Never Give In! (17 page)

‘THE JEWS SHOULD HAVE A NATIONAL HOME’

31 March 1921

Reply to a Muslim delegation, Government House, Jerusalem

Churchill, who had returned to Cabinet office as Minister of Munitions at the end of the war, was now Colonial Secretary. In that capacity he had just convened and chaired the Cairo Conference at which, from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire (which had allied itself with Germany), the states of Jordan and Iraq were established under the Hashemite Emirs Abdullah and Feisal. At the same time the boundaries of Biblical Palestine were delineated for the first time. A staunch supporter of the ‘Balfour Declaration’, Churchill made clear his view that Palestine should be a National Home for the Jews, but not to the exclusion of the Palestinians.

I consider your address partly partisan and incorrect. You ask me to repudiate the Balfour Declaration and stop immigration. This is not in my power and is not my wish. . . . Moreover it is manifestly right that the scattered Jews should have a national centre and a national home in which they might be reunited, and where else but in Palestine, with which the Jews for 3,000 years have been intimately and profoundly associated? We think it is good for the world, good for the Jews, and good for the British Empire, and it is also good for the Arabs dwelling in Palestine, and we intend it to be so. They shall not be supplanted nor suffer but they shall share in the benefits and the progress of Zionism.

I draw your attention to the second part of the Balfour Declaration emphasising the sacredness of your civil and religious rights. I am sorry you regard it as valueless. It is vital to you, and you should hold and claim it firmly. If one promise stands, so does the other. We shall faithfully fulfil both. . . . Examine Mr Balfour’s careful words, Palestine to be ‘a national home’ not ‘the national home’, a great difference in meaning.

The establishment of a national home does not mean a Jewish Government to dominate the Arabs. Great Britain is the greatest Muslim State in the world, and is well disposed to the Arabs and cherishes their friendship. . . . You need not be alarmed for the future. Great Britain has promised a fair chance for the Zionist movement, but the latter will succeed only on its merits. . . . We cannot tolerate the expropriation of one set of people by another. The present form of Government will continue for many years. Step by step we shall develop representative institutions, leading to full self-government, but our children’s children will have passed away before that is completed.

LENIN

8 June 1921

Chamber of Commerce Luncheon, Manchester

The scale of the wholesale slaughter of millions of their fellow Russians by the Bolshevist rulers of Russia was slowly filtering through to the West.

Some people consider Lenin clever, but we will all agree that he has had the most expensive education. (
Laughter.
) I do not suppose that any man since the beginning of the world has had such a costly education as this gentleman. Probably seven or eight million have lost their lives, and many more have had their lives utterly ruined, in order to teach Monsieur Lenin the rudiments of political economy. (
Laughter.
) He was a backward pupil. He was told that private property existed as the reward of human toil and thrift. He did not believe it. He killed many thousands of people with whom he disagreed, and caused the deaths of many thousands more, in order to find out the truth of that proposition before he came to the conclusion that they were right and he was wrong. After all a man must learn, and it was no doubt a very interesting experiment from his point of view. Monsieur Lenin then turned his attention to currency, and, seeing machines making bank notes, he had a flash of pure Communistic genius. (
Laughter.
) He thought that all he had to do to solve the social problem was to keep the machine going as fast as possible. (
Laughter.
) He thought he had thus found a way of making everybody rich, and of paying every workman several thousands a year. He has destroyed the currency of Russia to such an extent that it is said that if you take a cab in Moscow you have to take another cab to take the bank notes that represented the cabman’s fare – (
laughter
)
–
and he has thus destroyed the vital factor in the means of commerce and exchange between town and country, so that the people of the towns are being starved because they have no products to give to the peasants in exchange for the food they grow. This starvation of the cities of Russia made a great impression on Monsieur Lenin. It ought to have made a great impression on the cities. But he is a backward pupil, and his education is only improving very slowly. He has not started yet on the Ten Commandments – ‘Thou shalt not steal’, and ‘Thou shalt do no murder.’ (
Laughter.
) That belongs to a later phase in his education, and, no doubt, it will cost thousands more of lives. As we watch this terrible panorama of Russian misery, let us abstract a moral which should be a guidance and an aid. Russia cannot save herself by her exertion, but she may at least save other nations by her example. The lesson from Russia, writ in glaring letters, is the utter failure of this Socialistic and Communistic theory, and the ruin which it brings to those subjected to its cruel yoke.

