THE LONG ROAD TO COLLECTIVE DISPOSSESSION – PART ONE

The following essay examines the four main British-backed negotiations or agreements produced during WW1 that ultimately led to the 1948 founding of the State of Israel and the event known to the Palestinians as the Nakba, or the catastrophe. Special attention is given to Stewart Newcombe’s twin dilemma: his efforts to find a long-term solution that would satisfy the needs of both the Arab and Jewish people while also fulfilling his obligation to safeguard British interests.

As of today (18 November 2023), we are witnessing what is in danger of becoming the second Nakba for the Palestinians following the forced evacuation of 1.5 million citizens of northern Gaza to the south during Israel’s war on Hamas. In an update to my previous post dated 7 November 2023 Newcombe and the Palestinians, Israel has revised the official death toll of its citizens killed during the Hamas attack on 7 October down from 1400 to 1200 (comprising over 800 Israeli and foreign national civilians, along with over 350 army and police personnel). As of 19 November 2023, a conservative estimate of Palestinians killed during Israel’s bombing campaign against Hamas in Gaza stands at more than 11,000, the majority being women and children. The final figure will likely increase due to preventable death from disease and infant mortality. An unknown number of casualties (estimated at 2,700) remain undiscovered under the rubble of the ruined city.

The following framework of pledges and agreements made during World War One clearly demonstrates the diplomatic twists and turns that has led to the present dark chapter in the history of the region and its people, as well as Great Britain's role in it. These are:

1. THE McMAHON-HUSSEIN CORRESPONDENCE 1915- 1916

2. THE SYKES-PICOT AGREEMENT - May 1916

3. THE BALFOUR DECLARATION 1917

4. THE DECLARATION TO THE SEVEN - 16 July 1918

Prior to the start of the war, both Stewart Newcombe and T.E. Lawrence carried out extensive exploration of Greater Syria, and Palestine in particular; Newcombe as a Royal Engineer officer extending Kitchener’s survey of Palestine south of Beersheba and into the Sinai, and Lawrence in search of Crusader Castles and later as an archaeologist at Carchemish with Leonard Woolley. It was at a camp south of Beersheba that both archaeologists first met Newcombe in order to provide cover to the secret military survey that was being conducted under the auspices of the Palestine Exploration Fund by several teams in an area known as the Wilderness of Zin. Lawrence was quick to realise why they were there: “We are obviously only meant as red herrings, to give an archaeological colour to a political job.”

For the most part, their experience of the Biblical landscape was fixed in the present, i.e., in daily relations with an Arab Muslim majority population. Newcombe’s pre-war reports contain detailed assessments of the various Arab and Kurdish tribes and their allegiances or potential for obstructing British imperial aims. Jewish colonies were at this time largely on the periphery of his experience, whether indigenous Palestinian Jews speaking Arabic or early Zionist settlers speaking Yiddish.

Although estimates vary, a variety of sources suggest that approximately 657,000 Muslim Arabs, 81,000 Christian Arabs, and 59,000 Jews made up Ottoman Palestine's population in 1914, the year of Newcombe's survey. During the war, the government deported a large number of Jews who were foreign citizens, and some Jews left Palestine after being offered the choice to become Ottoman citizens. In this way, by December 1915, about 14% of the Jewish population had departed.

Despite Newcombe's long association with the Palestine Exploration Fund, whose founding principles were based on the archaeological exploration of Palestine as a way of ground-truthing a Biblical narrative, he readily acknowledged the demographic status quo that existed at the time of his surveys, namely a majority Muslim population with a leadership aiming for self-determination after the end of Ottoman rule. While the study of the historical landscape had its place in the survey, his relationships with Arab chiefs, tribal confederations and Turkish officials during this period were clearly more relevant to the aims of his covert military mission, which were to map previously unchartered regions to help defend the lifelines of the British Empire, as well as surveying future battlefields on which he and Lawrence would later fight. His secret reports to the British Embassy in Constantinople show that he was more concerned with Arab nationalist issues than observing a Jewish renaissance.

THE WAR YEARS

At the start of the war, Lawrence worked under Newcombe’s direction in Military Intelligence for nine months in Cairo where they gathered information on Turkish troop dispositions and movements and monitored the potential for an Arab uprising in Syria, and the Arabian peninsula.

