Kurdish Massacres: One of Britain’s Many Original Sins

by RAOUF HALABY

Photograph Source: Jastrow – Public Domain

For those who believe in the fairy tale of original sin, Adam and Eve, so goes the narrative, partook of the forbidden fruit, fell from grace, and were forever banished from the garden. The same narrative informs us that the second major sin, an infinitely more hideous one, was the result of a jealous and covetous fratricidal criminal deed. Cain’s murder of his brother Abel is held up as a Mark of Cain, a mortifying act of ignominious behavior that has become an archetypal motif in theological dissertations, social and jurisprudential discourse, and literary lore.

Humanity’s history is writ large with the ghastly Mark of Cain and in the blood-splattered scripts of every nation and every clime.

The brutal Turkish onslaught on the Kurdish population of northern Syria can be trailed to the May 1916 connivance of the secret Anglo-French meeting to divvy up the spoils of World War I.

In a manner of speaking, the carnage unfolding in Northern Syria is one of Britain’s early 20^th century Near Eastern original sins (one of many similar sins across the globe) that bears the Anglo Mark of Cain emblazoned in gory detail in today’s bloodstained Palestinian, Syrian, Kashmiri, Somali, Iraqi, Yemeni, Afghani, and Burmese soils, to name but a few.

Prior to 1917 the exhausted Ottoman Empire’s rule over Syria, Palestine, Jordan, Iraq, and  small swaths of the Arabian Peninsula was losing its grip. The empire was gasping its last breath as a result of The Sick Man of Europe’s involvement in WWI and the hubris that befalls spent empires. Smelling victory at smashing the Triple Entente, Mark Sykes and François George-Picot, British and French diplomats, convened a secret 1916 kleptomaniac meeting to carve up the Ottoman Empire and Arab World into their spheres of influence.

In 1901 huge oil reserves were being discovered in Iraq, Iran, and the Arabian Peninsula, reserves that enticed the ever-ruthless and greedy Brits and French, much like Cain, to covet large expanses of desert which were heretofore merely uninhabitable backwashes.

And 85 years later another superpower, led by Bush the Elder in 1991 and his son, Bush the dumber in 2003,  would twice invade Iraq and pulverize it back to the stone-age –  all because of oil, that black gold that jaundices moral behavior and justifies covetous Mark of Cain schemes to lay claim to what belongs to others.

Having successfully colonized much of the world in the late 18^th and  19^th centuries, between them Britain and France had well over 100 colonies across the globe. Gibraltar, East Africa (Egypt, Sudan, Kenya), South Africa (Rhodesia, Zululand, Natal), Central Africa (including Nigeria), multiple islands in the Caribbean, Central Asia and the lower Asia sub-continent (Afghanistan, Brunei, Burma, Hong Kong, Ceylon), and, of course, India and Kashmir, the jewels/pearls of British Imperial possessions, to name but a few, were subjected to British Imperial hegemony.

In their typically arrogant disposition, the British referred to these possessions as their dominions, protectorates, and Commonwealth countries (including South Africa, Canada, New Zealand and Australia – acquired at high cost to the indigenous populations). For its part France acquired Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Niger, Madagascar, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Cameroon (shared also by Germany and Britain). Britannia not only ruled the world, but she also pompously bragged that the sun never set on her empire.

Not to be outdone, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Belgium, Holland, and Germany swallowed what’s left of the Asian, African, and Latin American real estate to enrich themselves with these continents’ rich natural resources.

To implement their 1916 Sykes-Pico agreement, the Brits and French urged the Arabs to take up arms against the Ottomans with promises of independence. And in 1917 the Brits schemed up the Balfour Declaration promising (more like stealing) Palestine and handing it (much like John the Baptist’s severed head served on a silver platter) over to European Jews.

After the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, and with few exceptions, the Arab countries woke up to the Anglo-French fraudulent deception.

Syria was portioned off as France’s spoil of war; the French would soon carve modern day Lebanon out of Syria proper, thus laying the foundation for sectarian and ethnic demarcation lines. Lebanon’s apportioning confessional quotas for political representation doomed the country into periodic civil wars. Palestine was wiped off the face of the map and replaced with a militant and virulently racist, Zionist colonial settler entity that was born (in some measure) as a result of European guilt for their long history of anti-Semitism, a xenophobic sentiment that culminated in Germany’s genocidal crimes. Besides, sending millions of Jews to Palestine was also a backhanded way of reducing Europe’s Jewish populations. With the exception of the gas chambers, for the past 71 years Europe’s surviving persecuted Jews in stolen Palestine have been doing unto the Palestinians, their Semitic cousins, what was done unto them across Europe.

Out of the expansive Hijaz region, Sykes, Pico, and later Winston Churchill formed Trans-Jordan, Iraq, and several protectorates, including Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, and other fiefdoms.

To illustrate the cavalier manner in which the new national boundaries were drawn up, while working on Jordan’s eastern boundary, Churchill is said to have accidentally moved his elbow on the drafting table; unbeknownst to him, he pushed a pencil along the paper’s surface, thus leaving a straight line. Realizing what he had just done, he quipped the following: “Gentlemen, I have just formed the eastern border of Jordan.” And when the news that the “he created Jordan with the stroke of a pen” became widely circulated, he wore this charge as a badge of honor.

