World War One and The Balfour Declaration
The roots of the Balfour Declaration lay in three bizarre ideas that were floating around in the 19th century Britain. The theology of the Christian Israelite Church influenced the wide-spread British-Israelism movement with which many upper-class Victorians, who embraced Imperialism, identified. The British people were identified as the lost tribes of Israel, creating a "chosen nation" narrative that appealed to the aristocracy. In the 19th century, another widespread belief known as Christian Restorationism (now Christian Zionism) emerged within Evangelical Protestantism. The return of the Jewish people to the Holy Land must occur before the Second Coming of Christ. Anthony Ashley Cooper, the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, was a prominent British politician and evangelist who heavily lobbied for a Jewish homeland in Palestine to prepare for the end times.
Different versions of anti-Semitism were widespread amongst all classes in Britain at the time from paranoid conspiracy theories of Jews secretly controlling world governments exemplified by the "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" to snobbish aristocratic aversion to Jewish "pushiness" and nouveau riche poor taste. British Cabinet Ministers knew that Jews weren't governing the world because they knew that they were, but during WW1 an unrealistic belief that American Jews could push the United States into the war and Jews in the Russian Bolshevik Party could return the Russians to the war influenced the Foreign Office to consider the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. In fact, Zionism was very much a minority movement within the global Jewish population, facing significant opposition from religious, socialist, and liberal groups of Jews. The Bolsheviks saw Zionism as a reactionary force. Jewish Bolsheviks and Jewish Zionists had antithetical viewpoints.Lord Balfour was Prime Minister, First Lord of the Admiralty, Foreign Secretary in a 60 year career.
In 1917 the British government released the Balfour Declaration: "His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people …" shortly before the British conquered Palestine. They also promised to make members of the Hashemite family kings of various Middle Eastern countries if they aided in the war effort against the Ottomans. As more Jews migrated after the First World War the local Muslims began attacking them. The British realised they might have created a problem promising the same land to more than one group.
By 1918 the population of Zionists had fallen from 80,000 to 55,000.
The Arab Awakening - George Antonius
Meanwhile, after several months of close negotiation with Jewish leaders in England, the British Government had entered into yet another commitment which conflicted with their previous pledges to the Arabs. This was the famous Balfour Declaration; and this is, briefly, how it came to be issued. Shortly after the outbreak of the War, a group of Zionist leaders in England set to work to enlist the sympathy of the Government to their cause. Hitherto, Zionist effort in the political field had mainly concentrated on persuading the rulers of Turkey, by a variety of means, to permit an increased Jewish colonisation of Palestine. The effort had not met with success: 'Abdul-Hamid had discouraged it point-blank; while the Young Turks who, in view of the strong Jewish influence in the counsels of the C.U.P., were
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inclined at first to listen to Zionist proposals, found it prudent eventually to reject them, especially after an angry scene in the Ottoman Chamber in the autumn of 1912 when Arab deputies had protested against the acquisition by Jews of a large area of arable land in the Plain of Esdraelon and the threatened dispossession of the Arab peasants. The centre of Zionist activity, at the outbreak of war, was in Berlin. When Turkey joined the Central Powers, Zionist leaders found it expedient to cultivate the Allied side as well, so that, in the event of the War resulting in a disruption of the Ottoman Empire, the Zionist cause might be ensured a sympathetic hearing.
The task which the Zionists in England, led by Dr. Chaim Weizmann, had set themselves, was no easy one. The majority of influential English Jews were opposed to Zionism or, more exactly, to the nationalistic idea inherent in political Zionism. Outside the ranks of Jewry, the Zionist cause had one powerful supporter in C. P. Scott, then editor of the Manchester Guardian, and another in A. J. Balfour; but no other known partisans of any eminence until Mr. Lloyd George, on being approached by Dr. Weizmann, gave his prompt adhesion to the movement. An effort was then made to secure the goodwill of the Cabinet. Mr. Herbert (now Lord) Samuel, who was a member of the Asquith Government, approached the Prime Minister and some of his colleagues. But Asquith turned out to be unsympathetic, and the effort led to no positive It was only some two years later, when Mr. Lloyd George had succeeded Asquith as Prime Minister, with Balfour as his Foreign Secretary, that negotiations were for the first time opened between the Zionist leaders and an authorised representative of the Government.
