Palestine Between the Wars

During the interwar period, Arabs and Jews struggled to define the nature of Palestine.

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Palestine experienced significant changes in the period between the two World Wars, as the land formerly under Ottoman control came to be ruled by the British, who promised simultaneously to promote the modernization of the land and its inhabitants, the establishment of a Jewish national home, and Arab self-rule. These goals proved contradictory, and thus, under British rule from 1918-1948, Palestine was characterized by increasingly tense relationships among the British, Jews, and Arabs, all of whom felt that they had the right to the same land.

The following article examines the basic development of the Arab and the Jewish communities in Palestine during this period. (Other articles on The Balfour Declaration and The British Mandate explore British policy in Palestine during the interwar period.) It consists of excerpts reprinted with permission from A History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to Our Times (Knopf).

The Development of the Yishuv (Jewish Settlement) During the Interwar Period

By the end of the mandate's first decade…more that 162,000 Jews lived… in Palestine, 17 percent of the country's inhabitants. Of these, 37,000 lived on the soil, in 11 agricultural settlements totaling 700,000 dunams [approximately 175,000 acres]; 13 other Zionist agricultural schools and experimental stations were also functioning. Improved farming techniques were continually being devised. Citrus crops were growing in size and quality. 

The industrial development of the Yishuv showed similar promise. By 1930, 1,500 Jewish-operated factories and workshops were producing textiles, clothing, metal goods, lumber, chemicals, stone, and cement, with a total capital value of about PL 1 million.

The quality of life was improving, as well. The broad Kupat Cholim health network was partially responsible. So was Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America. Founded in 1912 by an American Jewess, Henrietta Szold, Hadassah's dedicated mass membership by 1930 had established in Palestine four hospitals; a nurse's training school; 50 clinics, laboratories, and pharmacies; and an excellent maternity and child hygiene service in most of the cities and in a number of the larger villages. The Women's International Zionist Organization (WIZO) maintained three infant welfare centers in Tel Aviv.

It was as a result, then, of expanding medical care, of systematic Jewish efforts to drain marshes and swamps, to provide a reasonable diet and living standard for the Yishuv altogether, that marked reduction was achieved in the incidence of tuberculosis, malaria, trachoma, and typhoid, the historic scourges of the region. The Jewish mortality rate fell from 12.6 per thousand in 1924 to 9.6 per thousand in 1930; Jewish infant mortality dropped from 105 per thousand in 1924 to 69 per thousand in 1930. Progress in education was not less impressive. In the early years of the mandate, the Va'ad Le'umi [an executive committee of 36 men and women drawn from the 314-member National Assembly, the elected Jewish governmental body in the Yishuv] instituted compulsory school attendance on the elementary level. By 1930, 28,000 children were attending Jewish schools.

Howard M. Sachar is the author of numerous books, including A History of Israel, A History of the Jews in America, Farewell Espana, Israel and Europe, and A History of Jews in the Modern World. He is also the editor of the 39-volume The Rise of Israel: A Documentary History. He serves as Professor of Modern History at George Washington University.