Jerusalem: The Biography

Each act of violence fed the extremists on both sides. Jabotinsky absolutely recognized that Arab nationalism was as real as Zionism. He argued implacably that the Jewish state, which he believed should encompass both banks of the Jordan, would be violently opposed and could be defended only with an ‘iron wall’. In the mid-twenties, Jabotinsky split off to form the Union of Zionist-Revisionists with a youth movement, Betar, that wore uniforms and held parades. He wanted to create a new sort of activist Jew, no longer dependent on the genteel lobbying of Weizmann. Jabotinsky was adamant that his Jewish commonwealth would be built with ‘absolute equality’ between the two peoples and without any displacement of the Arabs. When Benito Mussolini came to power in 1922, Jabotinsky mocked the cult of Il Duce – ‘the most absurd of all English words – leader. Buffaloes follow a leader. Civilised men have no “leaders”.’ Yet Weizmann called Jabotinsky ‘Fascistic’ and Ben-Gurion nicknamed him ‘Il Duce’.

King Faisal, the hope of the Arab nationalists – was doomed by French determination to possess Syria. The French forcibly expelled the king and smashed his ragtag army, completing the collapse of Lawrence’s plans. The end of Greater Syria and the riots helped form a Palestinian national identity.^*

On 24 April 1920, at the San Remo Conference, Lloyd George accepted the Mandate to rule Palestine, based on the Balfour Declaration, and appointed Sir Herbert Samuel as the first high commissioner. He arrived at the station in Jerusalem on 30 June, resplendent in a white uniform, pith helmet with feathers, and a sword, to the boom of a seventeen-gun salute. Samuel may have been Jewish and a Zionist but he was no dreamer: Lloyd George found him ‘dry and cold’. A journalist thought he was ‘as free from passion as an oyster’ and one of his officials noted he was ‘stiffish – never seems able to forget his office’. When the military governor handed over control of Palestine, Samuel managed one of his few recorded jokes, signing a chit that read ‘Received from Major-General Sir Louis J Bols KCB, One Palestine, complete.’ He then added ‘E and O [Errors and Omissions] excepted’, but there would be many of both.

Initially Samuel’s calm tact soothed Palestine after the shock of Nabi Musa. Setting up Government House in the Augusta Victoria on the Mount of Olives, he released Jabotinsky, pardoned Amin Husseini, temporarily limited Jewish immigration and reassured the Arabs. British interests were no longer the same as they had been in 1917. Curzon, now foreign secretary, was opposed to full-blown support for Zionism and watered down Balfour’s promises. There would be a Jewish home but no state then or later. Weizmann felt betrayed but the Arabs regarded even this as disastrous. By 1921, a total of 18,500 Jews had arrived in Palestine. During the next eight years, Samuel allowed in another 70,000.¹⁶

In the spring of 1921, Samuel’s boss Winston Churchill, the secretary of state for colonial affairs, arrived in Jerusalem accompanied by his adviser Lawrence of Arabia.

CHURCHILL CREATES THE MODERN MIDDLE EAST: LAWRENCE’S SHERIFIAN SOLUTION

‘I liked Winston so much,’ said Lawrence afterwards, ‘and have such respect for him.’ Churchill had already enjoyed a career of swashbuckling adventure, bumptious self-promotion and irrepressible success. Now in his late forties, the colonial secretary was confronted with the punishing cost in blood and treasure of garrisoning a new empire: Iraq was already in the grip of a bloody insurgency against British rule. Churchill therefore called a conference in Cairo to hand over a certain amount of power to Arab rulers under British influence. Lawrence proposed granting a new kingdom of Iraq to Faisal.

On 12 March 1920, Churchill convened his Arab experts in the Semiramis Hotel while a pair of Somalian lion cubs played around their feet. Churchill enjoyed the luxury, having no wish to experience ‘thankless deserts’, but Lawrence hated it. ‘We lived in a marble bronze hotel,’ he wrote. ‘Very expensive, and luxurious – horrible place. Makes me Bolshevik. Everybody in the Middle East is here. Day after tomorrow, we go to Jerusalem. We’re a very happy family: agreed upon everything important’ – in other words, Churchill had accepted the ‘Sherifian solution’: Lawrence finally saw some honour restored in the wake of the broken British promises to the sherif and his sons.

The old sherif, King Hussein of Hejaz, was no match for the Wahabi warriors led by the Saudi chieftain Ibn Saud.^* When his son Abdullah tried to repel the Saudis with 1,350 fighters, they were routed: Abdullah had to flee through the back of his tent in his underwear, surviving ‘by a miracle’. They had planned that Faisal would rule Syria-Palestine and Abdullah would be king of Iraq. Now that Faisal was getting Iraq, this left nothing for Abdullah.