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Beersheba and balfour

27/10/2017

4 Comments

 
​To politically link the Battle of Beersheba with the Balfour Declaration , in an attempt to join Australian lives to the future dispossession of Arab peoples in the creation of Israel, is an outrageous re-write of history and a discourtesy to young Australians who lost their lives for other reasons, including the freeing of Arabs from Ottoman control. Dispossession cannot, and should not, ever be normalised.
On 31 October 1917, soldiers of the Australian Light Horse Brigade conducted a successful charge against Ottoman entrenchments at Beersheba, clearing the way for the capture of Jerusalem six weeks later. In its publication Australia and Israel: A Pictorial History the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade celebrates the battle by noting that
On the day Beersheba was captured, the British War Cabinet approved the text of a declaration of sympathy for Zionist aspirations to be made by Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour, which was published two days later.
In this statement the Department of Foreign Affairs, intentionally or otherwise, infers a link between the Battle of Beersheba with the future establishment of Israel. This is a re-write of history and a discourtesy to fallen Australian soldiers. That they happen a few days apart is true, however, this linkage in time has nothing to do with the unfolding of history some decades later, but everything to do with strategies devised to make it more likely that the Allies could eventually win the war.
 
First, the Battle of Beersheba 31 October 1917. The Battle has antecedents in the McMahon-Hussein correspondence of 1915, 1916. McMahon was the British High Commissioner to Egypt, Hussein the Sharif of Mecca.  In a series of ten letters the British Government promises autonomy to the Arabs between the Mediterranean and Arabian seas if they will rise up against the Ottomans. Students of the 1WW will be familiar with the significance of the “Arab Uprising” in the defeat of the Ottomans.  Thus the battle of Beersheba is fought in the context of a promise to local Arabs that their cooperation will be rewarded with sovereignty.  Arabs have every reason to feel betrayed, the betrayal demonstrated first in Britain and France’s decision to carve up a substantial part of Arab lands between them after the war, and secondly in the support of the international community for the establishment of Israel and dispossession of Palestinians. Australians who fought in the Battle of Beersheba were fighting first and foremost for King and Empire.  Secondly they were fighting against the Ottomans in a campaign which freed Arabs of Ottoman control.
 
Second the Balfour Declaration 2 November 1917. The Balfour declaration is a statement made by British Foreign secretary Arthur Balfour to Lord Rothschild a leader of the British Zionist movement indicating that Britain would be favorably disposed to the creation of a homeland for Jews in Palestine. The Balfour Declaration stands in contradiction to the promise already made to the Arabs. This contradiction is implied in the text of the declaration. Having affirmed British sympathy for a Jewish homeland, the text goes on to say:
 
… it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.”
 
How did Britain come to make two contradictory promises? The answer lies in the stalemate the war had fallen into. The Allies desperately need to defeat the Ottomans to safeguard Suez and in the process free up oil for the emerging energy needs of a transiting navy.  The Arab uprising and the promise of autonomy was considered crucial in securing this outcome. 
 
Britain was also desperate to achieve technological advantage over the Germans, and even more desperate to drag the reluctant president Woodrow Wilson into the war. Chaim Weizmann, a leading Zionist, invented a fermentation process for the production of acetone a vital ingredient in the war effort. Weizmann later went on to be the first President of Israel. Britain needed to secure this invention, but even more importantly wanted to use the influence of world Jewry to bring America into the war.  The Balfour declaration was drafted with these dual aims in mind.
 
Modern day Israel is founded upon the dispossession of the Arab people of Palestine- what they call the Nakbah, in contravention of the promise made by Britain to the Arabs. Not only was dispossession, the means of creating modern day Israel, condoned by the international community, but in the subsequent 70 years modern Israel has completely ignored the requirement of the Balfour Declaration that demands the civil and religious rights of pre-existing Arab communities be respected.
 
Any Beersheba commemoration that celebrates the Balfour Declaration and ignores the crucial Arab role in supporting the British advance in Palestine would be a distortion of history that glorifies the worst aspects of British imperialism and normalises the discrimination suffered by Palestinians today.
 
I fear the commemoration of Beersheba will be less about remembering and more about forgetting. If the sacrifices of the Arabs, their subsequent betrayal and the current suffering of the Palestinians are all airbrushed from history in favour of a triumphalist Zionist narrative, then the Israeli and Australian governments will be using the commemoration to whitewash a hundred years of colonialism, displacement and apartheid.
4 Comments
John Salisbury
28/10/2017 01:50:12 pm

Well said Bishop.
The insert in yesterday's Weekend Australian was a shameful hijacking of the Light Horse and Beersheba.