Churchill’s racist and bigoted sentiments include the following: as a onetime Hitler admirer, he bragged that “the Aryan stock is bound to triumph.” One solution he advocated to subdue Iraqi insurgents exposes his deep-seated racist nature: “I am strongly in favour [sic.] of using poison gas against uncivilized tribes.” His xenophobic statement about Indians: “I hate Indians.” He referred to Arabs as “dirty desert niggers”, and to Palestinians as “barbaric hordes who ate little but camel dung”;    and he “cheered Britain’s plan for more territorial conquests.” To suppress Iraqi uprisings against brutal British occupation, in the 1920’s and 1930s Churchill ordered the British air force to drop tons of mustard gas on Iraqi civilians, killing them by the thousands.

There’s no doubt that Churchill was inculcated with everything that is pathologically Anglo imperial arrogance, a kind of Trumpian view of  non-European nations.

Like their Palestinian counterparts, the Kurdish population of Kurdistan saw their homeland carved up into Sykes-Pico parcels apportioned to Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. And much like the refugees of Palestine who’ve experienced ostracism, exploitation, marginalization, and genocide by the Israelis and some of their so-called Arab brothers, the Kurds of Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and Syria have been marginalized, abused, dispossessed, and brutally murdered by their fellow Muslim brothers.

For gassing the Kurds and Iranians with U.S. made chemicals (a business  transaction orchestrated by Reagan’s et Dick Cheney), Saddam Hussein was rightly condemned; and eventually he was hanged in a primordial display of revenge. For gassing Iraqi civilians, Winston Churchill was decorated and lauded for his service to the British Crown.

Suffice it to say that prior to and during the 2003 rape of Iraq George Bush, the Mission Accomplished war-dodger, surrounded himself with a group of Zionist neocons more interested in advancing Israel’s interests at the expense of America’s interests. Having destroyed yet another Arab country, Bush’s underlings, including Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and Eliot Abrams, in cahoots with other like-minded characters, placed Syria in the cross-hairs of America’s war machine. North Korea, Iran and Syria were the new antichrist. That Axis of Evil had to be destroyed. Will Iran and North Korea be next?

Fast forward to June 12, 2012: what started out as an isolated small demonstration against the Syrian government soon mushroomed into a full-fledged nine-year civil war. And much to Israel, Saudi Arabia, and other Persian Gulf actors’ glee and support, the Syrian government lost the upper hand. Instead of decreasing tensions, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were drawn into the fray, and soon became complicit supporters. If only Syria’s Asad were deposed, went the official policy, then peace, harmony and a Jeffersonian democracy would emerge in Syria.

The best laid plans rarely materialize.

A morbidly virulent Caliphate reared up its monstrous head in Syria and Iraq, and for a few years the genii, set loose by chaos and foolish regional and international miscalculations, devolved into some of the most bizarre atrocities and dastardly barbarities of modern times. the Obama/Hillary extension of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the form of drone strikes (which killed thousands of innocent civilians) streamed into Syria and has no doubt set the stage for the ongoing Turkish carnage against the Kurds, victims of American false promises, Turkish nationalism and expansionism, Syrian policies vis a vis the Kurdish minority, and an abandonment by the United Nations, at best an impotent body serving the interests of the superpowers.

Postscript: A caveat for all future entities that might partner with the U.S. military.  That alliance is transitory; once American politicians find it expedient to leave, they will desert you and leave you as fodder to the wolves. The Vietnamese, Kurds of Syria, and the Shiite of southern Iraq are excellent examples. Another prime example was the U.S. pledge to guarantee the safety of Palestinian civilians after U.S. troops pulled out of Lebanon in 1982. To wit the massacre of Palestinians at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps (by Lebanese armed phalange and their Israeli accomplices).

To date no one has been held accountable for the murder of some 2,000 Palestinian women, children and aged men, penned up in refugee shanties and summarily murdered. Even the animals were not spared, a Mark of Cain crime more heinous that its original prototype. The reader is urged to read Robert Fisk’s news reports.

The seeds of discord, ethnic/religious/sect/class identities, and the divide and conquer policies of all modern empires are still unfolding in former colonies such as Sudan, Somalia, Yemen, Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Kurdistan, the former Burma, and most recently, Kashmir.

War-loving invaders beware: It is much easier to wage war than to avoid it. Once started, a war is akin to a sink hole that sucks one into its bottomless pit.

And finally, the innocent will, as they always have, be bought, sold, bartered for/over, and slaughtered to appease the hegemonic powers who, instead of wearing their Marks of Cain as Marks of Shame, wear their arrogance and brutality as marks of Pride and triumph.

Raouf J. Halaby is a Professor Emeritus of English and Art. He is a writer, photographer, sculptor, an avid gardener, and a peace activist.

