William Tyler
Churchill, the Jews and Arabs in the Middle East
William Tyler | Churchill, the Jews and Arabs in the Middle East
- Okay, thank you very much indeed, and welcome to everyone. Down here on the South Coast in England, as I look out my window, it’s actually turned sunny. It’s been muggy and rather horrid all day. But of course now that I’ve started work, the sun’s come out, but no doubt I should get into it later. Now, today’s lecture, I’ve called Churchill, the Jews and Arabs in the Middle East. Its central feature or the central point of the talk today is the Cairo Conference of 1921. Now, I’m very aware that now I’ve come into this very modern period post World War I period, of the history of Jews and Arabs and the history of the Middle East, in more general terms, then I’m entered an area where many of you have great knowledge and expertise. And as I get further down into the 20th century, as many of you will have actually had direct personal experience. But this early part, you may have the experiences of grandparents or even perhaps parents in this period. So bear with me if I don’t say something you think I should have said or I say something you think I shouldn’t have said. What the Catholics call sins of omission and sins of commission. So I feel, and this is a phrase I’m going to use later in this talk, in another context, I feel sometimes I might be walking on ice. So please bear with me. Now, I decided to begin with a brief recap of the three key events during the First World War, not after it, which continue to haunt the Middle East in the 21st century. These you’ve heard me and Trudy and maybe others talk about, and many of you know the details, but just to focus our attention and to give a preface to this talk. The three events are the Balfour Declaration, the Hussein-McMahon correspondence, and the Sykes-Picot Agreement.
Now, when I was at school and later I got terribly confused with these three, it’s fairly straightforward, to be honest. The most well known is the Balfour Declaration. Now, this declaration was contained in a letter sent by the British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour, hence Balfour Declaration, to Lord Rothschild, a leading British Jew of the day. Balfour sent the letter on the 2nd of November, 1917, and this is the key phrase, best to read it rather than for me to just interpret it. The actual words were, “His Majesty’s government, view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object. It being clearly understood that nothing shall be done, which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.” Sounds simple, sounds clear, and yet it has been the focus of much debate and the basis of much ongoing strife in the Middle East, not least at the present over the future of Gaza. The second event is the Hussein-McMahon correspondence, which actually happened before the Balfour Declaration. Now, what this said was that… Let’s be clear, it was correspondence between Sheriff Hussein of Mecca whom we’d met before, the leader of the Arabs, and Sir Henry McMahon, who was the British High Commissioner in British Egypt.
This correspondence takes place because of the role of Cairo, i.e. the capital of British Egypt, in the whole business of the war in the Middle East. So McMahon and Sherif Hussein exchange letters. The correspondence implied British support for what Hussein wanted, which was one Arab state post-war. The British said, okay, or at least man said, “Okay, provided,” which was McMahon’s concern, “provided you rise up militarily and help us to defeat the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East.” The Arabs Jews rose, remember Lawrence of Arabia’s campaign with the Arab Revolt, the Arabs rose, and thus at the end of the war expected this agreement with Cairo to stand. Now, the third event was between two diplomats, one British, a man called Sykes and one French, a man called Picot. They met in secret. I said last time, the last thing you ever need is a combined British French diplomatic initiative. And then added to it, it’s secret. Then, my goodness me, you’re in deep waters if you are depending upon that agreement. Now, that secret agreement was that after the war is over, the Middle East will be divided up into what we’re loosely describe as British and French spheres of interest. Basically, Britain would get everything other than Syria and Lebanon, which will go to France.
That was the agreement. It was also certified by Tsarist Russia because the British and French were prepared to give Tsarist Russia, remember from previous talks, control of Constantinople. Of course it drops out of the history simply because the Tzar is removed in 1917 before the war is over. So we can forget about the Tzar. So we’ve got three agreements, one which says we’re going to support a Jewish homeland, the second of which says we’re going to support a Arab state. And the third, which says we don’t care about any of that, we’re is going to have British and French spheres of influence and basically to hell with everybody else in the Middle East. It’s not a sound basis for post-war settlement of the region. That’s the simple point I’m making because everybody can manoeuvre around, the Sykes-Picot doesn’t remain secret for long. Everyone can manoeuvre around these three events and argue their case from what you could call contradictory and vague wording, contradictory wording, vague wording. And if you were to say and use that, if you were writing an essay and you said that it was contradictory and vague, these three events, you would be completely correct. It would also be correct to say that the repercussions of these three events have similar and indeed exploded from time to time ever since the end of the First World War and the present day of 2024 and the Israeli Hamas war. Preface that . So what of Churchill? Because I said this is a talk aimed at and centering on Churchill. Well, Churchill entered the Middle East scene after the First World War in February, 1921. He was a liberal member of the coalition government, the liberal conservative government, led by the liberal Prime Minister Lloyd George.
Lloyd George appointed Churchill in February, 1921 as Secretary of State for the colonies. And as such, he was given responsibility for the settlement of the Middle East. He was only to serve in this role until October the following year, October, 1922. The coalition government was collapsing at that point. This short period of Churchill’s political life, February ‘21 to October '22 as Secretary State of the colonies has been argued over by historians ever since. And the question they’ve asked is, how much responsibility does Churchill personally carry for the subsequent mess in the Middle East? How much does he carry? Well, Christopher Catherwood in a book about this particular area, both in time and place, he calls his book “Winston’s Folly”. It’s on my blog for today, “Winston’s Folly”. Well, that’s pretty clear what he thinks is Churchill’s responsibility. Now I’m going to return to Churchill in a few moments, but for now I want to add in a little more background to the pot that I’ve already got sizzling away with the Balfour Declaration, Hussein-McMahon correspondence and the Sykes-Picot Agreement. Now into that we have to put events at the end of 1916, Lloyd George succeeded Herbert Asquith as Prime Minister of Britain in December of 1916.
