Fifty years on
Sir: The British withdrawal from Palestine was not wholly an abandonment of power, leaving the Jews and Arabs to fight it out (Books, 24 January). This conventional view must be set against research which shows how, after the November 1947 UN vote in favour of partition into. Jewish and Arab states, Ernest Bevin arranged for the Arab Legion to occupy broadly what is now the West Bank; told its commander, Glubb Pasha, to avoid conflict with the Jewish state; and expected King Abdullah of Trans-Jordan to annex the West Bank and, later on, some of the Negev — a quite dif- ferent form of partition.
Saturday, 7 February 1998 marks the exact 50th anniversary of the secret meeting in the Foreign Office between Bevin, Glubb and Abdullah's prime minister, Tau- fik Abul Huda, which set in train the real partition. It was only revealed in Glubb's 1957 book, A Soldier With the Arabs.
Glubb translated Abul Huda's statement for Trans-Jordan: King Abdullah intended that the Arab Legion would, after 15 May 1948 (the end of the Mandate), occupy the proposed Arab area contiguous to Jordan. This did not include Jerusalem, which was supposed to be internationalised. Bevin famously replied, 'It seems the obvious thing to do, but do not go and invade the areas allotted to the Jews.'
This meeting remains the subject of dis- pute, because some Israeli historians point out that the Foreign Office memorandum in the PRO does not directly record Bevin telling Glubb this. Some writers call it a `warning'; but it was more of a direct instruc- tion to Glubb, who was at all times in touch with the British government. The history of the 1948 war shows that occupying the Arab areas and not invading the Jewish state is exactly what Abdullah and Glubb tried to do. The in itself understandable Israeli decision to take more territory than allotted in the 1947 plan (including Jewish Jerusalem), and the other Arab countries' decision to invade to try to extinguish the Jewish state, however, led to a full-scale war.
Christopher Sykes, in Cross Roads to Israel, still most readable 30 years on, wrote of the meeting of Saturday, 7 February 1948, 'For a moment, a gleam of political common sense illuminates the story of British conduct in Palestine.' Its 50th anniversary should not pass unnoted.
Mark A. Sullivan 30 Milverton Crescent, Leamington Spa, Warwickshire An error in transcription in this office resulted in Churchill being described as forming a new administration in 1957, instead of 1951, in Mr Euan Graham's letter last week.
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