A fascinating read for anyone wanting to understand British hostility towards the nascent Jewish state.
A major hurdle when studying the 1948 war is the lack of access to Arab archives. The Syrian documents, obtained by French intelligence – which contain uncensored private correspondence and secret agreements between the Arab leaders, as well as diplomatic exchanges – give scholars a closer look at the Arab stand toward a Jewish state in Palestine without having to rely solely on Israeli and Western archives, Arab rulers’ inflammatory public rhetoric and memoirs, or newspaper articles.
The Syrian documents reveal that the Arab leaders’ attitudes toward the Zionists’ aspirations derived not only from their hostility toward a Jewish state, but were far more complex. This emphasizes the need for scholars to study the Arab-Zionist conflict in the context of Anglo-Arab and inter-Arab rivalries, rather than merely Anglo-Jewish or Arab-Jewish relations.
The thousands of Syrian and other Arab documents found in the French archives, together with British intelligence reports obtained by French intelligence, confirm that the role of the British secret services in the Middle East during and after World War II comprises the “missing dimension” in the historiography of the region in the 1940s.
Two conclusions can be drawn from research into these documents, which are relevant to the role of British intelligence in the war in Palestine.
The first is that, in the 1940s, Britain conducted a two-track policy in the Middle East: one, a well-documented, official policy defined by Whitehall under both the Conservative and Labour parties; the second was informal and secretive, which can be termed “regional,” implemented by “agents in the field,” which left few traces in British archives.
It was perpetrated by a small, influential group of Arabist secret agents who manipulated the cabinet in London and implemented their own policies, which deviated from the official position. These agents enjoyed a unique status as intermediaries between Whitehall and local Arab leaders. Either intentionally, or because of deep-seated personal beliefs, they provided biased assessments.
They did not merely gather and interpret information and recommend policy, but controlled the flow of information and implemented their own policies while keeping the London decision makers in the dark. They joined forces with Arab rulers, whom they portrayed as voicing the Arab view, in order to mislead their government. Their tactics, which were backed by senior military officers in Cairo, gathered momentum under the post-WWII Labour government and during the crisis in Palestine in 1947-48.
The second conclusion is that the British secret agents succeeded in implementing their policies due largely to their use of indirect control over local “agents of influence.” They employed undercover political operations, clandestine diplomacy and covert propaganda to manipulate Arab leaders and public opinion – methods widely used in the Middle East during World War II.
The Syrian and British documents provide a unique insight into the modus operandi of the British secret services in co-opting prominent Arab leaders, and helping them to positions of power in return for their collaboration. President Quwatli and Prime Minister Mardam Bey in Syria; President Khuri and Prime Minister Sulh in Lebanon; Arab League Secretary-General Abd al-Rahman al-Azzam – these are prime examples, but there were many others.
For the British, the Arabs were the ones they felt were reliably subordinate to British influence, so the Jewish state was either to be prevented from coming into existence or summarily strangled in the cradle.
Apart from political and financial bribery – and, when necessary, pressure and extortion – an effective tactic was to convince them that collaborating with Britain was in their own and their country’s interests. But such maneuvers, as was the case with President Quwatli, did not always succeed. After World War II, as Britain’s prestige waned and its military and economic standing diminished, undercover political operations were stepped up, becoming an essential tool for the Arabist secret agents to safeguard their country’s strategic and economic interests in the Middle East. […]
The May 11 report from the French military attaché in Beirut, on the secret discussions of the Arab League’s political committee in Damascus, reveals that, apart from King Abdullah, the other Arab leaders were hesitant, seeking a way to delay an invasion of Palestine. It also exposes the British agents’ direct intervention in their decisions. At the last minute, King Faruq overruled his reluctant prime minister and commanded his army to go to war.
The 1948 war swept away the anciens régimes and opened the road to power for a young generation of radical Arab-nationalist officers, determined to avenge their countries’ defeat and bring an end to Britain’s dominance in the region.