Asquith was a broken man by then. The Cabinet War Secretary, a man called Leo Amery who is to hit fame at the beginning of the Second World War when it was Amery who said to Chamberlain from the conservative benches, said to the conservative Prime Minister Chamberlain, the words that Cromwell are used in the House commons “For all the good you are doing in the name of God go.” And that finished Chamberlain and Churchill was to succeed him. But at this point, Leo Amery is the Cabinet War secretary and he said to Lloyd George, “Look, we need to set up an Imperial War conference.” Why? Well, they were a bit unclear about whether it was a conference or part of a cabinet. It was sort of rather vague. Different words are used by different people at different times. The purpose of it was to bring in the dominions, that is to say South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, in the decisions that were going to be made about the war under Lloyd George’s premiership. After all, they had given already a great deal in terms of blood and money and material to the war. In a book that somebody mentioned this book last time, and said, “Haven’t you read the book?” Yes, I have. I said I would use it this way. It’s called “A Peace to End All Peace” and is by David Fromkin. Now that also is on my book list on my blog, and Fromkin writes this, it’s a small print to read and I’ll do my best. “On the 19th of December, 1916, acting on Leo Amery’s suggestion, Lloyd George told the House of Commons quote, 'We feel that the time has come when the dominions ought to be more formally consulted on the issues of war and peace.’
And he called what he called an Imperial War Conference. "Others called it,” as Fromkin says, “An Imperial war cabinet.” So you say, “Well, hang on a moment, what has that got to do with the Middle East?” Well, it hadn’t specifically until the South African representative Jan Smuts, a bore, who had fought against the British in the Bore War, attended the conference and suggested to Lloyd George that he look at Middle Eastern policy. Whats Smuts motivation? Well, it’s a motivation we’ve talked about before. Smuts was a member of the Dutch Reformed Church, Christian Church in South Africa. Some of you are South Africans who are listening, and you don’t need me to tell you that the Dutch Reformed Church, particularly at this period, was a very fundamentalist church and Smuts was a true believer. And Smuts had the view that it is clear in the Bible that the Jews must be in their homeland because Christ would otherwise not return for the second coming. We’ve met this argument before. Now this is made by Smut. It would be naive to think with a politician of Smuts ability that that was all that motivated him. We are motivated by friends. He had a friendship with Viceman. Secondly, he was very concerned by the rise of antisemitism in Europe. And thirdly, he was concerned that Britain had a friend, today we will describe that friend as Israel. He was describing it as the Jewish population who was concerned that Britain had a friend in the Middle East.
That was not intended to be a statement in favour of Jews, but in favour of the British Empire, which now Smuts, despite the fact he’d been a bore, he was now a born again, not only a born again Christian, but he was a born again British imperialist. Sometimes real history trumps historical fiction. That’s the truth. That’s what happened. And Lloyd George buys up this issue, A, of the Middle East because of its importance to Britain, but he also buys up the issue of Jews and a Jewish homeland because Lloyd George himself had been brought up in West Wales as a strict Baptist. We are back again to these Christian Zionists and Smuts and Lloyd George fall into that. But I’ve already explained that Smuts, as a politician had other agendas. Now, I’m not saying that his religious belief was not genuine, it was nor am I saying that Lloyd George’s religious belief wasn’t genuine. I believe it was. But we know with Lloyd George that his moral stances were subject, shall we politely say his moral stances both in his personal and political life were not necessarily solid. He would move to a mistress, he would move to a different policy, he would destroy his own party, et cetera, et cetera. So Lloyd George’s view, let’s ask Lloyd George to, let’s have a look and see what was going on. This is Fromkin again writing, “The importance of Palestine.” So Lloyd George is not so concerned about the Middle East. He’s concerned about Palestine. And Palestine is to become, to all intents and purposes, Israel. And today, Israel plus the West Bank and plus Gaza.
We still dunno the answer, the final answer to this settlement. But he’s talking about Palestine. “The importance of Palestine,” says Fromkin, “is broadly,” sorry. “The importance of Palestine is broadly defined. It gave Britain the land from Egypt to India and brought together the Empires, Africa and Asia.” That’s what he’s talking about. Lloyd George wrote after this event, “General Smuts has expressed very decided views as to the strategical importance of Palestine to the British Empire,” which Fromkin just said, I’ve just read out. And he was convinced and Smuts was convinced of two things. One, Jews should be allowed into their homeland, partly because of antisemitism and pogroms in Eastern Europe, true. But really because they’re looking for the second coming of Christ as they see it in the Bible, but also because they see British strategical interest. In the same way that America is and has been since 1948 pro-Israel. Because they see that as important to overall American strategy in the Middle East in much the same way that Britain saw it at the end of the First World War. After all American strategy internationally is designed to support first and foremost American policies across the world. So we’ve got a situation during the First World War of those three documents I’ve talked about which are at best confusing. And then we have the British government represented by Lloyd George homing in on the issue of Palestine. If we return to the Arab question, when the wars ended, Hussein feels and so did T. Lawrence who had been with the Arab Revolt, Hussein and Lawrence both felt that they had been shafted by the British and French governments.
There was to be no one Arab state in the Middle East. And the Sykes-Picot Agreement to break up the Middle East into French and British spheres of influence implied the breakup of the Arab Middle East into various states. The ones that are important to us because they came under British influence, were Iraq and sorry, were Iraq and what then was called Transjordan and we today called Jordan. Transjordan because simply it was across, trans, across, across the river Jordan on the east side. Whereas the west side was Palestine. That was the outcome. The Arabs were not happy about that because they thought being promised that they would have one kingdom ruled by Hussein. And although his sons were given, in this respect, they were given charge of the states of Iraq and Jordan. That really was not what they wanted. Christopher Catherwood in the book where he found the title “Winston’s Folly”, has a chapter heading, which is also really an interesting and important one. He said in a chapter heading, the chapter is headed “The Arab Revolt and the Great Betrayal.” That’s how the Arabs saw the situation. Now I’ve said many times, because I think it is really important in international affairs that you must make every effort to understand a, well in modern jargon, where your opponents are coming from or give us eyes to see ourselves as others see us.
