Emma Meconi is a relatively recent addition to The Australian's stable of opinion writers.
Billing herself as a Greens voter, her latest piece begins thus:
"As a Greens supporter I am generally opposed to war and strongly objected to the military engagement in Iraq that began a decade ago. But this time the circumstances have changed and the threat to human life has escalated. Careful consideration is required of the new facts and an appropriate response must be implemented quickly. I believe Tony Abbott has made the right call to support military intervention in Iraq." (Islamic State's evil onslaught demands a military response, 20/9/14)
Surprise, surprise, Meconi even goes on to argue for "a new military engagement" in Syria.
She concludes her piece as follows:
"War will be effectively a restoration process, cleaning away the rot and enabling a thorough rebuilding process to take place in affected areas." (ibid)
A Greens supporter? Right...
It was the following sentence though that really caught my attention:
"The Islamic State... seeks to establish a giant caliphate in the Middle East and recruit believers globally to make their delusions a reality." (ibid)
It got me thinking about the Middle East's original sectarian entity, the Jewish State, the Zionist movement which spawned it, and the Zionist leadership's delusions of grandeur, evidenced in their post-World War 1 bid for a far larger Jewish caliphate than the one we find ourselves with today.
The following reference to the giant caliphate of Zionist dreaming and scheming circa 1919 comes from one of the best current histories of the Palestine problem, Adel Safty's Might Over Right: How the Zionists Took Over Palestine (2009):
"Chaim Weizmann summed up both the Zionist demands and the strategy at the [Paris] Peace Conference in the following way: the Zionists' demands were that 'the whole administration of Palestine shall be so formed as to make of Palestine a Jewish Commonwealth under British trusteeship, and that the Jews shall so participate in the administration as to secure this object'. Furthermore, 'The Jewish population is to be allowed the widest practicable measure of self-government and to have extensive powers of expropriating the owners of the soil.' The Zionist delegation proposed boundaries for the Jewish Commonwealth, which included parts of Lebanon, Syria, the whole of Transjordan and most of the Egyptian Sinai.
"The Zionists wanted considerably more territories than British Prime Minister Lloyd George's biblical formula 'from Dan to Beersheba' suggested. It had been on the basis of Lloyd George's biblical notion about Palestine that boundaries were proposed for the Jewish National Home. Foreign Office aides used Sir George Adam Smith's atlas of Palestine in the time of David and Solomon circa 1,000 BC as the basis for, as a British historian put it, 'the geographical, the physical, and the political obliteration of the Arabs who now inhabited that area nearly three thousand years later. There was a very awkward moment during this surely utterly fantastic scene in Paris, when [French leader] Clemenceau asked Lloyd George to show him where Dan was on the map - and Lloyd George was unable to'." (41-2)
Showing posts with label Lloyd George. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lloyd George. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Palestine on a Platter
No field of study in Israel, it seems, is free of Zionist indoctrination, not even science. The following, copied from an Israeli textbook on microbiology, first appeared on the Angry Arab News Service blog for 7/11/12:
"In 1999, scientists completed sequencing the genome of Clostridium ecetobutylicum, a nonpathogenic bacterial species. Because some other species of Clostridium are major pathogens (one produces the food toxin that causes botulism, and another is responsible for tetanus), the scientists hope their sequencing work will yield insights into what enables some species to become pathogens while others remain harmless. However, C. acetobutylicum's ability to convert starch into the organic solvents acetone and butanol is what has a prominent place in history. In 1900, an outstanding chemist named Chaim Weizmann, a Russian-born Jew, completed his doctorate at the University of Geneva in Switzerland. He also was an active Zionist and advocated the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. In 1904, Weizmann moved to Manchester, England, where he became a research fellow and senior lecturer at Manchester University. During this time, he was elected to the General Zionist Council. Weizmann began working in the laboratory of Professor William Perkin, where he attempted to use microbial fermentation to produce industrially useful substances. He discovered that C. acetobutylicum converted starch to a mixture of ethanol, acetone, and butanol, the latter an important ingredient in rubber manufacture. The fermentation process seemed to have no other commercial value - until World War I broke out in 1914. At that time, the favoured propellant for rifle bullets and artillery projectiles was a material called cordite. To produce it, a mixture of cellulose nitrate and nitroglycerine was combined into a paste using acetone and petroleum jelly. Before 1914, acetone was obtained through the destructive distillation of wood. However, the supply was inadequate for wartime needs, and by 1915 there was a serious shell shortage, mainly due to the lack of acetone for making cordite. After his enquiries to serve the British government were not returned, a friend of Weizmann's went to Lloyd George, who headed the Ministry of Munitions. Lloyd George was told about Weizmann's work and how he could synthesize acetone in a new way. The conversation resulted in a London meeting between Weizmann, Lloyd George and Winston Churchill. After explaining the capabilities of C. acetobutylicum, Weizmann became director of the British admiralty laboratories where he instituted the full-scale production of acetone from corn. Additional distilleries soon were added in Canada and India. The shell shortage ended. After the war ended, now British Prime Minister Lloyd George wished to honor Weizmann for his contributions to the war effort. Weizmann declined any honors but asked for support of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Discussions with Foreign Minister Earl Balfour led to the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which committed Britain to help establish the Jewish homeland. Weizmann went on to make significant contributions to science - he suggested that other organisms be examined for their ability to produce industrial products and is considered the father of industrial fermentation. Weizmann also laid the foundations for what would become the Weizmann institute of Science, one of Israel's leading scientific research centers. His political career also moved upward - he was elected the first President of Israel in 1949. Chaim Weizmann died in 1952."
Leaving aside the obvious errors of fact in the above text - not least the one about Weizmann receiving his 'honor' after the war - and its various false and misleading impressions - the main one being that Weizmann's contribution to the British war effort was the sole reason for the government of Lloyd George issuing the Balfour Declaration - and focusing just on its propaganda impact on young Israelis, one is left wondering whether Israel's budding scientists ever really see through this blatant attempt at indoctrination to the dubious morality of the text's underlying proposition: namely, that it is somehow OK for one party to reward another by giving him something which clearly belongs to a third.
