The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict

by Jonathan Schneer

  34. his position was a platform … An untitled, unnumbered paper by Mark Sykes on the Arab situation, September 11, 1916, Hull University, Mark Sykes Papers. Hussein had helped the Turks defeat the Idrisi of Asir; he had established good relations with tribes led by Ibn el Rashid and Ibn Sha’alan.

  35. He opposed even … Dawn, From Ottomanism, 6.

  36. “He is very generous …” NA, FO371/2486/112369. But note that the sentiments, according to Captain G. S. Symes, are those of “a soi-disant Turcophobe and an associate of Sherif Abdalla, the son of Sherif Hussein.” For a helpful analysis of Sharif Hussein’s relations with the Ottoman government and the valis it sent to the Hejaz, see Kayali, Arabs, 181–84.

  37. “with merry dark brown eyes …” Hogarth, Hejaz, 55.

  38. “On one occasion …” NA, FO371/2486/112369.

  39. His biographer writes … Wilson, King Abdullah, 14. But George Antonius, the great historian of the Arab Revolt, writes that Abdullah was “foremost among the Arab deputies in the Ottoman Parliament.” Antonius, Arab Awakening, 126.

  40. “It purports …” Graves, Memoirs of King Abdullah, 97.

  41. Ottoman parliamentary sessions … The Egyptian khedive was Abbas Hilmi.

  42. He may have met … Ibid., 112.

  43. Lord Kitchener … Ibid., 112–14.

  44. “and we parted on the best …” Storrs, Memoirs, 135.

  CHAPTER 3: FIRST STEPS TOWARD THE ARAB REVOLT

  1. “The Turkish Army is in …” “By order of H.E. the Minister, the Cairo Police have been directed to punish anyone who might be caught singing this song.” Sir Ronald Storrs Papers, Adam Matthew Publications Microfilm, reel 4, box 2, folder 3, Egypt 1914–15.

  2. British intelligence agents … For example, “Mousam El Din … a most dangerous suspicious character”; “Calal Bey, Sami Bey, El Hag Abdel Maim: All live in No 5 Sharia Shura, opposite Tewfikieh School … Their movements are quite suspicious. They should be supervised.” “Notes on Turks suspected of spying for Turkey,” ibid.

  3. “The Ottoman Army is …” “Translation of a Proclamation Issued by the Commandant of the Fourth Turkish Army and Minister of Marine,” ibid.

  4. “too clever by …” Introduction to the Microfilm by Bernard Wasserstein, Storrs Papers. For more on Storrs, see his entry in the New Dictionary of National Biography and Storrs, Memoirs.

  5. “He may not be …” There are many biographies of Kitchener, such as Royle, Kitchener Enigma.

  6. “Tell Storrs …” Kitchener to Cheetham, September 24, 1914, NA, FO371/2770/69301. This file contains correspondence between the British and Hussein and family down to March 10, 1916. I will not cite the file again in this chapter unless referring to correspondence after that date.

  7. “This is the Commandment …” Quoted in Storrs, Memoirs, 165.

  8. “closer union” … I have quoted here Cheetham’s recapitulation to the Foreign Office of Abdullah’s letter, NA, FO371/2770/69301. But see also Oxford University, St. Antony’s College, Middle East Centre, Felix Frankfurter Papers, GB165-0111; this is a microfilm of extracts of the William Yale Papers. It contains the text of part of Abdullah’s letter promising that the sharif will support England against the Turks, “so long as she [Britain] protects the rights of our country and the rights of the person of His Highness our present Emir and Lord, and the rights of his Emirate and its independence in all respects, without any exceptions or restrictions, and so long as she supports us against any foreign aggression and in particular against the Ottomans, especially if they wish to set up anyone else as Emir with the intention of causing internal dissension—their principle of government—and provided that the Government of Great Britain would guarantee these fundamental principles clearly and in writing. This guarantee we expect to receive at the first opportunity.” Here there is no reference to “Arabia.” But then why did Cheetham mention it?