How do they see us? Because if you are going to have international agreements by people who are opposed, you’ve got to understand why they have taken up their position and how they view your position. That’s pretty obvious. So I’m saying here that right at the very start of the modern Middle East post, the First World War, the Arabs feel betrayed by the west and that is the western imperial powers. And everlastingly since Arabs in the modern world keep accusing America of imperialism, they accuse Israel of imperialism and colonialism. These are words that in a sense lose meaning. It doesn’t matter. To them, it conjuress up the whole history of this since Hussein was shafted by Britain and France after the First World War. Now you may say, well that’s nonsense and you can’t go back. It may be nonsense, but that’s what they feel. And unless you deal with that, the road to peace is going to be very difficult. This is what Catherwood, in his book, “Winston’s Folly” writes. And he writes this, and this is in the chapter, “The Arab Revolt and the Great Betrayal” he says the following, “The Arab revolt began a long process of British sympathy for the Arab cause, albeit one may considerably more complicated by Britain’s other wartime promise, the grant of a national Jewish homeland in Palestine.” From the very beginning Britain has been Janus-like in its view of the Middle East. Today, I don’t believe it is Janus-like. And we will come to that I’m sure in a much later lecture that’s different, that is because of Islamism and Islamic terrorism and the presence of Muslims in countries like Britain who don’t actually want our state to be destroyed. And people in Britain following the general election know that well. But it just appeared Janus-like. Britain, it has sympathy for the Arab. Half the middle class women of Britain are in love with “Lawrence of Arabia”. And they also are committed to a Jewish homeland.
They’re split down the middle. Catherwood goes on to say “The British had their obligations to the Zionists,” and of course they did. We’d made so many promises to the Zionists. “And the French were determined to get Syria including Damascus.” And so the French involvement adds a further complication, and I’m not going down the complication of France. We will come to that in a later talk when we need to. I’m concentrating on Britain because it’s Britain that has the mandate for Palestine and it’s Palestine where the Israeli-Arab conflict begins and continues. In the end, the last sentence in his chapter on the Great Betrayal and the Arab Revolt, Catherwood writes, “It was not meant to turn out quite that way,” oh dear. “I didn’t mean it sir,” The child says to his school master, “I didn’t mean it. I didn’t expect blah, blah, blah.” You cannot, in my view, accuse Britain of creating chaos in the Middle East. Some historians do. You may be in that particular realm of thought, I’m not. I think you have to take it at face value. But the fact that Britain was looking both ways at the same time meant that that was in the whole context of the Middle East an impossibility. And it remains an impossibility in 2024. I suppose you could say of Britain, and I was once told this by a bureaucrat in the Council of Europe at a meeting that I was chairing. She said, “Well you see the British, we always like the British to chair meetings because the British make an attempt to bring everyone together.
The British instinct is to go for compromise.” Is that they say, no, no, no, we understand there’s a divide between Arab and Jew, but with a little bit of the sprinkling of British compromise and common sense, we can resolve it. That was wrong. It couldn’t be done and hasn’t been done. But that view persisted. Leo Amery, whom we’ve met before, who’s spoken to the Prime Minister, he writes or said this. Where did I put my book? Here it is. I put a card on top, let’s move that. Fromkin writes this and he quotes Leo Amery. Leo Amery writes, “Fromkin saw no incompatibility between a British Palestine and a Jewish Palestine. He also saw no reason why either British or Jewish aspirations should not be in harmony with Arab aspirations. Decades later, he wrote to the proponents of a Zionist dream of 1917-18, that quote,” and this is Amery himself, “‘Most of us younger men who shared this hope,’” that is a Zionist hope, “‘shared this hope were like Mark Sykes pro-Arab as well as pro-Zionist and saw no essential incompatibility between the two ideals.’” That’s where we went wrong. If you want to blame Britain, you can blame Britain for seeking compromise where compromise was not and has not been possible. Now, I’m not going into all of that we’ll reach all the subsequent history and due course, but I want to make clear that at the beginning Britain took Palestine, oh, Iraq and Jordan, it was happy, would be administered by Abdullah’s sons and they could be manoeuvred. They were to all intents and purposes, British puppets. Now in the end, Britain got that wrong as well, but it’s Palestine where the British were in charge in a sense completely that they didn’t get anything right. I’ve written here, not very profound, but when I’m writing, I just sort of write on, and this is what I wrote.
“As they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” And those of you who are cynical about Britain and you have every write to be, I’ve added another phrase. As they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions to which one might add and self-interest.“ Britain has always had self-interest anywhere. All empires do. It had a self-interest in promoting Jews in Palestine. It had a self-interest in having a Jewish state which was pro-British. So none of this is ever clear in the Middle East. Always seek the reason under the reason given, always despair at people with easy answers. Now I returned to Churchill. Churchill had to move in this post-war world to sort out the mess in the Middle East. Britain and France had occupied the Middle East as the Ottoman Empire collapsed. But that was not the solution. We were not seeking either France or US colonies. We were seeking influence and yes, money and oil and all the rest. So one of Churchill’s first acts as Secretary of State of the colonies was to call a conference of all interested people, 39 men and a number of women arrived at the conference in Cairo in March, 1921. Before Churchill reached Cairo in March, he drafted an outline agenda and it’s worth me reading his outline agenda. His outline agenda, I’ve got to check the time. His outline agenda is given in Martin Gilbert’s book "World in Torment: Churchill 1917-1922,” big book. But Gilbert is always… I’m a huge admirer of Martin Gilbert, but I hate having to quote from him because I open one page and I can’t stop reading. It’s just so magnificent. But this is what Gilbert writes. This is what Churchill put into his sort of outline agenda and he wrote this. This is Churchill, “One, the new ruler methods of election.