In that most unlikely event (thinking being akin to hard labour for even the more intellectually astute among us) their thoughts might well tend in the same direction as those of the great JMN Jeffries:
"[T]he price paid is preposterous beyond belief. Reading Mr. Lloyd George's text [a reminiscence in which Lloyd George, in explanation of his motives, makes more of Weizmann's acetone than of the government's desire to secure the support of influential US Jews in an effort to persuade the US to enter the war] you would imagine that there had been some scaling-down of payment, but what happened was just the contrary. Mr Lloyd George with some artfulness screens with Dr Weizmann's refusal of any honours for himself (to which I render entire homage) his suggestion of colossal honours, if they can be called honours, for a body to which he was attached. Far from scaling down the price paid for the acetone, the Prime Minister by accepting this suggestion consented to give for it a reward beyond all price. A Grand Cross of the Bath or an order of Merit given to Dr Weizmann, however valuable to the recipient, would have cost the State nothing. But, even supposing that Dr Weizmann had 'absolutely saved the British Army,' to confer upon him and upon his in return proprietary rights in a country which was in possession of another race and was secured by treaty to that race, was this reward applicable to the occasion? If land was the only possible recompense, there were the Isle of Wight and the Isle of Man, and other British places in Britain's free gift, ready to be handed over.
"No British commander obtained more than an earldom from the Great War. No commander of any of the belligerent powers on land or on sea, from Foch and Jellicoe downwards, some of whom at least must have saved armies or navies sometime, by the very order of things, no commander of them all received more than title, or decorations, or grant of money. Yet for Dr Weizmann history is turned inside out, geography is suppressed, a people is disenfranchised and an empire is forsworn. All in return for a formula for making propellant-paste, which was valuable for a while and after a while was superseded.
"The thing is outrageous. The whole sum of war-profiteering is a mite in comparison with this. Even if the Palestine prize were not given for acetone, but for the enlistment of Jewish support in the United States and other countries (Mr Lloyd George's alternative essential motive) what then? It would still be outrageous, it would still be the most gigantic and most intolerable 'deal' of the War." (Palestine: The Reality, 1939, pp 195-196)
"In 1999, scientists completed sequencing the genome of Clostridium ecetobutylicum, a nonpathogenic bacterial species. Because some other species of Clostridium are major pathogens (one produces the food toxin that causes botulism, and another is responsible for tetanus), the scientists hope their sequencing work will yield insights into what enables some species to become pathogens while others remain harmless. However, C. acetobutylicum's ability to convert starch into the organic solvents acetone and butanol is what has a prominent place in history. In 1900, an outstanding chemist named Chaim Weizmann, a Russian-born Jew, completed his doctorate at the University of Geneva in Switzerland. He also was an active Zionist and advocated the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. In 1904, Weizmann moved to Manchester, England, where he became a research fellow and senior lecturer at Manchester University. During this time, he was elected to the General Zionist Council. Weizmann began working in the laboratory of Professor William Perkin, where he attempted to use microbial fermentation to produce industrially useful substances. He discovered that C. acetobutylicum converted starch to a mixture of ethanol, acetone, and butanol, the latter an important ingredient in rubber manufacture. The fermentation process seemed to have no other commercial value - until World War I broke out in 1914. At that time, the favoured propellant for rifle bullets and artillery projectiles was a material called cordite. To produce it, a mixture of cellulose nitrate and nitroglycerine was combined into a paste using acetone and petroleum jelly. Before 1914, acetone was obtained through the destructive distillation of wood. However, the supply was inadequate for wartime needs, and by 1915 there was a serious shell shortage, mainly due to the lack of acetone for making cordite. After his enquiries to serve the British government were not returned, a friend of Weizmann's went to Lloyd George, who headed the Ministry of Munitions. Lloyd George was told about Weizmann's work and how he could synthesize acetone in a new way. The conversation resulted in a London meeting between Weizmann, Lloyd George and Winston Churchill. After explaining the capabilities of C. acetobutylicum, Weizmann became director of the British admiralty laboratories where he instituted the full-scale production of acetone from corn. Additional distilleries soon were added in Canada and India. The shell shortage ended. After the war ended, now British Prime Minister Lloyd George wished to honor Weizmann for his contributions to the war effort. Weizmann declined any honors but asked for support of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Discussions with Foreign Minister Earl Balfour led to the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which committed Britain to help establish the Jewish homeland. Weizmann went on to make significant contributions to science - he suggested that other organisms be examined for their ability to produce industrial products and is considered the father of industrial fermentation. Weizmann also laid the foundations for what would become the Weizmann institute of Science, one of Israel's leading scientific research centers. His political career also moved upward - he was elected the first President of Israel in 1949. Chaim Weizmann died in 1952."
Leaving aside the obvious errors of fact in the above text - not least the one about Weizmann receiving his 'honor' after the war - and its various false and misleading impressions - the main one being that Weizmann's contribution to the British war effort was the sole reason for the government of Lloyd George issuing the Balfour Declaration - and focusing just on its propaganda impact on young Israelis, one is left wondering whether Israel's budding scientists ever really see through this blatant attempt at indoctrination to the dubious morality of the text's underlying proposition: namely, that it is somehow OK for one party to reward another by giving him something which clearly belongs to a third.