Sins of The Arab Leaders

by Dr Elias Akleh

An American friend asked me the following question: How is it that the large Arab World that extends from the Persian Gulf east all the way to the Atlantic Ocean west, and from Turkish border north to the Indian Ocean south with all its wealth of oil and gas, and spending trillions of dollars acquiring American, British and French sophisticated weapons could not stop Zionism from occupying Palestine and is still unable today to defeat the tiny terrorist state of Israel?

Due to the Zionist controlled and poor American education system, and the Zionist control over the media, it is difficult for the average American to understand the modern Arab history in general and the Palestinian cause in specific. You have to live it in order to understand the depth of the real history especially the vast oral history and the undocumented events.

The Middle Eastern region was inhabited by many separate Arab Bedouin tribes until they were united by the Islamic rule in 661 A.D and became a part of the Islamic Umayyad Caliphate that extended from India east all the way to Spain west, covering Middle Eastern and north African regions. This situation lasted for more than 600 years under different forms of Islamic Caliphates until 1362 A.D. when the Ottoman Empire took over governing the whole Middle Eastern region for 400 years until the beginning of WWI.

According to the Sykes-Picot Agreement, Britain and France divided The Middle East into different mandates and installed their own Arab puppet rulers. Britain, also, gave Palestine to Zionist Jews. To maintain their British gold salaries and their ruling positions over their perspective region (state) those installed Arab puppets had tacitly accepted and agreed to sacrifice Palestine to the Zionists. Fearing for their rules from popular revolts those Arab leaders, pretending to oppose the unjust and illegal 1948 UN Partition Plan of Palestine, sent few troops; a total of 20 thousand Arab soldiers to Palestine to fight the 80 thousand Zionist terrorist militias. The real goal for these troops was not to destroy the unilaterally declared terrorist state of Israel, rather to prevent Israel from occupying territories assigned to a Palestinian state according to the Partition Plan. Arab leaders wanted a buffering Palestinian state preventing Zionist expansion.

Since 1948 until this very day, most of Arab leaders including the Arab League, although pretending to support the Palestinian cause, have not only abandoned the Palestinians to face Zionist genocidal terror alone as if they were non-Arab foreign population, but also had covertly conspired against them and against any Arab organization or government that would support them.  They shared the Israeli first Prime Minister; Ben Gurion’s, false hope, who said that the “old [Palestinians] will die and the young will forget.” Yet the Palestinian successive new generations are still carrying the keys for their grandfather’s homes in Palestine, and are more aggressively fighting for their freedom and for their right of return.

Here follows a short history of the sins of some Arab leaders:

Saudi rulers: Their history started with Hussein ibn Ali Al-Hashemi, who was the Sharif (ruler) of Mecca in the Arabian Peninsula, who entered into agreement with the British, known as Hussein-McMahon Agreement, where he agreed to enter WWI on the British side and lead an Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire, in return Britain would help him establish a Pan-Arab State in the Middle East. After the defeat of the Ottoman Empire Sharif Hussein discovered that Britain had betrayed him by entering into agreement with France (Sykes-Picot agreement) in order to divide the region among themselves, and by Balfour Declaration promising Palestine to the Zionists.

Due to Hussein’s opposition to this betrayal the British supported and armed Abdul Aziz Al-Saud with his extremist Wahhabi militias, to topple Hussein in 1925 and to establish the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932. For the British support Abdul Aziz wrote a letter to sir Percy Cox, the British High Commissioner, expressing his agreement to hand over Palestine to Zionist Jews. It is important to mention, here, that Al-Saud family is originally Jewish (Arabic source, English source) from the city of Isfahan, whose founding grandfather was called Mordechai bin Abraham bin Moshe Al-Donamy, who changed his name to Marikhan Al-Saud when immigrated to the Arabian Peninsula.

It has to be said that policies of the successive Saudi kings had the most drastic effects in spreading political chaos, divisions, hatred, wars and destructions within the Arab states generally and the worst detrimental effect on Palestine specifically for the sole benefit of the Zionist Israeli project.

In 1945 King Abdul Aziz shifted allegiance from Britain to the USA; the main supporter to Israel. Although reports indicated that the Saudi king expressed his opposition to the Israeli project to President Roosevelt during their meeting on the USS Quincy destroyer, yet the secret Saudi Israeli intelligence cooperation and military collaboration continued as has been revealed many times lately.

This military collaboration, exposed by Foreign Affairs, was played in 1964 in Yemen during the North Yemen civil war when an Israeli military pilot; Aryeh Oz, conducted 14 air drops of Saudi weapons to Yemeni royalists. Such military air collaboration is still going on today in the Yemeni theatre. Israeli air force planes were reported delivering Israeli weapons; missiles and other military equipment to Saudi Khamis Mushait base in Asir. Israeli officers were also reported killed by Yemeni’s Scud missiles targeting this base. During the present Saudi war against Yemen Israel, with the agreement of Saudi king, took this opportunity to test its tactical nuclear weapons and to help the Saudi king when in May 2015 Israeli military pilots dropped nukes on Sana’a, Yemen.

