KNOWING OUR HISTORY is important. It allows us to know how we got to where we are, what mistakes we made and how to hopefully avoid them and move forward. It is as the Prophet ﷺ said: ‘The believer is not stung twice from the same hole.” (Bukhārī)
But history can appear complicated. This is because history is often deliberately distorted to hide truths, elevate one nation and suppress another. Many things are done in secret and only with time do we discover the truth of what people did and why. So, some effort must be made to unravel the truth from falsehood and to take the correct lessons from it.
The origins of the current genocide in Gaza and the occupation of Palestine can be traced back to the First World War.
Britain and the European empires (and by extension their colonies throughout the world) were at war. The Ottoman Khilafah, which was already weak and in decline, ended up being dragged into this war, a disaster for the Muslims.
It was a chaotic time that has been widely discussed. Three important agreements were made during this period that greatly impacted the Muslim world, and their effects are still felt today.
1. The Sykes-Picot Agreement (1916)
Britain seeing an opportunity to end the Khilafah once and for all, hatched a secret plan in 1916. It involved Britain and France with consent from the Russian Empire and Italy to define mutually agreed spheres of influence and control in the eventual break up of the Ottoman Khilafah. The Middle East has always been strategically very important especially control of the Suez Canal- a man-made canal that linked the Mediterranean to the Red Sea and was crucial for shipping and connecting Europe to India and the Far East.
The secret deal was drawn up by British and French diplomats, Mark Sykes, and François Georges-Picot and effectively divided the Ottoman provinces outside the Arabian Peninsula into areas of British and French control and influence. Britain was to take control of Palestine, Jordan and southern Iraq. France was to control south-eastern Turkey, northern Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. Russia was to get Western Armenia and parts of Turkey whilst Italy received southern Anatolia.
2. The McMahon-Hussein Correspondence (1915-16)
While Sykes and Picot were in negotiations, discussions were proceeding in parallel between Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Makkah, and Lieutenant Colonel Sir Henry McMahon, British High Commissioner to Egypt to facilitate the fall of the Ottoman Khilafah. The letters were exchanged from July 1915 to March 1916, in which the British government agreed to recognize Arab independence after the war in exchange for Hussein bin Ali launching the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Khilafah. In short, to ally with the disbelievers and betray the Muslims in return for a kingdom stretching from Aleppo in Syria to Aden in Yemen.
Meanwhile, Britain was also supporting Ibn Saud, a rival of Hussein, through the Treaty of Darin, showing their double-dealing approach.
3. The Balfour Declaration (1917)
Back in 1896, Theodore Herzl, a Jewish journalist wrote ‘Der Judenstaat’ in which he proposed that the only solution to the ‘Jewish Question’ in Europe (i.e. how to deal with anti-Semitism in Europe), was the establishment of a state for the Jews. It was the foundation of political Zionism and gained support from many influential Jews in Britain.
The Balfour Declaration was a public statement issued by the British government in 1917 (during the First World War) announcing support for the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine.
After the War
The war ended and the European Allies were victorious. The Ottoman Khilafah came to an end and the lands were divided as per Sykes-Picot. The British unsurprisingly double-crossed the Sharif of Makkah. He never got the Arab lands as planned. Far from it, after reigning over Western Arabia for a short time, the British double-crossed him by supporting ibn Saud in 1925 so that Arabia eventually came under his rule as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The sons of the Sharif of Makkah ended up with a piece of Jordan (King Abdullah) and Iraq (King Faisal).
Following the First World War, Jews across the world started to emigrate to Palestine. This was accelerated by Nazism in the Second World War. From 1946-1947 Britain found itself facing increasing Jewish terrorist activity that led it to hand over Palestine to the United Nations. Of course, that did not stop the formation of the Zionist state in 1948 or the Nakba, the forced eviction of some 700,000 Palestinians just after that.
Wars between the Arab nations and the Zionist state (1948, 1967, 1973) were carefully orchestrated to allow it to occupy further land, create a myth of invincibility and give an excuse for Arab governments to recognise it.
The Zionists have taken ever more land and killed innocent people, and the current 19-month-long genocide in Gaza is being carried out in front of the world.
Understanding this history explains much of what we see today.
Why Our Rulers Do Not Act.
At the heart of the Arab Revolt lies the twin poisons of greed and nationalism that divide the people and keep them weak. It is no surprise that the states around Palestine do nothing more than lip service considering how they were created by the colonialists and continue to be sustained by them. The rulers ever since the carve-up have been carefully selected to support colonialist or nationalist interests at the expense of the ummah’s interest. They are there to keep us divided and so weak.
Why Expecting the Western Governments and Institutions to Act is Delusional.
British Lord Palmerston famously said: “We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and these interests it is our duty to follow.”
Let us not forget who was behind this fitna from the very beginning and who to this day supports it. Can we expect the governments of such nations to act against their self-interests?
Biden stated, supporting Israel is a crucial investment for the US: “It is the best $3 billion investment we make. Were there not an Israel, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect her interests in the region.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: “Israel is a bulwark for us… It’s almost like having an aircraft carrier in the Middle East. It’s our oldest ally. If Israel disappears, Russia, China, and BRICS+ countries will control 90% of the oil in the world and that would be cataclysmic for US national security.”
The genocide has shown clearly how these interests are more important than any of the so-called enlightenment values that the West claims to stand for. Indeed these nations are active participants in the genocide. Israel is after all their settler colonial project in the Middle East.
Similarly, the UN, ICJ, ICC etc were created in the aftermath of the Great Wars to supposedly stop nations from going to war again. The reality is that they are tools used to reinforce nationalism and the authority of the five permanent members of the Security Council who have veto rights. The United Nations to date has not done anything for Palestine and has only assisted the plans of the colonialists.
Anti-Semitism is a European Phenomenon.
It was never an Islamic issue. Jews always lived peacefully under Islam whether it be in Jerusalem under Muslim rule or Ottoman Istanbul after the fall of Andalucía. Yet the Pal*stinians paid the price for Europe’s antisemitism.
The Jews do not have an inherent right to claim Palestine as their homeland. No one would accept that the Italians today lay claim that Britain is theirs to take and expel the British people as they please because their ancestors, the Romans, had ruled it for 400 years (to 410CE). Similarly, for the Jews to claim it as their homeland is nonsense. If we look at the known history of that region, the Jewish people only ruled there for a period of about 206 years (compared to 392 years of Christian rule, over 800 years of Muslim rule and 3500 years of Canaanite/ancient Egyptian rule).
The Solution Lies in the Ummah’s Unification Under Khilafah
If we want to change our situation we need to reverse-engineer what was done to us. Our political unity was destroyed and our lands were divided through acts of betrayal. We need to thus reunify our lands and politically unite under a sincere Islamic leadership. This is what the enemies of Islam truly fear and have clearly expressed.
Netanyahu recently said: “There are more challenges and more work we have to do. And we will complete the mission. And we will not be deterred because what lies ahead is nothing more than ensuring the eternity of Israel. We know what we are fighting for and what we are fighting against. We see these beasts and we will not accept this claim on the shore of the Mediterranean. Just a few kilometres from here we will not accept the establishment of any caliphate.”
The nation-state model needs to go. These rulers need to go. Only the Islamic Khilafah is acceptable. That needs to be the clear call of the ummah today and the vision we need to work towards.
Living For Islam 