In that most unlikely event (thinking being akin to hard labour for even the more intellectually astute among us) their thoughts might well tend in the same direction as those of the great JMN Jeffries:
"[T]he price paid is preposterous beyond belief. Reading Mr. Lloyd George's text [a reminiscence in which Lloyd George, in explanation of his motives, makes more of Weizmann's acetone than of the government's desire to secure the support of influential US Jews in an effort to persuade the US to enter the war] you would imagine that there had been some scaling-down of payment, but what happened was just the contrary. Mr Lloyd George with some artfulness screens with Dr Weizmann's refusal of any honours for himself (to which I render entire homage) his suggestion of colossal honours, if they can be called honours, for a body to which he was attached. Far from scaling down the price paid for the acetone, the Prime Minister by accepting this suggestion consented to give for it a reward beyond all price. A Grand Cross of the Bath or an order of Merit given to Dr Weizmann, however valuable to the recipient, would have cost the State nothing. But, even supposing that Dr Weizmann had 'absolutely saved the British Army,' to confer upon him and upon his in return proprietary rights in a country which was in possession of another race and was secured by treaty to that race, was this reward applicable to the occasion? If land was the only possible recompense, there were the Isle of Wight and the Isle of Man, and other British places in Britain's free gift, ready to be handed over.
"No British commander obtained more than an earldom from the Great War. No commander of any of the belligerent powers on land or on sea, from Foch and Jellicoe downwards, some of whom at least must have saved armies or navies sometime, by the very order of things, no commander of them all received more than title, or decorations, or grant of money. Yet for Dr Weizmann history is turned inside out, geography is suppressed, a people is disenfranchised and an empire is forsworn. All in return for a formula for making propellant-paste, which was valuable for a while and after a while was superseded.
"The thing is outrageous. The whole sum of war-profiteering is a mite in comparison with this. Even if the Palestine prize were not given for acetone, but for the enlistment of Jewish support in the United States and other countries (Mr Lloyd George's alternative essential motive) what then? It would still be outrageous, it would still be the most gigantic and most intolerable 'deal' of the War." (Palestine: The Reality, 1939, pp 195-196)
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Secret White Mens Business at San Remo
I notice that one of the arms of the Zionist lobby, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), has formally complained to the SBS Ombudsman about the station's screening of The Promise, Peter Kosminsky's stunning dramatisation of the unfolding of the Palestinian nakba (catastrophe) in the late 1940s, intercut with the Palestine of 2005. One monster moan, it may be viewed in its entirety at the Australians for Palestine website.
Relying on the patently absurd pretence that the colonial Zionist project in Palestine of 'out with the indigenous Arabs & in with Jews from wherever they can be scrounged' - with the lavish assistance of first the British and now the Americans - is really little more than just a "conflict of narratives," the document wails that "The Jewish [not Zionist you'll note] narrative is either falsified or simply not told."
An example of this, we are informed, is that "no mention is made of... the fact that the international community, as early as 1920, recognised the legitimacy of the Jewish people's [Zionist movement's] aspirations to reconstitute their national home in Israel [Palestine] and obligated Britain, as the Mandatory power, to 'facilitate Jewish immigration... and close settlement by Jews on the land...'"
'Wow!' the SBS Ombudsman is expected to exclaim, '"the international community," even as far back as 1920, was clamouring for a Jewish state in Palestine!'
And to ponder thus: 'That settles it then. If it was good enough for "the international community" in 1920, then it's good enough for me now. Who could possibly go up against "the international community"? If they, in their infinite collective wisdom, said in 1920 that the Zionists could have Palestine, who am I, or the people who actually lived there at the time for that matter, to get sniffy?'
Well, hopefully the SBS Ombudsman wasn't born yesterday and will ask herself just who was this exalted "international community" of 1920?
Footnote 8 informs us that:
"In April, 1920, following the end of World War I, a Council of the victorious Allied and Associated Powers met at San Remo and granted Britain a mandate to govern Palestine, the terms of which were ratified by the League of Nations in July 1922 and included an obligation that Britain 'should be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 2nd, 1917, by the Government of His Brittanic Majesty, and adopted by the said Powers, in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people."
So, it transpires that, according to the fine print, this august entity, "the international community," turns out to be merely "the victorious Allied and Associated Powers" (AAP).
But who am I, or the 90% of the Palestinian Arab population at the time who were distinctly leery at the prospect of having their newly liberated turf handed over to some mob from Europe, to question the AAP's authority to confer legitimacy on whomever it chose? I mean, weren't the AAP the very fount of wisdom and probity in the post-war world of 1920? Were not they, of all people, in a position to somehow channel the will of the world when it came to disposing of the former Turkish province of Palestine?
Well, before we go along with the ECAJ's little sleight of hand here, maybe we need to learn a little more (if this isn't getting a tad too contradictory) about the secret white men's business transacted at San Remo. And who better to guide us than our good friend, JMN Jeffries, whose eye is nothing if not forensic:
"The next day, the 25th, was a Sunday. Two communiques were issued that same evening... The first said: 'The Supreme Council met at 11 am today at the Villa Devachan. There were present Signori Nitti and Scialoja, MM. Millerand and Berthelot, Mr Lloyd George, Lord Curzon, M. Matsui and Mt Underwood Johnson. [Mr Johnson was the United States 'observer'. He did not take an active part in, nor have any responsibility for, the proceedings.] The question of the Mandate for Palestine, Syria and Mesopotamia was discussed, and the question of the new Armenian State was settled. The Council finally discussed the resumption of commercial relations with Russia...' The second communique... dealt with the afternoon session, and held no reference to the Near Eastern countries, as the Adriatic question and Germany's attitude to the Treaty of Versailles were the subjects of debate.
"So that the sole official information given to the world upon what had happened at the morning session of the 25th, as far as the Near Eastern countries were concerned, was that 'the question of the Mandates for Palestine, Syria and Mesopotamia were discussed'. Discussed, indeed! During that session, which lasted for 3 hours, the 'examination of the Palestine question' which had begun upon the Saturday had been concluded, and Britain had been granted, or awarded, or indemnified with the nomination as Mandatory. And at this session, the Balfour Declaration had been inserted into the draft-Mandate which was being prepared as part of the coming Treaty [with Turkey].
