Blood and Fire

Israel was invaded by a Palestinian mob on October 7th ’23, and 1200 good people were cruelly murdered. Some were tortured and many of the women were violently raped. Hostages were taken, with the obvious threat that if Gaza was invaded their lives would be put in serious danger. Gaza was invaded almost immediately by the Israeli Defence Force, and has been virtually flattened. This is continuing in November 2024.

As of September ’24, the Israeli hostages have been in mortal danger for the simple reason that they’re not worth anything like their original value. Nor, it would seem, do they have much value to the governing ‘Likud’ Party in Israel. Likud leader, Benjamin Netanyahu has much more interest in the subjugation and destruction of Gaza than he has in any hostage. He has authorised a litany of war crimes. The world has stood and watched. Not for the first time.

To this point, the government of Israel has intentionally murdered over 42,000 human beings. Men, women, and nearly 17,000 children so far. When the final tally is counted there will be many more.

This is the same kind of genocide that was committed during the ‘Nakba’ (The Disaster) of 1948, when 700,000 Palestinians became refugees. A question is automatically raised by this; is Israel set on a course to occupy both Gaza and The West Bank? 

The far right in Israel has always regarded the Palestinian territories as being part of Israel. After all, they’ve always considered Jordan to be part of Israel. Who is going to stop them from occupying these territories, and finally driving out the remainder of the indigenous population? To my mind this is a question that has to be answered NOW, before zionist-Israeli occupation becomes inevitable.

I wrote this treatise in the early months of 2024, but I left it where it was, in my documents on the iMac. I thought that it might be construed by some people as being anti-Semitic, and of course I didn’t want that view to be taken. I have Jewish friends and family all over the place, so I considered throwing it away. 

The problem with throwing it away was that I’d spent 3 or 4 months researching it, because I was absolutely sure that elements of the early history of modern Palestine were being ignored, propagandised, changed or covered over by more modern literature.

So, although I was finding it increasingly difficult to write something that might insult my Jewish friends and acquaintances, I couldn’t destroy it.

My bias is understandable. My first semi-professional performance was as part of a duo with my old friend Tony Febland, who was an accomplished jazz bassist. He ad-libbed to my poetry. Our best and second biggest gig was performed at a small club in Newcastle, supporting Mike Horovitz and Pete Brown in 1961. Also in our local jazz clan in Blackpool was classmate at King Edward V11 School Lytham, Mike Glickman, a very good jazz pianist who later found fame studying crop circles… 

‘Blood And Fire’

I fought hard to write about this. I didn’t want to write about it, but eventually I was impelled. The subject is fraught with difficulty. There are too many people in the world who misunderstand everything. Often purposely, for all kinds of irrational reasons, and for no reason at all.. The information age is full to the brim of misinformation, disinformation and resistance to fact, both for the sake of it, and because we are now being manipulated by algorithms we don’t necessarily have control of. There is no longer any head space for young Tic Toc users, for instance, to recognise what was formerly known as ‘common sense’. ‘Cognitive dissonance’ has now reached levels where cognitive dissonance can hardly be recognised.

I’ve recently heard it said that Millennials and Gen Z are the first generations not to have the Second World War as part of their first hand knowledge; as part of the base of a general understanding of world events and politics. 

Can it be that, with the consolation of digital technology, new generations are prone to initiating threads of alternative fact in the absence of a common reality? In the absence of common fact that previous generations experienced as actual fact. (This is a rhetorical question).

Threads that are not generated by the great shadow that was cast over human events by the hundreds of millions of civilian and military deaths in the Second World War and the upheaval between 1930 and 1950? Or, more realistically perhaps, between World War 1, which began in 1914 and the end of the Korean War in 1953. Which was followed by a Cold War that lasted practically another 40 years until the Berlin Wall fell in 1989! 

Are these young people now cut off from the thread of events that preceded the Digital Age? Is/was the arrival of the Internet the demarcation line between fact that was known or generally accepted, (whether or not and how much it might have been politically propagandised) and the new world in which formally accepted shared fact has little or no currency at all? 

To answer my own question, I would obviously say “Yes”, and that this has long been asked, and answered by gathering plethoras of prejudiced radio, television and cable news outlets, etc., augmented by major SM platforms feeding and being fed by ‘influencers’ and literally billions of singular Op-Ed producers scratching on screens the world over, the consequences of which have now actually come home to roost.

Even the 35 years of the Information Age is a very long time to suspend certainty of fact shared by multiple cultures moving unquestionably from one generation to the next in a somewhat common world history. In effect, though, this is a circa 80 year span, including the 35 years of what has become known as the Information Age. 

Many of us have seemingly become aware of a probability that this amount of information disseminated (passed on) in such impersonal ways has had the effect of creating a cloudy  and foreboding Disinformation Age, in which re-isolated and socially insulated chattering classes have had no choice but to develop religions, wild theories and politics to suit their own tastes, which often challenge former norms and facts, producing outlying social actions and attitudes in which previous perceptions of ‘common sense’ have little meaning. This paragraph alone is worthy of a book in itself.

Whereas at one time Jesus Christ can be rumoured to have fed 5,000 on five loaves of bread and two fish, there are now Tweet Jockeys going viral to millions in seconds with cat lady philosophies and grifter realities. On a planet where no one can be sure about what a lie is any longer. Or what the hell ‘Truth’ might mean. Even in court rooms the definition of the concept of ‘definition’ is undergoing Socratic seduction.

So how much more removed would the average young Palestinian be from the world of the Gen Z smart phone user in Erie, Pennsylvania, or in Leuven, Belgium? The mind is too uninformed to know how to boggle… and too misinformed to have any chance of making any kind of connection with the former value of common sense. As bombs fall on hospitals in Beirut on November 4th, 2024.
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It was it with all this in mind, that in early 2024, I was attracted to watching student protests in the USA against the destruction of Gaza, on CNN et al. As mentioned above, there have allegedly been 42,000 Gazans murdered now, which has been absolutely disgusting and deeply disheartening for the whole world to have had to experience. Especially when, among the dead, the biggest fraction of those seem to be children. 

I stopped watching these murderous scenes months ago. I can’t look at them. It’s very disturbing to watch and you cannot un-see anything you’ve already seen. Once you’ve seen it you are in some way desensitised and mentally affected, and a virtual accessory to the fact. This represents the very worst of brutal humanity. It’s in the same bag as Pol Pot and Joseph Stalin.

This is unequivocally the worst mass slaughter that has ever been televised live, for the whole world to see. This is a world first, it’s an awful history. We hope that it’s the last, but we’re realistic. Gaza has become an appalling snuff movie. 

The worst of it is that the perpetrators have no shame at all. Their idea of ‘revenge’ is deeply mediaeval (without the chivalry). There is no way back for the ‘soldiers’ who committed these acts. They are now fully trained serial killers who may one day seek to return to the font, and may even feel a psychic need to commit similar acts again. 

To the point though; confronted with a young black activist named Khimani James who said that he’d misspoken (when he said that “Zionists don’t deserve to live”), and that what he’d said about Zionism wasn’t intended to be anti-semitic, I thought that Jake Tapper, CNN anchor, had dismissed James too easily, without understanding that he might have information that Jake might not be able to take that seriously, or even understand.

My first reaction to that was that it was all a bit much; more than a tiny bit stupid. A bit tabloid. But then it carried on with an earlier video clip from Khimani James made in January 2024, which is when we were all watching the Columbia Uni protests.

“Zionists, they don’t deserve to live comfortably, let alone they don’t deserve to live. …Zionists, they shouldn’t live in this world.” he said. 

