Life can be very confusing and sooo complicated. We're lucky, then, we have Tone around to guide us through its complexities. I mean where would we be without such helpful shortcuts as these?
Climate science=crap
Australia before the White Man=nothing but bush
Australians=Israelis
The war in Syria=baddies vs baddies
What more do you need to know about those 4 issues after that?
Thankfully, Tone's come up with a newie: The Middle East=sand
"In the sands of the Middle East, Australian soldiers fought with skill and determination alongside British troops to capture Jerusalem and Damascus." (Worst of times brought out the best in Anzac troops, Tony Abbott, The Sydney Morning Herald, 22/4/15)
That being the case, the Australian War Memorial's website cannot be allowed to get away with the following any longer:
"Unlike their counterparts in France and Belgium, the Australians in the Middle East fought a mobile war in conditions completely different from the mud and stagnation of the Western Front. The light horsemen and their mounts had to survive extreme heat, harsh terrain, and water shortages." (awm.gov.au)
Hello, where's the bloody sand, AWM? You have until April 25 to fix it, OK? Better get moving!
As for Australian soldiers fighting [up-to-their-undies, or at least knee-deep, through the burning sands of Palestine ie, before Israel made the desert bloom!] alongside British troops to capture Jerusalem, the following from Roger Ford, author of Eden to Armageddon: World War I in the Middle East (2009) my heretofore trusty guide to boots on the ground in the burning sands of Palestine in World War I, is going to have to revisit this:
"In fact, in keeping with Falkenhayn's instructions, the Turkish defences around Jerusalem were withdrawn during the early hours of 9 December [1917]. The first the British knew of this was a report from two mess cooks of the 2/20th Londons, wandering in search of water, who stumbled into the southern suburbs and upon a party led by the Mayor of Jerusalem, looking for someone to whom he could surrender his city. They declined to accept, and returned to their lines. Next the mayoral party happened upon two sergeants of the 2/19th Londons, on outpost duty, but they likewise declined the honour. Next it came upon two officers from the 60th Division's artillery, who promised to telephone the news to their headquarters but respectfully refused to take a more active part in the proceedings... Finally the mayor made contact with the commander of the 303rd Brigade, RFA, himself out on a reconnaissance mission, and managed to convince him of his bona fides. Lt.-Col. Bayley sent back for additional personnel, and was eventually joined by Brig.-Gen. Watson, the 180th Brigade's commander. Some while later Shea arrived and formally took the surrender in Allenby's name. British troops were henceforth confined to the suburbs, outside the city walls, until the commander-in-chief had made his own entrance. He did so - on foot, with no pomp and little ceremony - on 11 December." (p 359)
Not happy, Roger! Where are our Aussie diggers? And how about a bit of bloody action, mate? I want this passage Toned up, NOW, OK?
As for Australian troops fighting [again through the burning sands]... alongside British troops to capture... Damascus, I refer you to my 13/12/11 post Daley of Damascus, upon the reading of which, I'm sure you'll agree, that that uppity dune-coon George Antonius needs a thorough whipping.
Showing posts with label George Antonius. Show all posts
Showing posts with label George Antonius. Show all posts
Friday, April 24, 2015
Sunday, June 10, 2012
The Trouble With Niall Ferguson
Anyone thinking about the world today couldn't help but conclude that much of the world's news is generated in and around the land of Palestine. And anyone with any knowledge of modern Palestinian history would know that the present state of Israel (1948-?) is but the latest phase of a colonial era through which Palestine is currently passing, an era which began with Britain's conquest of the former Ottoman Turkish territory in World War I and the British mandate (1923-48), imposed on Palestine's majority indigenous Arab population without so much as a by your leave. They would also know that Britain's mandate over Palestine incorporated, and acted as a Trojan Horse for, the infamous Balfour Declaration of 1917, in which the British had promised to 'facilitate' in Palestine the creation of 'a national home for the Jewish people'.
So when someone comes along and writes a book called Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World (2003), a book which, according to its cover, is not only an "international bestseller," but has been authored by "[t]he most brilliant British historian of his generation," (albeit a quotation from The Times), you might be inclined, as I was, to sit up and pay attention.
