Sticking it to the French

 

Knowing that Britian took control of Palestine, and began the process of creating an Anglo-Jewish state in the lead up the creation of Israel, in part to stick it to the French is almost enough to bring me around on the whole issue,

Hence Samuel understood that it was necessary to exert Zionist pressure on the postwar map of the Arab world, if the map were to include a Jewish Palestine. As he wrote in November 1914, ‘now the conditions are profoundly altered.'

Immediately after Turkey's entry into the war, Samuel met the foreign secretary, Edward Grey, and said to him, 'perhaps the opportunity might arise for the fulfilment of the ancient aspiration of the Jewish  people and the restoration of a Jewish State'.10 He noted that Russia  might help in this, as it would relieve Russia of its Jewish population in its current territories and in the new lands it hoped to acquire once competing empires were vanquished.

 He clarified that this was not a project for Jews like himself, but for the Jews of Eastern Europe. It would succeed as 'the Jewish brain is rather a remarkable thing.' Anglo- and American Jews would take the initiative in leading the Jews of the extended Russian territories into Palestine. They were also the ones who might provide the funds for the project. “The petty traders of past years would become a modern nation', he promised Grey.

Both Grey's and Samuel's main worry was whether France would accept such an idea, but a more serious obstacle was the ambivalent position of the prime minister at the time, Lord Asquith, who seemed to see little advantage in incorporating Palestine into the British Empire in the Middle East; after all, it was 'a country the size of Wales, much of it is barren mountain and part of it waterless' -- but if it were to be an Anglo-Jewish colony he would consider the idea. Asquith was astonished to learn that someone like David Lloyd George supported the idea, as in his eyes the latter:

does not care a damn for the Jews or their past or their future but thinks it will be an outrage to let the Holy Places pass into the possession or under the protectorate of agnostic, atheistic France.

We can only speculate what would have happened had not the sixtythree-year-old Asquith, a father of seven children, fallen in love with a young nurse working at the London Hospital whom he met in February.”[1]

Lord Asquith was eventually not in a position to make any decisions about the land of Palestine, and the rest is history, which we will come back to in other posts. But I find it funny that it was competition with the French that in part inspired Britian to take control of Palestine. There were other reasons too, of course, like having control over the Suez Canal, but at least in part this ancient rivalry played a role.

The Holy-Land[2] has a strange pull on people, especially many Christians. Even though we know God and his Holy presence are to be found where ever his people, Christians, gather. But the call of the English to undermine the designs of the French is almost as strong, and also very ancient, going back to the times of William the Conqueror. With these two forces at play the Palestinian people’s did not have a chance to retain their sovereignty. Maybe they will one day. Maybe one day Israeli’s and Palestinians will live in peace together in the same land. But I doubt this will happen before Christ returns.

List of References

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[1] Lobbying for Zionism on Both Sides of the Atlantic

[2] The whole earth if the Lord’s and everything in it, and any land where the Lord steps is Holy.