WWI: Britain Makes Promises to the Jews and Arabs

WWI: Britain Makes Promises

Main Jerusalem Timeline > 20th Century > Mandate > Promises

In order to enlist the military and political support of the Arabs, Britain promises to support their struggle for independence in most of the lands hitherto ruled by the Ottoman Turks, presumably including Palestine (see the correspondence between Sharif Husayn and MacMahon).
At the same time, Britain agrees with France and Russia to carve up the Middle East into mutually agreed spheres of economic and political influence. The map drawn up in the Sykes-Picot agreement contradicts the promises made in the MacMahon correspondence.
Some authors charge Britain with outright duplicity, others are more forgiving, believing that the British later did their best to stabilize the tense situation they themselves had helped to create during the First World War. With respect to Palestine in particular, the Foreign Secretary Lord Balfour conceded as early as 1919 that

the Powers had made no statement of fact that is not admittedly wrong, and no declaration of policy which, at least in the letter, they have not always intended to violate. (Armstrong, p. 374, quoting from Christopher Sykes,Crossroads to Israel, London 1965, pp. 16-17)

Be that as it may, it is clear that Britain's promises could not all be fulfilled and that the mandatory power proved unable to control the flames of nationalism it had nourished.

Image: General Allenby and Emir Abdullah (1920)

Period

J'lem in early Jewish and Arab nationalism

Zionism and the Jerusalem Question

Location

Link to Map Index

Syces-Picot (map)

Palestine in Sykes-Picot (map)

San Remo (1920-22), map

Palestine and Transjordan after 1922 (map)

Political History

MacMahon's Letter (1915)

Sykes-Picot (1916)

Balfour Declaration (1917)

Sources

"The 27 Articles of T.E.Lawrence"

Lawrence of Arabia

The role of Jerusalem in Jewish and Arab nationalism
From early on during British military administration and continuing through the years of the mandate, Jerusalem/Al Quds was the focal point of nascent Palestinian nationalism with its fiery leader, the young Hajj Amin al-Husayini, scion of one of the most influential Jerusalemite families. Al Quds has been the symbol of Palestinian national aspirations ever since.
In contrast, many early Zionists were ambivalent toward Zion. To Herzl, who had briefly visited it during his 1898 visit to Palestine, the Old City represented everything Zionism was not, and he hoped for a "glorious New Jerusalem" to be established "on the wide green ring of hillside all around."

I would clear out everything that is not sacred, set up worker's houses beyond the city, empty and tear down the filthy rat-holes, burn all non-sacred ruins, and put the bazaars elsewhere. Then, retaining as much of the old architectural style as possible, I would build an airy, comfortable, properly sewered, brand new city around the holy places. (Quoted in Armstrong, p. 366)

Jewish settlers who had begun to arrive in greater numbers from Russia since 1902 were likewise not inclined to concern themselves with the future of the city. In 1911, the first collective farm (kibbutz), Deganya, was established at the shores of the Sea of Galilee, and Zionist theorist Nahum Sokolov emphasized that "(t)he point of gravity has shifted from the Jerusalem of the religious schools to the farms and agricultural schools, the fields and the meadows." (Armstrong, p. 367)
Ambivalence toward Jerusalem made it possible for the Zionist leadership to accept the 1937 proposal of a Zionist state without sovereignty over Zion. The British mandatory was to guarantee the security of the Jewish population of Jerusalem, which by now constituted the majority, and safeguard their continued access to the Holy Places. If the arrangement put forward by the Peel Commission had been acceptable to the leaders of the Arab revolt, the conflict might have ended then and there.