So down I sat and opened the volume, by Niall Ferguson (Professor of International History at Harvard University), to see what it had to say about the colonial clusterfuck (euphemistically known as the Middle East or Arab-Israeli conflict) which emerged from the aforementioned Balfour Declaration and British mandate, probably the British Empire's most enduring colonial running sore. Surely, so my thinking tended, no worthwhile history of the impact of the British Empire on today's world could afford to give that short shrift. And so I began at the beginning with the Balfour Declaration. The index sent me to p 357, and this is what I found:
"In Palestine too the British cut and ran, in 1949, bequeathing to the world the unresolved question of the new state of Israel's relations with the 'stateless' Palestinians and the neighbouring Arab states."
But that, folks, was it!
And even that solitary reference contains 2 significant errors: the British withdrew from Palestine in 1948, not 1949; and I can only assume that the placing of inverted commas around the word stateless indicates that, for Ferguson, the Palestinian people, or at least the majority of them, were not rendered stateless by their expulsion from the land in which they had lived as far back as the Bronze Age. How else Ferguson would describe their post-1948 predicament, if not in terms of statelessness, we can only guess.
There is, however, a footnote to the above:
"Both the Jewish state and Arab nationalism were in some measure creations of British policy during the First World War; but the terms of the 1917 Balfour Declaration had turned out to contain a hopeless contradiction: '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...'"
As you can see, the bulk of the footnote consists of the text of the Balfour Declaration. While that doesn't leave much of Ferguson, even that little is profoundly misleading. For one, the British did not in some measure create Jewish nationalism (aka political Zionism). Political Zionism preceded Lloyd George and Lord Balfour. And rather than create it, they were in fact played like a fiddle by its devotees. (For those interested, simply click on the Balfour Declaration label below and read the posts, in particular the The Balfour Deception series (1-7). That series should also give the lie to Ferguson's thoroughly naive suggestion (implied in the words "the terms of the 1917 Balfour Declaration had turned out to contain a hopeless contradiction") that the document was somehow drafted by sweet innocents harbouring only the best of intentions for all concerned.)
As for Arab nationalism, I need only quote the opening sentence/paragraph of George Antonius' 1938 classic The Arab Awakening: "The story of the Arab national movement opens in Syria in 1847, with the foundation in Beirut of a modest literary society under American patronage" - to expose the utter superficiality of Ferguson's assertion that it was, in part, a British creation.
Google 'Niall Ferguson' & 'Israel' and you'll find the following 'analysis' by Britain's "most brilliant historian":
"The single biggest danger in the Middle East today is not the risk of a six-day Israeli war against Iran. It is the risk that Western wishful nonthinking allows the mullahs of Tehran to get their hands on nuclear weapons. Because I am in no doubt that they would take full advantage of such a lethal lever. We would have acquiesced in the creation of an empire of extortion. War is an evil. But sometimes a preventive war can be a lesser evil than a policy of appeasement. The people who don't yet know that are the ones still in denial about what a nuclear-armed Iran would end up costing us all. It feels like the eve of some creative destruction." (Israel & Iran on the eve of destruction in a new Six-Day War, thedailybeast.com, 6/2/12)
Sorry, but after my little foray into Ferguson's Empire here, I'm far more concerned about the impact of his Empire (of distortion) on impressionable minds. Certainly, anyone who can characterise an Israeli wilding as creative destruction doesn't deserve to be trusted with history.
So when someone comes along and writes a book called Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World (2003), a book which, according to its cover, is not only an "international bestseller," but has been authored by "[t]he most brilliant British historian of his generation," (albeit a quotation from The Times), you might be inclined, as I was, to sit up and pay attention.
So down I sat and opened the volume, by Niall Ferguson (Professor of International History at Harvard University), to see what it had to say about the colonial clusterfuck (euphemistically known as the Middle East or Arab-Israeli conflict) which emerged from the aforementioned Balfour Declaration and British mandate, probably the British Empire's most enduring colonial running sore. Surely, so my thinking tended, no worthwhile history of the impact of the British Empire on today's world could afford to give that short shrift. And so I began at the beginning with the Balfour Declaration. The index sent me to p 357, and this is what I found:
"In Palestine too the British cut and ran, in 1949, bequeathing to the world the unresolved question of the new state of Israel's relations with the 'stateless' Palestinians and the neighbouring Arab states."
But that, folks, was it!
And even that solitary reference contains 2 significant errors: the British withdrew from Palestine in 1948, not 1949; and I can only assume that the placing of inverted commas around the word stateless indicates that, for Ferguson, the Palestinian people, or at least the majority of them, were not rendered stateless by their expulsion from the land in which they had lived as far back as the Bronze Age. How else Ferguson would describe their post-1948 predicament, if not in terms of statelessness, we can only guess.
