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| 1 |
ID:
066598
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| 2 |
ID:
093759
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| Publication |
2010.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Based on documents recently discovered in French archives, the article sheds new light on the role of France, especially of its Foreign Minister Georges Bidault, in providing arms and ammunition to the Etzel - the pre-state underground Zionist movement in Israel. The ship Altalena, which was sunk by the newly-formed Israel Defence Forces in the midst of the 1948 War of Independence, remains a centre of historiographical and political controversy in Israel. France's role in this affair is examined in the wider context of its clandestine intelligence, military and diplomatic assistance to Israel, as well as its rivalry with Britain in the Middle East. The article argues that Bidault's decision was intended to undermine Britain's secret support during the war in Palestine for King Abdallah of Jordan's occupation of Jerusalem. Documents, including a report of a committee of inquiry of the French Ministry of Defence into the Altalena affair, are annexed.
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| 3 |
ID:
185813
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The principle of civilian control over the military and the secret services is essential for healthy democracies. That principle was challenged under the Labour government in Britain from 1945-1951, when the military and MI6 in the Middle East conducted their own parallel ‘defence policy’ using deception and misinformation, not only against their country’s enemies, but against their own elected government. The outcome was a divided and confused foreign policy in a region that was considered vital to Britain’s strategic interests. This research, which is based on sources from French, British, American and Israeli archives, as well as Syrian and other Arab documents, sheds light on the covert action of MI6 officers operating from their headquarters in Cairo with the backing of high-ranking officers in the Middle East Command, to subvert France's colonial rule in North Africa. Their clandestine activities contradicted the policy of Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin, who sought to amend his country’s relations with France after their clash in Syria in the summer of 1945, and integrate it in an anti-Soviet European alliance. The MI6 Arabists' covert action in French North Africa serves as a case study to re-evaluate Bevin’s control of the organization, which was ostensibly accountable to him. The article questions Bevin’s reputation as a powerful Foreign Secretary who dominated the Foreign Office, and raises doubts about his ability to oversee MI6’s clandestine operations in the Middle East.
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| 4 |
ID:
099804
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| Publication |
2010.
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| Summary/Abstract |
The article provides the 'missing dimension' in the historiography of Syria and Lebanon in the Second World War. It is based on secret British and Syrian documents obtained by the French intelligence from their agents in the British Legation in Beirut and the Syrian government in Damascus, never published before. These documents, recently discovered by the author, shed new light on the activities of the British intelligence agencies in the Middle East during and after the war. They reveal that these agencies played an important role in shaping Britain's policy in the region by securing the tacit collaboration of prominent Arab nationalists in Syria and Lebanon and other Arab countries. In Syria (and Palestine), Britain conducted a 'dual policy': one purported to mediate between the French and the Syrians, details of which are found in British archives, and a tacit policy aimed to evict France, of which few traces remain in official documentation. Hence de Gaulle's accusations that Britain secretly engineered the expulsion of France from the Levant were indeed justified, and that the Syrians' claim that their country was the first Arab state to secure complete independence is questionable. The article also discloses that Britain was behind the Hashemite schemes to integrate Syria in a Greater Syria or an Iraqi-led Hashemite confederation. Copies of more than one hundred of the documents are annexed to the article, including a secret agreement from 29 May 1945 revealing that President Quwatli was coerced into granting Britain a dominant position in Syria.
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| 5 |
ID:
169005
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| Summary/Abstract |
David Ben-Gurion, the founder of the State of Israel, repeatedly accused Britain of provoking the Arab states to invade Israel the day after its establishment in May 1948. To date, historians have not found proof of his accusations in British archives. However, evidence may be found in French archives, especially in Syrian and secret British documents obtained by the French secret services, originating from agents who had infiltrated the Syrian government in Damascus and the British Legation in Beirut. This article, based on French, Syrian, Israeli and British sources, argues that under the Labour government, Arabist MI6 officers in the Middle East, in collaboration with the British High Command in Cairo, pursued an alternative policy to that of the Foreign Office. They provoked Egypt’s King Faruq to go to war against Israel without the knowledge or approval of either Prime Minister Clement Attlee or Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin, frequently misinforming and misleading them. This watershed research provides details of the goals and modus operandi of those involved in that clandestine plot.
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