‘ THE CULTURE AND GLORIES OF THE ARAB RACE ’

14 June 1921

House of Commons

Even in these early days, Churchill sees the dangers posed by the extremism of Saudi Arabia’s Wahabi sect, which in recent decades has been responsible for the spread throughout the Muslim world of thousands of ‘madrassas’ (religious seminaries) dedicated to the propagation of extremist Muslim fundamentalism, combined with virulent hatred of Western values and culture.

Broadly speaking, there are two policies which can be adopted towards the Arab race. One is the policy of keeping them divided, of discouraging their national aspirations, of setting up administrations of local notables in each particular province or city, and exerting an influence through the jealousies of one tribe against another. That was largely, in many cases, the Turkish policy before the war, and, cynical as it was, it undoubtedly achieved a certain measure of success. The other policy, and the one which, I think, is alone compatible with the sincere fulfilment of the pledges we gave during the war to the Arab race and to the Arab leaders, is an attempt to build up around the ancient capital of Baghdad, in a form friendly to Britain and to her Allies, an Arab State which can revive and embody the old culture and glories of the Arab race, and which, at any rate, will have a full and fair opportunity of doing so if the Arab race shows itself capable of profiting by it. Of these two policies we have definitely chosen the latter.

If you are to endeavour so to shape affairs in the sense of giving satisfaction to Arab nationality, you will, I believe, find that the very best structure around which to build, in fact, the only structure of this kind which is available, is the house and family and following of the Sherif of Mecca. It was King Hussein who, in the crisis of the war, declared war upon the Turks and raised the Arab standard. Around that standard gathered his four capable sons – of whom the Emir Feisal and the Emir Abdulla are the two best known in this country – and many of the principal chiefs and notabilities of the Arab world. With them at our side we fought, and with their aid as a valuable auxiliary Lord Allenby hurled the Turks from Palestine. Both the Emir Abdulla and the Emir Feisal have great influence in Iraq among the military and also among the religious classes, both Sunni and Shiah. The adherents of the Emir Feisal have sent him an invitation to go to Mesopotamia and present himself to the people and to the assembly which is soon to gather together, and King Hussein has accorded his son permission to accept the invitation. The Emir Abdulla, the elder brother, has renounced his rights and claims. I have caused the Emir Feisal to be informed, in answer to his inquiry, that no obstacle will be placed in the way of his candidature, that he is at liberty to proceed forthwith to Mesopotamia, and that, if he is chosen, he will receive the countenance and support of Great Britain. In consequence, the Emir Feisal has already left Mecca on the 12th of this month, and is now on his journey to Mesopotamia, where he will arrive in about 10 days. We must see how opinion forms itself and what is the view of the National Assembly when it is elected. I cannot attempt to predict the course of events, but I do not hesitate to say that, if the Emir Feisal should be acceptable to the people generally, and to the Assembly, a solution will have been reached which offers, in the opinion of the highest authorities on whom I am relying, the best prospects for a happy and a prosperous outcome.