There is, however, a footnote to the above:
"Both the Jewish state and Arab nationalism were in some measure creations of British policy during the First World War; but the terms of the 1917 Balfour Declaration had turned out to contain a hopeless contradiction: '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...'"
As you can see, the bulk of the footnote consists of the text of the Balfour Declaration. While that doesn't leave much of Ferguson, even that little is profoundly misleading. For one, the British did not in some measure create Jewish nationalism (aka political Zionism). Political Zionism preceded Lloyd George and Lord Balfour. And rather than create it, they were in fact played like a fiddle by its devotees. (For those interested, simply click on the Balfour Declaration label below and read the posts, in particular the The Balfour Deception series (1-7). That series should also give the lie to Ferguson's thoroughly naive suggestion (implied in the words "the terms of the 1917 Balfour Declaration had turned out to contain a hopeless contradiction") that the document was somehow drafted by sweet innocents harbouring only the best of intentions for all concerned.)
As for Arab nationalism, I need only quote the opening sentence/paragraph of George Antonius' 1938 classic The Arab Awakening: "The story of the Arab national movement opens in Syria in 1847, with the foundation in Beirut of a modest literary society under American patronage" - to expose the utter superficiality of Ferguson's assertion that it was, in part, a British creation.
Google 'Niall Ferguson' & 'Israel' and you'll find the following 'analysis' by Britain's "most brilliant historian":
"The single biggest danger in the Middle East today is not the risk of a six-day Israeli war against Iran. It is the risk that Western wishful nonthinking allows the mullahs of Tehran to get their hands on nuclear weapons. Because I am in no doubt that they would take full advantage of such a lethal lever. We would have acquiesced in the creation of an empire of extortion. War is an evil. But sometimes a preventive war can be a lesser evil than a policy of appeasement. The people who don't yet know that are the ones still in denial about what a nuclear-armed Iran would end up costing us all. It feels like the eve of some creative destruction." (Israel & Iran on the eve of destruction in a new Six-Day War, thedailybeast.com, 6/2/12)
Sorry, but after my little foray into Ferguson's Empire here, I'm far more concerned about the impact of his Empire (of distortion) on impressionable minds. Certainly, anyone who can characterise an Israeli wilding as creative destruction doesn't deserve to be trusted with history.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Daley of Damascus
Fairfax columnist Paul Daley is one of those corporate fence-sitting types who, while not going over to the Zionist dark side entirely, never fail to cut the Israelis lots of slack, as in:
"I've been to Israel many times. I like its people, Arab and Jewish. As someone who acknowledges Israel's right to exist, I also accept its right to defend its borders... I do not consider it contradictory that I also have reservations about Israel's conduct during the invasions of Gaza and Lebanon, and its occasional excesses in the West Bank. So, too, do many Israelis." (With friends like Israel..., Sydney Morning Herald, 27/2/10)
Reservations about... occasional excesses... To say Daley's shallow is to enter the realm of the bleeding obvious.
However, where the dirty deeds of a certain Arab regime are concerned, one BTW that has never colonised another people or exiled them or stolen their land or lashed out at its neighbours, Daley doesn't just have reservations, he hearts a NATO-style intervention by - wait for it - "the civilised world":
"When should the civilised world intervene and use military force to stem murder and human rights abuses? How many bodies do we need to count before we act? History, some of it much too recent for our moral comfort, has a way of repeatedly posing such questions to us - and then aswering them. Think Armenia. Think Nazi Germany. Think Rwanda and Bosnia. Now think Syria." (An uncomfortable lesson, The Sun-Herald, 11/12/11)
But that opener wasn't what struck me at first. It was in fact this:
"Two years ago when I was last in Syria, the seeds of democratic uprising were sprouting. There was an intense curiosity in the new president of the US, Barack Obama, and a sense that he could well be the one to bridge the chasm that had grown between the West and Arab countries - not least Syria - since the September 11, 2001, attacks on America." (ibid)
Let's quantify this intense curiosity in Obomber, shall we? A 2009 Gallup Poll revealed an increase in Obomber's approval rating among Syrians from 4% in 2008 to 15%. FIFTEEN PER CENT. And if this staggeringly small percentage of incorrigible Syrian optimists had been asked why they felt as they did, they'd have answered, simply: 'Well, he's not Bush'. So much for bridging chasms with the West.
