The Balfour Can of Worms
Also called the
Balfour Declaration:
How did it happen that the urbane, charming, and cultured
Foreign Secretary of Great Britain in World War l, Lord Balfour, maneuvered his
country into a position where it became hated by two warring nations, the
Palestinians and the Israelis? His declaration brought Palestine under British administration, but
conferred domicile equally upon two parties, the Palestinians and the Israelis.
As a result neither one of these two parties was ever satisfied, because each
claimed the land as his own. The original Palestinians, who had possessed it as
their own land under the Turkish Empire , lost
their land; and the Israelites, who saw this as their chance to have a
sovereign territory of their own, did not get one. The British put themselves
in the position of an umpire trying to enforce law and order between two
heavy-weight fighters who did not acknowledge Queensbury Rules. The result was
that both fighters turned on the umpire and engaged in anti-British terrorism.
This went on for about forty years until the British simply hauled down their
flag and marched home a few years after World War ll. It was the only thing
they could do.
But, for the world in general, the problem did not go away.
It is still there, and it is a festering sore that threatens to bring about
another Armageddon at any moment. It has led to implacable hatred between the
Western world and the Arab nations. The Arab nations say that it was the
Western nations that persecuted the Jews and tried to exterminate them in World
War ll; but now the Western nations want to take Arab lands and force the Arabs
to compensate the Jews by giving up sovereign territory to them.
So, why did this happen? How could such a highly intelligent
man do something so stupid?
The reason lies in New
York . John Pierpoint Morgan was called the King of
New York. He died in 1913. His son, John Pierpoint Morgan, Jnr (1867-1943)
raised loans for Great
Britain throughout World War l on the
gigantic New York Bond Market. To do that he cultivated a syndicate including
many Jewish merchants and bankers. About one week before America declared war on Germany , Great Britain was practically
bankrupt. It was spending an average of five million pounds a day to prosecute
the war. In those days that was worth a lot more than today. Great Britain
not only bore the costs of its own armies, but also a large part of the cost of
the French armies. After the war it paid all the money back to America
in full but was never paid back by the French.
That is why the wealth of my family was decimated by
converting dated War Loan Bonds forcibly into undated Consolidated War Loan or
"Consols".
Even before America
entered the war Morgan told Balfour that, unless he gave Palestine
to the Jews, Britain would
get no more loans from New York .
Balfour and the whole cabinet knew that without the American loans they would
lose the war. The German Chancellor Bethman-Hollweg had also known that all
along, and that's why he was opposed to unrestricted submarine warfare against
neutrals. But he was finally over-ruled by the Kaiser.
Balfour was in an invidious position, because he had already
promised T.E.Lawrence via General Allenby that the British Government would
grant full independence to the Arabs after the war, and the Arabs believed Lawrence . They knew he
was a man of honor, which he indeed was. That is why he was so ashamed that he
changed his name to T.E.Shaw and became a simple airman after the war. It was
like suicide. The Arabs had fought on the side of the British because of the
promise given them by Lawrence ,
but the British had stabbed both them and Lawrence in the back.
But it was not Balfour who really muddied the waters and
stirred up the broth of hatred into such a poisonous brew that it would consign
the whole world to perdition: it was Sykes and Picot. These cheap,
short-termist propagandists with both eyes on the main chance served their
respective governments, Britain
and France, not only by settling Palestine
in a way about as straight as a cork-screw. They settled the whole of the
erstwhile Turkish Empire for the benefit of
their own multi-national oil companies and other commercial and strategic interests.
Where there were oil reserves they set up tiny domains, and where there was
less oil they tried to domicile larger populations, so that the smaller
oil-producing countries could easily be bullied by the foreign corporations.
They wanted to make the world safe for European capitalists to go on exploiting
in aeternum. And all this was duly incorporated into the
obnoxious Treaty of Versailles, which was the true foundation stone of World
War ll, as well as the recent Wars with Sadam Hussein, and various other
shamozzles.
Sykes was one of those men in dark grey suits who hang about
around government ministers and tell them what to do without appearing to do
so. He came from an old, illustrious family with a prestigious estate in Yorkshire . He arranged for General Allenby to walk into Jerusalem on foot like a pilgrim, with no banners waving,
in an attempt to convey the message that Britain had no intention to
interfere with the religious beliefs of the people. But the effect was spoiled
when Allenby made his own speech in front of a good number of Muslim leaders
and gave them the impression that he considered his victory over Jerusalem as not only the
end of Turkish rule but also the conclusion of a victorious Christian crusade.
On hearing that they all got up and walked off. He also conveyed the impression
that British rule was there to stay.
Simultaneously Sykes organized propaganda for the benefit of
the British public by which he conveyed the clear message that the conquest of Jerusalem meant that Allenby
had succeeded where King Richard l, The Lion-Heart, had failed. He openly
presented this event as the triumph of Christianity over Islam. It was a piquant
case of double-dealing marred only by its crudity and inefficacy. None-the-less
the church bells were rung in celebration throughout Britain .
