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INTRO:

00.15
The bitter struggle between Arab and Jew for control of the Holy Land has
caused untold suffering in the Middle East for generations. It is often claimed
that the crisis originated with Jewish emigration to Palestine and the
foundation of the state of Israel. Yet the roots of the conflict are to be found
much earlier in British double-dealing during the First World War. This is a
story of intrigue among rival empires; of misguided strategies; and of how
conflicting promises to Arab and Jew created a legacy of bloodshed which
determined the fate of the Middle East.

01.11
Fred Halliday:
During the First World War the British, The French and the Russians had
these secret plans to carve up the Ottoman Empire because they believed
that would balance out their imperial ambitions. But tough luck for the Turks,
the Arabs and anyone else who got in the way.

01.27
Choueiri:
Certainly all the seeds were planted then in the sense that it was the British
who promised the Arabs independence on the one hand and a Jewish
homeland on the other and you could not simply reconcile one with the other.

CONTENT PRODUCTIONS 2002

2
01.49
Avi Shlaim:
The British scattered promises to anyone who might be of some use to them
without thinking about the consequences. So British duplicity, British doubledealing went a long way to perpetuate the conflict in Palestine.

02.10
Coker:
At the end of the day when you're fighting a war you are very liberal in what
you are offering in terms of a post-war settlement. And when you get down to
the conference table when the war has ended and you have to start honouring
your agreements, you then have to decide what's in your interest or not. And
the British saw the Middle East as a western flank for their power in India and
their power in Asia in general.
(INTRO END)

02.35
The story of Britains involvement in the Middle East and the ensuing struggle
between Arab and Jew begins with her colonial past.
At the beginning of the 20th century King Edward VII ruled over a vast empire
with interests in every part of the world.

02.52
Coker:

CONTENT PRODUCTIONS 2002

3
India became increasingly important because it was the second pillar of
British power in the world. Moving the Indian Army about was extremely
important in extending British interests and British influence across the Globe.
And the Suez Canal was, of course, the quick way to do that. It is very
important for the British geopolitical position to ensure the Suez Canal
remains safe and secure.

03.19
With this aim in mind Britain had become the only European power to
establish a major foothold in the Middle East in the principalities around the
Persian Gulf in Aden and in Egypt.

03.36
Britain had annexed Egypt from Turkeys Ottoman Empire in 1882 and by the
time it was made a protectorate in 1914, Cairo had become the centre of
British power in the Middle East. The presence of imperial troops in the region
was of vital strategic importance. For the Ottoman Empire under Sultan
Mohammed V was in alliance with Britains much feared rival - Germany.

04.05
Together with the Austro-Hungarian Empire these countries made up the
Central Powers. And pitted against them were the three allies Britain,
France and Russia.

04.21

CONTENT PRODUCTIONS 2002

4
From the Ottoman capital, Constantinople in Turkey, the Sultan ruled over the
last of the great Islamic empires. It had been in almost terminal decline for
decades. Yet the fate of the Ottoman Empire was to be sealed by the
outbreak of the First World War in August 1914.

04.45
In Europe, Germanys rapid advance was halted by Britain and France along
the western front. In the east Russias war against Germany and AustriaHungary also reached deadlock. But the powerful weapons of the industrial
age were weekly killing thousands of men in the trenches of every army.

05.08
Lieven:
All of the leading powers expected the war to be over within a matter of
months. So in that sense all of them are surprised at the end of 1914 when
not merely is the war going on but it shows every sign of being likely to go on
for a very long time. At that point they begin to think about new ways of
winning the war.

05.34
Britains Prime Minister Asquith felt that with the stalemate in Europe it was
essential to widen the conflict. Together with Foreign Secretary Lord Grey,
Minister for War, Lord Kitchener, and 1st Lord of the Admiralty Winston
Churchill they masterminding a complex strategy to undermine the Central
Powers.

CONTENT PRODUCTIONS 2002

05.57
Coker:
This was a global war and the British saw the Middle East very much in a
global context. The traditional British preference for side-shows as people
unfavourably call it - the indirect strategy, the way of attacking the soft
under-belly, as Churchill called it, of the enemy. And the soft under-belly
was seen to be Turkey.

06.16
Britains secret plan involved on the one hand a military diversion, and on the
other a devious use of diplomacy through bribery, subversion and doubledealing. All of these devices focused on the enemys weakest link Turkeys
Ottoman Empire.