And this:
"People spoke with resignation about Syria's continuing ties to Iran and its support for Hamas and Hezbollah. But they spoke of it lamentably, albeit with a faint flicker of hope that things might change if the Syrian leadership made good its promise to ease up its oppressive internal rule and look just a little to the West." (ibid)
This, of course, presupposes Daley wandering around Syria, quizzing the multitudes, in fluent Arabic, of course, on their thoughts about Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas. It then presupposes said multitudes lamenting thus: 'Oh, Paul, if only we could free ourselves of these terrible ties to Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas and rush, unfettered, into the warm and eager embrace of the country which provides Israel with the wherewithal to occupy part of our country'. Yeah right.
And this:
"As the so-called Arab Spring took hold, the people of Syria watched the force of change in Egypt, Libya and elsewhere. And they watched the West, through NATO, help to militarily push regime change in Libya, having done so by different military means in Iraq and Afghanistan." (ibid)
Oh yeah. Iraq - every Syrian's hope and inspiration! I guess if Daley (and his fluent Arabic) were doing the rounds in Syria today, he'd be 'reporting' the multitudes lamenting the complete absence of some of that good old 2003 Iraqi shock & awe, not to mention the 100,000+ bloodbath which followed.
Finally, from the author of Beersheba: A Journey Through Australia's Forgotten War (2009), comes this little concluding homily on history:
"Australian history with Syria runs deep. Our mounted troops were the first to Damascus when it was liberated from the Turks in late 1918. Too many Australian soldiers are buried there. That's history. And the problem with history is that we know its lessons too well but always allow them to repeat." (ibid)
Is it just me or do you get the suggestion of an impression here that without Australian troops Damascus would still be in Turkish hands today? Now the indigenes couldn't possibly have had a hand in rolling back the Turks, could they? Well, as it happens, yes they did:
"Meanwhile, British cavalry had forced their way across the Jordan to the south and north of the Sea of Galilee and were riding at a gallop, fighting their way stubbornly towards Damascus. The Arab regulars covered their right flank, dogging the steps of the [Turkish] Fourth Army; while the tribal hosts, always at their deadliest in a war of movement, charged wildly at the retreating Turks, galloping and fighting as they went, in a mad race towards the goal of the [Arab] Revolt. The first to arrive were the Sharif Naser and Nuri Sha'lan with their forces who, having ridden 70 miles in 24 hours, fighting part of the way, reached the outskirts of Damascus on the evening of the 30th of September; but, in deference to the wishes expressed by the commander-in-chief, they abstained from entering it that night and contented themselves with sending in a strong contingent to carry the tidings to the population and a message enjoining the setting up of an Arab government. This had already been done, and Naser's messengers, as they reached the main square, beheld the Arab flag flying. Four hundred years of Ottoman domination had passed into history. Early on the following day - the 1st of October - a detachment of British cavalry entered the town, closely followed by the Sharif Naser, Nuri Sha'lan and their retinues. Two days later, Allenby drove in from Jerusalem just as Faisal, attended by some 1,200 retainers, was making his entry on horseback at full gallop into the former capital of the Arab Empire." (The Arab Awakening: The Story of the Arab National Movement, George Antonius, 1938, pp 237-238)
Forgive me if I see a connection between Daley's imperial hyping of Australia's role in the liberation of Damascus in 1918 and his current interventionist fantasies centring on that mysterious entity he calls the "civilised world."
"I've been to Israel many times. I like its people, Arab and Jewish. As someone who acknowledges Israel's right to exist, I also accept its right to defend its borders... I do not consider it contradictory that I also have reservations about Israel's conduct during the invasions of Gaza and Lebanon, and its occasional excesses in the West Bank. So, too, do many Israelis." (With friends like Israel..., Sydney Morning Herald, 27/2/10)
Reservations about... occasional excesses... To say Daley's shallow is to enter the realm of the bleeding obvious.
However, where the dirty deeds of a certain Arab regime are concerned, one BTW that has never colonised another people or exiled them or stolen their land or lashed out at its neighbours, Daley doesn't just have reservations, he hearts a NATO-style intervention by - wait for it - "the civilised world":
"When should the civilised world intervene and use military force to stem murder and human rights abuses? How many bodies do we need to count before we act? History, some of it much too recent for our moral comfort, has a way of repeatedly posing such questions to us - and then aswering them. Think Armenia. Think Nazi Germany. Think Rwanda and Bosnia. Now think Syria." (An uncomfortable lesson, The Sun-Herald, 11/12/11)
But that opener wasn't what struck me at first. It was in fact this:
"Two years ago when I was last in Syria, the seeds of democratic uprising were sprouting. There was an intense curiosity in the new president of the US, Barack Obama, and a sense that he could well be the one to bridge the chasm that had grown between the West and Arab countries - not least Syria - since the September 11, 2001, attacks on America." (ibid)
Let's quantify this intense curiosity in Obomber, shall we? A 2009 Gallup Poll revealed an increase in Obomber's approval rating among Syrians from 4% in 2008 to 15%. FIFTEEN PER CENT. And if this staggeringly small percentage of incorrigible Syrian optimists had been asked why they felt as they did, they'd have answered, simply: 'Well, he's not Bush'. So much for bridging chasms with the West.
