Allied Diplomacy

Essay by anaesHigh School, 11th gradeA, January 2013

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"Allied diplomacy during WW1 in the Middle East was contradictory and caused instability in the region." To what extent do you agree with this statement?

Due to Britain's position as a major power, the country was able to reshape the Middle East and formulate agreements with several important cultures. However, some of the terms within these treaties were completely contradictory, creating dispute and controversy between parties. This very powerful mandate made many mistakes and errors in judgment that led to disastrous conflicts, such as providing assurances of things they weren't able to fulfill and creating contradictory terms within official agreements. Britain was responsible for a great amount of problems in the Middle East during World War 1, but there were many other sources of instability with different origins and motives.

Two of the most controversial events in the Middle East were the McMahon-Hussein agreement and the Balfour declaration, due to the profound difference in their terms.

Whilst the Balfour Declaration promised to provide a National Homeland for the Jewish people, the McMahon- Hussein pact stated that Arab nationals would recover land previously owned by the Turks. At first sight, these terms were completely opposite, and according to the Jewish and the Arabs, impossible to fulfill at once. However, the British claimed that the way in which the Arabs had interpreted the McMahon-Hussein agreement was mistaken because they believed Palestine was to be given to them, just as Britain argued that the map used to establish the terms excluded Palestine from land that had to be given back to the Arab people. A minor phrase that stated that any land that was not purely Arab was to be excluded from the terms created a monumental disagreement when it came to this particular event. Hussein claimed Palestine had to...