adolf Hitler receives the Iron Cross first class for bravery on the recommendation of his Jewish superior, Lieutenant Hugo Gutmann
Balfour and other British officials give Sharif Hassan vague replies when he expresses concernover the Balfour declaration. They claim the Sykes-Picot has not been signed and reassure Sharif of their previous promisesto recognise an independent Arab state.
September: Britain occupies east Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.It persuades France to abandon the idea of internationalising Palestine as stipulated in Sykes-Picot. France agrees in exchangefor Britain ending its support for the Arab government established in Damascus under the leadership of El-Sharif Hussein’s son, Emir Faisal,thus enabling France to occupy Syria.
October: Exhausted Ottoman Turkey agrees to an armistice.
Nov 21 Polish soldiers organize a pogrom against Jews of Galicia, Poland
Nov 22 Polish forces attack Jewish community of Lemberg (Lvov)
Dec 15 American Jewish Congress holds its 1st meeting
1919
Jan 3 The Faisal-Weizmann Agreement, which was a short-lived agreement for the development of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, is signed by the King of Iraq and the President of the World Zionist Organization
Apr 5 Polish Army executes 35 young Jews
Aug 10 Ukrainian National Army massacres 25 Jews in Podolia Ukraine
Aug 31 Petlyura's Ukrainian Army kills 35 members of a Jewish defense group
After WW1 ends with the Allies victory the Paris Peace Conference is held to set peace terms. The French and Americans come out in support of the Balfour declaration.
US President Woodrow Wilson appoints the King-Crane commission to report on the situation in former Ottoman territory. The commission submits its findings in August. It concludes that the region, while not ready for independence, opposes the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine because it conflicts with the Balfour Declaration’spromises to respect of the civil and religious rights of non-Jewish communities in Palestine.
The commission reports that "Zionists looked forward to a practically complete dispossession of the present non-Jewish inhabitants of Palestine, by various forms of purchase”. Nearly 90 per cent of the Palestinian population is “emphatically against the entire Zionist program”.
The argumentmade by Zionist representatives that they have a "right" to Palestine based on an occupation of 2,000 years ago “can hardly be seriously considered” says the report.
The report is not made public until 1922.
The King-Crane commission 1919
1920
Apr 4 Arabs attack Jews in Jerusalem
The Allies meet in San Remo and decide that Iraq and Palestine will be placed under British mandate, Syria and Lebanon under French.
1921
May 11 Tel Aviv is 1st all Jewish municipality
Jun 19 Turks & Christians of Palestine sign a friendship treaty against Jews
The terrorist militia Haganah is formed to defend Zionist settlement in Palestine.
1922
Jun 24 Adolf Hitler begins a month long prison sentence for paramilitary operations; he rails against the 'Jewish sell-out' of Germany to the Bolsheviks
Sep 21 US President Warren G. Harding signs a joint resolution of approval to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine
After WWI, Jews make upjust three per cent of the population of Palestine.
The Jewish Agency is founded in Jerusalem and encouraged by the British mandate authorities to seize Palestinian land, take part in administering Palestine, build settlements and smuggle Jewish immigrants who beginmilitary training.
1923
The British mandate over Palestine is recognised by the League of Nations.
1924
Jan 26 Charles Jewtraw, US 500m skater, takes 1st Winter Olympics gold medal
March 5: Sharif Hussein of Mecca declares himself King of the Hijaz and the Arab lands, which is rejected by the powerful rival Arab clan of Saud who oust him from power in October.
1929
Aug 14 Jewish Agency for Palestine forms
Aug 23 Arabs attack Jews in Israel
Aug 24 Palestinians attack orthodox Jews in Jerusalem
The Jewish Agency is officially founded. Its mission is to "inspire Jews throughout the world to connect with their people, heritage, and land, and empower them to build a thriving Jewish future and a strong Israel”.
Palestinians begin resisting Zionist efforts to grab Islamic sites in Jerusalem. The Al-Buraq Revolution is triggered after Zionist gangs raise flags on the Al-Buraq Wall - the southern section of the western wall of Al-Haram Al-Sharif mosque in the old city of Jerusalem- declaring it theirs.
Palestinians across the country rise up against the British occupation and plans to colonise Palestine as a Jewish state. The British round up hundreds of Palestinians and sentence 29 to death. This is later reduced. Three are executed, the remainder are sentenced to life in prison.
The Buraq revolution, 1929
Fouad Hijazi, Atta El-Zeer, Mohamed Jamjoum executed by British occupation for their role in the 1929 Buraq revolution
1931-1935
Jewish immigration to Palestine jumps from 4,075 to 61,854.
The more radical elements in the Haganah split from the militia and form Irgun.
1933
Apr 1 Nazi Germany begins persecution of Jews by boycotting Jewish businesses
Apr 7 1st 2 NAZI anti-Jewish laws, bars Jews from legal & public service
Apr 26 Jewish students are barred from school in Germany
Jul 20 Germany: Two-hundred Jewish merchants are arrested in Nuremberg and paraded through the streets.
The Nazi party led by Adolf Hitler seizes power in Germany and begins persecuting Jews, leading to a surge in Jewish immigration to Palestine.
1934
Feb 10 1st Jewish immigrant ship to break the English blockade in Palestine
May 7 Part of Khabarovsk becomes a Jewish Autnomous Region
1935
