Tag: Balfour Declaration

Churchill and Palestine
A frail Roosevelt with King Ibn Saud aboard USS Quincy, Great Bitter Lake, Egypt, 14 February 1945 with interpreter Col. William Eddy, USMC. Fleet Admiral William Leahy, the President’s Chief of Staff, is at left. Remarkably, King Saud did not believe religion was the main Palestine problem. It was “immigration from Eastern Europe of people who were technically and culturally on a higher level than the Arabs, [who] had greater difficulty in surviving economically. [That these] energetic Europeans are Jewish is not the cause of the trouble. It is their superior skills and culture.” (Naval History & Heritage Command, Wikimedia Commons)
“Churchill and Palestine”: Richmond, California, February 10th

“Churchill and Palestine”: Richmond, California, February 10th

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Churchill and Palestine had a long association spanning two world wars and thirty years. It began when Arthur Balfour declared Britain's objective of a "Jewish National Home" in Palestine. Almost simultaneously, T.E. Lawrence was promising the Arabs sovereignty over lands in the Middle East ruled for nearly half a millennium by the Turks. A reluctant Britain accepted responsibility for the Mandate of Palestine after the war. East Palestine became Arab-ruled Jordan. West Palestine became the source of conflict that has now lasted over a century.

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Zionist
Jerusalem, 29 March 1921. Colonial Secretary Churchill (r) escorted by British High Commissioner Herbert Samuel. (National Photo Collection of Israel, Wikimedia Commons)
When Did Churchill Become a Zionist?

When Did Churchill Become a Zionist?

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"A Jewish State in Palestine is an event in world history to be viewed in the perspective, not of a generation or a century, but in the perspective of a thousand, two thousand or even three thousand years. [But] British postwar policies “led to the winding up of our affairs in Palestine in such a way as to earn almost in equal degree the hatred of the Arabs and the Jews.” 

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Palestine
At the Cairo Conference, 1921. Front, L-R: M. Stevenson, Gen. Walter Congreve (Commander Egyptian Expeditionary Force), Sir Herbert Samuel (Palestine High Commissioner), Winston Churchill (Colonial Secretary), Sir Percy Cox (Iraq High Commissioner). 2nd row, L-R: Gertrude Bell (advisor who favored Arab kings in Iraq and Jordan), Sir Sassoon Eskell (Iraq Finance Minister), Gen. Atkinson, Jafar Pasha al-Askari (Iraq Defense Minister), T.E. Lawrence (Middle East Dept.) Public domain, Beaugosses at the English Wikipedia.
Avaricious Imperialists or Nation Builders? The Middle East, 100 Years On

Avaricious Imperialists or Nation Builders? The Middle East, 100 Years On

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Middle East, Made and Unmade

“A Cen­tu­ry Ago, the Mod­ern Mid­dle East Was Born,” announced The New York Times in Decem­ber. A col­league asks: “Are you not struck by how dif­fi­cult (impos­si­ble?) it is to encap­su­late his­to­ry in an op-ed? Is that real­ly how and when the mod­ern Mid­dle East was born?”

Good ques­tions. The Times’s idea is that after World War I, avari­cious impe­ri­al­ists moved in to enslave Turkey’s for­mer slaves. This famil­iar theme will dom­i­nate through the cen­te­nary of the Cairo Con­fer­ence in March 2021. It’s been around at least since 2001, when Osama bin Laden referred to 9/11 as pay­back for what he then called “eighty years of injustice.”…

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Israel
HRH Prince William disembarks at Ben Gurion International Airport, 25 June 2018. (Reuters/Amir Cohen)
How Winston Churchill Preserved the Dream of Israel: July, 1922

How Winston Churchill Preserved the Dream of Israel: July, 1922

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The Dream of Israel : An ear­li­er ver­sion of this arti­cle appeared in The Amer­i­can Spec­ta­tor on June 30th. There were some inter­est­ing com­ments. Click the link to read. 

Here­in, some edits of the edits, which diverged slight­ly from the draft. The pub­lished sub­ti­tle was, “Here’s bet­ting he would have loved America’s new embassy.” (Nev­er bet on what Churchill might love or not love.) It’s worth not­ing that the U.S. Embassy is in West Jerusalem. In a set­tle­ment, there could also be an Arab seat of gov­ern­ment in East Jerusalem. RML

Britain and Israel

Prince William land­ed in Israel June 25th for the first roy­al vis­it to the coun­try.…

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Winston Churchill, Myth and Reality

Churchill by Himself

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The Patriot’s Churchill

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