The old Arab rulers, victims of British machinations and their own ambitions, were to pay dearly. King Abdullah, Iraqi Prince-Regent Abd al-Ilah, Nuri al-Sa’id, Sulh and Nuqrashi all lost their lives. King Faruq and President Quwatli were more fortunate, losing only power.
The British secret agents, diplomats, military officers and civil servants returned home, leaving behind their legacy of a divided, violent Middle East, in which the states formed by two colonial powers in the aftermath of the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement failed to withstand the test of time.
With the revelation of Rotherham, Londonistan, Sharia compliancy, and the consequences of defying Islam made clear …
Karma is quite the bitch, eh, mates?
How do you understand that hostility again? The appearance conveyed by the karma comment is that it’s primarily owing to some underlying hostility to Judaism, or favoritism toward Islam, right? But that isn’t the case now, is it? Sure, it is possible that hostility to Judaism or the Jews as a people taken simply may have played some small role in these secret maneuvers, but by far not the major role nor were the major cause. That major cause more contextually was the then current crumbling of the once dominant British Empire, an Empire built on the powers of trade, and monopolistic practices regarding the Empire’s trading partners? But owing to many reasons, among which we can count Roosevelt’s hard bargaining when Britain was in a pinch at war with the Nazis, their source of wealth and power was fast drying up, for now the British found themselves in great competition at trade — and losing to the US at it — where once there was none.
Will Obama like it when someone says “How British” he is? As for Britain, sow&reap.
I wonder to what extent these maladventures by British agents were directed or encouraged by Kim Philby’s Soviet handlers?
sdferr,
When the British government cynically decided to toss the Jews under the bus (not only toss, but help push the bus on them), tell me why some level of anti-Semitism was not in play? The Brits were well aware of the Holocaust, yet they deemed Jews “not reliable” as British allies.
They backed the wrong horse. Ah, too bad, so sad.
Americans are about to commence arming and training a whole army of Jew haters in Syria
perhaps America will succeed where Britain failed
ach, I apologize for writing so poorly Darleen. I didn’t intend to suggest that jew-hate had no role at all, specifically intending to allow that it may have had some small role in these decisions. However, I don’t know that for a fact. And I sure don’t see any direct evidence of it, so see therefore no reason to assume it positively, while allowing the possibility evidence may be found elsewhere.
Sure, I know that there is plenty of jew-hate in Britain over time — the Jews were expelled by decree from Britain altogether way back when. But here, the more important causes (and it is by knowledge of causes for the most part that we think we understand a thing) lay in the collapse of the Empire, along with error-ridden efforts to maintain the Empire that seem to me better attributable as being behind the maneuvering of the spies.
sdferr
To expand a little, I think British racism towards Arabs also played a part — Arabs being the lesser people who could be manipulated so as Brits could retain a hegemony in the Middle East.
The problem with anti-Semitism in the West is/was its ubiquitous, albeit low-level, nature. Jewish quotas for colleges and universities, barriers to country clubs, all manner of stereotypes regardless of a level of acceptance as business associates and professionals.
Jews have been the ultimate Other and a scapegoat for a few thousand years. Zionism was borne of this kind of unending hostility … regardless of how Jewish communities thrived in any country, they were never fully accepted as part of the nation and easily were targeted for any perceived ill.
e.g. The Dreyfus Affair
Enough.
Maybe I’m in need of further lessons on jew-hate in history (and I surely am, though jew-hate has been in a sense a particular study of mine), but don’t honestly think my gaining a better comprehension of that (which certainly isn’t going to be accomplished in recitations of the commonplace) is going to improve my grasp of these political-economic treacheries just now uncovered and publicized. Still, thanks for the reminders.
sdferr
I’m not criticizing you by any means. You are possessed of a depth of knowledge I deeply admire and definitely learn from. You’ve sent me on all manner of information hunts and I’m always grateful to learn something new.