"In fine, Sunday the 25th was the fateful day, the day of days, and that particular session was of pre-eminent interest, was a moment when the destinies of the most sacred land on earth were determined for, at the very least, a long period. A type of government, too, never before essayed in human society was inaugurated, or was introduced after some fashion, and the countries which were to govern thus unprecedentedly were named.
"Yet no faintest suggestion of what had been done was vouchsafed by the Conference chiefs in their official report of their transactions. They said that the question of the Mandate for Palestine (and for the other Arab lands) had been discussed, as though there had been some talk about it, and then they had gone on to other matters. More than this they never disclosed. The nearest they reached to any sort of explanation of their business was the last sentence of the previous day's communique, stiff wth constraint and wariness.
"It is true that official communiques are noted for their reticence. It is also true that international Conferences are fatiguing affairs, and that at the end of a long day tired men may cut their labour by giving the shortest possible account of what has happened. But reticence, not saying much about the event of the day, is one thing, and concealing it altogether when it is a final decision is another. The crucial meeting in this case was held in the morning, and there was ample time to announce what had taken place during it. The news could have been given in less than 20 words, in as many words as were employed to obscure it.
"That 25th of April something of great moment had been accomplished, though the absolute character of the act remained undefined. It was, therefore, the duty of the Allied plenipotentiaries to make clear in an official statement what (in the current phrase) 'they thought they were doing'. That they made no such explanation shows how ill at ease they were about the character of the day's work.
"Babies born that April morning have become young men and women, and yet we are about as ignorant as they were in their mothers' arms of what occurred at the Villa Devachan. This only we know, that the Balfour Declaration was slipped into the Mandate, and that it was Signori Nitti and Scialoja, M. Matsui, Lord Curzon, Messrs. Berthelot, Millerand and Lloyd George between them who somehow nominated as Mandatories the countries represented by MM. Berthelot and Millerand and by Lord Curzon and Mr Lloyd George. It was a very intimate occasion, so intimate that 4 of those present suffered from ingrowing functions, nominating and being nominated at one and the same time. The sole clue to what a spectator might have witnessed of their proceedings from start to finish is to be found in the statement of a correspondent that 'One cheerful feature about the Conference so far is the progress made in settling the Turkish Treaty. Discussions have run on the most cordial lines'. Indeed they had done so.
"This is the most living account of what happened which we possess. The League of Nations' own account of the birth of Mandates is highly significant because, in an Irish way, there is no account. 'There is no record of the conversation by which Great Britain was selected as Mandatory for Palestine', confesses the League's official handbook.
"Under such circumstances, it is impossible to prevent imagination from playing with the scene at the Villa Devachan. One pictures the bustling but superfluous helpfulness of the other delegates as Mr Lloyd George efficiently levered the Balfour Declaration into the draft-Mandate. But the assumption of the draft-Mandate itself is not so easy to picture.
"Did Signori Nitti, Scialoja, Millerand and Berthelot segregate themselves and then propose Great Britain as Mandatory for Palestine? Did Mr Lloyd George simper and blush acceptance, or look sternly before him and say duty was duty? Did the French delegates then go to the chairs at the foot of the table? Did the British delegates take the vacated seats at its head, along with the Italians and the Japanese, meditate their choice with them for a pensive second, and then in chorus with them offer 'Syria' to France? Whereon did the French delegates, with national immunity from humbug, nod and thank the British for carrying out the arrangement of the previous September?
"Maybe it happened after this fashion: more probably it did not. Procedure demanded that all the Principal Allied Powers should nominate the Mandatory, so Mr Lloyd George and poor Lord Curzon, completely out of his element, one imagines, will, in some way that we cannot guess and upon which unhappily silence has been maintained, have taken part in nominating themselves.
I interrupt Jeffries' narrative flow at this point to remind you of ECAJ's characterisation of the San Remo cabal as "the international community." Well - surprise, surprise - where Zionist propaganda is concerned there is indeed 'nothing new under the sun':
"The official silence concerning the details of this odd performance has not prevented a hundred writers and orators in the service of the Zionist thesis from projecting ever since, through the best part of 2 decades, moving pictures of the moral glory which descended on the Villa Devachan that day. Mr Lloyd George has been presented, as upon the screen, in the role of the world's knight, bending a knee to receive Britain's obligations in Palestine. Like an accolade they were laid upon his shoulders by the incarnate kingly conscience of mankind.
"Whatever happened then, this did not. At San Remo the nomination of Mandatories, after the manner of the dubbing of knights, was not practicable, or rather was not picturable. Britain and France had long fixed their respective Mandatory spheres between them, and the story of their being 'chosen' now for these positions is only elaborate and disingenuous pretence. Mr Lansing, the American Secretary of State till that February, who knew all that was afoot, passed on these League and Mandate manoeuvres a judgment so apt that it must be quoted here. 'If the advocates of the [mandate] system', said he, 'intended to avoid through its operation the appearance of taking enemy territory as the spoils of war, it was a subterfuge which deceived no one. It seemed obvious from the very first that the Powers, which under the old practice would have obtained sovereignty over certain conquered territories, would not be denied mandates over these territories'.
"Pure clap-trap also is the story of the resigned acceptance by the Mandatories of their nominations, which in fact they 'accepted' with the resignation of stockbrokers accepting profits. Mr Lloyd George... already had blurted out in one of his unguarded moments that 'France would be compensated for the oil-wells of Irak by the Mandate for Syria'. As for what are called 'obligations', it would have been a rash statesman who would have dared to refuse a full load of them to Mr Lloyd George himself. That was the real situation. The chivalrous parties concerned were each responsible for his own knighthood, and even such a political gymnast as the same Lloyd George could hardly have laid his obligations upon his own shoulder and have bade himself to rise without throwing his frame and his features into contortions too unmannerly ever to be displayed to the public. Why, the secret of the scene could not even be risked by one word about it in a turgid little communique!" (Palestine: The Reality, 1939, pp 344-347)
Memo to the SBS Ombudsman: should an impeccably presented, high-falutin' document from any of the following outfits - ECAJ, the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, the Zionist Council of Australia, or the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) - darken your doorstep, for God's sake, read the fine print.
