To the Arabists, the small, relatively backward Arab population of Palestine was of little interest. But Palestine itself, as the land bridge between Cairo on the one hand and Damascus and Baghdad on the other, was an indispensable link in their chain. Restless to win the affections of their new Arab subjects, they were more than eager to co-opt the Arab antagonism toward Zionism into their policies in Palestine, which they at first believed might be incorporated into a British-dominated Syria.
As early as the British conquest of Jerusalem on December 11, 1917, one month after the Balfour Declaration, resistance to Zionism was manifest among the imperial administrators, who saw their job not in terms of serving justice or even keeping British promises but in winning over the Arabs. Thus, General Sir Edmund Allenby’s chief political officer, Brigadier-General Gilbert Clayton, worried that the declaration had been a mistake: “We have… to consider whether the situation demands out and out support for Zionism at the risk of alienating the Arabs at a critical moment.” 3 His argument to the pro-Zionist Sir Mark Sykes foreshadows the argumentation of generations of Arabists:
I must point out that, by pushing [for] them [i.e., the Zionists] as hard as we appear to be doing, we are risking the possibility of Arab unity becoming something like an accomplished fact and being ranged against us. 4
In this Clayton was backed by the high commissioner in Egypt, Sir Reginald Wingate, who warned Allenby that “Mark Sykes is a bit carried away with ‘the exuberance of his own verbosity’ in regard to Zionism and unless he goes a bit slower he may quite unintentionally upset the applecart.” 5
The new military governor of Jerusalem, Ronald Storrs, also worked to cool British enthusiasm for Zionist plans and declarations. He urged sympathy for the point of view of the local Arabs and demanded that any changes come about only “gradually,” so as not to leave “an abiding rancour.” 6
For his part, General Allenby refused even to allow the publication of the Balfour Declaration in Palestine. Instead, the military government issued a declaration of its intentions of “encouraging and assisting the establishment of indigenous government and administrations in Syria and Mesopotamia,” which the local Arab notables assumed to apply to them since they understood Palestine to be part of Syria (and since the British went to the trouble of sending them copies). Jabotinsky summed up the approach of the administration as being “to apologize to the Arabs for a slip of the tongue by Mr. Balfour.” 7
Soon, reports of this resistance to official policy began to alarm the Foreign Office in London, which was still under Lord Balfour. On August 4, 1918, the British administration in Palestine received a cable explicitly ordering it to consider the Balfour Declaration to be British policy. 8
But to no effect. The British administration’s contempt for the Jewish National Home policy and for the Jews themselves only grew more open. General Arthur Money, Allenby’s successor as head of the military administration who complained about Lloyd George’s “hook-nosed friends,” 9 ordered that government forms should be printed in English and Arabic only 10 and refused to stand for the playing of “Hatikva,” the Jewish national anthem. 11 The military governor of Jaffa, Lieutenant-Colonel J. E. Hubbard, organized and funded the first political organizations among the Arabs with the intention of relying on the opinions of these “representatives” to undermine Zionism. 12 Hubbard was reputed to have announced that if the Arabs wished to riot against the Jews, he would not stop them. 13 As for allowing Jews to actually come and live in the land, British Intelligence feared the effects of this bold step as well, and it urged the Foreign Office to deny immigration applications to Jews until the military situation could be resolved. 14 Jabotinsky, who had been an ardent advocate of cooperation with the British, was now forced to conclude ruefully that the British administration had been swept up in “an unprecedented epidemic of anti-Semitism.” He wrote: “Not in Russia, nor in Poland had there been such an intense and widespread atmosphere of hatred as prevailed in the British army in Palestine in 1919 and 1920.” 15
But the British establishment continued to boast a handful of genuine Zionists, who waged a tireless (and ultimately futile) battle to implement the policies of Lloyd George and Balfour. These few believed the exact opposite of what the proponents of Arab appeasement were advocating. They thought that Britain ultimately could not rely on the Arabs, and that even those Arabs who were in league with Britain were weak and unstable. They believed that it was in the interest of Britain to help the Jews build a solid Western base in the heart of the Middle East—which paradoxically would help stabilize the Arab domains around it.
