“Once more, as repeatedly before, the spokesmen of the Central Empires have indicated their desire to discuss the objects of the war and the possible basis of a general peace. Parleys have been in progress at Brest-Litovsk between Russsian representatives and representatives of the Central Powers to which the attention of all the belligerents have been invited for the purpose of ascertaining whether it may be possible to extend these parleys into a general conference with regard to terms of peace and settlement.”

Wilson was not dictating terms, nor should the 14 points be confused with the concept of “unconditional surrender” a la WWII. Only via Faustian quotation can his futile attempt to stave off the Imperial ambitions of France and Britain in the region be presented as an original proposal regarding the “dismemberment” of the Ottoman Empire. Wilson was a dupe, true, but certainly no willing stooge of London and Paris. Nor is it a minor detail that the United States Senate refused to sign off on the ToV (nor join the League of Nations)…

Mr. MacLean, in the early 19th century Great Britain claimed the authority to impress its native born subjects into the Royal Navy. This included it’s former colonists who’d become Americans, all of whom were technically “born Englishmen”, even George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Considering that when Lord Linlithgow declared Indias entrance into WWII without consulting the provincial governments he fostered a similar resentment, albeit more civilized than the American reaction a century earlier, it should occur that Americans were neither the first nor last people to discover themselves Englishmen when a tax or butchers bill was due, but wogs and savages otherwise. Is it really a surprise that Palestinian arabs and Israeli jews, like Indian hindus and Pakistani muslims, or Irish catholics and Ulster protestants, or Zulus and Boers, all dance/fight to a “divide et impera” British waltz?

Before any Turks and Greeks start thinking about fighting each other in Cyprus, remember the old line: “Timeo Britannus et dona ferentes”

I’m going to take a break from Qutb for at least one night, to try to get caught up on comments, but I thought I’d point out a few posts well worth reading.Both Meryl Yourish and Lynn B. of In…

My understanding, which is limited, is that the Jewish population in that region increased over the time period from the late 19th century to the British mandate. I didn’t know of any significant decrease in Jewish population, though there was violence against them. Fromkin mentions Djemal Pasha’s actions against the Jewish population in Syria/Palestine during World War I. The US, Britain and Germany pressured the Sublime Porte to end that.

In the 19th century the USA was not at all shy about applying pressure on the sublime porte to honor the rights of US nationals; all the while, there was a brisk commerce in US citizenship, which was highly prized in Palestine. However, not until the 1880’s was the US Ambassador to Ottoman Turkey himself a US citizen! While the effects of this were to allow the USG to cite its [demographically insignificant] interests in order to extrude favors from Istanbul, the Jewish community in Palestine was exceptionally keen to use its leverage on the tiny American community to extrude support from Washington.

However, as you might expect, by 1920 the Jewish community in Palestine was almost gone. There were several waves of pogroms against the remaining Jewish population, which nearly reduced the numbers to zero. Then, of course, came 1932 and after that nothing could stem the tide of refugees from Central Europe.