ROOTS OF ISRAEL AND EUROPEAN ANTI-SEMITISM - PART 2/4

ROOTS OF ISRAEL - PART TWO –TO BE CONTINUED

Didier BERTIN 30 MARCH 2010

VII-MISCONDUCT OF GREAT BRITAIN UNTIL 1945

1-From Balfour Declaration to British Mandate
Eager to expand its empire to zones controlled by Turkey, Great Britain tried to arouse the Arab nationalist movements assumed to be above the traditional tribal conflicts. During the War of 1914-1918, Colonel Thomas Lawrence's British military intelligence service, instigated the revolt of Arabs and united their forces to fight the Turks.
Having helped the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in creating the new Arab nationalisms and choosing their leaders, Britain wanted by strengthening its relations with Arab states to maintain control over most of the territories formerly under Turkish control; in particular on the oil areas and channels of communication. The dismantling of the Turkish Empire in favor of Great Britain, France and Russia was the object of the Treaty of Sevres in1920.
The Balfour Declaration and the mandate from LON, became an embarrassment to the specific interests of Great Britain. Presumably it has not renounced the mandate to maintain situation under its control.

 2-Hostility to Great Britain regarding the implementing of its mandate and fight against the Jewish refugees during WWII

The Great Britain opposed to the gradual establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, violating the terms of the Balfour Declaration and the LON Mandate. This opposition was expressed in 3 White Papers published in 1922, 1930 and 1939.
In 1922 the Government White Paper of Winston Churchill was based on a declaration of the latter stating that “Palestine was not to become as Jewish as England is English", and wished rather to create "a center to which the Jewish people as a whole can, for grounds of religion or race, have an interest and pride and can immigrate to the extent of the integration capacity of the country."

The Jewish presence was maintained in principle, but became subsidiary to the Arab presence. Winston Churchill then unilaterally changed the terms of the LON Mandate.
The publication of the White Paper of 1930 was made at the occasion of the riots of 21st October organized by the Mufti of Jerusalem, "Haj Amin El Husseini. For Great Britain, these disorders were merely a consequence of the development of Jewish national home and meant that it was necessary to reduce the number of Jewish emigrants and the acquisition of land by Jews.

In 1937, Britain proposed an unrealistic division of Palestine including population transfers between a coastal strip, part of Galilee and the establishment of a corridor to Jerusalem to allow Jews to keep an access to the city. In any case the Arabs refused this proposal.

The English stated in 1938 that sharing of Palestine became then impossible and published a 3rd White Paper on May 17, 1939 which underlined the claims of Arabs, and permanently restricted Jewish immigration to 75 000 new people spread over 5 years corresponding exactly to the WW2. Any new immigration would have then to be authorized by the Arab authorities. This decision did not take into account the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe and especially in Germany.

Faced with the Nazi persecution in Europe whose consequences were aggravated by the refusal of English to allow immigration to Palestine, the Jewish Agency decided to organize secret immigration named "Aliyah Bet" or "Ha'apala. The English responded by announcing their intention to arrest and deport any unauthorized Jewish refugees. In 1942 the ship "Struma" sank with 768 refugees from Europe after being pushed off of Palestine by the British.

3-Start sharing unilateral Palestine by Great Britain

Great Britain had supported the Arab Revolt of 1916 against the Turkish authorities, led by the Hashemite Sharif of Mecca, Hussein ibn Ali. Because of its ties with him, Britain unilaterally decided in 1921 to give one of his four sons Emir Abdullah, three quarters of the territory subject to its mandate, that is to say Transjordan or the current Jordan and similarly, they gave another of his sons, Faisal, Iraq territory (outside the Mandate) in 1921, after having tried vainly to give him Syria in 1920.
Transjordan with an area of 89 342 km2 mainly composed of arid areas with access to the Red Sea and with a population today mostly Palestinian, accounted for 76% of the land subject of the mandate of a total area of 117 634 km2.
The English have thus taken in 1921 a major initiative unilaterally regarding the partition of Palestine. They took advantage of article 25 of the Mandate, which gave them a certain freedom of appreciation subject to LON‘s Council agreement as far as Transjordan was concerned.
Great Britain gave Jordan an apparent independence in June 1945.

VIII – JEWISH DIFFERENCES REGARDING GREAT BRITAIN BEFORE WW2

"The World Union of Zionist Revisionists" was created in August l925, by Vladimir Jabotinsky. They wanted to organize a massive immigration to Palestine to establish by force a Great Jewish State on the two banks of Jordan. In 1935 the Revisionists, that is to say extremists, withdrew from the Jewish Agency, whose role was that of a kind of Jewish government in Palestine in agreement with the Mandate and created the NZO (New Zionist Organization). Vladimir Jabotinsky named Ze'ev Jabotinsky was the leader of the ultra-extremism. With a certain distance, he had a clear admiration for Mussolini was inspired by fascism to create his paramilitary organization.

The ultra rightist ideas of Vladimir Jabotinsky were opposed to the Socialist Workers Movement predominant in the Jewish Agency. The opposition to the Zionist official was so great that some suspected them to have inspired the murder in 1933 of Chaim Arlosoroff. The latter was a Socialist Zionist leader, member of Political Bureau of the Jewish Agency considered by them as being too much open to negotiation with the English. Yitzhak Rabin would then be the second Jewish leader after Chaim Arlosoroff, to have been murdered under the influence of extreme right.

In 1931, Leumi Irgun Tsvai or Etzel, known as Irgun, was created after split with the Haganah, the Jewish defense organization considered to be insufficiently aggressive. Irgun’s violence deteriorated more than they were relations between Jews and British in Palestine.
During World War II, 30 000 Jews of Palestine engaged alongside the British to fight Germany by far considered a first priority. However some members of Irgun considered they should continue to fight the British and formed the extremist group LEHI or Stern Group.
The opposition grew violently between Stern Group and Irgun in one hand and the Jewish Agency on the other. This opposition continued even after independence in June 1948 when the Israeli army under instruction of Ben Gurion sank the ship "Altalena” utilized by Irgun to import weapons.