40. Origins of the Israel-Palestine Conflict

If you want access to bonus episodes reading lists for every series of MPa a chat community discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcast, ad free listening and a weekly newsletter. Sign up to MPa Club at www.mpa.orguk.com And welcome to MPa with me Anita Arnum and me William Durimple. Today in many ways this episode that we're bringing you today is almost an end to a mini trilogy within our Ottoman series and it deals with the way that the Allies carved up the Middle East during and after the First World War and it begins with Sykes Peacock we had an enormous response to that episode. It continued last week with Lawrence Verabia again a huge response from you and the Arab Revolt and hopefully you know if you've got questions on this we'll be dealing with those in a special Q&A session. Today though we sort of bring this to a conclusion this mini series with the Balfour Declaration we've mentioned it many times before. This is when the British promised the Jews a homeland in Palestine. So I mean I'm going to get William we got the letter handy because on November the 2nd 1917 the foreign secretary just to remind you of the Balfour he wrote a letter to Lord Rothschild the leader of the Jewish community in the UK and he made the very first public declaration of an intent that had until this moment been secret. 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 the Jews in any other country. So this is the Balfour Declaration it's a publicly made pledge to create a Jewish settlement of Palestine and it started in Britain. It did I mean so the seeds this is this is unquestionable though for conflicts which continue to this very day. So for Jews it's a glorious moment that started them on the journey towards statehood for Palestine in it marks the beginning of a dispossession and exile in the words of the Jewish writer Arthur Kersler one nation solemnly promised to a second nation the country of a third. Very good it's a very very good quote. Both of himself put it with more pepper Zionism be it right or wrong good or bad is rooted in age long traditions in present needs in future hopes in far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land. And with us to discuss this we have a really marvelous guest Tom Segev author of one Palestine complete Jews and Arabs under the British mandate and he's written so many other fantastic books on the history. And the great biographer of David Ben Gurion and one of the stars of our trip to the festival Tommy were spectacular it was an amazing session. Yeah and you're joining us on the line from Jerusalem so we're very grateful for you first of all I mean before we get into the meat of this we should acknowledge that even discussing the history of this is going to make people angry because this is such a polarized conversation it reaches deep into a sense of existential crisis for two different very separate sides. It's very tricky water to navigate and you've been navigating it all your life. You are right that it's very controversial. Now I don't know if they are any history teachers among our listeners and I don't want to insult any history teacher but my history teachers taught us that diplomatic relations that history itself actually is based on reason. And the bulk of the declaration is one thing that is one proof that reason doesn't play a role here at all. We were taught that the British took Palestine because they wanted to protect the Suits Canal that they wanted to protect the way to India that it was part of their strategic in World War One. When historical archives opened in Britain turned out that they abound letters, telegrams and position papers and many of them written by military personnel, senior militaries in Egypt, in the area and they warned the government in London. Do not take Palestine. Palestine means trouble. We do not need Palestine for any strategic reason. Interesting. And the government in London for this or that reason decided not to take the advice of the military which is okay. Happened sometimes and they decided to take Palestine. Okay. But if you do, why support the Jews makes no sense. Can we start with very, very basic things? Start with very because these things are important. These are the foundation blocks upon which this entire podcast and the crisis that is faced today continues to be faced in the Middle East is built. When we say the Palestinians, who are we talking about exactly? What was Palestine like particularly during this period that we're concentrating on the Ottoman period? You know, when we read in the Bible of the Samaritans, when we hear about crusaders and the peasantry in the Holy Land and the Middle Ages, when we hear about the Bedouins and the desert, are they a mixture of all those different religions? They are, they are all Muslims. Most of them except for few Christians. And they are descendants of people who lived here for 500 years. But also lots of them came as workers from other Arab countries and stayed here. And so some of them are Bedouins, some of them are peasants, some of them are not. So it is a mixed population. It's not a clearly defined nation as they seem to be today. And at the beginning of the 20th century, when this story opens, what's the breakup religiously of the population of Palestine? How many pop senators of Jews, Christians and Muslims are there at that point? There are about 700,000 Arabs and about 85,000 Jews living in Palestine when the British arrive. So the Jews at 1917 are about 10 percent? Is that roughly the figure? About. And they are important