Jews, Zionists, and Jerusalem: Documents 1917-1947
The Jewish community of Jerusalem (Jewish majority in Jerusalem has been since the early 1800) had been growing since the end of the 19th-century and, by the 1930's, attained the majority in the city with its bustling developments beyond the Ottoman walls. Under the Mandate, Zionists consider Jerusalem an important symbol of national history but not an essential aspect of their practical and strategic goal of creating a national home, symbolized by the newly founded city of Tel Aviv and the collective settlements in the Galilee. At crucial junctions, the leadership can therefore be deliberately vague about its intentions for the future of the Holy City.
1919 Declaration of the Zionist Organization in anticipation of the peace conference, following the end of WWI (Authors: Nahum Sokolow and Chaim Weizmann).
Essay, describing the Zionist cause (Author: H. Sacher, Atlantic Monthly Magazine of July 1919).

The 27 Articles of T.E. Lawrence

T.E. Lawrence from The Arab Bulletin,20 August 1917

Twenty-Seven Articles

The following notes have been expressed in commandment form for greater clarity and to save words. They are, however, only my personal conclusions, arrived at gradually while I worked in the Hejaz and now put on paper as stalking horses for beginners in the Arab armies. They are meant to apply only to Bedu; townspeople or Syrians require totally different treatment. They are of course not suitable to any other person's need, or applicable unchanged in any particular situation. Handling Hejaz Arabs is an art, not a science, with exceptions and no obvious rules. At the same time we have a great chance there; the Sherif trusts us, and has given us the position (towards his Government) which the Germans wanted to win in Turkey. If we are tactful, we can at once retain his goodwill and carry out our job, but to succeed we have got to put into it all the interest and skill we possess.

1. Go easy for the first few weeks. A bad start is difficult to atone for, and the Arabs form their judgments on externals that we ignore. When you have reached the inner circle in a tribe, you can do as you please with yourself and them.

2. Learn all you can about your Ashraf and Bedu. Get to know their families, clans and tribes, friends and enemies, wells, hills and roads. Do all this by listening and by indirect inquiry. Do not ask questions. Get to speak their dialect of Arabic, not yours. Until you can understand their allusions, avoid getting deep into conversation or you will drop bricks. Be a little stiff at first.

3. In matters of business deal only with the commander of the army, column, or party in which you serve. Never give orders to anyone at all, and reserve your directions or advice for the C.O., however great the temptation (for efficiency's sake) of dealing with his underlings. Your place is advisory, and your advice is due to the commander alone. Let him see that this is your conception of your duty, and that his is to be the sole executive of your joint plans.

4. Win and keep the confidence of your leader. Strengthen his prestige at your expense before others when you can. Never refuse or quash schemes he may put forward; but ensure that they are put forward in the first instance privately to you. Always approve them, and after praise modify them insensibly, causing the suggestions to come from him, until they are in accord with your own opinion. When you attain this point, hold him to it, keep a tight grip of his ideas, and push them forward as firmly as possibly, but secretly, so that to one but himself (and he not too clearly) is aware of your pressure.

5. Remain in touch with your leader as constantly and unobtrusively as you can. Live with him, that at meal times and at audiences you may be naturally with him in his tent. Formal visits to give advice are not so good as the constant dropping of ideas in casual talk. When stranger sheikhs come in for the first time to swear allegiance and offer service, clear out of the tent. If their first impression is of foreigners in the confidence of the Sherif, it will do the Arab cause much harm.

6. Be shy of too close relations with the subordinates of the expedition. Continual intercourse with them will make it impossible for you to avoid going behind or beyond the instructions that the Arab C.O. has given them on your advice, and in so disclosing the weakness of his position you altogether destroy your own.

7. Treat the sub-chiefs of your force quite easily and lightly. In this way you hold yourself above their level. Treat the leader, if a Sherif, with respect. He will return your manner and you and he will then be alike, and above the rest. Precedence is a serious matter among the Arabs, and you must attain it.

