Yesterday I started reading Jonathan Schneer's new
The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict. I learned something in the first few pages. I already knew that Britain's promise to support establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine conflicted with its earlier promise of independence to the Arabs in return for their revolt against the Turks in World War I. Here's what I did not know:
Britain's prime minister and his agents were engaged in secret maneuverings to detach the Ottoman Empire from the Central Powers. They were offering, among other inducements, that the Turkish flag could continue to fly over Palestine. [Emphasis added.]
In other words, Britain promised sovereignty over the same land to
three different groups. Lord Balfour surely knew of that which he wrote when he
stated in a memorandum to Foreign Secretary Lord Curzon in 1919:
[S]so far as Palestine is concerned, the Powers have made no statement of fact which is not admittedly wrong, and no declaration of policy which, at least in the letter, they have not always intended to violate.
As I say, most of our foreign policy problems today can be traced back to British imperialism.
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