Introduction

The Origins of Conflict

The bitter struggle between Arab and Jew for control of the Holy Land has caused untold suffering in the Middle East for generations. It is often claimed that the crisis originated with Jewish immigration to Palestine and the foundation of the state of Israel. Yet, the roots of the conflict are to be found much earlier in British double-dealing during the First World War. This is a story of intrigue among rival empires, of misguided strategies, and of how conflicting promises to Arab and Jew created a legacy of bloodshed which has determined the fate of the Middle East.

Secret Plans and Imperial Ambitions

During the First World War, the British, the French, and the Russians had these secret plans to carve up the Ottoman Empire because they believed that would balance out their imperial ambitions. But tough luck for the Turks, the Arabs, and anyone else who got in the way. Certainly, all the seeds were planted then, in the sense that it was the British who promised the Arabs independence on the one hand and a Jewish homeland on the other. You could not simply reconcile one with the other.

British Machinations and Duplicity

The British scattered promises to anyone who might be of some use to them without thinking about the consequences. So, British duplicity, British double-dealing, went a long way to perpetuate the conflict in Palestine. At the end of the day, when you’re fighting a war, you are very liberal in what you’re offering in terms of a post-war settlement. When you get down to the conference table, when the war has ended, and you have to start honoring your agreements, you then have to decide what’s in your interest or not. But you saw the Middle East as a western flank for that power in India and that power in general.

Britain’s Colonial Past and Middle Eastern Ambitions

The story of Britain’s involvement in the Middle East and the ensuing struggle between Arab and Jew begins with her colonial past. At the beginning of the 20th century, King Edward II ruled over a vast empire with interests in every part of the world. India became increasingly important because it was the second pillar of British power in the world. Moving the Indian army about was extremely important in extending British interests and British influence across the globe, and the Suez Canal was, of course, the quick way to do that. It’s very important for the British geopolitical position to ensure the Suez Canal remains safe and secure.

British Presence in the Middle East and Ottoman Alliance

With this aim in mind, Britain had become the only European power to establish a major foothold in the Middle East in the principalities around the Persian Gulf, in Aden, and in Egypt. Britain had annexed Egypt from Turkey’s Ottoman Empire in 1882, and by the time it was made a protectorate in 1914, Cairo had become the center of British power in the Middle East.

The presence of Imperial troops in the region was of vital strategic importance for the Ottoman Empire under Sultan Muhammad I, was in alliance with Britain’s much-feared rival Germany. Together with the Austro-Hungarian Empire, these countries made up the Central Powers, and pitted against them were the three allies: Britain, France, and Russia.

The First World War

The Prelude to Conflict

From the Ottoman capital Constantinople in Turkey, the Sultan ruled over the last of the great Islamic empires. It had been in almost terminal decline for decades, yet the fate of the Ottoman Empire was sealed by the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914.

Global Stalemate and Complex Strategies

In Europe, Germany’s rapid advance was halted by Britain and France along the western front. In the East, Russia’s war against Germany and Austria-Hungary reached deadlock. The powerful weapons of the Industrial Age were killing thousands of men in the trenches of every army.

All of the leading powers expected the war to be over within a matter of months. So, in that sense, all of them were surprised at the end of 1914 when not merely the war was going on but it showed every sign of likely going on for a very long time. At that point, they began to think about new ways of winning the war.

British Machinations and Middle Eastern Perspectives

Britain’s Prime Minister, Asquith, felt that with the stalemate in Europe, it was essential to widen the conflict. Together with Foreign Secretary Lord Grey, Minister for War Lord Kitchener, and the First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill, they masterminded a complex strategy to undermine the Central Powers.

This was a global war, and the British saw the Middle East very much in a global context. The traditional British preference for sideshows, as people unfavorably called it, the indirect strategy, the way of attacking the soft underbelly, as Churchill called it, of the enemy, and the soft underbelly was seen to be Turkey.

Diplomatic Maneuvering and Secret Treaties

Britain’s secret plan involved, on the one hand, a military diversion and, on the other, a devious use of diplomacy through bribery, subversion, and double-dealing. All these devices focused on the enemy’s weakest link, Turkey’s Ottoman Empire.