The mandate generally, Kurdistan Ibn Saud, et cetera.” We’ll come back to what we’re going to say about this. “Two, the permanent garrison for the three years, 22’ to 25’, size, composition, location, permanent barracks, cooperation with or controlled by the Air Force. Critical examination of present military charges stationed by station, unit by unit, category by category. After a general discussion on this, a subcommittee will sit separately to formulate proposals for immediate economy and report before the conference separates. Four, the rate of reduction from the present armed force to the permanent garrison. My hope is that one third of the present troops can leave the country before the hot weather and another third immediately after it’s over. Five, the system of taxation and the scale of the civil government to be maintained must be reviewed in the direction of having lighter taxation and a less ambitious government. Estimate the cost of granting age for the three years. Seven, final review of the political situation, in the light of above and the decision as the actual territory and positions to be held.” This largely related to the British interest, which is going to become a British mandate in Iraq and Transjordan later Jordan. But Churchill added another sentence, a similar agenda, “Mutatis mutandis must be worked out for Palestine.” Now we can note a number of things from this. One, Churchill had distinguished Palestine and the mandate that’s going to come from the League of Nations later in 1921. He’s separating the question of Palestine from that of Transjordan and Iraq. Iraq and Transjordan, he really sees, I think as pretty straightforward questions.
On the other hand, I think he sees Palestine as the difficulty, never underestimate Churchill’s ability particularly to look into the future. Secondly, in the very first point, he makes reference to Kurdistan. The Kurds have been promised to Kurdistan. And secondly, he makes reference not to Hussein and Hussein’s family, but to Ibn Saud and the Saud family in Saudi Arabia, the present family that ruled in Saudi Arabia. He was aware of other issues, but the overwhelming sense you get from Churchill’s agenda is he is absolutely obsessed with costs. That’s because the government in London is obsessed with costs and that is because Britain is broke at the end of the First World War. We don’t want to spend money on the empire because we haven’t the money to spend. Now those of you interested in one of the reasons for afford the Empire might indeed look at the question of the economy post 1914-‘18. The Cairo Conference then met in a hotel in Cairo 1921. If you think Churchill did his best, if you think others messed up the arrangements that were agreed, or if you think Churchill messed up the whole thing and we should not have got ourselves into the problems of 2024. And I don’t just mean Israel-Palestine, we look at Syria, we look at Iraq, we’ve got endless problems and have had in the Middle East. Can you blame Churchill? I don’t, you may. It’s a judgement . Abdullah, later King Abdullah is to administer Transjordan, later Jordan, under British mandate.
His brother Faisal is to do the same in Iraq. They will both ask for and receive British military and British financial support. Further, it was agreed that Lebanon and Syria were to remain under French control, and Britain would maintain a mandate over Palestine that is the country west of Jordan. And to continue to support the concept of a Jewish homeland within Palestine, leaving all the difficult questions unanswered. Hussein himself was to become king of the Hejaz that is part of what is now Saudi Arabia. But Abdul Ibin Saud was to control the rest of what is modern day Saudi Arabia. And today his family control the whole of Saudi Arabia. Two problems that the British simply, one, they didn’t understand and the other they didn’t know about. One is that later there’s going to be oil in Saudi Arabia, and that is to change the geopolitics of the region and of the world. And secondly, they didn’t take into account that the family of Saud were not nice, comfortable middle of the way Sunni Muslims like Hussain’s family, but were members of a 17th century sect in the desert, a fundamentalist sect called the Wahhabi, W-A-H-H-A-B-I, the Wahhabi of whom today, the person we remember most associated to them was Osama bin Laden. Now, could anyone have foreseen the difficulties caused today by the Saudis in general and by Wahhabism and its expansion is into Islamic terrorism under Osama bin Laden? I don’t think it’s fair to put that at Churchill’s door. In the New Testament of the Christian Bible, it says “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”
And I don’t think he can be blamed for not seeing what no one else saw either, the danger of Ibn Saud and the danger of Wahhabism. There was no simple settlement of the Middle East. And Churchill was well aware of that when he went to Cairo in March, 1921, because the previous year in 1920, there had been an uprising in Iraq, then still called Mesopotamia. There had been a uprising in Iraq against the British occupation after the Ottoman withdrawal. Faisal Faisal had the king or what was to become king in Iraq. Faisal had also been seeking to expand his kingdom and established his capital in Damascus. Why Damascus? 'Cause it was rich. The French demurred because it was in Syria, which was under French control. And the French fought him back by military means. Abdullah in Jordan, supporting his brother Faisal in Iraq, declared his intention of attacking the French in Syria and Lebanon, throwing the French out of Syria and Lebanon and adding them to his brother’s kingdom of Iraq. That didn’t happen. Churchill managed to screw down on all of that. France remained in Syria and Lebanon. Faisal remained in Iraq and Abdullah in Jordan. But that tells you of the simmering pot that is the Middle East before the Cairo Conference. And between that and the previous collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Churchill afterwards was asked what he thought of the conference. Churchill always, I love Churchill, he has a wonderful term of phrase. He said, “Oh, it was really like a gathering of the 40 thieves.” Well, that isn’t a bad description. So we come to the Israeli-Palestine division. And surprise, surprise, the conference blurred it. The conference simply blurred it.
There were various delegations that sought to meet Churchill. And on the second day of the conference, the 22nd of March, 1921, Churchill received a delegation from Palestine, an Arab delegation from Palestine. He refused to discuss anything political but said he’d meet them in Jerusalem. It all gets very complex. Two days later, 24th of March, 1921, the British-Palestine mission later to be the administration of Palestine continued its work in Jerusalem. Churchill visited Gaza and Arab crowds chanted antique Jewish slogans. Churchill misunderstood and thought they were applauding him, typical of a politician, and he waved back to them not understanding a word. Four days after that, on the 28th of March, Churchill had various meetings with Abdullah later King in Jordan. And Abdullah having failed to push for his brother to get Syria and Lebanon is now pushing for himself to take the East Bank of the Jordan, that is to say Palestine. And Churchill is having none of that. He raises all sorts of hairs as Abdullah, he says, “Does the agreement, the Balfour agreement, which the British are still hanging on to, does that mean we’ve got to teach Hebrew in schools in Jordan?”
