In April 1920, the Supreme Council of the League of Nations put the Middle East under the guardianship of the two main colonial powers at that time, Great Britain and France. This year was designated by the Arabs as the Year of the Catastrophe. Great Britain supported a policy in favour of Zionism, against the indigenous (Palestinian) Arab people who, although representing 90% of the population in the 1920s, were simply referred to as the “non-Jewish community!” Representatives of the British Mandate tirelessly promoted Jewish immigration to Palestine and helped train Zionist military brigades. In this context, Winston Churchill declared: “I challenged Wavell, (an English general opposed to the idea of training a Jewish army) and wrote to Dr. Weizmann authorising this army. Nevertheless, not a dog has barked!” Representing 10% of the population of Palestine in 1917, the Jewish population increased to 17.7% in 1931 and to 28% in 1939.

The Palestinian National Movement, in the hands of traditionally elite families, opposed these developments very ineffectually. Internal rivalries, and fear of losing favoured status or prerogatives in any direct confrontation with the mandatory powers, considerably weakened the movement. Nevertheless, popular resistance was expressed in frequent demonstrations against the British authorities and the Zionist settlers, with the principal demands being an end to Jewish immigration and the repeal of the Balfour Declaration. Such revolts always voiced the Palestinians’ fear of being dispossessed of their land; the purchase of land by European and American Zionist organizations (the Jewish National Fund and the Jewish Agency for Palestine) always involved the expulsion of peasants who had been farming the land according to traditional law; they would pay rent to an Arab absentee landowner in order to farm his land. For those landowners, their land was primarily a speculative investment. Zionist organizations built up population centres of farmers and soldiers on land they purchased, often using the collective structure of the kibbutz to develop the land.

In 1929, following many expulsions of Palestinian peasants, on the one hand, and violation of the Status Quo concerning access of Jews to the Buraq Wall (Wailing Wall), on the other, a general revolt took place throughout Palestine. The Anglo- Zionist alliance was reinforced and British authorities increased their support for immigration more than ever. In Europe, anti-Semitism reached its climax in Nazi Germany, leading to an unprecedented genocide in which more than five million Jewish men, women and children were annihilated in concentration camps. Most, but not all Jews, especially those from central Europe, supported the Zionist movement. Jewish immigrants flowed into Palestine continuously while the Western powers closed their doors to them. Between 1932 and 1948, approximately 350,000 Jews immigrated to Palestine.