06.35
Fred Halliday:
Diplomacy in general has always had a secret dimension to it. But where
discretion ends and conspiracy begins is an open question. But during the
period up to and during the First World War there was a particularly intense
set of negotiations and discussions between the major imperial powers.
Between the French, the Russians and the British in particular, cutting in the
Italians as well about what would they do when the war was over and when
the Ottoman Empire broke up.

CONTENT PRODUCTIONS 2002

6
07.04
The British Government hoped that by striking a deal over the spoils of war, it
would strengthen the alliance against the Central Powers. Amongst the allies
Russia had long sought access to the Mediterranean. In a secret treaty of
March 1915 Britain and France offered, what was to the Tsar, a prize of vital
geopolitical importance Constantinople.

07.33
Expert in vision: Mark Levene
It is their key outlet into the wider world and into the Mediterranean and it is
the one thing of course the British and the French have been attempting to
prevent the Russians from achieving. So this is a complete volte-facethis
is..this is the British, the French and the Russians coming to an agreement
over something which was up to this point almost inconceivable.

07.57
Italys King Vittorio Emmanuel was another target for bribery. Britain, France
and Russia tried to tempt Italy, a pro-German state, to join the Allies. In April
1915 a secret treaty offered Italy a substantial bit of Ottoman real estate in
Anatolia.

08.17
Expert in vision: Mark Levene

CONTENT PRODUCTIONS 2002

7
Again, its another power coming into the equation and being offered territorial
advancement which in normal circumstances would have been quite
inconceivable.

08.29
The bribe worked. Italy joined the Allies and declared war on the Central
Powers in August 1915.

08.40
But Britains strategy to undermine the enemy via the Ottoman Empire also
required subversion. (pause 08.48) By using domestic opposition to
weaken, maybe even destroy it, Britain exploited a new movement sweeping
through the empire nationalism.

08.59
Fred Halliday:
Nationalism in the sense of believing that there are peoples with a clear

cultural identity and that these people should live independent - that idea
spread to the Middle East and to other parts of the world in the latter part of
the 19th century. So you had the beginnings, in the Ottoman Empire, of a
Turkish nationalism.

09.17

CONTENT PRODUCTIONS 2002

8
This came to a head when the Young Turks took power in a coup in 1908 and
started to impose their language and culture on the Arabs of the empire. But
this only reawakened an interest amongst Arabs in their own heritage.

09.52
A thousand years before, Arabs had brought the technology and literature of
the East to the West and their religion, Islam, had encompassed much of
Asia, North Africa and South Western Europe. The idea of recovering that
historic grandeur had remained in the consciousness of Arab intellectuals. By
the start of the First World War the antagonism between Arab and Turk had
increased.

10.22
Halliday:
The very fact that the Turks were saying, we want to have a unified empire, I
mean the Arabs said, wait a minute, we're not part of this. All of this literary
and nationalistic revival then took a much more political form. Therefore you
got the emergence of Arab nationalism.

10.38
Choueiri:
They had arrived at the conclusion that remaining in the Ottoman empire was
becoming hopeless, that they couldnt actually share power with the Turks.
And they began thinking of having their own state.

CONTENT PRODUCTIONS 2002

9
10.59
By the summer of 1915, British intelligence confirmed that the Arab nationalist
movement was the break through the Government was looking for. Britain and
her French ally dispatched officers to sound out Arab leaders.

11.16
Choueiri:
Both the French and the British started, you could say, seducing, various
local Arab leaders that if you side with us, well give you your independence
so why dont you leave the Ottomans. And various people were tempted as a
result. If they thought they could actually gain independence, why not side
with the Europeans against the Ottomans.

11.39
The idea was to tempt the Arabs into a revolt against their Ottoman overlords,
and create a diversion, which would tie down the Central Powers in the Middle
East (Pause 11.56) Ironically, the impetus for such a diversion had come
not from London but from the Arab World In the Hijaz in Western Arabia,
Sherif Hussein, its ruler, was set on extending his political and geographical
domain. He believed that he might be able to do it with the help of the British.
In turn the British were impressed by Sherif Husseins family credentials as
custodians of the Holy Places of Islam.