to say they are not newcomers. They are Jews who, similar to the Arabs, have been living here for hundreds of years. And one of our earlier episodes we were talking about the Kabbalistic communities in Safed, who interestingly were some of the first people to drink coffee. Those communities were responsible for the use of coffee for the very first time along with some Sufi Muslim groups. Where were the Jewish population, Safed, Jaffa, Akko, Jerusalem? They were in Jerusalem in Safed in Hebron. They were in various places over the country, but mostly I would say in Jerusalem and Zafed in Hebron. And again, we're referring back to a previous episode in this podcast, but I know that, when you're, Evilya Cheliby, who we've spoken about, he has a rather, I think, really interesting, instructive, even description of Palestine at the time. So Evilya Cheliby, when he visits on his journey through in the late 16th century, looks at Palestine from the point of view of a pious Sufi. And he sees a whole network of Sufi Muslim orders, some beautiful mosques, and depicts a very full image of tombs and shrines and holy figures sacred to Ottoman Muslims. And Tom, let's talk about the other hand that claps here. When we talk about the Zionists and the Zionist movement, historically, when did it start? What are we talking about? The political Zionism started at the end of the 19th century. It is usually associated with the founder of the Zionist movement, the other Herzl, who was a Jewish journalist in Vienna, Austria. And he founded the movement based on the assumption that Jews are a separate nation, among the nations, not only a religion, but a nation. And that the only way to end a long, long history of thousands of years in exile, they were exiled from Palestine by the Romans, supposedly. And the only way to end that is to move them to the state of the wrong. Right. I mean, he referred to it as he could, at the Odin start, didn't he? And he talked about the restoration. It wasn't the creation, it was the restoration he used the word of the Jewish state. It was the restoration of the Jewish state, the restoration of the Jewish state, the Zionist movement. And so, the Zionist movement was the only way to end that. They talk about it, but they don't adopt that as a name. The need is immediate. The Jews need a safe haven immediately. So, even Herzl says, "Well, we're going to have a safe haven." We Zionists have been able to negotiate with the British and they are willing to give us that spot in East Africa and the majority of the Zionist movement, the Zionist Congress, they sent some people over there to check the place but they do not accept that. So Zionism never gave up the idea of having a state in Palestine. And then there's an attempt in 1896 when Herzl actually tries to buy Palestine from the Ottoman Emperor Abdulhamid. That's right. He tried to buy it, he tries to bribe him, he tries everything, he talks to heads of state and he does everything he can. He was a very, very influential journalist. But Abdulhamid turns this idea down. He said, "I cannot sell even a foot of land, for it does not belong to me but my people. My people have won this empire by fighting for it with their blood and have fertilized it with their blood. We will again cover it with our blood before we allow it to be wrestled away from us." Because it's holy to the Muslims and the Christians and the Jews, that's the problem we still face today. We ought to just sort of, for a moment, discuss what's going on in the rest of the world. I mean, Jewish people have at this time a litany of very valid complaints about pogroms going on in Eastern Europe, about being persecuted. You prefer to the Romans even, you know, sort of, Richard II here, you know, that the Jewish people were not kindly treated in many parts of the world. Where they? They were different times. There were times when, and in different countries, it's not one story of the Jews. Jews were treated differently in different countries, in different points of time. One thing, the one thing they do have in common is that almost everywhere, at some time, they were discriminated against, they were persecuted, they were slaughtered for the sole reason of being Jews. That can be Jews as a religion. It can be Jews as economic competition for somebody else. That can be Jews, especially later in time, Jews as a different race. Jews are probably not a race in the way we use them today, not in England. It's even more confused because sometimes you say race when you mean a nation. So that makes it even more difficult. And obviously hugely varied types of people from the Rothschilds hanging out with Lord Balfour in Mayfair through to Yemeni goterds in distant Yemen. Give us a picture of the diaspora at the beginning of the 20th century. Jews live in every country. In every country, there are at least some Jews who try to be part of the national identity or the collective identity, but in many countries are different identities. So what do I belong to? In Germany, I want to be a German. In Yemen, I'm obviously like a Yemen, but my religion is different. So my origins are different. Okay, so I'm not religious at all. So somebody else will not recognize me as such. I'm like a German. The German stone recognize you. I'm an English man. Ah, but the English don't recognize me. I'm an Indian. I live in Kuchin. Well, enough people in India who don't recognize each other as Indians. But Jews are living everywhere. There are about maybe 12 million Jews in the world, 10 million Jews in the world. And they live everywhere. Yeah. But as you