'Conflict in the Promised Land' by Bill Mandle, 1976, is both useful and reliable in helping us understand the McMahon letters. In a series of letters, the McMahon letters, Sheriff Hussein of Mecca- the most widely recognised Muslim leader in the middle east- agreed with Sir Henry McMahon- British High Commissioner in Egypt- that the Arabs would rebel against the Turks. In return the British, at the end of the war, would help the Arabs to form a united Arab state out of the Arab lands of the Ottoman Empire. The Arabs assumed that Palestine would be part of their new state, although the Hussein-McMahon letters did not state that precisely.
Both sources B2 and B3 tell us about Britain's policies and their desperation for help, because in both these agreements, the McMahon letters and the Balfour declaration, Britain offers land in Palestine.
Photographs play a big part in historians finding evidence to support their views, source B6 is a photograph of a man who's nose is being measured to tell if he's Jewish. This shows how stereotypical the Nazis were about Jews. This source is quite useful in helping us realise what the people of the Jewish community went through in everyday life, it also helps us to fully understand why the need for the Jewish community to go back to Palestine was so great.
Source B5 is an extract from 'Conflict in the Promised Land' by Bill Mandle, this is useful in giving us information about the persecution of the Jews and the growth of Zionism. Bill Mandle wrote, " This was of the utmost consequence for in 1933, Hitler, an avowed anti-Semite, came to power in Germany and almost at once began persecution of the 6000,000 or so German Jews. They were excluded from the civil service, the law and journalism in October 1933; anti-Semitic teaching was introduced into German schools the same year, and soon Jewish shops were boycotted." Bill Mandle goes on to say that in September 1935 the Nuremburg Laws forbade intermarriage between Jews and Germans, it also says that a special Jewish Section was added to the SS in 1936, and as the persecution increased it lead to a pogrom on the night of 9-10 November 1938. Later "a campaign of hate and vilification accompanied by the growing legal discrimination against the Jews who, Hitler made clear, the intended to force out of Germany until it was 'Jew-free'." this extract re-enforces the picture in source B6.
Source B4i is a chart showing the number of Jewish people who migrated into Palestine in 1882 to 1947. In the years of Hitler's reign and the 1933 persecution, numbers migrating to Palestine grew from 84,000 Jews in 1924-1931 to 215,000 Jews from between 1932 and 1938. Source B4ii is a table showing the proportion of Jews in Palestine to the total population of Palestine. In 1918 the total number of Jews was only 9% but by 1947 the total number grew to 32% a staggering 23% more, that's a large increase for 30 years. This source is useful in helping us understand why immigration grew (at the reign of Hitler) and why the Arab population hated it so much.