8. Your ideal position is when you are present and not noticed. Do not be too intimate, too prominent, or too earnest. Avoid being identified too long or too often with any tribal sheikh, even if C.O. of the expedition. To do your work you must be above jealousies, and you lose prestige if you are associated with a tribe or clan, and its inevitable feuds. Sherifs are above all blood-feuds and local rivalries, and form the only principle of unity among the Arabs. Let your name therefore be coupled always with a Sherif's, and share his attitude towards the tribes. When the moment comes for action put yourself publicly under his orders. The Bedu will then follow suit.

9. Magnify and develop the growing conception of the Sherifs as the natural aristocracy of the Arabs. Intertribal jealousies make it impossible for any sheikh to attain a commanding position, and the only hope of union in nomad Arabs is that the Ashraf be universally acknowledged as the ruling class. Sherifs are half-townsmen, half-nomad, in manner and life, and have the instinct of command. Mere merit and money would be insufficient to obtain such recognition; but the Arab reverence for pedigree and the Prophet gives hope for the ultimate success of the Ashraf.

10. Call your Sherif 'Sidi' in public and in private. Call other people by their ordinary names, without title. In intimate conversation call a Sheikh 'Abu Annad', 'Akhu Alia' or some similar by-name.

11. The foreigner and Christian is not a popular person in Arabia. However friendly and informal the treatment of yourself may be, remember always that your foundations are very sandy ones. Wave a Sherif in front of you like a banner and hide your own mind and person. If you succeed, you will have hundreds of miles of country and thousands of men under your orders, and for this it is worth bartering the outward show.

12. Cling tight to your sense of humour. You will need it every day. A dry irony is the most useful type, and repartee of a personal and not too broad character will double your influence with the chiefs. Reproof, if wrapped up in some smiling form, will carry further and last longer than the most violent speech. The power of mimicry or parody is valuable, but use it sparingly, for wit is more dignified than humour. Do not cause a laugh at a Sherif except among Sherifs.

13. Never lay hands on an Arab; you degrade yourself. You may think the resultant obvious increase of outward respect a gain to you, but what you have really done is to build a wall between you and their inner selves. It is difficult to keep quiet when everything is being done wrong, but the less you lose your temper the greater your advantage. Also then you will not go mad yourself.

14. While very difficult to drive, the Bedu are easy to lead, if: have the patience to bear with them. The less apparent your interferences the more your influence. They are willing to follow your advice and do what you wish, but they do not mean you or anyone else to be aware of that. It is only after the end of all annoyances that you find at bottom their real fund of goodwill.

15. Do not try to do too much with your own hands. Better the Arabs do it tolerably than that you do it perfectly. It is their war, and you are to help them, not to win it for them. Actually, also, under the very odd conditions of Arabia, your practical work will not be as good as, perhaps, you think it is.

16. If you can, without being too lavish, forestall presents to yourself. A well-placed gift is often most effective in winning over a suspicious sheikh. Never receive a present without giving a liberal return, but you may delay this return (while letting its ultimate certainty be known) if you require a particular service from the giver. Do not let them ask you for things, since their greed will then make them look upon you only as a cow to milk.

17. Wear an Arab headcloth when with a tribe. Bedu have a malignant prejudice against the hat, and believe that our persistence in wearing it (due probably to British obstinacy of dictation) is founded on some immoral or irreligious principle. A thick headcloth forms a good protection against the sun, and if you wear a hat your best Arab friends will be ashamed of you in public.

18. Disguise is not advisable. Except in special areas, let it be clearly known that you are a British officer and a Christian. At the same time, if you can wear Arab kit when with the tribes, you will acquire their trust and intimacy to a degree impossible in uniform. It is, however, dangerous and difficult. They make no special allowances for you when you dress like them. Breaches of etiquette not charged against a foreigner are not condoned to you in Arab clothes. You will be like an actor in a foreign theatre, playing a part day and night for months, without rest, and for an anxious stake. Complete success, which is when the Arabs forget your strangeness and speak naturally before you, counting you as one of themselves, is perhaps only attainable in character: while half-success (all that most of us will strive for; the other costs too much) is easier to win in British things, and you yourself will last longer, physically and mentally, in the comfort that they mean. Also then the Turks will not hang you, when you are caught.