By that time, much had happened that tied the hands of
1 Mr. Herbert Samuel's representstions were embodied in a memorandum in which he strongly urged the annexation of Palestine by Great Britain, with a view to settling some three or four million Jews. Mr. Asquith, to use his own phrase, was 'not attracted' by the proposal. Ten years later, after a visit to Palestine, be wrote: 'The talk of making Palestine into a Jewish "National Home" seems to me as fantastic as it always has done.' Memories and Reflections, 1928, Vol. II.
259 THE ARAB AWAKENING
the British Government in their freedom of decision with regard to the future of Palestine. In the first place, the bargain concluded with the Sharif Husain in 1915 committed Great Britain to recognising and upholding an independent Arab State in an area from which, as we have seen, Palestine had not been excluded. In the second place, the provisions of the Sykes-Picot Agreement envisaged the placing of the Holy Land under some form of international administration in the setting up of which not only France and Russia and the other Allies, but also the Sharif of Mecca, were to have their say. Thirdly, the hostility of an influential section of Anglo-Jewry had hardened to such a pitch that they had declared their irrevocable opposition to the establishment of the Jewish State which the Zionists were advocating; and a campaign had begun, led by the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Anglo-Jewish Association - the two most representative bodies in English Jewry - of which the object was to dissuade the Government from acceding to the wishes of the Zionists.1 The views voiced by those two bodies had a spokesman in the Cabinet itself, in the person of the late Edwin Montagu, then Secretary of State for India.
Undeterred, however, by those obstacles, Mr. Lloyd George appointed Sir Mark Sykes to open negotiations with the Zionists. What his motives were in wishing to come to an understanding with the Zionist leaders, and what the considerations were which induced the British Government eventually to issue the Balfour Declaration are questions to which the answers have been obscured by a smoke-screen of legend and propaganda. It is alleged, for instance, that the Jews used their financial and political influence to bring the United States into the War on the side of the Entente and that the Balfour Declaration was a reward for actual services rendered. All the published evidence goes to disprove that allegation, and one can only infer either that it does not rest on any foundation or, if it does, that the services rendered by
1 More detailed information on this point is available in Reports of the Executive of the Zionist Organisation to the Xllth Zionist Congress, I. Political Report (National Labour Press, London, 1921), to which I am indebted for material used in this chapter.
260 PLEDGES AND COUNTER-PLEDGES
international Jewry in that connexion were of so occult a nature that they have hitherto escaped the scrutiny of all the historians of America's intervention. Again, it is often stated that the Balfour Declaration was issued in return for promises pledging large subscriptions from Jewish sources to war-loan funds; but that, too, may safely be discounted. The available evidence is too fragmentary to be of value and, so far as it goes, tends to show that the most substantial purchases of British war-loan stock that can be traced to Jewish sources in 1917 and 1918 were made in the name of Jews who were opposed to the policy foreshadowed in the Balfour Declaration. Yet another legend is that which attributes the genesis of the Declaration to a desire on the part of the British Government to reward Dr. Weizmann for his timely invention of a new explosive.
In actual fact, the British Government were moved mainly by two considerations. One was political: to win over the powerful Zionist elements in Germany and Austria, who were actually in negotiation with the Central Powers for the issue of a Turkish 'Balfour Declaration', by providing them with a positive interest in an Entente victory; and, at the same time, to mitigate the hostility of Jews in Allied countries towards Russia and give those Jews, who had been so active in overthrowing the Tsarist regime, an incentive to keep Russia in the War. The other was the imperialistic motive, first propounded by Kitchener, of securing Palestine or a portion of it as a bulwark to the British position in Egypt and an overland link with the East. This motive was the dominant one, and whatever part other considerations - financial, political, religious or humanitarian - may have played, there is no doubt that it sufficed by itself to bring about the Balfour Declaration. And it may legitimately be assumed that had they not come to an agreement with the Zionists, the British Government would have tried every means open to them of concluding such other bargains as would have ensured the reversion of Palestine to Great Britain as her share of the spoils of war.
