The Palestine pound or Palestine lira ( []; or פלסטינית לירה ; Currency symbol, symbol: £P), was the currency of the Mandatory Palestine, British Mandate of Palestine from 1 November 1927 to 14 May 1948, and of the

State of Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

between 15 May 1948 and 23 June 1952, until it was replaced with the

Israeli pound The pound or lira ( 'Lira Yisra'elit'' 'Junayh ʾIsrāʾīlī'' abbreviation: IL in Latin, ל"י in Hebrew; ISO code: ) was the currency of the State of Israel from 9 June 1952 until 23 February 1980. The Israeli pound replaced the Palestine ...

. The Palestine pound was also the currency of

Transjordan Transjordan may refer to: * Transjordan (region), an area to the east of the Jordan River * Oultrejordain, a Crusader lordship (1118–1187), also called Transjordan * Emirate of Transjordan, British protectorate (1921–1946) * Hashemite Kingdom o ...

until 1949 when it was replaced by the

Jordanian dinar The Jordanian dinar (; ISO 4217, code: JOD; unofficially abbreviated as JD) has been the currency of Jordan since 1950. The dinar is divided into 100 qirsh (also called piastres) or 1000 fils (currency), fulus. Fils are effectively obsolete; howe ...

, and remained in usage in the

West Bank The West Bank is located on the western bank of the Jordan River and is the larger of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the Gaza Strip) that make up the State of Palestine. A landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...

of Jordan until 1950. In the

Gaza Strip The Gaza Strip, also known simply as Gaza, is a small territory located on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea; it is the smaller of the two Palestinian territories, the other being the West Bank, that make up the State of Palestine. I ...

, the Palestine pound continued to circulate until April 1951, when it was replaced back with the

Egyptian pound The Egyptian pound ( ; abbreviations: £, E£, £E, LE, or EGP in Latin alphabet, Latin, and in Arabic script, Arabic, ISO 4217, ISO code: EGP) is the official currency of Egypt. It is divided into 100 piastres, (or qirsh, ; ''plural'' ; abb ...

History

Until 1918, Palestine was an integral part of the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

and therefore used its currency, the

Ottoman lira The pound or lira (sign: LT; ; ; ; ; ) was the currency of the Ottoman Empire from 1844 until 1927, when it was replaced by the Turkish lira. Although the Ottoman Empire was abolished in 1922, the Ottoman lira remained in circulation until the ...

. During 1917 and 1918, Palestine was occupied by the British army, who set up a

military administration Military administration identifies both the techniques and systems used by military departments, agencies, and armed services involved in managing the armed forces. It describes the processes that take place within military organisations outs ...

. The official currency was the

, which had been first introduced into Egypt in 1834, but several other currencies were

legal tender Legal tender is a form of money that Standard of deferred payment, courts of law are required to recognize as satisfactory payment in court for any monetary debt. Each jurisdiction determines what is legal tender, but essentially it is anything ...

at fixed exchange rates that were vigorously enforced. After the establishment of a civil administration in 1921, the High Commissioner

Herbert Samuel Herbert Louis Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel (6 November 1870 – 5 February 1963) was a British Liberal politician who was the party leader from 1931 to 1935. He was the first nominally-practising Jew to serve as a Cabinet minister and to becom ...

ordered that from 22 January 1921 only Egyptian currency and the

British gold sovereign The sovereign is a British gold coin with a nominal value of one pound sterling (£1) and contains of pure gold. Struck since 1817, it was originally a circulating coin that was accepted in Britain and elsewhere in the world; it is now a bu ...

would be legal tender. In 1926, the British

Secretary of State for the Colonies The secretary of state for the colonies or colonial secretary was the Cabinet of the United Kingdom's government minister, minister in charge of managing certain parts of the British Empire. The colonial secretary never had responsibility for t ...

appointed a Palestine Currency Board to introduce a local currency.Official Gazette of the Government of Palestine, No. 170, 1 September 1926, pp447–449

/ref> It was based in London and chaired by Percy G. Ezechiel, with a Currency Officer resident in Palestine. The board decided that the new currency would be called the Palestine pound, 1:1 with pound sterling, sterling and divided into 1,000 mils.Official Gazette of the Government of Palestine, No. 182, 1 March 1927, pp131–134. The £P1 gold coin would contain 123.27447

grains A grain is a small, hard, dry fruit ( caryopsis) – with or without an attached hull layer – harvested for human or animal consumption. A grain crop is a grain-producing plant. The two main types of commercial grain crops are cereals and le ...

of standard gold. The enabling legislation was the Palestine Currency

Order Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to: * A socio-political or established or existing order, e.g. World order, Ancien Regime, Pax Britannica * Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood ...

, 1927, signed by the King in February 1927.Official Gazette of the Government of Palestine, No. 193, 16 August 1927, pp590–592. The Palestine pound became legal tender on 1 November 1927.Official Gazette of the Government of Palestine, No. 196, 1 October 1927, p679. The Egyptian pound (at the fixed rate of £P1 = £E0.975) and the British gold sovereign remained legal tender until 1 March 1928. The Palestine Currency Order explicitly excluded

from its application, but the Government of Transjordan decided to adopt the Palestine pound at the same time as Palestine did. The Egyptian pound remained legal tender in Transjordan until 1930. All the denominations were trilingual in

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

and

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

. The Currency Board was dissolved in May 1948, with the end of the British Mandate, but the Palestinian pound continued in circulation for transitional periods: *

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

adopted the

Israeli lira The pound or lira ( 'Lira Yisra'elit'' 'Junayh ʾIsrāʾīlī'' abbreviation: IL in Latin alphabet, Latin, ל"י in Hebrew script, Hebrew; ISO 4217, ISO code: ) was the currency of the Israel, State of Israel from 9 June 1952 until 23 Fe ...

in 1952. In August 1948, new banknotes were issued by the

Anglo-Palestine Bank Bank Leumi (, lit. ''National Bank''; ) is an Israeli bank. It was founded on February 27, 1902, in Jaffa as the ''Anglo Palestine Company'' as subsidiary of the Jewish Colonial Trust () Limited formed before in London by members of the Zionist ...

