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Lines in the Sand Connolly’s Comment Column Lines in the Sand By Stephen F. Connolly May the 16th, 1916; what does that date bring to your mind? A movement forward, or backwards, by a metre or two, somewhere along the Western Front perhaps? Or might it be when a significant debate was held in the British Parliament? Or the French Assemblee Nationale? If you ask someone, anyone, from an Arab country, they would not need much thinking time before they told you it was the date upon which the Sykes- Picot Agreement was signed. I can hear in the background a chorus shout in unison ‘ the Sykes-what’ Agreement? The Sykes-Picot Agreement is one of the most significant agreements you have never heard of and it explains a great deal about the condition of the Middle East today, a hundred years after its signing. 2. Sir Mark Sykes was a Conservative politician and a diplomatic advisor to the Foreign Office, particularly on Middle Eastern matters. He actually knew a great deal less about the Middle East than he made out to civil servants in the Foreign Office and their political masters. Sykes seemed plausible to them, because they knew even less about the Middle East than he did, so he got by with some exotic sounding place names, real or imagined, and some Arabic sounding words, real or imagined. On the other hand, Monsieur Francois Marie Denis Georges-Picot certainly did know something about Middle Eastern matters. Prior to World War I, Picot was the French Consul in Beirut. In August 1915, he became an attache in the French Embassy in London. Together, Sykes and Picot drew up an outline of the proposed Anglo-French agreement as to the respective spheres of interest in what was then widely known as Asia Minor; the former, under the instructions of Sir Edward Grey (the Foreign Secretary of the day) and the latter, under orders from the Quai d’Orsay1. It is of note that David Lloyd George (who was not yet Prime Minister, Asquith remained P.M. until December 1916), did not follow the progress of what was to become the Sykes-Picot Agreement. He was far more interested in following the exploits of T. H. Lawrence, of Arabia fame. The responsibility for the oversight of negotiations was shared between the British Foreign Office and the Quai d’Orsay. 3. The plans drawn up by Sykes and Picot sliced up the Levant and Trans Jordan regions, envisioning that their two countries would be in a position to divide the land between them after the war. This was to be done, irrespective of then extant ethnic, tribal, regional or religious community divisions. The plans also included the extension of Russia’s territorial control south west of its then extant border. It was, however, Palestine that proved to be the most contentious issue. Britain had assumed that they were best placed to take on the full control of the area. To the surprise of the British, the French wanted full control themselves. Picot even went so far as to suggest that the two countries could go to war over the issue. Of course, they never did; a messy compromise was agreed upon in which France and Britain shared responsibility for Palestine with an ill defined role given to Russia.2 Italy was kept out of the Sykes-Picot Pact and when they got wind of what was going on, they demanded they get a ‘piece of the pie’. At the political level, France and Britain conceded that Italy would have the southern part of what is today Turkey, a section in the south west being under direct control and in the south east a Protectorate. Sykes was strongly against this, but was over ruled by the Foreign Office. The Italians had every reason to feel aggrieved as this action contravened a treaty that Britain had signed only one year earlier.3 4 When the David Lloyd George was given the finished agreement, he was not impressed. In his opinion:- “It was a fatuous arrangement judged from any and every point of view”4 Nevertheless, the Sykes-Picot Agreement became an international Treaty. The British Government of the day were rather, shall we say, ‘liberal’ in the signing of treaties and ‘understandings’. In late 1914, an undertaking was made to the Sherif of Mecca, later King Hussain of Hedjaz (pron. Hejaz) which promised backing for the formation of an Arab Empire, with Damascus as its capital. It was not made clear whether Palestine was included, although it was thought to do so by the Arabs. France was not informed. Then there was the Treaty of London, April 26th, 1915. This explicitly promised the Italians a share in the carve up of the Ottoman Empire. Following that, there was the Sykes-Picot Treaty, May 16th, 1916, out of which the British and the French tried to keep the Italians and in any event it contradicted the Treaty of London. Then there was the Treaty of St. Jean de Maurienne, April 17th, 1917 that allotted the Smyrna region, Adalia, territories from Austria, some Adriatic ports and an Albanian Protectorate to Italy. Then the Balfour Declaration was made on October 31st 1917, which promised a “….National Home for the Jewish People”. How this was to be achieved was not spelt out. 1 In the 7th arrondissement of Paris is found the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs at 37 Quai d’Orsey (see above). This Ministry takes the name of the road on which it stands as the shorthand means of referring to it. 2This was revised at a later date, Palestine became a British Mandate. 3Treaty of London, 1915 4Quoted from ‘War Memoirs of David Lloyd George’ Odhams Press 2nd ed.1938 page 10 Finally, after all this contradictory treaty signing, when the Emir Feisal led an arab army into Damascus with Colonel Lawrence in October 1918, Lloyd George wanted to go back to the undertakings made to King Feisal in 1914 which would have meant ripping up the Sykes -Picot Treaty. He could not see why he should hand the Syrian region over to the French, when the victory taking it was won by an arab army with British guns. The French were having none of it. They held Lloyd George to the commitment he made in 1916. 5 And always, always one has to come back to the Balfour Declaration. In paragraph 3 it was said that Palestine was the most contentious issue in the negotiations between Sykes and Picot. The British Government were at this time considering making the promise of a homeland in Palestine to the Jewish People. If the Jewish community in Britain were ecstatic about the eventual adoption of this as Government policy, it would be easy to understand the Government’s motives in this regard; but they were not. The Declaration said:- “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” There were eight leaders of British Jewry consulted, of whom 4 accepted the text, 1 remained neutral and 3 were hostile. A Jewish member of the Cabinet, Edwin Montagu5 strongly objected to the idea of a Jewish Homeland. Turning to Lloyd George, he said of the Declaration:- “All my life, I have been trying to get out of the Ghetto. You want to force me back there!”6 On reading through the Declaration, the first question that comes to mind is what on earth does it mean? Was it envisioned that this homeland would become a State or not? How exactly would the British Government, or any European Government, facilitate the achievement of this? As to ensuring that the rights of non-Jewish communities, we have not done such good job of it. And how on earth do does this country protect the rights of another people in another country? It is hardly wise to publish a Government document on a matter of such gravity, that is so ambiguous. Over the years it has proved to be capable of being interpreted in a host of different ways. Hence, it can be,a has been and is being used as the basis of any number of hugely divergent political arguments. It is not any wonder that there is constant conflict and turmoil within what is now Israel and about Israel. However, let no one interpret this argument as being in any way suggesting that Israel should not have come into existence; far from it. I do suggest that it should not have been created in this manner. Its pre-war gestation should not have been the result of so flawed a conception, which, to me, seems rooted in blind ideology in some and short term political fixes in many. 6 Where Palestine was divided in half by Sykes-Picot7, the wider Middle East was spliced up to the convenience of France and Britain by it. Lines in the sand were drawn through ethnic and religious communities. They defined the boundaries of artificial Nation States, a concept transplanted from Europe in any case, creating imbalanced populations that were inherently unstable, because communities that harboured deep divisions were pushed together in one space. As a result, Saddam Hussain was able to suppress the majority Shiah population in Iraq, by accruing power in members of the Ba’ath Party, that was principally made up of Sunni Muslims.
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