Relying on the patently absurd pretence that the colonial Zionist project in Palestine of 'out with the indigenous Arabs & in with Jews from wherever they can be scrounged' - with the lavish assistance of first the British and now the Americans - is really little more than just a "conflict of narratives," the document wails that "The Jewish [not Zionist you'll note] narrative is either falsified or simply not told."
An example of this, we are informed, is that "no mention is made of... the fact that the international community, as early as 1920, recognised the legitimacy of the Jewish people's [Zionist movement's] aspirations to reconstitute their national home in Israel [Palestine] and obligated Britain, as the Mandatory power, to 'facilitate Jewish immigration... and close settlement by Jews on the land...'"
'Wow!' the SBS Ombudsman is expected to exclaim, '"the international community," even as far back as 1920, was clamouring for a Jewish state in Palestine!'
And to ponder thus: 'That settles it then. If it was good enough for "the international community" in 1920, then it's good enough for me now. Who could possibly go up against "the international community"? If they, in their infinite collective wisdom, said in 1920 that the Zionists could have Palestine, who am I, or the people who actually lived there at the time for that matter, to get sniffy?'
Well, hopefully the SBS Ombudsman wasn't born yesterday and will ask herself just who was this exalted "international community" of 1920?
Footnote 8 informs us that:
"In April, 1920, following the end of World War I, a Council of the victorious Allied and Associated Powers met at San Remo and granted Britain a mandate to govern Palestine, the terms of which were ratified by the League of Nations in July 1922 and included an obligation that Britain 'should be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 2nd, 1917, by the Government of His Brittanic Majesty, and adopted by the said Powers, in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people."
So, it transpires that, according to the fine print, this august entity, "the international community," turns out to be merely "the victorious Allied and Associated Powers" (AAP).
But who am I, or the 90% of the Palestinian Arab population at the time who were distinctly leery at the prospect of having their newly liberated turf handed over to some mob from Europe, to question the AAP's authority to confer legitimacy on whomever it chose? I mean, weren't the AAP the very fount of wisdom and probity in the post-war world of 1920? Were not they, of all people, in a position to somehow channel the will of the world when it came to disposing of the former Turkish province of Palestine?
Well, before we go along with the ECAJ's little sleight of hand here, maybe we need to learn a little more (if this isn't getting a tad too contradictory) about the secret white men's business transacted at San Remo. And who better to guide us than our good friend, JMN Jeffries, whose eye is nothing if not forensic:
"The next day, the 25th, was a Sunday. Two communiques were issued that same evening... The first said: 'The Supreme Council met at 11 am today at the Villa Devachan. There were present Signori Nitti and Scialoja, MM. Millerand and Berthelot, Mr Lloyd George, Lord Curzon, M. Matsui and Mt Underwood Johnson. [Mr Johnson was the United States 'observer'. He did not take an active part in, nor have any responsibility for, the proceedings.] The question of the Mandate for Palestine, Syria and Mesopotamia was discussed, and the question of the new Armenian State was settled. The Council finally discussed the resumption of commercial relations with Russia...' The second communique... dealt with the afternoon session, and held no reference to the Near Eastern countries, as the Adriatic question and Germany's attitude to the Treaty of Versailles were the subjects of debate.
"So that the sole official information given to the world upon what had happened at the morning session of the 25th, as far as the Near Eastern countries were concerned, was that 'the question of the Mandates for Palestine, Syria and Mesopotamia were discussed'. Discussed, indeed! During that session, which lasted for 3 hours, the 'examination of the Palestine question' which had begun upon the Saturday had been concluded, and Britain had been granted, or awarded, or indemnified with the nomination as Mandatory. And at this session, the Balfour Declaration had been inserted into the draft-Mandate which was being prepared as part of the coming Treaty [with Turkey].
"In fine, Sunday the 25th was the fateful day, the day of days, and that particular session was of pre-eminent interest, was a moment when the destinies of the most sacred land on earth were determined for, at the very least, a long period. A type of government, too, never before essayed in human society was inaugurated, or was introduced after some fashion, and the countries which were to govern thus unprecedentedly were named.
"Yet no faintest suggestion of what had been done was vouchsafed by the Conference chiefs in their official report of their transactions. They said that the question of the Mandate for Palestine (and for the other Arab lands) had been discussed, as though there had been some talk about it, and then they had gone on to other matters. More than this they never disclosed. The nearest they reached to any sort of explanation of their business was the last sentence of the previous day's communique, stiff wth constraint and wariness.
"It is true that official communiques are noted for their reticence. It is also true that international Conferences are fatiguing affairs, and that at the end of a long day tired men may cut their labour by giving the shortest possible account of what has happened. But reticence, not saying much about the event of the day, is one thing, and concealing it altogether when it is a final decision is another. The crucial meeting in this case was held in the morning, and there was ample time to announce what had taken place during it. The news could have been given in less than 20 words, in as many words as were employed to obscure it.
"That 25th of April something of great moment had been accomplished, though the absolute character of the act remained undefined. It was, therefore, the duty of the Allied plenipotentiaries to make clear in an official statement what (in the current phrase) 'they thought they were doing'. That they made no such explanation shows how ill at ease they were about the character of the day's work.
"Babies born that April morning have become young men and women, and yet we are about as ignorant as they were in their mothers' arms of what occurred at the Villa Devachan. This only we know, that the Balfour Declaration was slipped into the Mandate, and that it was Signori Nitti and Scialoja, M. Matsui, Lord Curzon, Messrs. Berthelot, Millerand and Lloyd George between them who somehow nominated as Mandatories the countries represented by MM. Berthelot and Millerand and by Lord Curzon and Mr Lloyd George. It was a very intimate occasion, so intimate that 4 of those present suffered from ingrowing functions, nominating and being nominated at one and the same time. The sole clue to what a spectator might have witnessed of their proceedings from start to finish is to be found in the statement of a correspondent that 'One cheerful feature about the Conference so far is the progress made in settling the Turkish Treaty. Discussions have run on the most cordial lines'. Indeed they had done so.
