ثورة فلسطين - أسبابها ونتائجها
The Palestine Revolt: Its Causes and Consequencesby Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā

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فظة الطبع، مسرفة في الطمع والجشع، والضراوة بسفك الدماء، والنهم بسلب الأموال، وأنها لا تبغي من هذه الحرب إلا استعباد البشر، والاستبداد في حكم الأمم.

وأما هم فلا يبغون من قتالها إلا الدفاع عن أنفسهم وعن إخوانهم في الإنسانية، ووقايتهم من الخطر الذي يتهدد حريتهم، واستقلال جميع الشعوب كبيرها وصغيرها، قويها وضعيفها؛ لأن الحرية القومية كالحرية الشخصية حق طبيعي عام للبشر، فإن ظفروا كانت العاقبة سعادة جميع البشر، وإن خسروا حاق الشقاء بجميع البشر! ! وقد كان القدح المعلى في تعميم هذه الدعاية للدولة البريطانية، وكان ممن خدع بها دولة الولايات المتحدة، وكان أول مخدوع رئيس حكومتها الدكتور ولسن ذو النزعة الدينية، والعاطفة الإنسانية الأدبية، فانبرى لمساعدتهم؛ وإنما كان النصر الأخير لهم بمساعدته المادية، وبما وضعه للصلح من القواعد (الأربع عشرة) السياسية الأدبية، وكان أول من خُدع بهذه القواعد الاشتراكيون والعمال من الألمان ومنهم بحارة الأسطول، فأكرهوا دولتهم على طلب الصلح، حتى إذا ما قضي الأمر، قلب الحلفاء للرئيس ولسن ودولته ولجميع البشر ظهر المجن، وظهر من طمعهم وقسوتهم وضراوتهم وجشعهم ونهمهم أضعاف ما كان من قبل.

أخلفوا الوعود، ونقضوا العهود، وكان جزاء العرب من الانضواء إليهم، والخروج معهم على دولتهم العثمانية طلبًا لاستقلالهم، أن عاملتهم إنكلترة وفرنسة شرًّا مما عاملت به جميع أعدائها من استعباد واستبداد، وسفك دماء وسلب أموال، حتى إنهم كانوا يدمرون القرية الآمنة المطمئنة من البلاد التي كانت تحارب دولتها تحت رايتهم على من فيها من رجال ونساء وأطفال لتهمة واهية لم تقرن ببحث ولا تحقيق، وحتى إنهم سلبوا من مملكة الحجاز سكة الحديد الإسلامية التي جعلها الشريف حسين تحت تصرفهم في الحرب، وكان جيشه يدمر بديناميتهم جسورها ويقلع حديدها في أرض الحجاز نفسها، معتقدًا أنها تبنى بأموال الإنكليز بعد الحرب وتكون له هي والبلاد المنشأة فيها! ! فلا غرو أن يزول كل ما كان لهاتين الدولتين من حرمة ومكانة أدبية في الشرق، وأن يعتقد شعوبه أنهم شر البشر على البشر، وأنه لا حرية ولا حرمة ولا حياة للإنسانية إلا

English
translation

harsh, excessively greedy, eager to shed blood and seize wealth, and intent through the war only on enslaving humanity and ruling nations as a despot.

They, by contrast, claimed to fight Germany only to defend themselves and their fellow human beings from danger to freedom, and to secure independence for all peoples, large and small, strong and weak. National freedom, they said, was a universal natural right like personal freedom. If they won, all humanity would be happy; if they lost, all humanity would suffer. The British state played the leading role in spreading this propaganda. Among those deceived by it were the United States and, first of all, its president, Dr. Wilson, a man of religious inclination and humane feeling. He rose to help them. Their final victory came only through his material aid and the fourteen political and moral principles he proposed for peace. The first to be deceived by those principles were German socialists and workers, including sailors in the fleet, who forced their state to seek peace. Once the matter was settled, the Allies turned against President Wilson, his state, and all humanity. Their greed, cruelty, bloodlust, and appetite for plunder proved many times greater than before.

They broke promises and treaties. In return for joining them and rising against their Ottoman state in pursuit of independence, the Arabs were treated by England and France worse than any of their enemies, through enslavement, despotism, bloodshed, and plunder. They even destroyed peaceful villages in lands whose state was fighting under their banner, with men, women, and children inside, on the basis of a weak accusation without inquiry or investigation. They also took from the Kingdom of the Hejaz the Islamic railway that Sharif Hussein had placed at their disposal during the war. His army had used their dynamite to destroy its bridges and remove its rails even in the Hejaz, believing that English money would rebuild the line after the war and that he would possess it and the lands along it. It is no wonder that these two states lost all the esteem and moral standing they had held in the East, and that its peoples came to believe they were the worst of humanity, and that humanity could have neither freedom, dignity, nor life unless

Analysis

Riḍā contrasts Allied claims to defend freedom with what he says followed their victory. Wilson presented the Fourteen Points on 1918-01-08 as a program for peace. They called for open covenants, equal weight for affected populations in colonial claims, autonomous development for non-Turkish Ottoman nationalities, and guarantees for large and small states. The United States National Archives says the points became a basis for peace negotiations and that most were later set aside at Versailles by the leaders of England, France, and Italy. This supports Riḍā's contrast between the announced program and the settlement. It does not establish that Wilson was deceived, that his principles caused the final victory, or that German workers and sailors forced peace because of them. His accusations about Arab promises, villages, and the Hijaz railway remain unverified here. His call to end imperial power crosses into p. 455.

German records confirm that the government requested peace negotiations in October 1918 on the basis of Wilson's Fourteen Points. Military history also places the Kiel mutiny within the wider disintegration of Germany and its armed forces, followed by an urgent recommendation for negotiations. These facts support part of Riḍā's sequence, but they do not show that Wilson's principles deceived the workers and sailors or that their action alone forced the armistice. Scholarship also confirms increasingly frequent attacks and sabotage against the Hijaz railway in 1917-1918. The Treaty of Sèvres later required Turkey to abandon its railway rights and accept arrangements by the governments concerned. Neither source verifies Riḍā's precise claims about British dynamite, a promise to rebuild, or Britain and France taking the line from the Hijaz kingdom.

Riḍā does not name the village, territory, date, or military unit behind his accusation that Allied forces destroyed a peaceful village on a weak charge. Egypt is a plausible comparison because later archival scholarship describes the British Army's violent suppression of the 1919 revolution and documents collective punishment that included village burning. A contemporary parliamentary answer, however, said the British government had received no information that troops had burned villages. The comparison shows why the allegation cannot be dismissed, but it does not identify Riḍā's episode or establish every detail of his claim about the accusation and lack of inquiry.