No one argued this more forcefully than Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen, the British chief of intelligence in the Middle East who had used brilliant deception techniques to help drive the Turks out of Palestine in 1917. Although himself a onetime anti-Semite, Meinertzhagen’s opinion of Jews and Zionism had changed after he started using Jewish and Arab agents in the Middle East. By the time he was appointed chief political officer in Palestine in 1919, Meinertzhagen had become one of the greatest non-Jewish Zionists in history, a commitment that eventually culminated in his meeting with Hitler to try to rescue Jews from Germany and bring them to safety in Palestine. Meinertzhagen was a thoroughly independent-minded British patriot, and his approach to Zionism was fashioned first and foremost by its coherence with British interests. The remarkable character of this man is revealed in his first meeting with Hitler. The Fuhrer marched up to Meinertzhagen, extended his arm, and said, “Heil Hitler!” Not missing a beat, Meinertzhagen responded: “Heil Meinertzhagen!” 16
As the representative of Balfour’s foreign office in Palestine, Meinertzhagen found himself “alone out there among gentiles, in upholding Zionism.” 17 Nevertheless, he argued that support for the Jewish National Home was unassailably in Britain’s interest:
The force of nationalism will challenge our position. We cannot befriend both Arab and Jew. My proposal is based on befriending the people who are more likely to be loyal friends—the Jews…. Though we have done much for the Arabs, they do not know the meaning of gratitude; moreover they would be a liability; the Jew would be an asset…. The Jews have moreover proved their fighting qualities since the Roman occupation of Jerusalem. The Arab is a poor fighter, though an adept at looting, sabotage and murder…. [Mine] is a proposal to make our position in the Middle East more secure. 18
Three decades before Israel’s independence, Meinertzhagen was convinced that the alliance with the pro-Western Jews would ultimately be the only way to defend Britain’s position in the Middle East:
We [will] cease to control the Suez Canal in 1966; by that time we shall have been pushed out of Egypt[,] who can then close the Canal against our shipping….
I have always regarded Palestine as the key to Middle East Defence. I therefore approached Weizmann last week with a view to ascertaining whether, when and if Palestine becomes a Jewish Sovereign State, Great Britain would be granted air, naval and military bases in Palestine in perpetuity. Moreover the Jews can be relied on to keep agreements, the Arabs can never be relied on.… With British Bases in Palestine our position in the Middle East is secure forever. 19
The struggle between Meinertzhagen and the British anti-Zionists over the future direction of the Mandate finally boiled over in March 1920 with the installation of Feisal, the candidate of the British Arabists, as king of all Syria—including Palestine. The British administration in Palestine, unable to officially recognize his kingship over Palestine, 20 orchestrated violent demonstrations demanding the end of the Jewish National Home policy and the incorporation of Palestine into Syria. In coordination with Feisal, Storrs, the governor of Jerusalem, and his chief of staff, Richard Waters-Taylor, had cultivated a coterie of Pan-Arabist radicals led by Haj Amin al-Husseini, who they believed could be counted on to support the incorporation of Palestine into a British-controlled Syria under Feisal’s family, the Hashemites. According to Meinertzhagen (who had been forced to plant age
nts to monitor the anti-Zionist activities of his own government), Waters-Taylor approached these Arabs in early 1920 with the idea of organizing “anti-Jew riots to impress on the Administration the unpopularity of the Zionist policy” Both Storrs and Feisal were informed of this effort. 21
Waters-Taylor met with Husseini to emphasize the importance of the riots, as Meinertzhagen later related:
Waters-Taylor saw Haj al Amin on the Wednesday before Easter and told him that he had a great opportunity at Easter to show the world that the Arabs of Palestine would not tolerate Jewish domination in Palestine; that Zionism was unpopular not only with the Palestine Administration but with Whitehall; and if disturbances of sufficient violence occurred in Jerusalem at Easter, both General Bols and General Allenby would advocate the abandonment of the Jewish National Home. 22
On the day of the rioting Jerusalem was covered with posters reading: “The Government is with us, Allenby is with us, kill the Jews; there is no punishment for killing Jews.” 23 Arab inciters shouted, “Long live our King—King Feisal! In the name of our King we urge you to fight the Jews!” 24 Jewish police officers had been taken off duty, and the security forces were nowhere to be found (except for some of the Arab policemen who took part in the rioting), as the Arab mob beat, raped, and looted for three days. Most of those whom the British detained were released again before the violence had ended and simply went back to rioting. 25 Six Jews were killed and 211 wounded. When order was finally “restored,” the British had arrested two Arabs for raping Jewish women and twenty Jewish men (including Jabotinsky) for having organized a Jewish self-defense unit. Husseini, who had orchestrated the mayhem, slipped out of the country. At a meeting of Moslem notables immediately following the riots, a leading agitator, Aref el-Aref, said: “Fortunately, the British Administration is on our side and we shall not be hurt. My advice, then, is to continue the assault on the Jews.” 26
In the aftermath of the rioting, it looked at first as though Meinertzhagen’s views might prevail. His protests to the still-sympathetic Foreign Office and his subsequent testimony before the commission of inquiry so shocked the government in London that it determined to dismantle the military government. General Sir Louis Bols and Waters-Taylor were dismissed, and in July 1920 Palestine was turned over to a high commissioner, Lord Herbert Samuel, who was a professed Zionist. Jabotinsky and his men were amnestied for their activities during the riots. Meanwhile, the French invaded Damascus and deposed the British-installed Hashemite government, staking their own claim to Syria and ruining forever the Arabist scheme of incorporating Palestine into a British Syria.
But within months it became clear that the battle for Britain’s fulfillment of its commitments would be protracted and bitter. “Bols went,” wrote Colonel Patterson, “but the system he implanted remained. The anti-Semitic officials that he brought with him into the country remained.” 27 The well-meaning Lord Samuel proved inadequate to the task of resisting his subordinates, and the situation rapidly deteriorated. These underlings harangued ceaselessly about the hatred that was growing against Britain because of the Jews, and they saw to it that key non-British positions were filled by Arabs, even in the security services. 28 They prevailed upon Lord Samuel to pardon Husseini as a “gesture” and allow the instigator of the riots to return to Jerusalem, where he immediately resumed orchestrating more of them.
