Contradictory Pledges

Excerpted from Palestine and the Palestinians (Boulder, Co: Westview Press, 1997), by Samih Farsoun with Christine Zacharia, pp. 67-68.

“In the Middle East, World War I was a watershed that, along with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, directed the twentieth-century destiny of [much of the Arab world,] including Palestine.

Starting in 1915, Britain entered into three pivotal and contradictory agreements with three different parties the French government; the leader of the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Turks, Sharif Hussein of Mecca; and the leader of the Zionist movement in Britain, Lord Rothschild within two years. These were the Sykes-Picot agreement, the McMahon-Hussein agreements, and the Balfour Declaration.

The Sykes-Picot agreement of May 16, 1916, divided the former Ottoman dominions in the Arab east between Britain and France as administered territories and zones of influence: what emerged as Syria and Lebanon under the French, Transjordan and Iraq under the British. Palestine was to be internationalized.

This British-French compact contradicted the British agreement with Sharif Hussein of October 24, 1915. According to this agreement, in return for launching an Arab revolt against the Ottoman Turks, Great Britain [was] prepared to recognize and support the independence of the Arabs in all the regions within the limits demanded by the Sharif of Mecca. The Arab leaders and rebels viewed this agreement as the basis for a united Arab kingdom in the former domains of the Ottoman Empire in the Arab east including Palestine.

The Balfour Declaration of November 2, 1917, a letter from the British foreign minister, Lord Balfour, to the Zionist leader Lord Rothschild, stated that His Majesty’s Government views with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people … it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.”

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