May 14, 2013

AROUND AND ABOUT: FINEST HOUR 140, AUTUMN 2008

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In his review of Pat Buchanan’s Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War (National Review, June 30th) David Pryce-Jones, trying to be fair and balanced, listed what he said were Churchill’s real mistakes, including “the 1922 partition of Transjordan.” Finest Hour informed NR that what Churchill “partitioned” (in 1921) was Britain’s Palestine Mandate: a Jewish homeland (not a state) west of the Jordan, and an Arab kingdom across the Jordan, i.e., “Transjordan.” We added:

“Churchill persuaded Kings Abdullah (Jordan) and Faisal (Iraq) to respect the Jewish homeland, thinking he’d made good the “Twice-Promised Land” (Balfour to the Zionists, Lawrence to the Arabs). Churchill was convinced that Zionists and Palestinians would coexist for mutual and general advantage. Among Churchill’s real faults, unbridled optimism was prominent.”

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Pryce-Jones bobbed and weaved, replying that, well, “it was a mistake in that the outcome was to ban Jews from ever living in a certain portion of Arab land,” and adding snippily, “I must have missed the moment when unbridled optimism became a fault.”

Wrong again: the Zionists were quite happy with their part of Britain’s Palestine Mandate. The question of living in Transjordan scarcely arose. Churchill’s (impressive) achievement was to convince two Arab potentates to tolerate a Jewish Homeland in their midst.

“Unbridled optimism” occasionally played Churchill false—the gold standard, Edward VIII, the French Army, Stalin—but on the big issues he was right. Jimmy Carter’s unbridled optimism gave us the Islamic Republic of Iran, and we’re still stuck with that one. As optimism goes, we tend to prefer the bridled variety.