On May 30, 2024, the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) Middle East Centre and Institute for Social Research co-hosted a seminar to launch an insightful publication that provides a comprehensive analysis of the developments in Palestine between 1905 and 1948.
The publication, which was co-authored by Nils Butenschøn, a professor at the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights (NCHR), sheds light on the increasing tensions between two different colonial pacts that emerged in the same territory during this tumultuous period.
The event draws on the following research publication: Lars Mjøset, Nils Butenschøn, Kristian Berg Harpviken and Roel Meijer, A Conceptual Map for Comparison of State Formation and Nation Building in the Middle East 1870-1918, pp. 71-158 in Mjøset, Butenschøn & Harpviken (eds), A Comparative Historical and Typological Approach to the Middle Eastern State System: Taking Stein Rokkan’s Ambitions Beyond Europe. Vol. 36 of Comparative Social Research, Leeds: Emerald 2024.
Increased tension as a colonial heritage
Developments in Palestine between 1905 and 1948 can be analysed with reference to increasing tensions between two different colonial pacts emerging in the same territory. One was between Britain and the Palestinians, the other was between Britain and the Zionist movement.
The pacts that Britain established with the indigenous Palestinians, on the one hand, and the emerging Zionist Organization, on the other, were strongly imbalanced in favour of the Zionists. This imbalance was not only expressed in practical day-to-day imperial policies, but also in the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine which incorporated the 1917 British Balfour Declaration. The Declaration is (in)famous for its recognition of the right of the Jewish people to establish a “national home” in Palestine, without at the same time clarifying the implication this would have for the right of the Palestinian people to national self-determination. (At the time the Jewish community in Palestine (Yishuv) comprised about 10 % of the population). Thus, the World Zionist Organization was authorised by the imperial government to develop self-governing institutions within the Yishuv that laid the foundations for what became the State of Israel (1948) and, indeed, its enduring conflict with the Palestinians.
The seminar facilitated a comparison of the dual process of state formation in the Levant with other state formation processes in the region during the same period. Settler colonialism in Algeria and the colonial pacts that evolved in other states formed in the former Ottoman Arab area, including Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq, were examined. The event also explored parallels between the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and conflicts in South Africa and Ireland, which served as major challenges for British foreign policies of the era. By adopting a comprehensive conceptual framework, the presentation aimed to deepen the understanding of the present stage of the Israel-Palestine conflict.
The presentations drew extensively from the research publication "A Conceptual Map for Comparison of State Formation and Nation Building in the Middle East 1870-1918," authored by Lars Mjøset, Nils Butenschøn, Kristian Berg Harpviken, and Roel Meijer. This publication provides a solid foundation for analysing the state formation and nation-building processes in the Middle East during the critical years leading up to 1918.