As we look at the terrible set of affairs happening in Palestine today, it is worth asking the question, how should or at least how could things have turned out differently such that there would not be so much unrest there now?
Let’s consider briefly how the nation of Turkey came to be. Turkey is essentially Anatolia, which had served as the heartland of the Ottoman Empire since Mehmed II conquered Constantinople in 1453. It was the main prize that the Allies fought for – the bridge between Europe and Asia, the straits between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. The legitimate ruler of the OE, Mehmed VI, remained on the throne as the Sultan and the 136th Caliph since Mohammed. So long as he did the bidding of the victorious Allies, their military forces stood behind him. And he did do their bidding which was always in the interests of the occupying nations but often counter to the best interests of the indigenous population of Anatolia – mainly the Turks. To make a long story short, many of the Turkish people rallied behind a Turkish leader (ultimately) named Kemal Ataturk, assembled the military might needed to defeat the military forces of both Mehmed VI and the foreign occupiers. In 1922, Turkey with Kemal Ataturk as its first president, was recognized by the League of Nations as the free and independent nation of Turkey.
My point here is that despite the designs that the French, British, Italians, and Greeks had for the heartland of the Ottoman Empire, the place where the invaluable straits between Europe and Asia traversed, the people who lived there took matters into their own hands, overthrew both an entrenched monarch and the foreign powers and created a nation of their own.
The birthplace of Islam and the original heartland of the Muslim world, Arabia, had long been part of the OE. In 1916, with the encouragement and support of Britain and France, the Sharif of Mecca, Hussein bin Ali, led a pan-Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire. The British told Hussein whatever he wanted to hear so that he would help them beat the Central Powers. ”Sure”, they said, “we are in favor of your aim to secure Arab independence and create a single unified Arab state spanning the Arab territories from Aleppo in Syria (including Palestine) to Aden in Yemen.” The Arab revolt led by Hussein, was instrumental in defeating the OE. Meanwhile, GB was issuing Balfour Declarations and signing Sykes-Picot Agreements that indicated that the Allies were not going to do what they had promised. Even so, Hussein and the other Arab leaders, trusted that the British would come through. He let down his military guard.
Of course, the British did not want oil rich Arabia to become an independent country. They reneged on their promises, and shifted support elsewhere. What if Hussein had challenged the Brits and rallied the Arabs from Syria to Yemen to the cause of independence from the imperialist powers? The British had more important issues to deal with – like retaining control of Egypt, the gateway for the Suez Canal. No doubt, they would have folded in Greater Arabia (Syria, Palestine, Arabia to Yemen) just as they had in Anatolia. There would a been a new Arab nation of “Hussein Arabia” encompassing Palestine. Had this occurred, the Zionists would never have had an opportunity to play the long game and by 1948 been in a position to wrest the land from the Arabs.
However, Hussein and the Arabs chose not to exert the effort to challenge the British and seek their own independence. Instead, they trusted that GB would, in due time, hand over all those lands to them to govern and control. That was a naïve and lazy approach to take and more than any other factor, is the reason that the Jews today control Palestine and not the Arabs.
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