This is apropos a Business Recorder op-ed “The Palestinian resistance” carried by the newspaper on Tuesday. Undoubtedly, the writer, Rashed Rahman, has presented a highly scholarly perspective on the situation by tracing the history of the Israeli-Arab conflict in an attempt to discover its true origin.

He has tried to bring clarity to the complexities of the Middle East in early 20th century by explaining how the imperial competition shaped the region.

In this regard, the writer has stated, among other things, that “The Zionist movement emerged in Europe in the late 19th century as a response to the long standing persecution of Jews in the continent.

The looming defeat of the Turkish Ottoman Empire in WWI provided the British and French with the opportunity to divide up the potentially oil-rich Arab colonies of that empire through manoeuvres such as the Sykes-Picot Agreement.

The post-WWI British Mandate over Palestine opened the floodgates to Jewish immigration from all over the world. ...” However, my own understanding of the conflict says that the so-called secret agreement between Great Britain and France, the Sykes-Picot Agreement, had stipulated, among other things, establishment of an “international administration” for Palestine.

It had been prepared with the knowledge and acquiescence of Russia prior to the overthrow of tsarist regime by the Bolsheviks. In my view, the Sykes-Picot Agreement was essentially developed to facilitate the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire.

It specified how influence in the Middle East might be divided between Great Britain and France (Russia was promised control over Armenia and some Kurdish areas).

Nowhere did the Agreement call for establishment of a homeland for Jewish people in any part of the world; it was in fact the 1917 Balfour Declaration that promised British support for the creation of a Jewish national home in Palestine.

Therefore, the Balfour Declaration, not the Sykes-Picot Agreement, was an act most crucial to the creation of Israel in 1948.

Abu Omar

Karachi

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023