Betrayal of Palestine: the Story of George Antonius: Susan Silsby Boyle
The Balfour Declaration, 1917
The year 1917 was no less a difficult one, though the difficulties were of a different kind. This was the year when Antonius and other Arabs first faced the question of Britain's betrayal of promises to support Arab inde- pendence and self-rule, Arabs felt betrayed by the November 2,1917 Bal- four Declaration, pledging British support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine and by the Sykes-Picot plan, a secret Anglo-French agreement for postwar dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire, including Greater Syria, which was published by the Russians in December 1917.Although officers in the Arab Bureau in Egypt opposed the fragmenta- tion of Syria and Zionist ambitions, leading officials in Whitehall were less averse to dividing the spoils with their old rivals, the French. In De- cember 1916 a new coalition government came to power in Britain, with David Lloyd George replacing the more patrician Herbert Asquith as prime minister. In Egypt, Sir Reginald Wingate replaced McMahon as high commissioner, marginalizing Kitchener's supporters, such as Ronald Storrs, who was then oriental secretary.
In London, Lloyd George's government backed Zionists, in part be- cause of anticipated financial and political gains to the British Empire. For his part, Lloyd George was schooled in a religious frame that favored Zionist ambitions; he had served as the Zionist organization's attorney; and he represented Manchester, which had the second largest Jewish population in Britain, after London. Among the leading figures in the British government, Arthur Balfour, the secretary of state for foreign af- fairs, under whose name the statement of policy favoring the establish- ment of a Jewish National Home in Palestine was issued, and Winston Churchill, one of the movement's leading supporters, were also from Manchester. Although only a few figures encouraged Lloyd George's pro-Zionist stance, they were prominent figures in the world of finance, politics, and journalism. One of Lloyd George's closest political confi- dants, for example, was C. P. Scott, editor of the great liberal newspaper the Manchester Guardian, whom Chaim Weizmann converted to Zionism in 1914.2
In contrast to the pro-Zionist Rothschilds and Sir Herbert Samuel, other prominent Jewish personalities in Britain adamantly opposed the Balfour Declaration, seeing it as a threat to the fundamental principle of equality, which they and their families had long struggled for, and as a misuse of Judaism, which they argued was a religion not be mistaken with an aggressive and acquisitive political movement. When Balfour presented the proposal to the Cabinet, Lord Edwin Montagu, secretary of state for India (and cousin to Herbert Samuel), led the opposition. Criti- cism also was voiced by others, including David Alexander, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, and Claude Montefiore, president of the Anglo-Jewish Association, who claimed that political Zionism was unfairly demanding special privileges and economic preferences in Palestine. - Betrayal of Palestine: the Story of George Antonius: Susan Silsby Boyle
Many have attributed the granting of the Balfour Declaration as a debt of gratitude owed to Chaim Weizmann for his invention of a fermentation process allowing for the mass production of high explosives during the Great War (John, 1985). A closer reading of the historical record demonstrates that the decision was far more strategic in nature. In his memoirs Prime Minister David Lloyd George reveals his thinking at that time:
There is no better proof of the value of the Balfour Declaration as a military move than the fact that Germany entered into negotiations with Turkey in an endeavor to provide an alternative scheme which would appeal to Zionists. Another most cogent reason for the adoption by the Allies of the policy of the Declaration lay in the state of Russia herself… It was believed that if Great Britain declared for the fulfillment of Zionist aspirations in Palestine under her own pledge, one effect would be to bring Russian Jewry to the cause of the Entente.
Becoming a State: Zionist and Palestinian Movements for National Liberation - Martin S. Widzer
It was believed, also, that such a declaration would have a potent influence upon world Jewry outside Russia, and secure for the Entente the aid of Jewish financial interests. In America, their aid in this respect would have a special value when the Allies had almost exhausted the gold and marketable securities available for American purchases. Such were the chief considerations which, in 1917, impelled the British Government towards making a contract with Jewry (1939: 726).
- Evangelicals and Israel: The Story of Christian Zionism - Stephen Spector
- The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
- Becoming a State: Zionist and Palestinian Movements for National Liberation - Martin S. Widzer
- A History of Zionism - Walter Laqueur