James Barr

“The wrangling between Britain and the Free French throughout the war years had a further, far-reaching consequence when de Gaulle returned to power in 1958. As president of France it was he who infamously vetoed Harold Macmillan’s application to join the Common Market. In tracing exactly why de Gaulle said Non, it is, surprisingly, to the hot and noisy cities of Beirut and Damascus that we should look. The general’s experience of British machinations in both places profoundly shaped his reluctance to allow his wartime rivals to join his European club. It is a tale from which neither country emerges with much credit.”
― James Barr, A Line in the Sand: Britain, France and the struggle that shaped the Middle East

“It was the struggle between Britain and France for the mastery of the Middle East that led the two countries to carve up the Ottoman Empire with the Sykes-Picot agreement, and it was their dissatisfaction over the outcome of this deal that led the British, fatefully, to proclaim their support for Zionist ambitions in the Balfour Declaration. And so the Jews’ right to a country of their own became dangerously associated with a cynical imperial maneuver that was originally designed to outwit the French.”
― James Barr, A Line in the Sand: The Anglo-French Struggle for the Middle East, 1914-1948