19. If you wear Arab things, wear the best. Clothes are significant among the tribes, and you must wear the appropriate, and appear at ease in them. Dress like a Sherif, if they agree to it.

20. If you wear Arab things at all, go the whole way. Leave your English friends and customs on the coast, and fall back on Arab habits entirely. It is possible, starting thus level with them, for the European to beat the Arabs at their own game, for we have stronger motives for our action, and put more heart into it than they. If you can surpass them, you have taken an immense stride toward complete success, but the strain of living and thinking in a foreign and half-understood language, the savage food, strange clothes, and stranger ways, with the complete loss of privacy and quiet, and the impossibility of ever relaxing your watchful imitation of the others for months on end, provide such an added stress to the ordinary difficulties of dealing with the Bedu, the climate, and the Turks, that this road should not be chosen without serious thought.

21. Religious discussions will be frequent. Say what you like about your own side, and avoid criticism of theirs, unless you know that the point is external, when you may score heavily by proving it so. With the Bedu, Islam is so all-pervading an element that there is little religiosity, little fervour, and no regard for externals. Do not think from their conduct that they are careless. Their conviction of the truth of their faith, and its share in every act and thought and principle of their daily life is so intimate and intense as to be unconscious, unless roused by opposition. Their religion is as much a part of nature to them as is sleep or food.

22. Do not try to trade on what you know of fighting. The Hejaz confounds ordinary tactics. Learn the Bedu principles of war as thoroughly and as quickly as you can, for till you know them your advice will be no good to the Sherif. Unnumbered generations of tribal raids have taught them more about some parts of the business than we will ever know. In familiar conditions they fight well, but strange events cause panic. Keep your unit small. Their raiding parties are usually from one hundred to two hundred men, and if you take a crowd they only get confused. Also their sheikhs, while admirable company commanders, are too 'set' to learn to handle the equivalents of battalions or regiments. Don't attempt unusual things, unless they appeal to the sporting instinct Bedu have so strongly, unless success is obvious. If the objective is a good one (booty) they will attack like fiends, they are splendid scouts, their mobility gives you the advantage that will win this local war, they make proper use of their knowledge of the country (don't take tribesmen to places they do not know), and the gazelle-hunters, who form a proportion of the better men, are great shots at visible targets. A sheikh from one tribe cannot give orders to men from another; a Sherif is necessary to command a mixed tribal force. If there is plunder in prospect, and the odds are at all equal, you will win. Do not waste Bedu attacking trenches (they will not stand casualties) or in trying to defend a position, for they cannot sit still without slacking. The more unorthodox and Arab your proceedings, the more likely you are to have the Turks cold, for they lack initiative and expect you to. Don't play for safety.

23. The open reason that Bedu give you for action or inaction may be true, but always there will be better reasons left for you to divine. You must find these inner reasons (they will be denied, but are none the less in operation) before shaping your arguments for one course or other. Allusion is more effective than logical exposition: they dislike concise expression. Their minds work just as ours do, but on different premises. There is nothing unreasonable, incomprehensible, or inscrutable in the Arab. Experience of them, and knowledge of their prejudices will enable you to foresee their attitude and possible course of action in nearly every case.

24. Do not mix Bedu and Syrians, or trained men and tribesmen. You will get work out of neither, for they hate each other. I have never seen a successful combined operation, but many failures. In particular, ex-officers of the Turkish army, however Arab in feelings and blood and language, are hopeless with Bedu. They are narrow minded in tactics, unable to adjust themselves to irregular warfare, clumsy in Arab etiquette, swollen-headed to the extent of being incapable of politeness to a tribesman for more than a few minutes, impatient, and, usually, helpless without their troops on the road and in action. Your orders (if you were unwise enough to give any) would be more readily obeyed by Beduins than those of any Mohammedan Syrian officer. Arab townsmen and Arab tribesmen regard each other mutually as poor relations, and poor relations are much more objectionable than poor strangers.