In 1966 the Saudi king Faisal bin Abdel Aziz sent a letter to the American president Lyndon Johnson urging him to push Israel to attack Egypt, Jordan, and Syria and to occupy Gaza, Sinai, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights, thus ending the Palestinian cause and disrupting Egyptian President Nasser’s plans to form an Arab Union.  The king also urged Johnson to establish a Kurdish state in Iraq. This was a push towards the 6 days war in 1967.

Saudi Arabia had also provided military intelligence to Israel during its 2006 war in Lebanon. In 2014 it was reported that Saudi Arabia had financed most of Israel’s weapons build up and paid $1 Billion for the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists. According to Panama Papers Saudi king Salman bin Abdul Aziz helped finance the election campaign of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu in 2015.

It is known to the whole world that Saudi Arabia partnered with Qatar, Turkey, Israel and the US in creating, financing and arming all the terrorist groups; ISIS and its off shoots, to destroy Syria even before Qatar former Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim’s confession.

Saudi anti-Arab posture in support to Israel was not exclusive to the ruling family. Saudi princes, business men, and clergy had many times expressed their support to Israel blaming Palestinian resistance and Intifadas. The statements of Saudi billionaire Al-Walid bin Talal during an interview with the Kuwaiti paper “Alqabas” was just one example. Al-Walid expressed his support to Israel against the Palestinian Intifada, and called for a Saudi Israeli coalition against what he called the Iranian threat.

The myth of the Iranian threat is being widely used by the Saudi, Israeli and American politicians and media narratives in an attempt to divert attention from the real Israeli threat to the region. The Saudi Israeli political and military cooperation has come to the open, and is been claimed as an example to follow for the rest of the Gulf States to face the Iranian threat. As part of this Saudi Israeli military cooperation the two countries formed a joint militia to control the Red Sea. Lately Saudis are seeking to acquire Israeli Iron Dome missiles in an attempt to stop Yemeni rockets.

The Saudi treachery against Arabs and cooperation with the terrorist Israeli state would fill volumes. It has come recently to the open, and one needs only follow the news to understand its depth.

Egyptian rulers: Saudi rulers are not the only Arab traitors. Egyptian rulers had also played the same role. Gamal Abdel-Nasser was the only genuine leader who pushed for Arab unity and supported the Palestinians. He created and supported the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) under the leadership of Yasir Arafat. Yet, he was betrayed and is suspected to be assassinated rather than dying of a heart attack.

After Nasser’s death (assassination) Muhammad Anwar el-Sadat became the president. Sadat got rid of all the influential Egyptian politicians by either forced retirement or by imprisonment, and turned Egyptian economy upside down by divorcing the Soviet Union and cozying up to pro-Israel USA. Sadat is known for two accomplishments (sins); the 1973 October war and peace treaty with Israel.

After the 6 Days War the Suez Canal was closed against international traffic. This closure was costly for the western corporations as well as for Egypt.  The 1973 October War was Henry Kissinger’s (then the American Secretary of State) plan to fix this problem. This war was a conspiracy between Sadat and Kissinger in order to re-open the Suez Canal for business and to destroy the Syrian military forces (Alan Hart’s “Zionism, The Real Enemy of The Jews; Volume II). This conspiracy was also confirmed in a memo by Vladimir Vinogradov; the Soviet Ambassador in Cairo:

“Sadat entered into conspiracy with the Israelis, betrayed his ally Syria, condemned the Syrian army to destruction and Damascus to bombardment, allowed General Sharon’s tanks to cross without hindrance to the western bank of the Suez Canal, and actually planned a defeat of the Egyptian troops in the October War.”

After the cease fire Sadat visited Israel giving a speech in the Knesset, and entered into peace agreements that was culminated in 1979 with Camp David Accords providing free passage to Israeli ships through Suez Canal and recognizing the Strait of Tiran and the Gulf of Aqaba as international waterways. Such recognition, plus the Egyptian exit from the Israeli Arab conflict were great gains for Israel. With the Egyptian army neutralized the whole Israeli army was free to focus on the PLO in Lebanon that eventually led to the 1982 Israeli invasion and devastation of Lebanon.

In 1981 Sadat was assassinated and was succeeded by Hosni Mubarak, who ruled Egypt for 30 years. Besides being Egyptians, Mubarak’s family members are also British citizens. Besides his oppressive rule and theft of around $134 billion of Egyptian wealth, Mubarak was a good friend for Israel. He sold Israel Egyptian natural gas for a lot cheaper than the global market price. His wife; Suzanne Mubarak, received $300 million Israeli bribe in order to affect changes in the Egyptian educational curriculum, especially in historical and religious studies, to reflect positive attitude towards Israel.

Mubarak instigated enmity against Palestinians especially in Gaza Strip, who used to be Egyptian citizens before 1967. When Israel enforced a siege against Gaza Strip in 2007, Mubarak joined Israel in the siege and closed Rafah Crossing; the only life line left for Gaza. Worse than that he constructed in 2009 an underground steel barrier on the Egyptian border with Gaza, and flooded Gaza’s food smuggling tunnels.  As a mediator between Fatah and Hamas Mubarak actually sabotaged any possible compromise between the two parties.

