October 16, 2000
Israel, the Middle East and
Legacies of Empire
Forget the Oil, History has also made a mess here
THE
BRITISH GIFT
How
did Israel get to be there? No, not how was it founded, but how
did it get to be in Palestine? The question is very important because
it shows the unintended and lasting effects of Empire. In 1917,
the Balfour declaration was proclaimed with the effect that the
British supported the idea of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. A
lot of work has gone on the Zionist element of this declaration,
why the British supported a Jewish homeland. However, little work
has gone on the Palestinian element, why was the Jewish homeland
going to be in Palestine. And how could the British grant this?
DON'T
TAKE IT FOR GRANTED
Between
Richard the Lionheart and Queen Victoria Britain's interest in Palestine
was incidental. It was part of the more adventurous Grand Tours,
the Turks were seen as beastly, Anglican churchmen thought Jerusalem
worth a pilgrimage, but it played little part in British strategic
thinking. The Ottoman Empire had the place tied up, and Britain
paid little heed to it. The French naturally were more concerned
about this place with an extensive Mediterranean shoreline, and
they harried the Sultan as self-appointed protectors of the Christians
in the Ottoman Empire. The Russians also paid a large interest in
this area, of course as protectors of the Christian peoples and
holy places. As Turkey got sicker Britain at first did little to
help, indeed at times they deliberately hurt, as when they helped
the Greek rebellion in 1820.
A
MAN, A PLAN, A CANAL
The
interest in Palestine, indeed in the Eastern Mediterranean, became
a full time obsession with the British with the Suez Canal. Just
as Britain had tenaciously kept control of the Cape Colony and Natal
on the southern tip of Africa to keep control of her Indian trade,
so now she would look to gain control of the man-made short cut,
Suez. As the French had built, the Suez Canal then the British had
a bit of a job on their hands to get a foothold. However the bankrupt
Khedive of Egypt let them in when he sold Britain, represented by
Disraeli, Egypt's half share of the Suez canal.
THE
SICK MAN OF EUROPE
At
first the British were not interested in anything as abstract as
homelands, they were interested in keeping control of the Passage
to India. This meant that a new interest was paid to that grab bag
of colonies like Gibraltar and Malta, which had been picked up in
various European wars – although they had always been seen as important.
It would also lead to Britain's overlordship of Egypt, and bloody
expeditions into the Sudan. At the periphery of the Ottoman Empire
the British started consolidating their colonies like Aden, and
protectorates like Qatar, Sharjah and Dubai – to be used as fueling
stations on the way to India. But the central aim was to maintain
the lynch pin of the Middle East – and the Eastern Mediterranean
through which the British steamers would have to go – the Ottoman
Empire. Obviously the main threat to the Turks, the sick man of
Europe, were their old enemies, the Russians, and this fitted nicely
into the paranoia that the English had about the north-west frontier
and Afghanistan.
THE
TSAR AND INDIA
It
is a necessary condition of history that we must look at history
and its relationship with today. However, this leads to the weakness
of considering everything in history inevitable. When we look at
the Russian revolution, it is easy to think of Russia as poor, backwards
and with an unstable regime. Obviously there is a large degree of
truth in this; otherwise, there would have been no revolution. At
the same time the Russian state was remarkably virulent, sending
its massive armies throughout the central Asian Khanates and appealing
to the peoples of European Turkey with an hypnotic mixture of pan-Slav
nationalism and appeals to the Orthodox faith. The ultimate aim
of the Tsar's Balkan maneuvers was to gain control of the Bosphorous
straits and so be able to send the Russian navy from the Black Sea
to the Mediterranean in all seasons, their fabled "warm water port".
This would not do to the British, never mind the balance of power,
what about the route to India if the Russians got their gun ships
all over the Aegean? Britain had already fought one war in the Crimea
over this desire to stop Russia's warm water ambitions
THE
FABLED RICHES
And
what of India? Why were the British so keen on it that they were
prepared to play politics with half the world? It is still a bit
of a mystery. To be sure, India was once profitable – when
it had been run by the joint stock East India Company. Firstly trading
with Indian princes and then taking a hand in the government of
the principalities the Company quickly latched on to the extremely
lucrative business of growing and selling opium, a business who's
margins were diminishing. Obviously the private company developed
into a state, literally a Business Empire, with a civil service
and army. It was the army that was to cause the problem. In the
1850s the Indian troops, the Sepoys, rebelled. The immediate cause
was obscure, but the effect was catastrophic. The British settlers
were imprisoned, butchered and raped. A major world power had to
act. What did the British do? Did they say that the East India company
would have to wind up its territorial interests? Or that India was
a lucrative but inherently risky area and British subjects would
have to take their own chances? Or that the British state could
not stand such an affront to its pride and so would nationalise
the East India company? What do you think? Overnight India became
a vital national interest. Vital for what, no one was quite sure,
but it would distort British foreign policy for more than a century.