12.25
Expert in vision: Fred Halliday

CONTENT PRODUCTIONS 2002

10
They call themselves 'Hashemites' because that's the family or the tribe of
the Prophet Muhammed. They were the Bani Hashem, the Sons of Hashem.
So Sharif Hussein was the leader of the Hashemites. He was the person
responsible for Mecca and Medina. And although he had worked with the
Ottomans before the First World War, once the war happened, he saw this
was his chance.

12.44
A chance too for the British who saw support for Sherif Hussein as a way to
threaten the Ottoman hold on the Caliphate - the political leadership of the
Islamic world.

12.55
Choueiri:
The British, because they were fighting the Ottomans, and the Ottomans
were claiming to be the real representatives of Islam they wanted a
counterforce and a counterforce was represented by Sherif Hussein being a
descendent of the Prophet. But Sherif Hussein was speaking of liberating
Arab lands, building a new national state. He wanted to be king of the Arabs
not simply of Arabians.

13.22
In July 1915 Sherif Hussein smuggled a message to the British High
commissioner in Cairo, Sir Henry MacMahon, offering to raise a substantial
Arab force against the Ottomans in return for British support for Arab

CONTENT PRODUCTIONS 2002

11
independence. In the ensuing secret correspondence between the two men
Sherif Hussein was given to understand that he could expect British support in
achieving some of his ambitions in the event of an Ottoman defeat. This letter
of October 26th 1915 outlined the main points of the arrangement.

13.58
Levene:
The actual document itself is absolutely riven with ambiguity. Theres no
doubt about that. The question is whether Hussein recognizes that. My sense
of Hussein is that he does recognize it. In other words, there is no wool being
pulled over his eyes. He is going for as much as he can go for. Hes perfectly
aware that if hes going to create a modern Arab empire, he is going to need
some logistical, economic development and that can only come from the
outside world.

14.39
Taking Britains assurances of support at face value Hussein, together with his
sons Faisal and Abdullah, amassed a sizeable force.
The new army was commanded by the young and charismatic Faisal who had
captured the imagination of the Arab masses in the quest for Arab
independence.

15.02
Yet even as Hussein and Faisal mobilized their troops, the British were
preparing to sell them short.

CONTENT PRODUCTIONS 2002

12

15.12
Back in London in the spring of 1916, Britain was negotiating with France
about the future shape of the Middle East. Behind closed doors, Sir Mark
Sykes of the British Foreign Office, had been meeting his French opposite
number, Francois George Picot. Britain knew it was vital to offer the French a
stake in the spoils of the Ottoman Empire should they win the war.

15.37
Sir Michael Weir:
There was an awareness on the British side that they had made such huge
sacrifices, that one couldn't just ignore French ambitions. They were
determined to have their historical piece of the Levant.

15.55
Pouring over a map of the Levant, Sykes and Picot personally drew in the
areas they wished to see under their control. Their secret deal amounted to
the virtual carve-up of the Middle East.

In Area A for the French, and in Area B for the British, the imperialists intended
to exercise power indirectly. They would appoint advisors and take charge of
the finances in their respective spheres of influence.

CONTENT PRODUCTIONS 2002

13
Then there was the area coloured blue, which was to be directly controlled by
France. This included what was then known as Greater Syria, where the
French traditionally had commercial and religious interests.

As for the area coloured pink, known as Iraq, (which the Arabs callex Iraq)with
its strategic ports, railways and oil - this was to be under British rule.

The area coloured yellow represented Palestine and was envisaged as an


international zone except for Haifa.

17.01
Expert in vision: Choueiri
What the British wanted was the oil of Iraq and they concentrated on getting
Iraq and getting away from Iraq to the Mediterranean in order to transport this
oil. So they got Haifa on the Palestinian coast and they got most of Iraq.

17.20
Expert in vision: Sir Michael Weir
The Sykes-Picot Agreement was a pretty shameful document and I wouldn't
attempt to defend it. But it was drawn up by people who were sort of operating
under the old kind of balance of power considerations... in a kind of imperial
frame of mind.

17.45

CONTENT PRODUCTIONS 2002

14
Unaware of these secret dealings behind their backs, Hussein and Faisal
proclaimed independence and in June 1916 attacked the Turkish troops. The
Arab revolt against the Ottomans had begun.

