\chapter{Imperialism, Zionism and Palestine}

\chapterauthor{Maurice BUTTIN}

In contemporary history, the fate of the Palestinian people represents a veritable anachronism at a time when almost all peoples have won their independence.

To understand this situation, knowledge of a number of basic geo-historical-political data, inherent in the Near Eastern region, is required.

The role of Western and Russian-Soviet imperialisms, that of Zionism before the creation of the State of Israel, will be essentially analyzed, within the limited framework of this article.

\section{The end of the Ottoman Empire}

August 1914. The First World War broke out. The Ottoman Empire is already very sick. Most of its European possessions were liberated. North Africa is colonized by the Western powers.
Only its integrity has remained, for four centuries, in the Middle East, maintained de facto, by the strategic interests of England.
Master of the Suez Canal and Egypt itself since 1882, it refuses to see any other imperialist power compete with it on the land route to India.

October 1914. The Sultan's Turkey enters the war on the side of the Central Empires. This will be his last act!

England fears a Turkish-German push towards the Suez Canal… It changed its tune and envisaged, at first, an \enquote{Arab} solution under British control that would replace Ottoman domination.

\section{Promises to Arabs}

From July 1915 to early 1916, England continued secret talks with Sharif Hussein, governor of Muslim holy sites, later known as the \enquote{Hussein-Mac Mahon Correspondence} — the new British resident in Cairo.
In exchange for the promise of a liberated \enquote{Arab kingdom}, the Sharif proposed the uprising of the Arab tribes against the Turkish occupier.

This hope of independence of the \enquote{Fertile Crescent}, which at the time was only one Turkish province – Syria – is not new.

Arab nationalism appeared as early as the first half of the nineteenth century, first through a revival of the Arab language and culture, the Nahda — the work of Muslim and Christian personalities from Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, in struggle against cultural imperialism, then political imperialism of the Ottoman Turk.

\section{Anglo-French imperialist partition}

But England is not alone in the war against Turkey, allied with the Central Powers. So are France and Tsarist Russia.
These two countries will ask for their share of the cake, France in the first place. Hasn't its influence been preponderant in the Holy Land for ages?
Wasn't she aknowledged by the Sultan as protector of all Christians in the Ottoman Empire in 1673? Didn't it intervene in 1860 to save the Lebanese Maronites from the massacre?

As early as 1916, secret conversations began in London between diplomats Mr. Sykes and Mr. Picot. They lead to a \enquote{memorandum of agreement}, to the division of the region into zones of influence of the two imperialist powers 
– in total ignorance of the Arab national aspirations and the promises made to them by the British!

To France, the territory of Lebanon and Syria decreased. To England, Mesopotamia (Iraq), southeastern Syria, part of Palestine (St. John of Acre).
For her, it is a question of maintaining for its benefit the \enquote{road of the Indies} from the Suez Canal to the Arab-Persian Gulf.

A large part of Palestine is reserved for an \enquote{international administration whose form will have to be decided after consultation with Russia…}

It should be noted that this decision, intended to reconcile the competing Anglo-Franco-Russian demands, drawing arguments from the Christian Holy Places, is unrelated to the aspirations of the Zionists, who advance their pawns elsewhere…

\section{The alliance of British imperialism and Zionism}

The year 1917, dramatic on the Western Front, will somewhat modify the Anglo-French plans in the Middle East. Three major events are to be noted for this turn of the century:

The entry of the United States into the war in April, with now a decisive influence of this country both on the outcome of the conflict and on the development of liberal-capitalist doctrines in the world.

The Russian Revolution followed by the bolshevik seizure of power in October with triumphant Marxist-Leninist ideology.

The \enquote{Balfour Declaration} in November, or the official recognition by the British government of Zionist ambitions. These were not born from the day before.

While religious Zionism — \enquote{The Call of Zion}, the name of a jerusalem hill — has never ceased to haunt pious Jews since Titus' destruction of the Temple in 70, political Zionism for its part began to manifest itself twenty years earlier.

It was in August 1897, in fact, that the founding charter of the Zionist movement, proclaimed at the first World Zionist Congress, held in Basel, dates back.
An Austrian journalist, a perfectly assimilated Jew, Th. Herzl is the soul of this new nationalism – born of the ideas of the time throughout Europe, but above all of the observation of the permanence of pogroms against the Jews in Russia and Poland, and the unleashing of virulent anti-Semitism in France, in 1894, with the Dreyfus affair.

Its program is formulated as follows: \enquote{Zionism aims at the creation in Palestine, for the Jewish people, of a homeland guaranteed by public law}.

It should be noted that from the Basel Congress to the Biltmore Congress in New York in 1942, the Zionists and their friends never evoked the term \enquote{state}.
A simple euphemism to avoid too much opposition in some Western circles, including the most hostile assimilated Jews at the time.

Hadn't Herzl written in 1896 a book that would mark history, \emph{Der Judenstaat} — The Jewish State? He himself noted in his diary at the end of the Basel Congress:
\enquote{There I founded the Jewish state. If I were to proclaim it today, everyone would laugh at me. In five years perhaps, in fifty years certainly, it will no longer escape anyone.}

What a premonition!

Herzl died in 1905. A Russian Jew, soon naturalized English, takes up the torch. For Chaüm Weizmann, unlike this one, the \enquote{Jewish homeland} is not conceived outside Palestine.
A brilliant research scientist, he seriously helped the English war effort by successfully synthesizing acetone. This opened many doors for him, including that of Lloyd George, future Prime Minister.
He was already a friend of Arthur Balfour, the future Minister of Foreign Affairs.
He proposed to them the creation of a Jewish buffer state in Palestine under British protection, the best way to ensure the defense of the Suez Canal…

The British will retain this idea all the more because they fear being overtaken by German Jews favorable to the cause of this country out of hatred of the Russians, and that it must also allow them to avoid the internationalization of Palestine.

