Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews, Volume 1 (16 page)

On 31 October 1914, six days before Britain declared war on Turkey, Hussein received a message from Lord Kitchener, Britain’s Secretary of State for War. He understood that victory over both the Germans and the Turks would be most unlikely unless the Arabs could be persuaded to join the war on the side of the Allies. The essence of Kitchener’s message to Hussein was a pledge of British support for Arab independence if the Arabs revolted against the Turks and entered the war on the side of Britain and the Allies.

Hussein was willing in principle to strike such a bargain with the British but in practice he was very cautious. Arab nationalists did want to be free of Turkish rule but under it they had enjoyed, and were still enjoying, a measure of self-government. They did not want to exchange one type of colonial rule for British or other Western European domination. On its own Kitchener’s pledge was not enough for Hussein. He wanted the British to make a specific commitment to outright independence for the Arabs.

To give himself the time and space to negotiate such a commitment from the British, and also to strengthen his negotiating hand, Hussein went through the motions of joining the Turks in the jihad (Holy War) the Sultan had proclaimed against Britain and her allies.

On 23 May 1915, in what came to be known as the Damascus Protocol, Arab leaders stated the terms on which, under Hussein’s leadership, they were prepared to unleash a revolt against their Turkish masters and enter the war on the side of the Allies. They wanted a specific British commitment to the independence of all Arab land east of the Suez Canal with the exception of Aden. They also offered Britain a bonus. In the areas liberated, Britain would enjoy economic and trade preference. And the independent Arabs would have a defence alliance with Britain.

The British were very worried about the effect of the Sultan’s jihad. They needed to have the Arabs fighting on their side but they did not want to give the specific commitment the Damascus Protocol had requested.

There followed a protracted correspondence between Hussein and, for Britain, General Sir Harry McMahon, the British High Commissioner in Egypt. Eight letters and nearly a year later Hussein was satisfied that he had secured from Britain a specific and irrefutable commitment to Arab independence.

In the years to come the Zionists would claim, supported for a while by the British, that the letters which formed the basis of Britain’s commitment to Arab independence had excluded Palestine. But, as we shall see in Chapter Seven, the eventual publication of all the relevant documents proved that Palestine was unmistakably included in the McMahon independence promise. The British were always economical with the truth and deception was the essence of Zionist diplomacy.

The Arabs honoured their part of the bargain. Their revolt against the Turks started on 5 June 1916. But it would not have happened if the Arabs had been aware of the secret discussions which were going on, even as they were committing themselves to fighting for the Allies, between the Allies (Britain, France, Italy and Russia) to determine how the spoils of the Turkish Empire were to be divided among themselves after victory.

After his Declaration that Britain viewed with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, Balfour sent an alarmed Hussein a message: “His Majesty’s Government confirms previous pledges respecting the recognition of the independence of the Arab countries.”
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But the Arabs were still not inclined to trust British intentions. Seven Arab leaders then living in exile in Cairo requested Britain to state frankly her policy with respect to the future of the Arabs. On 16 June 1918, Britain responded with a “Declaration to the Seven”. It confirmed the previous pledges of the Hussein-McMahon correspondence and gave an additional assurance that the wishes of the “population” would be respected. The Zionists had asserted that the Balfour Declaration superseded and by implication invalidated Britain’s previous promises to the Arabs. That was not so and was made clear, apparently, by the “Declaration to the Seven”.

Hussein was also given further comfort by Commander D.G. Hogarth, a British archaeologist. He was sent to Jeddah on behalf of the British government to meet with Hussein and reassure him that as far as Palestine was concerned “we are determined that no people shall be subjected to another”; and that while Jewish immigration was to be permitted, it would be allowed “only insofar as compatible with the freedom of the existing population, both economic and political.”
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According to Hogarth’s own account, Hussein said he was willing to “welcome Jews in all Arab lands” but would not accept a Jewish state.
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The greatest war in all of recorded history to that point came to an end with victory for the Allies at eleven o’clock on 11 November 1918 when the cease-fire was sounded. The Armistice had been signed at five o’clock that same morning. But the peace had still to be made. Making it was to be the business of the Paris Peace Conference. It opened in January 1919 and was attended by leaders including America’s President Wilson and other senior representatives from twenty-seven states. The defeated belligerents were not to be admitted to the Conference. The terms of the peace were to be imposed on them by the victorious Allies and embodied in a sheaf of treaties. The most important of them was the Treaty of Versailles which was signed on 28 June 1919. This was the treaty between the Allied and Associated Powers (with the exception of America, for reasons to be explained later) and Germany. Complementary treaties were also concluded with Austria, Bulgaria and Hungary. But peace was not finally concluded with the Turks until 24 July 1923; and before then many strange things were to happen, some with regard to the fate of the Arabs in general and Palestine and the Palestinians in particular.

How significant was the Arab contribution to the Allied victory?

By throwing in their lot with the Allies in return for the promise of independence the Arabs changed the balance of power in the Middle East. Arab participation in the war enabled the British to withstand the German effort to take Aden and blockade the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, Britain’s main artery of Empire.

The Arabs also drew off considerable Turkish forces that were directed against Britain’s advance on Palestine. The commander of that advance, General Murray, noted that there were more Turkish troops fighting the Arabs than were engaged with his men.

