Empire: World History - 40. Origins of the Israel-Palestine Conflict

Episode Date: March 28, 2023

The Balfour Declaration was published on the 9th November 1917. It stated the intent of the British government to create a Jewish homeland in Palestine. This week, William and Anita are joined by Tom Segev to discuss the declaration and the ensuing British mandate for Palestine. LRB Empire offer: lrb.me/empire This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/empirepod. Twitter: @Empirepoduk Goalhangerpodcasts.com Producer: Callum Hill Exec Producer: Jack Davenport Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you want access to bonus episodes reading lists for every series of Empire, a chat community. Discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcasts, add free listening and a weekly newsletter, sign up to Empire Club at www.mpowerpoduk.com. Hello and welcome to Empire with me Anita Arnan. And me, William Durimple. Today in many ways, this episode that we're bringing you today is almost an end to a mini-trillity. within our Ottoman series. And it deals with the way that the Allies carved up the Middle East during and after the First World War.

And it begins with Sykes Pico. We had an enormous response to that episode. It continued last week with Lawrence of Arabia. Again, a huge response from you and the Arab Revolt. And hopefully, you know, if you've got questions on this, we'll be dealing with those in a special Q&A session. Today, though, we sort of bring this to a conclusion, this mini-series, with the Balfour Declaration. We've mentioned it many times before. This is when the British promised the Jews a homeland in Palestine.

So, I mean, I'm going to get, William, we got the letter handy because on November the 2nd, 1917, the Foreign Secretary, just to remind you, Arthur Balthar, he wrote a letter to Lord Rothschar, the leader of the Jewish community in the UK, and he made the very first public declaration of an intent that had, until this moment, been secret. His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object. It being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed

by the Jews in any other country. So this is the Balfour Declaration. It's a publicly made pledge to create a Jewish settlement of Palestine and it started in Britain. It did, I mean, sow the seeds. This is unquestionable, though, for conflicts which continue to this very day. So for Jews, it's a glorious moment that started them on the journey towards statehood for Palestinian. It marks the beginning of a dispossession and exile. In the words of the Jewish writer Arthur Kessler, one nation solemnly promised to a second nation, the country of a third. Very good. It's a very, very good quote. Both of himself put it with more pepper, Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad,

is rooted in age-long traditions, in present needs, in future hopes, in far profounder important than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land. And with us to discuss this, we have a really marvellous guest. Tom Sagev, author of One Palestine complete Jews and Arabs under the British mandate and he's written so many other fantastic books on the history of Israel. And the great biographer of David Ben-Gurion and one of the stars of our Jaipo Literature Festival told me you were spectacular. It was an amazing session. Yeah, and you're joining us on the line from Jerusalem. So we're very grateful for you. First of all, I mean, before we get into the meat of this, we should acknowledge that even discussing the history

of this is going to make people angry because this is such a polarised conversation. It reached which is deep into a sense of existential crisis for two different, very separate sides. It's very tricky water to navigate and you've been navigating it all your life. You are right that it's very controversial. Now, I don't know if there are any history teachers among our listeners, and I don't want to insult any history teacher, but my history teachers taught us that diplomatic relations, that history itself actually is based on reason. The Balfour Declaration is one thing that is one proof that reason doesn't play a role here at all. We were taught that the British took Palestine because they wanted to protect the Suez Canal,

that they wanted to protect the way to India, that it was part of their strategic in World War I. When historical archives opened in Britain, it turned out that they abound letters, telegrams, position papers, and many of them written by military personnel, senior militaries in Egypt, in the area. And they warn the government in London, do not take Palestine. Palestine means trouble. We do not need Palestine for any strategic reasons. Yeah, interesting.

And the government in London, for this or that reason, decided not to take the advice of the military, which is okay. happened sometimes. And they decided to take Palestine. Okay, but if you do, why support the Jews? Makes no sense. Can we start with very, very basic things? Let's start with very, because, you know, these things are important. These are the foundation blocks upon which this entire podcast and the crisis that is faced today continues to be faced in the Middle East is built. When we say the Palestinians, who are we talking about exactly? What was Palestine like, particularly during this period that we're concentrating on the Ottoman period.