Diplomacy, in general, has always had a secret dimension to it, but where discretion ends and conspiracy begins is an open question. But during the period up to and during the First World War, there was a particularly intense set of negotiations and discussions between the major imperial powers, between the French, the Russians, and the British, in particular, cutting in the Italians as well, about what they would do when the war was over and when the Ottoman Empire broke up.

Strategic Alliances and Imperial Designs

The British government hoped that by striking a deal over the spoils of war, it would strengthen the alliance against the Central Powers amongst the allies. Russia had long sought access to the Mediterranean.

In a secret treaty of March 1915, Britain and France offered what was to the Tsar a prize of vital geopolitical importance: Constantinople. It was their outlet into the wider world and into the Mediterranean, and it was the one thing, of course, the British and the French had been attempting to prevent the Russians from achieving.

Bribery and Shifting Allegiances

So this is a complete volte-face, this is the British, the French, and the Russians coming to an agreement over something which was up to this point almost inconceivable. Italy’s King Victor Emmanuel was another target for bribery.

Britain, France, and Russia tried to tempt Italy, a pro-German state, to join the Allies. In April 1915, a secret treaty offered Italy a substantial bit of Ottoman real estate in Anatolia. Again, it’s another power coming into the equation and being offered territorial advancement, which in normal circumstances would have been quite inconceivable.

The bribe worked; Italy joined the Allies and declared war on the Central Powers in August 1915.

The Arab Nationalism Movement

Britain’s Strategy to Undermine the Ottoman Empire

Britain’s strategy to undermine the enemy via the Ottoman Empire also required subversion by using domestic opposition to weaken, maybe even destroy it. Britain exploited a new movement sweeping through the empire, nationalism. Nationalism, in the sense of believing that there are peoples with a clear cultural identity and that these people should have independence, spread to the Middle East as to other parts of the world in the latter part of the 19th century.

The Emergence of Arab Nationalism

The beginnings of Turkish nationalism in the Ottoman Empire came to a head when The Young Turks took power in a coup in 1908 and started to impose their language and culture on the Arabs of the empire. However, this only reawakened an interest amongst Arabs in their own heritage. Arabs had a historic grandeur that remained in the consciousness of Arab intellectuals. By the start of the First World War, the antagonism between Arab and Turk had increased.

British Intelligence Confirms Arab Nationalist Movement

By the summer of 1915, British intelligence confirmed that the Arab nationalist movement was the breakthrough the government was looking for. Britain and her French ally dispatched officers to sound out Arab leaders. Both the French and the British started seducing various local Arab leaders, tempting them with promises of independence if they sided with the Allies against the Ottomans.

Sheriff Hussein’s Role

Ironically, the impetus for such a diversion had come not from London but from the Arab world in the Hijaz in Western Arabia. Sheriff Hussein, its ruler, was set on extending his political and geographical domain. He believed he might be able to do it with the help of the British. The British were impressed by Sheriff Hussein’s family credentials as custodians of the holy places of Islam, known as the Hashimites.

Sheriff Hussein’s Correspondence with the British

In July 1915, Sheriff Hussein smuggled a message to the British High Commissioner in Cairo, Sir Henry McMahon, offering to raise a substantial Arab force against the Ottomans in return for British support for Arab independence. In the ensuing secret correspondence between the two men, Sheriff Hussein was given to understand that he could expect British support in achieving some of his ambitions in the event of an Ottoman defeat.

Britain’s Negotiations with France and the Betrayal

Even as Hussein and his son Faisal mobilized their troops, the British were preparing to sell them short. In the spring of 1916, Britain was negotiating with France about the future shape of the Middle East. Behind closed doors, Sir Mark Sykes of the British Foreign Office had been meeting his French counterpart, Francois George-Picot. Britain knew it was vital to offer the French a stake in the spoils of the Ottoman Empire should they win the war.

Sykes Pico Agreement

Sykes and Pico personally drew in the areas they wish to see under their control. Their secret deal amounted to the virtual carve up of the Middle East in area A for the French and area B for the British. The imperialists intended to exercise power indirectly, appointing advisers and taking charge of the finances in their respective spheres of influence. Then there was the area colored blue, which was to be directly controlled by France. This included what was then known as Greater Syria, where the French traditionally had commercial and religious interests. As for the area colored pink known as Iraq, with its strategic ports, railways, and oil, this was to be under British rule.