Abdel Fattah El-Sisi became the Egyptian president in 2014. He is a Sephardi crypto Jew; the son of a Moroccan Jewish mother; Malikah Titani, and the nephew of Uri Sabbagh; a member in David Ben Gurion’s political party. He was the only surviving Egyptian captain of the 1999 crash of EgyptAir 990 because he changed his flight plan at the last minute. There were 33 Egyptian military officers, including three Egyptian nuclear scientists, on the plane returning from military training in the US.

El-Sisi had accused Hamas of terrorism and tightened the siege against Gaza. He evacuated and destroyed the whole town of Rafah on the Gaza/Egypt border to create an 8 miles buffer zone to destroy Gaza tunnels and to choke and starve Gaza Palestinians. He gave ownership of the two strategic islands; Sanafir and Tiran on the Red Sea, to Saudi Arabia, who in turn turned them to Israel. The two islands control the sea passage to ports of Aqaba in Jordan and Eilat in Israel. El-Sisi claims that Egypt is mediating Hamas/Fatah reconciliation talks for unification when the facts show that El-Sisi is actually sabotaging these reconciliation attempts to keep Palestinians divided.

After eliminating any real political opposition (former head of armed forces Sami Anan, human rights lawyer Khaled Ali, former prime minister Ahmed Shafik, and army colonel Ahmed Konsowa)  El-Sisi won 2018 election with 97% of votes; a suspicious percentage used by previous Egyptian presidents as a proof of popularity. Yet, voters’ turnout was only 41%. The election featured only one other candidate – himself an ardent El-Sisi supporter.  Running against El-Sisi was Moussa Mustafa Moussa, chairman of the liberal El-Ghad Party, and an El-Sisi loyalist. Mousa was just a placeholder to give election a democratic face.

Jordanian kings: In 1921 Trans-Jordan (Jordan) was carved out of the Ottoman Empire and became a British protectorate according to Sykes-Picot agreement. The British installed Abdullah bin Hussein bin Ali as the ruler with his tacit agreement and acceptance of the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. King Abdullah met several times with Golda Meier, then the representative of the Jewish Yishuv, and formed what was known as a Hashemite-Zionist Accord, according which the Zionist would occupy more Palestinian land that allotted to them by the Partition Plan, while Abdullah would grab the West Bank under his rule. This was done in 1948. On his way to pray in Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and then to meet some Israeli generals afterwards, King Abdullah was assassinated by a nationalist Palestinian.

Hussein bin Talal; the grandson of King Abdullah, became king of Jordan in 1952 when he was still 17 years old. He was raised and educated under the pro-Israel British supervision. He was a graduate of the British Harrow School and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. The salaries of his administration as well as his own salary were paid originally by the British government and later on by the successive American administrations. As an employee he had to follow his employer’s orders.

Many successful diaspora Palestinians, who returned home to establish businesses/factories in the West Bank to improve the economy faced two major obstacles. First, they would not get licenses or permits for their businesses unless they establish the business in the East Bank of Jordan and mainly in the capital Amman. The second is that the fees for such a business license include an under-the-table large bribe or part ownership to ministers in charge. These indicate a foreknowledge of the future Israeli occupation of the West Bank that took place in 1967.

I lived through the Six Days War.  Contrary to the reports, Israeli, not Jordanian, army initiated the attack. My house overlooked the main battle for Jerusalem. On a high hill in my town there was a Jordanian military base strategically overlooking the whole Jerusalem city. Before any shot was fired this military base was completely evacuated, and the military trucks drove to the East Bank on an old desert road south passing the city of Hebron. Few Palestinian soldiers defied the withdrawal orders and engaged the invading Israeli tanks on the opposite hill until they ran out of ammunition. Israeli warplanes saturated the area with napalm bombs.

After the war I was told by a distant relative, who was a captain in the Jordanian army based in Amman, that his brigade was loaded unarmed in closed trucks and driven to Jericho to face the Israeli army. He was told that they would receive arms there. But no arms were delivered, and eventually he ordered his troops to go home.

After March 1968 Karameh Battle when PLO fighters and the Jordanian army rebelled an Israeli incursion against the town, the PLO grew in number and in arms. When in September 1970 the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) hijacked three passenger planes to a deserted Jordanian air field King Hussein came under American pressure to destroy PLO bases in Jordan. Using imported Israeli “uzi” machine guns the Jordanian army was able to destroy PLO bases and evict Arafat out of Jordan.  This was known as Black September.

King Hussein conducted separate secret contacts with Israeli officials including Moshe Dayan, Yigal Alon, Yitzhak Rabin, and Golda Meier. He used to fly his own helicopter to Israeli-occupied Jerusalem or cross the border at Aqaba/Eilat ports for these meetings. Before October 1973 War he warned Golda Meier of the impending attack.

The present King Abdullah II is not better than his father nor his grandfather. With his salary being paid by the American administration Abdullah has to jump according to American orders. His kingdom has been a major conduit for Israeli products to the Arab World. Jordan is working with Israel on the Two Seas Canal; known also as Red Sea-Dead Sea Water Conveyance, whose declared purpose is to save the Dead Sea from evaporation, while its long term concealed purpose is to be a preliminary water canal connecting the Red Sea to the Mediterranean through Occupied Palestine (Israel) to circumvent the Egyptian Suez Canal. The kingdom had announced in September 2016 that it will import gas (Palestinian stolen gas) from Israel for $10 Billion, despite Algiers’ offer to provide Jordan with all needed gas for much lower prices.

