Sometimes, you read something that just takes your breath away.
Here's an example:
three decades later, British forces withdrew from Palestine and Israel declared independence shortly after, triggering a civil war and heralding the Israeli-Arab conflict, rendering the prospect of an independent Arab Palestine a distant mirage.
That's just one snippet of history misrepresented in an op-ed in Haaretz:
Let's ignore violent murderous riots in 1920, 1921, 1929, 1936-1939 which could be described as a "civil war" if, indeed, the Arabs thought that Jews belonged in what they thought was their country, which they didn't. And let's ignore that that period was very much one of a Jewish-Arab conflict.
But the violence of 1948 when Israel was declared began at least on November 30, 1947, the day after the UN vote on Partition which was actually still before midnight Nov. 29 in Palestine. Arabs started shooting at Jews already then.
Here's from the Palestine Post's December 1 edition:
Here's from the Palestine Post's December 1 edition:
Here's a second:
The Arabs rebels were fighting against the Ottomans on a promise of British support for Arab interdependence after the war, as envisioned in the famous Hussein-McMahon Correspondence of 1915–16. The British were indeed keen to fulfill their promises - but not to the Arabs.
The British promise was that the entire Middle East from east of Egypt that had been in Ottoman hands would become a free and independent state albeit at first under a Mandate system just as Palestine would be a Mandate. Abdullah became Emir and then King of Jordan and Feisal was King of Iraq. That the Husseins were kicked out of Saudi Arabia was not Britain's fault.
When history is treated in such a cavalier fashion, you know you simply cannot trust anything the author promotes.
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Thanks to EH
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1 comment:
While I am not certain what “arab interdependence” was supposed to mean in the quoted article, certain facts bear repeating, because the Emir Hussein (then still in control of the Hejaz) envisioned a unified Arab block under his rule - nothing interdependent about his vision. First, the Arabs were supposed to start a revolt against the Ottomans which, we know, they didn’t. The Arabs were supposed to supply a large military force to assist General Allenby’s troops. The only place that happened was in the movie Lawrence of Arabia. In reality, the Jewish spy ring in the Holy Land probably played a larger role in the British victory than any guerilla operation conducted by the Arabs.Finally, if you look at the map today, over a century after the MacMahon-Hussein correspondence, the Balfour Declaration and the Mandates, the Arabs are in control of over 99.75% of the lands of the defeated Ottoman Empire and only one of the several indigenous populations (the Jews) control the remaining 0.25%. Yes, that certainly seems that a terrible injustice was inflicted on the Arabs.
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