The Middle East Online: Series 1: Arab-Israeli Relations, 1917–1970

This online archive of primary source documents chronicles the politics, wars, administration and diplomacy surrounding the Palestine Mandate, the Independence of Israel and the Arab-Israeli conflict.  With full-text search functionality, The Middle East Online: Series 1: Arab-Israeli Relations, 1917-1970 provides scholars and students with unprecedented access to British government files and comprehensive coverage of the milestone events of the region and period, including:

• The Balfour Declaration of 1917 and the politics behind it
• Origins of British rule in Palestine
• The Palestine campaign of 1914-1918
• Britain's military occupation of Jerusalem from 1917
• The League of Nations mandate for Palestine in 1922
• Palestine sessional papers of 1924-1948
• The background to the establishment of the State of Israel
• Britain's early relations with Israel
• The assassinations of 1951
• The Suez crisis
• The effect of the Cold War in the Middle East
• The Six-Day War of 1967
• The PLO resistance movement

The Middle East Online: Series 1: Arab-Israeli Relations, 1917-1970 is an essential research tool for academic researchers in Middle East studies, conflict studies, international politics, intelligence, politics, government studies and colonial history.

Summary:  Created in partnership with The National Archives of the United Kingdom, The Middle East Online: Series 1: Arab-Israeli Relations, 1917-1970 is an easily searchable, online archive of the most historically significant documents on the politics, administration, wars and diplomacy of the Palestine Mandate and the Arab-Israeli conflict.  This dual-language (English and Arabic) resource is ideal for historians of the Middle East, covering the period from Palestine’s Balfour Declaration to Black September in Jordan and the death of the President of Egypt, Gamal Abdul Nasser, in September 1970.

With its full-text word-searching functionality, The Middle East Online: Series 1: Arab-Israeli Relations, 1917-1970 provides scholars with unprecedented access to original British government files: acts; arms deals reports; conference reports; correspondence; diplomatic, consular and cabinet papers; declarations; dispatches; maps; memoranda; protocols; press cuttings; sessional papers; treaties and more. Only the most useful, high-level files are included — such as:

• Typescript reports, minutes and correspondence by, to and from British government departments, embassies and consulates
• Government documents setting out major policy statements in their full contemporary context, with minor documents and marginalia revealing the workings of colonial administration and, following the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, British diplomacy towards Israel and the Arab states
• The Balfour Declaration in 1917 and files from the British Occupation of Jerusalem
• The workings of the British Mandate in Palestine, 1922-48 — the ratification of the Mandate by the League of Nations in 1922, all the Palestine Sessional Papers 1924-48 and the partition plans dating from 1937-38
• Documents on the latter years of the Mandate (1937-48): the Zionist Revisionists, the Stern Group, Irgun Zvai Leumi, the Arab Higher Committee and the Arab Union
• Records of the Anglo-American Committee of Enquiry and Report of 1946 and the U.N. resolution to partition Palestine in November 1947
• Documents related to the Palestine War, 1947-1949 — the most significant event in Arab politics in the 20th century — including the civil war that erupted between Jewish and Palestinian urban centers following the Partition, the termination of the British Mandate, the proclamation of the State of Israel and the course of the war in 1948, the armistice of 1949 and the regional consequences of the war
• Key files from the Arab-Israeli conflict through the 1950s, including the “Border Wars”, as thousands of displaced Arab families crossed back over the borders of the new state to recover property, tend farms and vent their fury against the occupiers of their land.
• Files documenting the regional instability following the fall of Palestine marked by assassinations of neighboring Arab leaders
• Documents related to the Cold War in the Middle East as the old colonial axis of power shifted towards the new superpowers — U.S. and USSR — with the U.S. backing Israel and the USSR backing Syria and Egypt

• Documents related to the June War of 1967 when Israel shattered the armies of Syria and Jordan, then swept into the Gaza Strip, Sinai, Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Golan Heights
• Files on the foundation of the PLO and Britain’s reactions to the Palestinian struggle up to Black September 1970-1971

Essays by leading scholars add perspective to this important archive: 

• ‘Introduction’ — Dr. Eugene L. Rogan, Middle East Centre, St Anthony’s College, University of Oxford
• ‘Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict: 1948–1970’ — Dr. Charles D. Smith, University of Arizona
• ‘The PLO and the Palestinian armed struggle’ — Professor Yezid Sayigh, Department of War Studies, King’s College London

Significance:  No subject commands more interest in Middle East Studies than the Arab-Israeli conflict. The Middle East Online: Series 1: Arab-Israeli Relations, 1917-1970 offers researchers all the most historically significant documents at macro-political level from British government files now housed at The National Archives.  Expert selection of the must useful, high-level files from among the thousands of documents is provided by Dr. Eugene Rogan, Director of Oxford University’s Middle East Centre, covering all the key events of the period.  Unprecedented navigability and searchability open new research possibilities into the 20^th century political history of one of the world’s most volatile regions.

Source:  Assembled from The National Archives — the UK government's official archive in Kew containing more than 1,000 years of history — The Middle East Online: Series 1: Arab-Israeli Relations, 1917-1970 presents material from:

• British Admiralty Record
• British Foreign Office
• Prime Minister’s Office
• Maps and Plans Department
• Cabinet Papers
• War Office
• Dominions Office
• Colonial Office
• Foreign Office and Commonwealth Office
• Treasury

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