You know, when we read in the Bible of the Samaritans, when we hear about crusaders and the peasantry in the Holy Land, in the Middle Ages, when we hear about the Bedouins in the desert, are they a mixture of all those different peoples? They are all Muslims, most of them, except for a few Christians. And they are descendants of people who lived here for 500 years, but also lots of them came as workers from other Arab countries and stayed here. And so some of them are Bedouins, some of them are peasants, some of them are not.

So it is a mixed population. It's not a clearly defined nation as they seem to be today. And at the beginning of the 20th century, when this story opens, what's the breakup religious of the population of Palestine. How many, what percentage of Jews, Christians and Muslims are at that point? There are about 700,000 Arabs and about 85,000 Jews living in Palestine when the British arrive. So the Jews at 1917 are about 10%. Is that roughly the figure? About. And they are important to say they are not newcomers. They are Jews who, similar to the Arabs have been living here for hundreds of years.

In one of our earlier episodes, we were talking about the Kabbalistic communities in Safed, who interestingly were some of the first people to drink coffee. Those communities were responsible for the use of coffee for the very first time, along with some Sufi Muslim groups. Where were the Jewish population? Safed, Jaffa, Ako, Jerusalem. They were in Jerusalem, in Safed. in Hebron. They were in various places over the country, but mostly I would say in Jerusalem and Zafet and Hebron.

And again, I was referring back to a previous episode in this podcast. But I know that William, Everlea Cheleby, who we've spoken about, he has a rather, I think, really interesting, instructive even, description of Palestine at the time. So Evlir Cheleby, when he visits on his journey through in the late 16th century, looks at Palestine from the point of view of a pious Sufi. And he sees a whole network of Sufi Muslim orders, some beautiful mosques, and depicts a very full image of tombs and shrines and holy figures sacred to Ottoman Muslims. And Tom, let's talk about the other hand that claps here. When we talk about the Zionist and the Zionist movement, historically, when did it start? What are we talking about?

The political Zionism started at the end of the 19th century. It is usually associated with the founder of the Zionist movement, Theodor Herzl, who was a Jewish journalist in Vienna, Austria, and he founded the movement based on the assumption that Jews are a separate nation, among the nations, not only a religion, but a nation. and that the only way to end their long, long history of thousands of years in exile. They were exiled from Palestine by the Romans, supposedly. And the only way to end that is to move them to the state of the Rome. Right. I mean, he referred to it as, he called it Deuudenstadt, didn't he?

And he talked about the restoration. It wasn't the creation, it was the restoration, he used the word, of the Jewish state. restoring national existence in Palestine. It isn't just Palestine, is it? There are various other territories which are discussed at least initially by Herzl and the early Zionist movement. They talk about Uganda as a possible home for the Jewish people, and even the Yemeni island of Socotra. They talk about it, but they don't adopt that as a name. They talk about Uganda or actually East Africa, not really Uganda, but somewhere in East Africa,

as a result of the pogroms and the Ukraine. Yeah. The need is immediate. The Jews need a safe haven immediately. So even Herzl says, well, we Zionists have been able to negotiate with the British and they are willing to give us that spot in East Africa. And the majority of the Zionist movement, the Zionist Congress, they send some people over there to check the place,

but they do not accept that. So Zionism never gave up the idea of, having a state in Palestine. And then there's an attempt in 1896 when Herzl actually tries to buy Palestine from the Ottoman Emperor, Abdul Hamid. That's right. He tried to buy it. He tries to bribe him. He tries everything. He talks to heads of state and he does everything he can. He was a very, very influential journalist. But Abdul Hamid turns this idea down. He said, I cannot sell even a foot of land,

for it does not belong to me but my people. My people have won this empire by fighting for it with their blood and have fertilized it with their blood. We will again cover it with our blood before we allow it to be wrestled away from us. Because it's holy to the Muslims and the Christians and the Jews. That's the problem we still face today. We ought to just sort of, for a moment,

