"How Britain Started the Arab-Israeli Conflict"

"Palestine 1920: The Other Side of the Palestine Story – Dispelling the Myth of "A land without a people"

The following documentary provides information and geopolitical context regarding the secret 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement during World War I in addition to the 1920 Balfour Declaration which were pivotal in helping to create the conditions in Palestine which bring us to the horrors we are witnessing today.

The first World War changed everything.

The bitter struggle between Arab and Jew for control of the Holy Land has caused untold suffering in the Middle East for generations. It is often claimed that the crisis originated with Jewish emigration to Palestine and the foundation of the state of Israel. Yet the roots of the conflict are to be found much earlier – in British double-dealing during the First World War.

This is a story of intrigue among rival empires; of misguided strategies; and of how conflicting promises to Arab and Jew created a legacy of bloodshed which determined the fate of the Middle East.

Add to the foregoing the information in the following Al Jazeera documentary and one has a better, more focused understanding of what actually occurred, including how vibrant and progressive Palestine once was until everything was taken from them, the indigenous people.

“A land without a people, and a people without a land” is how the relationship between Palestine and the Jewish people was described by Christian writers in the 1800s. And the 20th-century history of the Middle East has largely been written through these eyes.

But this film from Al Jazeera Arabic looks at Palestine from a different angle. It hears from historians and witness accounts, and features archive documents that show Palestine as a thriving province of Greater Syria and the Ottoman Empire at the dawn of the 20th century.

The evidence suggests that its cities had a developing trade and commercial sector, growing infrastructure, and embryonic culture that would enable it to meet the challenges of the decades ahead.

However, the political ramifications of the [1917] Balfour Declaration, San Remo Conference and [the 1920] British Mandate set in motion a series of events that profoundly affected this vibrant, fledgeling society and led to the events of 1948 and beyond.

This film is the other side of the Palestinian story.

It is hocking. Heartbreaking.

If you haven’t already, I highly recommend watching Al Jazeera’s excellent documentary, Al-Nakba.

Al-Nakba: The Palestinian Catastrophe – "A series on the Palestinian ‘catastrophe’ of 1948 that led to dispossession and conflict that still endures."