 How do your words help?,” said the on-scene reporter Miguel Sanchez, back live again, at the Columbia University protest campsite, who then kept interrupting…

“I think we need to shift the conversation from peoples’ comfort – to the hundreds of thousands of people who have been displaced and the tens of thousands of people who have been murdered by Israel.. said Khimani.

“How do your words help?”, said Sanchez angrily.

“I think that it’s very important for people to understand that the conflation of anti-zionism with anti-semitism is woefully incorrect, (interruption again), we believe in the sanctity of life here.. 

“How do your words help?!”…

Jake Tapper, CNN anchor, back in the studio, suddenly gave us all an alternative version of the definition of ‘Zionist’ to the definition I’d understood was correct until now. 

He said firstly that “Most Jews.. most Americans are Zionists,” 

(The second half of which of course is strange thinking on his part, borderline incorrect, delusional or semantically haywire in itself, take your pick), and that, 

“Zionists have the right to exist.” 

I’d been writing about this issue for the previous couple of months; gathering together all that I could remember and researching it, purely because, seeing so many people being killed, I needed to know more.

Images continued to splutter across the screen. Some of them were old. Suddenly I was back in 1922, 19 years before I was born, with Zionists readying themselves to snatch the administration of Palestine out of the hands of the Palestinians, with the help of British bayonets. 

These were obviously different Zionists than the ones Jake Tapper was talking about.

The definition of the word ‘zionist’ had obviously changed; and probably on quite a few occasions through the hundred years since then, and here was Jake, conflating ‘Zionist’ with ‘American’!

“… without the ‘foreign bayonets’ of the British Mandate, the Zionist movement could not have established even a toehold, let alone struck deep roots, in Palestine. Toward the end of the 1930s and especially after World War II, a concatenation of events – Britain’s waning commitment to ‘The Balfour Declaration’, (see below), the escalation of Arab resistance, the strengthening of the Yishuv, etc. – caused a consensus to crystallize (American spelling) within the Zionist movement that the time was ripe to return to the original strategy of conquering Palestine ‘by blood and fire’.” (my Bold) (Norman G. Finkelstein (2003). Image and reality of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Verso Books. ISBN 978-1-85984-442-7. UN web page, my bold type).

Before I get into this story, I have to try to clarify the definition of a particular word. The word is ‘Zionist’. I’ve always equated it with an extreme right wing sect, a political ideology, and particularly the ideology of the founders of Israel. I’ve always thought of these people as extremists and essentially as potential fascists.

Perhaps that’s going a bit too far for a description of the character of Chaim Weizmann, the first Zionist President, or his more diplomatic partner Nahum Sokolow, but it’s certainly not too far away from a character description of Benjamin Netanyahu.

I tried to place events in some kind of chronological order, but soon discovered that so many crucial events were taking place at the same time a hundred years ago that separate threads were necessary, and that to write this story out in full would render it, at the very least, 3 or 4 times as long. The whole story would of course run to encyclopaedic volumes. So this is the short version…

1. A Hundred Years

For those who don’t follow historical events, I feel that I have to start this essay by sketching out some of the basic information as to what was happening in the world just before the Arab-Israeli conflict started. In that way you might be able to develop a picture of the times, some of the people and perhaps something of the way of the world a hundred years ago. This may help a lot as we progress from circa 1897, (the year the first Zionist Congress was held in Basel, Switzerland), when there was no conflict, through to 1923, 26 years later, when widespread hostility was in full swing. This should help in the understanding of what is happening now in Palestine, and why.

The First World War was fought between August 1914 and November 1918. It was the bloodiest war that had ever been fought in human history until that time.

On one side were The Entente Powers, or the Allies, consisting of France, Britain, Russia, Italy, Japan and the USA, who were augmented by the Australians and New Zealanders, Canadians, Indians and many others from around the Empires of Britain and France. The Americans joined the Allies for the last year of the war. Oct 1917 to Nov 11, 1918).

The opposing side, The Central Powers, consisted of Germany, the embers of The Austro-Hungarian Empire, Bulgaria and The Ottoman (Turkish) Empire.

Practically a whole generation of Western European young men died in the trenches of Belgium and France as war spread around the entire world. This is the war in which fantasy TV drama hero, Thomas Shelby, of Peaky Blinders fame, wins his two medals for gallantry. This is also the war in which a new mental illness was noted. At the time and right through to my adolescence it was known as ‘Shell Shock’. Sometime after my youth it became known as Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. 

Even at the beginning of the war, negotiations were already taking place among The Allies as to apportioning possible future territorial gains in the east. At the time, Turkey was known as the ‘sick man of Europe’, (good cartoon fodder), and was expected to fall quite quickly. 

This brings us directly to Palestine, which was a small coastal area within the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire. The Ottoman Empire had once covered the whole of the North African coast except Morocco in the west, over to Baku, on the Caspian Sea, in the east, Vienna in the North, and The Persian Gulf/Indian Ocean in the south. 

By 1914, most of the north and west had been lost, but there was still a substantial empire in the east and south. In most of the cartoons of the day, Turkey was characterised in a fez hat and plasters or bandages, an upwardly twirled moustache, and maybe a walking stick. You get the idea..

At the end of World War I, among other endeavours, the Paris Peace Conference (1919-20) created The League of Nations, (the forerunner of the United Nations) to handle ongoing International Peace negotiations, treaties and relative business. 

2. The mandate problem and the 14 points 

Whereas at one time captured territories would automatically have become colonies, negotiations in 1919 between European allies Great Britain and France, and their American counterparts, pointed to a different solution.

Woodrow Wilson, the US president, had wanted ‘self-determination’ for all newly liberated peoples, while allies Britain and France had wanted to add to their empires.

A compromise was reached whereby former Turkish territories were to be split by France and Great Britain into two ‘mandated’ areas, to be governed separately by the two nations “until such time as (these new nations)… could stand alone”. The potentially new nations were Syria, including what is now Lebanon; Mesopotamia, which is now Iraq; Transjordan (Jordan) and Palestine, which for a very short time were lumped together.

In order to try to better explain this, I’ll attempt to précis the UN/League Of Nations description of the British clause in the Mandate Agreement itself, viz:

Basically, the mandate from The League of Nations “entrusted the (protection) of former Turkish colonies (Palestine, Iraq and Transjordan) to Great Britain”, and specified, “communities formerly belonging to the Turkish Empire” which “have reached a stage of development where their existence as independent nations can be provisionally recognised subject to the rendering of administrative advice and assistance by ‘The Mandatory’ (Power) (Britain) until such time as they are able to stand alone.” (my underscore and parentheses).

As stated as simply as possible, a mandate was a commission from the League Of Nations, awarded to a member state, in this case Britain, to administer a territory, i.e., Iraq, or Palestine, until such time as ‘it could stand alone’…

Qualifying this, two governing principles formed the core of the mandate system:  non-annexation of the territory, and its  administration as a “sacred trust of civilisation” to develop the territory for the benefit of its native people. (my bold and_ underscore).

With consideration to the future of Palestine,  the above quote is perhaps the most important sentence in the mandate document.

This would probably be the minimum that I could write in order to try to explain the function of a mandate. It’s important to know at least this much, because it impinges on the future government of Palestine.

(My Grandmother would have been about 44 at the time this document was signed. I first knew her in her early 60’s. She died in her early 80’s, as my career in music was just underway. All of this is about five minutes ago. Most of it occurred during my living memory. I.e., this is all recent)…

Although these territories had been run by Turkish bureaucracy, most of the Arabic speaking regions had never been actual countries with strict borderlines or boundaries, and their peoples weren’t really aware of what statehood meant in the traditional Western sense. 

