British Pan-Arab policy, 1915-1922

In this myth-shattering study Isaiah Friedman provides a new perspective on events in the Middle East during World War I and its aftermath.

He shows that British officials in Cairo mistakenly assumed that the Arabs would rebel against Turkey and welcome the British as deliverers.

Sharif (later king) Hussein did rebel, but not for nationalistic motives as is generally presented in historiography.

Early in the war he simultaneously negotiated with the British and the Turks but, after discovering that the Turks intended to assassinate him, finally sided with the British.

There was no Arab Revolt in the Fertile Crescent. It was mainly the soldiers of Britain, the Commonwealth, and India that overthrew the Ottoman rule, not the Arabs.