say, there's a long history of Jews being persecuted in your words. It's not a lot of people who are persecuted in the world. But it's not a lot of people who are persecuted in the world. And then, Jewish figures in government such as Montague, who worry this is to be a trigger for anti-Semitism and are very suspicious of the idea. Montague was a cabinet minister and he was arguing with another cabinet minister who was Herbert Samuel and Herbert Samuel advocated Zionism and Montague feared that if the Jews say that they do not belong to the British nation, then why will the British nation accept them as Jews? And so that is an idea which even Herzl expressed. He said the anti-Semites will be our biggest allies because they would chase us out. They would chase us out. We will have no alternative but to go to Palestine. Montague caused Zionism a mischievous political creed that would promote anti-Semitism. That's the quote from him. And yet, and yet, you have this. And let's get back to Balfour because this is all about the Balfour Declaration. One thing that was astonishing to me, we just did an episode on Sykes Pico. And Balfour was the man in the room who's putting. digging his heels and saying, "This is a bad idea guys. You don't just arbitrarily draw a line in the sand and decide what nations are going to be created." He is articulating every worry that seems to go out of the window when it comes to this particular declaration of creating a state of Israel. Let's talk about that a little bit more. The story of the Balfour Declaration is so fascinating because it indicates a completely irrational decision. It reflects the idea that we need the Jews as allies in World War I because they are so powerful. Obviously, the Jews are behind the Russian Revolution. Obviously, the Jews control the banks, control the media. The Jews will decide whether or not the United States will join in World War I. And so we need the Jews as allies. And that is completely fiction. The Jews have absolutely no influence anywhere as Jews. So, anti-Semitic ideas in the sense of Jewish power actually promote this? Exactly. That's an anti-Semitic attitude. But it's an admiration also. They fear the Jews and they admire them. Now, why do they admire them? Because the Jews are the people of the Holy Land, of Christianity, of God. And Balfour, and also David Lloyd George, the Prime Minister, they are devoted Christians and they are Christian Zionists. They dream of returning the Hebrew people to their country. And that is quite, quite amazing that also explains why people like the Hein Beitzmann, who's represented the Zionist movement, was treated as if he's a king of the Jews. And why there is a scene where Beitzmann is invited to dinner at Balfour's house. And at the end of the dinner, Balfour walks Beitzmann home in London. They get to Beitzmann's home. Beitzmann goes with him back to his home. And then when they get to Balfour's home, they go to Gogben. So they go up and back and forth on the street of London. And the next day, in the Cabinet meetings, you can read the sentence coming from Balfour, "I am Zionist." Why are you Zionist? Why are you Zionist? But very strange. So it's this combination of admiration and fear, of pro-Jewish and anti-Jewish. Both are completely irrational. And that's the explanation of Balfour. And do you know what on the other side of the pond, also the classicist love, or if you like the deeply Christian heart love of this, this romanticized notion of what the Bible said is. So I read to my Warren Harding, Warren G Harding, who was president in the United States, 1921 to 23, only a short time. But this equate from him. It's impossible for anyone who has studied all the service of the Hebrew people to avoid the faith that they will one day be restored to their historic national home. And they're entering you in your greater phase of their contribution to the advance of humanity. Christians, Zionism, Christians, Zionism is an old thing. It comes back in the 18th century, 17th century, 19th century, they are Christians, Zionists. Christians who believe that the Jews should be allowed back to their country. And so it's not even a new idea then. But a man like David Lodzor, the Prime Minister, he once told David Bengurion, and I think he also wrote in his memoirs, that he knew the names of rivers and mountains in Palestine, long before he knew names of places in England or in Wales, where it comes from. In your names of biblical kings, long before he could cite kings of England. So these are people who have really grown up on the Bible. And these English people have come across the geography of Israel, Palestine, only in their classics classes and in their Bible classes. And so they didn't know any Ottoman history. They don't know what happened there in Byzantine times or during the Ottomans. They know nothing about that time. And their only recognition of this territory is from, is the bells it rings from those Bible classes. That's the major one. It's not the only way to get the name of the Bible. But they don't have strategic thoughts like we need to take Palestine. By the way, one reason to take Palestine is let the French take it, God forbid. So they do have some rational explanations. But the thing is that it's so typical for the English attitude to Palestine is that there is no one policy at all. Everybody has their own policies. Everybody writes beautiful letters, papers. There are lots of beautifully written strategic papers. They all come from Eton or from Oxford where they learn how to write beautifully. They seem like frustrated writers