O Jerusalem!

O Jerusalem! is a history book by Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins that seeks to capture the events and struggles surrounding the creation of the state of Israel.

The book is the result of five years of research by the authors, which also included several thousand interviews, and examination of a series of publicly available documents and relevant materials. These became the basic materials for presenting the story of the birth of the modern state of Israel.

The book O Jerusalem! endeavors to present events from all sides who were parties to the conflict and the events which are the subject matter of the book: the Arabs, the Jews—from the simple soldiers and rabbinical students to the commanders like David Ben-Gurion and Golda Meir—and the British.

The book has forty-six chapters, grouped into four parts:

The book begins with a Prologue, and ends with Epilogue, Index, and certain relevant information categorized under Biographical Note Acknowledgements, Bibliography, Chapter Notes, and Photograph credits.

In 1917, during World War I, Britain defeated the Ottoman Turks and Palestine and Jordan were put under its control. They came under official British mandate in 1922 by League of Nations approval. The Balfour Declaration of 1917, named after British Prime Minister Arthur Balfour, promised that Britain would assist the Jewish people in building their state in the Middle East ("Balfour Doctrine," Britannica). However, Britain also promised to give the Palestinian Arabs independence in the Husayn-McMahon Correspondence. Britain denounced the Husayn-McMahon correspondence with the Churchill White Paper, declaring Britain's favor of the Balfour Doctrine over the Husayn-McMahon correspondence. The 1930 Passfield White Paper reversed this policy with its pro-Husayn-McMahon policy. The White Paper was met with outrage in the Jewish community and Britain quickly reverted its policies back to the 1922 Churchill White Paper. Arabs responded with a strike, followed by a revolt (lasting until 1939) in 1936. In 1939 Britain released the 1939 White Paper, which acceded to Arab demands. The White Paper promised an end to Jewish immigration, and independent Arab Palestine. The League of Nations and the Jews of Palestine rejected the White Paper as entirely outside Britain's mandate.

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