The New York Times, ‘examining’ the motives of the Russian people with regard to the murder of the Romanov family, has declared “You can’t murder history”. Or can you? Two events recently featured topics which are not remote or distant from current debate, but have been ‘murdered’ by history. There was the launch on 2nd of May 2003 of a book, Ms Angela Clifford’s The Memoirs Of My Jewish Great-Grandfather, Karl Holzer, with Reflections On The Fate Of A Jewish / Arabic Family, along with a pamphlet, Serfdom Or Ethnic Cleansing? A British Discussion On Palestine (comprising Churchill’s evidence to the Peel Commission). On the following day, 3rd May, the re-republication of Roger Casement’s not exactly well-known book—The Crime Against Europe and The Crime against Ireland—was launched along with a pamphlet containing three articles on Belgium And The Great War by James Connolly. These subjects, seemingly so distant from each other, are in fact related, and are central to the modern political order. But, in the context of Ireland, where, to paraphrase John Hume, the media have succeeding in annihilating serious debate, these issues which lie on a distant plane, that of the realm of fact, might as well be reports from some far distant land.

Palestine

Ms Angela AbuKhalil / Clifford’s talk began with her great-grandfather’s memoirs, which she had translated and published. Karl Holzer’s recollections, which refer to the period before and after the first World War, the late 19th and early 20th centuries, give a fascinating background of a prosperous and successful businessman in Imperial Austria, a worthy representative of the new industrialising capitalist class being encouraged by Franz Joseph (as against the traditional crafts then being displaced). Angela Clifford stated that, in her view, anti-Semitism in Austria was magnified by resentment on the part of the wider Austrian population at this process, and was particularly directed against the merchant and banking Jewish classes coming to the fore at this period.

Ms. Clifford stated that originally she had no knowledge of the Palestinian issue. She had been sympathetic to the Jewish case. Many of her Austrian and Israelite relatives were firmly pro-Zionist. However, her Mother, Hedi Aufrichtig, who was Karl Holzer’s grand-daughter and had fled from Europe to Palestine, was on the side of the Palestinians. Hedi met and married a Palestinian Arab in Jerusalem. As Ms. Clifford examined the facts of the matter in their historical context, and took note of how Israel was acting, she gradually moved towards the latter view.

Ms. Clifford’s personal background, therefore, was the background for this historical research—which side, Jewish or Arabic, was correct in its, to say the least of it, strongly held views on the Palestinian conflict; in other words, was the experience of Hedi and Hanna collective or merely individual? This question is then examined in great detail in the book and in the pamphlet.

One of the documents she investigated was the Report of the English Peel Commission. The Balfour Declaration of 1917 not merely provided official British support for Jewish colonisation, other European countries were also directly implicated afterwards in this project. Over a century, the Jews would become the majority, in a colonial settlement programme similar to England’s plantation of Ireland. The important point was that the colony would remain multi-racial, with British overlordship ensuring economic re-development. However, it appears that Jewish immigration, pushed by the Zionist transmigration agenda, was on a far greater scale than Whitehall had anticipated. The inevitable Arab backlash started to threaten the overall imperial project, particularly with regard to England’s encroaching competitors. Some sort of compromise appeared necessary, then, with the original Balfour ‘promise of intent’ altered in an attempt to satisfy both Zionist objectives and the increasing Arab concerns. That was when the Peel Commission was established.

A partitionist settlement was cobbled together, with a Zionist state of sorts being recommended, with the Palestinians inside the Jewish state compulsorily moved to the new Arab state. This was the first official backing of the concept of an intrinsic Jewish state without an Arab minority. Meanwhile, the more ardent spirits within the Zionist movement viewed any Jewish state as a base for future conquests. This perspective did not alter either, upon the realisation of the supposedly ultimate Zionist ambition—the creation of the national State on a limited basis in 1948. Israel’s first Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion, while in power, never lost sight of his ultimate aim of expanding to “the limits of Zionist aspirations”, including much of the surrounding countries and on some occasions, the ‘biblical borders’ from the Nile to Iraq, while the native population would of course be ‘transferred.’

Jewish immigration was supported by the Peel Commission, in particular by Churchill in his evidence. The Commission recommended that the partition of Palestine be effected and Jews and Arabs be moved to create two homogeneous areas. However the Zionist movement did not welcome this proposal, as the two state ‘solution’ conflicted with Zionist aspirations, the demand being for a single Zionist state, including what is Transjordan. Zionists did however approve of the Peel proposal to move Palestinians out of the Jewish state into the new Arab state. This was the first time that any official British support was given to this conception of removal of population—and gave the Zionists their first opportunity for overall conquest.