1. THE McMAHON-HUSSEIN CORRESPONDENCE 1915- 1916

Between July 1915 and March 1916, Britain had given assurances to the Sharif of Mecca in what became known as the McMahon–Hussein Correspondence (July 1915 to March 1916), a series of ten letters exchanged during World War I between Lieutenant Colonel Sir Henry McMahon, the British High Commissioner to Egypt, and Hussein bin Ali, the Sharif of Mecca, agreeing to recognize an independent Arab state in the region that was then under Ottoman rule in exchange for Hussein launching the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire.

The need for such an agreement from the British perspective was partly Arab assistance in the fight against the Turks, but more importantly as a counter to the prospect of an Ottoman call for jihad, or holy war, as well as securing the continued backing of the millions of Muslims in British Indian, where many were supporting the Allies by serving in the Indian Army. The letters remain significant for their role in shaping the future political landscape of the Middle East and the understanding of British promises to various Arab leaders during the war.

However, the exchange of letters was conducted with a degree of ambiguity and left certain key terms, such as the boundaries of the proposed Arab state, open to interpretation. This later led to disputes and conflicting claims about the promises made.

This ambiguity later contributed to the disagreements between the promises made to the Arabs during the war and the agreements and pledges that came into effect afterwards, particularly the Sykes-Picot Agreement and the Balfour Declaration, both of which seemed to contradict the spirit of the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence.

Labels such as ‘Perfidious Albion’ are often applied by historians in the light of evidence from the very same author of the British promises who did not believe in the strength of his own proposals. In a private letter to India’s Viceroy Charles Hardinge sent on 4 December 1915, McMahon expressed a somewhat different view of what the future of Arabia would be, contrary to what he had led Sherif Hussein to believe:

[I do not take] the idea of a future strong united independent Arab State ... too seriously ... the conditions of Arabia do not and will not for a very long time to come, lend themselves to such a thing ... I do not for one moment go to the length of imagining that the present negotiations will go far to shape the future form of Arabia or to either establish our rights or to bind our hands in that country. The situation and its elements are much too nebulous for that. What we have to arrive at now is to tempt the Arab people into the right path, detach them from the enemy and bring them on to our side. This on our part is at present largely a matter of words, and to succeed we must use persuasive terms and abstain from academic haggling over conditions—whether about Baghdad or elsewhere.

Lawrence saw things differently. “I had dreamed, at the City School of Oxford, of hustling into form, while I lived, the new Asia which time was inexorably bringing upon us. Mecca was to lead to Damascus; Damascus to Anatolia, and afterwards to Baghdad; and then there was Yemen.”

Lawrence had dreamed big, and the results of his efforts would torment him for the rest of his life. But even Newcombe was not immune from the knowledge that he had deceived the Arabs. Arnold Lawrence, (T.E.’s brother) wrote to Jeremy Wilson, Lawrence’s authorised biographer, in August 1971: “Newcombe’s feeling of guilt persisted to the end of his life and kept him constantly active in furthering Arab political aims.”

The secret Hussein-McMahon Correspondence was a pivotal episode within the historical context of the Middle East, shaping the scepticism throughout the political landscape of the region, and highlighting the discrepancy between the promises made and the geopolitical realities that unfolded after the war.

Towards the end of 1915 there was an unexpected announcement within closed government circles that rang alarm bells in Cairo as it threatened to cast aside Anglo-Arab discussions relating to the aspirations for national self-determination coming from Arab leaders in Syria, the Hejaz and Yemen. Following recommendations from the De Bunsen Committee, a British Government report on present and future relations with the Ottomans, secret negotiations between the British and the French had begun to work towards an agreement on a post-war division of the spoils within greater Syria and Turkey. With discussions between Cairo and Sherif Hussein well under way it was decided that the negotiations between the British and the French must for now be kept secret.

2. THE SYKES-PICOT AGREEMENT - May 1916

Enter Sir Mark Sykes of Great Britain and Francois Georges-Picot of France. With an eye on the prize, a secret agreement was drawn up to divide the Ottoman Empire's territories in the Middle East after the war's end between their respective countries.

Named after its negotiators, the agreement established spheres of influence and control in the Middle East for these two European powers. The agreement essentially aimed to split the region into areas of control, mainly to secure their strategic interests and prevent conflict between themselves over these territories.

