Churchill on the Egyptians: “Set the Jews on them.” Or so it is alleged.
Egyptians and all that
Good afternoon, I’ve emailed you before. If it’s not too much trouble could you please verify whether Sir Winston actually said this? “If we have any more of [Egyptian] cheek we will set the Jews on them and drive them into the gutter from which they should never have emerged.”
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[Churchill] made a tremendous attack on the Egyptians late at night when A.E. was talking about the troubles with them. Rising from his chair, the old man advanced on Anthony with clenched fists, saying with the inimitable Churchill growl, “Tell them that if we have any more of their cheek we will set the Jews on them and drive them into the gutter, from which they should never have emerged.” He then sank back, exhausted, into his chair. None of this seemed very helpful, but it was most amusing. He talked at great length about the war and about his trips to the Middle East at that time–fascinatingreminiscences which obviously interest him more than today’s problems.
Background
King Farouk was widely condemned for his corrupt and ineffectual governance after the Second World War. Egyptians chafed under the British presence in the Suez Canal, and their army’s failure in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Public discontent against Farouk rose to new levels. In December 1951, many Egyptians left the Canal Zone and the British began importing labour to replace them. It was the beginning of the end for Farouk, deposed in July 1952. Four years later came the Suez Crisis.
Like most of Churchill’s cracks about foreign peoples, this was made in private, and had nothing to do with policy. No one contemplated “setting the Jews” on Egypt over discontented Egyptians. (It took nationalizing the Suez Canal to do that: Israel joined the Anglo-French in armed intervention, withdrawing in the face of U.S. opposition.)
Churchill’s line is easy to quote out of context to label him anti-Egyptian (though in this case at least, not anti-Semitic). The spin the writers put on it is varies accordingly. Stephen Ambrose in his Eisenhower biography, says Churchill was “giving advice.” Lawrence James says WSC was “beside himself with rage.” Ponting, who despised Churchill, says it showed “his usual contempt for the Egyptians.” Makovsky says Churchill “often denigrated native peoples fighting imperial British control.” (Ponting and Makovsky apparently never read Churchill’s praise of native peoples fighting outside control from his earliest books to his Second World War memoirs.)
So, A.M., it is appropriate is to accept the diarist’s version. Shuckburgh describes it as a brief outburst from a not-very-interested PM. I think that might be true! Of course, diarists also tend to make revisions in their diaries—especially when publishing them years after the fact.
4 thoughts on “Churchill on the Egyptians: “Set the Jews on them.” Or so it is alleged.”
With this saying Churchill admits that Israel is a puppet state of the British Empire, engineering Israel’s creation via Balfour to balkanize the middle east—among other Machiavellian geopolitical machinations. The implication, which goes without saying, is that all the Zionist leadership were/are British/American agents. For example, the father of the current Israeli president—Chaim Herzog—was an outright MI6 agent. Written by an Israeli.
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Not sure what saying you refer to, but Israel came along after the British Empire walked away from its Palestine Mandate on 14 May 1948, leaving unresolved borders and a war in its wake. The UK, which had defense agreements with Egypt and Jordan, abstained from admitting Israel to the UN and did not recognize Israel until 1949, by which time it had almost gone to war with Israel, which shot down several RAF aircraft reconnoitering IDF positions inside Sinai. Some puppet.
Arthur Balfour, incidentally, was 18 years dead before Israel was even heard of, but he did utter something appropriate: “The Rt. Hon. Gentleman has said much that is true and much that is trite, but what’s true is trite and what’s not trite is not true.” Written by a reader of history. -RML
Nasser was greatly influenced by the Syrian media outlets in Egypt which nursed a pro-fascist narrative, thus fed public resentment of the British. Egypt was deeply divided between city inhabitants and old Egyptian villagers. Nasser and his colleagues were easily swayed by anti-British propaganda that culminated in Suez war and later authoritarian regimes
I don’t think “setting the Jews on them” implied that he thought of them as dogs. I think he was referring to their evident prowess at beating the Egyptians. A Jewish friend was amused by this, saying that if the Jews had as much clout as the anti-Semites claim, they would be ruling the world.
Thanks so much for this. Re: “At least not anti-Semitic” one could argue – and I would – that if the quote is true, he’s talking about Jews a if they were dogs, albeit useful dogs, which is pretty anti-Semitic.