or poets in their paper. But every paper says something different. And so this is so typical about British policy. But also foreign policy is also very, very different because you know, let us not forget. I mean, we did the whole episode on Lawrence of Arabia in the last episode. The British have been made to Arab leaders. The Sharif has been promised that if you will rise up with the British, certain lands will be delivered unto you. So I suppose I'm really fascinated with this. When this becomes public, it is running contrary to the promises the British have made to the Sharif. Some British made promises to some Arabs, okay? This is very important because yes, some promises were made. Now the thing about the Balfour Declaration is so unusual because it's a promise that the British kept, the British actually kept the promise which is very, very rare in diplomacy. And that's, yes, really they kept the promise for the next 30 years. They assisted designers to lay the infrastructures for the state of Israel. It's called in Arabic isn't it? The Balfour promise. They call it the 'Aad Balfour'. And on the 9th of November 1917, as William alluded to earlier, this letter is released in the Jewish chronicle in London. What is the immediate reaction, both from both sides to this letter being made public, Tom? The Arabs obviously rejected it. Some people in England rejected it and quite early actually concluded that it was a wrong thing to do. But this was the basis for the next 30 years. Because, I mean, presumably because the Jewish population in Palestine was only 10% of the populations. And so this promise which is made to have a homeland for the Jewish people without somehow infringing the rights of the non-Jewish population is a promise that can't possibly be kept. It's like saying we're going to build a dam but we're also going to look after the rights of the people whose villages are being flooded. It cannot be kept. The idea was to move millions of Jews to Palestine. And for example, David Bengorion's Zionism said to have as much land as possible, not necessarily all of Palestine, but as much of Palestine to have as many Jews as possible living in that part of Palestine and as few Arabs as possible. That was the idea. The British establishment which is brought up on the Bible and is brought up on the classics and knows about the Jewish people knows virtually nothing about the Palestinian people, the Muslim and the Christian inhabitants of Palestine. And this is a slightly later quote from 1937 in Winston Churchill but it gives an idea I think it gives very well the attitude that Churchill and Lloyd George have about what they simply refer to as the non-Jewish inhabitants, the 90% of people in Palestine who are not Jewish at this point. And this is the quote, I do not agree right Churchill that the dog in the manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance that it is a great wrong that has been done to the red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher grade race and more worldly wise race to put it that way has come to take their place. That language is shocking, isn't it? Higher grade race. It is a shocking quote but it gives an idea of not only the kind of lack of any understanding of the people who are living there, the 90% of the people who are living there at the time but also gives an idea of the prejudices which are in operation. I would take us back though to the heat of the furnace if you like which is the end of the First World War. So a peace conference has been called. It is happening in Paris. The terms for the defeated powers are going to be laid out by the victus, the Treaty of Versailles comes from this moment in history. So what happens? What happens is that in those days the major powers of the world treated the world as a cake and sliced it into different slices. So everybody gets a piece of land. And so they treated Palestine as something to argue about the French and the British decided to divide it among themselves. And so that's called the Sykes-Picot agreement which is really only a piece of history and not very significant anymore because eventually the British decided to enter Palestine. They sent the army in 1917. The British army came through Egypt under General Allenby and occupied Palestine. And when they came the entire population received the British as liberators, Arabs and Jews alike because the last years of the Ottoman rule in Palestine were terrible for everybody with very, very cruel oppression, hunger, it's terrible. And so when the British finally arrived they are received as. There's all those photographs out there of Allenby arriving at Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem with the population in the streets. That's right. And they were received by both Jews and Arabs, both Muslims and Christians as sent from heaven. In fact the Arabs call Allenby, Allenby which is the prophet from God. That's the way they pronounce Allenby. And Orthodox Jews regard him as a Messiah. And there are lots and lots of records about first meetings with these young soldiers, many of them Australians by the way. They also regarded themselves as liberating the Holy Land. There's one little fact which indicates how irrational it was. David Lloyd George ordered Allenby to take Jerusalem before Christmas. If you are following a strategic plan, what difference does it make if it's before Christmas or after Christmas? Ah, but if you have a million soldiers on the front and the war doesn't go so well for you, you really want the Christmas present for your nation. And so that's actually