A jumping off ground¶
Core Argument¶
A Jumping-Off Ground
This chapter exposes the strategic realignment of British imperialism in the Middle East following the Labour government’s withdrawal from Egypt and the Suez Canal zone. The core argument is that Palestine is being transformed from a colonial mandate into a permanent military base—a “jumping-off ground”—for the defence of imperial communications and oil routes, a shift that strips away any remaining pretence of disinterestedness in the region.
The chapter’s key evidence is drawn from a parliamentary debate on 1 August, in which Churchill delivers a remarkably candid indictment. He argues that the precipitate abandonment of treaty rights in Egypt has forced the government to seek a “strong place of arms” in Palestine, thereby vitiating Britain’s moral position and hampering the possibility of American cooperation. Churchill’s criticism is not a principled anti-imperialist one; he objects only because he believes the “strong arm” policy could still have been maintained in Egypt. The Labour government, as Morrison reluctantly admits, is compelled to compromise with the Egyptians and find a new strategic foothold in Palestine.
The chapter then turns to the internal dynamics of British rule in Palestine, drawing on the testimony of Labour MP Wilkes. He exposes a pattern of deliberate provocation by the military authorities: the Jewish Agency is closed down, yet the offices of the fascist Revisionist Party—which controls the Irgun terrorists—are left open; the Revisionist press continues its militant racial propaganda; socialist settlements are searched for terrorists who are plainly not there; the only paper closed down is Haaretz, a liberal publication that had criticised the Jewish Agency for being too militant. The chapter argues that such measures can only inflame the Jewish masses against the army, while the army simultaneously uses terrorist attacks to embitter the troops against the Jews. This is contrasted with the 1936–39 Arab revolt, when the army posed as the protector of the Jews and incited troops against the Arabs.
The polemical thrust is directed against both the Labour government’s hypocrisy and the capitalist press’s crocodile tears over the strain on British troops. The troops are not there to keep order in any neutral sense; they are there to guard British strategic-economic interests. The chapter concludes that this is in the interests neither of the worker-soldiers nor of the native peoples under British domination.