The Sykes-Picot Agreement designated various zones of control, which were divided into areas of direct and indirect influence for both countries within modern-day countries such as Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Palestine. However, it is essential to note that the implementation of the agreement was significantly altered by subsequent developments, such as the Balfour Declaration and the eventual collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

The Agreement has had a lasting impact on the Middle East, contributing to the drawing of borders that often ignored local ethnic, religious, and tribal divisions. It's seen by many as a prime example of the arbitrary division of territories by colonial powers, often cited for the problems and conflicts in the region that persist to this day. Sykes-Picot remains crucial in understanding the ideology (at least as depicted through its propaganda) of the Islamic State (IS) militant group. Its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was described by IS as "the breaker of barriers", reinforcing the sentiment that Sykes-Picot was a symbol of foreign interference.

The reality, however, is far more nuanced. One could argue that the agreements made at the 1920 San Remo Conference -- attended by leaders from Britain, France, Italy, and Japan -- rather than the Sykes-Picot agreement, are ultimately responsible for the internal borders of many Middle Eastern countries we know today. Sykes and Picot wielded a broad brush in creating the post-war colonial framework of countries out of the old Ottoman Empire; the current geopolitical borders were established over a longer period of time, a process that had a great deal to do with regional power struggles, rather than any foreign imperial meddling.

3. THE BALFOUR DECLARATION 1917

Whereby “One nation solemnly promised to a second nation the country of a third.”

On the 2 November 1917, Arthur James Balfour, the United Kingdom's foreign secretary in Lloyd George's new administration, sent the following declaration to Lord Rothschild, a leading member of the British Jewish community:

I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of his Majesty's government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionists aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet.

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.

As a response to various factors, including lobbying efforts by the Zionist movement and considerations of British imperial interests during World War I, the British government saw strategic advantages in issuing the declaration.

Lord Rothschild was seen as a liaison and representative of the Jewish community, and his involvement in the process was crucial. He worked closely with Chaim Weizmann, a Zionist leader, to advocate for British support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The Balfour Declaration, in part, aimed to win Jewish support for the Allies in World War I and to gain favour among influential Jewish communities, particularly in the United States and Russia. Britain also had considerable strategic interests in the Middle East and the Mediterranean region, in Egypt and the Suez Canal in particular, and an advantage was sought through the declaration in securing control over these territories in any post-war settlement.

This simple statement of intent from the British government, whereby “one nation solemnly promised to a second nation the country of a third,” as one leading Jewish intellectual put it (Arthur Koestler), was at the heart of the Zionists’ hopes of creating a political homeland. With its announcement coming as the Allies pushed north through Palestine towards the prize of Jerusalem ‘by Christmas’, the hopes of Zionism lay in a total defeat of the German-backed Ottomans and with Palestine coming under a British mandate or protectorate.

Despite reservations, Stewart Newcombe, operating alongside T.E. Lawrence with Sherif Feisal’s men in the Hejaz, accepted the document with all its stipulations, in particular those that respected the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine. After all, this declaration had not just been conjured up in the mind of the British foreign secretary on a whim. Behind the scenes, Zionist leaders Chaim Weizmann and Nahum Sokolow and British minister Sir Mark Sykes had been shuttling between allies to secure a common agreement. Sokolow was especially successful in obtaining the Cambon Letter of agreement from France, which ignored the rights of non-Jews, and the support from Pope Benedict XV as the Vatican controlled many of the Christian holy sites in Palestine. His relations with Louis D. Brandeis, Supreme Court Justice under President Wilson, secured support from the USA. With the Allies standing by Britain’s side, Balfour issued his government’s declaration with confidence. Despite his personal reservations, Newcombe was duty bound to accept his government's pledge to the Zionists and to work within its framework.

While consensus for the declaration on a Jewish homeland was being sought around the world, discussions of a contradictory nature continued to be made between the British and the French causing considerable tension in the dealings between British officers and Arab leaders in the Hejaz.