I.e.,  …“right until its final collapse, the Ottoman Empire was unable to break through the barriers of feudalism. Small wonder, then, that its successor, the Turkish Republic, has not been able to eliminate many traits of feudalism to this very day”. 

I.e.,  …“right until its final collapse, the Ottoman Empire was unable to break through the barriers of feudalism. Small wonder, then, that its successor, the Turkish Republic, has not been able to eliminate many traits of feudalism to this very day”.  (Josef Matuz; the nature and stages of Ottoman feudalism, 1982). (Still possible to validate in 2024 because of its quasi-authoritarian political structures etc.)
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10 months before the war ended, (just after he’d joined the war), US President Wilson had made his famous ‘14 Points’ speech to the U.S. Congress. This was his vision pertaining to steps towards the future peace at the end of the war. Though eventually, in terms of Palestine, it would fail, it contained a few aspirations which are still on the table today.

These were his 14 points:

1. Open diplomacy without secret treaties

2. Economic free trade on the seas during war and peace

3. Equal trade conditions

4. Decrease armaments among all nations

5. Adjust colonial claims

6. Evacuation of all Central Powers from Russia and allow it to define its own independence

7. Belgium to be evacuated and restored

8. Return of Alsace-Lorraine region and all French territories

9. Re-adjust Italian borders

10. Austria-Hungary to be provided an opportunity for self-determination

11. Redraw the borders of the Balkan region creating ‘Roumania’, Serbia and Montenegro

12. Creation of a Turkish state with guaranteed free trade in the Dardanelles

13. Creation of an independent Polish state

14. Creation of the League of Nations

Reading these reminds us of just how very unsettled the world was in January 1918, and just how many of these issues (several) have resulted in conflict since this list was first written.

Although, as we have seen in these past weeks and months, the Israelis have scant regard for the UN, and always have had, the UN has consistently represented ‘the rest of the world.’ That is, apart from China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, the USA and the odd rogue state here and there. China, Russia and the USA regularly Veto World/UN Proceedings. 

We can all name other rogue nations that disregard ‘the rule of law’, but none of them hold the power of veto at the UN Assembly. The only nations holding the power of veto are Russia, China, the USA, Great Britain and France; the victors of the Second World War, Plus China.

More importantly perhaps, I’ll readily admit that the ‘rule of law’ is perpetually open to interpretation. My own ‘rule of law’, as I’ve said many times, would have ‘Peace’ at number one, two and three, at the same time as recognising how the pressure of people and currently evolving social and planetary circumstances are helping to ramp up human capacity for annoyance, division and violence.

Anyway, to reference the basis of the United Nations’ interpretation of President Wilson’s ideal, quote:

‘Colonialism then was still part of the international system, although President Wilson’s programme, a liberal landmark in the development of anti-colonialism, acknowledged that the concept of the right of self-determination applied equally to the non-Western part of humanity’:

“A free, open-minded and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the Government whose title is to be determined.” 

(President Wilson was perhaps attempting to walk in the steps of his predecessors Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln, one of whom had largely written The Declaration of Independence, and parts of the original US Constitution, while the other had fought The Civil War, mainly, in the end, to abolish slavery).

‘The League of Nations, designed to respond to the prevailing order, adopted the mandates concept, an innovation in the international system, as a way to accommodate the demands of the colonial age with the moral and political need to acknowledge the rights of the colonized’. (UN) (The American spelling of ‘colonised’)!

Except in the case of Palestine, where nothing like this was ever observed. (Palestine was temporarily shunted to one side, [by the British], to be dealt with at a later date; not a good sign. The Americans quickly adopted the view of the other Entente Powers in agreeing to both the Mandate System and to a very unusual document known as The Balfour Declaration (see below) without questioning its authenticity or its origin.

They’d all conspired to allow something to take place that not many of them were really that concerned with, but that none of them could have been sure about. Documents were being brushed under the carpet with the rest of the detritus of war. It had been a long war. They were all very tired. Everyone needed time off. 

During this dozy hubris, Britain willingly ended up holding the can. Along with the card it had deceitfully tried to hide up its sleeve. It was up to Britain as the eventually appointed Mandatory Power to manage what finally emerged from the dust that it had brushed underneath that Palestinian carpet. 

Together, the new League of Nations all lit the blue touch paper, and except for the Brits, they were now all retiring to the safe distance of time. It was all now on the clock. ‘Cosmological recession’ was slowly ticking. Slipping the aforementioned ‘Balfour Declaration’ into the Mandate document (see below) was a cardinal mistake. It was a very tired, dishonest and lazy move by Great Britain. It would be the leading cause of 100 years of war in Palestine.

3. Secret Treaties,

Before we can finally leave the then new Mandate System in the rear view mirror, there are a couple of things to add.

I have concentrated on explaining the Mandate System to you because it’s vitally important to this story. It’s also important to know that the Mandate System worked reasonably well for all the other territories. It worked for Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan, which all became independent. The reason that it didn’t work in Palestine is that it was abused in that territory. 

A race of European people, who had interbred with Eastern Europeans and others for well over 1000 years, forced their way into Palestine on the coattails of the British Empire, the largest empire of its day. They were European Jews, quite a large sect, who had managed to preserve the remains of an ancient identity.

In effect, they had never lived in Palestine, but swore blind that they had, two thousand years previously! These people were being influenced, and led, by an ultra political group known as the Zionists.

Both the British Empire and the Zionists, together, were to take advantage of the naivety of the indigenous Arab race. The Arabs had never dealt with European legalese before, and were at an absolute loss to properly confront it. The British, and the Zionists, were experts.

As stated above, the Palestine mandate was a compromise. Woodrow Wilson, the US President, had wanted ‘self-determination’ for all ex-Ottoman territories, while Britain and France wanted to annex everything west of Medina in Arabia! So although it was fairer, and obviously more egalitarian, the mandate system became the slightly unhappier medium for Wilson’s two allies, Britain and France. 

What Woodrow Wilson obviously knew at the time, and Lloyd George and Clemenceau, the leaders of GB and France were already up to the eyes in, was that at least three secret negotiations were ongoing, starting in 1915, with regard to the Arab territories then under Turkish rule, which included Palestine.

The first secret negotiation was the ‘Sharifian Solution’, agreed by Sir Henry McMahon and Sharif Hussein, leader of the Arabs, in their letters to each other, in 1915, with respect to who would control which Arab areas at the end of the war.

The second was The Sykes – Picot Agreement between Britain and France made in 1916, re-territory to be controlled by each.

The third was The Balfour Declaration, issued on November 2nd, 1917 as an agreement between Britain and the then little known Zionist Organisation. 

Woodrow Wilson probably had wind of all these secret treaties well in advance, especially because the Americans had had to become party to the ‘Balfour Declaration’. 

However, the Russian Revolution in October 1917 had resulted in Russia leaving the war. In the immediate regime change, documents that had been secret up until that time were published internationally by the new Communist regime. They revealed, among others, the Sykes – Picot Agreement in late November 1917. The Manchester Guardian had subsequently published it in full, whereupon it became imperative to know about what else might be hidden from plain view.* The first of Wilson’s ‘14 points’ ‘Open diplomacy without secret treaties’, certainly anticipates ongoing secrecy, (with yet more concealment and added complications).