It was to be many years before the official assessment of the value of the Arab contribution to the Allied war effort was considered by the British to be fit for public consumption. The official assessment was that made behind closed doors at a secret meeting of the Supreme Council of the Allied Powers in Paris on 20 March 1919. At that meeting General Allenby, Commander-in- Chief of the Expeditionary Force which wrested Palestine, Syria and Lebanon from the Turks, declared that Arab assistance had been “invaluable”. The same meeting was told by Britain’s Prime Minister, Lloyd-George, that on the basis of McMahon’s letters to Hussein, “the latter had put all his resources into the field, which helped us most materially to win the victory.”
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And those were judgements endorsed by the defeated Turks. When Hussein called upon all Arabs to join the revolt, Jamal Pasha, the commander of the Turkish forces, was obliged, as he later admitted, “to send forces against Hussein which should have been defeating the British on the Canal and capturing Cairo.”
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The terror unleashed on the Arabs by the Turks told its own story about how valuable the Arab contribution to the Allied war effort was. As part of a frenzied effort to crush the Arab revolt, the Turks dragged Arab leaders in Damascus from their homes and hanged them in public squares. Food was denied to the people in Palestine and Lebanon and Arab patriots everywhere, not only those fighting for Britain and the Allies, paid with their lives.

With the prolonged haggling that was called the Peace Conference still underway, and with the hopes of their innocence high, Arab nationalist leaders set about the task of preparing for the independence Britain had promised. As a priority they organised the election of the General National Syrian Congress.

This, when it convened in Damascus on 2 July 1919, with representatives from all over Syria as it then was including Palestine, was effectively the first Arab parliament. The delegates favoured a new United Syria with a constitutional monarchy under Hussein’s first son, Faysal. In territorial terms the new United Syria was to be the Syria of today including the Golan Heights occupied and taken by Israel in the 1967 war; plus Lebanon of today; plus Jordan of today including the West Bank occupied by Israel in the 1967 war; plus Israel as it was inside the borders as they were on the eve of the 1967 war.

The delegates declared their opposition to further Jewish immigration but said that “our fellow Jewish citizens shall continue to enjoy the rights and bear the responsibilities which are ours in common.” (That was in accord with the thinking of anti-Zionist Jews).

That first Arab parliament also expressed its preference for having America, not Britain, as the power mandated by the League of Nations to give political, economic and technical assistance to the new United Syria. Britain was to enjoy the status of “friend” and no assistance was required from France. (The French were trusted even less than the British). When they were expressing their preference for America as the overseeing and protecting Big Brother, one Arab delegate spoke for most when he said: “We may look to President Wilson and the liberal American nation, which is known for its sincere and generous sympathy for the aspirations of weak nations.” (The story of why the Arabs had so much faith in President Wilson and the America of his time has its place in Chapter Seven.)

But it was all of no consequence.

While the Arab nationalists were meeting in Damascus and proclaiming the independence they had been promised, Britain and France were concluding their secret discussions to carve up the old pre-war Greater Syria for themselves! And they were determined to delay telling the truth about what they had decided until the time was strategically and politically right.

The way in which the spoils of the Ottoman Empire were to be shared among the European victors was made public on 5 May 1920 in San Remo. The news then and there was that the new United Syria the Arabs had proclaimed was not to be. Syria was to be partitioned, divided into three spheres of big power influence. France was to have the Mandates for ruling a separate Lebanon and a separate Syria minus Palestine. Britain was to have the Mandate to rule Palestine. (Britain was also to have Iraq). To the Mandate for Palestine there was to be attached a rider that would require Britain to apply the Balfour Declaration there.

The carve-up announced at San Remo was a repudiation of Britain’s promises to Hussein and also Britain’s Declaration To The Seven. The stark, shocking truth was that the wishes of the people of Palestine, the overwhelming majority of them Arabs, had been ignored. They were not even consulted by Britain or France. But that is only a part of the story of the British betrayal of the Palestinians. As we shall see in Chapter Seven, President Wilson sent his own Commission to Palestine to consult the Arabs, but the report of its findings was suppressed for a critical amount of time at the insistence of Britain-and-Zionism.

In his famous book,
The Seven Pillars of Wisdom
, (which he had to publish himself and which very nearly bankrupted him), T.E. Lawrence, the British Liaison Officer with the Arab fighting forces, acknowledged that the Arabs had been betrayed, and that they had revolted against the Turks “on false premises”. He added, “If I had been an honourable adviser, I would have sent my men (his Arabs) home and not let them risk their lives for such stuff.”
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Hussein was so bitter that not even Lawrence could persuade him to sign the Hedjaz-British Friendship Treaty that Lawrence took to Jeddah for signature in July 1921. Rejecting the Friendship Treaty was a tough decision for Hussein because it promised him money as well as military support. Without both he was, as we shall see, doomed.

It was to be twenty years before there was anything like an honest official explanation—actually more of a hint—of why Britain decided to play the Zionist card in 1917 despite its promise to the Arabs.

In July 1937, speaking in the House of Commons about why the Balfour Declaration was issued, Winston Churchill (then excluded from office and campaigning for the Hitler threat to be taken seriously) said this:

It is a delusion to suppose this was a mere act of crusading enthusiasm or quixotic philanthropy. On the contrary, it was a measure taken... in due need of the war with the object of promoting the general victory of the Allies, for which we expected and received valued and important assistance.
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In other words,
Britain had needed the Zionists and their influence and had been prepared to pay the price they asked for it.

Where was it that Britain wanted the Zionists to use their influence? In
The American Zionist
of October 1953 a former President of the Zionist Organisation of America, Rabbi Emanuel Neumann, put it this way: “Britain, hard pressed in the struggle with Germany, was anxious to gain the whole- hearted support of the Jewish people; in Russia on the one hand and in America on the other. The non-Jewish world regarded the Jews as a power to reckon with and even exaggerated Jewish influence in unity. Britain’s need of Jewish support furnished Zionist diplomacy the element of strength and bargaining power which it required to back its moral appeal.”
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