The Shameful Legacy of British Colonial Exits

The war in Gaza is now in its 11^th week after the murder of 1200 Israelis.  In their understandable yet ever more insatiable lust for vengeance, the Israelis have wreaked incredible havoc and devastation and killed fifteen times as many innocent Palestinians.  And the potential long-term consequences across the world loom ominously in the future.  This is yet another example of the British Empire’s pathetic legacy of colonial exits and hubris.

 

The state of Israel and the occupied territories together are the former Mandatory Palestine, a British protectorate defined by the new League of Nations after WWI that was in place from 1920 to 1948.  The British and French, still envisaging themselves as global empires, overcame the League’s Wilsonian ideal of self-determination and carved up the former Ottoman empire for their own financial and strategic needs.

 

The WWI allies had coveted both Arab and Jewish support, the first for on-the-ground battle support, the second for financial support.  They made promises to both about postwar rewards.  For the Jews, the promise was for a ‘home’ in the holy land (the Balfour Declaration).  For the Arabs it was independence after the departure of the hated Ottomans, who had ruled over them for centuries (the McMahon-Hussein Correspondence).

 

The Jews, who had been a tiny minority in Palestine up through WWI, began to immigrate in large numbers to Palestine as part of the Zionist Movement.  WW2 and the holocaust, as well as a US-imposed limit on Jewish immigration, resulted in huge numbers of Jewish refugees who made their way to Palestine through illegal and legal channels.  Arab and Jewish uprisings against the British in the 30’s and 40’s created an untenable situation for the British, who were also struggling to maintain other parts of their empire.

 

The British imperial arrogance began to rapidly fray at the edges, and they saw the writing on the wall in both India and Palestine.  Jewish terrorist attacks on British military and civilians in the mid 1940’s and the impossible task of maintaining order in Palestine accelerated their exit plans.  

 

The newly formed United Nations, strongly influenced by Great Britain and the USA, issued a Partition Plan in 1947 that divided Mandatory Palestine into two distinct areas administered by Jews and Arabs.  The plan, which heavily favored the minority Jews, was not accepted by the Arabs.  It had no timeline or detailed steps.  It was merely a recommendation.  

The British, rather than use their diplomatic and military resources to modify and shepherd some form of mutually-acceptable shared governance, essentially stole away in the middle of the night in April and May of 1948, knowing that war would ensue and that they were abandoning the area to eternal conflict.  The ensuing declaration of Israeli independence and the Arab-Israeli war of 1947-49 set the stage for the irreconcilable situation we have today.

 

A few thousand miles away, in what is now India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, the British made another extremely sloppy and tragic exit, dividing the area into two nations – Hindu majority and Muslim majority - in 1947.  Again, the British departed quickly and without making adequate efforts to guide the newly formed states into some sort of peaceful transformation.  The result was horrific – the desperate migration of between 14 and 20 million people and over one million deaths from violence, hunger and disease.

 

There are no doubt multiple other examples of British colonial exits that resulted in massive disruption and decades-long conflict that continue to this day.  And Great Britain is not the only culprit.  France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and, of course, the United States (our Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan exits to name a few), all have grim legacies of their imperial misdeeds.  

  

Why There is No Right or Wrong in the Israel/Palestine Conflict

The Hamas attacks of October 7^th and the ensuing siege and invasion of Gaza have created stark divisions in opinion across the world.  The USA, with its long history of Israeli military assistance and unconditional support, is seen by much of the developing world as hypocritical and having a double standard.  Those nations believe that Jewish influence in the USA is a major determinant of policy.  Even the European nations, who generally follow the American lead in such matters, have begun to strongly oppose the continuing bombardment and isolation of Gaza.

 

The debate about how Israel should respond to the attacks is fraught, as accusations of antisemitism and islamophobia inhibit freedom of expression.  The weight of history is so powerful that civil discourse is almost impossible.