In effect, the British government was trying to convince the
Palestinians that the conquest of Jerusalem was not
directed against Islam, while at the same time informing the British public
that it was a victory over Islam. And this was the power that considered itself
expert enough to have a mandate to rule a foreign country that it quite
obviously never understood. This is not just stupidity. It is culpable,
criminal stupidity.
I have another bone to pick. I believe that we were probably
on the wrong side anyway in World War One. The murder of the Archduke
Franz-Ferdinand was a terrorist act by a Serbian subject of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire. The Russians got angry with Austria
for attempting to suppress further terrorism in Serbia . That was because of their
ethnic and communal links with the Serbians, who are a Slavic people. But Russia was interfering in the sovereign
jurisdiction of Austria , so Austria went to
their fellow Germans for protection and it was guaranteed. Then the Tsar
mobilized the Russian Army. Now the Germans were experts at the game of
mobilization. They worked on the principle that the country that could mobilize
the largest number of troops the quickest would win a war. Using their railway
system controlled by Army staff officers they could mobilize four million
combat troops in three months, the French could mobilize three million in four
months, and the Russians could mobilize six million or more in about six
months. So the clock mattered as much as the numbers. If you started
mobilization late you could not get the numbers. That was the crux of the
matter. That is why the unilateral order of the Tsar for full mobilization (not
partial mobilization) was an irresponsible act that made it mandatory for Germany also to mobilize, otherwise it could not
fulfill its obligations to Austria .
But once Germany started
mobilization they were in top gear to go all-out to Paris under the Schlieffen Plan. (Before
General Shlieffen died he raised his weary body on the bed and croaked "Keep the right wing heavy."
It was his last words.)
The Germans did not want to mobilize, because they knew that
once their war machine got into gear it could not be stopped. That is why they
gave an ultimatum to Tsar Nicholas. Unless he stopped full mobilization, they
would start full mobilization also. But the dumb Tsar would not listen to them.
Blindly he threw the world into war. And we British came in because we were
tied to Russia and France by the
Treaty of the Triple Alliance. This was a stupid treaty and a stupid reason for
fighting. It just turned us into a pawn of that dumb Tsar. For that we threw
away our best blood and most of our treasure.
It's no use moaning to me about honoring the sacrifices of
our dead soldiers, because I know that Almighty God has already honored those
martyrs more than I ever could, and their spirits are safely in His hands,
along with the spirits of their erstwhile enemies. They know now that we are
all one: one with God and one with one another. They know now that, if you are
a good person, death is just a blip on the radar screen of life. I can sing
"Silent Night" in German as well as English. "Fear not him who
can kill only your body, but rather fear Him Who can cast both soul and body
into eternal death." {There is no such thing as hell. Sheol in Hebrew means the grave or death.)
Besides, shedding your blood can't make something right when
it was wrong to begin with. Just what were we supporting in World War l, the
terrorism against Austria ,
or the Slav expansionist policy of Russia ? Or were we just looking for
some excuse to turn ourselves into America 's poodle? It seems like
masochism to me.
What bothers me is that the whole mind-set of the Christian
parties involved was based on faulty biblical exegesis . Apparently the British Christians believed that the Holy Land had been given to the Hebrews by Almighty God.
This is wrong. The providence of Almighty God is far above the level at which
matters of land and property are decided. He has more important matters to
attend to. He has appointed approximately 700,000 Paradise Creator Sons to
create local universes of a standard maximum size of 10,000,000 inhabited
worlds each. In turn, each of
these Sons creates a large staff of other perfect Sons of God to organize his
local universe. Among these are the Voronandek Sons of God at Norlatiadek who
govern our constellation of 100,000 worlds. These Sons have the title of
"Most Highs", and can sometimes intervene in such matters. They are
not God, but they are certainly divine beings working in harmony with the
Trinity Government under the counsel of the Faithful of Days, ambassador of the
Ancients of Days on Uversa.
But they are not known to the biblical authors. In the Bible
the claim of the Jews that God granted them
the Promised Land was derived by working backwards from a posteriori hypothesis. The Jews believed that God was the God of
both Nature and History, and that He revealed His will by the events of nature
and history, and that by interpreting such events correctly one could discover
the will of God AFTER they happened. In that way the fact that they themselves
had conquered some land could be attributed to the will of God, Who alone could
have given strength to their arms, confusion to their enemies, and success to
their efforts. This was rather the way Charles l argued for the divine right of
kings. It had happened, so it must have been God's will for it to happen. But
that is definitely NOT the way the providence of God works. However I do not
want to get into a long-winded disquisition about that extremely complex
matter, which would take a whole book to discuss.
The main point is that it is very dangerous to misinterpret
any book that you believe to be Holy Writ. And all such books have almost
always been misinterpreted by someone somewhere. That is why religionists
always squabble among themselves, Christians with Christians, Muslims with
Muslims, and so on. The worst wars are either about religious ideologies or
secular ideologies. I don't like any kind of ideology.
Signing off at Malbazar on Aug 21, 2012
John Robert Thwaytes
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