Saudi Arabia's 1937 threat to Great Britain over Palestine

In 1937, Col H.R.P. Dickson, former British Political Agent in Kuwait, was granted an interview or audience with King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia and they discussed Palestine. Dickson transcribed the king's words into a report.

This report (reproduced here from the invaluable MidEast Web site)shows the real problem that the Arab world had with Jews moving to the area, and it had nothing to do with "Zionism" - it was pure bigotry against Jews.

It is notable that the Arabs would not dare to say these words in their official statements even then; they always pretended to Westerners that their problems with Zionism were strictly political. Here the mask falls off as Ibn Saud attempts to appeal to Christian anti-semitism in order to gain an ally against the "accursed and stiffnecked" Jews.

Notice also how the king, hardly in the position of power that Saudi Arabia enjoys nowadays, still effectively uses threats against the United Kingdom to get them to fall in line with the racist policies of the Arabs:

'O Dickson when will your London Government realize that we Arabs by our very nature can be bought body and soul by an act of kindness and vice versa become implacable enemies for all time of those who treat us harshly or deal unjustly with us.

Today we and our subjects are deeply troubled over this Palestine question, and the cause of our disquiet and anxiety is the strange attitude of your British Government, and the still more strange hypnotic influence which the Jews, a race accursed by God according to His Holy Book, and destined to final destruction and eternal damnation hereafter, appear to wield over them and the English people generally.

'God's Holy Book (the Qur'an) contains God's own word and divine ordinance, and we commend to His Majesty's government to read and carefully peruse that portion which deals with the Jews and especially what is to be their fate in the end. For God's words are unalterable and must be.

'We Arabs believe implicitly in God's revealed word and we know that God is faithful. We care for nothing else in this world but our believe in the One God, His Prophet and our Honour, everything else matters nothing at all, not even death, nor are we afraid of hardship, hunger, lack of this worlds goods etc, etc. and we are quite content to eat camel's meat and dates to the end of our days, provided we hold to the above three things.

'Our hatred for the Jews dates from God's condemnation of them for their persecution and rejection of Isa (Jesus Christ), and their subsequent rejection later of His chosen Prophet. It is beyond our understanding how your Government, representing the first Christian power in the world today, can wish to assist and reward these very same Jews who maltreated your Isa (Jesus).

''We Arabs have been the traditional friends of Great Britain for many years, and I, Bin Sa'ud, in particular have been your Government's firm friend all my life, what madness then is this which is leading on our Government to destroy this friendship of centuries, all for the sake of an accursed and stiffnecked race which has always bitten the hand of everyone who has helped it since the world began.