once Jerusalem was taken, the church bells in London began ringing again during the war. The bells wouldn't ring. So wow, we have Jerusalem. So that's a big irrational thing really. So with the bells ringing in our ass, let's take this short break. Welcome back. So before the break, we had the church bells ringing in London. And what does that actually look like and feel like to the people who are living in the region, Tom? What are they expecting for the next few years? Because the British still have a mandate to run Palestine. First of all, they expect restoration of normal life because life under the Turks at the end was terrible. And so they receive the British as liberators. By the way, when the British arrive, most people in Palestine don't know yet about the welfare declaration. But after a few years of military rule, a civil administration is being created under the British. British create some bodies for Jews and Arabs to rule themselves limited. But what they mostly do is they keep their promise and they help the Jews to create the infrastructures needed for independence. Tom, you mentioned earlier this name Herbert Samuel. He's Jewish, he's an ardent Zionist. And the British make him the first high commission of a Palestine, don't they? They do. He was, I think, minister for postal affairs before in England. But yes, he comes to Palestine believing. And actually he was right that it's his mission to carry out the promise in the welfare declaration and help the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. They kept talking about homeland, but they actually all know that it is a statehood in Palestine, not necessarily all of Palestine. In fact, after a few years, part of that piece of land was given to the Arabs, which is now Jolder. And on the ground, one of the first signs of this new order and what's going to happen is that some of the landowners who are often living in exile in Beirut or in Damascus start selling large chunks of land like the Jesuil Valley, for example. And the ordinary Palestinian workmen who were sitting on the ground suddenly find themselves evicted and turn up landless refugees sitting in the streets of Jerusalem having lost their land. But obviously for the people coming in from Jews escaping pogroms and Russia, this is like a moment of vast celebration and excitement. Most Jews who come to Palestine do not live in agricultural areas, but they live in Jerusalem and in Sfat and in Hebron or very soon, you know, Tel Aviv developed. What year is Tel Aviv founded? Tel Aviv is founded, I believe, in 1906. Is it possible? And it is literally a new city on the sand dunes. It is built on the sand, it is built on the sand out of sand and it is one of the things which really happened under Jewish presence, just like creating a Hebrew university on the Mount of Skopos, which is just quite amazing and cities and everything. So this was all developed and people come from all over the world, mostly as refugees. Choose in Eastern Europe, for example, prefer immigrating to America. They do not come all of them. When do they come? They come beginning to come in the 20s when it gets very difficult to immigrate to America or England had anti-immigration laws. And so then they, more of them come to Israel and of course when the Nazis get to power to, from Germany, come to Palestine. So most Jews who come here are actually refugees. By the way, there is also massive immigration of Arabs from Arab lands because once Palestine gets developed and modernized, there is lots of workplaces for Arab. So 36 to 39 the Nazis are gathering power and the scale of the immigration of Jewish refugees increases massively. But you also get, even before this, the beginnings of Palestine in resistance to this. Talk to us about the great revolt. The Arabs gradually develop their own national aspirations and gradually develop means to fight for their independence. So they have, so they call it Arab revolts, so they, lots of different names. But in 1936 they actually begin a whole series of strikes and they regard the British as enemies. And that is not really true. But of course once they conduct actions of resistance, the British put them down very harshly the way they did it in other colonies. What kind of thing Tom? What kind of thing do the British do? Arbitrary arrests, curfews, destruction of houses, torture, expulsions. Judicial killings, collective punishment, even aerial bombardment at times. What bombardment, whatever you do, to fight terrorist resistance. 20,000 Palestinians are killed at this point. And villages reduce the rubble and this takes, in a sense, the main military strength of the Palestinians is crushed just before they're going to need it in 1947 to 8. That many of their leaders are exiled, many of their fighting men are killed or jailed or expelled. The Palestinian Arab Society in Palestine is weaker than the Jewish Society. For example, there is no compulsory education among the Arabs. Lots of Arabs don't read and write. So the Jews have a much, much more modern and better organized society. But I think I have the question of the British is very interesting. Some say they were pro-Arab and anti-Jewish or anti-Jewish and pro-Arab or whatever they were. And the truth is that they were pro-British. And there is a story of an official who wears an Arab turban on his head when he talks to Arabs and the European head when he talks to Jews. And he once finds himself in a clash between Jews and Arabs. So he hurries to the next telephone and asks his superior. What head do I wear here now? And his superior says wear them