EUROPHOBIA
We
know why the British were interested in the area around Palestine,
to stop interference, especially Russian interference, in the route
to India. What is not clear is how the British changed from supporting
the Ottoman empire to dismantling it. Of course, the Ottoman Empire
was slowly drawing back, in the Balkans and North Africa especially,
and Britain was not itself averse to grabbing bits, like the island
of Cyprus or de facto control of Egypt. But the British still saw
the Ottoman Empire as the best bet in keeping order, often ruthlessly,
in places like Palestine. It was another irrational fear, that of
an undivided continent of Europe that preoccupied the British and
led them, mostly by accident, into Palestine. The rise of Prussia
was the real story of nineteenth century Europe, as a power they
had already defeated France in 1870 and from the British point of
view they could quite easily occupy all the Channel ports. It was
here that the British imagination failed them. Whereas the British
phobia of an undivided European shore was justified in the time
of Elizabeth and, to a far lesser extent, the time of Pitt –
it was not in an age of global trading links and unquestioned maritime
supremacy. Britain's economic survival was no longer at threat from
a European blockade and no matter how large the opposing army, it
didn't matter if they could not get across the English Channel.
The balance of power in Europe was less important when the whole
world was in play. It simply did not matter if Germany invaded France,
Holland and Belgium. A pity British ministers didn't realise.
MY
ENEMY'S ENEMY
The
hostility to Germany, the central point of British diplomacy from
at least the Liberal victory in 1906, would have a number of interesting
effects. Firstly the hostility to Germany meant a friendliness to
her neighbour and enemy France. This in turn meant that France's
ally and Germany's enemy, Russia, also had to be accommodated. So
the buffer to Russia's ambitions, Turkey was an inconvenient ally.
The Sublime Porte, slowly realising that their onetime solid allies
would now rather forget about them, went to the Germans. This would
be fatal, especially after Turkey declared war on Germany's side
during the First World War.
HOW
THE BRITISH GOT PALESTINE
The
obvious interest of the British was now to dismember Germany's ally,
especially as she bestrode the Asian side of the Suez canal. The
British started speaking an unfamiliar language, that of Arab nationalism
in an effort to speed up the dissolution of the Ottoman realms.
And how it worked! The British, French and their new allies very
shortly had control over most of Turkey's Arab lands – Jordan,
Palestine, Iraq and Syria. It was in this atmosphere that the British
said that they would support the establishment of a Jewish homeland
in Palestine. Although it now seems obvious all along that this
was where any Jewish homeland would be, this was not the case when
the Ottoman Empire were in charge of the area and it would be even
less so if an indigenous Arab government took over. Zionist dreamers,
although looking fondly at Palestine, were prepared to build a Jewish
homeland in Kenya, Australia, anywhere as long as there was a haven
from persecution and a chance to share in the all enveloping nationalist
dream.
BRINGING
IT UP TO DATE
The
British offered Palestine as a romantic gesture, little thinking
that romantic gestures could have unromantic consequences. When
the war was over, the enemy territory that was not seen as fit to
be self-governing was divided up amongst the victorious powers.
France was given Lebanon and Syria and Britain was given Palestine,
near to the Suez canal over which the British were still obsessed.
The rate of Jewish settlement, already high under Ottoman suzerainty,
increased despite halting British attempts to stop it. After the
Second World War, and a good deal of terrorism, the British saw
no need to stay in Palestine. They attempted to partition the country
between the Arabs and Jews, the Arabs refused the partition and
attempted to invade the country, lost, and the rest is history.
TODAY'S
CRUSADER STATE
As
you may be able to tell, I am mildly Zionist. I naturally feel culturally
closer to the Israelis than the Arabs, as do almost all non-Muslim
westerners. I also note that Israel is a democracy and a fairly
free economy, and the Arab world is notoriously bad at sustaining
either. However, neither Britain nor America has any compelling
strategic interest in sustaining regimes in the Middle East, not
even oil. There was nothing inevitable about Israel in Palestine.
Like the Crusader States before them, Israel may be noble, it may
be romantic, it may be an outpost of Western values – but it
is draining blood and treasure out of the West.
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