Colonial India’s ‘Counterterrorism Expert’ In Palestine!
During his stay in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata (then Calcutta), he had experienced terrorism and had taken necessary actions against the terrorists. He had set up the first Special Branch of Calcutta Police. Later, the Imperialist Government of Britain transferred Sir Charles Augustus Tegart (October 5, 1881 – April 6, 1946) to Palestine.
Britain used to rule Palestine in the 1930s. From Jerusalem to Jaffa and Ramallah, Palestinians and Jews got involved in bloody clashes at that period of time, as murder became a common phenomenon in that part of the world. In 1935, Izz ad-Din Abd al-Qadar ibn Mustafa ibn Yusuf ibn Muhammad al-Qassam (December 19, 1881/2 – November 20, 1935) from Syria and 13 of his followers declared a moral, political and military jihad as the solution to end British Rule and Zionist aspirations in Palestine. A force of 400 British Police surrounded the Syrian Muslim preacher and the Arab nationalist leader, and gunned him down. Today, the armed wing of the Palestinian Hamas Movement is called al-Qassam Brigades, and the missile they use is called Qassam Rocket.
As the British Police failed to ensure peace in Palestine, they sought help from the Irgun Zvai Leumi (National Military Organisation), a Jewish terror outfit that transitioned from a terrorist group to a political party. The Irgun started bombing Arab settlements almost immediately. In order to restore peace, William Robert Wellesley Peel or First Earl Peel (January 7, 1867 – September 28, 1937), best remembered for chairing the Peel Commission in 1936-37, recommended in a rare first the partition of the British Mandate of Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab States. He suggested that the Arab State should be established on 70% of the land, and Arab residents living in Jewish-dominated areas should be sent there. However, Muhammad Amin al-Husayni (1895-1974), the former Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and the most powerful leader of the Palestinian National Movement during most of the British Rule over Palestine (1917-48), rejected the proposal. He also joined hands with Adolf Hitler, apart from assassinating other Islamic leaders. The followers of al-Qassam, too, aligned with Mufti at that time.
The ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas Movement in the Gaza Strip does not help one to understand the Palestine issue in a proper manner. Although Israel continues to bombard hospitals and schools in Gaza without complying with International Law, it is actually a part of the colonial tradition. This tradition began with the appointment of Sir Charles Tegart, the Irish Police Officer who served extensively in British India and Palestine, as the Police Commissioner of Jerusalem. He also established the Arab Investigation Centre across the country for torturing the suspected Arabs. The British Police used to forcefully blow water to the nose of a suspected person from a coffee pot. The British rulers even built 62 Police stations with reinforced concrete, with each station having several water pipes. Today, those Police stations are called Tegart Forts. It is evident from all these that Palestine is not a rogue region, but a victim of colonial culture.
One can find many such examples of colonial past in different parts of the globe. The McMahon Line, the boundary between Tibet and British India as agreed in the maps and notes exchanged by the respective plenipotentiaries on March 24-25, 1914 at Delhi as part of the 1914 Shimla Convention, is one such example. The McMahon Line delimited the respective spheres of influence of the two countries in the eastern Himalayan region along northeast India and northern Burma (now Myanmar), which were earlier undefined. Although the Republic of China was not a party to the McMahon Line Agreement, the line was part of the overall boundary of Tibet defined in the Shimla Convention, initially by all three parties and later repudiated by the Government of China. The Indian part of the Line currently serves as the de facto boundary between China and India. However, its legal status is disputed by the People’s Republic of China. The Myanmarese part of the Line was renegotiated by the People’s Republic of China and Myanmar. This line is named after Sir Vincent Arthur Henry McMahon (November 28, 1862 – December 29, 1949), the Foreign Secretary of British India and the Chief British Negotiator of the conference at Shimla.
It may be noted that Britain had sent Sir Henry McMahon to Cairo in 1915 as High Commissioner to the Sultan of Egypt (at the beginning of the First World War). Sir Henry reportedly sent a secret letter to Husayn bin Ali, the then Sharif of Mecca and the Ottoman-appointed ruler of the Hijaz, urging the latter to use the Bedouin tribes under his control to support the Egyptian Expeditionary Force in overthrowing the Ottomans. He also promised Husayn an independent area under Arab Governance that was to include what was then the Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem (later Mandatory Palestine) in exchange for Arab support in Britain’s conflict against the Ottoman Turks. Later, it came to be known as the Great Arab Revolt against the Ottomans. Meanwhile, the secret correspondence is known to historians as the McMahon-Hussein Correspondence. Sir Henry, a wise person, did not voluntarily mention words, like Palestine and Jerusalem, in his letter. He was well aware of the fact that both Britain and France wanted to occupy Palestine. However, the Bolsheviks leaked the secret letter immediately after coming to power in Russia in 1917.
The Russian Jews had been targeted since the Tzars’ reign. After the failed revolution in 1905, Czar Nicholas II reportedly said: “The Jews are a murderous race. Their leader, Trotsky, actually wants to create a Jewish State.” The last reigning Emperor of Russia never dreamed of a world-wide Proletarian Revolution. However, two events happened one after the other in 1917. The US joined the First World War in support of Britain, as a number of US citizens wanted a separate state for the Jews in order to save them from the Russians. Even before the First World War, wealthy Jews British bankers, like Nathan Mayer Rothschild and Sir Moses Haim Montefiore, had backed a separate state for the Jews. Interestingly, these people used to consider the Jews as a race, and not as followers of a particular religion!
The second incident was the Bolshevik Revolution or the birth of the Soviet Union. On November 9 (1917), British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour declared that the British Government would set up a new homeland for the Jews in Palestine. In his 2012 publication ‘Jerusalem: The Biography‘, historian Simon Sebag Montefiore mentioned that had Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov Lenin captured power just a few months earlier, there would have been no need for the Balfour proposal.
One can find the root of racism in the Bible and also in archaeology. The Palestine Exploration Fund was created in London in 1865. Archaeology came to play an important role after that, as people made an attempt to trace the Palace of King Herod I and temples destroyed by the Romans. According to Montefiore, these signs and symbols are completely meaningless. He is of the opinion that what is shown as the path on which Lord Jesus Christ had travelled with the cross on his shoulders is a different place! The historian believes that religious fanaticism has defeated both archaeology and history.
Here lies the significance of Palestine. Palestine is not witnessing a clash of civilisations. Instead, it suffers because of our failure to learn from history.
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