The area colored yellow represented Palestine and was envisaged as an international zone except for Haifa. What the British wanted was the oil of Iraq, and they concentrated on getting Iraq and getting access from Iraq to the Mediterranean in order to transport this oil. The Sykes-Picot agreement was a pretty shameful document and I wouldn’t attempt to defend it, but it was drawn up by people who were sort of operating under the old balance of power considerations in an imperial frame of mind.

The Arab Revolt and British Strategy

Unaware of these secret dealings behind their backs, Asan and Fisel proclaimed Independence and in June 1916 attacked the Turkish troops. The Arab revolt against the Ottomans had begun. The Turkish Garrison at Mecca was soon overrun and the sea port at Jeddah seized. By 1917, Hussein and Fisel’s forces had pushed north and engaged the Ottoman Turks along the Hijaz railway. The British saw the Arab Revolt as part of its strategy for creating a military diversion against the Central Powers.

In a pincer movement, Britain had launched a campaign from the southwest to ensure control of the Suez Canal and the Levant, and from the southeast, it was fighting to secure the oil wells of Iraq, all this to attack the Central Powers at their weakest point: the Ottoman Empire. The Arabs hitched their fortunes to the British. They considered themselves to be fighting with the Allies but at the same time, they were not merged into the British army. They continued to act as an independent Army called the northern army.

British Leadership and American Influence

While the Arab army advanced northwards, Britain’s General Allenby had crossed the Suez Canal, and by the spring of 1917, his forces had reached the frontier of Palestine. The war in Europe, however, was still not going well for Britain. The attempted push through the German lines at the Somme had produced little territorial gain, and the cost in lives was colossal.

In London, there had been a change of leadership. The new Prime Minister, Lloyd George, felt that the Allied war effort needed a fresh impetus. Although America had so far been neutral in the war, Lloyd George was convinced that could be changed. He believed there was one powerful group which might influence the American government.

Political Power of International Jews

Lloyd George’s Perception of American Decision

Lloyd George thought that the American decision on whether to join or not would depend critically on public opinion, and Jewish support could tilt the scales in one direction or the other. You’ve got to remember that the British Foreign Office greatly overestimated the political power of international Jewry, particularly the wealthy financial and commercial Jewish elites.

What is extraordinary about this situation is that here you have particularly the British seeing the Jewish world as one collective, monolithic entity, and in that sense, they start looking at the role of the Jews in the war as being something which might be important. From the point of view of the Allies, something else quite remarkable is that this monolithic collective entity is pro-German.

The Origins of Zionist Movement

Jewish Influence in German Society

Many Jews in the upper echelons of German society did indeed have close connections to the Kaiser’s foreign office. A new Jewish nationalist movement, Zionism, had also been able to establish its headquarters in Berlin. Zionism had originated in the 1880s after Theodore Herzl published a book espousing the virtues of a Jewish state. This caused a sensation among Jewish intellectuals in Germany, Austria, and Russia who shared Herzl’s outrage at the escalation of anti-Jewish sentiments.

Rise of Anti-Semitism and Zionist Response

The end of the 19th century saw the rise of anti-Semitism all over Europe, in Austria, in Germany, in France, but particularly in Eastern Europe, in Poland, and in Russia. The pogroms against the Jews in Russia gave rise to the establishment of the Lovers of Zion societies in a number of Russian cities, who started to promote, finance, and sponsor colonization and immigration to Palestine. Herzl came to the conclusion that the Jews were not safe anywhere in Europe, and the only solution was for the Jews to have a state of their own over which they could exercise sovereignty and where they would not be a minority.

Historic Jewish Aspirations and the Promised Land

What had also given Zionism its appeal was the way in which it fitted into historic Jewish aspirations scattered throughout the world since the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in the first century AD. Many Jews had cherished the idea of returning one day to what their scriptures had told them was the promised land. In fact, there had already been a small community of indigenous Jews in Palestine, but even when some European Jews established settlements throughout the late 19th century, the whole Jewish community by 1914 constituted barely 8% of the population.

Negotiations with Israel

Zionist Influence in Britain

The Zionist leader in Britain, Chaim Weizmann, had been lobbying the government for a guarantee that in the event of an Ottoman defeat, it would support Jewish immigration to Palestine. By early 1917, Lloyd George’s view of Jews as globally influential convinced him that Zionism was another nationalist movement which should be co-opted to the Allied cause.

