A Short Course on Palestine / Module 2
Lecture Series
This lecture examines Britain's contradictory wartime and postwar commitments. It shows why promises to Arabs, Zionist policy, and shifting imperial power could not be reconciled.
Learning objectives
- Compare contradictory British policy commitments in the Middle East.
- Explain why Britain's postwar decline mattered for Palestine and the region.
Transcript excerpt
Excerpt from the lesson transcript
On the other hand, they promised independence to the Arabs and had created a whole series of Arab client regimes. And there was no way, by the end of World War II, to reconcile these two contradictory British strands of policy. Moreover, Britain was no longer the dominant power in the Middle East.