December 17, 2013, - 2:37 am
T. E. Lawrence “of Arabia” Demanded Ethnic Cleansing of Jews From Jerusalem & Palestine; Should be “Assimilated” by Arabs?!
T.E. Lawrence a/k/a “Lawrence of Arabia” wanted to ethnically cleanse Jerusalem and all of Palestine of the Jews because he feared that the Jews would “get in the way” of the Arab nationalist movement he was leading and the vast Arab empire he was seeking to establish. Lawrence said so in a letter to Britain’s top official in the region. And, according to a Jewish leader at the time, Lawrence told him that Jews should be assimilated by the Arabs, a hilarious concept.
T.E. Lawrence a/k/a “Lawrence of Arabia” Wanted Jerusalem & Palestine Ethnically Cleansed of Jews
When I wrote about T.E. Lawrence’s pan-Arabism yesterday (and the death of Peter O’Toole, the actor who became famous for gushingly depicting him), I received a couple of e-mails and comments from individuals rushing to the defense of this Jew-hater and pioneer of dangerous Arab nationalism.
But here’s a reality check. . .
The Shapell Manuscript Foundation has a letter from Lawrence, dated July 9, 1917, three days after he led a successful assault by Arabs on the City of Aqaba (a coastal city in the Gulf of Aqaba in what is now Jordan but was then Palestine). In the letter, Lawrence tells General Gilbert Clayton–his superior at Britain’s “Arab Bureau” and the British intelligence officer and administrator in Egypt, Palestine and Iraq during WWI–that the “Jewish section” “must” be “cleared up,” as in cleared out. (“One must have the Jewish section cleared up.”) According to the Shapell Manuscript Foundation, Lawrence of Arabia was concerned that the Jewish presence in Palestine would get in the way of the Arab nationalism movement he was leading.
Shapell Manuscript Foundation notes that “What he [Lawrence] wanted, desperately, was Arab hegemony from Damascus all the way down through the Arabian peninsula. Standing in the way of his visionary Kingdom, however, stood the Jews, the French and, as he would ultimately come bitterly to comprehend, the British establishment itself. . . . Were a Jewish state established in Palestine, he feared the Arab movement would come to an end. Hence his intense interest in “clearing up” the Jewish and French “sections”.”
The Foundation goes on to say that Lawrence was in “conflict with the Zionist pioneer Aaron Aaronsohn and, by extension, those Zionist converts within the British establishment.” Here is what Aaronsohn said about Lawrence of Arabia, once again according to Shapell Manuscript Foundation:
Aaronsohn left an account of the meeting at which he made them. “This morning I had a conversation with Capt. Lawrence,” he wrote in his diary on 12 August 1917. “An interview without any evidence of friendliness. Lawrence had too much success at too early an age. Has a very high estimation of his own self. He is lecturing me on our colonies, on the spirit of the people, on the feelings of the Arabs, and we would do well in being assimilated by them, by the sons of Arab etc. While listening to him I imagined to be present at the lecture of a Prussian scientific anti-Semite expressing himself in English. I am afraid that many of the archaeologists and reverends have been imbued by ‘l’esprit boche’. He is openly against us.”
Hmmm . . . the guy supported Judenrein–the ethnic cleansing of Jews–from the region, so they wouldn’t get in the way of Arabism AND said Jews should be “assimilated” by the Arabs. Sound like a defender of Jews and Zionism to you? Only if you choose to dwell in utter denial.
One of T.E. Lawrence’s defenders–one of those who wrongly claim that Lawrence was a philo-Semite and defender of the Jewish presence in the Middle East–cited the many people who’ve merely quoted one unreliable source: Israel’s first President, Chaim Weizmann. But I noted Weizmann’s claims that Lawrence was a supporter of Zionism and a Jewish homeland in Israel are not believable, and he is not a reliable source on Lawrence or any other Brits. Weizmann was a well-known panderer to British Jew-haters. He liked to have them over for tea and fancied himself one of the British intellectual elite (he was an immigrant to England, and it was his country before he moved to the Middle East).
Weizmann attacked Jewish immigrants to Palestine in the early 1920s with anti-Semitic slurs used by Poles against Jews–slurs that echoed the anti-Semitic tone of the British in the Near East. Weizmann is also well known for being extremely accommodating to the British both on the eve of–and after–the Holocaust as they sought to keep Jews out of Palestine and out of England. Weizmann, who collaborated with the British Arabists for years, defended Sir William Evans Gordon and Gordon’s “Aliens Bill,” an anti-Semitic law to keep Jewish immigrants out of England. Weizmann said Britain shouldn’t become too “saturated” with Jews.
So, anyone who cites Chaim Weizmann’s defense and praise of T.E. Lawrence should know that Weizmann had a history of Anglo-pandering, particularly in defending the Brits against the Jews, whether it was in England or pre- and post-Holocaust Palestine. Zionist leader Aaronsohn’s description of Lawrence is far more credible.
It’s pretty clear: Lawrence of Arabia wanted the Jews out of Palestine (again, “One must have the Jewish section cleared up.”). With “Jew-lovers” like that, who needs enemies?
Tags: Aaron Aaronsohn, Aliens Bill, Aqaba, Chaim Weizmann, General Gilbert Clayton, Israel, Jews, Lawrence of Arabia, Palestine, Shapell Manuscript Foundation, Sir William Evans Gordon, T.E. Lawrence, T.E. Lawrence anti-Semite, T.E. Lawrence Jews
Very interesting history lesson, Debbie.
Lawrence was the scumbag who is directly responsible for the threat that the entire civilized world must now, and for perhaps centuries to come, endure from the muslim middle east.
DS_ROCKS! on December 17, 2013 at 3:00 am