  9. “Does Kitchener agree?” See the copy in NA, FO800/48.

  10. “Arabia, Syria …” “Secretary’s Notes of a War Council held at 10 Downing Street, March 19, 1915,” NA, Cab42/2/132.

  11. “Our relations with the …” For X’s shorthand notes, see Durham University, Sir Ronald Wingate Papers, 134/8/52.

  12. “We have not the men …” M.P.A. Hankey to Lord Fisher, April 22, 1915, OUNBL, H. H. Asquith Papers.

  13. “he had great sympathy …” “Secretary’s Notes of a War Council held at 10 Downing Street, March 19, 1915,” NA, Cab42/2/132.

  14. “lay like a ducal demesne …” Leslie, Mark Sykes, 6.

  15. “Mark Sykes had vitality …” Aubrey Herbert, tribute to Sykes at his memorial service, Somerset Record Office, Herbert Papers, DD/HER/53.

  16. “Even Jews have their …” Quoted in Leslie, Mark Sykes, 62.

  17. “the Arabs of the Syrian desert …” Sykes to Grey, September 14, 1914, NA, FO800/104-112/485.

  18. One of them … Lancelot Oliphant introduced Sykes to Fitzgerald.

  19. “I never saw Lord Kitchener …” Sykes to George Arthur, September 12, 1916, OUNBL, Leonard Stein Papers, box 2, PRO30/57/91.

  20. “Turkey must cease …” For example, the Arab desert tribes “should be done up to the nines and given money and food … Then premiums might be offered for camels … then a price for telegraphic insulators … then a price for interruption of Hejaz railway line and a good price for Turkish Mausers and a good price for deserters from the Turkish Army … if possible keep the whole of the Hejaz Railway in a ferment and destroy bridges.” This was not a bad description of what T. E. Lawrence would accomplish in his famous guerrilla desert campaign a year and a half later. Sykes to Herbert, n.d. (but from internal evidence spring 1915), Somerset Record Office, Herbert Papers, DD/HER/34.

  21. “All black people …” Sykes to Herbert, April 1, 1915, Somerset Record Office, Herbert Papers, DD/HER/53.

  22. “I could never understand …” “War Committee. Evidence of Lieut.-Col. Sir Mark Sykes, Bart., M.P., at a Meeting held at 10 Downing Street on Thursday, July 6, 1916, at 11:30,” Hull University, Sykes Papers.

  23. “the key of the whole …” Lawrence to Hogarth, March 18, 1915, OUNBL, Lawrence Papers, MS Eng. D. 3335/f.146.

  24. “I want to pull them …” Lawrence to Hogarth, March 22, 1915, OUNBL, Lawrence Papers, MS Eng. D. 3335/f.148.

  25. “His allegiance to us …” Storrs to illegible, February 22, 1915, Storrs Papers, reel 4, box 2, folder 3.

  26. “He is a very pleasant …” McMahon to Hardinge, August 4, 1915, CUL, Lord Hardinge of Penshurst Papers, vol. 94, no. 74.

  27. “I should just like to conclude” … “War Committee. Meeting held at 10 Downing Street on Thursday, December 16, 1915, at 11:30 a.m.,” and “Evidence of Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Mark Sykes, Bart., MP on the Arab Question,” Hull University, Sykes Papers.

  CHAPTER 4: THE NEXT STEPS

  1. Soon enough his messengers … Ibn Rashid declared the jihad in order to keep Turkish support against Ibn Saud.

  2. Saud urged Hussein to ignore … Clayton to Wingate, October 2, 1915, Durham University, Wingate Papers, 134/2/29.

  3. The Turkish vali of the Hejaz … The vali was Wahib Pasha. But Hasan Kayali doubts this version of events since Constantinople had been urging the vali to conciliate Sharif Hussein and this is what the discovered documents would probably have revealed. See Kayali, Arabs, 190.

