Author: Isaiah Friedman
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 135153064X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 441
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Book Description
In this myth-shattering study Isaiah Friedman provides a new perspective on events in the Middle East during World War I and its aftermath. He shows that British officials in Cairo mistakenly assumed that the Arabs would rebel against Turkey and welcome the British as deliverers. Sharif (later king) Hussein did rebel, but not for nationalistic motives as is generally presented in historiography. Early in the war he simultaneously negotiated with the British and the Turks but, after discovering that the Turks intended to assassinate him, finally sided with the British. There was no Arab Revolt in the Fertile Crescent. It was mainly the soldiers of Britain, the Commonwealth, and India that overthrew the Ottoman rule, not the Arabs. Both T.E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia") and Sir Mark Sykes hoped to revive the Arab nation and build a new Middle East. They courted disappointment: the Arabs resented the encroachment of European Powers and longed for the return of the Turks. Emir Feisal too became an exponent of Pan-Arabism and a proponent of the "United Syria" scheme. It was supported by the British Military Administration who wished thereby to eliminate the French from Syria. British officers were antagonistic to Zionism as well and were responsible for the anti-Jewish riots in Jerusalem in April 1920. During the twenties, unlike the Hussein family and their allies, the peasants (fellaheen), who constituted the majority of the Arab population in Palestine, were not inimical towards the Zionists. They maintained that "progress and prosperity lie in the path of brotherhood" between Arabs and Jews and regarded Jewish immigration and settlement to be beneficial to the country. Friedman argues that, if properly handled, the Arab-Zionist conflict was not inevitable. The responsibility lay in the hands of the British administration of Palestine.
Author: Isaiah Friedman
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789654935968
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
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Book Description
Author: Peter Shambrook
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0861546334
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 449
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Book Description
‘A magnificent new book … a major historical achievement’ Peter Oborne, Middle East Eye In this eye-opening book, Peter Shambrook delves into the secret correspondence between the British High Commissioner in Egypt, Sir Henry McMahon, and the Sharif of Mecca during the First World War. McMahon promised the Sharif an independent Arab state, including Palestine, after the war, in exchange for his alliance with Britain against the Ottomans. But what happened next changed the course of history. Despite the promises made, two years later Lloyd George’s government declared that Palestine would be for the global Jewish community. Shambrook’s meticulous analysis of official records and private papers reveals the behind-the-scenes machinations that led to this betrayal of the Arabs and exposes how successive British governments blocked the publication of the Sharif and McMahon’s correspondence. Presenting compelling evidence, Shambrook debunks the myth perpetuated by Britain and pro-Zionist historians that Palestine was never part of the lands guaranteed to the Sharif. He lays bare the truth and its devastating consequences, which have reverberated throughout the decades-long conflict in the Middle East. Shockingly, no British government has launched an impartial investigation into this matter or officially acknowledged its betrayal of the Palestinian people. This definitive work is a must-read for anyone interested in the history of the Israel–Palestine conflict, revealing a hidden chapter of British deceit and shedding light on the ongoing tensions in the region.
Author: Isaiah Friedman
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351530674
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 359
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Book Description
In the aftermath of World War I there was furious agitation throughout Islam against the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire. Coupled with the powerful effect of the principle of self-determination, British indifference to Muslim sentiments gave rise to militant nationalism in Islam-which became de facto anti-Western. This detailed and convincing account describes British indecisiveness, policy contradictions, and how militant nationalism was aggravated by the Greek invasion of Smyrna and its ambition to create a Hellenic Empire in Anatolia with Britain's connivance. Immediately after World War I there was a fair chance of mutual coexistence and good relations between Arabs and Jews in Palestine. This possibility was nipped in the bud by the military administration (1918-1920) responsible for the anti-Jewish riots in Jerusalem in April 1920. High Commissioner Herbert Samuel supported the Arab extremists in his misguided policy, and complicated the situation further. The appointment of Hajj Amin al-Husseini to the exalted post of Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, and subsequently to the presidency of the Supreme Moslem Council of the Palestinians, proved fatal to Arab-Jewish relations and to the possibility of peace. As Friedman shows, the British administration of Palestine bears a considerable share of responsibility for the Arab-Zionist conflict in Palestine. Against this diplomatic background Arab-Jewish hostilities thrived, with consequences that endure today.
Author: Carly Beckerman
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253046440
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 230
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Book Description
This provocative historical reassessment sheds new light on the decisions of British politicians that led to the creation of Israel. Separating myth and propaganda from historical fact, Carly Beckerman explores how elite political battles in London inadvertently laid the foundations for the establishment of the State of Israel. Drawing on foreign policy analysis and previously unexamined archival sources, Unexpected State examines the strategic interests, international diplomacy, and political maneuvering in Westminster that determined the future of Palestine. Contrary to established literature, Beckerman shows how British policy toward the territory was dominated by domestic and international political battles that had little to do with Zionist or Palestinian interests. Instead, the policy process was aimed at resolving issues such as coalition feuds, party leadership battles, spending cuts, and riots in India. Considering detailed analysis of four major policy-making episodes between 1920 and 1948, Unexpected State interrogates key Israeli and Palestinian narratives and provides fresh insight into the motives and decisions behind policies that would have global implications for decades to come.