 

I would like to try to frame the basic conflict between Israel and Palestine in terms of the two opposing narratives.  I believe both have merit, which is why there is little hope for a peaceful solution in either the near or long term.

 

The Palestinian narrative goes something like this:  

 

There were only about 24,000 Jews (< 1% of the population) in Palestine at the beginning of the 20^thcentury.  The Zionist movement started a mass migration with funds from wealthy Jews, and the British turned a blind eye to illegal immigration throughout the period of the Mandatory Palestine (from the end of WW1 up to the UN resolution in 1947).  The British and other WW1 allies had promised Jews and Arabs independence to gain their support during WW1.  

 

The UN resolution that recommended partitioning Palestine was made without Arab or Palestine agreement and was influenced primarily by the British. The USA used its economic power to coerce nations into voting for the resolution.  The UN had no authority to actually implement those recommendations and the recommendations were in violation of the stated UN position that all such decisions should be guided by self-determination of the populations.  

 

The partition gave a much greater percentage of Palestine to the Jews than their percentage of population (which had already been artificially increased by hyper immigration) would justify.  The Arab/Israeli war of 1948-49 resulted in Israel taking over 70% of Palestinian land, much of which had been vacated by expelled or fleeing Palestinians (over 700k) during the war.  The 1967 war, in which Israel did a pre-emptive strike on Arab nations, resulted in all of the West Bank and Gaza coming under Israeli control with an additional displacement of 500k Palestinians. Israel began settling those territories, a clear indication of their long-term goal of colonizing all of former Palestine.

 

The most important concept for Palestinians in the conflict is a ‘right of return’ for all Palestinian refugees.  This right has never been offered by Israel.  The increasingly right wing tilt of the Israeli government and expansion of settlements, as well as the financially-motivated neglect of  Palestinian rights by other oil-rich Arab nations created the conditions under which a terrorist group like Hamas was the only remaining Palestinian champion.  Terrorist acts are historically the only recourse for an oppressed people in an asymmetric military struggle.

 

The Israeli narrative goes something like this:  

 

The Jewish diaspora has suffered untold centuries of oppression, pogroms and, ultimately, an incomprehensible genocide during WW2.  The history of worldwide antisemitism, genocide and displacement justified the creation of a state for Jewish people in their historical homeland.  The UN, the post-WW2 body tasked with creating conditions for a more peaceful world, passed a resolution for creating such a state and a majority of nations approved it.  

 

Since its declaration of independence, Israel has been attacked or threatened with attack on numerous occasions by other Arab nations and by terrorist groups financed by Iran and other bad actors.  The lands that Israel has occupied, settled or put under military control are critical and strategic areas that have the potential to threaten Israel’s very existence and/or its citizens.

 

Israel has made significant efforts to negotiate with the Palestinians, even offering to create a two-state solution with the great majority of the West Bank and Gaza.  The Palestinians have refused to negotiate in good faith.  Moreover, it is difficult to imagine the disparate Palestinian contingents lining up behind and faithfully observing any agreement.

 

Israel’s responses to Palestinian terror attacks and intifadas are legitimate self-defense and are as measured as possible given the dense concentration of people in Gaza and the West Bank and the use of civilian shields for terrorist operations.

 

In my view both of these narratives have merit and deserve careful consideration.  And sadly, they are almost impossible to reconcile.  The Jews deserved a homeland after the horrors of WW2 genocide but the Palestinians didn’t deserve to lose their homeland in the process.  Like so many tragedies in the history of humankind, there is ultimately no good guy or bad guy.  And like so many conflicts, the future is unlikely to offer a peaceful resolution.  And even more sadly, the consequences of this conflict are likely to manifest themselves in even more horrible events in the years to come.

