Objectives, Means, And Ends

“Antagonisms and passions block the way to an objectively accurate judgment of our own and of foreign interests. The self-conceit of the victor is quite as much of a hindrance to correct judgment, as the exasperation of the conquered.” – Count István Tisza, March 15, 1914. From, “Papers of Count Tisza, 1914-1918″ By Sidney B. Fay, The American Historical Review, 1924.

“During the Easter season the whole world was apprehensively watching a terrible bomb timed to explode on May 15 – the date on which the British, as they firmly and repeatedly announced, would abandon the intolerable burden of their mandate over the Holy Land. No one could foresee precisely what the consequences would be. But unless some miracle took place – unless Britain gave a last-minute consent to remain longer or to cooperate with others, or unless the United States or the United Nations secured some very speedy preventive action and prepared to use troops for the enforcement of law and order – it was a safe guess that Palestine would be torn with far more violence and bloodshed than hitherto.

Where is the blame? On many sides. To mention only the most important:

The British government is to blame for irreconcilable promises made to Arabs and Jews during World War I, and for a hesitating and indecisive policy ever since, until it could no longer endure the headache and therefore dumped the problem into the lap of the United Nations. In fair justice to the British, however, it must be said that they have done more both for the Jews and the Arabs than has any other nation.

President Roosevelt during World War II likewise encouraged conflicting hopes in both Arabs and Jews. President Truman made matters worse by urging the British to admit 100,000 Jewish immigrants into Palestine while at the same time refusing to accept any responsibility for the consequences; i.e. he would not send any American troops to preserve order in the likely event that the Arabs might oppose Jewish immigration by fighting. The British, who had long borne the burden alone, resented President Truman’s attitude. 

The Arabs and the Zionist Jews are to blame for their emotional insistence on their own points of view and their refusal to cooperate in various peaceful, but compromise, proposals.

Even Russia might be said to be to blame, because her exercise of the veto has weakened the United Nations, and her aggressive policy has made Britain and the United States fear the use of Russian troops, either alone or as part of an international police force, in maintaining law and order in Palestine.

Finally, Middle East oil is a factor of enormous strategic and economic importance. Its exploitation is one of the essential elements in the Marshall Plan. As American oil reserves are depleted, it will before long become an important article of import into the United States. At present its development and the pipelines, either being built or in the process, are mainly in the hands of British and American controlled companies; but those companies are threatened by the Arabs with trouble or annulment of their concessions if there is an attempt to enforce the partition of Palestine. Furthermore, Communist control in Western Europe or a Russian move into the Middle East, would deal a fatal blow to the favored hold which British and Americans now enjoy over Middle East oil. The settlement of Palestine thus involves not merely the Arabs and Zionists; it affects the far bigger problems of the most important military raw material and the relations between the totalitarian East and the democratic West.” – Sidney B. Fay, “Arabs, Zionists, and Oil” Current History, Vol. 14, No. 81 (May 1948).