25. In spite of ordinary Arab example, avoid too free talk about women. It is as difficult a subject as religion, and their standards are so unlike our own that a remark, harmless in English, may appear as unrestrained to them, as some of their statements would look to us, if translated literally.

26. Be as careful of your servants as of yourself. If you want a sophisticated one you will probably have to take an Egyptian, or a Sudani, and unless you are very lucky he will undo on trek much of the good you so laboriously effect. Arabs will cook rice and make coffee for you, and leave you if required to do unmanly work like cleaning boots or washing. They are only really possible if you are in Arab kit. A slave brought up in the Hejaz is the best servant, but there are rules against British subjects owning them, so they have to be lent to you. In any case, take with you an Ageyli or two when you go up country. They are the most efficient couriers in Arabia, and understand camels.

27. The beginning and ending of the secret of handling Arabs is unremitting study of them. Keep always on your guard; never say an unnecessary thing: watch yourself and your companions all the time: hear all that passes, search out what is going on beneath the surface, read their characters, discover their tastes and their weaknesses and keep everything you find out to yourself. Bury yourself in Arab circles, have no interests and no ideas except the work in hand, so that your brain is saturated with one thing only, and you realize your part deeply enough to avoid the little slips that would counteract the painful work of weeks. Your success will be proportioned to the amount of mental effort you devote to it.

MacMahon's correspondence with Sharif Husayn (1915)
In a letter dated the 24th of October, 1915, Sir Henry McMahon, then His Majesty's High Commissioner in Egypt, promises the Sharif of Mecca, Husayn ibn Ali, to "recognise and support the independence of the Arabs within the territories proposed by him." These territories included the Arabian peninsula, Syria (including Lebanon, Palestine, and Transjordan), and Iraq as "purely Arab" areas and part of a future Arab state or states in the region. (See MAP of this area.) Rumors about the content of the Sykes-Picot agreement that were being spread by the Turkish government to cause a rift between Britain and the Arabs were discarded by England as "Turkish war propaganda." After the war, the interpretation of the MacMahon correspondence became contentious because the British insisted that their annexation of Palestine as a direct British mandate and their support of the establishment of a Jewish homeland therein did not constitute a betrayal of its committments to the Arabs since Palestine had not been specifically mentioned. This remained a bone of contention between the British government and Arab representatives arguing for the conversion of Palestine into an Arab state. (See the White Paper of 1939.)
External Sources/Links:
A full version of the correspondence between Sharif Husayn and MacMahon is available on-line at http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/hussmac1.html.
Also see http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1916/mcmahon.html.
More background on the Anglo-Arab coalition during the First World War from PASSIA.

The Sykes-Picot Agreement
While securing the support of potential clients of a British protectorate, His Majesty's government had also sought an agreement with the French as to how to divide the remains of the Ottoman Empire into a French and a British sphere of influence. (Sykes-Picot Agreement, 1916.) This agreement provided for Palestine to be governed jointly by Britain, France, and Russia. As soon as Britain held sway over Palestine, however, all agreements for a joint administration were off. While the French diplomat Picot was still at General Allenby's side when he entered Jerusalem, the French soon realized that Britain had no intention of honoring its wartime agreements. Christian powers such as France and Italy who under the Ottomans had been acting as protectors of the Holy Places and of the varying Christian communities of Jerusalem were now reduced to purely nominal functions. The balance of power in Jerusalem, which had been carefully guarded by the Great Powers and that was crucial to their status in the Middle East, was completely undone by a British empire that had outfoxed her competitors and forestalled their attempts at securing a foothold in this coveted city after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

The Sykes-Picot Agreement

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1. Sir Edward Grey to Paul Cambon, 15 May 1916

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I shall have the honour to reply fully in a further note to your Excellency's note of the 9th instant, relative to the creation of an Arab State, but I should meanwhile be grateful if your Excellency could assure me that in those regions which, under the conditions recorded in that communication, become entirely French, or in which French interests are recognised as predominant, any existing British concessions, rights of navigation or development, and the rights and privileges of any British religious, scholastic, or medical institutions will be maintained.