I’m more ranting out of frustration with all manner “well, this isn’t really Jew hate” I’ve encountered over the last — weeks, months, years? yes, all of them — and if I over-reacted, I offer my humble apology.
E-mail me (I lost your address in the last computer melt-down) and I’ll send ya a transcription of an address by a committed Zionist Darleen. I think you’ll enjoy the reading of it.
The Sons of Ishmael, “wild asses among men“…
Even if one discounts consideration of everything biblical as doltish misbelief of outdated collected fables, this certainly seems to nail most of the Arabic Muslims, historically and to present.
Serr8d’s post is a reminder that the notion of peace in the Mid-East is a pipe dream.
Please consider the source of this analysis, Haaretz, a Leftist newspaper.
Darleen “When the British government cynically decided to toss the Jews under the bus (not only toss, but help push the bus on them), tell me why some level of anti-Semitism was not in play?”
How about this: There was some extant anti-Semitism, although not as much as in the past, but: After perpetrating such an evil plot the Brits had to justify what they did by seeing Israel (and Jews) as deserving of such treatment…and hence an intensification of British Jew-hatred.
That said, I think Bob Belvedere has a point (regardless of the source, actually): We want to see if other scholars confirm this report.
Why, why, why? It’s a mystery.
[T]he notion of peace in the Mid-East is a pipe dream.
P.J. O’Rourke, sometime back in the early 90s when the first Gulf War was all the rage, had an essay that relied heavily upon the bible, Josephus, the Christian chroniclers of the Crusades etc. to demonstrate that the Middle East was always a shithole and would always be a shithole.
I think he was right.
Most of the source material about what an enlightened civilization the Muslims had way back before they took over southern Spain comes from … Muslims.
But even they don’t try to pretend they have a great civilization now. It must be the Jews’ fault.
The key is, Ernst, to keep it a shithole without WMD’s.
Ernst, I was thinking about P.J. O’Rourke’s essay, too. I believe it was called, “The 2000 Year-old Mid-East Peace Conflict,” or something to that effect. It appeared in one of is collected works.
The most trenchant middle east commentary I have ever seen remains:
“Them ayrabs is all et up with the dumb-ass.”
Boil down a lot of books, essays, and interview, and you’ll find that that’s what it comes down to, in the end.
Ernst, Cranky: Is this it?…
https://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/2002/09/orourke.htm
Geoffb’s link at 7:56pm is the most succinct description of what’s really going on I’ve seen yet.
We would have never beat the Nazis if we were merely engaged in a “counter-blitzkrieg” effort. Likewise, we will never stop the Islamists with counter-terrorism strategies. All that has accomplished, and all it ever will, is to relieve everyone else of their liberties.
Of course that ship has already sailed. It’s been said a people that trade their liberty for security deserve neither. Such a people we have become.
Seems to me I read the one I’m thinking of back in the early 90s. But the Atlantic piece certainly hits a lot of the same themes. And it’s not like O’Rourke never recycles material.
Pretty sure it was something from Holidays in Hell about the Arab-Israeli conflict.
That rings a bell now.
What is it about the Arabian deserts and purity? What is it about the infernal heat of the day, the shivering cold of the night and the starkness of the infinite depth of the heavens gaping back at the Arab’s gaze which inspires this obsession with purity, which in turn results in such blood and toil, accompanied by a ridiculous denigration of reason?
Bernard Lewis, I heard once, attribute the Arab Muslims troubles to their bad habits in shipbuilding. They were coastal sailors, he said, and didn’t happen to trouble themselves with the open sea. And so fell behind in an iterative process which could only result in they’re falling further behind, despite that many among them could recognize their problem. They simply had no means to overcome it, on account of they resorted to mistaken views how it came about in the first instance.
There is a chapter titled “The Holyland – God’s Monkey House” and another “A Ramble Through Lebanon.” But I don’t remember how they went exactly.