Britain’s poisoned legacy in Palestine | The Electronic Intifada
▻https://electronicintifada.net/content/britains-poisoned-legacy-palestine/29281
The narrative of Legacy of Empire revolves around two central questions.
First, why was Palestine relevant to the British Empire in 1917? And second, why did British colonialism remain faithful to Zionism, even in the wake of concerted Arab resistance such as the major revolt of the 1930s?
Thompson answers the first question by writing that the declaration was a “wartime exigency” and “a tale of coincidences and contingency.” Under H. H. Asquith, British prime minister from 1908-1916, Palestine was not “a strategic priority.”
The author questions historical accounts that say Britain collaborated with Zionism under Asquith. What made Palestine relevant, he argues, was the ascension of David Lloyd George to the premiership in December 1916, along with military setbacks that risked Britain losing the world war.
Thompson’s case for contingency and coincidence rests with Lloyd George, a Christian Zionist who was charmed by Chaim Weizmann, one of the leading figures in the Zionist movement.
Weizmann convinced Lloyd George that “the Jews in both Russia and the US were crucial to their respective countries remaining in the war.” The promise of a Jewish homeland would result in Jews pressuring Tsarist Russia to remain in the war and ensure that the US would become fully involved in it.
In short, Weizmann sold Lloyd George on what was essentially an anti-Semitic trope of the power of “international Jewry.”