  4. Feisal distrusted Western … I largely rely on Antonius, Arab Awakening, 149–50, for this episode. But see also Tauber, Arab Movements, 60–66.

  5. “most capable military …” Hogarth, Hejaz, 55–56.

  6. “a pair of cunning cruel …” Stuermer, Two War Years, 117.

  7. “Although I had never …” Djemal Pasha, Memories, 211.

  8. “he swore by the glorious …” Ibid., 213. Note that according to Djemal, Feisal delivered this speech in September 1915. Antonius, however, does not even mention a trip to Damascus by Feisal in September.

  9. “When he was received …�
�� Ibid.

  10. But “we do not need them …” The speaker was Yasin al-Hashimi, a future prime minister of Iraq.

  11. “quiet, friendly, agreeable …” Storrs, Memoirs, 205–06; Herbert, diary entry, January 30, 1915, Somerset Record Office, Herbert Papers, reel 1.

  12. He “understood our design …” Lawrence, Seven Pillars, 41.

  13. “scarcely an embryo …” Wingate to Clayton, February 24, 1915, Durham University, Clayton Papers, 469/8/46.

  14. “You should inform …” Grey to McMahon, April 14, 1915, NA, FO371/2486/44598.

  15. “far and wide …” Wingate to Clayton, April 20, 1915, Durham University, Clayton Papers, 469/9/8.

  16. “one of the most difficult …” Antonius, Arab Awakening, 159.

  17. “God selected us …” Quoted in Dawn, From Ottomanism, 78.

  18. dispatching a trusted messenger … The messenger was Mohammed Ibn Arif Ibn Oreifan.

  19. “would be an important …” “Correspondence with the Grand Sherif of Mecca, 7, Communication from Sherif of Mecca to Mr. Storrs, Oriental Secretary to British Representative, Cairo,” NA, FO371/12770/69301.

  20. “we will consider ourselves …” Ibid.

  21. “I think, you will find …” Wingate to Clayton, August 14, 1915, Durham University, Clayton Papers, 469/10/24.

  22. “On handing [me] the letter …” Statement of Mohammed Arif Ibn Oreifan, NA, FO371/2486/125293.

  23. “The Sharif had opened …” Storrs, Memoirs, 167.

  24. “His pretensions …” McMahon to Grey, August 22, 1915, NA, FO371/2486/117236.

  25. “We confirm to you …” McMahon to Hussein, August 29, 1915, NA, FO371/2770/69301.

  26. “a tight network of parentheses …” Antonius, Arab Awakening, 167.

  27. “I cannot admit that you …” NA, FO371/2770/69301.

  28. “I am a descendant of Omar …” “Memo on Mulazim Awal (lieutenant) Mohammed Sherif El Farugi, Staff Officer (Infantry) Mosul Corps, Turkish Army,” NA, FO371/2486/157740.

  29. The formulation appears … McMahon to Grey, October 19, 1915, NA, FO371/2468/153/045.

  CHAPTER 5: THE HUSSEIN-MCMAHON CORRESPONDENCE

  1. “The districts of Mersina …” McMahon to Hussein, October 24, 1915, NA, FO371/2770.

  2. “Our Arabic correspondence …” Storrs, Memoirs, 168.

  3. What Storrs did not record … Ritchie Ovendale, entry on Storrs, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

  4. The British and Zionists have argued … Note a further complication. While some historians (such as C. Ernest Dawn) refer to the vilayet of Damascus, others (notably Antonius and Sanders) point out that there was no vilayet of Damascus but rather a vilayet of Syria in which Damascus was located!