And basically Churchill say, “Well, don’t be mad. We’re not talking about Jordan, we’re talking about Palestine.” But Abdullah wants to sully the waters by insisting that Jordan has rights over Palestine or at least over the Arabs in Palestine, and Churchill is having none of it. He goes on to say, “We have promised an equality of citizenship in Palestine between Jew and Arab.” He’s pushed on the issue of Jewish immigration. And he sort of botches it a bit by saying, “Well, we don’t anticipate that to be large.” No one explaining what large or small might be. He’s walking on ice with Abdullah because Abdullah is presenting a general view, not only for Arabs in Palestine, but Arabs in the Middle East as a whole. “He subsequently met,” this is Churchill, “a meeting of Muslims and Christians from Palestine. They complained that they had their country,” they were referring to it as a country, Palestine, “had been sold by Britain to Zionists.” Churchill points out that the British high commissioner for Palestine is a Jew, Herbert Samuel that isn’t entirely happy for the Jews because Samuel is exactly what I was saying before. Samuel may be a Jew, but he’s a British Jew and it is Britain that is important. And he’s British elite and he has the same view as Leo Amery. And that is that we can find a middle way a compromise between Jew and Arab. So the Jews in Palestine say he sold out because he talks to Arabs. And the Arabs say how dreadful that Britain has sold out by putting a Jew in charge. Whatever Britain does, you might argue, is never going to satisfy both sides at the same time. And I suppose that’s absolutely true.
The British also appointed a legal secretary who was a Jew. And the Arabs say, not without cause, “Under the Ottoman Empire, we ruled. Now under the British, the Jews ruled.” But the British view was that if Palestine was going to succeed, it needed Jewish, what shall I say, Jewish get up and go, it knew. Well, Churchill referred to it as the Jews would be able to create a land of milk and honey, an agricultural land. And actually, of course, Churchill was bang on the point. That’s exactly what is to happen. But it isn’t something that the Arabs are happy about. When he hands over Ottoman crown territory to Jews, they accuse him of being biassed. Much of that territory was poor and Churchill realise that the only people that could make it function, economically, were the Jewish community. So there’s enormous problems from the outset about the settlement in Palestine. He finally got a large delegation from Arabs who presented him with a paper and he says, “I’m sorry, this is partisan. This is one sided. It’s got many untrue statements in it. I’m not prepared to discuss it.” Now you might well say, that’s exactly the position Israel finds itself in today when there are suggestions of how a peace could be engendered with Hamas. Well, maybe Churchill was right, you see? Partisan, one-sided and with a great many, his phrase with a great many untrue statements. He went on to tell the Arab delegation, “The national home for the Jews.” This was never spelled out. What did it mean? No, nobody spells that out.
“The national home for the Jews would,” Churchill words, “would be good for the world, good for the Jews, and,” you guessed it, “good for the British Empire.” Then he added, “And good the Arabs who dwell in Palestine.” And of course that is also true that the Arabs living in Israel, who can take seats in the Knesset, who can serve in the IDF, et cetera, et cetera, are equal citizens. But that wasn’t a message that was well received. And no one would quite say what a national home for the Jews meant. “Did this mean a Jewish state,” said the Arabs, “in which we will be third class citizens?” That was the phrase they used at the time. Or did Britain already think of a bipartisan, sorry, a divided, a two nation solution. They didn’t. It was simply left drifting. Britain’s support of the Jews was, as he said, “Good for the world.” There’s no question about that, it is subsequently. “Good for the Jews.” No question about that at the time or subsequently “And good for the British Empire.” Well, true at the time, and if you substitute the word British for American true today. This was a intractable problem in 1920 as it is in 2020. 100 years and we are no nearer a solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or if you prefer the Israeli-Arab conflict to which we’ve had added many other conflicts in the Middle East. The National Council of Jews in Palestine supported Churchill, well, what a surprise.
And said, “The rebuilding of the Jewish national home we support and trust that the realisation of it will be made possible by giving Palestine its historical frontiers.” Now they’re asking for a biblical Israel to be established. They went on to say, “By our efforts to rebuild the Jewish national home, which is, but a small area in comparison with all the Arab lands, we do not deprive them of their legitimate rights.” Right, so there you have at this period, awe, absolutely awe of the issues that have rumbled and exploded over the last 100 years. Churchill was the first international politician to seek solutions and there were no easy solutions and the settlement really did not last. Churchill finally made a speech on the 29th of March, just as the conference was ending in Cairo. He made the speech in Jerusalem, at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and he said his heart was full of sympathy for Zionism and had been for 12 years since he had met Manchester Jews, he’d become an MP in Manchester. He again said, “There were the blessings of a Jewish national home for the whole world, the Jewish race, and for Great Britain. By taking the right steps,” he said, “Palestine would transform into a paradise as foretold in the scriptures, a land flowing with milk and honey,” which I mentioned before, “in which sufferers of all racism and religions will find a rest from their sufferings.” I dunno what Churchill would say today. What would he say? I don’t think he would accept blame because I’m not sure what else he could have done.
What else could he have done? Sold the Jews down the river and established an Arab Palestine with Jews having rights, which would subsequently have been taken away? No, we couldn’t do that. That was not British policy. British policy was firmly in favour of a Jewish homeland, even though we were also Janus-like pro Arab. Actually, the Cairo conference made Churchill for the first time become slightly anti-Arab because he saw them as part of the 40 thieves, which he didn’t see Israel as being or Jews in Palestine being. What did people think at the time? Well, Gertrude Bell, the great British diplomatic explorer in the Middle East and writer had been present as a delegate at the conference in Cairo. And she wrote to a friend after the conference had concluded the following words. If I can find them, I will read them. She wrote that, “The plan that was agreed for the future of the Middle East and in particular for the formation of the country of Iraq, aligned closely with my own vision and ideas, including the appointment of Faizal bin Hussein, as the first King of Iraq. Indeed, a month later on the 17th April when I was back in Baghdad.” She then wrote to her father saying, “I’m happy in helping forward what I profoundly believed to be the best thing for this country and wish the best for its people.” She thought Churchill had done a good deal.
