Sponsored By: Jack & Kathryn Crusan
Morley, Michigan, USA

The game changer in Palestine was “the war to end all wars,” but the foundation for world conflict had been well established beforehand by the British and Ottoman empires. In part this was due to the discovery of oil throughout the Middle East. Britain was a Christian nation, Turkey a Muslim one, and the Jews had no country, as of yet, to call their own. But the British people at first sympathized with Jewish longings for a homeland, so they supported the Balfour Declaration of 1917 and its Zionist goals.

The Turks entered World War I when they signed a secret pact called The Ottoman-German Alliance. And because the British High Command feared that the Ottomans might attack and capture Mid East oil fields, they launched their Sinai-Palestine Campaigns which ultimately proved successful when the Armistice was signed four years later. That left Britain (and France) in charge of carving up the boundaries of new nation-states like Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia.

British occupation of Palestine may have been the shortest in history, but in many ways it was the most significant. There were no oil fields to be had, just growing numbers of Jewish refugees and displaced Arabs competing for control of cities, towns and large tracts of acreage. Then, too, the Brits had an all important Mandate with defined borders from the League of Nations for what would become the State of Israel.

When all was said and done, despite good and less benevolent intentions, neither Britain nor Turkey contributed much to the immediate restoration of the Promised Land. It was always Jewish immigrants who made the greatest strides toward independence during this last period of foreign dominance, except perhaps for the fact that English expeditionary forces built a jail and an office building at the peak of Biblical Tamar. From that vantage point they could see in all directions and take advantage of the oasis as a respite for British soldiers marching to and from Eilat. It is said Lawrence of Arabia led the way by mapping the area years earlier when it was a forgotten Arab outpost.