ملف ٧٢٥١/١٩٢٠ الجزء ٣ "الجزيرة العربية: الوضع والسياسة؛ جدول أعمال اجتماعات اللجنة المشتركة بين الإدارات" [و‎‎٢‎٠‎٣] (٢٦٨/٤٢)

[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Maje
CONFIDENTIAL.
[E 13523/9/441
FOREIGN OFFICE MEMORANDUM ON ARABIAN POLICY.
IT is submitted that the time has now arrived for an authoritative decision on
the whole question of the political and financial obligations to be incurred in the future
bv His Majesty’s Government in Arabia. The question was discussed by an inter
departmental meeting at the Foreign Office on the 17th April (Appendix (C)),but
mat ers had not then advanced sufficiently for concrete recommendations to be made.
The position is now that negotiations are shortly to be opened in Paris between
His Majesty’s Government and the French Government in the first place, and eventually
between the principal Allied Powers, on the subject of Arabia.
By Arabia is meant the area bounded on the north-wes" by the peninsula of Sinai
and the British mandatory areas of Palestine and Trans-Jordan ; on the north-east by
the British mandatory area of Mesopotamia ; on the east by the Persian Gulf; on the
south-east by the Indian Ocean, and on the west by the Red Sea. A more detailed
description of what is defined as the peninsula of Arabia will be found in Appendix (A).
2. The population of Arabia consists almost entirely of Arab tribal elements,
grouped in some cases into large confederations, who acknowledge the sovereignty of
one individual. In the case of the Hedjaz, this individual is the Sherif of Mecca, who
has been recognised by the Allied Powers as King of the Hedjaz. The boundaries of
the Hedjaz ha\e never been defined, but the Hedjaz as a State was an original member
of the League of Nations, and so long as it remains so it stands on an entirely different
footing from the remainder of the peninsula. .
3. From the correspondence in Appendix (Bi it will be seen that the India ^ nt f
the Foreign Office are in agreement that Arabia, exclusive of the Hedjaz and Aden,
should be regarded as falling into ten main sub-divisions, and that their present policy
is to deal with each of these sub-divisions through one individual with the two
exceptions of the Trucial Coast of Oman and the tribe of the Anazeh, who acknowledge
no single ruler.
The ten divisions are as follows :—
Nejd ...
Hail ...
Koweit
Bahrein
Muscat
Trucial Coast
Hadramaut
Yemen
Asir ...
Anazeh
Ibn Saud.
Ibn Rashid.
Sheikh Salim.
Sheikh of Bahrein.
Sultan of Muscat.
Petty Chiefs.
Sultan of Shehr and Mokalla.
Imam Yahya.
Idrisi Said.
No single ruler.
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