The entry into the war of the United States, the Russian Revolution, the pledges that must be given to American Jews to participate in the war effort, and to the many Russian revolutionary Jews, no longer make them hesitate.
Balfour asked Weizmann and Lord Rothschild — a rare Jewish aristocrat who had followed the Zionist path — to propose a draft declaration concerning Palestine.
This, as amended, will form the basis of the letter sent by the British Foreign Secretary to Lord W. Rothschild on 2 November 1917, according to which:
\enquote{His Majesty's Government favourably contemplates the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people and will use all its efforts to facilitate the attainment of this objective…}

\section{Violation of promises made to Arabs}

As early as the end of 1917, arab leaders heard from the Bolshevik government of the \enquote{Sykes-Picot Agreement}. They learn a few months after the \enquote{Balfour Declaration}, that is to say the installation on the ground, beyond the colonies that have already been created for thirty years, of a new imperialism allied to British imperialism!

To calm their concerns, the English and French governments — which, like the U.S. government, approved the \enquote{Declaration} — are renewing their promises.
On the very eve of the armistice of November 11, 1918, they recognized the \enquote{right to self-determination} of the peoples liberated from Ottoman power — dear to US President Wilson…

The \enquote{desert revolt} was, in fact, very useful to the Allies. After liberating the Hejaz, the Bedouin tribes under the leadership of Emir Faisal, son of Sharif Hussein, took Aqaba, moved up east of Amman and rallied all the tribes to the Euphrates.
Although Allenby's British army occupied Jerusalem on December 9, 1917, Faisal — the friend of the famous Colonel Lawrence — and Allenby entered Damascus together on October 1, 1918.

In July 1919, a general congress of Arab nationalists was held in Damascus. It votes various resolutions condemning Western projects and in particular the installation of a Jewish national home in Palestine…

This did not disturb the meeting of the High Council of the Allies on April 25, 1920 in San-Rémo: the Arab territory between the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean was divided into English and French protectorates, which were confirmed in the form of \enquote{mandates} by the new League of Nations in 1922.

Greater Syria is divided into 4 pieces: to England, Palestine and the territory east of the Jordan River – which became Transjordan in 1921 – ; France, Lebanon and Syria.
To make matters worse for the Arabs, the Balfour Declaration was incorporated into the terms of the British Mandate!

The promises made to the Arabs are totally \enquote{forgotten}, the very principles of the League of Nations charter violated! From then on, the year 1920 will remain forever engraved, in Arabic texts, as \enquote{The Year of The Catastrophe} (Am Al Naqba).


\section{Arab reactions. New british policy}

In the spring of 1920, bloody Arab demonstrations broke out in Palestine. They were renewed in 1929 and in 1936 combined with the first general insurrection against British forces and their Zionist allies – who organized a secret army, the Haganah. 
The English repression was very harsh: more than 5,000 dead.

But the war is approaching, the British are this time afraid of an understanding between Germany and the Arab countries. In the spring of 1939, they published a White Paper which stated that it was in no way their intention to create a Jewish state.
Palestine must gain independence within ten years and become a binational state. Jewish immigration is limited.

The Zionist leaders then settled in the United States and at the Biltmore Conference (1942) no longer hesitated to demand the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine, throughout the territory of the Mandate!

In the face of British opposition, the hardest Zionist organizations are embarking on a major campaign of terrorism against, they say, the \enquote{British occupier}.

In the United States, President Roosevelt leans more towards Arab leaders. But his brutal disappearance features Vice President Truman, who for his election in 1948 needs the Jewish electorate.\rfootnote{The original text has \enquote{[...] a besoin de l’électorat juif II demande au gouvernement anglais [...]} here, the \enquote{II} seemingly a typo} He asks the British government to immediately let 100,000 Jewish refugees, survivors of the Holocaust, into Palestine. It is a refusal.

On the spot, acts of terrorism redoubled and on July 22, 1946, the Q.-G. British at the King David Hotel is dynamited. More than 90 dead, dozens wounded!

In February 1947, faced with the unbearable situation, the British government decided to submit the Palestinian case to the UN.

\section{Two new imperialisms come into play}

In March 1947, President Truman announced that the United States would take over England's obligations in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Near East. They will not let them go anymore…

In turn, in May 1947, the representative of the USSR to the UN, Mr Gromyko, admitted the need for the \enquote{partition of Palestine into two independent states}! Disappointment on the side of the Arab nationalists. The \enquote{Soviet Balfour Declaration} is then evoked.

A special commission of inquiry is appointed by the United Nations. His report, published in August 1947, recommended dividing the country into three independent parts:
a Jewish state, an Arab state, an international status for the Christian Holy Places, from Jerusalem to Bethlehem — the \enquote{Corpus separatum}.

The UN General Assembly adopted this proposal on 29 November 1947. 33 countries voted \enquote{for} (including socialist countries that will greatly help Jewish forces in the first Arab-Israeli war that will follow in 1948-1949).

The Jewish population, which represents only a third of the country's inhabitants, (600,000 out of 1,800,000) receives 55\% of the territory of the British Mandate.

What follows next… everyone knows it!

\rauthor{Maurice Buttin Esq.\rfootnote{M\textsuperscript{e} or \emph{maître} in the original text}}

Maurice Buttin is a lawyer, president of the association France-Palestine