Worse than that is the Jordanian Israeli American military cooperation against Syria. Irbid; a Jordanian city adjacent to the southern Syrian border, had a military operation center that included Jordanian, Israeli and American military officers, who worked together training new ISIS recruits before entering the Syrian territory. Jordan had also sent 12 of its military captains to Israel in September 2016, where they met with Israeli military officials in the Israeli military academy in the city of Netanya according to Israeli Yede’ot Ahranot. Such Jordanian Israeli intelligence cooperation is still going on under the guise of fighting terrorist groups.

Palestinian leaders: Many consider Yasser Arafat as a Palestinian freedom fighter hero. Actually, he was the worst that had happened to the Palestinians. He accepted the Israeli occupation of Palestine, and had virtually initialed his approval stamp on Balfour Declaration when he signed the Oslo Accord. Balfour gave a “promise” for a Jewish home land, a land he had no right to promise, then Arafat fulfilled  Balfour’s promise, and ignoring the rights of Palestinian land owners, he even gave Zionists more Palestinian land; land he never had any right to give away.

One should have the courage to state clearly that Arafat was a corrupt military dictator. Since taking over the PLO in 1969 he insisted on having total control over all decisions and finance without any accountability. Although he was selected as the leader of the PLO through devious methods, Arafat was never officially elected/selected by Palestinians under Israeli occupation or in refugee camps to represent them. He had forced his representation on them.

Many would be surprised to learn that Arafat had long accepted the Israeli occupation of Palestine, and all what he wanted was a small part of it for Palestinians; a two-state solution. This was a solution that Palestinians would not originally accept, and Arafat had to gradually sell it to them. In 1968 he came up with a political programme for a democratic state of Palestine; one-state solution, where Jews and Arabs live together with equal rights. In February 1974 the Central Council of the PLO issued the “Working Paper” calling for Arab and international recognition of Palestinian right to “establish a national authority on any lands that can be wrested from Zionist occupation.” This is a two-state solution, yet without any stipulation about Jerusalem. (Alan Hart: “Arafat: Terrorist or Peacemaker?”)

Arafat was a lousy politician. He was not able to gain Jordanian love and respect that led his PLO to be kicked out of Jordan in 1970 Black September. Rather than learning from his Jordanian experience he did the same mistake in Lebanon; a mistake led to his discharge from the country in 1982 civil war. Unlike the rest of Arab leaders, who distant themselves from Iraqi Saddam Hussein after his invasion of Kuwait in 1990, Arafat rushed to meet and to embrace him hoping for more financial support. Although the embrace is an Arab cultural greeting, yet it had cost Arafat the anger of Arab Gulf leaders and their financial aid.

Arafat’s worst mistake: most detrimental to Palestinians, was his signature on Oslo Accords in 1993. During the Arab/Israeli peace negotiations the Arab team was divided; each Arab country negotiated separately with Israel, leaving the Palestinian negotiating team in a weaker position. In his rush to achieve a political victory, Arafat circumvented the Palestinian negotiating team and signed the Oslo Accords without studying its deliberate contorted legal statements and its dangerous loopholes. The Accords granted Israel full and unconditional recognition and right to exist on usurped Palestinian land but no promise for a Palestinian state, no recognition of UNSC resolutions 242 (Israeli withdrawal from 1967 occupied territories), no recognitions of UNSC resolution 194 (Palestinian right of return), no end to Israeli occupation, no freeze on Israeli illegal colonies (settlements), and no reparations for all the destroyed Palestinian towns and for all the Palestinian massacres perpetrated by Israel.

More dangerous than that was when Arafat labeled Palestinian struggle for freedom and independence as acts of terrorism and violence and pledged PLO’s commitment to protect Israel’s security. In what is known as the “exchange of letters” between Arafat and Rabin, Arafat stated in his September 9th, 1993 letter that:

“The PLO recognizes the right of the State of Israel to exist in peace and security …. The PLO renounces the use of terrorism and other acts of violence and will assume responsibility over the PLO elements and personnel in order to assure their compliance to prevent violations and discipline violators …”

Trained by the American general Keith Dayton, the Palestinian security forces became Israel’s proxy police force suppressing Palestinian dissent and arresting many Palestinian activists. Arafat surrendered the fate of his Palestinian Authority and the fate of his people to Israeli whims when he agreed that Israel will function as the Palestinian tax collecting agency before depositing money into PA’s accounts.

Despite all of his political concession to Israel Arafat was poisoned by polonium; a radioactive substance, to clear the way for a more agreeable and a more conciliatory dictator; Mahmoud Abbas.

