Apologies Remain Due

"The old British Empire and the former French Colonial Empire have now ceased to exist, but the damage which they wreaked in their greed and arrogance lives on."

By Robert Thompson.
First Published 2008-08-08,
Last Updated 2008-08-08 09:32:00
Courtesy Of Middle-East-Online

Every nation has black spots in its past, and it often seems appropriate that, in such a case, it should apologise for the wrongs done to others, even if long ago, especially when the present effect of such wrongs is the cause of much present trouble.

On 16th May 1916, roughly half-way through the First World War, two of the then major powers in the world (which they have long ceased so to be), the British Empire and the French Colonial Empire signed an infamous agreement drawn up during negotiations between their representatives. The subject of this document was the proposed "carve-up" of the Arab lands of the Ottoman Empire after their victory and its collapse, and the negotiators were Sir Mark Sykes and Mr François-Georges Picot (which explains why it is known as the "Sykes-Picot Agreement").

The lands concerned became, as a direct result of this agreement, the modern states of Iraq, Syria, the Lebanon, Jordan (originally known as Transjordan) and Palestine. Neither of these colonial powers considered that the inhabitants had any right of self-determination, despite the magnificent efforts made during the war against the Ottoman Empire by the Arab forces, and they divided the lands into zones of influence. Using the present-day names, the British Empire was to have power over Iraq, Jordan and Palestine and France was to control Syria and the Lebanon. In 1919, at the Peace Conference held at Versailles the Arab delegates were given no direct freedom from foreign domination, and finally (as a sort of sop to their pride) two members of the Hashemite family were placed on the newly created thrones of Iraq and Jordan. Since the British Empire War Cabinet had in the meantime (in 1917) made its equally arrogant Balfour Declaration (unanimously with the most honourable exception of its one Jewish member, who understood the danger which it represented) in favour of a Jewish "homeland" in Palestine, this was even included in the terms of the League of Nations Mandate for that part of the territory.

These "Mandates" in respect of lands, whose inhabitants had no say in their future, were "in due course" approved by the League of Nations, and the British Empire divided its zone of influence into Iraq (with a puppet king), Jordan (with its puppet king) and Palestine which was opened up to a chaotic invasion by the Zionists. France, despite its official disapproval of allowing religious bodies to interfere in internal politics in its homeland, decided to enlarge the Lebanon and within the new frontiers to give certain powers to the Churches as a counter-balance to the mainly Muslim areas of Syria.

Prior to this carve-up and take-over the substantial Christian minorities in all the mandated countries had lived in peace with their Muslim neighbours, but an important part of French policy was to divide and rule and this was taken to the extreme level in the new Lebanon by basing the constitution on a system of confessional rights. Under this system, which is the root of all the present troubles in the country, the President has to be a Maronite Christian, the Prime Minister has to be a Sunni Muslim and the President of the Parliament has to be a Shia Muslim. As was no doubt intended, this confessional division of the people gave power to clan chiefs (or warlords) rather than to the ordinary citizen, and this is what (in the sole interest of the Zionists) the "West" still wishes to preserve to weaken any effort that the Lebanese might wish to make to protect themselves from aggression by the invaders who have taken up hostile positions south of their border.

We have to remember that Michel Aflaq and Salah-ad-Din Bitar tried in the early years of the occupation to unite their Arab brethren on a non-confessional basis to resist all foreign interference in the Arab world, but even their Ba'ath Party split. The Iraqi branch came to an end in 2003 as a result of the criminal war waged against the people of the country followed by the USA-led invasion and occupation, and the Syrian branch is under pressure by the same foreign forces which wish it to accept the existence of the aggressive and profoundly racist Zionist régime as a normal neighbour, at a time when it still occupies a critical part of Syria's national territory.

The present régimes in power in the United Kingdom and in France should, by way of a practical apology, do all that they can to right the wrongs done by their predecessors in all five of these states as they now exist, and this they could very easily do with little effort on their part, except in Iraq. There Mr George W. Bush's "Crusade" has made life almost impossible for normal relations to be reestablished between the different religious communities, and the greatest sufferers are the Christians, whose communities date back to before the advent of Islam. Furthermore, the British Empire had already decided when it occupied Iraq in the 1920's to foster distrust between the Shia and Sunni branches of Islam to weaken any resistance to foreign domination, and the USA has continued this policy since its invasion and occupation.

In the four other states as they now exist, the United Kingdom (with support from France) could ensure that the Zionists should face a complete embargo on all commercial, financial and cultural exchanges until the present rulers of Palestine decide to obey all United Nations Resolutions affecting them, and France could put an end to its neo-colonialist interference in internal politics in the Lebanon and also (with support from the United Kingdom) give a helping hand to Syria to liberate its land and end outside threats to its freedom and progress.

There has never been any excuse for a Zionist implantation in Palestine, since (as is now extremely well known) the recent and present generations of "Jews" (as defined by Marr, Herzl, Hitler and others) have little or no biological link with the original Jewish people who lived there in past centuries. If there had not been the foreign colonial interference, it might have been easier to make the mainly Ashkenazi Zionist invaders stay in Europe where they originated, or go elsewhere to such countries as the USA or Australia as normal migrants, and thereby not invade and take over the homes and lands of the genuine descendants of the ancient Jewish people of Palestine*.

Happily, the old British Empire and the former French Colonial Empire have now ceased to exist, but the damage which they wreaked in their greed and arrogance lives on, and the successor governments, on behalf of us all, should take a lead in helping their former mandated territories and their populations to reach freedom and justice. As an additional form of apology they could also promise to end their own neo-colonial ambitions and no longer to interfere, or help others so to do, in these lands which thirst for precisely the freedom and justice which we are all fond of saying are the right of all human beings, without doing anything practical to help bring them about.

* Le Monde Diplomatique in its August 2008 issue has published a most interesting article on this subject entitled "Comment fut inventé le peuple juif" ("How the Jewish People Was Invented") by Professor Shlomo Sand of Tel Aviv University.

Robert Thompson is a French citizen and a retired Trial Lawyer at the Boulogne-sur-Mer Bar. An Oxford graduate, he had travelled to many Arab states for professional reasons.

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