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British Foreign Policy Decision-Making Towards Palestine During the Mandate (1917-1948): a Poliheuristic Perspective

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British Foreign Policy Decision-Making Towards Palestine During the Mandate (1917-1948): a Poliheuristic Perspective BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY DECISION-MAKING TOWARDS PALESTINE DURING THE MANDATE (1917-1948): A POLIHEURISTIC PERSPECTIVE By Carly Beckerman-Boys A thesis submitted to the University of Birmingham for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Political Science and International Studies School of Government and Society University of Birmingham Spring 2013 1 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. Abstract This thesis is chiefly concerned with understanding the reasons behind British foreign policy towards Palestine between the invasion in December 1917 and final withdrawal in May 1948. It applies Poliheuristic Decision (Ph) Theory to British Cabinet decision-making at four critical junctures in foreign policy decision-making during this time period, arguing that contrary to the established literature on Mandate Palestine, British Cabinet policy reflected a stark lack of viable alternatives that left little room for consideration of personal biases, allegiances or sentimental attachment to either Zionism or Arab nationalism during the decision-making process. This reveals how crucial decisions concerning the future of Palestine were frequently more concerned with fighting narrow, domestic or broader, international political battles than preventing or dealing with a burgeoning conflict in a tiny strip of land on the Mediterranean. In so doing, this thesis aims to elucidate previously neglected areas of the British Mandate for Palestine as well as highlight some of the problems with Ph theory as a bridging framework between Rational Choice and cognitive models, while contributing new and innovative case studies to the field of Foreign Policy Analysis. 2 Acknowledgments During my time conducting doctoral research at the University of Birmingham, I have benefited from the help of many individuals whose support deserves acknowledgment. First and foremost, I would like to thank my main supervisor Asaf Siniver for his ideas and insight, and for challenging me to develop as a researcher. I would also like to thank Adam Quinn and Felix Heiduk for reading my draft chapters and offering constructive comments, as well as Clive Jones and Marco Vieira for agreeing to examine this thesis. I must also express appreciation to the POLSIS department more generally for supporting my PhD with several funding awards, which allowed me to conduct invaluable research in the United States. Likewise, the Truman Presidential Library also provided a grant that was most gratefully received. Thank yous are also owed to the kind and helpful archivists at the National Archives in Kew, the Parliamentary Archives, London School of Economics Archives, Cadbury Archives, Truman Presidential Archives and the United Nations Archives. Finally, I would like to thank my wonderful husband Dr James D. Boys for his unwavering love and support, his countless pep talks, brain-storming sessions and general positivity. I could not have done it without him. I would also like to say thank you to my parents Carol and Jon for their boundless enthusiasm, and to my best friend Eleanor Turney for keeping me laughing, mostly at myself. 3 Table of Contents Introduction 5 Chapter One: The Historical Narrative 21 Chapter Two: The Poliheuristic Approach to Foreign Policy Analysis 49 Chapter Three: The Balfour Zeitgeist 1917-1928 84 Chapter Four: The Passfield Reversal 1929-1935 123 Chapter Five: The MacDonald Betrayal 1936-1939 180 Chapter Six: From War to Withdrawal 1940-1948 219 Conclusion 273 Bibliography 291 4 Introduction “All we have to do is not to mix ourselves up with religious squabbles”.1 Sir Mark Sykes, British diplomat, 1915. The British Empire controlled Palestine for little more than thirty years (1917- 1948), but during that time had an enormous impact on the course of its future development, fostering the creation of a Jewish national home and suppressing Arab rebellion. This thesis is chiefly concerned with understanding the reasons behind British foreign policy towards Palestine – high policy decided by the cabinet in Westminster and not the day-to-day policy of administering the territory, which was conducted chiefly through the bureaucracy of the Colonial Office. As such, this thesis illustrates four case studies, critical junctures of foreign policy decision-making between the beginning of Britain’s occupation in December 1917 and its withdrawal from Palestine in May 1948. It argues that, contrary to the established literature on Mandate Palestine, British high policy reflected a stark lack of viable alternatives that left little room for consideration of personal biases, allegiances or sentimental attachment to either Zionism or Arab nationalism during the decision-making process, revealing that decisions made about the future of Palestine were frequently more concerned with fighting narrow, domestic or broader, international political battles than preventing or dealing with a burgeoning conflict in a tiny strip of land on the Mediterranean. As previous studies have been focused chiefly on day-to-day interactions in Palestine, they have relied heavily on original documentation of the Palestine Administration, the High Commissioner and his dealings with the Colonial Office in London, as well as the diaries and memoirs of prominent Zionist leaders such as 1 CAB 24/1, 16 December 1915, “Evidence of Lieutenant Colonel Sir Mark Sykes, Bart., M.P., on the Arab Question”, The National Archives, Kew (hereafter TNA). 5 Chaim Weizmann and David Ben-Gurion. This has meant that academic discussion of British policy decisions made during the Mandate has been conducted almost exclusively through the prism of external parties’ perceptions. As this thesis seeks to elucidate specifically British decision-making, the focus has been placed on British archives as well as particular relevant collections held in the United States that are useful for examining the post-war Mandate period. Additionally, while the established literature on Mandate Palestine has left complex British motives and goals largely unexplored – this is discussed in greater detail in Chapter One – a relative neglect shown by relevant studies of British foreign policy of the use of theoretical frameworks confounds the situation.2 In order to understand the “simultaneously fragmented and unitary character” of foreign policy- making, as well as generalise findings to the wider field of international relations (IR), it is necessary to engage with theories that address the role of governmental choice.3 Consequently, this thesis applies one theory of governmental choice to archival documents in order to draw a line between what did and did not determine decision- making. This approach is anchored in the subfield of IR: Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA), and utilises the theoretical framework of Poliheuristic Decision (Ph) Theory. In so doing, this thesis aids a more complete understanding of the British Mandate for Palestine, contributes innovative case studies to FPA, and demonstrates a useful and widely applicable framework for the study of foreign policy decision- 2 Charles Ronald Middleton, The Administration of British Foreign Policy 1782-1846 (Durham: Duke University Press, 1977); Matthew Hughes, Allenby and British Strategy in the Middle East (London: Frank Cass, 1999); Bruce Westrate, The Arab Bureau: British Policy in the Middle East 1916-1920 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992); Richard Grayson, Austen Chamberlain and the Commitment to Europe: British Foreign Policy 1924-29 (London: Frank Cass, 1997); John Darwin, Britain, Egypt and the Middle East: Imperial Policy in the Aftermath of War 1918-1922 (London: Macmillan, 1981); Paul Doerr, British Foreign Policy 1919-1939 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998); Philip Reynolds, British Foreign Policy in the Inter-War Years (London: Longman’s, Green & Co., 1954); Matthew Hughes, British Foreign Secretaries in an Uncertain World, 1919-1939 (London: Routledge, 2006); Isaiah Friedman, British Pan-Arab Policy, 1915-1922 (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2010). 3 Christopher Hill, The Changing Politics of Foreign Policy (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 85. 6 making. Using Poliheuristic Decision Theory allows for the identification of predictable and generalisable patterns of behaviour among political leaders. This approach is based on a fundamental assumption – that the primary and immediate consideration of decision-makers is their own political survival and every other concern is secondary. This thesis argues, therefore, that while actual decisions varied during the British Mandate, Palestine foreign policy decision-making processes were driven primarily by a desire for political survival, which significantly narrowed the scope of options available to politicians for dealing with successive crises. This means that although colourful, interesting and engaging, the personalities, biases and beliefs of decision-makers had little demonstrable impact on British foreign policy
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