The Weizmann-Feisal Agreement, January 1919: An Early Peace Agreement with the Arabs

The Weizmann-Feisal Agreement, January 1919: An Early Peace Agreement with the Arabs

During the First World War, Emir Faisal, son of Sherif Hussein of Mecca, the Hashemite ruler of Hejaz (today Saudi Arabia) led a revolt against the Turks, made famous in the film "Lawrence of Arabia" (T.E. Lawrence). The revolt's British backers believed that Arab and Jewish nationalists could work together to build a new Middle East. 

T.E. Lawrence at Aqaba, 1917
Photograph: Wikimedia

96 years ago this week, Chaim Weizmann, the leader of the World Zionist Organization, signed an agreement with Faisal for peace and co-operation between the two movements at the Paris Peace conference. Weizmann had already met Feisal in 1918, when he visited Palestine with a delegation of Zionists in the wake of the Balfour Declaration. You can see an account of their meeting by the British interpreter here.

On June 17, 1918, Weizmann wrote to his wife Vera in London about the romantic journey along the Red Sea past the "glowing mountains" of Sinai via Aqaba to the Anglo-Arab army in southeast Transjordan. Here he met Faisal: "the first real Arab nationalist I have met. He is a leader! He is quite intelligent and a very honest man, handsome as a picture. He is not interested in Palestine, but on the other hand he wants Damascus and the whole of northern Syria."

Weizmann and Feisal at their meeting in Ma'an , June 1918.
Photograph: Yad Chaim Weizmann, Weizmann Archives, Rehovot, Israel

Faisal was afraid that the French would try to take over Syria. Weizmann noted that he was contemptuous of the Palestinians and did not regard them as Arabs. He saw Faisal as an alternative to the Palestinian leadership which was hostile to the Zionists' aspirations. Although Zionist colonization would benefit the Arab peasants, they wrongly believed that the Jews would take away their land. Weizmann did not realize the depth of Arab nationalism, which was in its early stages but would quickly gain ground.

In December 1918, Faisal and Weizmann met again in London. In the interim, Faisal had captured Damascus, which he hoped would be the capital of the Arab Kingdom promised by the British, but his regime there was fragile. In their talk on December 11, Weizmann promised help from the Zionist movement. They agreed to cooperate against the Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916, which divided Palestine into British and French spheres of influence and gave Syria to the French. An agreement was drawn up, signed on January 3, 1919, in which Faisal expressed approval for the Balfour Declaration and Jewish settlement in Palestine. Other clauses ensured freedom of religion and Muslim control of the Holy Places sacred to Islam. In the original, held in the Central Zionist Archives, you can see the reservation in Arabic Faisal added in his own handwriting, saying: "If the Arabs are established as I have asked in my manifesto of January 4, addressed to the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, I will carry out what is written in this agreement. If changes are made, I cannot be answerable for failing to carry out this agreement."

On February 6, 1919, Faisal appeared before the peace conference and demanded an Arab state, excluding Palestine from his demands. However, under pressure from Arab nationalists, he later retracted. In the summer of 1919, the first Syrian Congress proclaimed the Arabs' desire for a united independent Syria, including Palestine and Lebanon. In March 1920, Faisal was proclaimed King of Greater Syria. However, by July the French had driven him out of Damascus, and Syria became a French mandate. The British, who had just created the state of Iraq (a move leading to many current problems), compensated Faisal by making him its king. His brother Abdullah became Emir of Transjordan and later King of Jordan.

The documents and quotes shown here come from the Weizmann Archives in Rehovot and were published in the "Letters and Papers of Chaim Weizmann" series. In 1994, the Israel State Archives published some of them in Hebrew in itscommemorative volume on Chaim Weizmann, Israel's first president.

Monday, November 18, 2013

November 11 - 95 years since the end of the First World War

95 years ago this month, the guns in Europe fell silent. After four years of terrible carnage, millions of casualties, destruction, famine, plague (the Spanish influenza), and genocide (the Armenian genocide), the Great War came to an end. In other theaters of conflict it had already ended--the war in the Middle East ended on October 30, when the Ottoman Empire surrendered to the Allies. In other places, it went on. The German troops in Eastern Africa kept on fighting for another two weeks. The Russian civil war, an offshoot of the Great War, kept on for another three years.

This coming year, 2014, will be the centenary of the beginning of the war, and in many places in the world (in Europe especially) ceremonies are being prepared, memorials erected, and new publications are coming out, revealing new material and recalling the history of that great struggle. We, in the Israel State Archives, also plan to publish documents and other material connected to the First World War.

The First World War is a fault line in history. It was an end point and a beginning point simultaneously. The effects of the war are felt to this day. Although there is a tendency to regard the Second World War as more important (due to its global size, its enormity in death and destruction, and its horrible barbarity), the first war is just as important, since it began changes that the second war finalized.

The First World War brought an end to four great dynasties that ruled their countries and shaped history for centuries: The Hapsburgs, who had ruled central Europe and other parts of the continent since the 12th century; The Romanovs, who had ruled Russia since the 16th century; The Ottomans, who had ruled the Middle East and parts of Europe since the 15th century; and the Hohenzollerns, who had ruled Prussia since the 18th century and the whole of Germany since the end of the 19th century. The First World War saw the rise of Bolshevism and the revolution in Russia. It also directly affected the rise of Fascism and Nazism, even as it spurred the emergence of ideas such as self-determination, human rights, women's suffrage, and international organizations such as the League of Nations.

The outcome of the First World War is felt to this day in different places in the world, especially in the Middle East: The secret Sykes-Picot agreement, signed covertly during the war, carved the Arab-dominated areas into British and French influence zones, shaping the borders of the Middle East to the present moment. The Syrian civil war and the ongoing sectarian war in Iraq can be seen as the collapse of this arrangement. The Kurdish people who were separated into four different countries by the Sykes-Picot deal are still trying to establish their own national home. The First World War also gave rise to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk – the founder of modern, secular Turkey. His heroic defense of Gallipoli in 1915 made him a hero, and Gallipoli became a rallying point for his supports and adherents. Elsewhere, countries like Australia and New Zealand regard the First World War (especially thelanding in Gallipoli) as a kind of founding moment for their statehood and a source of national pride (April 25 – ANZAC day).

We have posted in the past several stories regarding the First World War:
 

1)     Photographs of the First World War – a series of photographs showing German soldiers in the First World War, part of President Ben-Zvi's collection.

2)     The story behind a photograph of the German commander of the Middle East, Erich von Falkenhein and the story of his daughter, photographed with him in the old train station of Jerusalem.

As mentioned before, we hope to bring to light more information from the archives regarding this momentous period in history.