discuss what's going on in the rest of the world. I mean, you know, Jewish people have at this time a litany of very valid complaints about pogroms going on in Eastern Europe, about being persecuted. You refer to the Romans, even sort of Richard the second here, you know, that the Jewish people were not kindly treated in many parts of the world, were they? They were different times. There were times when, and in different countries, it's not one story of the Jews. Jews were treated differently in different countries, in different points of time. The one thing they do have in common is that almost everywhere, at some time, they were

discriminated against, they were persecuted, they were slaughtered for the sole reason of being Jews. That can be Jews as a religion. It can be Jews as economic competition for somebody else. That can be Jews, especially later in time, Jews as a different race. Jews are probably not a race in the way we use them today, not in England. In England, it's even more confused because sometimes you say race when you mean a nation. So that makes it even more difficult. And obviously hugely varied types of people from the Rothschilds hanging out with Lord Balfour and Mayfair through to kind of Yemeny goat herds in distant Yemen. Give us a picture of the diaspora at the beginning of the 20th century. Jews live in every country. And in every

country, there are at least some Jews who try to be part of the national identity or the collective identity, but in many countries are different identities. So what do I belong to? In Germany, I want to be a German. In Yemen, I'm obviously like a Yemen, but my religion is different. So my origins are different. Okay, so I'm not religious at all. So somebody else will not recognize me as such. I'm like a German. The Germans don't recognize you. I'm an English man. Ah, but the English don't recognise me. I'm an Indian. I live in Kuchin. Well, enough people in India who don't recognize each other as Indians. But Jews are living everywhere. There are about maybe 12 million Jews in the world or 10 million Jews in the

world. And they live everywhere. Yeah. But as you say, you know, there's a long history of Jews being persecuted and, you know, in your words, slaughtered in cases just because they are Jewish. Some people do believe that Herzl's trigger, that the reason that he started calling for a Udnstadt, you know, that there should be a homeland for the Jews, was this anti-Semitism that swirled around the Dreyfus affair. At that time, how many people were calling as he did for a Jewish homeland? Not many. I think it's important to know that Zionism never attracted a majority of Jews, not even after the Holocaust, not even today. Today, at most half, but probably a little less than half the Jewish population of the world lives in Israel.

So most Jews have decided not to fulfill the Zionist dream. I think that's important. And there are some, as the Belford Declaration is beginning to be discussed in London and the idea of a Jewish homeland, there are some Jewish figures in government such as Montague who worry this will be a trigger for anti-Semitism and are very suspicious of the idea? Montague was a cabinet minister, and he was arguing with another cabinet minister, who was Herbert Samuel,

and Herbert Samuel advocated Zionism, and Montague feared that if the Jews say that they do not belong to the British nation, then why would the British nation accept them as Jews? And so that is, in fact, an idea which even Herzl expressed. He said the anti-Semits will be our, our biggest allies, because they will chase us out. They will chase us out. We will have no alternative but to go to Palestine. Montague calls Zionism a mischievous political creed that would promote anti-Semitism. That's the quote from him. And yet, and yet, you have this, I mean, let's get back to

Balfour, because this is all about the Balfour Declaration. One thing that was astonishing to me, we just did an episode on Sykes Pico. And Balfour was the man in the room who's digging his heels in saying, this is a bad idea, guys. You don't just arbitrarily draw a line in the sand and decide what nations are going to be created. He is articulating every worry that seems to go out of the window when it comes to this particular declaration of creating a state of Israel. Let's talk about that a little bit more. The story of the Balfour Declaration is so fascinating because it indicates a completely irrational decision. It reflects the idea that we need the Jews as airlines. in World War I because they are so powerful. Obviously, the Jews are behind the Russian

revolution. Obviously, the Jews control the banks, control the media. The Jews will decide whether or not the United States will join in World War I. And so we need the Jews as allies. And that is completely fiction. The Jews have absolutely no influence anywhere as Jews. So anti-Semitic ideas in the sense of Jewish power actually promote this? Exactly. That's it. anti-Semitic attitude. But it's an admiration. Also, they fear the Jews and they admire them. Now, why do

they admire them? Because the Jews are the people of the Holy Land, of Christianity, of God. And Balfour, and also David Lloyd George, the Prime Minister, they are devoted Christians, and they

are Christian Zionists. They dream of returning the Hebrew people to their country. And that is quite, quite amazing that also explains why people like Mechheim Weitzman, who's represented as a socialist movement, was treated as if he's a king of the Jews, and why there is a scene where Weizmann is invited to dinner at Balfour's house. And at the end of the dinner, Balfour walks Weizmann home in London. When they get to Weitzman's home, Weizmann goes with him back to his house.

