This is a timeline of intercommunal conflict in Mandatory Palestine.
Background
1881
The first wave of Jews arrive in Ottoman Syria in the First Aliyah after Zionism itself began some time in the 1850s
1897
At the First Zionist Congress, held from August 29 to 31 in Basel, Switzerland, the World Zionist Organization was founded.
1901
The Sursock Purchase: The Jewish Colonisation Association makes its first major purchase in the north of Palestine in an acquisition of 31,500 dunums (acres) of land near Tiberias from the Sursock family. This will go on to become one of the largest land purchases for the purposes of colonisation within Palestine.
1907 September 28 - Founding of Bar-Giora, an underground Zionist militia, in Jaffa.
1908
First edition of Al-Karmil, an anti-Zionist newspaper, published in Haifa.Khalidi. Diaspora. p.38
1909 April 12 - founding of Hashomer, Zionist defence militia and precursor of the Haganah
1910
The Fula affair: Elias Sursock sold 10,000 dunums around the village of al-Fula, the Palestinian peasants inhabiting the land petitioned the Ottoman government for assistance, but were ultimately unsuccessful and expelled by the Hashomer paramilitary group. This marks one of the first expulsions of Palestinians.
1911
Muslim intellectuals and politicians from throughout the Levant formed al-Fatat ("the Young Arab Society"), a small Arab nationalist club in Paris. They also requested that Arab conscripts to the Ottoman army not be required to serve in non-Arab regions except in time of war. However, as the Ottoman authorities cracked down on the organization's activities and members, al-Fatat went underground and demanded the complete independence and unity of the Arab provinces.Choueiri, pp.166–168. January/February - The new Young Turk authorities allow Zionist groups to purchase land in Ottoman Syria. January - First edition of the Arabic-language newspaper Filastin published in Jaffa.
1913 Moshe Barsky falls victim to Arab Bedouin raiders, becoming the first Kibbutz movement member to be killed by Arab violence.
1915 July 14 - First letter between the British Government and the Governor of Mecca. The exchange became known as the McMahon–Hussein Correspondence promises an Arab state in the Middle East in return for revolt against the Turks. That Palestine was part of this deal was confirmed during a 1918 War Cabinet meetingUK National Archives CAB 27/24, EC-41. but later denied by the British government.Memorandum by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Lord Halifax), January 1939, UK National Archives, CAB 24/282, CP 19 (39).
1916 January 30 - Final letter of the McMahon–Hussein Correspondence sent to the Governor of Mecca. May 16 - The Sykes–Picot Agreement was signed between Britain, France and Russia, in which it was agreed in the event of a successful conclusion of the war the former Ottoman lands incorporating very roughly, modern Iraq, Jordan and much of Israel, would be controlled by Britain; France would take control of what is today Lebanon, Syria, part of Turkey, part of northern Iraq, and a small section of northern Israel. Russia would take large areas of Eastern Turkey and Istanbul. June 10 - Beginning of the Arab Revolt against the Young Turk regime in Constantinople.
1917 November 2 - Balfour Declaration: British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour sends a letter to Lord Rothschild, President of the Zionist Federation, declaring his government would "view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people". December 9 - Following an offensive lasting three weeks, an officer in the British Army accepts the surrender of Jerusalem from the town's mayor, Hussein al-Husayni.
1918 April 14 - Zionist Commission arrives in Mandatory Palestine. May 8 - First Muslim-Christian Association established in Jaffa. September - General Allenby completes the British conquest of Palestine. December 18 - the Palestine Land Development Company (PLDC) purchased 71,356 more dunams of land in the Jezreel Valley, including Tel Adashim, from Nagib and Albert Sursock of the Sursock family. The Ottomans had previously refused to authorize numerous sales, such that the Sursocks were unable to sell significant land to Jewish purchasers prior to World War I.
1919 The American sponsored King–Crane Commission delivers its report to the Paris Peace Conference. Haj Amin al-Husseini founded the Jerusalem branch of the Syrian-based 'Arab Club' (El-Nadi al-arabi), which then vied with the Nashashibi-sponsored 'Literary Club' (Al-Muntada al-Adabi) for influence over public opinion, and he soon became its president.Isaiah Friedman,Palestine: A Twice-Promised Land? The British, the Arabs & Zionism, 1915–1920, Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick and London, 2000 vol. 1 pp. 239–40Eliezer Tauber, The Formation of Modern Iraq and Syria, Routledge, London 1994 pp. 79ff., esp. 96ff. January 18 - Faisal–Weizmann Agreement between Emir Faisal (son of the King of Hejaz, Sharif of Mecca Sayyid Hussein bin Ali), and Chaim Weizmann (later President of the World Zionist Organization). January 27 - First Palestine Arab Congress held in Jerusalem. January 30 - The Supreme Council of the Peace Conference decided that the Ottoman Empire's Arab-dominated provinces would not be returned to Turkey.Cmd. 5479, 1937, p. 28. February 3 - The Zionist Organisation submits its plan for implementation of the Balfour Declaration and urges the selection of Great Britain as Mandatory for Palestine.Cmd. 5479, 1937, p. 29.