18.07
The Turkish garrison at Mecca was soon overrun and the seaport at Jidda
seized. By 1917 Hussein and Faisals forces had pushed north and engaged
the Ottoman Turks along the Hijaz railway. The British saw the Arab Revolt as
part of its strategy for creating a military diversion against the Central Powers.
In a pincer movement Britain had launched a campaign from the south west to
ensure control of the Suez Canal and the Levant. And from the south east it
was fighting to secure the oil wells of Iraq. All this to attack the Central Powers
at their weakest point the Ottoman Empire.

18.52
Expert in vision: Choueiri
The Arabs hitched their fortunes to the British. They considered themselves
to be fighting with the Allies but at the same time, they were not merged into
the British army that they continued to act as an independent army.

19.18
While the Arab army advanced northwards, Britains General Allenby had
crossed the Suez Canal, and by the spring of 1917 his forces had reached the
frontier of Palestine.

CONTENT PRODUCTIONS 2002

15
19.38
The war in Europe, however, was still not going well for Britain. The attempted
push through the German lines at the Somme had produced little territorial
gain and the cost in lives was colossal (pause 19.54) In London there had
been a change of leadership. The new Prime Minister Lloyd George felt that
the Allied war effort needed a new impetus.

20.08
Although America had so far been neutral in the war Lloyd George was
convinced that could be changed. He believed there was one powerful group
which might influence the American government.

20.21
Expert in vision: Avi Shlaim
Lloyd George thought that the American decision whether to join or not would
depend critically on public opinion and the Jewish support could tilt the scales
in one direction or the other.

20.38
Expert in vision: Lieven
Youve got to remember that the British foreign office greatly overestimate the
power of international Jewry. Particularly the wealthy financial and commercial
Jewish elites.

20.53

CONTENT PRODUCTIONS 2002

16
Expert in vision: Mark Levene
What is extraordinary about this situation is that here you have particularly
the British seeing the Jewish world as one collective monolithic entity..and in
that sensethey start looking at the role of the Jews in the war as being
something which might be importantand from the point of view of the
Allies something else quite remarkablethis monolithic entity is proGerman.

21.29
Many Jews in the upper echelons of German society did indeed have close
connections to the Kaisers Foreign Office. A new Jewish nationalist
movement, Zionism, had also been able to establish its headquarters in
Berlin.

21.48
Zionism had originated in the 1880s after Theodor Herzl published a book
espousing the virtues of a Jewish state. This caused a sensation amongst
Jewish intellectuals in Germany, Austria and Russia who shared Herzls
outrage at the escalation of anti-Jewish sentiments.

22.12
Expert in vision: Avi Shlaim
The end of the 19th century saw the rise of anti-semitism all over Europe. In
Austria, in Germany, in France, but particularly in Eastern Europe, in Poland
and in Russia. The Pogrom against the Jews in Russia gave rise to the

CONTENT PRODUCTIONS 2002

17
establishment of Choveve Zion, the Lovers of Zion, societies in a number of
Russian cities, who started to promote and to finance and to sponsor
colonization, emigration to Palestine.

23.00
Expert in vision: Avi Shlaim
Herzl came to the conclusion that the Jews were not safe anywhere in
Europe and the only solution was for the Jews to have a state of their own
over which they could exercise sovereignty and where they would not be a
minority.

23.24
What had also given Zionism its appeal was the way in which it fitted in to
historic Jewish aspirations. Scattered throughout the World since the
destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in the First Century AD many Jews had
cherished the idea of returning one day to what their scriptures had told them
was the Promised Land.

23.47
In fact, there had already been a small community of indigenous Jews in
Palestine. But even when some European Jews started to set up settlements
throughout the late 19th century the whole Jewish community by 1914
constituted barely 8 per cent of the population.

24.13

CONTENT PRODUCTIONS 2002

18
The Zionist leader in Britian, Chaim Weizmann, had been lobbying the
Government for a guarantee, that in the event of an Ottoman defeat, it would
support Jewish emigration to Palestine. By early 1917 Lloyd Georges view of
Jews as globally influential convinced him that Zionism was another
nationalist movement which should be co-opted to the Allied cause. In March
Mark Sykes began negotiations with Weizmann.

24.44
Mark Levene:
There is a bee in the bonnet of people like Mark Sykes that actually the Jews
do ultimately look to each other and look to their own interest and if that
interest, as they are being told by Weizmann is, what we really want is
Palestine, theyre prepared to believe it Theyre prepared to go along with
it.