In March, Mark Sykes began negotiations with Weizmann. There is a be in the bonnet of people like Mark Sykes, but actually, the Jews do ultimately look to each other and look to their own interest. And if that interest, as they are being told by Weizmann, is what we really want is Palestine, they’re prepared to believe it. They’re prepared to go along with it. As negotiations with Weizmann continued over the following months, the war deteriorated rapidly for the Allies.

Challenges for the Allies

The German submarine campaign seriously weakened Britain’s merchant fleet, and although America had entered the war on the Allied side, President Woodrow Wilson was not yet willing to supply a significant number of troops. Britain’s latest attempt to keep up the pressure on the Western Front soon became bogged down in the muddy trenches of Passchendaele as thousands of young men’s lives were wasted in another fruitless campaign. Morale amongst the soldiers plummeted.

Threat from the East: Russia’s Collapse

But the most serious threat to the Allied war machine came from the East. Russia was on the verge of collapse after massive defeats at the hands of the Germans. The war-weary country was disintegrating with food shortages, strikes, and demonstrations. When the Tsar was deposed in a revolution, Britain and France became greatly alarmed.

The point is that once Russia and its war effort begin to collapse, essentially, the Germans have won the First World War unless they bring the Americans in. There’s no way that the British and the French on their own are ever going to defeat Germany. In October, the British government received an intelligence report suggesting that Jews were a significant influence in the leadership of the Bolshevik party, the new revolutionary movement emerging as the dominant force in Russia.

Balfour Declaration

Lloyd George’s Response to the Communist Threat

Lloyd George feared that these Communists would take Russia out of the war. With the Americans still refusing to commit sufficient forces, he knew it was time to act. He instructed his Foreign Secretary, Arthur Balfour, to issue a pledge to capture the hearts and minds of the Jewish people. His Majesty’s government viewed with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object. The Balfour Declaration was issued on November 2nd, 1917, just as British forces were occupying Palestine.

Understanding the Balfour Declaration

The Balfour Declaration has to be understood not as an idealistic gesture but within the framework of British imperial policy, and Lloyd George was the main instigator of that declaration because he believed that it would serve Britain’s interests. However, this was also the first time that any major European power had given official backing for the Zionist goal of making Palestine into a Jewish homeland.

Arab Reaction and Balfour Declaration’s Stipulations

Yet, Sheriff Hussein had understood that Palestine had been promised as part of his deal for Arab independence. Anticipating Arab outrage at the prospect of a Jewish homeland in a largely Arab province, the Balfour Declaration had also stated that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.

Jews in Palestine

The Declaration nonetheless appears to indicate British support for Jewish immigration. There were only a mere 80,000 Jews out of some 700,000 people in Palestine. The indigenous inhabitants of Palestine were referred to as non-Jewish inhabitants, and Palestine was being identified even at that stage as a Jewish land, while all others had no defined identity—they were simply non-Jewish.

The Balfour Declaration was, as it says, a declaration.

It wasn’t a treaty or a signed agreement; it was a declaration in support of the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine. In fact, the only treaty Britain had signed regarding Palestine was with the French, the secret Sykes-Picot agreement on November 7th.

Within a few days of the Balfour Declaration, the Bolsheviks took power in Russia. Lloyd George hoped that it would have the desired effect of appeasing the Jews in the Communist leadership. However, the argument is illogical and nonsensical. People like Trotsky, Zinoviev, or Radek, key Jewish leaders in the Russian Revolution, were internationalists. There were 15 to 20 Jews in the higher echelons of the Bolshevik party, most of whom were anti-Zionist. After they came to power, they soon issued a declaration stating that Zionism was a capitalist ploy, a capitalist idea.

The Secret Treaties

Implications of Inaccurate Intelligence and Russia’s Actions

The wildly inaccurate intelligence report on which Lloyd George based his strategy was to have major implications for Britain. Within weeks, Russia’s new leaders did exactly the opposite of what he had expected. Not only did they pull out of the war, but they also opened up the archives of the Tsar’s foreign office and published the secret treaties—the very treaties Britain had engineered with her allies to carve up the Ottoman Empire, to which Russia had been privy.

