THE BALFOUR DECLARATION:  NOVEMBER 1917

    It was on the 2nd November, 1917, that the British Foreign Secretary, Arthur James Balfour, sent a letter to Lord Rothschild, the chairman of the British Zionist Federation, stating that the British government favoured the setting up a national home for the Jews in Palestine. Given time, in fact, this suggestion – something of a wild card at the time – became a reality. May 1948 was to see the setting up of the fully fledged state of Israel. But this did not come about without violent opposition from the Arab World. At the postwar settlement, as we shall see, the Arab states within the Middle East were to complain bitterly that both the British and the French had reneged on promises, made during the war, that, in effect, granted them complete control over their own territory. They had fought for the British and the French on that understanding. And to this was added the bitter fruits of the Balfour Declaration. In the case of Palestine, this also meant the imposition of an alien race, and the opening of a long and bitter conflict (including open warfare) that remains ongoing to this day. In 1920, when the British were granted a mandate – seen by the Arabs (and others), as a “thinly veiled form of colonialism” – the Jewish constituted less than 10% of the population, and by 1935 it was still under 27%. The scheme was seen as the establishment of Jewish self-rule at the expense of a Palestinian Arab majority.

    As we have seen, the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement between Britain and France, drawn up in May 1916 and assuming an Allied victory, agreed that most of the lands under the rule of the Ottoman Empire (notably Syria, Iraq, Jordan and Saudi Arabia), would be divided into British and French spheres of influence. At this stage, however, Palestine was not partitioned in any detail. It was simply designated as “an area under the protection of Great Britain, France and Russia”. However, in outline, it did see northern Galilee going to the French; the ports of Haifa and Acre going to the British; and the centre of the country, including Jerusalem and Jaffa, coming under “a form of international administration”. At that time, in fact, the British prime minister, Lloyd George, actually complained that the French had been allocated too much land, given their limited contribution to the Sinai-Palestine campaign! With further consultation (and with Russia no longer in the war), there would certainly have been some settlement reached between the British and the French, but such an arrangement never came to pass. Britain’s offer of support for the setting up of a national home for the Jews in what was once, in ancient times, their “Promised Land”, received the backing of the San Remo Agreement of April 1920, and of the League of Nations in July 1922, and Palestine became a British mandate, charged with this demanding task.

Acknowledgements

Balfour Initiative: israelforever.org Line in the Sand: abebooks.co.uk.British author James Barr Map-Sykees-Picot Agreement: crethiplethi.com Map- Balfour Declaration: quora.com Map- Palestine: jstor.org Arthur Balfour: wikiwand.com Sokolow: en.wikipedia.com Weizman: jewoftheweek.net. Fall of Ottomans: hurriyetdailynews.com by American historian Eugene Rogan.

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     Incidentally, thexZionist movement was founded in 1897. In accordance with the promise made by the Jewish God Yahweh, (“I will bring my people Israel back from exile” - Amos 9:14), its aim was to establish a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine, in or close to the land of Ancient Israel, their earlier settlement in this region. It is named after one of the hills in Jerusalem, but has become synonymous with a holy city of refuge. ......

     …… A Hungarian journalist at this time, Arthur Koestler, regarded the Balfour Declaration as one of the most improbable political documents of all time. It conjured up, he noted, a situation whereby “one nation solemnly promises to a second nation the country of a third!”

    It might well be a fact that both Balfour and the British Prime Minister himself, Lloyd George, were genuinely in favour of the Jews returning to their spiritual homeland. And there were certainly a number of Zionists within the British corridors of power. However, it would not have escaped the British government, and the War Office in particular, that there was also an important strategic advantage to be gained by this altruistic policy. This was the heyday of colonialism. The occupation of Palestine would provide Britain with a valuable frontage on the Eastern Mediterranean and, along with Cyprus, would provide a valuable base for the defence of the Suez Canal, the gateway to British India. And by 1927 this became even more relevant. With the discovery of much larger quantities of oil in Iraq, the Palestinian port of Haifa offered the British an alternative route free from French control, making more secure Britain’s need for this growing source of power.