  5. Meanwhile assorted historians … It would be tedious to recapitulate the protracted, wide-ranging dispute in detail. For the Zionist point of view the interested reader may refer to Friedman, “McMahon-Hussein Correspondence,” published in 1970 in Journal of Contemporary History; he reprinted it without emendation but strengthened it in subsequent chapters of his Palestine, Twice-Promised, vol. 1. For a lengthy, tempered rebuttal of Friedman’s original article, see Dawn, From Ottomanism, chap. 4. Friedman’s and Dawn’s essays are the most comprehensive and persuasive statements of the opposing positions. In late 2009, however, one with no stake in the quarrel might discern, at least among scholars, the emergence of a rough consensus, although Friedman remains conspicuously outside it. Most researchers now believe that McMahon was intentionally vague, not sloppy, in order to give his superiors in London all possible scope for maneuver when the war was finished. See, for instance, Sanders, High Walls, 253, and Fromkin, Peace, 184. The most recent verdict on the debate, and probably a typical one, is that of Tom Segev: “at most the Arabs won [the historical debate] on a technicality; [for] the letters did not decisively confirm that Palestine would be included in the independent state the British had promised the Arabs.” But neither did they explicitly deny it. One Palestine, 438.

  6. “What we have to arrive at …” McMahon to Hardinge, December 4, 1915, CUL, Lord Hardinge Papers, vol. 94, no. 180.

  7. “I do not like pledges …” Hardinge to Chamberlain, December 24, 1915, CUL, Lord Hardinge Papers, vol. 121, no. 76.

  8. “We might agree to leave …” Hussein to McMahon, November 5, 1915, NA, FO371/2770/69301.

  9. “proves very conclusively …” Wingate to Clayton, November 15, 1915, Durham University, Clayton Papers, 469/11/16.

  10. “For sheer insolence …” Grey’s note on the file, NA, FO371/2486/172416.

  11. “Feeling amongst Arabs is very …” McMahon to Grey, November 8, 1915, NA, FO371/2486/170981.

  12. “meet the Arab party …” Clayton to Lieutenant-Colonel A. C. Parker, December 10, 1915, Oxford University, St. Antony’s College, Middle East Centre, Mark Sykes Papers, GB 165-0275.

  13. “If the leaders of the Arabs …” Aubrey Herbert, memo to Foreign Office, November 5, 1915, NA, FO371/2486/164659.

  14. “Promise the French big …” Herbert, diary entries, November 2 and 4, 1915, Somerset Record Office, Herbert Papers.

  15. “This was … a psychological …” Herbert to Clayton, November 7, 1915, NA, FO882/2.

  16. “We have been greatly …” Hardinge to Nicolson, November 12, 1915, CUL, Lord Hardinge Papers, vol. 94, no. 134.

  17. “I devoutly hope …” Hardinge to Nicolson, November 15, 1915, CUL, Lord Hardinge Papers, vol. 94, no. 136.

  18. “Two-thirds of the population …” Hardinge to Wingate, November 28, 1915, CUL, Lord Hardinge Papers, vol. 94, no. 142.

  19. “the Arab movement [is] his …” Sykes to George Arthur, September 12, 1916, OUNBL, Stein Papers, box 2, PRO30/57/91.

  20. “do your best …” Sykes to Arthur, September 12, 1916, OUNBL, Stein Papers, ibid.

  21. “I live in almost hourly …” Wingate to Clayton, December 14, 1915, Durham University, Clayton Papers, 469/11/39.

  22. “a reply to the Sherif …” Wingate to Clayton, December 14, 1915, NA, FO882/2, fol. 167.

  23. “With regard to the vilayets …” McMahon to Hussein, December 17, 1915, NA, FO371/2770/69301.

  24. “We still remain firm …” Hussein to McMahon, January 1, 1916, NA, FO371/2770/69301.

  25. “we shall have to let you …” Rather than the Foreign Office translation, I use here the more grammatical translation by Antonius, Arab Awakening, 426.

  CHAPTER 6: THE SYKES-PICOT AGREEMENT

  1. “Our policy has been …” Herbert to Sykes, February 9, 1915, Somerset Record Office, Aubrey Herbert Papers, DD/DRU/33.