His Majesty's Government are, of course, ready to give a reciprocal assurance in regard to the British area.

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2. Sir Edward Grey to Paul Cambon, 16 May 1916

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I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your Excellency's note of the 9th instant, stating that the French Government accept the limits of a future Arab State, or Confederation of States, and of those parts of Syria where French interests predominate, together with certain conditions attached thereto, such as they result from recent discussions in London and Petrograd on the subject.

I have the honour to inform your Excellency in reply that the acceptance of the whole project, as it now stands, will involve the abdication of considerable British interests, but, since His Majesty's Government recognise the advantage to the general cause of the Allies entailed in producing a more favourable internal political situation in Turkey, they are ready to accept the arrangement now arrived at, provided that the co-operation of the Arabs is secured, and that the Arabs fulfil the conditions and obtain the towns of Homs, Hama, Damascus, and Aleppo.

It is accordingly understood between the French and British Governments---

1. That France and Great Britain are prepared to recognize and protect an independent Arab State or a Confederation of Arab States in the areas (A) and (B) marked on the annexed map, under the suzerainty of an Arab chief. That in area (A) France, and in area (B) Great Britain, shall have priority of right of enterprise and local loans. That in area (A) France, and in area (B) Great Britain, shall alone supply advisers or foreign functionaries at the request of the Arab State or Confederation of Arab States.

2. That in the blue area France, and in the red area Great Britain, shall be allowed to establish such direct or indirect administration or control as they desire and as they may think fit to arrange with the Arab State or Confederation of Arab States. 3. That in the brown area there shall be established an international administration, the form of which is to be decided upon after consultation with Russia, and subsequently in consultation with the other Allies, and the representatives of the Shereef of Mecca.

4. That Great Britain be accorded (1) the ports of Haifa and Acre, (2) guarantee of a given supply of water from the Tigris and Euphrates in area (A) for area (B). His Majesty's Government, on their part, undertake that they will at no time enter into negotiations for the cession of Cyprus to any third Power without the previous consent of the French Government.

5. That Alexandretta shall be a free port as regards the trade of the British Empire, and that there shall be no discrimination in port charges or facilities as regards British shipping and British goods; that there shall be freedom of transit for British goods through Alexandretta and by railway through the blue area, whether those goods are intended for or originate in the red area, or (B) area, or area (A); and there shall be no discrimination, direct or indirect against British goods on any railway or against British goods or ships at any port serving the areas mentioned.

That Haifa shall be a free port as regards the trade of France, her dominions and protectorates, and there shall be no discrimination in port charges or facilities as regards French shipping and French goods. There shall be freedom of transit for French goods through Haifa and by the British railway through the brown area, whether those goods are intended for or originate in the blue area, area (A), or area (B), and there shall be no discrimination, direct or indirect, against French goods on any railway, or against French goods or ships at any port serving the areas mentioned.

6. That in area (A) the Baghdad Railway shall not be extended southwards beyond Mosul, and in area (B) northwards beyond Samarra, until a railway connecting Baghdad with Aleppo via the Euphrates Valley has been completed, and then only with the concurrence of the two Governments.

7. That Great Britain has the right to build, administer, and be sole owner of a railway connecting Haifa with area (B), and shall have a perpetual right to transport troops along such a line at all times.

It is to be understood by both Governments that this railway is to facilitate the connexion of Baghdad with Haifa by rail, and it is further understood that, if the engineering difficulties and expense entailed by keeping this connecting line in the brown area only make the project unfeasible, that the French Government shall be prepared to consider that the line in question may also traverse the polygon Banias-Keis Marib-Salkhab Tell Otsda-Mesmie before reaching area (B).