, owned by the

Jewish Agency The Jewish Agency for Israel (), formerly known as the Jewish Agency for Palestine, is the largest Jewish non-profit organization in the world. It was established in 1929 as the operative branch of the World Zionist Organization (WZO). As an ...

and based in London. *

Jordan Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...

adopted the

in 1949. * In the

, the Palestine pound continued to circulate until 1950, when the West Bank was annexed by Jordan, and the Jordanian dinar became legal tender there. The Jordanian dinar is still legal tender in the West Bank along with the Israeli shekel. * In the

, the Palestine pound continued to circulate until April 1951, when it was replaced by the

, three years after the Egyptian army took control of the territory. Since the mid-1980s, the primary currencies used in the West Bank have been the

shekel A shekel or sheqel (; , , plural , ) is an ancient Mesopotamian coin, usually of silver. A shekel was first a unit of weight—very roughly 11 grams (0.35 ozt)—and became currency in ancient Tyre, Carthage and Hasmonean Judea. Name The wo ...

and the

. The shekel is used for most transactions, especially retail, while the dinar is used more for savings and

durable good In economics, a durable good or a hard good or consumer durable is a good that does not quickly wear out or, more specifically, one that yields utility over time rather than being completely consumed in one use. Items like bricks could be conside ...

s transactions. The

US dollar The United States dollar (symbol: $; currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States and several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introduced the U.S. dollar at par with the Spanish silver dollar, divided it int ...

is also sometimes used for savings and for purchasing foreign goods. The dollar is used by the overwhelming majority of transactions overseen by the Palestinian Monetary Authority (Palestine's nascent

central bank A central bank, reserve bank, national bank, or monetary authority is an institution that manages the monetary policy of a country or monetary union. In contrast to a commercial bank, a central bank possesses a monopoly on increasing the mo ...

), which only represent a fraction of all transactions conducted in Palestine or by Palestinians. The shekel is the main currency in Gaza. Under Egyptian rule (1948–1956), Gaza mainly used the

. When Israel occupied the Gaza Strip during the 1956

Suez Crisis The Suez Crisis, also known as the Second Arab–Israeli War, the Tripartite Aggression in the Arab world and the Sinai War in Israel, was a British–French–Israeli invasion of Egypt in 1956. Israel invaded on 29 October, having done so w ...

, the military administration made the

(the predecessor to the shekel) the only legal currency in Gaza in a 3 December decree, and implemented a favorable exchange rate to remove all Egyptian pounds from circulation. As a result, the lira and then the shekel became the dominant currency in Gaza, a situation that was reinforced in 1967 by the Israeli occupation of Gaza following the

Six-Day War The Six-Day War, also known as the June War, 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states, primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan from 5 to 10June ...

. Under Article IV of the

Protocol on Economic Relations The Protocol on Economic Relations, also called the Paris Protocol, was an agreement between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, signed on 29 April 1994, and incorporated with minor amendments into the Oslo II Accord of September 19 ...

, the Palestinians are not allowed to independently introduce a separate Palestinian currency. At the same time, the use of two currencies increases the costs and inconvenience arising from fluctuating exchange rates.

Coins

In 1927, coins were introduced in denominations of 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50 and 100 mils. The 1 and 2 mil were struck in bronze, whilst the 5, 10 and 20 mil were holed, cupro-nickel coins, except for during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, when they were also minted in bronze. The coin of 10 mils was also called a grush. The 50 and 100 mil coins were struck in .720 silver. The last coins were issued for circulation in 1946, with all 1947 dated coins being melted down.

Banknotes

On 1 November 1927, banknotes were introduced by the Palestine Currency Board in denominations of 500 mils, £P1, £P5, £P10, £P50 and £P100. Notes were issued with dates as late as 15 August 1945. The £P100 note was equivalent to 40 months’ wages of a skilled worker in Palestine. At the end of 1947, five months before the end of the British Mandate, there were 1,590 £P100 notes in circulation, out of a total circulation of £P40.6 million in notes and £P1.5 million in coins.Palestine Currency Board, Statement of Coins and Notes in Circulation at the 31st December, 1947. The Palestine Gazette No. 1644, January 29, 1948, p. 72.

References

* * * * ''Memorandum relating to currency arrangements.'' In: Official Gazette of the Government of Palestine, 9. 1927, no. 182 (1.03.1927), pp. 131–134. * ''Currency Notes Ordinance 1927.'' In: Official Gazette of the Government of Palestine, 9. 1927, no. 184 (1.04.1927), pp. 249–252. * ''Palestine Currency Order 1927.'' In: Official Gazette of the Government of Palestine, 9. 1927, no. 193 (16.08.1927), pp. 590–592. * ''Notice: Palestine Currency.'' In: Official Gazette of the Government of Palestine, 9. 1927, no. 197 (16.10.1927), pp. 726–727.

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Palestine Pound Currencies of the British Empire Currencies of Israel Currencies of Jordan Modern obsolete currencies Mandatory Palestine 1927 establishments in Mandatory Palestine Pound (currency)

History

Coins

Banknotes

See also

References

External links