But before we can understand what's happened to Judah and Jerusalem, let's look at the background of King Abdullah.
How did he come to be part of the picture?
To understand that we have to see the 1914-1918 Great war in its true setting or European, and not in the setting that the JWs (and others) place it as the first world war. Its true that this was affected many places in the world, but that was because during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, European powers had been busy trying to establish colonies in other countries. Many scholars argue that the 1914-1918 war was essentially another European war, part of series of wars that had been occurring for many centuries and which often brought change of ownership to the overseas colonies that European powers had established. Some argue, that this process is still occurring, and that we can view the USA-Russia altercations as part of the endless bickering as part of a process to establish a pecking order among the European (now including the USA) elites.
At the end of the 1914-1918 war, peace treaties were negotiated which attempted to portion out the spoils of war among the (primarily) European victors. Europe was transformed in a process that is still affecting European politics:
Look at this map (below) and think of the areas that are still part of world crisis points. Much of the pink areas, are territories formerly part of the Russian Empire and given up by the new Soviet government in the treaty of Brest-Litovsk (Not part of the Versailles negotiations)
After the Central Powers launched Operation Faustschlag on the Eastern Front, the new Soviet Government of Russia signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany on 3 March 1918. This treaty ended the war between Russia and the Central powers and annexed 1,300,000 square miles (3,400,000 km 2 ) square miles of territory and 62 million people. This loss equated to one third of the Russian population, 25 per cent of their territory, around a third of the country's arable land, three-quarters of its coal and iron, a third of its factories (totalling 54 per cent of the nation's industrial capacity), and a quarter of its railroads.
But our focus is on Western Asia. Here the British and French had the major say and carved up the territories of the former Ottomon empire. The Empire itself had collapsed during the war, with the centre transforming itself into Turkey. But most of the remainder was divided between Britain and France. France got the section that became Syria, and the British took Iraq and Palestine and established suzerainty over Egypt, Sudan and Iran.
To rule their new territories, the British endeavoured to establish the local elites and King Abdullah's family was one of the elite families that gained a major benefit. So does anyone think that what he's saying is unusual for someone in his position. That's not to argue that he's wrong in what he says. I merely point out that there will be many people in the area, without the advantages of being one of the elite, that will disagree with him.