Abbas is the worst Palestinian traitor. He conducted secret negotiations with the Israelis leading to the devastated Oslo Accords. Arafat did not trust him and initially denied him entry to the West Bank. Later, the US and Israel forced Abbas onto Arafat and onto the Palestinians in March 2003 as a prime minister of the Palestinian National Authority.  A power struggle issued between Abbas and Arafat over the control of the Palestinian Security Services that led Abbas to resign 130 days later in September 2003. After Arafat was “removed” in November 2004, and after the removal of better suitable successors such as Marwan Barghouti, who was imprisoned by Israel, Abbas won the planned fake presidential election in January 2005. He is still the president today even though his term had expired in January 2009.

Farouk Kaddoumi; a co-founder of Fatah and later Chairman of Fatah’s Central Committee, accused Abbas and Mohammed Dahlan; head of the Preventive Security Forces in Gaza at the time, of conspiring with Ariel Sharon to assassinate Arafat and other Palestinian officials (Arabic source). He is also accused of conspiring with Israel in the assassination of Khalil al-Wazir; a military leader and cofounder of Fatah. Al-Wazir was assassinated by Israeli assassins in Tunis in April 1988. Abbas was living next door to al-Wazir and had ordered his guards not to save al-Wazir.

Abbas is a worse dictator than Arafat. He was welcomed by butcher Ariel Sharon in his speech to AIPAC, and by former Israeli cabinet minister; Efraim Sneh, who call him “the most courageous partner we have had.” As the president of Palestinian Authority, the Chairman of the PLO, and the Chairman of Fatah, Abbas controlled the three powers of legislative, judicial and executive, thus virtually controlling every aspect of Palestinian life; politically, security, financially, economically and even socially. He immediately got rid of Arafat’s old guards by either forced retirement or imprisonment.

Abbas and his two sons; Yasser and Tarek, were so corrupt stealing Palestinian money and monopolizing major businesses that led Fatah to lose the 2006 legislative elections to Hamas. Abbas, then, and Mohammed Dahlan planned the failed military insurrection in Gaza against Hamas that led to Palestinian division; Abbas in West Bank and Hamas in Gaza Strip.

Abbas’s policies are core-Zionist anti-Palestinian. He surrendered his right to the town of his birth; Safad. The Zionist colonies (settlements) in the West Bank and al-Quds had quadrupled from 230,000 occupiers in 2005 to more than 750,000 occupiers in 2018 without any serious objection by the PA.  He considered “security cooperation” with Israel; protecting Israelis rather than Palestinians, a very SACRED matter in his own words, which led to suppression of all Palestinian dissent, the capture of many Palestinian resistant fighters, and imprisonment and torture of many Palestinian activists by Abbas’s security guards as reported by Arab Organization for Human Rights in the UK (AOHRUK). Abbas has turned Fatah from once self-claimed liberator to oppressor of Palestinians.

During his dictatorship the Palestinian budget deficit skyrocketed to $15 billion in 2018. He forced early retirement and cut down employees’ salaries to almost 50% and eliminated many public jobs raising unemployment to 56%. He suppressed freedom of speech and issued cyber-crimes law to suppress electronic dissent. He withheld money and humanitarian aid due to Gaza Strip, and defended and supported Israeli wars against Gaza in 2008/9, in 2012 and in 2014.

The Palestinian peace negotiators continued their fruitless charade negotiation with Israelis giving up more land to Israel while gaining virtually nothing to a point where chief negotiator Sa’eb Erekat stated that they offered Israel the “biggest Yerushalayim in history.”

During his meeting with president Trump in September 20th. 2017 Abbas expressed his willingness to accept Trump’s peace deal (Deal of the Century), yet Trump announced after two months his administration’s plans to move the American embassy to al-Quds (Jerusalem) declaring the city the capital of Israel.

With Arab leaders like these how could Palestinians regain their homeland and their freedom, and how could Arabs unite into united Arab states under one administration? With leaders like these, who needs enemies?

Dr. Elias Akleh is an Arab American from a Palestinian descent. His family was evicted from Haifa, Palestine, after the 1948 Nakba when the Zionists stole his family’s property. Then the family was evicted again from the West Bank during the 1967 Naksah, after the Zionist, again, occupied the rest of Palestine.

A century later today this situation remains unchanged; And the ME continues to bleed

By Lateef Farook  

During the second half of 19th century the British Empire wanted to ensure the Middle East remains destabilized. It was around the same time that the Zionist Jews were planning to set up a separate Jewish state in Palestine where more than 97 percent of the population were Palestinian Arabs-both Muslims and Christians.

Zionist wanted to bring in Jews from all over and settle them in Palestinian lands which, the migrant Jews have not even seen, after killing and kicking out Palestinians from their lands and homes into refugee camps where they still languish.

It was the time when most of the Middle East was under Turkish Ottoman Empire. This was a hurdle which needed to be removed. The opportunity came during World War 1 when Turkey was defeated by allied forces led by Britain and France.

Anticipating the downfall of the Ottoman Empire, Britain and France began secret talks since 23 November 1915 to divide Middle East and bring the entire region under their control. These talks ended up in Sykes-Picot Agreement. Russia was in decline, but Britain and France got Russia involved.