And this:
"People spoke with resignation about Syria's continuing ties to Iran and its support for Hamas and Hezbollah. But they spoke of it lamentably, albeit with a faint flicker of hope that things might change if the Syrian leadership made good its promise to ease up its oppressive internal rule and look just a little to the West." (ibid)
This, of course, presupposes Daley wandering around Syria, quizzing the multitudes, in fluent Arabic, of course, on their thoughts about Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas. It then presupposes said multitudes lamenting thus: 'Oh, Paul, if only we could free ourselves of these terrible ties to Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas and rush, unfettered, into the warm and eager embrace of the country which provides Israel with the wherewithal to occupy part of our country'. Yeah right.
And this:
"As the so-called Arab Spring took hold, the people of Syria watched the force of change in Egypt, Libya and elsewhere. And they watched the West, through NATO, help to militarily push regime change in Libya, having done so by different military means in Iraq and Afghanistan." (ibid)
Oh yeah. Iraq - every Syrian's hope and inspiration! I guess if Daley (and his fluent Arabic) were doing the rounds in Syria today, he'd be 'reporting' the multitudes lamenting the complete absence of some of that good old 2003 Iraqi shock & awe, not to mention the 100,000+ bloodbath which followed.
Finally, from the author of Beersheba: A Journey Through Australia's Forgotten War (2009), comes this little concluding homily on history:
"Australian history with Syria runs deep. Our mounted troops were the first to Damascus when it was liberated from the Turks in late 1918. Too many Australian soldiers are buried there. That's history. And the problem with history is that we know its lessons too well but always allow them to repeat." (ibid)
Is it just me or do you get the suggestion of an impression here that without Australian troops Damascus would still be in Turkish hands today? Now the indigenes couldn't possibly have had a hand in rolling back the Turks, could they? Well, as it happens, yes they did:
"Meanwhile, British cavalry had forced their way across the Jordan to the south and north of the Sea of Galilee and were riding at a gallop, fighting their way stubbornly towards Damascus. The Arab regulars covered their right flank, dogging the steps of the [Turkish] Fourth Army; while the tribal hosts, always at their deadliest in a war of movement, charged wildly at the retreating Turks, galloping and fighting as they went, in a mad race towards the goal of the [Arab] Revolt. The first to arrive were the Sharif Naser and Nuri Sha'lan with their forces who, having ridden 70 miles in 24 hours, fighting part of the way, reached the outskirts of Damascus on the evening of the 30th of September; but, in deference to the wishes expressed by the commander-in-chief, they abstained from entering it that night and contented themselves with sending in a strong contingent to carry the tidings to the population and a message enjoining the setting up of an Arab government. This had already been done, and Naser's messengers, as they reached the main square, beheld the Arab flag flying. Four hundred years of Ottoman domination had passed into history. Early on the following day - the 1st of October - a detachment of British cavalry entered the town, closely followed by the Sharif Naser, Nuri Sha'lan and their retinues. Two days later, Allenby drove in from Jerusalem just as Faisal, attended by some 1,200 retainers, was making his entry on horseback at full gallop into the former capital of the Arab Empire." (The Arab Awakening: The Story of the Arab National Movement, George Antonius, 1938, pp 237-238)
Forgive me if I see a connection between Daley's imperial hyping of Australia's role in the liberation of Damascus in 1918 and his current interventionist fantasies centring on that mysterious entity he calls the "civilised world."
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time...
To adapt the words of the late, immortal George Carlin, I don't just have pet peeves when it comes to politicians, I have major psychotic hatreds. One - just one - relates to Arthur James Balfour (1848-1930), the Lord Balfour of the infamous Balfour Declaration of 1917.