25.09
As negotiations with Weizmann continued over the following months the war
deteriorated rapidly for the Allies.

25.23
The German submarine campaign was seriously weakening Britains
merchant fleet. And although America had entered the war on the Allied side,
President Woodrow Wilson was not yet willing to supply a significant number
of troops.

CONTENT PRODUCTIONS 2002

19
25.42
Britains latest attempt to keep up the pressure on the Western Front soon
became bogged down in the muddy trenches of Passchendaele. As
thousands of young mens lives were wasted in another fruitless campaign
morale amongst the soldiers plummeted.

26.00
But the most serious threat to the allied war machine came from the east.

26.07
Russia was on the verge of collapse. After massive defeats at the hands of
the Germans the war-weary country was disintegrating with food shortages,
strikes and demonstrations. When the Tsar was deposed in a revolution
Britain and France became greatly alarmed.

26.27
Lieven:
The point is that once Russia and its war effort begins to collapse essentially
the Germans have won the first world war unless they bring the Americans in.
There are no way the British and the French on their own are ever going to
defeat Germany.

26.49

CONTENT PRODUCTIONS 2002

20
In October the British Government received an intelligence report suggesting
that Jews were a significant influence in the leadership of the Bolshevik party the new revolutionary movement emerging as the dominant force in Russia.

27.05
Lloyd George feared that these Communists would take Russia out of the war.
With the Americans still refusing to commit sufficient forces - he knew it was
time to act.

27.18
He instructed his Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to issue a pledge to
capture the hearts and minds of the Jewish people.

27.26
Actor:
His Majestys 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 achievements of this object

27.41
Narrator:
The Balfour Declaration was issued on November 2, 1917 just as British
forces were occupying Palestine.

27.49

CONTENT PRODUCTIONS 2002

21
Avi Shlaim:
I would say that the Balfour Declaration has to be understood not as an
idealistic gesture, but it has to be understood within the framework of British
imperial policy. And Lloyd George was the main instigator of that Declaration,
because he believed that it would serve Britain's interests.

28.17
But this was also the first time that any major European power had given
official backing for the Zionist goal of making Palestine into a Jewish
homeland. Yet Sherif Hussein had understood that Palestine had been
promised as part of his deal for Arab independence. Anticipating Arab outrage
at the prospect of a Jewish homeland in a largely Arab province the Balfour
Declaration had also stated that

28.43
Actor:
nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of
existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.

28.52
Narrator:
The Declaration nonetheless appeared to indicate British support for Jewish
emigration.

28.59

CONTENT PRODUCTIONS 2002

22
Expert in vision: Choueiri
There were only a mere 80,000 out of some like 700,000 people in Palestine
who were Jews. The indigenous inhabitants of Palestine were referred to as
non-jewish inhabitants and Palestine was being identified, even at that stage,
as a Jewish land and all the other others had no defined identity. They were
simply non-jewish.

29.33
Avi Shlaim:
The Balfour Declaration was what it says. A declaration. It wasn't a treaty. It
wasn't a signed agreement. It was a declaration in support of the
establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine.

29.55
In fact, the only treaty Britain had signed in regard to Palestine was with the
French the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement.

30.07
On November 7th within a few days of the Balfour Declaration the Bolsheviks
took power in Russia. Lloyd George hoped that the Declaration would have
the desired effect of appeasing the Jews in the leadership.

30.20
Expert in vision: Levene

CONTENT PRODUCTIONS 2002

23
What is it that they supposedly so want as Jews. Palestine. Now the whole
argument is totally illogical. Its a nonesense argument because these
particular people, if one were to think of people like Trotsky or Zinoviev or
Jaffe, some of the key Jewish leaders in the Russian revolution, the
November revolutionthese people of course are internationalists.

30.46
Avi Shlaim:
There were 15-20 Jews in the higher echelons of the Bolshevik party. Most of
them were anti-Zionist and after they came to power they issued a declaration
to say that Zionism is a capitalist ploy, a capitalist idea.

31.11
The wildly inaccurate intelligence report on which Lloyd George based his
strategy was to have major implications for Britain.
Within weeks Russias new leaders did exactly the opposite of what he had
expected. Not only did they pull out of the war, they opened up the Archives of
the Tsarist Foreign Office and published the secret treaties. The very treaties
Britain had engineered with her allies to carve up the Ottoman Empire and
to which Russia had been privy.

