Palestine under the Ottoman Empire
Under the Ottoman Turks (1515-1917), most Palestinians lived in small rural towns and villages, producing olive oil, cotton, wool, soap, and leather. Cities like Jaffa, Jerusalem, Nablus, and Haifa were hubs for trade and culture and, occasionally, sites of political struggle.
Non-Muslim subjects held dhimmi (“protected”) status if they paid the jizya tax and remained loyal to the Ottoman Empire. In 1878, the Palestine region was home to approximately 400,000 Muslims, 43,000 Christians, and 25,000 Jews (including 10,000 Jews of foreign citizenship).
Palestine’s Early Zionist Colonies
Beginning in 1878, European Jewish millionaires and founding members of the Zionist congress began funding the establishment of small Zionist colonies in Palestine. By 1914, 40,000 Jewish settlers had arrived in Palestine, spreading themselves across thirty colonies.
Palestinian and Arab Nationalism
The early twentieth century gave rise to growing demands that the people of Palestine be granted autonomy from the Ottoman Empire. With Ottoman defeat at the end of the First World War, Britain and France falsely promised “The complete and final liberation of the peoples who have for so long been oppressed by the Turks”.
British Mandate for Palestine
Post-war discussions between France and Britain led to the latter receiving a League of Nations Mandate for Palestine in 1920. Given its strategic location, Britain’s interest in Palestine and Transjordan stemmed from a desire to control the Suez Canal, thereby protecting access to its other colonies.
Against the will of the Palestinian people, Britain’s Balfour Declaration of 1917 set in motion plans to create a Zionist settler colony. Protesting their rights for self-determination, Palestinian activists were brutally suppressed under British rule, which saw Arab political rights severely restricted.
Nakba of 1948
With Zionist pressure mounting from the US, the UN devised a plan for the partition of Palestine into two states. The creation of the State of Israel was followed by a violent Zionist offensive to conquer land beyond the recommended partition borders, leading to the slaughter of approximately 15,000 Palestinian Arabs and the displacement of a further 750,000 from their homes.
Israeli Settler Colonialism
Amidst the occupation of Gaza by Egypt (1948-1967) and the West Bank by Jordan (1948-1988), Palestinians have been subjected to unjust displacement, land robbery, apartheid, and human rights abuses by Israel for over 75 years.
Since 2007, Israel has held Gaza under an inhumane siege, with civilians suffering as a result of bombing and blockades that have restricted supplies of food, water, medicine, fuel, and electricity. Israel’s violence has reached new heights in the genocidal attacks of 2023-24.
Further Information on Palestine’s History
- Decolonize Palestine: www.decolonizepalestine.com.
- Interactive Encyclopedia of the Palestine Question: www.palquest.org.
- Promised Land Museum: The Jewish Museum of Palestinian Experience: www.promisedlandmuseum.org.
- Singer, Amy. Palestinian Peasants and Ottoman Officials: Rural Administration around Sixteenth-Century Jerusalem. Cambridge University Press, 1994.
- The Nakba Archive: www.nakba-archive.org.
- Campos, Michelle. Ottoman Brothers: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Early Twentieth-Century Palestine. Stanford University Press, 2010.
- Bunton, Martin. Colonial Land Policies in Palestine, 1917–1936. Oxford University Press, 2007.
- Huneidi, Sahar. A Broken Trust: Herbert Samuel, Zionism and the Palestinians, 1920–1925. I. B. Tauris, 2001.
Histories of Colour 