his home. And then when they get to Balfour's home, they go to the bent. So they go up and back and forth on the street of London. And the next day in the cabinet meetings, you can read the sentence coming from Balfour, I am a Zionist. Why are you a Zionist? Why are you a Zionist? Very strange. So it's this combination of admiration and fear of pro-Jewish and anti-Jewish both are completely irrational and that's the explanation of Balfour. I mean, that's so far, and do you know what, on the other side of the pond also, the classicist love or if you like the deeply Christian-hard love of this,

this romanticized notion of what the Bible said is so. I mean, I read someone Warren Harding, Warren G. Harding, who was president in the United States, 1921 to 23, only a short time. But this is a quote from him, it's impossible for anyone who has studied all the service of the Hebrew people to avoid the faith, that they will one day be restored to their historic national home, and there enter a new and yet greater phase of their contribution to the advance of humanity. Christian Zionism, Christian Zionism is an old thing. It comes back in the 18th century,

17th century, 19th century, they are Christians ionists. Christians who believe that the Jews should be allowed back to their country. And so it's not even a new idea then, But a man like David Lloyd George, the prime minister, he once told David Ben-Gurion, and I think he also wrote in his memoirs, that he knew the names of rivers and mountains in Palestine. Long before he knew names of places in England or in Wales where he comes from. He knew names of biblical kings long before he could cite kings of England. So these are people who are really grown up on the Bible. And these English people have come across the geography of Israel, Palestine, only in their classics classes and in their Bible classes. And so they don't know any Ottoman history.

They don't know what happened there in Byzantine times or during the Ottomans. They know nothing about that time. And their only recognition of this territory is the bells it rings from those Bible classes. That's the major one. It's not that they don't have strategic thoughts like we need to take Palestine. By the way, one reason to take Palestine is, lest the French take it, God forbid. So they do have some rational explanations, but the thing is that it's so typical for the English attitude to Palestine is that there is no one policy at all. Everybody has their own policies. Everybody writes beautiful papers. There are lots of beautifully written strategic papers.

They all come from Eton or from Oxford, where they learn how to write beautiful. they seem like frustrated writers or poets in their paper. But every paper says something different. Yeah. And so this is so typical about British policy. But also foreign policy is also very, very different. Because, you know, let us not forget. I mean, we did the whole episode on Lawrence of Arabia in the last episode.

Promises have been made to Arab leaders. You know, the Sharif has been promised that if you will rise up with the British, certain lands will be delivered until you. you. So I suppose what I'm really fascinated with is when this becomes public, it is running contrary to the promises the British have made to the Sharif. Some British made promises to some Arabs. This is very important because, yes, some promises were made. Now, the thing about the Balfour's declaration is so unusual because it's a promise that the British kept. The British actually kept the promise, which is very, very rare in diplomacy. And that's a very. And that's a promise. And that's,

Yes. Really, they kept their promise for the next 30 years. They assisted the Zionists to lay the infrastructures for the state of Israel. It's called in Arabic, isn't it, the Balfour promise? They call it the Dwarad Balfour. And on the 9th of November 1917, as William alluded to earlier, this letter is released in the Jewish Chronicle in London. what is the immediate reaction from both sides to this letter being made public, Tom? The Arabs obviously rejected it. Some people in England rejected it and quite early actually concluded that it was a wrong thing to do. And yet this was the basis for the next 30 years. Because, presumably because the Jewish population in Palestine was only 10% of the populations. And so this promise which is made to have a homeland for the Jewish people without somehow infringing the rights of the non-Jewish population is a promise that can't possibly be kept.