"This is the most living account of what happened which we possess. The League of Nations' own account of the birth of Mandates is highly significant because, in an Irish way, there is no account. 'There is no record of the conversation by which Great Britain was selected as Mandatory for Palestine', confesses the League's official handbook.
"Under such circumstances, it is impossible to prevent imagination from playing with the scene at the Villa Devachan. One pictures the bustling but superfluous helpfulness of the other delegates as Mr Lloyd George efficiently levered the Balfour Declaration into the draft-Mandate. But the assumption of the draft-Mandate itself is not so easy to picture.
"Did Signori Nitti, Scialoja, Millerand and Berthelot segregate themselves and then propose Great Britain as Mandatory for Palestine? Did Mr Lloyd George simper and blush acceptance, or look sternly before him and say duty was duty? Did the French delegates then go to the chairs at the foot of the table? Did the British delegates take the vacated seats at its head, along with the Italians and the Japanese, meditate their choice with them for a pensive second, and then in chorus with them offer 'Syria' to France? Whereon did the French delegates, with national immunity from humbug, nod and thank the British for carrying out the arrangement of the previous September?
"Maybe it happened after this fashion: more probably it did not. Procedure demanded that all the Principal Allied Powers should nominate the Mandatory, so Mr Lloyd George and poor Lord Curzon, completely out of his element, one imagines, will, in some way that we cannot guess and upon which unhappily silence has been maintained, have taken part in nominating themselves.
I interrupt Jeffries' narrative flow at this point to remind you of ECAJ's characterisation of the San Remo cabal as "the international community." Well - surprise, surprise - where Zionist propaganda is concerned there is indeed 'nothing new under the sun':
"The official silence concerning the details of this odd performance has not prevented a hundred writers and orators in the service of the Zionist thesis from projecting ever since, through the best part of 2 decades, moving pictures of the moral glory which descended on the Villa Devachan that day. Mr Lloyd George has been presented, as upon the screen, in the role of the world's knight, bending a knee to receive Britain's obligations in Palestine. Like an accolade they were laid upon his shoulders by the incarnate kingly conscience of mankind.
"Whatever happened then, this did not. At San Remo the nomination of Mandatories, after the manner of the dubbing of knights, was not practicable, or rather was not picturable. Britain and France had long fixed their respective Mandatory spheres between them, and the story of their being 'chosen' now for these positions is only elaborate and disingenuous pretence. Mr Lansing, the American Secretary of State till that February, who knew all that was afoot, passed on these League and Mandate manoeuvres a judgment so apt that it must be quoted here. 'If the advocates of the [mandate] system', said he, 'intended to avoid through its operation the appearance of taking enemy territory as the spoils of war, it was a subterfuge which deceived no one. It seemed obvious from the very first that the Powers, which under the old practice would have obtained sovereignty over certain conquered territories, would not be denied mandates over these territories'.
"Pure clap-trap also is the story of the resigned acceptance by the Mandatories of their nominations, which in fact they 'accepted' with the resignation of stockbrokers accepting profits. Mr Lloyd George... already had blurted out in one of his unguarded moments that 'France would be compensated for the oil-wells of Irak by the Mandate for Syria'. As for what are called 'obligations', it would have been a rash statesman who would have dared to refuse a full load of them to Mr Lloyd George himself. That was the real situation. The chivalrous parties concerned were each responsible for his own knighthood, and even such a political gymnast as the same Lloyd George could hardly have laid his obligations upon his own shoulder and have bade himself to rise without throwing his frame and his features into contortions too unmannerly ever to be displayed to the public. Why, the secret of the scene could not even be risked by one word about it in a turgid little communique!" (Palestine: The Reality, 1939, pp 344-347)
Memo to the SBS Ombudsman: should an impeccably presented, high-falutin' document from any of the following outfits - ECAJ, the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, the Zionist Council of Australia, or the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) - darken your doorstep, for God's sake, read the fine print.
Monday, January 9, 2012
What Gillard Will & Won't Be Learning from Her Holiday Reading
"But for the less sporty and more literarily inclined, here's a taste of what is on our MPs' reading lists this summer. Julia Gillard is reading Grand Days by Frank Moorhouse and Tony Bilson's memoir, Insatiable: My Life in the Kitchen. No comment on the remaining books on her list: Mighty Be Our Powers, by Nobel Prize winner Leymah Gbowee, A Day in the Life of a Smiling Woman, by Margaret Drabble, and David Lloyd George: The Great Outsider, by Roy Hattersley." (What can we read into our pollies' habits? Stephanie Peatling, The Sun-Herald, 8/1/12)*
Let me guess. Lloyd George, British Prime Minister, 1916-1922, was chosen because he's Welsh. And Roy Hattersley because he's Labor (specifically, Deputy Leader of the British Labor Party, 1983-1992).
Well, assuming she actually does gets around to reading David Lloyd George: The Great Outsider, what is Gillard going to learn from it?
Maybe she'll see herself, at least in part:
"[Lloyd George, said Keynes,] is rooted in nothing; he is void and without content; he lives and feeds on his immediate surroundings; he is an instrument and a player at the same time, which plays on the company and is played on by them too; he is a prism... which collects light and distorts it and is most brilliant if the light comes from many quarters at once; a vampire and a medium in one."/ "Hattersley... sees Lloyd George as essentially a destructive character... [with] a killer instinct... matched by an extraordinary ability to feed men lies, half truths and high-minded waffle, a capacity which brought short term triumphs and long-term distrust." (Welsh wizardry & venom, Paul Johnson reviews Roy Hattersley's life of David Lloyd George, The Spectator, 18/9/10)
No doubt, she'll marvel at Lloyd George's capacity for invective, thrill to his talk of raising 'the deserving poor', chuckle (with Timbo?) over his insatiable appetite for sex, and more besides - but, admittedly without having read the biography myself, I'm pretty sure, that with Hattersley as biographer, she'll unfortunately be spared an examination of the worst and most enduring of Lloyd George's legacies - laying the foundations for the creation of the State of Israel.
