Monday, April 11, 2016

Keeping the Arabs Divided --Gowans blog

From The Bannerman Report, written in 1907 by British prime minister Henry Campbell Bannerman:

“There are people (the Arabs, Editor’s Note) who control spacious territories teeming with manifest and hidden resources. They dominate the intersections of world routes. Their lands were the cradles of human civilizations and religions. These people have one faith, one language, one history and the same aspirations. No natural barriers can isolate these people from one another … if, per chance, this nation were to be unified into one state, it would then take the fate of the world into its hands and would separate Europe from the rest of the world. Taking these considerations seriously, a foreign body should be planted in the heart of this nation to prevent the convergence of its wings in such a way that it could exhaust its powers in never-ending wars. It could also serve as a springboard for the West to gain its coveted objects.”

[Dan Bar-On & Sami Adwan, THE PRIME SHARED HISTORY PROJECT, in Educating Toward a Culture of Peace, pages 309–323, Information Age Publishing, 2006]

Cited by Tariq Ali in “Blinded by Israel, Visionless in Gaza,” Counterpunch, July 23, 2014

what's left (Gowans blog), July 23, 2014

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Denis! I've dug for quite some time to "verify" (well, within the realm of the possible) this damning quote. Have thus far come up with nothing. Some of the language strikes me as slightly anachronistic... it may well be a plant (to discredit) or a straightforward fabrication.

Denis Rancourt said...

I found this web article that argues that the quote is a fake:

New PalArab lie: "Great Britain planned Israel in 1907 to destroy Arab nation"
June 24, 2014, Elder of Zion blog.
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2014/06/new-palarab-lie-great-britain-planned.html

More research needed?

Anonymous said...

Interestingly, I found the anthology ("Robert I. Rotberg-Israeli And Palestinian Narratives of Conflict: History's Double Helix (Indiana Series in Middle East Studies)-Indiana University Press") which cites the people ("Dan Bar-On & Sami Adwan") who cite the supposed Campbell-Bannerman quote (and from whom Tariq Ali gets the quote for the CounterPunch piece)... that book was published in 2006 and seems to be the source for most of the passage's Internet presence.

(Sorry I'm anon but I've opted out of my Google ID these days)

Keep up the heroic work!