ATTITUDE OF THE BRITISH OFFICERS

The mental agility involved in keeping all the pieces in play was stressful to most of the British officers working with the Arabs. Mark Sykes’ arrival in the Hejaz in May 1917 to sound out his ‘proposals’ with Feisal and Sherif Hussein was an alarming development, especially as his proposal to carve up the region had already been agreed with Francois Georges-Picot, the French representative. Following on the heels of General Murray's failure to break the Turkish line at the First Battle of Gaza, Sykes adopted a policy of deception and was especially careful not to give away details of the division of the spoils lest it threaten Arab cooperation. Within the agreement, Palestine, always the stumbling block, was designated to be governed by an international administration. Sykes felt well satisfied until someone pointed out that the Jews might have a very strong interest in the future of the country and could oppose any agreement or promises. This came as somewhat of a surprise to Sykes who until that moment had not considered the Jews in his deliberations.

Newcombe shared Lawrence’s distress and felt they were being manipulated or exploited by Sykes and Picot. He summed up the feeling when he wrote that Sykes must return and openly and honestly deal with Hussein and his sons, “otherwise we are hoodwinking the Sherif and his people and playing a very false game in which officers attached to the Sherif’s army are inevitably committed and which I know causes anxiety in several officers’ minds: in case we let them down.” Another officer, Colonel Wilson went further: “Is the Sherif living in a fools’ paradise?” he wrote. “If so he will have a very rude awakening and once his trust in Great Britain has gone we will not get it back again.”

In Newcombe’s mind the solution was simple: “…he [Faisal] must have a political propaganda which will induce the people to risk their lives. It must be a clear statement, showing that they will be fighting for an Arab Government.”

Lawrence’s anguish was compounded by the fact that he was about to depart on the Aqaba expedition just two days after Sykes’s visit. He would soon be compelling men to fight for freedom and self-government over land that was already assigned. Feisal remained focussed on this aim in his father’s name, but it was also well known by Lawrence and others that the Hashemites remained in secret negotiations with the Turks as an insurance policy to secure their long-term objectives.

Throughout their close association during the war, Lawrence and Newcombe remained convinced of the priority of securing Arab assistance under the leadership of the Hashemites to ‘enable England, while fighting Germany, simultaneously to defeat Turkey’. Newcombe was certain that had any suggestion of a Zionist movement been put forward, the Sherif would have done nothing to help the British. The Bolshevik Revolution late in 1917 was a moment of deep concern when the secret treaties of the allies were revealed to the world’s press. Lawrence’s role had just got harder. Newcombe, meanwhile, was out of the fray having got himself captured during an operation behind enemy lines at the Third Battle of Gaza.

4. THE DECLARATION TO THE SEVEN 1918

On 16 June 1918, Mark Sykes responded to a secret memorandum written by seven anonymous Syrian notables in Cairo requesting a "guarantee of the ultimate independence of Arabia".

The seven Syrians were members of the recently formed Syrian Unity Party which was established in the wake of the Balfour Declaration and the publication by the Bolsheviks of the Sykes-Picot Agreement.

In what became known as The Declaration to the Seven, Sykes expressed His Majesty’s Government’s great care in considering their requests despite their anonymity which he said, “has not in any way detracted from the importance which His Majesty's Government attribute to the document.”

The areas mentioned in Sykes’ response fell into four categories and are worth setting out in full:

1. Areas in Arabia which were free and independent before the outbreak of war.
2. Areas emancipated from Turkish control by the action of the Arabs themselves during the present war.
3. Areas formerly under Ottoman dominion, occupied by the Allied forces during the present war.
4. Areas still under Turkish control.

In regard to the first two categories, Sykes stated that his government recognised “the complete and sovereign independence of the Arab inhabiting these areas and supported them in their struggle for freedom.”

In regard to the areas occupied by Allied forces, the British government drew the attention of the Seven to the texts of the proclamations issued by the General Commanding Officers following the capture of Baghdad and Jerusalem, proclamations that embodied the policy of His Majesty's Government towards the inhabitants of those regions. Namely:

“It is the wish and desire of His Majesty's Government that the future government of these regions should be based upon the principle of the consent of the governed and this policy has and will continue to have the support of His Majesty's Government.”

Sykes wrote that the government was aware, and would take into consideration, the dangers and difficulties for those who worked for the regeneration of the people in the specified regions, and that all obstacles could and will be overcome with his government’s full support.

Finally, he declared that the government was ready to examine any cooperative plan that aligned with existing military operations and consistent with the political principles of His Majesty's Government and the Allies.