As David Hirst in his invaluable history of the Arab-Israeli conflict points out: "The Balfour Declaration was one of the two key documents that have shaped the modern history of the Middle East. The other was the Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916. This secret deal was part of an understanding in which the 3 major allies, Britain, France and Czarist Russia, defined each other's interests in the post-war Middle East. Sir Mark Sykes, Secretary to the British Cabinet, and the French plenipotentiary, M Georges Picot, agreed that, after the break-up of the Ottoman empire, Britain and France would divide its former Arab provinces between them... France was to take over Lebanon and Syria, Britain would get Iraq and Transjordan. Palestine was to be placed under an 'international administration' of a kind to be decided on later." (The Gun & the Olive Branch: The Roots of Violence in the Middle East, 1977, pp 37)
I'll be returning to Sykes later in this post, but, as Hirst relates, "The Balfour Declation grew out of Sykes-Picot, but, in retrospect, its importance far outweighs it. Indeed, it is difficult to recall a document which has so arbitrarily changed the course of history as this one. The Arab-Israeli struggle is the likeliest of contemporary world problems to precipitate the nuclear doomsday; if it does, surviving historians will surely record that it all began with with the brief and seemingly innocuous letter... which Arthur Balfour, the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, addressed to Lord Rothschild on 2 November 1917." (ibid pp 37-38)
You will, of course, be familiar with the second paragraph: "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 the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."
In retrospect a colonialist cock-up of the first order, you may, like myself, have wondered from time to time if, in retrospect, Balfour had ever had any regrets over the document that bore his name. Unfortunately, it would appear that he didn't: In 1925 he set sail to inaugurate the new Hebrew University in Palestine. Embarking first at the Egyptian port city of Alexandria, he made his way to Cairo. There he was spared a protest staged by Palestinian Arabs living in Egypt, when the Interior Minister, Isma'il Sidqi, had the protesters arrested - surely proof positive, in light of the reception given by the Mubarak regime to the recent Gaza Freedom March and Viva Palestina aid convoy, that some things never really change in the Land of the Pharoahs. (See Palestine & Modern Arab Poetry, Khalid A Sulaiman, 1984, p 51)
From Cairo, Balfour travelled on to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Balfour biographer R J Q Adams takes up the story: "There was much pausing at kibbutzim and townships where Jewish settlers wished to cheer the man they identified as their benefactor, and Balfour smilingly endured the unwonted part of popular hero. The highlight of the visit was the formal inauguration on 1 April of the new university, and, before an assembly of ten thousand gathered at the foot of Mount Scopus, Balfour did the honours garbed in the gown of the chancellor of Cambridge University. Like Weizmann, he found the long speeches trying - most were in Hebrew, a language of which he knew nothing - but he endured them, and the ceremony concluded to tumultuous applause. Fatigued by the extended ceremonies, he was pleased to spend a few days as the guest of Lord Samuel, since 1920 the high commissioner in Jerusalem. He revived quickly, and was soon enjoying tennis with his host on the clay courts of the residency. The British authorities and the Jewish defence force, the Haganah, provided security for the official party, but Balfour wished to continue on to view the historic sights of Syria, where the protection of the visitors became the responsibility of the French administration, already anxious over a recent insurrection. Their plans soon went awry as in Damascus a hostile Arab crowd - infuriated by the presence of the author of the hated 1917 Declaration - advanced on his hotel, only to be received by French cavalry who fired volleys of warning shots. General Sarrail, the military governor, was anxious to bundle the party out of his city, and Balfour and his friends were packed off to Beirut and kept on board ship for three days before their vessel was allowed to sail. Though Balfour brushed aside his adventure, insisting he had faced worse times in Ireland, later he would speak only of the Palestinian days of his adventure. Certainly it in no way shook his confidence in the rightness of the famous Declaration, and he steadfastly discounted any signs of religious and racial strife in Palestine, writing in 1927, 'Nothing has occurred during that period to suggest the least doubt as to the wisdom of this new departure'." (Balfour: The Last Grandee, 2007, pp 368-369)
Sir Mark Sykes (1879-1919), he of the Sykes-Picot Agreement, was apparently a different man entirely:
"Sir Mark Sykes had returned to Paris early in February [1919] from a tour of over two months in Palestine and Syria, and had brought disquieting news. What he had observed on that journey had opened his eyes to realities that had hitherto escaped him. He had been particularly affected by his own discovery of the gap between what he had previously understood Zionism to be and what he had just seen of Zionism in the making in Palestine and of its effects on the minds of the Arabs. '... From being the evangelist of Zionism during the War he had returned to Paris with feelings shocked by the intense bitterness which had been provoked in the Holy Land. Matters had reached a stage beyond his conception of what Zionism would be. His last journey to Palestine had raised many doubts, which were not set at rest by a visit to Rome. To Cardinal Gasquet he admitted the change of his views on Zionism, and that he was determined to qualify, guide and, if possible, save the dangerous situation which was rapidly arising'. Syke's views about the Sykes-Picot Agreement had undergone a similar revulsion: he had become convinced of its inadaptability to actual conditions and of the futility of trying to execute it. And, although he was feeling worn out with the exertions of his tour, he had hurried back to Paris bent upon doing all he could to correct false hopes and put a brake upon ambitions which now seemed to him insensate. But within a few days of his return he fell ill and died: and it is perhaps not an exaggeration to say that, for Jews, Arabs and British alike, to say nothing of the French, his death at that juncture was little short of a calamity. Without going so far as to suppose that one individual, however genuine, talented and forceful, could have infected the Versailles peacemakers with his own sense of justice, there is little doubt that, had he lived, his recital of facts and his forecast of consequences might have filled the minds of the politicians with those anxieties which are often, in politics, the beginning of wisdom. In those few days of activity before his fatal illness, Sykes had seen Lord George, Balfour and several of his French and Zionist friends, and had begun the campaign for a return to sanity upon which he had set his heart. What effect his warnings may have had at the time is not known. But when, a few weeks after Sykes' death, [Emir] Faisal's proposal for an inquiry [to visit Syria and Palestine and ascertain the wishes of the population*] on the spot began to be seriously considered, the prevalent sentiment in British, French and Zionist political circles was one of still greater discomfort. And Balfour went to the lengths of addressing a memorandum to his chief, in which he urged that Palestine be altogether excluded from the purpose of the inquiry, while Clemenceau kept insisting that France could not consent to its being held unless it were to cover Iraq and Palestine and well was Syria." (The Arab Awakening, George Antonius, 1938, pp 290-292)
[*This became the King-Crane Commission with regard to Syria-Palestine & Iraq, 28/8/1919. See my 18/6/08 post Avnery's Apology: A Critique]
To draw on Carlin again, it looks like the wrong man got pencilled in for a sudden visit from the Angel of Death.
As David Hirst in his invaluable history of the Arab-Israeli conflict points out: "The Balfour Declaration was one of the two key documents that have shaped the modern history of the Middle East. The other was the Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916. This secret deal was part of an understanding in which the 3 major allies, Britain, France and Czarist Russia, defined each other's interests in the post-war Middle East. Sir Mark Sykes, Secretary to the British Cabinet, and the French plenipotentiary, M Georges Picot, agreed that, after the break-up of the Ottoman empire, Britain and France would divide its former Arab provinces between them... France was to take over Lebanon and Syria, Britain would get Iraq and Transjordan. Palestine was to be placed under an 'international administration' of a kind to be decided on later." (The Gun & the Olive Branch: The Roots of Violence in the Middle East, 1977, pp 37)
I'll be returning to Sykes later in this post, but, as Hirst relates, "The Balfour Declation grew out of Sykes-Picot, but, in retrospect, its importance far outweighs it. Indeed, it is difficult to recall a document which has so arbitrarily changed the course of history as this one. The Arab-Israeli struggle is the likeliest of contemporary world problems to precipitate the nuclear doomsday; if it does, surviving historians will surely record that it all began with with the brief and seemingly innocuous letter... which Arthur Balfour, the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, addressed to Lord Rothschild on 2 November 1917." (ibid pp 37-38)
You will, of course, be familiar with the second paragraph: "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 the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."
