Tel Hai - History

History

Tel Hai had been intermittently inhabited since 1905 and was permanently settled as a border outpost in 1918, following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire. The area was subsequently subject to intermittent border adjustments among the British and the French.

In 1919, the British relinquished the northern section of Upper Galilee containing Tel Hai, Metula, Hamrah, and Kfar Giladi to the French jurisdiction. The Zionist movement was greatly displeased with this, since it would have left the sources of the Jordan River outside the borders of British Mandatory Palestine, where the Jewish National Home envisaged in the Balfour Declaration was to be established. Therefore, the few isolated settlements in this territory assumed a strategic value from the Zionist point of view. Still, there was a fierce debate among factions and leaders of he Yishuv, some of whom advocated letting Tel Hai and the other outposts hang on at all costs, while others regarded their situation as untenable and advocated withdrawing them.

Arabs in this area at this time were not primarily involved in activities against the Yishuv, but in strongly opposing the imposition of the French Mandate of Syria, which they regarded as betrayal of the promises made during the Arab Revolt against Ottoman rule. By present-day definitions some of these villagers would be defined as Syrians, some as Lebanese and some as Palestinians. These definitions did not yet exist at the time, however; the people concerned had been until shortly before part of a single political unit, the Ottoman Empire, and wanted to be part of the newly proclaimed Arab Kingdom of Syria rather than live under French rule.

The Zionist pioneers in Tel Hai, headed by Joseph Trumpeldor were in fact neutral in this conflict - they wanted the area to be neither Arab-ruled nor French-ruled, but restored to British rule which they hoped would eventually lead to its becoming part of the future Jewish state (which indeed ultimately happened). However, as being newcomers to the area recently arrived from Europe, they were evidently suspected by the local Arabs of being pro-French, which ultimately led to armed clash.