31.44
Expert in vision: Dominic Lieven
And that of course is a very great embarrassment to the Western Allies.
Because the Allies in other words have been doing all sorts of deals behind

CONTENT PRODUCTIONS 2002

24
the scenes in which they have handed out to each other large sections of the
world. Meanwhile openly preaching that they are fighting the war in defence of
democracy, and of course also, telling amongst others, the Arabs, that they
are supporters of self-determination for the peoples of the Ottoman Empire.

32.17
Expert in vision: Fred Halliday
Publication of the secret treaties by the Bolsheviks certainly created
enormous suspicion in the Arab world. And this meant that Sherif Hussein and
the others said, wait a minute, what's going on? A) - why are you not giving us
independence and secondly why are you dividing us up into Zone A and Zone
B? And at that point the Arabs realized, of course, that not only had the British
got their own particular interests, for example the ports of Palestine or in Iraq,
but that they had promised other things to the French.

32.48
Amid Arab confusion and suspicion, General Allenby entered Jerusalem on
foot together with Sykes, Picot and a number of other Allied notables.
His British led forces had captured the Holy City in December 1917. The
leaders of the Arab revolt, however, were nowhere to be seen.

33.15
Fearing that Hussein and Faisal might lose heart, the British Government,
forwarded a message to them reiterating British committment to Arab
independence.

CONTENT PRODUCTIONS 2002

25

33.26
Actor:
the arab race shall be given full opportunity of once again forming a nation
in the world. This can only be achieved by the arabs themselves uniting, and
Great Britain and her allies will pursue a policy with this ultimate unity in view.

33.42
Hussein stayed loyal to the Allied cause still prepared to accept Britains word
on Arab independence, although he spoke of settling accounts after the war.

34.01
From Allenbys point of view, he continued to rely on Arab support in the war
against the Ottomans. But now that Jerusalem had been occupied by the
British one party seized the initiative.

34.19
In April 1918 Chaim Weizmann and the International Zionist Commission
travelled to Palestine to lay the foundation for a Hebrew University. Their hope
was that it would become the intellectual hub of Zionism.

34.38
Weizmanns visit, however, caused widespread alarm and indignation among
the Arab population. And when he and the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem met

CONTENT PRODUCTIONS 2002

26
General Allenby it looked as if Britain was preparing to honour the Balfour
Declaration.

35.01
6 months later Allenbys forces entered Damascus. With their allies, Faisals
Northern Army, they had pushed the Ottoman troops north through Palestine
into Syria.

35.17
Expert in vision : Choueiri
The Arab revolt did contribute to the victory of the Allies in many ways. First of
all, it protected the British flank in Palestine. Second, it kept a number of
Turkish and German troops preoccupied. And third, the British could never
have legitimised what they were doing unless they had the blessing of a
particular Arab force.

35.57
On the 3rd of October the people of Damascus flocked to Faisals victory
parade. If he was to seize power, he knew it was of great importance to make
his presence felt, and to be seen by the Arab people as their liberator.

36.28
Later the same day, however, Faisal met with General Allenby at the Victoria
Hotel in Damascus. Allenby warned him that his rule in Syria would be limited.

CONTENT PRODUCTIONS 2002

27
36.42
Expert in vision: Choueiri
The British by that time knew that they were going to hand over Syria to the
French so they couldnt actually accept Faisal as a legitimate ruler. All they
could do is to pay him his salary and the expenses of his army and his
administration.

37.08
Undaunted by Allenbys warnings, Faisal assumed the title of Governor of
Damascus. With his father, Sherif Husseins, support he set about creating a
power base for their goal of an independent Arab state.

37.26
On the 31st of October the Ottomans were finally defeated.

37.32
And at 11 oclock on the 11th of November 1918 - the guns fell silent in Europe
as the war with the Central Powers came to an end.

37.49
The Peace Conference at Versailles began in January 1919.

37.55
Representatives of the victorious allies, such as the French Prime Minister
Clemenceau and the American President Woodrow Wilson, gathered to sort

CONTENT PRODUCTIONS 2002

28
out what was to be done with the former territories of the defeated empires.
Now the liberal use of promises by Britains Lloyd George and his Foreign
Secretary Balfour had to be prioritized.

