A Line in the Sand - Western Folly in the Middle East

As we contemplate the disgraceful murder of the US Ambassador to Libya – perpetrated by the very fanatics supported by the ‘West’ only a few months ago – we should devote ourselves even more carefully to understanding what is really going on in this part of the world.

The Middle East and the North Africa is a zone in which we repeatedly intervene,  armed mainly with ignorance. The fact that we claim to be benevolent is no excuse. By failing to understand the place we seek to change, we ensure that there will be terrible unintended consequences. Is it any surprise that it has been the source of so much pain and trouble, when we take so little pain or trouble to learn about it. I do often wonder if David Cameron, Hillary Clinton or William Hague have any real knowledge of the area, or of they listen to their diplomats who do.

So, my renewed thanks go to Richard Carey, the kind reader who sent me his copy of ‘A Line in the Sand’ by James Barr, one of the most instructive books you are likely to find about the stupid mess we have made of the Middle East. I’d set it alongside Samuel Katz’s astonishingly revelatory (though very one-sided) account of the origins of the Arab-Israel dispute ‘Battleground’, as an eye-opening reintroduction to a subject we all think we know about, but don’t really.

Katz’s book, which is quite hard to get hold of in this country,  mercilessly examines, questions and mocks the slippery way in which Britain sought to oil out (in more ways than one)  of its 1917 commitment to a ‘National Home for the Jews’ . Katz is a supporter of Vladimir Jabotinsky, and an old friend of Arthur Koestler (whose novel ‘Thieves in the Night’ is strong fictional propaganda for his cause) . Jabotinsky’s ‘revisionist’ version of Zionism was far more realistic, and thus far more ruthless, than the soft-edged socialist mainstream of that movement. And it in turn gave birth to strands of thought which led to horrible acts of Zionist terrorism, notably the gruesome 1946 bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, when it was the British headquarters (91 died, 46 were injured).  It is hard to say exactly who introduced political murder or terror into this dispute (the Jerusalem and Hebron massacres of Jews in the 1920s, and the Arab revolt in the 1930s must not be forgotten). But it is certain that neither side is innocent.

But one of the many things I never knew before reading Barr’s book is just how furious was the Anglo-French rivalry in the region, so furious that Barr produces persuasive evidence that France actively backed Zionist terrorism against Britain in the late 1940s. Yes, that’s right, the country which had recently been liberated from the German yoke by British , American and Canadian Forces, the country whose resistance leader had been hosted and financed by the British government, actively helped the violent enemies of Britain in the immediate aftermath of World War Two.

The origins of this go back to the 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement, under which Britain and France secretly parcelled out the remnants of the Ottoman Empire  (which they had yet to destroy), thus laying the foundations of a century of conflict and hatred which has yet to come to an end. They were planning to diddle each other even as they signed. At least, we were certainly planning to diddle the French.

The original sin, of course, is the West’s thirst for oil (in those days needed to fuel Britain’s global navy), oil which had recently been discovered in what is now Iraq – combined with France’s hunger for prestige, and Britain’s unending concern for the safety of the Suez canal from land or sea attack. One thing that was never involved at all was idealism or altruism, though the Balfour Declaration of a ‘national home for the Jews’ in 1917 was dressed up as such, making it awkward when later governments sought to break the promise.

There are interesting accounts of French rule of Syria which make the pious criticisms of the Assad government by France’s current leaders look a little silly. Did you ever wonder where the Assads got the idea that artillery bombardment of cities was an effective way of restoring control? Go on, guess.

But the deep suspicion between French and British empires at this stage led to many other problems (made even worse during the early years of the warm, when the French rulers of Syria remained loyal to the Vichy government of Marshal Petain. On the consequences of this for the wider Arab world,  Katz is more entertaining and cogent than Barr (Katz’s description of Britain’s deployment of the two available would-be Kings , Faisal and Abdullah, is actually bitterly funny as well as devastatingly true).

One other interesting aspect of this, apart from the forgotten British involvement in both Iran and Iraq in the early years of World War Two, is the extent to which Britain and Vichy France were actual enemies, and very bitter ones indeed, during World War Two. Ever since the Entente Cordiale, there has been a  sentimental assumption that our two countries are natural friends, and Germany our natural enemy. But ‘Line in the Sand’ makes it very clear that the enmity between Britain and France was much deeper, more profoundly felt (especially in France) and more recent than we care to admit.

Writing as a Francophile, who has loved France from the moment he first set foot in it, and admires the French greatly, this fact distresses me. As an English and British Patriot I am compelled always to view the French as rivals and potential foes.  This is why I am especially haunted by the tragedy of Mers-el-Kebir, in 1940, when the Royal Navy opened fire on the French Fleet. It was nobody’s proudest moment, and not exactly Trafalgar, or the Battle of the Nile.

 The curious relationship between us is enjoyably recorded and described in a fine book ‘That Sweet Enemy’ by Robert and Isabelle Tombs (he is English, she is French) . The title comes from Sir Philip Sidney, just to illustrate how long our relationship of mingled loathing, respect, contempt and admiration has been going on.

And another thing…

My latest podcast, this time on the making of excuses, can be found here