Zionist designs and the West

In the past the Jews used Britain, now they are using the US to do their bidding.

By Adel Safty, Special to Gulf News

Published: 23:34 May 3, 2009

In the current grossly disproportionate war against Lebanon and the Palestinians in Gaza, US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair not only supported the destruction of Lebanon and Gaza, and the collective punishment of their populations with untold civilian victims, they also became apologists of Israeli propaganda.

Both leaders now argue that the war is part of the war on terror. It is obvious, however, except for the most biased and indifferent to historical context and causality, that the root cause of the conflict is a colonial occupation that is founded on dispossession and displacement.

Historically, the Zionist founding ideas of a settler colonial enterprise would not have been possible without two crucial elements: support from the West, especially Britain and the USA, and sustained pro-Zionist propaganda in the West from the most influential circles.

In its search for territory to establish a Jewish state, Zionism faced two daunting challenges: how to rally the support of the western powers and their influential Jewish communities for the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, Argentina, or Cyprus. Secondly, how to colonise and turn a country such as Palestine with an overwhelming Muslim majority into a Jewish state?

The Zionists turned their attention to Britain. Jewish pogroms in Russia had resulted in a flood of Russian Jewish immigrants to England whose government came under pressure to restrict the flood of Jewish immigration. The Balfour government appointed a royal commission to examine the question of immigration and Theodor Herzl, the president of the Zionist Organisation, persuaded the commission to hear him as an expert witness.

Herzl emphasised to his British interlocutors and to Lord Rothschild, still strongly anti-Zionist, the community of interests that exited between Zionism and British imperialism.

Further, he played to the anti-Semitism of the British colonial secretary Joseph Chamberlain whom he asked to allow the Zionists to colonise Cyprus. Chamberlain responded that Cyprus was already inhabited by Muslims and Greeks and he could not evict White settlers for the benefit of newcomers.

Herzl later tried to persuade both Chamberlain and minister for foreign affairs Lord Lansdown to allow the Zionists to colonise the Egyptian Sinai. But Lord Crommer, British consul-general of Egypt, was opposed to Zionist colonisation of the Sinai. Eventually Herzl recommended acceptance of the Uganda offer to the Sixth Zionist Congress meeting in Basle in August 1903. Although a majority voted for the Uganda offer, the Russian delegates led Chaim Weizmann strongly opposed it.

With Herzl's death in 1904, the Zionists refused to consider alternatives to Palestine. Weizmann made the strategically important decision to move to England in order to, as he put it, reculer pour mieux sauter (move back to make a better jump) and because England "seemed likely to show sympathy for a movement like ours".

Weizmann succeeded in meeting Arthur Balfour in 1906 and impressed upon him the Zionist opposition to the Uganda offer and their insistence on Palestine. The wealthy Jewish banker Lord Rothschild was also converted to Zionism and his influence, wealth, and power would prove invaluable to Zionist efforts to enlist Great Britain's support.

First World War opened new possibilities for Palestine. The Zionists concentrated their efforts on securing the Great Powers' support, particularly that of Britain and the United States, for their goal of establishing a "homeland" in Palestine.

Extensive propaganda

An extensive propaganda campaign was launched in the US and Britain. Weizmann enlisted the help of C.P. Scott, the influential editor of the Manchester Guardian who launched a pro-Zionist propaganda campaign, which proved of enormous value to the Zionists.

In December 1914, Scott introduced Weizmann to Lloyd George and Herbert Samuel, the latter being a minister in the Liberal Government of Herbert Asquith and the first Jew to be a member of cabinet.

Samuel informed Weizmann that he was preparing a memorandum to Asquith on the subject of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Samuel's role would prove to be one of the most powerful instruments by which the Zionists influenced British decisions.

Prominent writers and public figures were won to the Zionist cause. They began an intensive pro-Zionist propaganda campaign, which emphasised Zionism's strategic value to the British Empire and British imperialism.

This approach finds its modern equivalent in the success of Israel and its friends in the US in convincing the Bush administration of Israel's value for the American strategic designs in the Middle East and for its so-called war on terror.

Professor Adel Safty is author-editor of 15 books including From Camp David to the Gulf, Leadership and Democracy, and the forthcoming book, The Modern Machiavellians: How the Zionists Took Over Palestine.

http://gulfnews.com/opinions/columnists/zionist-designs-and-the-west-1.246319