Chapter I - “The old new country”

Summary

Context

When, at the end of the nineteenth century, Palestine started to focus the attention of international politics it had been a component of Ottoman Turkey for almost four hundred years. Jerusalem enjoyed the status of one of the holy cities of Islam, yet the country itself, economically backward and uncivilised, played a marginal role. Not even a separate province, it was considered a part of Syria. When it became clear that Turkey was tottering towards collapse, a series of claimants started to vie for its inheritance.

Of particular interest was the Middle East inhabited by Arabs. Its strategic value had for centuries drawn the attention of various powers. The region's worth lay in its geopolitical positioning between Africa, Asia and Europe, at the crossroads of important communication routes and offering at the time the shortest route from Europe to India. The key junction, the Suez Canal, lay within its environs. In the inter-war years another important factor was to enter into the equation – the huge oil reserves that had been discovered in Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula. The significance of this rudimentary energy resource (“liquid gold”) was to rapidly increase. Yet the Middle East is not only geopolitics, this is the region that saw the birth of the three great monotheistic religions and consequently became their spiritual centre. Here are places holy to Jews, Christians and Muslims. This fact has historically determined the fate of this land. While at the same time arousing oppositions that have been the source of the serious tension which has expanded beyond the borders of this part of the world.