The British Mandate in Palestine
The emergence,
structure, and function of the mandatory government from 1923-1948.
By Howard M. Sachar
Article 22 of the
government of the League of Nations provided direction for the administration
of territories yielded to the Allied Powers by Germany and Turkey after World
War I. Those territories that were inhabited by people "not yet able to
stand by themselves under the strenuous condition of the modern world"
were to be directed by "advanced nations." This program of
"advanced" nations adopting developing ones, with the League of
Nations acting as a sort of ultimate guardian, was known as the mandate system.
In this manner, Britain won the mandate for Palestine. The following article
outlines the provisions of the British mandate in Palestine. It is reprinted
with permission from A
History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to Our Times published by Alfred A. Knopf.
As the legal instrument
defining Britain's obligations under the mandate, the League of Nations award
similarly laid down a number of general "non‑Zionist"
provisions. Public order, good government, and civil and religious rights were
assured for all the inhabitants of the country, "irrespective of race and
religion." The administration was charged with recognizing the sacred
holidays of the various communities, and with guaranteeing the security of the
holy places and freedom of access to them. English, Arabic, and Hebrew were
recognized as official languages. By the same token, each community was
authorized to maintain its own school system. To ensure, also, that these and
other requirements were fulfilled, the mandatory document obligated Britain to
submit an annual report of its tenure in the Holy Land to the Permanent
Mandates Commission of the League of Nations.
Yet, at best, the
award could only set guidelines for the mandatory. It was for the British
themselves to institute the operative government for Palestine. An organic
law, therefore, upon which the mandatory administration based its functional
activities, was signed by the king in London on August 10, 1922, and proclaimed
by Sir Herbert Samuel [the first British High Commissioner for Palestine] in
Jerusalem on September 1. This was the Palestine Order in Council. Although it
included the traditional provisions of freedom of worship, liberty of
conscience, and Britain's responsibility to foster the Jewish National Home,
the Order in Council inessence was
an austerely practical document that defined the various components of the
mandatory government.
Thus, the executive was designated as a high commissioner,
who appointed all subsidiary administrative officials. An independent
judiciary under a chief justice was empowered to protect the rights of natives
and foreigners alike, and to assure solicitude for the traditions and mores of
the various religious communities. To that end, the Order in Council affirmed
the jurisdiction of the religious courts in matters of personal status.
One of the most important of the document's features
reflected Samuel's warmest hopes for the cultivation of self‑government
in Palestine. It was for the election of a legislative council, subject to the
powers reserved to the high commissioner to "establish such Ordinances as
may be necessary for the peace, order, and good government of Palestine."
The body would consist of 22 members, 10 of them official members of
government, and 12 unofficial members. The latter, citizens of Palestine
themselves, would be elected through a delicately calibrated scheme of primary
and secondary elections. To ensure the protected status of the Jewish and
Christian minorities, the secondary electors would be organized into 12
electoral colleges according to their religious communities. The council would
be debarred, too, from passing ordinances that violated the terms of the
mandate‑-specifically, the growth of the Jewish National Home. Tax and
revenue matters similarly were exempt. In any event, the high commissioner
possessed the option of veto.
On the basis of this elaborately
delimited format, Samuel's administration laid the groundwork for general
elections. A census was taken, revealing a population of 650,000 Moslems,
87,000 Jews, and 73,000 Christians. No serious opposition to the legislative
council was encountered in its earliest phase. But within a few weeks, Arab
nationalist leaders expressed growing misgivings about a scheme permitting Jews
to share even limited consultative authority with Arabs. In the end,
therefore, a majority of Arabs boycotted the primary elections, and the
government was obliged to cancel the rest of the voting.
Samuel reverted instead to a
purely nominated body. At his request, the Palestine Order in Council was
amended by a second order in Council, this one issued on May 4, 1923. The new
instrument authorized the high commissioner to establish simply an advisory,
rather than a legislative, council. In Samuel's blueprint, the new body would
include (besides himself) ten official members, as well as eight Moslem, two
Jewish, and two Christian Palestinians‑-to be appointed by the
government. Yet even this modification failed to placate the Arab nationalists.
Once more they forced the appointed Arab representatives to withdraw from the
advisory council, thereby dooming the scheme. It was evident that the opponents
hoped to compel Britain to institute majority self‑government, an
arrangement that would entirely favor the Arabs.
Somewhat frantically, at this
point, Samuel requested the Arab leaders atleast to organize their own Arab Agency. The organ would serve as a
counterpart to the Jewish Agency prescribed by the mandatory award and would
cooperate with the government on matters relating to Arab interests in
Palestine. But at a tense meeting in the high commissioner's palace, the Arab
leadership rejected the proposal on the spot. Musa Kazem al‑Husseini, who
earlier had led an Arab delegation to England to protest the Jewish National
Home, observed that his people had never recognized the status of the Jewish
Agency and therefore had no desire for a similar agency of their own. Samuel
accordingly was left with no choice but to accept this third rejection of Arab
cooperation as final. With regret, he announced that the legislative as well as
the executive functions of the government henceforth would be reserved
exclusively to the high commissioner and subordinate officers of the Palestine
administration.
From 1923 on, therefore, until the end of Britain's tenure
in 1948, the government that functioned in Palestine was unique among League
"A" mandates. Far from nurturing the local population to self‑government,
it was a Crown Colony in all but name. The high commissioner was all-powerful,
with full rights to appoint, dismiss, or suspend anyone holding government
office in Palestine, and to sell or lease any public lands. Ultimately, Samuel
and his successors were restrained by no constitutional limitations whatever as
far as the nation's inhabitants were concerned. The only built‑in checks
on the executive's authority lay in the provisions of mandate itself and of
those in the Order in Council guaranteeing freedom of conscience, worship, fair
trial, and similar traditional Western liberties. Occasionally citizens of
Palestine themselves appealed real or fancied injustices to London, to the
Colonial Office, or if necessary beyond that to the Privy Council-‑even
to Parliament. But the method was unwieldy, at best.
Nor did the high commissioner hesitate to use his powers of
legislation extensively. Each year his office issued as many laws for Palestine
as Parliament did for Britain. Indeed, the Arab press spoke derisively of this
"law factory " that turned out new ordinances without rest. To a
degree, the spate of legislation reflected the need for revising a host of near‑medieval
Ottoman legal practices, especially in the realm of criminal and commercial
law. Most of the ordinances, however, were devoted to restructuring the
nation's administration. With its 9,000 square miles, Palestine was divided now
into three districts-‑north, south, and Jerusalem. The city of Jerusalem
functioned both as the headquarters for its own district and as capital of
mandatory government. British commissioners governed each of these
administrative units, with other British officers responsible for subdistricts.
Although municipal councils were elected in 1926, throughout the entire period
of British rule, mayors were appointed by the high commissioner, who could
remove them at his discretion. In effect, there were no limits to the
government's centralized authority.
Howard M. Sachar is a
Professor of History and International Affairs at George Washington University
in Washington DC.
ã
1976, 1996 by Howard M. Sachar