So in fact, did Lawrence of Arabia who said he tried to make sense of this tangled web, words to that effect. So to summarise, Britain is given a mandate over Iraq and Transjordan, later renamed Jordan and over Palestine by the League of Nations. France was given a mandate by the League over Syria and Lebanon. The Jewish-Arab situation in Palestine was pushed into the long grass and was never solved by Britain, although it made attempts to do so during the British mandate. Nothing was resolved either before or immediately after the Second World War. The Kurds have been promised to Kurdistan, weren’t even present at Cairo and got nothing, betrayed. Betrayed by France and Britain in the same way that Hussein who seen felt betrayed by France and Britain. Of the newly created Arab states. Gordon Kerr, in his book, “A Short History of the Middle East”, writes of these new states. “The Arabs in these fledgling states,” think in terms of Britain, in terms of Iraq and Jordan, “spent the interwar years focused not on land reform, social welfare legislation or other socially beneficial programmes. Rather, they concentrated their energies on eliminating foreign control,” Britain and France, “on foreign control and achieving independence,” because they weren’t independent. “Of course, they’re under the mandate. Unfortunately, the same elite that had been in place in Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon was still there after the war and they continued to benefit from their positions throughout the interwar years. In Iraq, it was former Ottoman officers who became the ruling class and they behaved no differently to the Ottoman ruling elite prior to the war. It was a situation of compromise, however, because as they worked against Britain and France, they also depended on Britain and France for their positions.
They made strenuous efforts, therefore not to upset Britain and France. Economically, of course,” says Kerr, “the situation became very complex. In the place of one state when an economy run from Constantinople by the Imperial authority, there were now a number of states with their own economic interests, customs, tariffs and regulations. And each of course enjoyed a different economic relationship with the European power that supervised its actions. There were those who argued that each state should be able to carve out their own personal, cultural and national identity.” How can they carve out a national identity? How can they? That’s what Hussein wanted, one Arab state. But you can’t carve out an identity that distinguishes Syria from, sorry, Syria from Iraq or Jordan from Lebanon. “While others still espouse the notion of Pan-Arab unity,” Nasser, for example, “later on and intreated the rulers of the individual nation to sacrifice their local power to the idea of Islamic solidarity and an Arab confederation. Nasser, Saddam Hussein that continues to tick away in the background. Two final things or one thing, and this is Martin Gilbert, always a good idea. And this is Martin Gilbert on Churchill. What better way to end the talk on this subject. This is the end of a chapter in Martin Gilbert’s book. "In the face of strong and determined opposition, Churchill had reaffirmed the Balfour Declaration as a basic feature of British policy. He had rejected the repeated Arab demands for a total end to Jewish immigration.
He had rebutted the Arab delegation’s, violent remarks against Jews. He had brilliantly and enthusiastically spoken of Jewish settlement in Palestine. In two major speeches back in Britain in the House of Commons, the first on the 14th of June, 1921, and the second on the 4th of July, 1922, he had spoken with admiration of all that the Jews had achieved in Palestine of its potential and a Britain’s determination to allow the Jewish national home to grow and flourish under British protection.” And we live with all this history today. Neither I nor the politicians in the Middle East or outside of the Middle East have any way to see a solution to all of these problems to which has been added Islamic fundamentalism that wants to destroy the west. Thank you for listening. I hope I haven’t missed out things that you wanted me to say, I’m sure I have, and I hope I haven’t said anything that offends you, but I’ve attempted to be as objective as I possibly can be and I’ve obviously swung it in a British view. I’ve obviously also got lots of questions, yeah. Let’s see where we are.
Q&A and Comments:
Myrna writes, “I always felt Sykes-Picot was a monumental piece of chutzpah and hubris, a total mess that everyone is trying to clean up today.” Don’t disagree.
Who is this, sorry? Andrea, “Picot died at quite a young age in Paris after catching flu through during the influenza pandemic. His grave was open many years later in the hope that his body will give clues to about the pandemic because his casket was made out of metal and it was thought that his body might be intact, but it was not sufficiently so for the purpose of giving the medical clues that were sought. Sykes lived to a good age.”
Brian, “Jordan was not part of the mandate, it was the Emirate of Transjordan.” Yes, indeed, but it’s British control of it under the British in the interwar years. What about the white paper that fought? Like there was no war with the Nazis and John McHugo said that we would’ve prevented a Zionist state if it would’ve fully implemented instead of following the Balfour Declaration. And so I don’t think I quite follow that.“ Yeah, but before the war, yeah, they thought of Palestine as including Jordan. That is why after the war when the British occupied, they occupied what we know as Jordan and called it Transjordan. So in the settlement at Cairo, we talk about Transjordan on the east side of the river, Palestine on the west. You don’t want to get too confused by that. It’s always seen by the British after the war in two separate parts.
Q: "So how would one deal with the fact that the Arabs felt betrayed?”
A: Who knows? Too late, perhaps Tim to do that. “The Arabs may have felt that they’re being shafted, but additionally they could not stomach a Jewish homeland in the Umma. Do you know what that is?” Yes, of course I what that is. Oh, maybe, but no. Yes, but that’s the very root of the problem.
“I gather large scale oil production in the Middle East came after the,” whoops, “came after the period.” Yes, it did. “Although we were getting, our oil was coming from Iran, which of course remained as it had been a separate territory.”
Where am I? Sorry, I’ve lost it now.
