This map was published by the Palestine Arab Refugee office and represents developments from 1945–1949. The areas in red show Jewish land owned in March of 1945. The black lines show the proposed 1947 UN Partition Plan (“J” for Jewish State, and “A” for Arab State). The city of Jerusalem would become an international zone ("IZ"). The red-dotted line shows the Rhodes Armistice boundary after the Arab-Israeli Civil War in 1949.
Izz ad din Al-Qassam was a controversial Muslim religious activist in the 1920–30s. He opposed foreign influence on Arab lands and led resistance movements in multiple countries against the French, Italians, British, and Zionists. After immigrating to Palestine, he became popular among lower classes and disenfranchised Arab tenant farmers, some of whom moved to Haifa after their farms were sold to Jews. His radical political views brought him into conflict with other secular Arab leaders. Al-Qassam organized hundreds of men into small cell groups to carry out violent acts. His dramatic martyr-style death inspired masses of Arabs towards violent resistance, which erupted in the 1936–39 Arab Revolt. Modern groups such as Hamas, derive their ideology from the vision of Al-Qassam.
Tell Beit Mirsim is a site in southern Israel, about 13 miles southwest of Hebron. Albright excavated this site on multiple occasions in the 1920s and 30s. He is shown at the top of the picture with a white hat. Local Arabs worked with Albright on these early digs.
Albright (1891-1971) was an American archaeologist and biblical scholar. He became the foremost proponent of “biblical archaeology,” a movement that attempted to authenticate events, people, and ideas found in the Bible through scientific, archaeological excavations. Albright used the stratigraphic method of excavating a “tel” (hill) by digging down and studying how each layer or cross section relates to the layers above and below. This includes examining the distinct material from each layer, such as pottery, debris, coins, sediment, or building ruins that have piled up over time. Albright directed important excavations at Hazor and Megiddo.
Palestine at the end of the 19th century CE: Map
This map shows the number of Arab villages on the eve of the arrival of the first Zionist colonies in the late 1800s. As you can see, Palestine was widely and fairly densely populated, which conflicts with Zionist claims about the land being largely empty. Note, however, the less populated areas.
This map shows the extent of the British Mandate of Palestine, which includes Palestine and Transjordan. Note that Syria was a French mandated territory after WWI.
Cairo: Winston Churchill and Emir Abdulla
This photograph shows Winston Churchill (second from right), who was at that time the British Colonial Secretary, meeting with Emir Abdullah of Transjordan (fourth from right) and Sir Herbert Samuel (between them), who was the High Commissioner of Palestine. They met in Cairo in 1921 to decide what to do with the Middle East. One of the decisions made was to give a large chunk of British-controlled territory to King Feisal of Iraq and another to the Hashemite family of Jordan.
These two photographs show the actual T. E. Lawrence (on the left) and the other of the actor Peter O'Toole, who played Lawrence in the famous movie Lawrence of Arabia. T. E. Lawrence was a British Army officer who was trained as an archaeologist before enlisting in the British Army after the start of World War I. As an officer he fought with the Arab irregular troops under the command of Emir Faisal. He convinced them to coordinate their actions in support of British strategy. He was involved in the capture of Aqaba and the fall of Damascus.
This is a famous photograph of Theodor Herzl at the First World Jewish Congress, looking over the Rhine in Basel, Switzerland. He was born in Hungary and became the founding leader of the Zionist movement. In 1895-1896, he wrote a seminal piece Der Judenstaat ("The Jewish State"); the English version was published in 1896 in London. He also founded Die Welt in 1898 as well as planned the Zionist Council, being elected its President in that same year. Over the next six years he advanced the cause of the Jewish people. He died in 1904.
This photograph shows the British General Edmund Allenby entering Jerusalem after the British took the city in World War I. He dismounted and walked into the city out of respect for it and in contradistinction to the German Emperor Wilhelm II's entry into the city on horseback in 1898. He is entering the city through the Jaffa gate, seen at the back. To the left one can see the clock tower that was built by the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II in 1908; the British knocked it down in 1922 and it was never rebuilt.
Chaim Weitzman was the first President of Israel. Prior to his presidency, he is widely credited as the one who convinced the British Foreign Minister Arthur Balfour to create the Balfour Declaration; he was also instrumental in its drafting. He generated wide-spread support for the establishment of a State of Israel. In this picture he is meeting Amir Feisal, one of the prominent Arab leaders of the time, in an attempt to reach a settlement between Jews and Arabs regarding the settlement of Palestine in the wake of World War I.