Worried about being “led into a clash with our Arab friends,” 29 Samuel, after some initial opposition, finally acquiesced in the scheme to detach Transjordan from the rest of Palestine. When the post of Mufti (Moslem religious leader) of Jerusalem became vacant, Husseini grew determined to use the prestige and financial muscle of the post against the Jews, and he ran for the position. Although he lost the election, coming in fourth, the anti-Zionists in Samuel’s administration deposed the actual winner and duped Samuel into believing that Haj Amin alone represented Palestinian Arabs. Samuel appointed Haj Amin al-Husseini to the newly manufactured post of “Grand Mufti,” Mufti for life—in one fateful stroke legitimizing the most violent and radical element among the Palestinian Arabs to a position of preeminent leadership and establishing a pattern that was to continue through the rest of the century. “He hates both Jews and British,” wrote Meinertzhagen. “His appointment is sheer madness.” 30 “Samuel is rather weak,” Lloyd George concluded glumly 31
By 1921, hostility to Zionism was quickly making inroads in London as well. In that year, the authority over Palestine was transferred from the Foreign Office to the new Middle East Department at the Colonial Office, made up of old empire-building hands from colonies such as Kenya, Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast, and southern Rhodesia. 32 The new department was headed by Sir John Evelyn Shuckburgh; a man “saturated with anti-Semitism, [he] loathes Zionism and the Jews.” 33 Shuckburgh was among the leaders of the effort to convince the government that it could maintain Britain’s hold on the Middle East by opposing Zionism and thereby earn the gratitude and loyalty of its new Arab subjects in Egypt, Iraq, and the Gulf. Although they were captivated by the mystique of the Arab, the British Arabists had another, much less romantic interest in backing the Arabs. In a peculiar combination of patronizing sympathy and subconscious contempt, they believed that the Arabs were a backward people who could be more easily controlled than the Jews and indefinitely manipulated to postpone demands for independence—as long as their disdain for Jews did not rile them into opposition to British domination. Shuckburgh was joined in the Colonial Office by veterans of relations with the Arabs during the war, including T. E. Lawrence. “Lawrence of Arabia” had been made famous in Britain and America by a widely exaggerated stage-show about the war effort against the Ottomans—which had depicted him and his minuscule band of Arab raiders as the heroes of the war. In order to substantiate this undeserved reputation, Lawrence worked doggedly to promote the impression that Britain owed a great deal to the Arabs in general and to Feisal and the Hashemites of Mecca in particular. 34 Seasoned subordinates like Shuckburgh and Lawrence were able to play on the inexperience of the new minister above them (as had happened to Lord Samuel and countless other top officials over the course of this century) and convert him to their policies: In this case, the man in charge was the mercurial colonial secretary, Winston Churchill.
Churchill took office as a man of outspoken sympathy for Zionism. In February 1920, he sent chills down the spines of government Arabists by telling the Sunday Herald that he envisioned “a Jewish State by the banks of the Jordan… which might comprise three or four million Jews.” 35 In this he was heir to the tradition of Versailles, which had clearly supported the idea that, as in biblical times, the Jewish nation was to be reinstated on both banks of the Jordan River. On this matter Lord Balfour had written to Lloyd George that Palestine’s eastern border had to be well east of Jordan “for the development of Zionist agriculture.” 36 Lord Samuel had concurred that
… you cannot have numbers without area and territory. Every expert knows that for a prosperous Palestine an adequate territory beyond the Jordan [River] is indispensable. 37
The Times, too, had argued that Palestine needed a “good military frontier… as near as may be to the edge of the desert.” According to the Times, the Jordan River
… will not do as Palestine’s eastern boundary. Our duty as Mandatory is to make Jewish Palestine not a struggling State but one that is capable of a vigorous and independent national life. 38
Lord Arnold, the Undersecretary for the Colonies, retrospectively summed up the position of official Britain during the war for Parliament a few years later:
During the war we recognized Arab independence, within certain border limits…. There were discussions as to what territories these borders should take in. But there was no dispute as to Trans-Jordan. There is no doubt about the fact that Trans-Jordan is within the boundaries to which the [Balfour] Declaration during the War refers. 39
Even Abdullah, the emir of the new entity of Transjordan, recognized that Transjordan had b
een intended by the British to be part of the Jewish National Home:
[God] granted me success in creating the Government of Transjordan by having it separated from the Balfour Declaration[,] which had included it since the Sykes-Picot Agreement [in 1916] assigned it to the British zone of influence. 40
Like his brother Feisal, Abdullah was apparently convinced of the value of Jewish immigration to building Transjordan’s economic base, and at various points between 1924 and 1935 he attempted to arrange the sale and lease of land in Transjordan to Jews from western Palestine. These efforts were eventually aborted by the British government in western Palestine. 41
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