Embarrassment for Western Allies

This was a great embarrassment to the Western allies because they had been making deals behind the scenes, handing out large sections of the world to each other, while openly preaching that they were fighting the war in defense of democracy. They had also been telling, among others, the Arabs that they supported self-determination for the peoples of the Ottoman Empire.

Impact on Arab Perception

The publication of the secret treaties by the Bolsheviks created enormous suspicion in the Arab world. This meant that Sharif Hussein and others questioned the Allies’ motives. They wondered why they were not being given independence and why they were being divided into Zone A and Zone B. At that point, the Arabs realized that not only did the British have their own particular interests, for example, in the ports of Palestine or in Iraq, but they had also promised other things to the French.

Arab confusion and suspicion

Entry into Jerusalem and British Reassurance

General Allenby entered Jerusalem on foot, accompanied by Sykes, Picot, and several other Allied dignitaries. His British forces had captured the holy city in December 1917. Surprisingly, the leaders of the Arab Revolt, including Hussein and Faisal, were nowhere to be seen.

British Message to Arab Leaders

Fearing that Hussein and Faisal might lose heart, the British government forwarded a message to them reiterating British commitment to Arab Independence. The message emphasized that the Arab race shall be given full opportunity to form a nation once again. However, it emphasized that this could only be achieved by the Arabs themselves uniting. Great Britain and her allies pledged to pursue policies with this ultimate unity in view.

Hussein’s Loyalty and British Initiative

Hussein remained loyal to the Allied cause and was still prepared to accept Britain’s word on Arab Independence, although he spoke of settling accounts after the war. From Allenby’s point of view, he continued to rely on Arab support in the war against the Ottomans. However, now that Jerusalem had been occupied by the British, one party seized the initiative.

The Arab Revolt

Heim Weizmann’s Visit and the Hebrew University

In April 1918, Heim Weizmann and the international Zionist commissioner traveled to Palestine to lay the foundation for a Hebrew University. Their hope was that it would become the intellectual hub of Zionism. However, Weizmann’s visit caused widespread alarm and indignation among the Arab population. When he and the chief Rabbi of Jerusalem met General Allenby, it seemed as if Britain was preparing to honor the Balfour Declaration.

British Forces Enter Damascus

Six months later, Allenby’s forces entered Damascus alongside Faisal’s Northern Army. They had pushed the Ottoman troops north through Palestine into Syria. The Arab Revolt contributed to the victory of the Allies in several ways: it protected the British flank in Palestine, kept Turkish and German troops preoccupied, and legitimized British actions with the blessing of a particular Arab force.

Faisal’s Victory Parade

On the 3rd of October, the people of Damascus flocked to Faisal’s Victory Parade. He understood the importance of seizing power and making his presence felt, being seen by the Arab people as their liberator.

The Fall of Damascus

Faisal’s Meeting with General Allenby

Later the same day, Faisal met with General Allenby at the Victoria Hotel in Damascus. Allenby warned him that his rule in Syria would be limited. By that time, the British knew they were going to hand over Syria to the French, so they couldn’t accept Faisal as a legitimate ruler. All they could do was pay his salary and the expenses of his army and administration.

Undaunted by Allenby’s warnings, Faisal assumed the title of governor of Damascus. With the support of his father, Sheriff Hussein, he set about creating a power base for their goal of an independent Arab state.

End of Ottoman Rule

On the 31st of October, the Ottomans were finally defeated. At 11:00 on the 11th of November 1918, the guns fell silent in Europe as the war with the Central Powers came to an end.

Versailles Peace Conference

The Peace Conference at Versailles

The peace conference at Versailles began in January 1919, where representatives of the victorious allies, such as the French Prime Minister Clemenceau and the American President Woodrow Wilson, gathered to sort out the fate of the former territories of the defeated empires. The liberal use of promises by the British government had to be prioritized. They made pledges to the Arabs, the Jews, the French, the Russians, and others, viewing the world through an imperial lens.

Britain and France faced opposition from President Woodrow Wilson’s vision of a new world order that promoted national self-determination. While independence seemed possible for many, the principle of self-determination was forgotten when it came to the people of the Middle East. Britain and France were free to proceed with their agreement regarding the Sykes-Picot carve-up.