Churchill preferred Palestine to remain under imperial domination, with the Jewish settlers as the new local overlords: “I do not accept that the dog in the manger has the final right to that manger”, he declared. This is, of course, a clear statement of the ideology of settler domination and imperialism. But then again, England has a long history of the latter, and Churchill most likely had the Irish example in mind, along with, later, Australia, and with the fresh example of extermination of the ‘Red Indians’ in the US to hand. In my view these original inhabitants melted away due to the advance of ‘spirit’, in Hegel’s terminology. It is no accident that Hegel saw the US as the realisation of his ideal state of the future. The Zionist settlers indeed resided among the ‘stronger races’ in the imperial Pantheon. The Palestinians neither had the ‘right nor the power’ to resist the advent of spirit in its latest manifestation.

Reacting to the Peel Report, David Ben-Gurion realised that it supported the partition of Palestine, and was a turning point in the Zionist campaign, giving the Zionists the majority in a homogeneous state, due to the ‘forced transfer’.

After the Second World War, the UN partitioned Palestine, though the terms were somewhat more generous with regard to a Jewish state than allowed for in the Peel Commission. Jerusalem was to be a neutral zone, under direct UN control. There would be a large Arab minority in the Jewish state, and a smaller Jewish one in the Arab state. There would also be a common market. However, Zionist expulsion of Arab residents between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem began according to plan, between December 1947 to June 1948. A war was ignited, with terrorism as the main weapon used against the local population to induce flight. Later reports were spread to the effect that Arab ‘leaders’ had ordered this movement; but as Erskine Childers has shown, this was a later fabrication. If it had not been for Glubb’s Arab Legion, the Zionists would have gained control of all Jerusalem, and probably the whole of Palestine.

This programme is being implemented at present: recent reports indicate that Israel has seized 400 acres of land beside Jerusalem for settler expansion, and it seems that the Palestinians will soon be expelled outright from their own land. This could be the last chapter of this ancient people, who, as Ms Clifford strongly points out, have been blackened as the virtual originators of anti-Semitism, but who are on the contrary the Semitic victims of modern European anti-Semitism directed against Jews.

Therefore, the old adage that the personal is political and the political is personal is richly confirmed by this enlightening account. Many thanks are due to Ms Clifford for opening a new window upon this particular version of Manifest Destiny, a chapter which organised international propaganda, and its local organs in Ireland, would prefer to remain firmly closed.

One fact which is not aired in public here is that, in his address to the sixth meeting of the League of Nations Assembly on 23rd September 1937, Eamon de Valera attacked the Peel Commission recommendations. At the time the UN approved the partition plan, De Valera told a person soliciting his support for the project: "I read the Old Testament many years ago. I am afraid I have forgotten many things I read; but one passage I recall clearly. It is the story of Solomon's judgement of the two women who desired the same baby. I remember how when Solomon ruled that the baby be divided the real mother screamed, `No! No! Give the baby to the other woman!' That is my answer to partition. The rightful owners of a country will never agree to partition."

The Crime Against Europe

Saturday evening saw the launch of Roger Casement’s The Crime Against Europe, with The Crime Against Ireland, and Connolly On Belgium In The Great War, both with an introduction by Brendan Clifford. It says much about the nature of the Irish state that one of its principal founders should be treated with silence, or at best contempt, by the state itself. Senator Martin Mansergh, while launching the Angus Mitchell / Irish Manuscripts Commission edition of Casement’s 1911 Amazon Basin diaries on 1st May, found time (in the midst of the Iraq war, which the Irish state has abjectly supported), for a little jest at Casement’s expense. Sir Roger Casement had begun his move toward nationalism as a result of his investigation into genocide in Belgium’s territories in the Congo. He became an active revolutionary nationalist during his investigations into the Amazon Basin genocide, which was financed by British capital. This observation of the oppression of native peoples by imperial powers led him to attack English and US imperial power, for instance his active campaign against the Monroe Doctrine, indicting it as one of the prime causes of the oppression of the Latin American peoples. However, according to Senator Mansergh, Casement had indeed blotted his copybook by acting on Germany’s behalf during the First World War. This statement is not merely a personal jibe against Casement, but an attack upon the principle for which he gave his life, that of neutrality, the bedrock and foundation upon which the Irish state was created.

In July 1913, Casement wrote an article proposing that a Volunteer army be founded to protect Ireland’s neutrality in any coming war. De Valera made this a cornerstone of his English policy. As early as 1921, in a ‘draft treaty’, to which the treaty delegates were to refer in any disagreement with the British delegates, neutrality was to be central to Irish military policy. In making this cogent and crucial point, Mr. Brendan Clifford emphasised the (of course unreported) fact that this was a new chapter in the tale of the Irish government’s cringing servility to its true masters. In effect, Mansergh was stating that the Irish state did not exist, as the constitutional basis upon which it was founded had no real basis in terms of international law. What is more, he turned the entire event, a recognition of Casement’s heroism and sacrifice, both for international humanity and his work that this state might come into being, into cause for contempt.