 

 

Henry Kissinger and the Great Man of History Nonsense

 Henry Kissinger finally died at 100.  As expected, a veritable deluge of fawning accolades and breathless wonder at his role in world affairs ensued.  And the sycophancy didn’t stop there.  His celebrity status and long career among the world glitterati was portrayed in depth, including some efforts to paint him as a bit of a Casanova, which beggars belief, but as he once said – power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.

As a pleasant surprise, the media onslaught also included numerous pieces assailing his legacy and castigating him for his role in some of the most horrific events of the late twentieth century, including the politically-motivated delays in ending the Vietnam War, the Cambodian genocide, the Pakistan/Bangladesh genocide, the crimes of Pinochet’s Chile and a host of other historical mass murders.

 

I am not an expert on Kissinger, nor do I wish to be.  But his life seems to me a perfect example of the way that power and celebrity status are acquired and how we rush to admire and marvel at those who wield great influence in our world, extolling in rapturous praise the few salutary things they accomplish while excusing or simply not mentioning the hideous results of many of their decisions or actions.

 

And the irony of it all is that the good things they were involved in would probably have occurred regardless of who was in that position because of the historical forces at play, whereas often the horrible things would not have happened if they had not intervened and manipulated events in such an arrogant manner.

 

Take Kissinger’s most revered diplomatic triumphs – the opening of China and the subsequent isolation of the Soviet Union.  Was that really a brilliant strategic move on Kissinger’s part or simply an historic inevitability that occurred because all of the right pieces were in place and Kissinger was simply the only one in a position to move everything forward?

 

Key figures of powerful nations fall in love with the superman personas that they acquire once in their positions.  They become intoxicated in the rarified air of grand strategies and the Great Game, as the British called their battle for world domination with the Russian Empire in the 19^th century.  They forget that they are really silly little men who by various quirks of fate have been given far too much power.  And by wielding that power in capricious and arrogant ways, they often cause much more death and destruction and long-term consequences than they have the capacity to comprehend.

 

I will take Robert McNamara over Henry Kissinger a hundred times.  At least he had the moral strength and humility to question his actions and acknowledge his mistakes.  His career was also an example of ‘Great Game’ hubris, but his intellectual honesty eventually forced him to reckon with the consequences of his tenure as Secretary of Defense and apologize.  He faced great scorn for this honesty.  I applaud him.

 

The Great Man Theory was proposed in the 19^th century as a way to explain the history of the world in terms of the acts of so-called great man.  The theory’s postulate is that the world moves forward due to these great men and that the rest of us are more or less meaningless pawns with only a supporting role (perhaps a slight over-simplification . . . ) .  At the time, Napoleon was a popular example of the Great Man.  Leo Tolstoy did a rather thorough job of debunking the myth of that particular great man in his novel War and Peace, but the general idolization of famous men continued and seems to grow more fervid with each new generation.

 

Our fascination with fame and power has been heightened by the ubiquity of modern Internet media focusing on celebrities.  It reaches a rather telling level of absurdity with the public adoration of British royalty.  Here are people whose only claim to fame is having been born into the royal family – a purely genetic lottery win - yet we gush and fawn over them shamelessly.  

 

Celebrity breeds more celebrity, and power more power.   It seems that there is a critical mass of renown that, once reached, becomes a launching pad for endless new endeavors and positions of influence.  The famous and powerful form a spirited club of mutual admiration that results in them showering opportunities, awards, power and wealth on one another in waves of self-promoting largesse and quid pro quo.

 

Kissinger was reported by some to be the life of every party and a ‘brilliant conversationalist’, though I have read more than a few contemporaries describe him as a colossal bore who would never shut up.  People are so enchanted and beguiled by anyone who has even the slightest fame or power.  They laugh heartily at every attempted clever remark, nod in over-awed agreement at every stated opinion and generally revel in being in the company of such a potentate.

 

For some reason, human beings want badly to believe that there is something special about the people that populate the halls of power and have dominion over so many lives and events.  After a lifetime of observation, I do believe they are endowed with one spectacular attribute: vanity.