Ahmad Al-Sarraf

MOHAMMAD Al-Hashmi wrote an extended article for the news website “Shafaf”, explaining the international circumstances that led to the issuance of the Belfour Declaration.I will try to summarize the article and give my comment in brief.Al-Hashmi said the declaration was issued due to many reasons but did not include harming Muslims. The idea that Muslims were the target of the declaration is considered as an attempt to evade responsibility and play the role of victim.Conspiracy theories have received increasing popularity especially with the widening of the cultural gap between us and the West, and due to the complications in the situations as well as aggravation of events and the inability to understand most of them.Believing in conspiracy theories has become the only choice, considering the increasing crises, disputes and struggles in the region. We found no other way besides rejecting every kind of cooperation with the West. We refused the Belfour Declaration when it was issued in 1917. We dismissed the Faisal Wiseman Agreement, and rejected the Baghdad Alliance in 1955. We also rejected Camp David Accord in 1978 and criticized the peace treaty signed between Egypt and Israel in 1979.If we had accepted any of the above mentioned treaties, our present conditions would have been quite different. Germany and Japan were exposed to mass destruction, most of their cities were buried and they incurred huge human losses due to their wars against the USA. However, they later became one among the greatest allies of the United States of America and the West in general.When studying the conditions of Arabs during the period around when the Belfour Declaration was issued in the beginning of the 20th century, we discover that they lacked leadership that was capable of uniting them as a single entity. Ottomans dominated the Arabs, France dominated Algeria, Tunisia and Syria, and Britain dominated Egypt, Sudan and Iraq. The region occupied by Ottomans was marked by backwardness and inactivity, and these conditions lasted until the late 19th century.Al-Hashmi said the British-Jewish chemist Chaim Weizmann played a major part in the issuance of the Belfour Declaration. Thanks to him, Acetone was discovered. It helped in production of cordite, which is placed at the tip of bullets and missiles and was monopolized by the Nazi Germany. Such an invention had changed the war situations in favor of Britain.This invention and many other important ones contributed to strengthening the relations between Weizmann and a number of British and American military and political leaders like David Lloyd George, who was the outstanding leader of the Free Party, and Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minister during the last half phase of the World War II, and Minister of Ammunition and War Supplies who kept urging the government to create a state for the Jews in Palestine. This was what Britain did as a sign of gratitude to the achievements of Weizmann and the financial and scientific benefits that the Jews offered Britain.Email: [email protected]By Ahmed Al-Sarraf