It's like saying we're going to build a dam, but we're also going to look after the rights of the people whose villages are being flooded. It cannot be kept. The idea was to move millions of Jews to Palestine. and, for example, David Ben-Gurion's Zionism said to have as much land as possible, not necessarily all of Palestine, but as much of Palestine, to have as many Jews as possible living in that part of Palestine and as few Arabs as possible. That was the idea. The British establishment, which is brought up on the Bible and is brought up on the classics, and knows about the Jewish people, knows virtually nothing about,

the Palestinian people, the Muslim and the Christian inhabitants of Palestine. And this is a slightly later quote from 1937 of Winston Churchill, but it gives an idea, I think, it gives very well the attitude that Churchill and Lloyd George have about what they simply refer to as the non-Jewish inhabitants, the 90% of people in Palestine who are not Jewish at this point. And this is the quote, I do not agree, writes Churchill, that the dog in the manger has the final right to the manger, even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit, for instance, that it is a great wrong

that has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher grade race, a more worldly, wise race, to put it that way, has come to take their place. That language is shocking, isn't it? Higher grade race.

It's a shocking quote, but it gives an idea of just not only the kind of lack of any understanding of the people who are living there at the 90% of the people who are living there at the time, but also gives an idea of the prejudices which are in operation. I want to take us back, though, to the heat of the furnace, if you like, which is the end of the First World War. So a peace conference has been called. It's happening in Paris. The terms for the defeated powers are going to be laid out by the Victus. The Treaty of Versailles comes from this moment in history. So what happens? What happens is that the those days, the major powers of the world treated the word as a cake and sliced it into different

slices. So everybody gets a piece of land. And so they treated Palestine as something to argue about. The French and the British decided to divide it among themselves. And so that's called the Sykes-Picot Agreement, which is really only a piece of history and not very significant anymore because eventually the British decided to enter Palestine. They sent the army in 1917. The British army came through Egypt under General Allenby and occupied Palestine. And when they came, the entire population received the British as liberators,

Arabs and Jews alike. because the last years of the Ottoman rule in Palestine were terrible for everybody with very, very cruel oppression, hunger. It's terrible. And so when the British finally arrived, they are received as... There's all those photographs, aren't there, of Alainbury arriving at Jaffergate in Jerusalem with the population in the streets. That's right.

And they were received by both Jews and Arabs, both Jews. both Muslims and Christians as sent from heaven. In fact, the Arabs call Al-Nabbi, which is the prophet from God. That's the way they pronounce Allenby. And Orthodox Jews regard him as a messiahs. And there are lots and lots of records about first meetings with these young soldiers.

many of them Australians, by the way. And they also regarded themselves as liberating the Holy Land. There's one little fact which indicates how irrational it was. David Lloyd George ordered Allenby to take Jerusalem before Christmas. If you are following a strategic plan, what difference does it make? If it's before Christmas or after Christmas? Ah, but if you have a million soldiers in... on the front and the war doesn't go so well for you. You really want a Christmas present for your

nation. And so that's actually once Jerusalem was taken, the church bells in London began ringing again. During the war, the bells wouldn't ring. So wow, we have Jerusalem. So that's a big irrational thing really. So with the bells ringing in IOS, let's take this short break. Welcome back. So before the break, we had the Church Wales ringing in London. And what does that actually look like and feel like to the people who are living in the region, Tom? What are they expecting for the next few years? Because the British still have a mandate to run Palestine. First of all, they expect restoration of normal life because life under the Turks at the end was terrible. And so they received the British as liberators. By the way, when the British arrive, most people in Palestine don't know yet about the Balfour Declaration. But after a few years of military rule, a civil administration is being created under the British. British create some bodies for Jews and Arabs to rule themselves limited. But what they mostly do is they keep their promise and they help the Jews to create the infrastructures needed for independence. And Tom, you mentioned earlier this name Herbert Samuel.

