Interwar Era

After the war ended, the League of Nations (an organization founded after World War I to settle international disputes) dissolved the Ottoman Empire and awarded parts of its former territories to the victorious British and French governments as mandates. The British received Iraq, Jordan, and Palestine, which they were to administer for ten years while they prepared the people in those regions for self-government. The French received mandates over Lebanon and Syria under the same conditions.

Adhering to the Balfour Declaration, the British High Commissioner of Palestine began allowing large numbers of Jews to emigrate to the region in 1919. Almost immediately outbreaks of violence occurred between the Jewish settlers and the native Palestinians. This violence escalated during the 1920's and 1930's with the formation of paramilitary groups on both sides.

The Jews and the Palestinians directed violence toward the British administration as well as toward each other, with the Jews feeling that the British were moving too slowly in admitting new settlers and the Palestinians protesting the admission of any Jews at all. The Zionists negotiated a deal with Nazi Germany during the 1930's allowing German Jews to emigrate to Palestine, but both the British and Palestinians were reluctant to admit them. Nevertheless, many German Jews came into Palestine illegally with the aid of various Zionist organizations.

In the meantime, other regions of the Middle East gained at least a measure of independence and self-government. Persia, renamed Iran in 1935, had been an independent state since the sixteenth century. Turkey and Egypt both emerged from World War I as sovereign nations.

In 1927 the League of Nations formally recognized the kingdom of Jordan. Ibn Saud became king of an independent Saudi Arabia in 1932. In the same year the Iraqi monarchy became nominally independent. The Syrians and the Lebanese signed a treaty of independence and friendship with the French in 1936 (although it was never ratified by the French). Although the European nations still dominated the Middle East during the interwar era, the region was becoming increasingly independent.