     But, that said, it must be noted that the Balfour initiative was not the isolated act of one nation. In time of war, Britain could not have taken this action without the agreement of its Allied partners. In the Spring of 1917, long before the Balfour Declaration was written, the Zionist leader Nahum Sokolow had received explicit or tacit agreement to the proposal from the Allied states. The French, for example (after some persuasion) considered it “a deed of justice and reparation”; the Italian Government gave an assurance of its goodwill and sympathy; the Pope, Benedict XV, saw it as “the will of God”; and the American President, Woodrow Wilson, made it clear that he would endorse the scheme. And, later, the action was approved by Japan, China and Siam. The British received the international brickbats, because it was they who had put forward the policy, and it was they who had to put it into action.

     There were those who criticised (and those who criticise today) the methods used by the British in their unenviable task, and this is not surprising. The promise that “nothing shall be done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine” clearly rang false. Balfour himself later admitted that, given the situation they faced, the British were in no position to accept the principle of self-determination. The result was a century of bloodshed. However, in April 2017, a short time before the centenary of the Balfour Declaration, the British government rejected a Palestinian request to apologise for this event. Putting the matter, as they saw it, firmly in the context of its time, the reply read:

     “The Balfour Declaration is an historic statement for which Her Majesty’s Government does not intend to apologise. We are proud of our role in creating the State of Israel… The Declaration was written in a world of competing imperial powers, in the midst of the First World War, and in the twilight of the Ottoman Empire. In that context, establishing a homeland for the Jewish people in the land to which they had such strong historical and religious ties was the right and moral thing to do, particularly against the background of centuries of persecution.”

    ArthurxJames Balfour (1843-1930), was the son of a Scottish landowner. He was elected a Conservative member of Parliament in 1874 and under Lord Salisbury’s ministry served as secretary for Ireland in 1887. He succeeded Salisbury as prime minister in 1902, but suffered a crushing defeat in 1905 over tariff-reform proposals. He returned to government in 1915 and, as Foreign Secretary, issued the Balfour Declaration on behalf of the cabinet in 1917. Two years later he was involved in the peace negotiations and the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. ……

    …… NahumxSokolow (1861-1936) was a Jewish journalist and a prominent Zionist leader. He joined the Zionist Organisaton in 1897, and became its secretary-general in 1906. In this capacity he travelled worldwide, propagating Zionist ideas and, following the outbreak of the First World War, settled in England. It was here that he took a prominent part in the Balfour Declaration. By his own strenuous efforts, he secured the support of many countries for the setting up of a “Jewish national home” (his own wording), in Palestine, including France, Italy, Poland and South Africa. In 1919, he was a leading member of the Zionist delegation at the Paris Peace Conference, and was president of the World Zionist Organisation and the Jewish Agency from 1931 to 1935. A proficient writer, his works included A History of Zionism, 1600-1918. ……

    …… Andxworthy of mention in this context was Chaim Weizmann (1874-1952 ). He was born in Motol, Russia and studied biochemistry in Switzerland and Germany, during which time he became active in the Zionist movement. He moved to England in 1905 and, via close contact with members of the government, played a key role in the issuing of the Balfour Declaration. In 1918 he was sent to Palestine to advise on the future development of the country. The following year he led the Zionist delegation to the Versailles Peace Conference, and in 1920 became president of the World Zionist Organization. With the declaration of the State of Israel in 1948, he served as the country’s first president until his death in 1952.

    As we shall see, the Allies captured Damascus on the 1st October, 1918, and Aleppo, the largest city in the Ottoman Empire, on the 26th, bringing an end to the Sinai-Palestine campaign and, indeed, all the Allied campaigns in the Middle East. Four days later, the Ottoman government signed the Armistice of Mudros, and all its forces surrendered. There followed the postwar settlement of the Middle East via the Versailles Treaty and it was during these meetings that the Arabs attempted to gain control of their own lands, as promised, and the Turks sought to save what was left of the the Ottoman Empire.

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