He's Jewish, he's an ardent Zionist, and the British make him the first High Commissioner for Palestine, don't they? They do. He was, I think, Minister for Postal Affairs before in England, but yes, he comes to Palestine, believing, and actually he was right, that it's his mission to carry out the promise in the Balkan Declaration and help the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. They keep talking about homeland, but they actually all know that. It is statehood in Palestine, not necessarily all of Palestine. In fact, after a few years, part of that piece of land was given to the Arabs, which is now Jordan. And on the ground, one of the first signs of this new order and what's going to happen is that some of the landowners who are often living in exile in Beirut or in Damascus start selling large chunks of land, like the Jesreal Valley, for example. and the ordinary Palestinian workmen who are sitting on the ground suddenly find themselves evicted and turn up landless refugees sitting in the streets of Jerusalem, having lost their land. That is correct.

But obviously for the people coming in from Jews escaping pogroms and Russia, this is like a moment of a vast celebration and excitement. Most Jews who come to Palestine do not live in agricultural areas, but they live in Jerusalem and in Svath and in Hebron. or very soon, you know, Tel Aviv developed. What year is Tel Aviv founded? Tel Aviv is founded, I believe, in 1906. Is it possible? And it is literally a new city on the sand dunes. It is built on the sand, out of sand, and it is one of the things which really happen under Jewish presence,

just like creating a Hebrew university on the Mount of Skopos, which is just quite amazing. and everything. So this was all developed and people come from all over the world, mostly as refugees. Choose in Eastern Europe, for example, prefer immigrating to America. They do not come all of them. When do they come? They come beginning to come in the 20s when it gets very difficult to immigrate to America or England had anti-immigration laws. And so then more of them come to Israel. And of course, when the Nazis get to power, Jews from Germany come to Palestine. So most Jews who come here are actually refugees. By the way, there's also massive immigration of Arabs

from Arab lands, because once Palestine gets developed and modernized, there is lots of workplaces for Arab. So 36 to 39, the Nazis are gathering power, and the scale of the immigration of Jewish refugees, increases massively. But you also get, even before this, the beginnings of Palestinian resistance to this. Talk to us about the Great Revolt. The Arabs gradually develop their own national aspirations and gradually develop means to fight for their independence. So they have, so they call it Arab Revolt, so they, lots of different names. But in 19, In 36, they actually begin a whole series of strikes and they regard the British as enemies. And that is not really true.

But of course, once they conduct actions of resistance, the British put them down very harshly, the way they did it in other colonies. What kind of thing, Tom, what kind of thing do the British do? arbitrary arrests, curfews, destruction of houses, torture, expulsions. Extraditional killings, collective punishment, even aerial bombardment at times. What bombardment, whatever you do to fight terrorist resistance. 20,000 Palestinians are killed at this point and villages reduce to rubble. And this takes, in a sense, the main military strength of the Palestinians is crushed.

just before they're going to need it in 1947 to 8. Many of their leaders are exiled, many of their fighting men are killed or jailed or expelled. The Palestinian Arab society in Palestine is weaker than the Jewish society. For example, there is no compulsory education among the Arabs. Lots of Arabs don't read and write. So the Jews have a much, much more modern and better organized. society. But I think I have, the question of the British is very interesting. Some say they were

pro-Arab and anti-Jewish or anti-Jewish and pro-Arab or whatever they were. And the truth is that they were pro-British. And there is a story of an official who wears an Arab turban on his head when he talks to Arabs and the European hat when he talks to Jews. And he once finds him himself in a clash between Jews and Arabs, so he hurries to the next telephone and asks his superior, what head do I wear here now? And his superior says, wear them both. Now, at the end of this whole story, there is a British official who is really fed up with everything that happens here, and he says, I dislike them equally. Arabs and Jews and Christians in Syria and Palestine, they are all alike, a beastly people.

The whole lot of them is not worth a single Englishman. Wow. That's the attitude of their head. And that's true as late at the latest begins in 1937. When they realize that this is a country that can't be ruled, so why don't they get out immediately? because 37 is already close to 39 and 39 is already close to war. And in general, they hate taking big decisions.