*(“On 23 November 1917, following the October Revolution (in Russia), the Bolsheviks released copies of the Sykes-Picot Agreement and other secret treaties, publishing full texts in Izvestia and Pravda. The Manchester Guardian then printed the texts on 26 November 1917. This caused great embarrassment to the Allies and growing distrust between them and the Arabs, and McMahon resigned his post in protest”). (UN and National Archives)

(McMahon was British High Commissioner in Egypt). Be aware that the publication of both the Balfour Declaration (by the British) and the Sykes-Picot Agreement by the Bolsheviks, in November 1917, would likely have angered Faisal and devastated Lawrence. (Prince Faisal [Son of Sharif Hussein, future King of Hejaz etc.,] and T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia), when they recovered themselves, a month later, in December 1917, having fought a war together for Arab Independence, and won it! Only to discover that they’d been betrayed.

Chagrin squared!

In a ‘deleted chapter’ of the ‘Seven Pillars Of Wisdom’, Lawrence’s opus, which reappeared in 2022, T.E. Lawrence (Of Arabia) had written:

‘For my work on the Arab front I had determined to accept nothing. The cabinet raised the Arabs to fight for us by definite promises of self-government afterwards. Arabs believe in persons, not in institutions. They saw in me a free agent of the British government, and demanded from me an endorsement of its written promises. So I had to join the conspiracy, and, for what my word was worth, assured the men of their reward. In our two years’ partnership under fire they grew accustomed to believing me and to think my government, like myself, sincere. In this hope they performed some fine things, but of course, instead of being proud of what we did together, I was continually and bitterly ashamed’. (Guardian 30th October 2022)

‘King George V, (Queen Elizabeth’s grandfather), offered Lawrence a knighthood on 30 October 1918 at a private audience in Buckingham Palace for his services in the Arab Revolt, but he declined. He was unwilling to accept the honour in light of how his country had betrayed the Arabs’. (T.E. Lawrence Studies)                 

‘Lawrence of Arabia wouldn’t have been surprised by the rise of Isis’. (Giles Fraser, Guardian, 8th April 2016)
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Looking through my own admittedly wonky hundred year lens, I think that President Wilson was operating with a moral compass he didn’t necessarily own, (or leastways control. Who among them did?). E.g., Regardless of John Brown, Abraham Lincoln and The Abolition of Slavery, 1917 was forty seven years before civil rights was to even start to be addressed in the US, whilst Child Labour was still rife, etc. 

The list of the 14 points was also grandiose. It attempted to address things that were so problematic that just mentioning them on a list of seemingly honourable thoughts was pie in the sky, without the willing and immediate consent of all parties involved. Which wasn’t going to be entirely forthcoming. It was a list of visions and ambitions which could’ve been seen by many as being provocative. E.g., Britain, France, Russia and Turkey were all in possession of empires. Feathers were ruffling.

I don’t doubt Wilson as a man. Like many before him, he probably wanted to anticipate what he imagined might characterise a more equitable future in what was a less than perfect present.

It’s also easy to imagine that he had the opportunity to curtail the power and corruption of empires, (and rival empires to his own at that. Perhaps the main reason he had turned up with an army in October 1917), and he took it. He’d won his own authority to do so by simply joining the war, and helping to end it. (By sending troops to Europe, he’d also guaranteed his own participation in the trade-off of the endgame).

4. ‘Origins and Evolution of the Palestine Problem’

To Quote the relevant UN webpage:

“The origins of the Palestine problem as an international issue lie in events occurring towards the end of the First World War. 

These events led to a League of Nations  decision to place Palestine under the administration of Great Britain as the Mandatory Power under the Mandates System adopted by the League. 

In principle, the Mandate was meant to be in the nature of a transitory phase until Palestine attained the status of a fully independent nation, a status provisionally recognised in the League’s Covenant, but in fact the Mandate’s historical evolution did not result in the emergence of Palestine as an independent nation. (my bold, underscore and italics).

The decision on the Mandate did not take into account the wishes of the people of Palestine, despite the Covenant’s requirements that “the wishes of these communities must be a principal consideration in the selection of the Mandatory”. (my bold). (In other words, the wishes of these Arab communities had been a principal consideration in the choice by them and the League of Nations in deciding to make ‘Honest-John-Bull-Britain’ a guarantor of these wishes being fulfilled. 

Which meant that Britain had promised, faithfully, in becoming this guarantor, that she could be trusted to oversee absolute Independence for all of them; Iraq, Jordan and Palestine. But in the case of Palestine, what the British feebly and dishonestly allowed to happen was a delay of steps towards Palestinian Independence that allowed a war to commence, in 1920, that has lasted for over 100 years at this point, and shows no sign of abating – not for the foreseeable future. The previously agreed “sacred trust of civilisation” was on its way into the dust.

In 2024, It’s impossible to see how this is to be resolved by any of its current actors. 

A British cuckoo had laid an egg in the Arab nest, shortly before its own (British) Empire disintegrated. The young cuckoo refused to leave. Its British parents had armed it, to the teeth, but they’d had to abandon it because they were cash-strapped and it was becoming a delinquent. 

The young cuckoo was selfish and refused to share anything with its brothers and sisters. After all, it was cuckoo. It was then adopted and fed by its new guarantor, the United States of America, which was happy to use it in the same capacity as the old British cuckoo had been used. In this latest role, it was armed to the very back teeth. Unfortunately, at this point most of the wisdom teeth had been disappeared into a bank vault “up cat’s arse in America”, as we used to call any depository of mystery when I was 7.

Eventually, this caused a so-called War Of Independence, then a Civil War, then The Sinai War, The 6 Day war, Yom Kippur War, two Lebanon Wars with a third just starting, and the ongoing war in Gaza. That’s eight or nine wars, depending on what you’re counting. There are more, but what’s the point in counting. They’re all the result of one thing. A consequence of theft. Theft of a whole country; destruction of an entire culture; theft and destruction of an entire way of life.

(I take ‘a principal consideration in the selection of the mandatory’ to mean that not only was it a British responsibility as ‘the Mandatory’ Power, but that that responsibility for Palestinian independence was also tied into the covenant of The League of Nations, and thus was also the responsibility of The League of Nations).

“This assumed special significance because (in 1917), almost five years before receiving the mandate from the League of Nations (in 1922), the British Government had given commitments to the Zionist Organisation (in a separate and infamous agreement entitled (‘The Balfour Declaration’), regarding the establishment of a Jewish ‘national home’ in Palestine, for which Zionist Jewish leaders had pressed a claim of “historical connection”, since their ancestors had lived in Palestine two thousand years earlier (WTF!!?) before dispersing in the ‘Diaspora’”. 

(1917 was also 3 years BEFORE the League of Nations was created, reminding us that Britain and its diplomatic corps was naturally and unsurprisingly steeped in playing any number of games at once and continuously. Nothing new; but with the ‘Balfour Declaration’ already in existence, the appearance of the Mandate System, three years later, was more than just a hiccup. 

When that actually happened, and having what had seemed like the whip hand, the British automatically thought that they could easily combine the two. The national ego automatically excluded the fact that this plan might become legally questionable when it was held up to the light of actual justice)! 

N.B. 1. The moment that the wishes of the people of Palestine were not automatically granted, Britain’s ‘honour, integrity and self respect’, as ‘the mandatory power’, was immediately put into question, and was on the spot. 

N.B. 2. (It’s also important to stress that although the Brits would have wanted to annex Palestine, the Mandate was the next best thing. It was still an opportunity to gain influence and progress the Empire’s footprint). In the event, they chose to destroy both influence and trust in one bad move after another. After all, what was more important for the mandate, and for the world, the takeover of Palestine by an aggressive alien force, or forbearance in the long haul of an actual long-lasting peace: the stated goal of the League.