both. Now at the end of this whole story, there is a British official who is really fed up with everything that happens here. And he says, "I dislike them equally. Arabs and Jews and Christians in Syria and Palestine, they are all alike. They are beastly people. The whole lot of them is not worth a single Englishman." Wow. That's the attitude of their head. That's what. And so, and that's true as late, at the latest begins in 1937. When they realize that this is a country that can't be ruled. So why don't they get out immediately? In 1937, it's already close to 39 and 39 is already close to war. And in general, they hate taking big decisions. So what they do is they appoint a committee of inquiry. That's what they do. There are lots and lots of committees of inquiry to inquire everything. And thereby they gain time. But very soon, they realize that it was a mistake to get in first place. So, I mean, this sort of turmoil that you've described so beautifully, chugs along and along and it sort of limps across the line to 1948. And then the British say, "Right, you know what? We've got a, we've got an out here now. We've actually got the end of our mandate. United Nations, your problem." And they just kind of shunted over the table. And just to give a bit of context here, there is some quite serious terrorism against the British. I mean, for most famously, the King David Hotel, which is blown up with a thousand people killed within it with the future Prime Minister Beggin, who puts the bombs down. But that's not, I think that's what adds perhaps to their decision, gives him some urgency. But that's not what makes them leave. The British Empire is at its end. They have given up India. The Jewel of the Crown in Palestine is at most a, a, a, a, a backyard for them. So, so it's nice to have like a lovable pet, but it shouldn't cost too much. In fact, the fine analysis, why do we need to get out is written by the, by the, by the ex-checker, by the, by the, it's a financial thing. It costs too much. This was, this was one of the main reasons for leaving India too, just the British had no money after the war. They couldn't afford to, to hold India. Exactly. So, so the, so the days of the empire are over. So, another explosion of, an explosion of this or other hotel really doesn't change that fact. So, it's sort of the, the United Nations issue to deal with. And the United Nations votes on the 29th of November 1947 to partition Palestine into two states, one for the, for the Jews and one for the Arabs. How does that go down, Tom? This goes down very well in Israel because this is the first time that the world, or if you want the second time, the first time was at bad for declaration, but the second time the world really decides that the Jews deserve some kind of independence in Palestine. But it doesn't go very well because the map is impossible. The number of Jews who are sitting in refugee camps after the Holocaust in Europe need to live somewhere. And obviously the United States is not willing to take them all in, about 200,000 Jews Holocaust survivors. And so, the inevitable really happens. And that is a war between Israel and the Arabs, not only the Palestinians, but also Arab countries. This is inevitable if you want beginning in 1917. If you look at it historically, that's the said truth. It is, it had to lead to war. And when these, these Arab nations are all, in a sense, all looking for their own interests, all mutually distrustful, the troops in Lebanon and the troops in Egypt don't trust each other. The trans Jordan is busy trying to make a deal to take over what will become known as the West Bank and following his own interests and trying to reach an agreement with the Israelis to let him have that territory. So it's a mess. And in the middle, the ordinary Palestinians are caught in the middle of this. And they call this the Nakhba, the catastrophe, don't they? Yes, it is a catastrophe. And it is the major element of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict still today. The truth about the Nakhba is that Arabs left, Arabs escaped, Arabs were forced to leave, forced to escape, driven out. All of this happened in different points in time, in different places. Tell us about plan Dalat, which one reads a lot about. Is this plan to begin, in modern terms, ethnically plans, a lot of the Palestinian rural population? No, there is no written order to expel all Arabs. There is a plan, a military plan that takes into account the possibility that these or other villages will resist. And in that case, if they resist, the village has to be destroyed and the people expelled. But interestingly enough, there is no such thing as an overall, there is no paper, what says we need to expel the Arabs. What does exist is the general concept and the general aspiration expressed, for example, Bye. Bengorion. We have an expression in Hebrew which we had a very difficult time to translate to English when my books were translated to English. That's the spirit of the commander. The commander radiates that wish and so the commander everywhere in this or that village knows what is expected of him but there is no written plan. Let's get rid of the Arabs or so. It's in the air. And when you say what is expected of him, what what what are you talking about? It is expected of him to expel Arabs. Yes, most of them except for for for example Christian residents of Nazareth. Why? Because the New York Times or the Times of London if you want they are they are there. And so we don't expel Christians from Nazareth but other than that leave as much land as possible