So what they do is they appoint a committee of inquiry. That's what they do. There are lots and lots of committees of inquiry to inquire everything, and thereby they gain time. But very soon they realize that it was a mistake to get in the first place. So, I mean, this sort of turmoil that you've described so beautifully, it chugs along and along and it sort of limps across the line to 1948. And then the British say, right, you know what?

We've got an out here now. We've actually got the end of our mandate. United Nations, your problem. And they just kind of shunt it over the table. And just to give a bit of context here, there is some quite serious terrorism against the British. Most famously, the King David Hotel, which is blown up with a thousand people killed within it, with the future Prime Minister Begin, who puts the bombs down. But that's not, I think that's what adds perhaps to their decision, gives them some urgency,

but that's not what makes them leave. The British Empire is at its end. They have given up India. The jewel of the crown in Palestine is at most a backyard for them. So it's nice to have like a lovable pet, but it shouldn't cost too much. And in fact, the final analysis, why do we need to get out, is written by the ex-checker, It's a financial thing. It costs too much.

This was one of the main reasons for leaving India, too. Just the British had no money after the war. They couldn't afford to hold India. Exactly. So the days of the empire are over. So another explosion of this or other hotel really doesn't change that fact. Well, so now it's sort of the United Nations issue to deal with. And the United Nations votes on the 29th of November 1947 to participate.

Palestine into two states, one for the Jews and one for the Arabs. How does that go down, Tom? This goes down very well in Israel because this is the first time that the world, or if you want the second time, the first time was a powerful declaration, but the second time the world really decides that the Jews deserve some kind of independence in Palestine. But it doesn't go very well because the map is impossible. The number of Jews, who are sitting in refugee camps after the Holocaust in Europe, need to live somewhere. And obviously the United States is not willing to take them all in,

about 200,000 Jews, Holocaust survivors. And so the inevitable really happens, and that is a war between Israel and the Arabs, not only the Palestinians, but also Arab countries. This is inevitable, if you want, beginning in 1917. If you look at it historically, that's the said true. It had to lead to war. And when these Arab nations are all, in a sense, all looking for their own interests, all mutually distrustful, the troops in Lebanon and the troops in Egypt don't trust each other.

The Transjordan is busy trying to make a deal to take over what will become known as the West Bank and following his own interests and trying to reach an agreement with the Israelis to let him have that territory. So it's a mess. And in the middle, the ordinary Palestinians are caught in the middle of this. And they call this the Nakhba, the catastrophe, don't they? Yes, it is a catastrophe. And it is the major element of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict still today. Now, the truth about the Nakhba is that Arabs left, Arabs escaped,

Arabs were forced to leave, forced to escape, driven out. All of this happened in different points in time, in different places. Tell us about Plan Dallet, which one reads a lot about, this plan to begin to, in modern terms, ethnically cleanse a lot of the Palestinian rural population. No, there is no written order to expel all Arabs. There is a plan, a military, land that takes into account the possibility that these or other villages will resist. And in that case, if they resist, the village has to be destroyed and the people expelled. But interestingly enough, there is no such thing as an overall, there is no paper that says we need to expel the Arabs.

What does exist is the general concept and the general aspiration expressed, for example, by David Ben-Gurion. We have an expression in Hebrew which we had a very difficult time to translate to English when my books were translated to English. That's the spirit of the commander. The commander radiates that wish. And so the commander everywhere in this or that village knows what is expected of him. But there is no written plan. Let's get rid of the Arabs. It's in the air. And when you say what is expected of him, what are you talking about? It is expected of him to expel Arabs, yes. Most of them, except for example, a Christian residence of Nazareth.

Why? Because the New York Times or the Times of London, if you want, they are there. And so we don't expel Christians from Nazareth. But other than that, leave as much land as possible empty. of Arabs. But having said that, it is also interesting that David Ben-Gurion specifically prevented the occupation of the West Bank, which is now in Israel, including East Jerusalem, the old city, and including Gaza. Why is he preventing the occupation of these areas? Because they are by now filled with refugees. So he says to himself, we've just gotten rid of them. Why would I occupy them again?