Author: Kristian Coates Ulrichsen
Publisher: Hurst
ISBN: 1849045046
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 276
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Book Description
The First World War in the Middle East is an accessibly written military and social history of the clash of world empires in the Dardanelles, Egypt and Palestine, Mesopotamia, Persia and the Caucasus. Coates Ulrichsen demonstrates how wartime exigencies shaped the parameters of the modern Middle East, and describes and assesses the major campaigns against the Ottoman Empire and Germany involving British and imperial troops from the French and Russian Empires, as well as their Arab and Armenian allies. Also documented are the enormous logistical demands placed on host societies by the Great Powers' conduct of industrialised warfare in hostile terrain. The resulting deepening of imperial penetration, and the extension of state controls across a heterogeneous sprawl of territories, generated a powerful backlash both during and immediately after the war, which played a pivotal role in shaping national identities as the Ottoman Empire was dismembered. This is a multidimensional account of the many seemingly discrete yet interlinked campaigns that resulted in one to one and a half million casualties. It details not just their military outcome but relates them to intelligence-gathering, industrial organisation, authoritarianism and the political economy of empires at war.
Author: Gavin Murray-Miller
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192863118
Category : Africa, North
Languages : en
Pages : 305
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Book Description
Empire Unbound argues that European empires were not the bounded, stable entities that imperialists imagined. Gavin Murray-Miller demonstrates that the era of 'new imperialism' which arose in the late 19th century fostered connections and synergies between regional powers that influenced the trajectories of imperial states in fundamental ways.
Author: David Brog
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1621576094
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 228
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Book Description
The Real History of Israel and the Palestinians No history is so disputed as the history of Israel. Some see Israel's creation as a dramatic act of justice for the Jewish people. Others insist that it was a crime against Palestine's Arabs. Author David Brog untangles the facts from the myths to reveal the truth about the Arab-Israeli conflict. In Reclaiming Israel's History you'll learn how the Jewish people have maintained a continual presence in the Land of Israel for over 3,000 years—despite centuries of Roman, Byzantine, and Muslim persecution; how the Romans invented the word "Palestine" as a way to sever the connection between the Jewish people and their land (and how subsequent conquerors doubled down on this strategy); how modern Jewish immigration to Palestine did not displace Arabs but instead sparked an Arab population boom; and the largely untold story of how the leader of Palestine's Arabs collaborated with the Nazis to murder Jews in Europe before they could reach their ancestral homeland. You'll also learn why most of Palestine's Arabs never identified themselves as "Palestinians" until after the 1967 War; the extraordinary lengths to which Israel's military goes to protect Palestinian civilians (and the high price Israel's soldiers pay for this morality), and how the Palestinians have on separate occasions rejected Israel's offers of a Palestinian state in virtually all of the West Bank and Gaza. Brog frankly admits to Israel's "sins both large and small," but notes that in any fair-minded analysis these have been far out- weighed by Israel's commitment to Western values, including freedom, democracy, and human rights. Honest, provocative, and timely, especially given rising anti-Semitism and the aggressive delegitimization of Israel, David Brog's Reclaiming Israel's History is the book for every reader who wants to understand what is really happening in the Middle East.
Author: David J. Wertheim
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 331942601X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 304
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Book Description
This book traces the historical phenomenon of “the Jew as Legitimation.” Contributors discuss how Jews have been used, through time, to validate non-Jewish beliefs. The volume dissects the dilemmas and challenges this pattern has presented to Jews. Throughout history, Jews and Judaism have served to legitimize the beliefs of Gentiles. Jews functioned as Augustine’s witnesses to the truth of Christianity, as Christian Kabbalist’s source for Protestant truths, as an argument for the enlightened claim for tolerance, as the focus of modern Christian Zionist reverence, and as a weapon of contemporary right wing populism against fears of Islamization. This volume challenges understandings of Jewish-Gentile relations, offering a counter-perspective to discourses of antisemitism and philosemitism.
Author: Steven B. Wagner
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501736485
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 337
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Book Description
Britain relied upon secret intelligence operations to rule Mandatory Palestine. Statecraft by Stealth sheds light on a time in history when the murky triad of intelligence, policy, and security supported colonial governance. It emphasizes the role of the Anglo-Zionist partnership, which began during World War I and ended in 1939, when Britain imposed severe limits on Jewish immigration and settlement in Palestine. Steven Wagner argues that although the British devoted considerable attention to intelligence gathering and analysis, they never managed to solve the basic contradiction of their rule: a dual commitment to democratic self-government and to the Jewish national home through immigration and settlement. As he deftly shows, Britain's experiment in Palestine shed all pretense of civic order during the Palestinian revolt of 1936–41, when the police authority collapsed and was replaced by a security state, created by army staff intelligence. That shift, Wagner concludes, was rooted in Britain's desire to foster closer ties with Saudi Arabia just before the start of World War II, and thus ended its support of Zionist policy. Statecraft by Stealth takes us behind the scenes of British rule, illuminating the success of the Zionist movement and the failure of the Palestinians to achieve independence. Wagner focuses on four key issues to stake his claim: an examination of the "intelligence state" (per Martin Thomas's classic, Empires of Intelligence), the Arab revolt, the role of the Mufti of Jerusalem, and the origins and consequences of Britain's decision to end its support of Zionism. Wagner crafts a superb story of espionage and clandestine policy-making, showing how the British pitted individual communities against each other at particular times, and why.