“I blame the Brits and French notably because they chopped up the Ottoman Empire with zero knowledge or concern for differences from narrow groups,” says Arthur. And that is 100% correct. It’s the same way that Britain and France and other European nations carved up Africa.
Q: “Who caused conflict in Middle East? You say it was not Britain, thus presume there was a cause.
A: Well, the cause was that we had created multiple Arab states and that we were creating a homeland for Jews. And that is the lead to the problems we’ve subsequently had, not least Iraq versus Iran. The troubles more recently Syria and of course Israeli-Hamas war.”
Tim, it’s no good asking me what would’ve been a better solution because we’ve tried for 100 years to have a better solution. We know what the solution is today. There will have to be a two nation solution, something that was suggested by Britain before the Second World War and adopted by the United Nations. But no one has been able to find a path to that. And it doesn’t look any easier today.
Q: “Before, where exactly was Palestine?”
A: It’s a word that’s used. It’s it’s just part of the ottoman structures of the Middle East. We really don’t want to get into that because it is not a to helpful. What is clear is that Israel has talked about the traditional borders, I.e. the biblical borders of Israel. And Arabs challenge that because they don’t want a Jewish homeland. The Ottoman divisions were not in any way… They ran it as one empire. So it was just structured in a way that helped them best.
Q: “If Britain had a self-interest in promoting Jews in Palestine, why did Britain block Jews from going there at the end of World War II?” Answer, that we are talking about World War I, the situation is massively changed by World War II. “And why was it necessary Jews to fight Brits?”
A: Well, that’s something we come to in I think a fortnight’s time when we look at the creation of the state of Israel. But you can’t expect people in 1920 to be aware of a Second World War. The First World War was described as a war to end all wars. You can’t expect them to think of a Second World war. So that has to be taken in a separate context and that context is the whole of the British mandate in Palestine followed by the Second World War and a failure to find a solution in Palestine. Sorry, where am I?
Mitza said, “It’s very convenient to think of compromise as a name for hypocrisy.” It is, but that would misconstrue British compromise.
“Churchill was naive in the book 'Churchill and the Jews.’ It was maintained he said Jewish presence will be good for the Arabs. The Jews will teach the Arabs how to make the desert bloom.” Well in terms of Israel, that is true. That is true.
Yeah, Monique and Danny, “Numbers of Jews allowed in British mandate was constantly limited by white papers.” That’s true and we will come to that. But again, it’s Britain seeking a solution without worsening the situation in Palestine. Because it’s wartime and was desperate to have an Arab revolt in order to defeat the Ottomans because the Ottomans weren’t that weak. Remember the British surrender at Kut in modern day Iraq and the tragedy at Gallipoli. So he was able to operate in that way during wartime.
Exactly, Monty, an independent country called Palestine. That was a point I’m making. It was merely an entity of Ottoman administration and it’s been a word that’s bedevilded the whole of the situation in the Middle East.
Yes, I didn’t want to get in, Perry, to the issue of Jordan and the division in ‘23. My excuse is I was going to '22. What we need to know is that Jordan, east of the river, Transjordan becomes Jordan Palestine west and Britain administered it in the Middle East in that way. And I suppose you can say that, that gives Abdullah in Jordan a view that he should have a say in east of the Jordan. But that was never ever going to happen and didn’t.
Q: “Didn’t Saudi family give Wahhabi religious control in exchange for their control of the kingdom? And isn’t the Muslim brother and Hamas founded on Wahhabism?”
A: The second part, yes, I agree with. I don’t know, I think that my recollection is that the Saudi family were converted like others in Saudi Arabia. And yes it did, it did help them gain control. But I don’t think it was a self-interested conversion.
Q: “Why didn’t the Kurds to get their promised nation?”
A: Because they had no clout and because they’re divided between the nations that exist, Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran, and no one wanted… Look, they could not, say in the Cairo conference, they could not avoid the question of a Jewish homeland. Britain had been explicit about that. But they could ignore the Kurds. They could ignore the Kurds. There’s no Kurdish deputation to see Churchill. There’s Jewish, there’s Christian, there’s Muslim, there’s Palestinian, there is not a Kurdish.
P.J. saying, “The establishment of a Jewish homeland in the whole of Palestine with attached map, showing the entirety of Palestinians agreed in the treatise San Remo between the winning allies. And Britain received and accepted the mandate to make it happen when the Jews would show the ability to administer run.” Yes, that may well have been the case, but by the end of the British mandate, that clearly was not acceptable because there was so much fighting between Jew and Arab in Palestine. Britain could not hand it straight over to Jews. Okay, that is what happened. But what happened happened in the face of no agreement when Israel was founded. Hence why we have the West Bank and Gaza trouble today. Should the British simply have given all of that to Israel and said, “Well, we are going to withdraw, you look after that, you kill them and we won’t get involved.” But that was not what Britain was attempting to do. Britain was attempting to resolve a difficult situation. I can see why many of you think Britain should just of withdrawn, but that was not what it saw its role under the League of Nations. It was obliged to try and find a solution.
It could not, Jess. Well, you might say Britain was to do that in India in 1947 to wash its hands of the consequences. We know what happened with the construction of East West Pakistan and India when the British withdrew, we don’t even know how many millions died. Britain was not following that route in Palestine.
Yes, Susan, of course, you’re right. “All countries are always acting their own self-interest, not just Britain.” That’s true, but you must also give credence to the fact that Lloyd George, Smuts, whom I mentioned today, were also pro Jew because they thought that Jews should have a homeland, partly because they wanted Christ to return, partly because they wanted somewhere for Jews to go other than, and then continue to face the pogroms in Eastern Europe. But also to Churchill’s view that the Jews were the only people likely to make a go in Palestine. It’s not always negative about the British empire, although that’s a popular position today. It’s not always quite like that.
Q: “Churchill appeared to favour a two state solution divided by the Jordan River. What do you think about the subsequent partition plan, when he was no longer in power? Can we wait until we sort of get to that point?”
