Our Price: $49.95 Availability: Usually ships within 6 to 8 days
Hardcover ñ (September 2000)
This book thoroughly examines the correspondence between Britain's Lord Kitchener and Sir Henry McMahon and Sherif Hussein of Mecca. The dominant theme of those letters relates to "Arab independence," a loose phrase that has caused a great deal of misunderstanding.
Friedman found McMahon's original Arabic October 24, 1915 letter as well as its retranslation into English by the Cairo British office from November 1919. By comparing these two letters, he makes it clear that both the Arab and British understood that Palestine was NOT to be included in the British pledge.
Hussein actually welcomed the return of the Jewish people to Palestine, as did his son Emir Feisal, who believed that Arab-Jewish cooperation would be a boon to Arab independence, and prevent European interference.
This evidence is bolstered by Friedman's presentation of a Sept. 16, 1916 note from Sir Edward Grey, the British foreign secretary, to Sir James Rodd, ambassador in Rome. It confirms an earlier correspondence in which Grey had authorized Sir Reginald Wingate in the Sudan to assure Sherif Hussein that any terms of peace would place "the Arabian peninsula and its Mohammeden Holy Places in the hands of an independent Sovereign Moslem State."
Friedman shows other proof as well. Arnold Toynbee, who attended the January and February 1919 Peace Conference, testified that the Emir Feisal specifically excluded Palestine and Lebanon from Arab national aspirations. Friedman also shows how Toynbee later created the myth of a twice promised land, although he knew perfectly well that Palestine had never been promised to the Arabs, that it had been promised only to the Jewish people.
Friedman fully examines the terms of the Weizmann-Feisal Agreement of 1919. Regarding Zionist aspirations in Palestine, Feisal said: "[The] Arabs admit the moral claims of the Zionists. They regard the Jews as kinsmen whose just claims they will be glad to see satisfied."
Feisal added, "No true Arab can be suspicious of Jewish nationalism....and I do say to the Jews--welcome back home.... Dr. Weizmann's ideals are ours."
Friedman's second volume, forthcoming, will cover 1920 through 1939, and the creation of the historical myth.