To begin with, not one of the half dozen reviews of Hattersley's book that I've read so much as mentions this grievous matter, which inclines me to believe that Hattersley himself has omitted any reference to the issue. Perhaps the following Q&As from House of Commons debates in 1976** demonstrate why:
Mr Walters: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that one of the main lessons to be learned from the tragic and horrid events in the Lebanon is that there will be no settlement but, rather, continuing instability, bloodshed and war until the rights of the Palestinians and the question of Palestinian statehood are resolved? They cannot be resolved without a peace settlement. Do not the Government intend to do something more active to try to break the present deadlock?
Mr Hattersley: The hon. Gentleman's question fell into two parts. On the first part, I agree substantially that there needs to be a recognition of the special problems of the Palestinians and an understanding that they must be accommodated within any lasting settlement. I cannot share the hon. Gentleman's view with regard to his second point. There is always a tendency in this House to expect Britain to take initiatives when they would not produce solutions but might actually complicate the prospects of success. Certainly the British Government are available to act if that seems right, but to take an ill-considered initiative is not the way in which the British Government should proceed."
Britain taking an ill-considered initiative in regard to Palestine? Who would have thought?
Mr Colin Jackson: Is my right hon. Friend aware that many Arab nations are deeply disappointed about the supine attitude of the British Foreign Office towards the Middle East crisis? The fact that, apparently, our policy in the past [which] has been step by step behind Dr Kissinger may lose its validity as Dr Kissinger may take his final step out of office?
Mr Hattersley: I do not think that a policy based on our wish to do what we can as long as that is practical and right is properly to be described as 'supine'. I reiterate what I said earlier. There is a tendency to believe that any initiative is better than no initiative. I do not share that view.
Supine? Really, after our initial ill-considered initiative in Palestine back when, haven't we now a right to rest on our laurels?
Mr Robert Hughes: Will my right hon. Friend seek an early meeting with the Foreign Minister of Israel to express disquiet about reports that Rhodesian forces are at present training with and awaiting shipments of Israeli-made machine guns? Will he make it clear to the Foreign Minister of Israel that it would be a great disappointment to many of Israel's friends in Great Britain if Israel were to conclude an arms deal in respect of arms and equipment to South African forces?
Mr Hattersley: As I have not heard of such reports, I am reluctant to comment on them. I share my hon. Friend's view that, if such reports were proved to be accurate, they would represent a great mistake, and many of Israel's friends in this country, among whom I number myself, would be deeply grieved."
Say no more. Just your common and garden supine Labor friend of Israel.
No, we couldn't possibly expect a verdict on Lloyd George's most lasting and toxic legacy, the nightmare we all of us wake up to every morning, the apartheid state to die for, the Zionist project (because by no means complete), from an Israel-friendly hack such as Hattersley. No, for that we need someone with an unswerving commitment to truth and justice, someone with a real nose for the fuckwit(s) behind the clusterfuck. Someone, for example, like Lloyd George's contemporary, JMN Jeffries, war correspondent extraordinaire and historian of the tangled roots of Britain's disastrous Palestine Mandate:
"The probability... is that 'The Principal Allied Powers', the junta which, seated round a table at the San Remo Conference of 1920, introduced the establishment of the 'National Home' as an obligation of the Mandate, knew and cared nothing about any such [ancient Hebrew] phases [in Palestine]. I should not credit the Principal Allied Powers, as far as they found form in flesh and blood at San Remo, with much or any reading of the Scriptures, except indeed the important section of the Principal Allied Powers which came from Criccieth in North Wales. That body politic has stated in a speech, 'I was brought up in a school where I was taught far more about the history of the Jews than about the history of my own land. I could tell you all the kings of Israel but I doubt whether I could have named half a dozen of the kings of England... We were thoroughly imbued with the history of the Hebrew race in the days of its greatest glory'." (Palestine: The Reality, 1939, p 7)
And Jeffries' verdict? Deadly, damning, definitive:
"Such being the origin of the Mandate it is not strange that it was a document which broke every law and principle it was supposed to safeguard. But though the Zionists had drafted it a hundred times over, it is not upon them that the supreme censure for this must fall. They were drugged by a delusion, and they were pretty frank about what they were doing. It is the Government of the day, the Government of Mr Lloyd George which, to say nothing of its betrayal of national pledges, must bear once more the responsibility for deliberate violation in Palestine, through the imposition of such a Mandate, of the Covenant of the League [of Nations] which elsewhere it professed so glibly." (ibid p 559)
[*Mind you, it's just possible that this reading list, or at least the bit about Lloyd George, is an invention of Gillard's spinmeister. After all, this is how the subject of what she'd be doing during the break was first reported: "Julia Gillard has revealed she will eschew political tomes and spend her two-week Christmas holiday break reading chef Tony Bilson's memoir and catching up on episodes of Miss Marple." (Miss Marple, Socrates to engage rival leaders, Lauren Wilson, The Australian, 15/12/11); **hansard.millbanksystems.com]
Let me guess. Lloyd George, British Prime Minister, 1916-1922, was chosen because he's Welsh. And Roy Hattersley because he's Labor (specifically, Deputy Leader of the British Labor Party, 1983-1992).
Well, assuming she actually does gets around to reading David Lloyd George: The Great Outsider, what is Gillard going to learn from it?