empty of Arabs. But having said that it is also interesting that David Bengorion specifically prevented the occupation of the West Bank which is now in Israel including East Jerusalem, the Old City and including Gaza. Why is he preventing the the the occupation of these areas? Because they are by now filled with with refugees. So he says to himself we've just gotten rid of them. Why would I why would I occupy them again? And that I think is the major difference between those days and 1967 when we when we occupied all these all these. Yeah. So I mean after this this conflict in the Middle East's conflagration dies down. I mean what we're left with the 750,000 Palestinians estimated. That's more than half the population who are rendered stateless. I mean they're refugees. And the name Palestine is effectively wiped off the map isn't it? It's no longer an entity. No half of it is occupied by Jordan. Jordan also did not give the Palestinians independence and many Arab countries kept the refugees and refugee camps as as as a weapon in the conflict. So that it's also not really fair to the Palestinians. So the Palestinians are are really victims of the situation. And no one is really representing their interests. The the Emir of Transjordan is looking after his interests. The British just want to get out. The Israelis want want their state. Nobody is representing them. To me one of the even worse elements of of that tragedy is that they were not allowed back. I mean you can argue with Israel how did it happen that so many people actually were gone but the major point is that Israel never allowed them back. So Israel to the present day said says where they actually run away or escaped or hoping to come back and defeat Israeli army or something. But the fact is that they were not allowed back. Can I can I read you two two quotes and we will come to the end of our time together and it just perhaps might be useful for you to use as springboard as to where we are today and whether there's any hope, glimmer of hope in the future for peace in this region. This is attributed to David Ben Gurin in 1948 and it speaks to what you've been just talking about. We must do everything to ensure the Palestinians never do return. The old will die. The young will forget. And that's a from David Ben Gurin they say in 1948 Benjamin Netanyahu has said much more recently that this is the crystallized situation. So if the Arabs put down their weapons today there will be no more violence. If the Jews put down their weapons today there will be no more Israel. So we're sort of sort of in between those two points in time. What do we see as the future? The first quote is so interesting because it comes from a man who leads a national movement of people who have not forgotten their homeland for two thousand years. So why would the Arabs forget theirs? That's a really quote which also is not typical of Ben Gurin because nobody was more aware of him that the Arabs do not forget and want to come back and they can they will come back. So that's an unusual quote from him. But Gurin said lots of different contradicting things. I don't know how the conflict can be solved today. If we had this conversation 40 years ago I would probably tell you that by now we have given back Arab territories to the territory Arabs and they have their state and all the conflict is history. I was very optimistic at the time and I do not believe in it anymore. I just don't know how. There are some lots of people all over the world who know exactly how to solve this problem and I don't really see how it can be how it can be solved. Tom we recently had the anniversary of the Belford Declaration and there was a very muddled response even now to this in Britain. Boris Johnson who was then Prime Minister celebrated it as a great achievement of the British that they'd in his words laid the foundations for a Jewish state. But do you think this is something that the British should be proud of or ashamed of or both? I mean because we have led to I mean the Palestinians were 90% of the population when we took over in 1917 and when we left they were largely refugees in refugee camps and we didn't honor the promise made in the Belford Declaration that the non-Jewish population would not have their rights threatened. Those rights have been systematically thrashed both under the British and subsequently. How should we look on the Belford Declaration now? It was very controversial even at the time and we should look at it as a really irrational thing that's what happens when you take decisions under such a strong impact of your beliefs and your hopes and your fantasies. With little knowledge of the territory and and no interest in the people that live there. And that's exactly so the dangers of irrational decision making. That's I think what the Belford Declaration teaches us. Tom thank you very very much. It's a very thorny issue to discuss and this is one of many episodes we've had lately including our look at the Armenian genocide and our look at Saqq's Pico which is upset many of our listeners and pleased others. This I'm sure will be equally divisive because it's impossible to look at the Belford Declaration and feel just one thing. It's a moment of rebirth for one people in a moment of catastrophe for another and depending on which of those two peepholes you look through you look at you see a completely different landscape. So Tom say I thank you for trying to bridge this impossible gap with your vision and we're very very grateful for your time. From me William Darrymple and me and Eta Arlin. Thank you very much.