38.17
Expert in vision: Coker
They did indeed make pledges to the Arabs, but they also made pledges to
the Jews and they also made pledges to the French and the Russians and
everybody else. These people saw the world as an imperial world. Not only
did they want to carve up the Middle East, they wanted to carve up Russia.
They thought that this was the last great moment in which the imperial powers
would be able to sit down and grab what was going.

38.43
But Britain and her old ally, France, were up against the American president
Woodrow Wilsons vision of a new world order which promoted national selfdetermination.

38.55
Expert in vision: Choueiri
Once independence had seemed to be a possibility, that this principle of selfdetermination supported by the Americans was going to be offered to all those
who were to be liberated from former empires, like the Hapsburgs and the
Ottomans. What the Palestinians wanted was an independent state.

CONTENT PRODUCTIONS 2002

29
39.20
In fact Faisal had come from Damascus to plead the Arab cause. But the
future of Palestine and the Middle East formed part of Britains pledge to
France in the Sykes-Picot carve-up.

39.38
In the event Woodrow Wilsons principles about self-determination were
forgotten when it came to people of the Middle East. Britain and France were
free to go ahead with their agreement.

39.54
But what of the promises Britain had made to the Jews regarding Palestine?
Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour, in a confidential Memo during the Versailles
Peace talks with America, France and Italy, wrote.

40.07
Actor:
The four Great Powers are committed to Zionism. And Zionism, be it right or
wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long traditions, in present needs, in
future hopes, of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the
700.000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land.

40.29
That might sound like a warm endorsement of Zionism. Yet further in the postwar memorandum, Balfour hints at a much more cynical agenda:

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30

40.38
Actor:
So far as Palestine is concerned the Powers have made no declaration of
policy which, at least in letter, they have not always intended to violate.

40.52
The Versailles Peace Conference was concluded on June 28, 1919 with the
creation of the League of Nations, the first global institution for peace and
security. Its Covenant provided that the Arab and other territories ceded by the
defeated Ottoman Empire should be administered by Mandates. Which
meant, in effect, that Britain and France were given the authority to impose
their rule over the Arab territories.

41.28
On November 21 1919, Francois Georges-Picot, the co-architect of the
Sykes-Picot Agreement, and the French General Gouraud arrived in Beirut.
And so began the imposition of the French mandate for Syria and Lebanon.

41.53
The British forces, who had occupied the region since ousting the Ottoman
Turks during the last months of the war, were handing over power to the
French - thus fulfilling their war-time pledge.

42.12

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31
Faisal, who had been the Governor of Damascus now for 16 months had
been consolidating his position. When he was proclaimed King by the Syrian
National Congress, the French were incensed and General Gouraud sent in
his troops. By August 7, 1920 Faisal had been deposed and had to flee to
Palestine.

42.39
The promises to Sherif Hussein and Faisal of a single independent state were
now a distant memory for the Europeans.

42.49
Expert: Fred Halliday
The whole issue of spheres of influence, meant that what appeared, what first
appeared to be a willingness to accept a single Arab state was in fact
seriously diluted. And then on top of that, of course, the very fact of there
being a French area and a British area meant that in effect this was the seed
of partition. So you had both, independence was denied, but also the unity of
this area was denied.

43.13
The boundaries and governments of the Middle Eastern states that emerged
bore the unmistakable imprint of the Sykes-Picot Agreement. The French half
of the previously Ottoman province of Greater Syria became the mandate for
Lebanon and Syria. The other half became the British Mandate for
Transjordan and Palestine. In the East, the Ottoman area of Mesopotamia,

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32
which included the oil fields of Mosul, was given to Britain as the Mandate for
Iraq.

43.43
Expert in vision: Choueiri
So this was basically the importance of the Sykes-Picot agreement, to divide
what was called the Fertile Crescent between Iraq and Syria and let Britain
get access to the oil of the area and be able to exploit it in the future.

44.02
But British rule was initially rejected by the Irai people until Faisal was
installed as King in July 1921. Britain hoped the limited power it devolved to
him would serve to placate the frustrated demands for Arab independence.

But Sherif Hussein expected more from the British.