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John Bunyan
28/10/2017 11:34:09 pm

Thanks, George. I did not see the insert so am keen to read what you have written. The Centenary is being commemorated here at Menangle Park on the 31st (at the rather ungodly hour of 7 am) with, I think, the Governor attending. Some of the Light Horse trained there. It will be indeed very helpful to have this. (There will also be a service at the Anzac Memorial in Hyde Park).

One of my father's cousins, Trooper Harry Bunyan, was shot at the end of the day when a Turk among c. 200 prisoners, being guarded by about 20 Australians, was shot. He was buried there with the other Australians who were killed. The Reserve Forces Day in Hyde Park in July was well-organised except for the service which had a very poor address by some MP, no National Anthem, but only the song I am, you are, thou art ....etc an Orstralian (including the police murderer, Ned Kelly) and with no mention of the Australians who died or the significance of the battle.

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Helen Rainger
29/10/2017 01:47:14 am

Thanks Bishop George. The SBS News tonight (Sun) had Brett Mason saying that the victory at Beersheba "paved the way for a modern Israeli state". No link was given.

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Gregory Dow
24/4/2019 12:47:04 am

The issue with "The land" if not seen through the prophetic eye, will have many opinions, and suggestions, but will effect nothing. There is is only one answer as far as The People of the Book "The Jews" being back in The Land, and the unhappy lot of the Arabs that we witness today. That "LAND" belongs to the God of the Bible: Lev 25:23 "The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is mine;"... Deut 11:12 "A land which the LORD thy God careth for: the eyes of the LORD thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year." Yes, they were dispersed in AD 70 for their rejection of God's rule over them, culminating in their complicity in The Christ's death through the Romans - But they are back in That Land - BECAUSE the divine hand has placed them there - yet in unbelief - Eze 36:24-25 - and yet to be "cleansed" morally. Jer 30:1- 3 "The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying, Thus speaketh the LORD God of Israel, saying, Write thee all the words that I have spoken unto thee in a book.: For, lo, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel and Judah, saith the LORD: and I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and THEY SHALL POSSESS IT." Jer 30:10-11 Therefore fear thou not, O my servant Jacob, saith the LORD; neither be dismayed, O Israel: for, lo, I will save thee from afar, and thy seed from the land of their captivity; and Jacob shall return, and shall be in rest, and be quiet, and none shall make him afraid. For I am with thee, saith the LORD, to save thee: though I make a full end of all nations whither I have scattered thee, yet will I not make a full end of thee: but I will correct thee in measure, and will not leave thee altogether unpunished."
it can be shown from the Bible, that Britain was to be the vessel used by the Divine on high to facilitate the restoration of the Jews to the Land - and the first world war was the catalyst which was to ensure Britain played that part. Be assured that that the Word of God has all the answers - that much abused adage is to BE A REALITY - Act 1:10 And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white aparel; :11 Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven. The Son of God, into whose hand has been committed all POWER - Mat 28:18 And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. This is the One who is to put ALL things right, it will be done in righteousness and equity, and the Lie of our origins and beginnings will be settled once and for all. For - Act 17:30 And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent: :31 Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.

To leave The GOD of Israel out of the affair that is here spoken of, is to fly blindly, and to continue in endless conjecture. IT IS WRITTEN - Dan 4:17 This matter is by the decree of the watchers, and the demand by the word of the holy ones: to the intent that the living may know that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will, and setteth up over it the basest of men.
Psa 98:9 Before the LORD; for he cometh to judge the earth: with righteousness shall he judge the world, and the people with equity.
The words from the apostle @ Romans 15: are appropriate - Rom 15:4 For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope. To know and BELIEVE that God is in control, is indeed a comfort, and conviction that The Bible is what it claims to be gives the searching and concerned soul the answers to all of the perplexing situations and questions that are extant in all the earth. Like it or Not GOD has put The Jews back in that Land - as a precursor to the establishment of THE KINGDOM OF GOD ON THE EARTH - WITH JERUSALEM AS THE SEAT OF GOVERNMENT FROM WHERE THE SON OF DAVID IS TO REIGN IN RIGHTEOUSNESS.
Even so Come Lord Jesus.

Luke 1:30 - 33 And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.
Dan 2:44 And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be l

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    ​Author

    ​Bishop George Browning. 
    ​Retired Anglican Bishop of Canberra and Goulburn.

    ​Inaugural chair Anglican Communion Environment Network

    ​PhD Thesis: Sabbath and the Common Good: An Anglican response to the Environmental Crisis.

    ​President: Australia Palestine Advocacy Network

    ​Chair: Christians for an Ethical Society..

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