A: Thank you, Peter. That’s appreciated from you. Yes, you are right. Yeah, there were British and new end proposals in the 30s and that’s what I’m going to look at next week. Absolutely right, Peter. If I try and simplify it, some things can look to some of you to be oversimplified, I’m sorry about that. And some things I don’t cover in one talk, but cover in another talk. I’m going to do the mandate next week and we will have to look at the role of Britain and the League of Nations and indeed the role of Jews and Arabs in Palestine to find a solution.
“One major admission so far,” says Alfred, “is an examination of the warfare actions taken by the Arabs against the Jews starting 19th century, continued through the 20s and 30s. 1929 was so serious that the Israelis have a special name for the events.” Yeah, as I’ve just said in answer Alfred to the previous question, I should be looking at the Arab-Jewish conflicts in British mandated Palestine and next week.
Lorna, “You need some visuals.” I dunno what visuals you want. I had intended for lockdown to provide a map today, but they didn’t do so. I gave them a map for you to have. But you can easily look up a map on Google if you are not sure where some of these places are. I think everybody should know basically where the countries, I’m sure you do, the country’s in the Middle East and I’m not putting up picture.
[Wendy] Sorry, William, I’m sure that we can put it on the website. I’ll speak to the team?
I did ask for that and oh, on the website? Yes, that would be a good idea. I did ask for it to go out today and for there to be a copy that I could put on the screen, but for some reason or other it didn’t happen, so.
[Wendy] Okay. I’ll follow up on that. Thank you for an excellent lecture. Yeah, sorry.
You’re welcome. Let’s see what other questions I’ve got that I might be able to answer before we have to finish. Where are we? Let me scroll down. Oh, I must be getting there. That we’ve talked about.
Thanks, to people who said thank you to. I hope it was clear that was my intention.
Q: “Was there really any difference in the cultures of Iraq and Syria and the different nation of carved out?”
A: As I said during the talk, no. That’s why Hussein wanted one United Arab state. Now subsequently to 1920, of course there are differences which have occurred. And of course you can go into detail about the Shias in Iraq and the Kurds in Iraq. The minority people compared to the Sunnis in Iraq. Yes, you can do that, but the basic Arab culture is the same.
Q: What about the tribal nature?
A: Well, no, the tribal nature is not, these were quite advanced parts of the world by the end of the Ottoman Empire. The tribalism exists out on the fringes. That is to say in Saudi Arabia, which isn’t part of this story. But the tribalism in Palestine and Syria and Iraq, really something of the past rather than the present in 1920s. Whoops, whoops, whoops. I keep losing… I’m getting over excited here. Where are you?
Yes, I did know Martin Gilbert was a great one for producing. He produced so many different books, Sheila. He’s just a great historian.
Oh, “The relationship of the Husseins to the South was this friendly or strained? Answer, strained, and they, yeah… Thank you Arthur. I’m Mr. Not doctor, thank you.
Oh, now Ruth, thank you very much for that because Ruth has said, "Thank you from Israel.” Well, when preparing this, I’m aware that Israelis might well have a different view and are more than entitled to have a different view. Given the situation you are now in, it’s very difficult for historians dealing when the issue they’re dealing with is still active and highly divisive.
Oh, Denise writes from South Africa and says, “Thanks for confirming what I know to be true.” Thank you, because people get confused about Smuts in particular. That’s why I needed to unpack Smuts. He’s a complex and interesting man incidentally. Yeah, “The Palestinian Arabs do not accept the idea of Jews ruling over lands that were held under Islam.” Absolutely true, but remember that Judaism was in the Middle East long, long before Islam ever came on the scene. The Arabs in Israel, they’ve accepted the situation it has by and large benefit them. Israel offered the Palestinian Arabs land and the possibility two states numerous times. They have not and will not accept it.“ That is what I said earlier about when you have to understand where the other side is coming from, why they don’t accept this sort of thing. Yes, I’m going to go into the Woodhead Commission next week. Do all of that for you.
"The only stable states in the Middle East are those under the control of one tribe.” I don’t know that I buy that. Turkey is stable. Saudi Arabia, you could say, yeah, Saudi Arabia fits that. I don’t see Turkey fitting that, and I don’t see Persian-Iran fitting that, which is not tribal at all, but now is a theocracy. I’m not sure, Monte, I entirely agree with that. And it doesn’t apply to Egypt either.
Oh, wow, I think I’ve actually come to the end of the questions. Isn’t that incredible? Oh, no. Here we are, no.
“There was significant difference between Lebanon and Palestine.” Yes, well, I’m not saying Palestine was the same as everywhere else. That would be nonsense to say that. I am saying that the Arab states, Palestine was not an Arab state when the British took the mandate. It is divided between Arab and Jew and historically, way before Islam, it was a Jewish state. It is the biblical Israel, and no, I wasn’t talking about that.
Q: “Do you think Sunnis and Shias can live as equals in one Arab state?”
A: Robin trust you to come up with a very difficult question right at the end. I dunno the answer to that. I don’t see why not. But not if we’re thinking of the troubles in Iraq, for example or between Iraq and Iran. No, I think that’s a very difficult question. But ultimately, yes, but perhaps not now. Turkey and Persia are not Arab. True.
“The single cane…” I think that must be a mistyping. Monique and Danny, I dunno what you mean. “The single is an Arab construct for a successful nation.” I’m sorry, yes, you’re absolutely right, Turkey and Persia are not Arab. They want one Arab state. They haven’t got it. Whether it would ever come through a confederation must lie way beyond any of our lifetimes. “Clan/tribe”, yeah, yeah. Okay. I just don’t think that’s an issue in most of the Middle East today.
Well, thanks everyone for asking such interesting questions, making such interesting points. Next week, it is next Monday, same time, is the British mandate in Palestine. So we’re really now focusing firmly on Palestine later in the week after to become Israel. But next week it’s the British mandate. And you might think the mess that Britain created or continue to create in Palestine. See you all there.