N.B. 3. (This literally paper-thin claim of an “historical connection” by the Zionists wasn’t new. It had already been pushed in the late 19th century, and a couple of times before that. Don’t forget, the Zionists were mainly Eastern European Poles and Russians, but had concentrations in other parts of Eastern Europe as well as followers in Western Europe. (Emphatically, they were European, interracially, and had been for at least the last thousand years).

This ‘enterprise’, as they called their ambition, (correctly in my view, ‘enterprise’ in this instance being a more polite word for ‘scam’), was being accelerated in 1915, in the midst of the fog, overwhelming slaughter and utter confusion at the beginning of the first real World War on earth). 

The Jews represented just 3%-4% of the population of Palestine before cheap land and desirable property was being purloined by wealthy magnates on their behalf at the end of 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. 

The other 97% of the population consisted of Arab Palestinians, with a small percentage of Christians and others thrown in! Below is the 1887 Turkish consensus.

Group	Population	Percentage
Muslim citizens	403,795	86–87%
Christian citizens	43,659	9%
Jewish citizens	15,011	3%
Jewish (foreign-born)	Est. 5–10,000	1–2%
Total	Up to 472,465	100.0%

N.B. 4. My ancestors apparently ‘came out of Africa’, so that should entitle me to walk into any of the 54 countries there, like, now, many hundreds of thousands, if not millions of years later, unsheathe a hard stem of grass and start fishing for termites. And then claim at least an acre of grass, or an acre of termites, whichever is the greater.

It’s absolutely no good telling me, or any other rational person, that this ‘Enterprise’ was entered into lawfully and legally between the the British and the Zionists, simply because the British had won the right to administer Palestine and could do what the hell they wanted with it. 

As we can see by the nature of the mandate, that wasn’t how it was supposed to work. The law, as it was actually written, stated that Palestine was to become an independent Arab state. Period.

The tragedy for The Arabs was that the British then handed the administration of Palestine over to the European Zionists, mainly perhaps because of the growing expense of policing the growing violence, which was seemingly being exacerbated with purpose by the aggressors. There was, and still is, so much wriggle room for the European Zionists with regard to legality and legalese, that they can almost prove that this take over was legal, but it’s so very far distant from being morally principled as to bring criminal charges to bear from the International Court of Justice were it ever to be repeated by any other nation or concert of nations with such disregard for the maintenance of ‘actual’ justice.

The modern Russian Empire, under Putin, is trying the very same trick in Ukraine. The same trick that the Zionists are still trying to complete. Along with many others, Ukraine managed to throw off its Russian yolk the moment the Berlin Wall fell. 

Ukraine has been a free country for 35 years. 

One of the major objectives of the United Nations is to stabilise National borders. The rule of the UN charter is that no nation is allowed to invade another. I guess that the theory is that in the post-colonial, postwar world, sovereign borders might help to maintain peace, over time. 

That perhaps, over the next hundred years or so, war can gradually be phased out. It’s a long shot, but there are now over 200 nations in a club called the UN, most of whom have somewhat positive intentions. Even though the rise of ‘BRICS’ (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), may reflect what looks like the beginnings of a future Axis).

What had been written into international law at the end of First World War, by the newly formed ‘League of Nations’, was that Syria, Iraq, Jordan and Palestine were to become independent Arab nations. This was never followed, because Britain and the Zionists intervened to make a mockery of law, and a sham of morality.

To my mind the manner of the takeover of Palestine represents devious skulduggery at its worst. Tantamount to telling me that it’s legal to steal a whole country purely because it doesn’t have any internationally recognised laws to protect its anticipated future Independence. 

The Entente nations invented laws and organisations that stripped a territory that was known around the world as Palestine, of its people, by installing a completely foreign European sect onto that same land, and then defending them until such time as further ingressions and invasions by this European sect outnumbered the original indigenous population, and marginalised them in one of the worst examples in recorded history of ‘legalised ethnic cleansing’.

The ongoing and unforgivably criminal fact is that this is still happening. They are visibly wiping a significant portion of the remainder of the state of Palestine, off the map. Along with everything that used to be on it, including its people. Yes, those people have been infested for long years by ‘terrorist’ organisations that have risen up in reaction to their cruel conquerors. What else could they do but begin to fight back? And eventually to become institutionalised and pathologically violent.

If we are to condemn the Russian state for its attempted takeover of Ukraine, then we must also condemn Israel for its attempted total destruction of Palestine. There is no difference, and any difference in treatment handed out to either Russia or Israel, quid pro quo, cannot be justified.

There is one huge difference. At least two thirds of Palestine cannot be returned to its indigenous people. There isn’t much that the world can do about this. One reason is that there are now millions of people occupying Palestine who do not know the true depth of this story. This history. Probably more than half of them are peace loving people whose philosophy would probably include making friends with neighbours. In the main, these are innocent people whose vision of the law would not include common or garden murder. To say the least, this is a very bad situation for the whole of humanity to find itself in.

It will be useful to place The Balfour Declaration here, with my comment, in order to be able to study and refer back to its context whenever necessary. I’ll be using it again in this tract on at least one more occasion because it is central to the understanding, and frequently the misunderstanding of this whole issue.

5. The Balfour Declaration (issued 2 November 1917)

‘His Majesty’s government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours 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 Jews in any other country.’ (My bold type). 

There is no mention in this 67-word document of any indigenous people. It’s as though they didn’t exist in Palestine. People other than Jewish people have been referred to here as non-Jewish communities!  Almost as if they are non-people. A con trick. They’ve disappeared. Now you see them, now you don’t. They’ve been demoted. They’re imaginary. They no longer exist. Legalese.

(Remember, what we’re trying to discover here is why a war that started 100 years ago is still continuing today, is as bad now as it’s ever been, and could easily get worse).

Year by year during World War I, starting in early 1915, the Zionist Jews progressed this ‘enterprise’. The war in itself had aided them, provided a screen for their activities, and they’d ridden their luck. In Britain, they’d found a partner with whom they could deal. Although the nature of one or two particular endeavours could never be written down, and never were, it was a joint-venture where one partner could possibly hold the fort, the lately gained ‘Fort Palestine’, so that the other could perhaps build roads to and from its far-flung empire, using the fort as a halfway house between Britain and the other side of the world – as well as defending The British Empire’s interests in the near East, such as the Suez Canal. 

In a separate but obviously related scenario, by 1915 …(“…there had been a growing Arab nationalist movement within the Arabic-speaking Ottoman territories, including many Arabs serving in the Ottoman Armed Forces).  (UN and multiple historical sources)

As previously noted, these officers and men were in contact with … “Sharif Hussein, Emir of Mecca, (same honcho) who was negotiating with the British and offering to lead an Arab uprising against the Ottomans. 

“In exchange, the Emir wanted a British guarantee of an independent Arab state including Hejaz, (on the western Coast of Arabia), greater Syria (including Palestine) and Mesopotamia (future Iraq). Such an uprising would have been helpful to Britain in its war against the Ottomans, lessening the threat against the Suez canal. However, there was resistance from French diplomats who insisted that Syria’s future was as a French colony, not an independent Arab state”! (The French had been awarded a mandate to govern Syria, until such time as it could ‘stand alone’, blah! blah! blah!) Wilson, J. (1989). Lawrence of Arabia: The authorised biography of T. E. Lawrence. Atheneum. ISBN 978-0-689-11934-7 – via Internet Archive (archive.org)

I can almost hear Zionist leader Weizmann’s Russian accent in British Foreign Secretary Balfour’s ear in 1917 as the Bolsheviks released their bombshell, steering him clear of any solution other than a ‘Jewish Home’ (A Zionist takeover of as much territory as Britain [and notional ‘Zion’] might purloin). In the event, Emir Hussein would have been a much more trustworthy and long term partner for the Brits and for the wider world. (And would have prevented at least seven wars and a host of invasions, including 9/11). 