  2. “Unless this is done …” Grey’s note on report of “Interdepartmental Conference on the Arab Question,” NA, FO371/2486/34982.

  3. These were Picot’s goals … Fromkin, Peace, 190–91.

  4. He took part in two … Picot’s second meeting with the British delegates in London took place on December 21, after he had had a chance to confer again with his political masters in Paris.

  5. “did not believe in any but …” Grey’s note on report of “Interdepartmental Conference on the Arab Question,” NA, FO371/2486/34982.

  6. Sykes pretended to be yielding … Sykes to Clayton, December 28, 1915, NA, FO882/2/7.

  7. “should be allowed to establish …” “Arab Question: Suggested method of settling various difficulties arranged with M. Picot. Map annexed,” January 5, 1916, NA, FO371/2767/2522.

  8. “thought the Arabs would not be …” Extracts from War Cabinet meeting, March 23, 1916, NA, Cab42/11.

  9. The disappointed diplomat … Herbert diary entry, February 26, 1916, Somerset Record Office, Herbert Papers. He had chosen “Elihu P. Bergman” as a pseudonym; the newspaper that broke the story was the Sketch.

  10. “I feel that divulgence …” McMahon to Grey, May 3, 1916, NA, FO882/2/63.

  11. As for Areas A and B … “Arab Question,” McMahon to Grey, November 20, 1915, NA, FO371/2767/23579.


  12. “Regarding areas A and B …” Gertrude Lowthian Bell, June 23, 1917, NA, FO882/3, pp. 49–57.

  13. “The Sykes-Picot treaty …” Lawrence to William Yale, October 22, 1929, OUNBL, Lawrence Papers, MS. Eng. C. 6737.

  14. “They are an easy people …” “Minutes of a Meeting of the Eastern Committee held in Lord Curzon’s room at the Privy Council Office,” December 5, 1918, OUNBL, Alfred Milner Papers, MSS, Milner dep (microfilm reel 20) #137, War Cabinet, Eastern Committee. See also Bell to Lord Cromer, June 12, 1916, CUL, Lord Hardinge Papers, vol. 23.

  15. “we should construct a State …” “Minutes of a Meeting of the Eastern Committee held in Lord Curzon’s room at the Privy Council Office,” April 24, 1918, OUNBL, Alfred Milner Papers, MSS, Milner dep (microfilm reel 20) #137, War Cabinet, Eastern Committee. It was not only the McMahon-Hussein correspondence that Curzon proposed to ignore. He would ignore the Sykes-Picot Agreement too, although France might demand compensation for Britain’s territorial gains in the Middle East: “The problem had been considered by the Imperial War Cabinet last year and the Cameroons had been mentioned in this connection.”

  16. “From the point of view of …” “Minutes of a Meeting of the Eastern Committee held in Lord Curzon’s room at the Privy Council Office,” December 5, 1918, OUNBL, Alfred Milner Papers, MSS, Milner dep (microfilm reel 20) #137, War Cabinet, Eastern Committee.

  17. “1. That His Majesty’s …” “Minutes of a Meeting of the Eastern Committee held in Lord Curzon’s room at the Privy Council Office,” June 18, 1918, ibid.

  18. One defends the agreement … Friedman, Question of Palestine, 109; Fromkin, Peace, 193–94. Other works that generally accept the positive interpretation of the agreement include, among many, Glubb, Britain and Arabs; Ovendale, Origins; Rose, Palmerston to Balfour; Nevakivi, Britain, France; Sanders, High Walls; Stein, Balfour Declaration; Tauber, Arab Movements; and Monroe, Britain’s Moment.

  19. A second group of historians … Antonius, Arab Awakening, 248; Erskine, Palestine of Arabs; Wingate, Wingate of Sudan; and Avi Shlaim, “The Balfour Declaration,” in Lewis, Yet More Adventures. Another who was deeply critical of the Sykes-Picot Agreement was Arnold Toynbee, quoted in Friedman, Palestine, Twice-Promised.