Aside from private assurances and promises, the Declaration, written less than five months before the end of the war, was the first statement from the British Government to the Arabs advocating national self-determination. The Declaration was read out to the Seven on behalf of the Foreign Office by an official at the Army headquarters in Egypt and a copy was sent to Sherif Hussein. 

On the night of 30 September 1918, Lawrence and the Sherifian Arab Army were poised to enter Damascus aware that under the terms of the Declaration the Arabs had the right to establish a government over all the territory that they liberated. It is unclear who entered Damascus first but Lawrence, who had been detained by a patrol of Bengal Lancers in a mix-up over his identity, recorded the moment he finally entered the city that he had dreamed of helping to conquer since a boy in Oxford:

"The streets were nearly impassable with the crowds, who yelled themselves hoarse, danced, cut themselves with swords and daggers and fired volleys into the air. Nasir, Nuri Sha'lan, Auda abu Tayi and myself were cheered by name, covered with flowers, kissed indefinitely and splashed with attar of roses from the house-tops."

Riding his horse at the head of a large possession, Faisal later entered the town to further scenes of wild jubilation and joy. As his biographer, Ali Allawi, wrote: "The flags of the Arab Revolt were everywhere. For now, at least, the city was at his feet." After two years of hard warfare, Faisal was the undisputed leader of the Arabs of Greater Syria. The revolt had triumphed, but with immense difficulties on the horizon the battle for the heart and soul of the Arab cause had just begun. 

POST-WAR PERIOD

As agreed in the secret agreements of the Allies, the aftermath of the war saw the division of the Middle East into mandates and colonies controlled by various European powers, with the Arab territories being divided up between Britain and France. These actions led to disillusionment among the Arab population and contributed to a deep-seated mistrust of Western powers due to perceived broken promises.

Throughout his life, Newcombe continued to fight against the injustices perpetrated against the Palestinians, as shown in this letter to The Times in 1939:

Being one of the few survivors who made promises on behalf of the British Government to the Arabs in 1917, I state the facts as follows:

1. We made several promises to the Arabs: in 1915 the McMahon letters; in 1916-18 promises by leaflets dropped by aeroplanes, by speeches to prisoners of war, and by any means we could devise, to induce them to desert and rebel against their own Government: we asked them to run the risk of being hanged and to risk the lives of their families: we offered them freedom as a reward; 2,000 deserters and others joined up from Palestine alone, and were at Wadi Musa in 1918.

2. In November, 1917, we made a vague and qualified promise to the Jews, without asking the Arabs whether it contravened our promises to them.

3. On hearing of the Balfour Declaration the Arabs who were helping us by their revolt stopped fighting in December, 1917. So we sent Commander D. G. Hogarth to explain to King Hussein that the Jewish Settlement would be consistent with the economic and political freedom of the Arab people. On such conditions King Hussein accepted "Jews into an Arab House" and the Arabs went on fighting with us.

4. For some years we deluded Arabs and ourselves by saying that the National Home was “cultural and spiritual” and non-political. Had we kept to that meaning little trouble would have occurred.

It would be very desirable, from the point of view of honour, that all these various pledges should be set out, side by side, and then consider what is the fair thing to be done. This is all that the Arabs ask…

For the rest of his life, Newcombe maintained strong views on what he considered were acceptable levels of Jewish immigration to Mandatory Palestine in the years between the World Wars, based on his long study of the region, its people, infrastructure and resources. Believing the Arabs of Palestine would not vanish like the mist before the sun of Zion he therefore thought it imperative they had fair representation in the contest for the hearts and minds of those in power who would ultimately bring about the fulfillment of the Balfour Declaration, with all its stipulations – important provisos which supported his firm belief that only by respecting native interests could you achieve a lasting consensus. He worked tirelessly towards that aim after consulting the opinions of his many Jewish and Moslem friends before reaching proposals for what might be termed a bi-nation state solution. His convictions, once reached, never wavered.

In Part Two I will explore Newcombe’s role in delimiting the boundaries of Palestine and Lebanon, his role as the Honorary Secretary of the Palestine Information Centre in London, his collaboration with Albert Hyamson in seeking a just and sustainable future for both Arabs and Jews in Palestine, known as the Hyamson-Newcombe Proposal, his work with Hyamson and others in drawing up a Constitution for Palestine, and perhaps his most fitting legacy to his Muslim friends, that of helping to establish the first purpose built mosque in London.