How Britain Started the Arab-Israeli Conflict

 Nadene Goldfoot                                               

The Paris Peace Conference was the formal meeting in 1919 and 1920 of the victorious Allies after the end of World War I to set the peace terms for the defeated Central Powers.  Britain, France, Russia, even Italy  and the USA were promised a chunk of land  including Palestine out of the Middle East.   It resulted in five treaties that rearranged the maps of Europe and parts of Asia, Africa and the Pacific Islands, and also imposed financial penalties.  The Ottoman Empire was being cut up for these countries.  The Ottoman Empire captured the region in 1516 and ruled it until Egypt took it in 1832. Eight years later, the United Kingdom intervened and returned the region to the Ottomans.  The Ottomans had held Palestine for about 400 years.                                  

               Watching videos at home on our history

The video, "How Britain Started the Arab Israeli Conflict," https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXfuqUhzESg, is certainly worthwhile watching.  I agree whole-heartedly that Britain started the conflict.  It seems that their left hand didn't know what their right hand was promising, and they promised land to everyone they wanted something from.   I did find a glaring misnomer, though.

It was about the name of the Arabs which are called Palestinians.  Nobody seems to realize its history in that both Jews and Arabs living in Palestine were called Palestinians.  

                             Aluf   Simon bar Kokhba

Palestine got its name from the Romans who lost Jerusalem for 3 years and had to fight bitterly to get it back.  This was when a Jewish general, Bar Kokhba, re-took Jerusalem in his attack in the year 132 and held it till he was killed in 135.  

The video mistakenly called the land Palestine because, as they commented, Palestinians lived there.    It's the land's name but never was a country.  

I can't say this enough times.  There never has been a country of Palestine.  It was the name of land that had once been Israel, King David's land from 1010 BCE on to 70 CE when the Romans burned down Jerusalem and its 2nd Temple of Solomon.  That was an over 1,000 years of belonging to the Jews.  In fact, the land went through a Civil War when Solomon, David's son, died in 920 BCE.  Judah was then the main state holding onto Jerusalem.  Israel and it's capital went to Samaria and Solomon's superintendent , Jeroboam,  became its king from 933 to 922 BCE.  Solomon's son, Rehoboam, became the king of Judah from 933-917 BCE.  In both areas, Jews were living.  Then the land's name was Israel, and later was Judah and Samaria, NEVER Palestine.

A country, not just land, includes having a leader such as a president or king.  Then it has a people who have a common language, and others that help to run the country.  They do things like have a census of their people in order to gather taxes.  They protect their people with an army.  

Misstating this fact leads readers and listeners to think that there once was a country called Palestine.  There never has been a country called Palestine.   The Arabs living in Palestine had come from surrounding places.  Most were looking for work because Jews there were building towns and cities and they were looking for jobs.  There were a few families there on land, but were so happy to finally be able to sell it to Jews who had newly arrived that paid the fantastic amounts they were asking.  Land was not stolen.  It was bought and paid for and the owners went off to Damascus, Cairo, other capitals of the world. 

                    Lord Arthur Balfour:  Balfour, who had known Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann since 1906, opposed Russian mistreatment of Jews and increasingly supported Zionism as a programme for European Jews to settle in Palestine.  However, in 1905 he supported the Aliens Act 1905, one of whose main objectives was to control and restrict Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe.  He said one thing while doing the opposite.

Misleading people were what the Brits did well.  Take the Balfour Declaration issued November 2, 1917.  It promised a Jewish Homeland but made sure that the Arabs were to remain put and even helped them enter Palestine when it should have been the Jews.  Both Jews and Arabs had high hopes of Palestine becoming their country. 

                                 Mark Sykes of Britain

The  Sykes-Picot Treaty was compiled in secret with Britain, France and Russia and later brought in Italy between 1914 and 1916. The Sykes-Picot Agreement was a private wartime treaty between Britain and France which was to determine the post-war partition of Arab Middle East lands. 2. It was named after its chief negotiators, Mark Sykes of Britain and Georges Picot of France. It pertained to the division of the Ottoman Empire and affected Palestine and Syria.  The Upper Galilee was to go to the French, Transjordan and the Negev to Britain, Haifa Bay to Britain, and Central Palestine (Nazareth to Hebron-Anglo-French-Russia).  Zionist leaders discovered this secret in 1917 and protested.   This treaty was partly responsible for the form of the post-war frontiers of Palestine.  

Sykes had long agreed with the traditional policy of British Conservatives in propping up the Ottoman Empire (Turkey) as a buffer against Russian expansion into the Mediterranean. Britain feared that Russia had designs on India, its most important colonial possession. A Russian fleet in the Mediterranean might cut British sea routes to India. British statesmen such as Palmerston, Disraeli and Salisbury had held this view. Liberal Party leader, William Ewart Gladstone, was much more critical of the Ottoman government, deploring its misgovernment and periodic slaughter of minorities, especially Christian ones. A Liberal successor, David Lloyd George, shared a progressively disdainful attitude towards the 'sick man' of Europe.

Compounding Britain's difficulties, France sought to secure a Greater Syria, where there were significant minorities, that included Palestine. Another ally, Italy, advanced claims to the Aegean Islands offering protection to Christian minorities in Asia Minor. Then Russian claims had to be considered, particularly with respect to control of the Straits leading from the Black Sea to the Aegean and protection of the Christian population of Turkish Armenia and the Black Sea coast. Greece coveted historic Byzantine territories in Asia Minor and Thrace, claims that conflicted with those of Russia and Italy, as well as Turkey. David Lloyd George, favoured the Greek cause. Complicating this was the desire of Zionists to have a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

They say that money is the root of all evil.  All these countries wanted a piece of the pie that was the Ottoman Empire. The land meant money in their pockets.  Jews really needed their ancient land back as a place to live in.  Pogroms were happening all the time to them.  Talks had been going on during WWI as to the land.  

Resource:

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Palestine#:~:text=The%20Ottoman%20Empire%20captured%20the,the%20region%20to%20the%20Ottomans.