Intercommunal violence in Mandatory Palestine
1920
With the promulgation of the first Land Transfer Ordinance, and the reopening of the land registries, the Ottoman restrictions on foreign purchase of lands in Palestine are completely done away with. February 27 - Over one thousand protesters take part in an Arab nationalist demonstration in Jerusalem carrying banners bearing the slogans "Stop Zionist Immigration" and "Our Country For Us"Wasserstein, 1991, pp. 59–60. – a reference to Aliyah, the Zionist immigration coming mostly from Eastern Europe. Meanwhile, Arab nationalists in Damascus are pushing for the establishment of Arab Greater Syria. March 1 - Jewish settlements in the Upper Galilee were attacked by Arab forces as part of the Franco-Syrian War. Joseph Trumpeldor was among 8 who died defending Tel Hai. March 7 - Faisal proclaimed king of the Arab Kingdom of Syria.Wasserstein, 1991, p. 60. March 8 - A second large Arab nationalist demonstration takes place in Jerusalem. April 4–7 - The 1920 Palestine riots – violent 4-day riot against the Jews in Jerusalem's Old City. al-Husseini was charged with inciting the Arab crowds with an inflammatory speech and sentenced by military court held in camera (private)The charge was for violating paragraphs 32, 57, and 63 of the Ottoman code, dealing with incitement to riot. See E. Elat Haj Amin el Husseini, Ex Mufti of Jerusalem,Tel Aviv 1968 (page no. required). In his memoirs, Sir Ronald Storrs wrote: 'The immediate fomenter of the Arab excesses had been one Haj Amin al-Husseini, the younger brother of Kāmel Effendi, The Mufti. Like most agitators, having incited the man in the street to violence and probable punishment, he fled.' (Sir R. Storrs, Orientations, Nicholson & Watson, London 1945 p. 331: cited also Yehuda Taggar, The Mufti of Jerusalem and Palestine Arab Politics 1930–1937, Garland Publishing, 1986 p. ? Ronald Storrs (reprint 1972) The Memoirs of Sir Ronald Storrs Ayer Publishing, p. 349 to ten years imprisonment in absentia, since he had already violated his bail by fleeing to Transjordan to avoid arrest. Zionist leader Ze'ev Jabotinsky was sentenced to 15 years in prison for the possession of weapons. May 31 - Second Palestine Arab Congress. June 15 - Establishment of Haganah – a Jewish defense force. July 1 - Herbert Samuel sworn in as first High Commissioner. He announces the establishment of an Advisory Council consisting of 20 members: 10 British officials, 4 Muslims, 3 Christians and 3 Jews.A Survey of Palestine - prepared in December 1945 and January 1946 for the information of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry. Reprinted 1991 by the Institute of Palestine Studies, Washington. Volume 1: . p.17 July 1 - Palin Commission reports on the rioting that occurred in April. December 4 - Third Palestine Arab Congress.
1921
Between 1921 and 1925, 80,000 acres (320 km2) of land in the Jezreel Valley is bought up by the American Zion Commonwealth (AZC) for about nearly three-quarters of a million pounds as part of the Sursock Purchases.Safarix.com , pg. 49 Under British Mandate, the land laws were rewritten, and the Palestinian farmers in the region were deemed tenant farmers by the British authorities, and the rights of the new owners to displace its population is upheld.Kenneth W. Stein, The Land Question in Palestine, 1917–1939, UNC Press Books, 1987 p.60.Barbara Jean Smith, The Roots of Separatism in Palestine: British Economic Policy, 1920–1929, Syracuse University Press, 1993 pp.96–97; In total 1,746 families were displaced from 240,000 dunums of land;List of villages sold by Sursocks and their partners to the Zionists since British occupation of Palestine, evidence to the Shaw Commission, 1930, p.1074, exhibit 71 Despite this however, some of the native inhabitants refused to leave peaceably, and had to be expelled by force by the British colonial police. The dispossessed would flee to shantytowns on the edges of Jaffa and Haifa.Nevill Barbour: Nisi Dominus: A Survey of the Palestine Controversy. George G. Harrap, London 1946, pp. 117–118 Polk, Stamler, Asfour: Backdrop to Tragedy: The Struggle for Palestine. Beacon Press, Boston, 1957, pp. 237–238. The above two books are quoted in David Gilmour: Dispossessed: the Ordeal of the Palestinians. Sphere Books, Great Britain, 1983, pp. 44–45. David Ben-Gurion appointed secretary of the Jewish labour organisation Histadrut. March - Haganah, the Jewish underground military organisation, established.Khalidi, Walid (Ed.) (1992) All That Remains. The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948. IoPS, Washington. . p.573 March 21 - Secretary of State for the Colonies, Winston Churchill, visits Jerusalem. Installs Abdullah Hussein as ruler of Transjordan. May 1–7 - Jaffa riots resulted in the deaths of 47 Jews and 48 Arabs, with 146 Jews and 73 Arabs being wounded. Most Arab casualties resulted from clashes with British forces attempting to restore order.Report of the Commission of Enquiry into the disturbances in Palestine in May, 1921, with correspondence relating thereto (Disturbances), 1921, Cmd. 1540, p. 60. Thousands of Jewish residents of Jaffa fled for Tel Aviv and were temporarily housed in tent camps on the beach. May 8 - The High Commissioner appoints Amin al-Husseini as Mufti of Jerusalem.Khalidi. Remains. p.573 al-Husseini turns from Damascus-oriented Pan-Arabism to a specifically Palestinian ideology centered on Jerusalem, which sought to block Jewish immigration to Mandatory Palestine. The frustration of pan-Arab aspirations lent an Islamic colour to the struggle for independence, and increasing resort to the idea of restoring the land to Dar al-Islam.Nicosia, Francis R. "Hajj Amin al-Husayni: The Mufti of Jerusalem." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. May 20, 2008. June 17, 2008. May - Fourth Palestine Arab Congress agrees to send a delegation to London. October - The Haycraft Commission of Inquiry publishes its report into the Jaffa riots concluding that they were spontaneous rather than premeditated.Survey. p.18 December - The Mandate authorities issue an order creating a Supreme Muslim Council to administer Muslim owned charitable properties, Awqaf, and appoint (or dismiss) judges and officials in the Sharia courts.Survey. p.19
1922