The Fate of Palestine and the Middle East

The promises made by Britain to the Jews regarding Palestine were significant. Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour hinted at a cynical agenda regarding Palestine during the Versailles peace talks. The League of Nations was created at the conclusion of the Versailles conference on June 28, 1919, establishing the first global institution for peace and security.

The League’s Covenant stipulated that the Arab and other territories ceded by the defeated Ottoman Empire should be administered by mandates, granting Britain and France the authority to impose their rule over the Arab territories.

On November 21, 1919, Francois George Picot and the French General Gouraud arrived in Beirut, marking the imposition of the French mandate for Syria and Lebanon. By August 7, 1920, Faisal had been deposed and forced to flee to Palestine, as the promises of a single independent state to Sharif Hussein and Faisal became distant memories for the Europeans.

The Seeds of Partition

Sykes-Picot Agreement

The issue of spheres of influence initially appeared to suggest a willingness to accept a single Arab state. However, the Sykes-Picot Agreement diluted this prospect. The agreement, which divided the Middle East into French and British areas, laid the groundwork for partition. Both independence and unity were denied to the region as a result.

The boundaries and governments of the emerging Middle Eastern states bore the unmistakable imprint of the Sykes-Picot Agreement. The French mandate encompassed Lebanon and Syria, while the British mandate covered Transjordan and Palestine. Mesopotamia, including the oil-rich fields of Mosul, became the British mandate for Iraq. This division facilitated British access to the region’s oil reserves for future exploitation.

British Rule and Arab Expectations

British rule initially faced rejection by the Iraqi people until Faisal was installed as King in July 1921. Britain hoped that granting limited power to Faisal would alleviate frustrations over the lack of Arab independence. However, Sharif Hussein, who had expected more from the British, never relinquished his belief that they had promised him independence not only in Arabia but also in Syria and Iraq.

While Sharif Hussein’s dream of an Arab kingdom ruled by the Hashemites was partially realized with his son Abdullah becoming King of Transjordan, their rivalry with Ibn Saud led to the Hashemites’ expulsion from Hijaz when Ibn Saud conquered the Arabian Peninsula.

In Palestine, an administration was established by the British in the spring of 1920, with no plans for devolving power. Palestine, a land sacred to three religions, had a history of harmonious coexistence among Jews, Christians, and Muslims. However, the Balfour Declaration promising Jews a homeland in Palestine was incorporated into the British mandate at Versailles, opening the door to new European Jewish immigration.

The Balfour Declaration

Zionist Activities and Palestinian Discontent

With celebrations and parades supporting Zionist activities, it appeared that the British were inclined to honor their pledges to the Jews while disregarding Palestinian hopes for independence. The Arab community in Palestine, though having a strong case, lacked effective advocates compared to the Zionist movement, which had brilliant advocates like Chaim Weizmann.

Zionism, a successful public relations story of the 20th century, saw its traditional Jewish advocacy skills exemplified by Weizmann. Zionist groups financed land purchases and settlements for immigrant Jews, while political and security organizations supported the emerging Jewish homeland. This incensed the Palestinian Arab community, who couldn’t fathom their country being divided or given away to another community they viewed as foreign to the region.

Consequences of the Balfour Declaration

Arthur Balfour’s visit to the new Jewish settlements in Palestine in 1925 elevated him as a hero of the Zionist cause. However, the immigration of European Jews had unforeseen consequences for British rule in Palestine. The Balfour Declaration, committing Britain to support Jewish nationalism in Palestine, was deemed one of the most serious mistakes in British imperial history. It laid the groundwork for the eventual creation of the state of Israel in 1948, with British support being crucial in its establishment and protection.

Legacy of British Policy

Throughout the 1930s and 40s, Jewish immigration to Palestine increased, leading to polarization and violence between Arabs and Jews. Britain’s restrictive immigration policies in response to Arab terrorism further fueled Jewish terrorism. Eventually, Britain relinquished its mandate, and the state of Israel was established, leading to conflicts with its Arab neighbors and the displacement of Palestinian Arabs.

The strategies employed by Britain during World War I inadvertently deepened the divide between Arabs and Jews, leaving a legacy of double-dealing and betrayal. While the roots of present-day Middle Eastern problems trace back to the First World War, attributing all current issues solely to that period would be a mistake. Nonetheless, the frustrated expectations and double-dealing of that era significantly contributed to the complex geopolitical landscape of the region.