Israel Matzav

Lawrence of Arabia was a Zionist

I returned to Israel early this morning.

In an interview to appear in tomorrow's Jerusalem Post with Martin Gilbert, a renowned British historian who is soon to publish a book called Churchill and the Jews, renowned 'Arabist' T.E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia") was actually a Zionist.

Lawrence believed that only with a sovereign Jewish entity in the area would the Arabs "ever make anything of themselves," according to Gilbert.

T.E. Lawrence, immortalized on film by Peter O'Toole, fought with Arab irregulars against the Ottoman Empire in World War I, wore Arabian clothes and adopted many Arab customs. He is widely perceived, Gilbert told The Jerusalem Post this week, as "the great Arabist, right? The man who supported the Arabs, and who pushed for Arab nationhood in the 1920s. He's always pictured wearing Arab robes."

The "astonishing" truth, however, Gilbert went on, is that Lawrence was "a serious Zionist. He believed that the only hope for the Arabs of Palestine and the rest of the region was Jewish statehood - that if the Jews had a state here, they would provide the modernity, the 'leaven,' as he put it, with which to enable the Arabs to move into the 20th century."

Gilbert, who said he had written about this issue in his forthcoming book, Churchill and the Jews, went so far as to say that Lawrence "had a sort of contempt for the Arabs, actually."

"He felt that only with a Jewish presence and state would the Arabs ever make anything of themselves. And, by a Jewish state, he meant a Jewish state from the Mediterranean shore to the River Jordan," said Gilbert, adding his own comment that this "will never come to pass."

Why shouldn't it come to pass?

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:22 PM