8. For a period of twenty years the existing Turkish customs tariff shall remain in force throughout the whole of the blue and red areas, as well as in areas (A) and (B), and no increase in the rates of duty or conversion from ad valorem to specific rates shall be made except by agreement between the two Powers.

There shall be no interior customs barriers between any of the above-mentioned areas. The customs duties leviable on goods destined for the interior shall be collected at the port of entry and handed over to the administration of the area of destination.

9. It shall be agreed that the French Government will at no time enter into any negotiations for the cession of their rights and will not cede such rights in the blue area to any third Power, except the Arab State or Confederation of Arab States without the previous agreement of His Majesty's Government, who, on their part, will give a similar undertaking to the French Government regarding the red area.

10. The British and French Governments, as the protectors of the Arab State, shall agree that they will not themselves acquire and will not consent to a third Power acquiring territorial possessions in the Arabian peninsula, nor consent to a third Power installing a naval base either on the east coast, or on the islands, of the Red Sea. This, however, shall not prevent such adjustment of the Aden frontier as may be necessary in consequence of recent Turkish aggression.

11. The negotiations with the Arabs as to the boundaries of the Arab State or Confederation of Arab States shall be continued through the same channel as heretofore on behalf of the two Powers.

12. It is agreed that measures to control the importation of arms into the Arab territories will be considered by the two Governments.

I have further the honour to state that, in order to make the agreement complete, His Majesty's Government are proposing to the Russian Government to exchange notes analogous to those exchanged by the latter and your Excellency's Government on the 26th April last. Copies of these notes will be communicated to your Excellency as soon as exchanged.

I would also venture to remind your Excellency that the conclusion of the present agreement raises, for practical consideration, the question of the claims of Italy to a share in any partition or rearrangement of Turkey in Asia, as formulated in article 9 of the agreement of the 26th April, 1915, between Italy and the Allies.

His Majesty's Government further consider that the Japanese Government should be informed of the arrangement now concluded.

Jerusalem in Time and Space: The Holy City in Maps
Period 1: Urushalimum--Jebusite/Pre-Israelite

Conjectural map of the Jebusite city

Period 2: City of David--Seat of YHWH

First Temple Period/Judahite Kingdom (c1000-586BCE)

From David to Hezekiah
From David to the destruction in 586BCE

Second Temple Period (515BCE-70CE)

Satrapy Yehud: The Time of Nehemiah and Ezra (5th century BCE)
In the time of the Maccabeans (164-141BCE)
The Siege of Pompey (63BCE)
The City of Herod the Great (40-4BCE)
Herodian city with via dolorosa/sufferings of Christ (conjectural)

Period 3: Aelia-Symbol of Roman Power

Pagan City (135CE-324CE)

Map 1, Map 2, Map 3

Christian/Byzantian City (324-638)

Map 1

Period 4: Bayt al-maqdis of the caliphs (638-1099)

Map 1, Map 2

Period 5: Hierosolyma of the Latin Kingdom (1099-1187)

Map 1

Period 6: Islamization of Jerusalem under the Ayyubids and Mamluks (1187-1517)

Islamization under the Ayyubids (1187-1215)
Mamluk Jerusalem (1250-1517)
Development of the Haram Esh-sharif

Period 7: Under the Ottomans (1517-1917)

Ottoman Jerusalem
Maps showing the urban development outside of the Old City between 1850 and 1914

Period 8: Under the British Mandate (1917-1948)

1922-1948
The last two weeks of British rule (March-May 1948)

Period 9: UN-partition plan, war of independence and division (1947-1967)

1947 UN Partition Plan for Palestine
War of Independence (1948-49)

Period 10: Modern City/Capital of the State of Israel (1967 to the present)

Territories occupied by Israel since 1967
Boundaries of Jerusalem municipality after June 1967 war