And that, I think, is the major difference between those days and 1967 when we occupied all these. Yeah. So, I mean, after this conflict in the Middle East, this conflagration dies down. I mean, what we're left with is 750,000 Palestinians estimated, that's more than half the population who are rendered stateless. I mean, they're refugees. And the name Palestine is effectively wiped off the map, isn't it? It's no longer an entity.

No, half of it is occupied by Jordan. Jordan also did not give the Palestinians independence, and many Arab countries kept the refugees and refugee camps as a weapon in the conflict. So that is also not really fair to the Palestinians. So the Palestinians are really victims of the situation. And no one is really representing their interests. The Emir of Transjordan is looking after his interests.

The British just want to get out. the Israelis want their state? Nobody is representing them. To me, one of the even worse elements of that tragedy is that they were not allowed back. I mean, you can argue with Israel, how did it happen that so many people actually were gone? But the major point is that Israel never allowed them back. So Israel, to the present day, says, well, they actually run away or escaped or whole. hoping to come back and defeat the Israeli army or something.

But the fact is that they were not allowed back. Can I read you two quotes? I mean, we were coming to the end of our time together, and it just perhaps might be useful for you to use this springboard as to where we are today and whether there's any hope, glimmer of hope in the future for peace in this region. This is attributed to David Ben-Gurion in 1948, and it speaks to what you've been just talking about.

We must do everything to ensure the Palestinians never do return. The old will die. the young will forget. And that's from David Ben Gurin, they say in 1948, Benjamin Netanyahu has said much more recently that this is the crystallized situation. That if the Arabs put down their weapons today, there will be no more violence.

If the Jews put down their weapons today, there will be no more Israel. So we're sort of in between those two points in time. What do we see as the future? The first quote is so interesting because it comes from a man who leads a national movement of people who have not forgotten their homeland for 2,000 years. So why would the Arabs forget theirs? That's a really quote which also is not typical of Ben-Gurion,

because nobody was more aware of him that the Arabs do not forget and want to come back, and if they can, they will come back. So that's an unusual quote from him. Begurion said lots of different contradicting things. I don't know how the conflict can be solved today. If we had this conversation 40 years ago, I would probably tell you that by now we have given back Arab territories to the territory Arabs and they have their state and all the conflict is history. I was very optimistic at the time and I do not believe in it anymore. I just don't know how.

There are lots of people all over the world who know exactly how to solve this problem. and I don't really see how it can be solved. Tom, we recently had the anniversary of the Belford Declaration, and there was a very muddled response even now to this in Britain. Boris Johnson, who was then Prime Minister, celebrated it as a great achievement of the British that they'd, in his words, laid the foundations for a Jewish state. But do you think this is something that the British should be proud of or ashamed of or both? I mean, because we have led to, I mean, the Palestinians were 90% of the population when we took over in 1917.

And when we left, they were largely refugees in refugee camps. And we didn't honor the promise made in the Belfare Declaration that the non-Jewish population would not have their rights threatened. Those rights have been systematically thrashed, both under the British and subsequently. How should we look on the Belford Declaration now? It was very controversial even at the time. and we should look at it as a really irrational thing. That's what happens when you take decisions under such a strong impact of your beliefs and your hopes and your fantasies.

With little knowledge of the territory and no interest in the people that live there. And that's exactly. So the dangers of irrational. decision-making. That's, I think, what the Balfour Declaration teaches us. Tom, thank you very, very much. It's a very thorny issue to discuss, and this is one of many episodes we've had lately, including our look at the Armenian genocide and our look at Sykes-Pico, which is upset many of our listeners and pleased others. This, I'm sure, will be equally divisive because it's impossible to look at the Belford Declaration and feel just one thing. It's a moment

of rebirth for one people and a moment of catastrophe for another, and depending on which of those two peep holes you look through. You see a completely different landscape. So Tom Saga, thank you for trying to bridge this impossible gap with your vision. And we're very, very grateful for your time. From me, William Darimple. And me, Anita Arnden. Thank you very much.