This was the worst ever western conspiracy from which the Middle East suffers even today. After the war Britain and France, as per the agreement, divided the Middle East and defined the borders of their respective new states and shaped the region to suit their purposes.

As per Sykes-Picot Agreement Palestine in the Mediterranean, Jordan, Baghdad and areas around the Persian Gulf were grabbed by Britain while Syria, Lebanon and Turkish Cilicia were brought under French control. Later Egypt was brought under British control while North African countries Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and Mauritania came under French control.

Neither France nor Britain actually ‘owned’ these territories, but they were to effectively control them from London and Paris .This situation continues to date.

British kept the Arabs in dark of these secret negotiations while Zionists were active partners.The Arabs came to know of the Agreement only when the Russian Communists released its contents in the media- Izvestia

This agreement violated  assurances given by T E Lawrence  ,British Army officer tasked with convincing the Arabs to fight against the Ottoman Empire promising Arabs freedom and their own rule after the war .The Arabs trusted the British but were betrayed .

Documents in the National Archives declassified and published disclosed various assurances of Arab independence provided by Secretary of War, Lord Kitchener, the Viceroy of India, and others in the War Cabinet.

Great Britain never intended to honour the promises that they made. They had used the Arabs to get the Ottoman Empire out of the way protect their own interests.

The entire time Lawrence was negotiating with the Arabs, Great Britain, behind everybody’s back, was negotiating with France, and planning to divide up the Middle East after the war. They needed to make sure there was no united Arab kingdom that would ever get in the way.

In the newly created western European model of the nation-states, Britain and France installed corrupted Arab stooges as rulers giving titles such as kings and created Royal families. This concept of Royal family dividing the people and the rulers were in complete violation of Islam which insists on equality.

These, ruthless dictators were expected not to introduce democracy, freedom and develop their countries, keep the people in poverty and illiteracy especially on Islam and never allow Islam to emerge as a force.

Thus today’s political, economic, religious and social scenario in the entire region is the direct outcome of this British French conspiracy.

In partitioning the Middle East Palestine was brought under British Mandatory Authority which, between 1923 and 1948, did everything possible for the Zionist Jews to drive out Palestinians, grab Palestinian lands and create the required infrastructure for a separate Jewish state. For example Jewish migrants were allowed to use arms while Palestinians were tied to lamp post and killed for using a pen knife.

Even before Palestine was brought under British control , in 1917 the British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour  wrote to Walter Rothschild, a leader of the British Zionist Jewish community, stating that: "His Majesty's government view 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 .

Balfour wrote a memorandum from the 1919 Paris Peace Conference in which he declared that: "The four Great Powers (Britain, France, United States and Soviet Union) are committed to Zionism.  And Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long traditions, in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land"

 On 30 September 1918, disgusted Arabs, religious leaders and other notables in Mecca 

declared in Damascus a government   loyal to Sharif of Mecca. However Britain supplied weapons and money to Ibn Saud, current ruler of Saudi Arabia, and got Sheriff of Mecca removed and brought the Holy cities of Makkah and Madinah under the control of Ibn Saud family.

“This is the last time the Arab world had a united Islamic State led by a religious leader: the Ottoman Empire, the caliphate,”

Later United States and Soviet Union joined Britain and France, blackmailed member countries in the United Nations and passed a UN resolution establishing the Zionist Jewish state of Israel in 1948, in violation of all known laws, norms and cherished human values.

Britain and France never allowed their stooges, Arab dictators, to be removed .For example in 1956 Egypt’s popular President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized Suez Canal, which was under British control. Britain, France and Israel jointly invaded Egypt but were forced to withdraw due to pressure from US President Dwight Eisenhower.

Avenging this setback in its war of aggression in June 1967 Israel, with the backing of US,UK, France and Russia, annexed Egypt’s Sinai and Gaza, Syria’s Golan Heights,  West Bank and East Jerusalem  from Jordan. This was a crippling blow to Arabs.

During the past few decades Arab dictators   perhaps under pressure from their US- European masters began establishing secret ties and various deals with Zionists virtually abandoning Palestinians. Israel was behind all subsequent wars in the region. Today’s state of affairs was such that Saudi, Jordan, Israel and Israel’s Palestine authority secretly planned the invasion, destruction and the massacre of Palestinians in Gaza.

In the midst under the guise of fighting a war on terrorism US, Britain France and Russia together with Israel demonized and declared war on Islam and Muslims and turned almost developed Arab countries such as Iraq, Libya and Syria into virtual killing fields   besides driving more than 58 million millions of Arabs into refugee camps. For example US-European oil companies grabbed the oil wealth of Iraq besides its billions of investments in the West. In Libya alone they looted 145 tons of Libyan gold besides gaining control over Libyan oil wealth   and its investments abroad. Today Iraqis and Libyans are in refugee camps while Syria is emptied of its people.

Thus four powers have created the environment for the creation of Greater Israel with occupied Palestinians lands and parts of Syria and Iraq and Egypt.

The question is how log these crimes will continue?

Latheef  Farook is Colombo based senior journalist. He can be reached at E mail-almfarook19@gmail.com  16 MAY 2016