Lawrence of arabia

[dbdent]

http://www.meforum.org/3577/lawrence-of-arabia-fiction



The modern Middle East was born when the European powers exploited the declining Ottoman Empire's entry into World War I to gobble up its lands. They did so by duping naive Arab nationalists to rise against their Ottoman suzerain and then cheated the Arabs of the fruits of their uprising.

So goes the popular narrative about the origins of the region's troubles. It's an emotionally gripping tale, but it's also the inverse of truth. It wasn't British officials but a Meccan potentate, Sharif Hussein ibn Ali of the Hashemite family, who in the summer of 1915 hatched the idea of overthrowing the Ottoman Empire. Impressed by Hussein's promises to raise the Ottomans' Arab subjects in revolt, Sir Arthur Henry McMahon, the British high commissioner in Egypt, tentatively accepted Hussein's vision of an Arab successor empire and facilitated the revolt that began in June 1916.
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[Levi]

So, was it Lawrence or Arthur who kicked Turkey's ass?

[Nannette]

A brilliant article!
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He who is merciful with the cruel, will end-up being cruel to the merciful
- Kohelet Rabba 7:16

[dbdent]

Lawrence was a go between for the govt