One of his sons, Abdullah, became King of Jordan, married a girl from Surrey, and could have been King of Greater Palestine, (all of what is now Israel and Jordan). 

Another son, 
The famous Faisal
Quite soon became King of Iraq
The Brits had ignored 
The whole Arab factor
Finagling their way into
An endlessly violent cul-de-sac 

So costly so costly
New lamps for old 
Perpetual bankruptcy
Body and sold
😳

(However) “…There were also strong objections to such an Arab revolt from the Government of India, which was nominally part of the British government but acted independently.

Its vision was of Mesopotamia (Iraq) under British control serving as a granary for India; furthermore, it wanted to hold on to its Arabian outpost in Aden”. In effect, this would have pitted the British government against the British government of India, which is another story, half a lifetime into the future. [Adapted from Wilson, J. (1989). Lawrence of Arabia: The authorised biography of T. E. Lawrence. Atheneum. ISBN 978-0-689-11934-7 – via Internet Archive (archive.org).] Plus UN and Britannica web pages.

Somewhere, in all these machinations, may lie a slightly different truth about a more precise deal between the Brits and Jews that’ll very possibly be revealed by future historical research! After all, not all the bodies are entirely decomposed yet, and a lot of the great grandchildren are still alive. (I’m a grandchild of that so-called ‘Lost Generation’, I’m closer. One of my grandfathers fought in ‘Egypt’). What else actually happened secretly between the Brits and the Jews is anyone’s guess.

One theory with some actual meat on the bone is that the Balfour Declaration was meant, in part, “…to prompt the Jews to exercise their influence in moving the United States to support the war, (and British postwar policies), as well as to encourage Russian Jews to keep their nation fighting.” (UN)

I can’t say that I can entirely agree with this statement/theory. ‘Russian Jews keeping their nation fighting’ seems a bit too far-fetched. 

This might have been true before 7 November 1917, but there is little to no chance of it happening thereafter. This can maybe be stated as some sort of a goal that existed in the first years of the war, but once Russia blew up and left, no one really knew what was happening there. Neither did the Russians know what was happening in the rest of the world. The Balfour Declaration cannot have meant very much in Russia at all. The Russians were engaged in full-scale revolution, and were about claim a huge victory, which occurred five days after the Balfour declaration was made public for the first time. Clearly, to 99% of the revolutionaries, 67 meaningless words were being released in another galaxy.

As an aside, (and conversely, 70 years after 1920) I would add that one of the things that I took away with me after visiting Israel in c.1993 was just how very Russian it seemed to be. Nick and I stood together on the edge of the escarpment into the Negev Desert at Beersheba, and I said to him,

“What does this remind you of?” 

Concrete buildings and dwellings lined the edge, like some ancient battlements. We both agreed that it looked like some kind of Latter-Day Middle Age fortification. 

The Balfour Declaration was made on 2nd of November 1917. The Russian Revolution happened in October 1917, in the same month. (But the Russians were still using the Julian calendar in 1917, which was dated 13 days before the Gregorian calendar that the whole world now uses. 

So the modern date of the revolution’s first real victory (Saint Petersburg/ Petrograd) is November 7, rather than it’s previous date of October the 24th-25th. Something that used to be known as the October Revolution, and still is, actually occurred in modern reality on November 7 1917, five days after The Balfour Declaration was made).

(We can only imagine what was going on in the heads of the ‘common people’ everywhere. On June 19th 1917 Queen Elizabeth’s grandfather, King George V had changed the family name from Sax-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor, replacing the German with English. He was about to lose his Russian cousin Nicholas 11, along with Nicholas’ entire family, murdered in Yekaterinburg on the night of 17/18 July 1917. (The cousins were both grandchildren of Queen Victoria). Monarchies were on the brink. ‘The Great War’, as it was called before it was superseded by The Second World War, affected the whole of humanity).

The Balfour Declaration had been ongoing since 1915, and it wasn’t suddenly changed in June/July or November 1917 to suit any ‘new circumstances’, although it was in the shadows of such tumult that the Zionists beavered and scammed away in obscured corners of the British Government.

So, what were Russian Jews and most Russians generally doing during the revolution and the later part of the war.. except being transfixed by Lenin and Trotsky in St. Petersburg, or looking for food; and experiencing the build up to something much more immediate for Russia generally, i.e., an eventual CCCP. And weren’t British post-war policies both predictably, and in the end, decidedly pro-Zionist in any case? More theories are obviously needed… or not.

Potential theories are as loopy as the ‘Balfour Declaration’ they seemingly begot. The ‘American Jews support for the war’ theory (in the Americans joining the war), undoubtedly had some currency across the Atlantic, but I don’t think that it was much of a factor in the US actually joining the war. As I previously intimated, I think that one of the main reasons the Americans joined the war was to have a say in the peace; and a partial hand in the treaties.

More importantly, in January 1917, the British had intercepted and deciphered an encrypted message from German Foreign Minister Zimmermann addressed to a German diplomat in Mexico, Heinrich von Eckhart. This became known as the Zimmerman Telegram which proposed an alliance between Germany and Mexico, in which, if agreed, the Germans would support Mexico in regaining Texas, New Mexico and Arizona from the US. The Germans also wanted Mexico to help convince Japan to become an ally.

The British forwarded the telegram to President Wilson on February 24. On March 1 1917 this was all over the news. The American public was outraged by the Zimmermann telegram, and along with Germany’s unrestricted resumption of submarine attacks, targeting US merchant shipping, and particularly with the memory of the sinking of the Lusitania, off to south coast of Ireland in 1915, American minds were made up. American troops were in the Allied trenches by October 1917. (Précied from Britannica with added Lusitania comment)

Notwithstanding all of that, I think that we have to come back to the reason the Brits handed the administration of Palestine to the Zionists, i.e. the one with the most sense attached to it, would seem to be the one(s) in situ, involving India, with the administration of the Suez Canal by The Zionists thrown in. 

In passing, among a number of questionable ‘enterprises’, over time, the ‘administration’ of Palestine was one of the worst episodes the British Empire was ever involved in. Ever. Much worse than the Amritsar Massacre in India during the same period, or Boer and Kenyan concentration camps.

This is my own opinion, but I dare say that I share it with a lot of others. The later the apparent conspiracies and justifications (for the theft of Palestine) appear after the First World War, the more they will tend to fall on the side of convenience for the Zionist story. 

The overall irony here is that as the situation in Palestine progressed into the 1930s, whole factions of the British Government increasingly wanted to disavow the Balfour Declaration, along with all former Zionist collusion and even the cause itself. The truth re-Brit-Zionist connivance was that it was already having tragic results for all the parties by 1923. 

Historically, the only thing that we can remotely trust are attested documents that were written and recorded at the time, that can also be cross-referenced.

6. The Square Peg and the Round Hole

A reprise

As the dust was settling at the end of the war, in 1919/20, and treaties, agreements, and organisations were being formed to safeguard the future against World War happening again…  the British had problems. 

The promises they’d made to the Zionists in 1917 regarding the establishment of a ‘national home’ for the Jews, in Palestine, were being doubly questioned by 1922. Those questions intensified when the Brits were obliged to sign the Mandate to administer Independence to Palestine that same year.

A Zionist ‘Home’ in Palestine, together with a mandate to deliver complete independence to Palestine were obviously at odds with each other. They were seemingly two entirely opposed endeavours. One, the promise of a ‘National Home’ for the Zionist Jews, was part of an ‘enterprise’, a potential strategic ploy written in what can only be described, at best, as abstract prose: while the other, ‘Administering Independence to Palestine’, was an international responsibility, bound up in the legal language of the mandate issued to Britain by The League of Nations in 1922/3. 

