April 30, 2022

The Art of Being Winston Churchill: The Middle East

By BARRY SINGER

On New Year’s Day 1921, Prime Minister David Lloyd George named Winston Churchill his Secretary of State for the Colonies, further extending the extraordinary reversal of Churchill’s fortunes since he had returned from the trenches less than five years earlier. In his new job, Churchill became chiefly concerned with the Middle East and Ireland, two of the most intractable problem regions then under British Rule, and the subjects for the next two issues of Finest Hour.

In the Middle East, Churchill labored toward the creation of a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine in order to fulfill the pledge made by the British government in the 1917 Balfour Declaration. Churchill also worked to carve Arabic entities out of the conquered territories of the defeated Ottoman Empire. The major decisions were made at a meeting held in Cairo in March 1921. Churchill then worked to implement these decisions during his remaining time at the Colonial Office in 1921 and 1922.

Mesopotamia became the nation of Iraq under the leadership of the Emir Feisal ibn Hussein. Palestine was divided along the line of the Jordan River. The eastern region became the nation of Jordan under Feisal’s elder brother, Abdullah. Western Palestine remained under British control with a mandate from the League of Nations to shepherd the region towards self government. This enabled the British to allow Jewish immigration into lands between the Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea thus satisfying the terms of the Balfour Declaration.

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“It is manifestly right that the Jews, who are scattered all over the world, should have a national centre and a National Home where some of them may be reunited,” Churchill told the Arab delegation in Jerusalem after the Cairo Conference. 

Although Jewish immigration was restricted based on the ambiguous concept of the capacity of the economy to absorb immigrants, Churchill continued vigorously defending the Jewish settlement in the House of Commons. Ultimately both Parliament and the League of Nations approved the agreements. In this way, the international community formally recognized the right of the Jewish people to establish a home in Palestine.

Barry Singer is proprietor of Chartwell Booksellers in New York City and author of Churchill Style (2012).