Promises & Betrayals Script

INTRO:

11

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.

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 double-dealing 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:

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

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 Austria-Hungary 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.

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 double-dealing. 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.

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


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

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.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

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 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.

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.

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

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


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.

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


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 pro-German.

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


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 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


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

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.

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

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

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


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

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 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


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.

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 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.

36.42


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 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 self-determination.

38.55


Once independence had seemed to be a possibility, that this principle of self-determination 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.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 post-war memorandum, Balfour hints at a much more cynical agenda:

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

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

43.43


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 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


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


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.

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

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 double-dealing and of betrayal which was to haunt her for a long long time.

51.05


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 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.

( CONTENT PRODUCTIONS 2002

Documents

Promises & Betrayals Script