As we already know, The Balfour Declaration had been concocted by the British government at the behest and with the continuous badgering of the Zionists. The inception of The League of Nations in 1919 meant that there were now at least five different national entities representing millions of people wrapped up in this Palestinian ‘enterprise’, none of whom were Arab. 

In order of importance, they were the British, the French, The USA, the Italians and the Turks. Waiting in the wings were all the nations who were about to become members of The League Of Nations.. who might, all in their different ways, contribute to this conspiracy.

(NB 5? In 1945, the League Of Nations became The United Nations. This is three years before The State of Israel came into being: (existed). Making a mockery of the brand-new UN Charter, which had been carried forward from the League Of Nations rule). (subject to further research by myself). 

These two endeavours, a ‘National Home’ for the Jews, and Palestinian Independence were seemingly mutually exclusive. In terms of a fit for each other, one was a square peg, the other a round hole. Something had to give.

(Putting it as simply as possible, how could it be either legal or possible for Britain to be both ‘The Mandatory’ administering Palestinian Independence, as well as authorising the establishment of a ‘Jewish Home’ in Palestine; both at the same time, and in the same place?) 

As new Foreign Secretary Curzon (1919) had said: “The Zionists are after a Jewish State with the Arabs as hewers of wood and drawers of water.” (National Archives etc.)

In order to manage these two entities, the British had to fudge it, in public, but how?

The only fudge possible was to virtually sneak the legally questionable and by now discredited ‘Balfour Declaration’, (which hugely favoured the Zionists) into the legal mandate document, (which was automatically written to establish and legitimise Palestinian Independence), and get it signed off by the League Of Nations ASAP… This sounds very much to me like it was corruption on the part of both the British Government and the governance of The League of Nations. At the very least it was laziness, and at its worst absolutely astonishing.

I say that this was corrupt because by sneaking the Balfour Declaration into the mandate document, the Brits would seem to have fraudulently legalised a ‘Jewish Home’.

This might have been acceptable had they then authorised the Palestinians to divvy up the territory, but that was never allowed to happen. In my opinion, at this point the mandate and the treaty should have become null and void, but the Zionists forced the issue, and more or less took over the administration of Palestine by force, under the protection of the British Army.

Nudge nudge, say no more; hide the flimsy Declaration forever, where it couldn’t be touched without lengthy legal process and perceived loss of national honour. Then try to slow Palestinian Independence with it, by handing over the administration of Palestine to the Zionists after the Palestinians had made it absolutely clear that all they wanted was independence. They didn’t want or need administration, and would have run a million miles away from any Zionist administration. (From nowhere to administering (owning!) quite a slice of Mediterranean coast in five years!) We have to conclude that this ranks alongside the biggest scams in modern history.

Joint possession of Palestine could have worked if the zionists had acquiesced, but there was never any chance of that happening.

7. The Takeover

In order to clear this up, we really have to look at what was written and said, back in Paris, in 1919.

This is the (UN) commentary and dialogue from the League of Nations, the UN and multiple other sources such as the National Archives and the Palestinian Papers. Quote:

“The contradictions inherent in the (British) Mandate for Palestine arose from the incorporation in it of the Balfour Declaration. The importance of gaining international support for a Jewish State was recognised (by the Zionists) from the outset for several reasons:

(a) To consolidate divergent Jewish opinion behind Zionist policies; (I.e., to squash opposition to Zionism within the Jewish population).
(b) To draw the support of (The Great) Powers to harmonise with British policy; (to pressurise for unanimous international support for a questionable enterprise).
(c) To obtain some form of international approval for this (scam) …enterprise.

Surely, ‘the importance of gaining international support for a ‘Jewish State’ was superseded by the need for Palestinian Independence from Turkey.

Weizmann is quoting as stated that the effort of zionism must be “… to make the Jewish question an international one. It means going to the nations and saying, ‘we need your help to achieve our aim’” (without stating what your real aim is). (Weisga, Op. cit., p. 297)

(in the event, I don’t think it was possible for Weizmann to imagine, a, what his real aim could actually amount to, except as near as he could get to the attainment of absolute power in Palestine, or b, to visualise the hundreds of years of bitterness, violence and hatred that this might engender when administered with such racist malice). (my parentheses throughout).

The first move was the dispatch to Palestine in April 1918 of a Zionist Commission to include Weismann and Zionist ‘officials’.

The telegram to the British High Commission in Egypt outlined its task:

“… object of Commission is to carry out … any steps required to give effect to government declaration in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people …

“Among the most important functions of the Commission will be the establishment of good relations with the Arabs and other non-Jewish communities in Palestine, and to establish the Commission as the link between the military authorities and the (then very small!) Jewish population and Jewish interests in Palestine.

“It is most important that everything should be done to obtain authority from the (Zionist) Commission in the eyes of the Jewish world, and at the same time allay Arab suspicions regarding the true aims of zionism. …” (‘Arab suspicions’, ‘Jewish world’ ‘true aims!’) (British Government, Public Record Office Cabinet No. 27/23 (1918) (as reproduced in Ingrams, Doreen, The Palestinian Papers, London, John Murray, 1972)

‘Although formally still part of the Ottoman Empire, Palestine (had been) under British military occupation since December 1917. Palestinian apprehension over the intents of the Balfour Declaration had been reported to London by the military authorities, and when the Zionist Commission arrived in Jerusalem, Weizmann wrote the Foreign Office:

“We were prepared to find a certain amount of hostility on the part of the Arabs and Syrians, based largely on misconception of our real aims, and we have always realised that one of our principal duties would be to dispel misconceptions and to endeavour to arrive at an amicable understanding with the non-Jewish elements of the population on the basis of the declared policy of His Majesty’s Government. But we find among the Arabs and Syrians, or certain sections of them, a state of mind which seems to us to make useful negotiations impossible at the present moment, and so far as we are aware – though here our information may be incomplete – no official steps have been taken to bring home to the Arabs and Syrians the fact that His Majesty’s Government has expressed a definite policy with regard to the future of the Jews in Palestine”. (Ibid., Foreign Office No. 371/3398 (1918), op. cit.)

The Military Governor, Colonel (later Sir) Ronald Storrs, commented:

“I cannot agree that, as Dr. Weizmann would seem to suggest, it is the business of the military authorities to ‘bring home to the Arabs and Syrians the fact that His Majesty’s Government has expressed a definite policy with regard to the future of the Jews in Palestine’. This has already been done by Mr. Balfour in London, and by the press throughout the world. What is wanted is that the Zionists themselves should bring home to the Arabs and Syrians an exposition at once as accurate and conciliatory as possible of their real aims and policy in the country;…

“… I cannot help thinking that the (Zionist) Commission are lacking in a sense of the dramatic actuality. Palestine, up to now a Moslem (old spelling) country, has fallen into the hands of a Christian Power which on the eve of its conquest announced that a considerable portion of its land is to be handed over for colonisation purposes to a nowhere very popular people. The dispatch of a Commission of these people is subsequently announced … From the announcement in the British press until this moment there has been no sign of a hostile demonstration public or private against a project which if we may imagine England for Palestine can hardly open for the (original) inhabitants the beatific vision of a new heaven and a new earth. The (Zionist) Commission was warned in Cairo of the numerous and grave misconceptions with which their enterprise was regarded and strongly advised to make a public pronouncement to put an end to those misconceptions. No such pronouncement has yet been made; …” (Ibid., Foreign Office No. 371/3398 (1918), op. cit.)

