To His Highness Prince Hassan Bib Talal, Id refer to excerpts of my book Requiem For A dream.. His Highness suggest that Prince Faisals participation in the Paris Peace Conference 1919, was an act of futuristic awakening!! I have another opinion, as included herein. In an intelligence memo written in January 1916, T. E. Lawrence (aka Lawrence of Arabia) described the Arab Revolt as “…beneficial to us, because it marches with our immediate aims, the break up of the Islamic bloc and the defeat and disruption of the Ottoman Empire, and because the states [Sharif Hussein] would set up to succeed the Turks would be … harmless to ourselves … The Arabs are even less stable than the Turks. If properly handled they would remain in a state of political mosaic, a tissue of small jealous principalities incapable of cohesion”. Indeed, it is typical of Lawrence that he managed to get Prince Feisal, the leader of the Arab Revolt, and Chaim Weizmann, the Zionist leader, to sit down together in January 1919 and sign an extraordinary agreement (largely drafted by Lawrence himself) that would have created a joint Arab-Jewish government in Palestine, with unlimited Jewish immigration. Much of the work of the Conference involved deciding which of the Allied powers would administer territories formerly under German and Ottoman rule. Most of the decisions of which power received which territory, however, had already been made, for example, by the “Sykes-Picot Agreement” of May 16, 1917. As MacMillan points out, no one thought to consult the people of these territories about how they wished to be governed, with very few exceptions. The results of this division of territory continues to impact the world today since it resulted in the British Mandate of Palestine and in the creation of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan as nation states. Just as World War I was believed by many to be the war that would end all war, so the Conference was meant to bring lasting peace. Unfortunately, it sowed seeds that resulted not only in World War II but in subsequent conflicts such as the Lebanese Civil War and the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Much was said about the need to protect minorities and create a more just world, but much of the business of the Conference involved nations protecting their own interests and trying to undermine those of others. Palestine, because of support for creating a Jewish homeland within at least part of the territory, was given a separate mandate with specific objectives. The “Balfour Declaration” which, after the Conference was addressed by representative of the World Zionist Organization, including its President, “Chaim Weizmann”, later first President of the State of Israel, was ratified by the delegates, committed the League to establish in Palestine “a national home for the Jewish people”. Palestine was mandated to British governance, although the mandate was not finalized until 1922. The Balfour Declaration came as a shock to the Arab leader, since this promised the Jews a homeland in the middle of what he ASSUMED would be an Arab state. Also, the Sykes-Picot Agreement of May 16, 1916 between the British and the French allocated territory to the two powers with no reference to an Arab state. [Obviously, this is due to the Arab Delegations complete inapt preparation for the Conference, compared to the full detailed project presented by Weitzman which was previously accorded with the Brits. Faisal assumed.. Weitzman concorded.] The mandate also obliged Britain to ensure “that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced” (Article 6). This mandate was bitterly opposed by the Arab world, represented at Paris by “Emir Faisal”, son of “Sharif Hussein bin Ali” (1853-1931) whose family had ruled the Hejaz since 1201. Ironically, since Arabs and Jews were both represented at the Peace Conference, the issues between these two people, deriving from rival territorial claims, remain unsolved.
Posted on: Sat, 29 Mar 2014 11:54:28 +0000
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