1601496 (Iswa)

nj16609@essex.ac.uk

Class CLAa05
Abdulaziz Alghashian (amhalg@essex.ac.uk)

Mandate Overview

The persistent European intervention in the Middle East during the 19 th century
unintentionally augmented the “collective sense of the nationhood in the Arabo-Islamic
territories” which ultimately brought the beginning of the mandate period of the Middle
East state. Thus this paper, would first analyze the period that brought the downfall of the
Ottoman empire and followed by the inclusion of the West perception of the Middle East
plus the introduction of the Mandate period. This paper in particular would investigate the
British mandate period over Palestine from 1922 to the 1948. Then at the end of the paper,
there would be summary and a conclusion/justification.

What is Statehood? Although, in general term it is seen as a “Sovereign Political Entities” as

mentioned by Roger Owen in his book, State, Power & Politics in the Making of the Middle
East, where he argued that the word ‘state’ itself has 2 distinctive meanings which are often
‘conflated’ to which the first is stated above while the other refers to set of ‘institutions and
practices which combines administrative, judicial, rule-making and coercive power. Owen
borrows a definition of state from Joel Magdial to further examine the important features of
the Middle Eastern political life; “An organization, composed of numerous agencies led and
coordinated by the state’s leadership that has the ability to make and implement the
binding rules for all the peoples as well as the parameters of ruling making for other social
organization in a given territory using force if necessary to have its way.” After the
justification what state means, in the next paragraph we would briefly access the history of
the downfall of the Ottoman empire.

The Ottoman Empire was once a powerful state where its sphere of influence spans across
the Middle East and North Africa but with series of events led to their downfall. One such
events were the Turkification where the Ottoman administration which saw the need to
modernize its institutions under the ‘tanzimat’ reforms from the growing onslaught of the
Russians plus the general European perfidy [ CITATION Tar16 \l 1033 ]. This backfired as it
allows the introduction of secular institutions in the Military aspect plus the inclusion of the
Ethnic nationalism “the Young Turk Movement” 1909 where it caused disarray within the
Arab provinces. Furthermore, what intensify the problem were the Outbreak of World War
1 (1914-17) where they were defeated in the hands of the Western Power. This led to the
reconstruction of the Arab states. Therefore, this results to the invention of a new
instrument of political control, ‘The Mandate’ which was used to legitimize the British &
French of their Middle East possessions.

A mandate has similar features as an old-fashioned colony but with a mandate holder to
submit to certain internationally sanctioned guidelines, notably the need to establish
constitutional governments in the new states as a way of preparing their people for
eventual independence. This important guideline led the British vague mandate over the
Palestine, where Britain were to acknowledge the establishment of Palestine as a Jewish
national home under the recognition of the Balfour Declaration of November 1917. This
singular recognition brought a tremendous discontent, till this day, still remain as a conflict.
The reason for this discontent is split into multiple problems which includes; The Sykes-Picot
Agreement 1916; British failed promises to the Zionist movement which fueled ethnic
conflict. Best describe this discontent comes from an article made by Nabeel Shaath where
he states that, “Britain must atone for its sins in Palestine”. It is agreed that British
involvement in Palestine was acknowledge in the Balfour Declaration letter where it
promised British support for the Zionist program of establishing a “national home for the
Jewish people” in Palestine. Nabeel states that ‘this pledge of support was made without
consulting the indigenous Christian and Muslim inhabitants of Palestine, the Palestinian
people’. Nabeel goes on further to justified that, ‘Balfour have no legal right’ to give
Palestine to the Zionist. This shows that Britain lack of leadership over Palestine which
simply explained Western perception of the Middle East as Monolithic. Furthermore, the
British failed to repressed Palestinian nationalism, which ‘exemplified by its crushing of the
Arab revolt of 1936-1939. Plus, according to Nabeel, “Britain suppressed Palestinian political
representation through a policy of systematic denial of Palestinian political rights.”

Therefore, without a doubt that Britain mandate over Palestine was unsuccessful which
causes more destruction than peace. It marked the start of the Palestinian exile, the
expulsion of the majority of the Palestinian people against the backdrop of Zionist terrorism.
In conclusion, there were steps this conflict could be prevented especially British
involvement in Palestine. Thus, this paper has examined the Statehood of the Middle East,
plus acknowledge Western establishment of the mandate period followed by the
assessment of British mandate period over Palestine.

Bibliography
Owen, R. (2004). State, Power & Politics in the Making of the Middle East (Vol. 2). Routledge

Migdal, J.S., (1988). Strong societies and weak states: state-society relations and state
capabilities in the Third World. Princeton University Press.

Tareq Y, I., Ismael, J. S., & Perry, G. E. (2016). Government and Politics of the Contemporary
Middle East (Vol. 2). Routledge.

Shaath, N. (2012, October 31). Britain Must Atone for Its Sins in Palestine. (Telegraph,
Producer) Retrieved October 24, 2017, from The Telegraph :
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/palestinianauthority/964
5925/Britain-must-atone-for-its-sins-in-Palestine.html