44.23
Choueiri:
He never gave up the idea that the British had promised him independence,
not only in Arabia but in Syria and Iraq as well. And he wanted the British to
fulfill their promises

44.39
Sherif Husseins dream of an Arab kingdom ruled by the Hashemites was only
partially fulfilled. For although his other son, Abdullah, became King of

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33
Transjordan, their old rival, Ibn Saud, swept the Hashemites out of the Hijaz
when he conquered the whole of the Arabian Peninsula.

45.07
In Jerusalem, Britain had established an administration in the spring of 1920.
There were no plans for devolving power in Palestine.

45.22
Palestine was a land sacred to three religions. Jews were a small minority
who had lived harmoniously with christians and the much larger community of
muslims for hundreds of years.

45.39
But the Balfour Declaration, promising Jews a homeland in Palestine, had
been incorporated into the British Mandate at Versailles. Palestine was thus to
be open for new European Jewish immigration.

45.57
With celebrations and parades in support of Zionist activities it seemed as if
the British were going to honour their pledges to the Jews and ignore
Palestinian hopes of independence.

46.08
Expert in vision: Avi Shlaim

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34
The Arabs had a strong case but very poor advocates. The Zionists had a
case, it wasn't as strong as that of the local Arabs but they had brilliant
advocates. Zionism is one of the greatest public relations success stories of
the 20th century and Chaim Weizmann exemplified these traditional Jewish
skills of advocacy and persuasion.

46.43
Some of these skills were clearly in evidence when Weizmann and various
Zionist groups helped finance land purchases and the building of settlements
for immigrant Jews. At the same time political and security organisations were
created to support the emerging Jewish homeland.

47.06
The Arab community in Palestine was incensed.

47.15
Expert in vision: Choueiri
The Palestinians couldnt conceive of their country being divided or given
away to another community which had nothing to do with the Middle East in
the first place and was almost wholly European at the time. So, to them, it
seemed absurd that 600 to 700,000 should give up their land, their homes,
their villages, their towns and hand them over to a minority which was
dispersed throughout Palestine. And Palestine, after all is named after its
people who are the Palestinians.

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35
48.02
In 1925 Arthur Balfour toured the new Jewish settlements in Palestine.
Although he was feted as a hero of the Zionist cause the immigration of
European Jews was to have unforeseen consequences for British rule in
Palestine.

48.20
Avi Shlaim:
I believe that the Balfour Declaration was one of the most serious mistakes in
British imperial history. It committed Britain to support of Jewish nationalism in
Palestine after the war and it did not produce any immediate benefits for
Britain.

48.46
Mark Levene:
Without the Balfour Declaration there could have been no genuine
development of a Jewish national home and the follow-through in 1948 where
you get the creation of a state of Israel, simply would not have happened. It
requires the umbrella of the British to be there, in effect to support the
emerging Jewish national home, militarily at the bottom line. The very fact that
there are British troops, British policemen there to protect the Jewish
communities is ultimately central to the situation. It could not have been done
in any other way.

49.31

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36
Throughout the 1930s and 40s the years of Nazi persecution and the
Holocaust Jewish immigration to Palestine increased rapidly. But what was
seen by the Arabs as an alien incursion and the Jews as a fulfillment of
historic rights led to polarisation and violence. In respons to terrorist acts by
Arabs, Britain restricted the immigration. But the policy only stimulated Jewish
terrorism (50.07) Against this background Britain relinquished its Mandate
and the state of Israel was born in 1948. When the first of several wars
between the new state and its Arab neighbours began, thousands of
Palestinian Arabs fled their homeland.

50.27
Thus the strategies employed by Britain to win the First World War
inadvertently left a deep divide between Arab and Jew.

50.37
Avi Shlaim:
The most serious consequences of British policy during the War was the
encouragement of Arab nationalism and Jewish nationalism and in the
aftermath of the First World War Britain was left with this legacy of doubledealing and of betrayal which was to haunt her for a long long time.

51.05
Expert in vision: Fred Halliday
Clearly it played a role in dividing the Arab world into different states, in
allowing the establishment of the state of Israel and in frustrating Arab

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37
desires. But if what happened in Sykes-Picot and everything else that
happened in the First World War is used as an excuse for the problems of the
Middle East now, I think that would be a mistake. But yes, the roots of what
we see today certainly arose from the double-dealing of the First World War
and from the frustrated expectations of that time.

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