The (Zionist) Commission completed its stay in Palestine, and the Zionist Organisation prepared itself for the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. Proposals were submitted to the Foreign Office for consideration at the Conference. Lord Curzon (then Foreign Secretary and formerly Viceroy of India and Lord President of the Council) commented to Balfour on these proposals:

“… As for Weizmann and Palestine, I entertain no doubt that he is out for a Jewish Government, if not at the moment then in the near future …

“What all this can mean except Government I do not see. Indeed a Commonwealth as defined in my dictionary is a ‘body politic’ a ‘State’ an ‘independent community’ a ‘republic’.

“I feel tolerably sure therefore that while Weizmann may say one thing to you, or while you may mean one thing by a ‘national home’, he is out for something quite different. He contemplates a Jewish State, a Jewish nation, a subordinate population of Arabs, etc. ruled by Jews; the Jews in possession of the fat of the land, and directing the Administration.

“He is trying to effect this behind the screen and under the shelter of British trusteeship.

“I do not envy those who wield the latter, when they realise the pressure to which they are certain to be exposed. …”  Ibid., Foreign Office No. 800/215 (1919)(Lord Curzon)
_______________________________________

“I am in favour of Palestine being developed as a Jewish Homeland, but not as a separate state.” Albert Einstein 1946.

As a coda, I would like to add that my son Nick Harper was brought up on a diet of Frank Zappa… and more Frank Zappa. One wonders what on earth Frank would think about his distant kith and kin murdering children in a place that used to be known as the holy land? A place which has obviously, in its present condition, lost all pretence of being such. The old Testament view of an eye for an eye, excuse the pun, is back in vogue. Well over 100,000 eyes have been lost on this occasion. Added to that is a loss of cultural architecture and ancient structures, iconic sculpture and irreplaceable art.

Our past, from which we learn so much, is yet again being torn to pieces. 

On the 26th September 1687 a Venetian mortar hit The Parthenon, the 2,400 year old Greek Temple built on the acropolis in Athens, which at the time was being used by the Turks as an ammunition dump. Luckily, we have drawings made by French artist Jacques Carrey in 1764 in order to help with the restoration. 

People may have photographs of historic sites in Gaza, but Israel has laid waste to the whole Strip, and has obviously wanted to take possession of it for a hundred years. 

The Isis destruction of ancient Assyrian Nimrud with bulldozers pales in comparison with the devastation wrought by the Likud Party and the IDF on Gaza. 

Ok, they had to get rid of the tunnels and the terrorists, but murdering tens of thousands of children and innocents in order to do so takes us all back to the stink of Auschwitz, which no civilised person wants to have to recall. In my opinion, this has been committed on a scale of violence that should serve as a warning to us all.

This is brutal gang violence fostered by the state. It should be punishable, but the International Court of Justice is perhaps necessarily a feeble institution compared with an armed nation; even quite a small one. We can all see the abject cruelty. We can all still see the music festival that was invaded on October 7 2023. We see it all. We look at Netanyahu and we can see Herman Göring.

This is on us all. We all had, and still have a hand in this. This is our world. This is the way it is. It will only change when we want something different.

As the storms gather in force, and purple rain on the weather maps closes in… and turbulence is twice as turbulent.

The US president has been a dead duck for some time now, which has allowed Netanyahu to do what he pleases with his enemies, real and imaginary. Will his warcrimes continue after a new American President is elected in a couple of days time? 

Carl Bernstein said on CNN’s NewsNight last week (Halloween?) That he didn’t like the way the Israelis had handled the war. We could tell by his body language that he didn’t really want to say that, but he did. His conscience had forced him to. His old sidekick, Bob Woodward has a new book out, advertised on the same show, called ‘WAR’. It’s very energising for me to see that both of the great ‘Watergate’ journalists are still 100% engaged.

The Zionists appeared as a ‘now or never’ movement, during the first war fought, at its end, to try to establish rules to stabilise human endeavour on the planet. At the time, it split British Jewry into pro-British Jews and Zionists. The arguments were heated. 

To cut an unnecessary but interesting story short, roughly, the protagonists were the only Jewish men of cabinet status in the government of the time; Sir Edmund Montagu and Sir Herbert Samuels, who were cousins! 

The Zionist take over of Palestine is as yet incomplete. They imagined in 1918 that they might be able to establish themselves as a nation holding the whole of what had formally been imagined as the Palestine of 2 or 3,000 years ago. A Second World War later, plus a further 80 year period of general unrest has seen them permanently anxious to take more territory.
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Postscript

This is just the first part of what I have written about this issue. I have written twice this amount about the story from 1923 to 1948.

I would have hoped that the conflict would be over and done with by now, but sadly it isn’t. It could have been resolved in 1920, but as we now know, British bayonets, followed by US tanks, in 1948, have intervened on behalf of the alien (zionist) invader. As I’ve said above, it’s too late to change that now, but it’s not too late to be honest, human and upstanding, and to gradually work away towards a two state solution.

At present, Israel seems to be content to continue with more intermittent hostilities that don’t perhaps seem as flagrant as they were in the summer of 2024, but still result in multiple fatalities on a daily basis. 

Largely because of the manner in which it was established, Israel is surrounded by enemies. Lebanon is now in flames, and we know that there are many on the far right in Israel who would love to nip a piece off Southern Lebanon to join up with the adjacent Golan Heights. This will continue unless they are stopped.

Netanyahu fights to maintain his own status, and like Trump, to keep himself out of jail. Many thousands of innocent people have been killed in his quest to remain in power. His excuse is that he’s defending Israel, but in reality, he’s creating more enemies among potential friends. Like Putin, he is an infernal pox on the body politic of world peace. Yes, Nasrullah and Sinwar were terrorists, but also children who grew up in the midst of hard-line Israeli brutality.

Netanyahu has seemingly betrayed his masters and gone against the wishes of the US president, and is blatantly interfering with the upcoming election in favour of the morally and mentally challenged former president. No one is going to pull him up on it. He has treacherously interfered with both the US election and world peace during the American Presidency’s four-yearly ‘dead duck’ period.

It’s difficult to say that this was a plan, but we did see that the bombing in Lebanon is like an after thought done on the hurry-up, before the new presidency is decided.

There are people who are desperate to speak, but many have been muzzled by these events in the Middle East.

Until November 6th, ‘immigrants eating pets’ might seem to be the unmitigated order of the day for the Trumpers, along with an hourly emission of ignorant ‘word salad’ from their  leader. 

That this man could become the leader of the ‘free world’ within the next days beggar’s belief.

When will the opposition in Israel wrest control of the state from Netanyahu? Do they have the wherewithal? Is the Israeli opposition up to the task? Is what he is doing acceptable to the majority of Israeli citizens? 

Who among them will be brave enough to choose a different direction? Who will come to our rescue? None of us want to watch this any longer. These questions are all obvious, along with dozens more.

The world needs a ceasefire, the return of the hostages, and a Two State Solution, NOW.

To be continued, maybe…

Although I would love to finish writing and recording music before any re-entry into this. And, after all, I’m not qualified to write this, am I?

One last caveat.. I have yet to thoroughly research The Mandate Conversations held at Versailles in 1919-20… Oh!, and in researching this, despite his faults, Lawrence of Arabia has emerged, for me, as a national hero. There’s another man involved in this period who is worthy of similar repute, but I’m keeping his name to myself right now, perhaps because I want to surprise myself by what I write.

Dedicated to all my Jewish friends, past and present. Good luck to all the hostages. With sincere hope for the future of Palestine.

RH 4/11/24