In retrospect a colonialist cock-up of the first order, you may, like myself, have wondered from time to time if, in retrospect, Balfour had ever had any regrets over the document that bore his name. Unfortunately, it would appear that he didn't: In 1925 he set sail to inaugurate the new Hebrew University in Palestine. Embarking first at the Egyptian port city of Alexandria, he made his way to Cairo. There he was spared a protest staged by Palestinian Arabs living in Egypt, when the Interior Minister, Isma'il Sidqi, had the protesters arrested - surely proof positive, in light of the reception given by the Mubarak regime to the recent Gaza Freedom March and Viva Palestina aid convoy, that some things never really change in the Land of the Pharoahs. (See Palestine & Modern Arab Poetry, Khalid A Sulaiman, 1984, p 51)
From Cairo, Balfour travelled on to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Balfour biographer R J Q Adams takes up the story: "There was much pausing at kibbutzim and townships where Jewish settlers wished to cheer the man they identified as their benefactor, and Balfour smilingly endured the unwonted part of popular hero. The highlight of the visit was the formal inauguration on 1 April of the new university, and, before an assembly of ten thousand gathered at the foot of Mount Scopus, Balfour did the honours garbed in the gown of the chancellor of Cambridge University. Like Weizmann, he found the long speeches trying - most were in Hebrew, a language of which he knew nothing - but he endured them, and the ceremony concluded to tumultuous applause. Fatigued by the extended ceremonies, he was pleased to spend a few days as the guest of Lord Samuel, since 1920 the high commissioner in Jerusalem. He revived quickly, and was soon enjoying tennis with his host on the clay courts of the residency. The British authorities and the Jewish defence force, the Haganah, provided security for the official party, but Balfour wished to continue on to view the historic sights of Syria, where the protection of the visitors became the responsibility of the French administration, already anxious over a recent insurrection. Their plans soon went awry as in Damascus a hostile Arab crowd - infuriated by the presence of the author of the hated 1917 Declaration - advanced on his hotel, only to be received by French cavalry who fired volleys of warning shots. General Sarrail, the military governor, was anxious to bundle the party out of his city, and Balfour and his friends were packed off to Beirut and kept on board ship for three days before their vessel was allowed to sail. Though Balfour brushed aside his adventure, insisting he had faced worse times in Ireland, later he would speak only of the Palestinian days of his adventure. Certainly it in no way shook his confidence in the rightness of the famous Declaration, and he steadfastly discounted any signs of religious and racial strife in Palestine, writing in 1927, 'Nothing has occurred during that period to suggest the least doubt as to the wisdom of this new departure'." (Balfour: The Last Grandee, 2007, pp 368-369)
Sir Mark Sykes (1879-1919), he of the Sykes-Picot Agreement, was apparently a different man entirely:
"Sir Mark Sykes had returned to Paris early in February [1919] from a tour of over two months in Palestine and Syria, and had brought disquieting news. What he had observed on that journey had opened his eyes to realities that had hitherto escaped him. He had been particularly affected by his own discovery of the gap between what he had previously understood Zionism to be and what he had just seen of Zionism in the making in Palestine and of its effects on the minds of the Arabs. '... From being the evangelist of Zionism during the War he had returned to Paris with feelings shocked by the intense bitterness which had been provoked in the Holy Land. Matters had reached a stage beyond his conception of what Zionism would be. His last journey to Palestine had raised many doubts, which were not set at rest by a visit to Rome. To Cardinal Gasquet he admitted the change of his views on Zionism, and that he was determined to qualify, guide and, if possible, save the dangerous situation which was rapidly arising'. Syke's views about the Sykes-Picot Agreement had undergone a similar revulsion: he had become convinced of its inadaptability to actual conditions and of the futility of trying to execute it. And, although he was feeling worn out with the exertions of his tour, he had hurried back to Paris bent upon doing all he could to correct false hopes and put a brake upon ambitions which now seemed to him insensate. But within a few days of his return he fell ill and died: and it is perhaps not an exaggeration to say that, for Jews, Arabs and British alike, to say nothing of the French, his death at that juncture was little short of a calamity. Without going so far as to suppose that one individual, however genuine, talented and forceful, could have infected the Versailles peacemakers with his own sense of justice, there is little doubt that, had he lived, his recital of facts and his forecast of consequences might have filled the minds of the politicians with those anxieties which are often, in politics, the beginning of wisdom. In those few days of activity before his fatal illness, Sykes had seen Lord George, Balfour and several of his French and Zionist friends, and had begun the campaign for a return to sanity upon which he had set his heart. What effect his warnings may have had at the time is not known. But when, a few weeks after Sykes' death, [Emir] Faisal's proposal for an inquiry [to visit Syria and Palestine and ascertain the wishes of the population*] on the spot began to be seriously considered, the prevalent sentiment in British, French and Zionist political circles was one of still greater discomfort. And Balfour went to the lengths of addressing a memorandum to his chief, in which he urged that Palestine be altogether excluded from the purpose of the inquiry, while Clemenceau kept insisting that France could not consent to its being held unless it were to cover Iraq and Palestine and well was Syria." (The Arab Awakening, George Antonius, 1938, pp 290-292)
[*This became the King-Crane Commission with regard to Syria-Palestine & Iraq, 28/8/1919. See my 18/6/08 post Avnery's Apology: A Critique]
To draw on Carlin again, it looks like the wrong man got pencilled in for a sudden visit from the Angel of Death.
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