Part IV

THE PALESTINE DIARY By Robert John and Sami Hadawi Third Edition 2006 from Amazon.com Paperback: Volume I 438 pages; ISBN: 1-4196-3570-0 Volume II 424 pages; ISBN: 1-4196-3569-7 Hardcover editions at Amazon.com_________________________________________________________

Part IV of a IV part series by C.K. Garabed

The merit of a writer lies in his work, the thoroughness of his research and the cogency of his reasoning. I believe Robert John has amply demonstrated that in his scholarly approach to the documentation of the Palestine Diary. But for those who seek credentials and recognition by experts, permit me to add the following:

World historian Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975) who wrote the foreword to the first edition (which is included in subsequent editions) had made history serving in the British foreign office during World Wars I and II, and was a delegate to the (1919) Paris Peace Conference. He drafted the document on British Commitments for the Inner Group-Britain, USA, France, and Italy.

Foreword

By ARNOLD J. TOYNBEE

‘DIARY’ IS A MODEST TITLE for this massive work. It is a detailed narrative, covering the history of Palestine during the period running from the outbreak of the First World War to the declaration of the establishment of the state of Israel and the outbreak of the First Arab-Israeli War in 1948. The narrative is supported by a very full documentation. As far as I know, so full an assemblage of pertinent documents is not to be found between the covers of any previous publication. The sub-titles are also apposite. The story is a tragedy, and the essence of this tragedy is that about 1,500,00 Palestinian Arabs have now become refugees as a result of the intervention of foreign powers in their country’s affairs. The might of these foreign powers has been irresistible, and the evicted Palestinian Arabs have been forcibly deprived of their country, their homes, and their property without having been allowed to have a voice in the determination of their own destiny.

Though the facts are public, there is widespread ignorance of them in the Western World and, above all, in the United States, the Western country which has had, and is still having, the greatest say in deciding Palestine’s fate. The United States has the greatest say, but the United Kingdom bears the heaviest load of responsibility. The Balfour Declaration of 2nd November 1917 was the winning card in a sordid contest between the two sets of belligerents in the First world War for winning the support of the Jews in Germany, Austria-Hungary, and—most important of all—in the United States. In promising to give the Jews ‘a national home’ in Palestine, the British Government was, I believe, using deliberately ambiguous language. As a citizen of the United Kingdom, I declare this belief of mine with feelings of shame and contrition, but I do believe that this is the truth. Throughout the First World War and after it, the Government of the United Kingdom was playing a double game. Perhaps a lawyer might be able to plead plausibly that there was no inconsistency between the respective pledges that Britain gave to the Arabs and to the Zionists, or between the inclusion of the Balfour Declaration in the text of the mandate taken by Britain for the administration of Palestine and the classification of this mandate in the ‘A’ class—a class in which the mandatory power was committed to giving the people of the mandated territory their independence at the earliest date at which they would be capable of standing on their own feet. Whatever the casuists might say, laymen—Arabs or Jews—would, I think, naturally infer, bona fide, from the British Government’s various statements and acts that it had made two commitments that were incompatible with each other. At the same time when the mandate was drafted, offered, and accepted, the Arab Palestinians amounted to more than 90 per cent of the population of the country. The mandate for Palestine was an ‘A’ mandate, and, as I interpret the Hussein-McMahon correspondence, Palestine had not been excepted by the British Government from the area in which they had pledged themselves to King Hussein to recognize and support Arab independence. The Palestinian Arabs could therefore reasonably assume that Britain was pledged to prepare Palestine for becoming an independent Arab state. On the other side, the Zionists naturally saw, in the British promise of ‘a national home’ in Palestine, the entering wedge for the insertion into Palestine of the Jewish state of Israel which was in fact inserted there in 1948. To my mind, the most damaging point in the charge-sheet against my country is that Britain was in control of Palestine for thirty years—1918-1948—and that during those fateful three decades she never made up her mind, or at any rate never declared, what her policy about the future of Palestine was. All through those thirty years, Britain lived from hand to mouth, admitting into Palestine, year by year, a quota of Jewish immigrants that varied according to the strength of the respective pressures of the Arabs and Jews at the time. These immigrants could not have come in if they had not been shielded by a British chevaux-de-frise. If Palestine had remained under Ottoman Turkish rule, or if it had become an independent Arab state in 1918, Jewish immigrants would never have been admitted into Palestine in large enough numbers to enable them to overwhelm the Palestinian Arabs in this Arab people’s own country. The reason why the state of Israel exists today and why today 1,500,000 Palestinian Arabs are refugees is that, for thirty years, Jewish immigration was imposed on the Palestinian Arabs by British military power until the immigrants were sufficiently numerous and sufficiently well-armed to be able to fend for themselves with tanks and planes of their own. The tragedy in Palestine is not just a local one; it is a tragedy for the World, because it is an injustice that is a menace to the World’s peace. Britain’s guilt is not diminished by the humiliating fact that she is now impotent to redress the wrong that she has done. As an Englishman I hate to have to indict my country, but I believe that Britain deserves to be indicted, and this is the only personal reparation that I can make. I hope this book will be read widely in the United States, and this by Jewish as well as by non-Jewish Americans. The United States Government’s policy on the Palestinian question has been a reflexion of American public feeling and opinion. The opinion that has generated the feeling has been formed to a large extent in ignorance of the facts. If the American people are willing to open their minds to the truth about Palestine, this book will help them to learn it. If they do learn the truth, I hope this will lead them to change their minds, and if the American people do change their minds, I feel sure that their government will change its policy to match. If the American Government were to be constrained by American public opinion to take a non-partisan line over Palestine, the situation in Palestine might quickly change for the better. Is this too much to hope for? We cannot tell, but at least it is certain that the present book will be enlightening for any reader whose mind is open to conviction.

