Why the Brits Hate Israel

By Raanan Geberer

As we speak, British commentators (Alexander Cockburn, Tony Judt, Christopher Hitchens) are all agog in a frenzy, not only criticizing Israel, which is their right, but presenting its mere existence, and that of the Zionist movement, as a former of injustice, with a vituperation more worthy of a pro wrestling villain than of serious students of world affairs.

Also, British academics have been in the forefront of the movement to boycott cooperation with Israeli universities – a move that is somewhat odd, since Israeli academics have been among the most strident critics of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. When an Israeli professor visiting Britain told one of the Brits that the Israeli-Arab conflict (or, if you will, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict) was not one-sided, the British professor said, “Yes, it’s very one-sided.” Apparently that gentleman has never heard of suicide bombers. And apparently most of these critics have never heard of the substantial human rights violations found in Syria, Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries—it’s only Israeli human rights violations that concern them.

To understand WHY the so many of the British hate Israel, we must go back into history. Specifically, we must go back to a part of history that’s basically been forgotten and many younger people are not even aware of – the British mandate over Palestine.

To put it briefly, after the British Army took Palestine from the Turks during World War I, the then-new League of Nations awarded Britain a “mandate” to govern Palestine. At the time, there were already severe tensions between two opposing nationalist movements – the Zionist movement and the Palestinian Arab nationalist movement. Britain had made conflicting pledges to both sides during World War I.

What the British should have done, and could have done, is to act as an honest broker, to try to reconcile the differences between the two groups and to help them come to an agreement. After all, there was lots of empty land in Palestine—and still is. But instead, Britain decided to play its little “divide and conquer” game, pitting groups against each other so as to strengthen its own hold on the country. This had worked in Ireland (well, up to a point) and in India—now it was Palestine’s turn.

First, British High Commissioner Herbert Samuel (ironically, a Jew) appointed extremist Amin al-Husseini as “grand mufti” of Jerusalem, when he could easily have appointed a more moderate candidate. Then, in 1929, after armed Arab gangs slaughtered scores of innocent Jews in Hebron and Safed, Britain didn’t vigorously hunt down those who incited the riots and bring them to justice. Instead, it decided that the whole thing had been provoked by Jewish immigration, and tried to limit it.

Even after World War II, when thousands of Jewish concentration camp survivors in the DP camps of Europe were clamoring to go to Palestine (and it is true, many did want to go to the U.S. instead), Britain refused to compromise. It wouldn’t even admit the 100,000 immigrants that the international community wanted. Instead, it basically imposed martial law on the country, setting up roadblocks, jailing people at random, and so on.

Unfortunately for the British, the Jews didn’t roll over like the ghetto Jews of medieval Europe. They organized, they demonstrated, they went on strike, and sometimes they committed acts of violence, the best known of which was the bombing of the King David Hotel. For several years, the country was in the midst of a virtual civil war between the British and the Jewish community. The Arabs were basically bystanders, and the Zionist movement, unfortunately, took the short-sighted and unrealistic position that Arab opposition to Zionism was artificially created by British imperialism.

At any rate, to put it crudely, we, the Jewish people, kicked Britain’s collective ass, and Great Britain finally threw in the towel and decided to quit Palestine, leaving the Arab-Israeli struggle in its wake. There is plenty of blame to go around for the continuation of the conflict – Israel for denying basic human rights to Arabs in the “territories”; the Arabs for educating their children to hate Israel from an early age; the former Soviet Union for arming the Arab states to the teeth and encouraging them to keep the hostilities going; the United States for not being willing to publicly criticize Israel when criticism is due.

But the British never owned up to their share of the blame. They never forgave Israel for daring to stand up to their mighty empire. While this resentment may have been driven underground for awhile, it was there in the background, in the nation’s collective unconscious, to use Jung’s term. And today it has surfaced again, in the writings of Cockburn, Hitchens, Judt, et. al.