Maybe she'll see herself, at least in part:
"[Lloyd George, said Keynes,] is rooted in nothing; he is void and without content; he lives and feeds on his immediate surroundings; he is an instrument and a player at the same time, which plays on the company and is played on by them too; he is a prism... which collects light and distorts it and is most brilliant if the light comes from many quarters at once; a vampire and a medium in one."/ "Hattersley... sees Lloyd George as essentially a destructive character... [with] a killer instinct... matched by an extraordinary ability to feed men lies, half truths and high-minded waffle, a capacity which brought short term triumphs and long-term distrust." (Welsh wizardry & venom, Paul Johnson reviews Roy Hattersley's life of David Lloyd George, The Spectator, 18/9/10)
No doubt, she'll marvel at Lloyd George's capacity for invective, thrill to his talk of raising 'the deserving poor', chuckle (with Timbo?) over his insatiable appetite for sex, and more besides - but, admittedly without having read the biography myself, I'm pretty sure, that with Hattersley as biographer, she'll unfortunately be spared an examination of the worst and most enduring of Lloyd George's legacies - laying the foundations for the creation of the State of Israel.
To begin with, not one of the half dozen reviews of Hattersley's book that I've read so much as mentions this grievous matter, which inclines me to believe that Hattersley himself has omitted any reference to the issue. Perhaps the following Q&As from House of Commons debates in 1976** demonstrate why:
Mr Walters: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that one of the main lessons to be learned from the tragic and horrid events in the Lebanon is that there will be no settlement but, rather, continuing instability, bloodshed and war until the rights of the Palestinians and the question of Palestinian statehood are resolved? They cannot be resolved without a peace settlement. Do not the Government intend to do something more active to try to break the present deadlock?
Mr Hattersley: The hon. Gentleman's question fell into two parts. On the first part, I agree substantially that there needs to be a recognition of the special problems of the Palestinians and an understanding that they must be accommodated within any lasting settlement. I cannot share the hon. Gentleman's view with regard to his second point. There is always a tendency in this House to expect Britain to take initiatives when they would not produce solutions but might actually complicate the prospects of success. Certainly the British Government are available to act if that seems right, but to take an ill-considered initiative is not the way in which the British Government should proceed."
Britain taking an ill-considered initiative in regard to Palestine? Who would have thought?
Mr Colin Jackson: Is my right hon. Friend aware that many Arab nations are deeply disappointed about the supine attitude of the British Foreign Office towards the Middle East crisis? The fact that, apparently, our policy in the past [which] has been step by step behind Dr Kissinger may lose its validity as Dr Kissinger may take his final step out of office?
Mr Hattersley: I do not think that a policy based on our wish to do what we can as long as that is practical and right is properly to be described as 'supine'. I reiterate what I said earlier. There is a tendency to believe that any initiative is better than no initiative. I do not share that view.
Supine? Really, after our initial ill-considered initiative in Palestine back when, haven't we now a right to rest on our laurels?
Mr Robert Hughes: Will my right hon. Friend seek an early meeting with the Foreign Minister of Israel to express disquiet about reports that Rhodesian forces are at present training with and awaiting shipments of Israeli-made machine guns? Will he make it clear to the Foreign Minister of Israel that it would be a great disappointment to many of Israel's friends in Great Britain if Israel were to conclude an arms deal in respect of arms and equipment to South African forces?
Mr Hattersley: As I have not heard of such reports, I am reluctant to comment on them. I share my hon. Friend's view that, if such reports were proved to be accurate, they would represent a great mistake, and many of Israel's friends in this country, among whom I number myself, would be deeply grieved."
Say no more. Just your common and garden supine Labor friend of Israel.
No, we couldn't possibly expect a verdict on Lloyd George's most lasting and toxic legacy, the nightmare we all of us wake up to every morning, the apartheid state to die for, the Zionist project (because by no means complete), from an Israel-friendly hack such as Hattersley. No, for that we need someone with an unswerving commitment to truth and justice, someone with a real nose for the fuckwit(s) behind the clusterfuck. Someone, for example, like Lloyd George's contemporary, JMN Jeffries, war correspondent extraordinaire and historian of the tangled roots of Britain's disastrous Palestine Mandate:
"The probability... is that 'The Principal Allied Powers', the junta which, seated round a table at the San Remo Conference of 1920, introduced the establishment of the 'National Home' as an obligation of the Mandate, knew and cared nothing about any such [ancient Hebrew] phases [in Palestine]. I should not credit the Principal Allied Powers, as far as they found form in flesh and blood at San Remo, with much or any reading of the Scriptures, except indeed the important section of the Principal Allied Powers which came from Criccieth in North Wales. That body politic has stated in a speech, 'I was brought up in a school where I was taught far more about the history of the Jews than about the history of my own land. I could tell you all the kings of Israel but I doubt whether I could have named half a dozen of the kings of England... We were thoroughly imbued with the history of the Hebrew race in the days of its greatest glory'." (Palestine: The Reality, 1939, p 7)
And Jeffries' verdict? Deadly, damning, definitive:
"Such being the origin of the Mandate it is not strange that it was a document which broke every law and principle it was supposed to safeguard. But though the Zionists had drafted it a hundred times over, it is not upon them that the supreme censure for this must fall. They were drugged by a delusion, and they were pretty frank about what they were doing. It is the Government of the day, the Government of Mr Lloyd George which, to say nothing of its betrayal of national pledges, must bear once more the responsibility for deliberate violation in Palestine, through the imposition of such a Mandate, of the Covenant of the League [of Nations] which elsewhere it professed so glibly." (ibid p 559)
[*Mind you, it's just possible that this reading list, or at least the bit about Lloyd George, is an invention of Gillard's spinmeister. After all, this is how the subject of what she'd be doing during the break was first reported: "Julia Gillard has revealed she will eschew political tomes and spend her two-week Christmas holiday break reading chef Tony Bilson's memoir and catching up on episodes of Miss Marple." (Miss Marple, Socrates to engage rival leaders, Lauren Wilson, The Australian, 15/12/11); **hansard.millbanksystems.com]
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