Mr. Clifford (as indeed Angus Mitchell before him) reviewed the tiresome series of pseudo-psychological ‘biographies’ of Casement, written by a rather suspicious cast of characters. Their murky backgrounds, coupled with a complete lack of any pretence of either historical objectivity or even competence, were briefly reviewed. News to many, I suspect, was the information about the role of Jeffrey Dudgeon. The news reports announcing the declaration of war reached Casement in the US: he was not surprised, as he moved in Government circles where the imminence of war had been discussed for some time. The Consul-General therefore published articles that he had written earlier. Active preparations towards war were being made in England since 1908, when the Committee of Imperial Defence went into permanent session. From that day forward, daily preparations were made for war on Germany. The form of industrial development undertaken by Germany posed a serious threat to the UK Free Trade model of ‘Manchester Capitalism’ which—having itself used tariff barriers to secure advantage against its competitors—it proceeded to impose upon the world.

Germany, having passed through a protectionist phase, was ousting British goods around the world under Free Trade rules. The German model of economic development (which Japan had also pursued), with its strongly national mode of industrial production in a society steered by the state, must not be allowed to spread. The threat provided by a good example was predominant in the minds of the English ruling class. Therefore, the propaganda organs were switched on to ensure that the ‘correct’ view would prevail. The idea was effectively circulated that the German state was militaristic from its conception, and therefore a continued threat to world peace. The weak point was soon found—Germany was dependent upon international trade for raw material and food imports. From 1908 therefore, detailed preparations were made for a war with Germany.

The background lies in the 1830s. Although the Congress of Vienna had laid down that the ‘concert’ of European states were to remain within the boundaries set by that august gathering, England rigged the separation of Catholic territory from the Netherlands, thus creating the rump state of Belgium. The object was not the exercise of a new-found belief in the right of small nationalities to assert their independence, but the creation of a state, which, lying as it did between France and Germany, served admirably as a future cause of war, when needed. Belgium, although it rapidly expanded to become the world’s leading slave trading empire, becoming vastly rich on the basis of rubber in the Congo, had no legal basis under international law as established by the Congress, and therefore was totally dependent upon its founder, England, for its foreign policy. Therefore the ‘neutrality’ of Belgium was guaranteed.

If the UK had not intervened in the First World War, it would have been a minor campaign (over the disputed provinces of Alsace and Lorraine) and a final settlement of the 1871 war which founded the new state of Germany. The ‘sacred provinces’ of Alsace and Lorraine had more autonomy under German occupation than Ireland would have had under Home Rule! (A good deal more, as it turned out.) France was on the point of resigning itself to the status quo when England made its offer (all of this was in secret of course)

Casement emphasised this vital point, that this declaration of war by England turned a European war into an international event, the first truly world war. When war finally broke out, Germany rather foolishly assumed that England would remain neutral. A week later, the UK expeditionary force left for France. Casement’s central argument over neutrality was that Ireland should exercise an active neutrality in favour of Germany. His argument in The Crime Against Ireland expanded upon this, pointing out that no country had suffered such continued and long-standing oppression in England’s interests. The possession of Ireland as a strategic Atlantic base and resource fund was crucial to the continued existence of the British Empire. The key to Europe was Ireland; everything depended upon that fact, which Napoleon had recognised too late, and which Louis XIV had but groped towards. Germany refused, as France had earlier, in its blindness, to recognise the importance of that fact, and paid for it with its virtual destruction. Ireland too, was blind to both its strategic and historical position in Europe, and it continues to pay the price of wilful ignorance.

Connolly’s writings on Belgium in the immediate aftermath of England’s declaration of war against Germany refer to the falsehood that Great Britain entered the war in order to protect Belgian neutrality. Belgium, the gathering was told, was a state created in the 1830s for the purpose of creating a European war. Being placed in an awkward position, in the event of a war between France and Germany, it was certain to become an issue, and neither were likely to respect Belgian neutrality. Connolly argued that England deliberately tempted Belgium to resist the passage of a German Army through its territory to France and then refused to come to its support, instead pouring its own troops into France. Meanwhile, the Irish were told to sacrifice themselves—supposedly for Belgian neutrality!

Current revisionists have never lost their childish belief in this war propaganda, which clashes somewhat with the constant berating of the ‘insularity’ of the ‘Catholic-nationalist’ mindset. One of Connolly’s central insights was the enduring importance of the Irish middle-men to the furthering of England’s imperial objectives. Mr. Clifford lays bare their role as propagandists during the First World War (the English seemed unable to write effective war propaganda) and their enduring usefulness as a tier of the empire. Any future triumphs remain to be seen. Connolly was later abandoned by his ‘socialist’ colleagues: “They will never understand why I am here” he said, on the day of the Rising. Indeed, some went further, Robert Lynd, for instance, proceeding to blacken his name and reputation. Such is his fate today—one of the few thinkers, socialist or otherwise, to see clearly the reasons behind the First World War, has been effectively dismissed as an isolated and irrelevant figure, as England’s heirs march forth upon another episode of conquest, with the intention that this be final and complete.

If you wish to subscribe to the Irish Political Review, Labour & Trade Union Review, Church & State or Problems Of Capitalism & Socialism please go to our secure sales area. Postal delivery is free within the European Union.

Go To Secure Sales Area

ATHOL BOOKS HOMEPAGE

Past IPR Editorials