There has, however, lately arisen in Iraq and particularly in the Province of Basra, a considerable movement in the direction of continuing direct British rule. People always seem to want something different from what is actually being done. When we were giving them direct British rule a few years ago they rebelled against it. Now that we offer them the Arab State which was then demanded so ardently, there is a considerable feeling that perhaps after all British rule will be found to be most stable. It is one of the comparatively few compliments that we have been receiving in this part of the world. I think it reflects very much credit upon Sir Percy Cox that in so short a time he has effected such a considerable change in the public sentiment towards us. But I can hold out no hope that we shall be found willing to continue these direct responsibilities. Our object and our policy is to set up an Arab Government, and to make it take the responsibility, with our aid and our guidance and with an effective measure of our support, until they are strong enough to stand alone, and so to foster the development of their independence as to permit the steady and speedy diminution of our burden. I cannot say in regard to Mesopotamia that there are primary, direct, strategic British interests involved. The defence of India can be better conducted from her own strategic frontier. Mesopotamia is not, like Egypt, a place which in a strategic sense is of cardinal importance to our interests, and our policy in Mesopotamia is to reduce our commitments and to extricate ourselves from our burdens while at the same time honourably discharging our obligations and building up a strong and effective Arab Government which will always be the friend of Britain and, I will add, the friend of France.

We are leaning strongly to what I may call the Sherifian solution, both in Mesopotamia, to which the Emir Feisal is proceeding, and in Trans-Jordania, where the Emir Abdulla is now in charge. We are also giving aid and assistance to King Hussein, the Sherif of Mecca, whose State and whose finances have been grievously affected by the interruption of the pilgrimage, in which our Mohammedan countrymen are so deeply interested, and which we desire to see resumed. The repercussion of this Sherifian policy upon the other Arab chiefs must be carefully watched. In the vast deserts of Arabia, which stretch eastward and north-eastward from the neighbourhood of Mecca to the Persian Gulf and to the boundaries of Mesopotamia, there dwell the peoples of Nejd, powerful nomadic tribes, at the head of whom the remarkable chief Bin Saud maintains himself. This Arab chief has long been in a state of warfare, raid, and reprisal with King Hussein and with his neighbours generally. A large number of Bin Saud’s followers belong to the Wahabi sect, a form of Mohammedanism which bears, roughly speaking, the same relation to orthodox Islam as the most militant form of Calvinism would have borne to Rome in the fiercest times of the religious wars. The Wahabis profess a life of exceeding austerity, and what they practise themselves they rigorously enforce on others. They hold it as an article of duty, as well as of faith, to kill all who do not share their opinions and to make slaves of their wives and children. Women have been put to death in Wahabi villages for simply appearing in the streets. It is a penal offence to wear a silk garment. Men have been, killed for smoking a cigarette, and as for the crime of alcohol, the most energetic supporter of the temperance cause in this country falls far behind them. Austere, intolerant, well-armed, and bloodthirsty, in their own regions the Wahabis are a distinct factor which must be taken into account, and they have been, and still are, very dangerous to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, and to the whole institution of the pilgrimage, in which our Indian fellow-subjects are so deeply concerned.

The Emir Bin Saud has shown himself capable of leading and, within considerable limits, of controlling these formidable sectaries.

‘THE DREARY STEEPLES OF FERMANAGH AND TYRONE’

16 February 1922

House of Commons

The Irish Free State Bill, which divided Ireland between ‘Loyalist’ Ulster in the north and what was to become the Irish Republic in the south, produced great animosity, both in Ireland and in the House of Commons.

Then came the Great War. Every institution, almost, in the world was strained. Great empires have been overturned. The whole map of Europe has been changed. The position of countries has been violently altered. The modes of thought of men, the whole outlook on affairs, the grouping of parties, all have encountered violent and tremendous changes in the deluge of the world, but as the deluge subsides and the waters fall short we see the dreary steeples of Fermanagh and Tyrone emerging once again. The integrity of their quarrel is one of the few institutions that has been unaltered in the cataclysm which has swept the world. That says a lot for the persistency with which Irishmen on the one side or the other are able to pursue their controversies. It says a great deal for the power which Ireland has, both Nationalist and Orange, to lay their hands upon the vital strings of British life and politics, and to hold, dominate, and convulse, year after year, generation after generation, the politics of this powerful country.