1st June 1968 A.J. Toynbee

William Yale, Special Agent of the Department of State in World War I, Adviser to the department on the Near East in World War II and to the United Nations Organization - “This book will make history.”

David W. Littlefield, Library of Congress, The Library Journal - “This is not a personal diary, but the most detailed history available of the Palestine problem . . . the book is so detailed, and the quotations and footnoting of the sources is so extensive that it is a valuable aid to researchers.”

John K. Cooley, Middle East Bureau, The Christian Science Monitor – It is a most illuminating and useful book. It should be in universities and libraries, and especially in the hands of historians, throughout the world.”

About the Author Robert John was born July 25, 1921 in Nice, France. Until the age of 15, Dr. John wished to become a medical missionary, and matriculated in Scripture and other subjects from London University at age 17. By then, he was spending time at political meetings. He studied Medicine at University of London King's College and Law at London's Middle Temple, Inns of Court, where five signers of the Declaration of Independence also studied Law. As an undergraduate he campaigned in 1945-46 against the Allied agreements which moved the USSR's frontiers westward at the expense of Germany, against reparations and the division of Europe into zones of occupation, and for European confederation. Some years later, he was refused a parliamentary candidacy by the British Conservative Party because he advocated independence for Cyprus. As an elected official of the British Conservative Party, he resigned over the policy of war against Egypt in 1956. . Having specialized in Middle Eastern issues, he had been a contributor to the London, England based The Middle East Magazine monthly, and in addition to having given lectures, had been a frequent contributor to numerous other magazines and publications.

In the United States, from 1966 to 1967 he was a visiting scholar at the Hoover Institution, working with the papers of Professor Westermann of Columbia University, advisor on Turkish affairs to the American delegation at the 1919 Versailles Peace Conference. He served on the Council on American Affairs in Washington from 1976 to 1986. In 1982 he was elected an honorary life member of Yale U. Political Union. After his first lecture to service officers at the Army & Navy Club in Washington, he was presented with a citation from the Military Order of the World Wars: "For his courage and dedication to truth in giving the American public a great and scholarly analysis of the complex problems confronting our nation in its political relations with the nations of the Middle East."

Dr. John was a diplomatic historian, policy analyst, and public educator by means of his writing, lecturing, and broadcasting, and the author of Behind the Balfour Declaration: The Hidden Origins of Today's Mideast Crisis, 1988.

Dr. John was a psychiatrist. He was a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England and Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians (Lond.). In the 1970's he studied Medicine and Psychiatry in New York. From 1988 to 1992 he was professor and director of psychiatric education at St. George's University Medical School. He treated patients in Harlem at Manhattan Psychiatric Center for a decade.

He had advised and represented American corporations in their relations with federal agencies, especially the FDA. He had been an adviser to the Consumer Protection division of The Federal Trade Commission and Codex Alimentarius.

At the 1994 Second Orwellian Symposium in Carlsbad, Czech Rep., partly sponsored by UNESCO, Dr. John was given the Outstanding Scholarly Contribution Award. He was presented with the 1997 Freedom Award by the International Institute for Advanced Studies in Systems Analysis in Baden-Baden “for his outstanding work and contributions towards the fight for human rights, justice and liberty.”

In 2004 the International Institute for Advanced Studies in Systems Research and Cybernetics presented Dr John with the Garrett Hardin Award at a ceremony in Baden-Baden, Germany. The award is the highest honor after the Nobel Prize recommendations. The citation states: for his significant contribution to the global education of people, for his leadership, inspiration and moral courage, for his accurate perception of the world and for his brilliant assessment of societal developments as reflected in his deeply insightful scholarly writings. From the Royal Palace, Amman, Jordan, Prince El Hassan bin Talal wrote to him on 27th of May, 2004: “Reading through some files from the last couple of years, I came across your superb piece of March 2002 entitled ‘Who else remembers September 11?’ . . .”

Dr. John was a natural scientist and human ecologist, the founder and Director General of the International Council for Human Ecology and Ethnology – ICHEE.org offers a new way of thinking about human relationships and future human development. It considers human affairs in their evolutionary and ecological context, as part of an integrated way of looking at the world and its animals, plants, natural resources, its geography, and its geopolitics.

In the early 1950s, Composer Aram Khachaturian was invited to London as part of a cultural exchange program that had been set up to improve relations between the Soviet Union and Western countries. Some years before, he had been forced to leave the Soviet Composers’ Union, and perhaps this was the first indication of a reinstatement. Speaking in Russian, translated by a woman from the Russian Embassy, he gave a lecture at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. At question time, he was asked question after question about his problems with the Composers Union and its relationship with the Soviet government. He gave noncommittal answers, but again and again was asked leading questions designed to disparage the Soviet Union. Khachaturian’s face reddened as confrontations between the speaker and questioners raised an angry tension.

A man in the audience stood up and said he would like to say a few words in a language that had not been heard that evening—the speaker’s own language. Speaking in Armenian he said, “We are very pleased that you have come to London, and we hope you will come again,” then giving the English translation. At the first words, Aram Khachaturian’s reddened face relaxed into a smile, and in moments all tensions in the hall seemed replaced by good spirits. The audience was genuinely glad that he had come.

After the meeting, the two speakers met, and Khachaturian joked, “When I get back to Moscow, I am going to write an opera about this Armenian poet I have met in London.” The man in the audience who resolved the conflict was Robert John.

Prior to his death on June 4, 2007, Robert John had made it known that he had completed a new big book manuscript which he said was his gift to Americans: “It is like a mirror with historical depth, to show the American people how their country has been misled away from the ideas of its founders.” He died unexpectedly without having found a publisher.