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Sykes-Picot and the Zionists

(American Interest) Martin Kramer - In his memoirs, Chaim Weizmann, the Zionist leader who midwifed the Balfour Declaration, wrote of Sykes-Picot that it was "fatal to us." The Sykes-Picot map's treatment of Palestine divided it five ways. Part of the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee was to be under direct French control. The eastern shore of the lake and the Golan are marked off as part of an Arab state under French protection. The bulk of the country - including Jerusalem, Jaffa, Nazareth, Tiberias, and Gaza - was to be governed by "an international administration, the form of which is to be decided upon after consultation with Russia, and subsequently in consultation with the other Allies [the reference is to Italy], and the representatives of the Shereef of Mecca." The ports of Haifa and Acre, and the plain between them, were to be under direct British administration. Britain wanted this as an end point for a railroad from Baghdad to the Mediterranean. The south of the country, including Hebron and Beersheba, as well as Transjordan, were to be part of an independent Arab state or confederation of states under British protection. Chaim Weizmann was distressed to find that the agreement displayed not a single trace of consideration for Zionist aims. From April 1917, Weizmann devoted himself and his movement to overturning Sykes-Picot. The Zionists had one aim: to swap the Sykes-Picot partition plan for an exclusively British protectorate over the whole of Palestine. Sykes-Picot became a dead letter as regards Palestine no later than 1918, if not earlier. The writer is president of Shalem College in Jerusalem. This essay is based on his presentation at the conference on "100 Years Since the Sykes-Picot Agreement," Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, May 18, 2016.
2016-05-24 00:00:00
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