Balfour Declaration
David Lloyd George, British Prime Minister, on the negotiations with Rothschild and the Zionist leadership, prior to the Balfour Declaration. Excerpt from Lloyd George's Memoirs of the Peace Conference:
The next factor which produced a momentous change was the decision to come to terms with Jewry, which was clamouring for an opportunity to make Canaan once more the homeland of their race. There are more Irishmen living outside Ireland than dwell in the old country. Still, Ireland is the homeland of the Irish people. No one imagined that the 14,000,000 of Jews scattered over the globe could find room and a living in Palestine. Nevertheless this race of wanderers sought a national hearth and a refuge for the hunted children of Israel in the country which the splendour of their spiritual genius has made forever glorious.
It seems strange to say that the Germans were the first to realise the war value of the Jews of the dispersal. In Poland it was they who helped the German Army to conquer the Czarist oppressor who had so cruelly persecuted their race. They had their influence in other lands - notably in America, where some of their most powerful leaders exerted a retarding influence on President Wilson's impulses in the direction of the Allies. {ed. - before the Balfour Declaration} The German General Staff in 1916 urged the Turks to concede the demands of the Zionists in respect of Palestine. Fortunately the Turk was too stupid to understand or too sluggish to move. The fact that Britain at last opened her eyes to the opportunity afforded to the Allies to rally this powerful people to their side was attributable to the initiative, the assiduity and the fervour of one of the greatest Hebrews of all time: Dr. Chaim Weizmann. He found his opportunity in this War of Nations to advance the cause to which he had consecrated his life. Dr. Weizmann enlisted my adhesion to his ideals at a time when, at my reguest, he was successfully applying his scientific skill and imagination to save Britain from a real disaster over the failure of wood alcohol for the manufacture of cordite. In addition to the gratitude I felt for him for this service, he appealed to my deep reverence for the great men of his race who were the authors of the sublime literature upon which I was brought up. I introduced him to Mr. Balfour, who was won over completely by his charm, his persuasiveness and his intellectual power. Dr. Weizmann then
{p. 723} brought to his aid the eager and active influence of Lord Milner, Lord Robert Cecil, and General Smuts.
During the summer of 1917, Mr. Balfour, with my zealous assent as Prime Minister, entered into negotiations with Lord Rothschild on the subject of the Zionist aims. Ultimately it is recorded that the War Cabinet on September 3rd, 1917, "had under consideration correspondence which had passed between the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Lord Rothschild on the question of the policy to be adopted towards the Zionist movement." That policy was after prolonged enquiry and reflexion decided by the Cabinet on merits, and I have no doubt in my mind that some such provision would by common consent of all the Allied Powers have been inserted in the Peace Treaty even had there been no previous pledge or promise. But the actual time of the declaration was determined by considerations of war policy. It was part of our propagandist strategy for mobilizing every opinion and force throughout the world which would weaken the enemy and improve the Allied chances. Propaganda on both sides probably played a greater part in the last war than in any other. As an illustration I might take the public declarations we made of the Allied intention to liberate and confer self-government on nationalities inside the enemy Empires, - Turkey, Germany, and Austria. These announcements were intended to have a propagandist effect, not only at home, but also in neutral countries and perhaps most of all in enemy countries.
On principle, the democratic Powers of Europe and America had always advocated emancipation of the subject races held down by the great Empires. {ed.: what a lie: the Empires, on the contrary, had engulfed the whole world} But we were also aware that the proclamation of liberation as part of our war aims would help to disintegrate the solidarity of the enemy countries, and so it did. It would have the effect of detaching from the governing races in those countries Poles, Alsace-Lorrainers, Czechoslovakians, Croatians, Roumans and Arabs dwelling within the boundaries of the Central Empires.
The Allies redeemed the promises made in these declarations to the full. No race has done better out of the fidelity with which the Allies redeemed their promises to the oppressed races than
{p. 724} the Arabs. Owing to the tremendous sacrifices of the Allied nations, and more particularly of Britain and her Empire, the Arabs have already won independence in Iraq, Arabia, Syria, and Trans-Jordania, although most of the Arab races fought throughout the War for their Turkish oppressors. Arabia was the only exception in that respect. The Palestinian Arabs fought for Turkish rule.
The Balfour Declaration represented the convinced policy of all parties in our country and also in America, but the launching of it in 1917 was due, as I have said, to propagandist reasons. I should like once more to remind the British public, who may be hesitating about the burdens of our Zionist Declaration to-day, of the actual war position at the time of that Declaration. We are now looking at the War through the dazzling glow of a triumphant end, but in 1917 the issue of the War was still very much in doubt. We were convinced - but not all of us - that we would pull through victoriously, but the Germans were equally persuaded that victory would rest on their banners, and they had much reason for coming to that conclusion. They had smashed the Roumanians. The Russian Army was completely demoralised by its numerous defeats. The French Army was exhausted and temporarily unequal to striking a great blow. The Italians had sustained a shattering defeat at Caporetto. The unlimited submarine campaign had sunk millions of tons of our shipping. There were no American divisions at the front, and when I say at the front, I mean available in the trenches. For the Allies there were two paramount problems at that time. The first was that the Central Powers should be broken by the blockade before our supplies of food and essential raw material were cut off by sinkings of our own ships. The other was that the war preparations in the United States should be speeded up to such an extent as to enable the Allies to be adequately reinforced in the critical campaign of 1918 by American troops. In the solution of these two problems, public opinion in Russia and America played a great part, and we had every reason at that time to believe that in both countries the friendliness or hostility of the Jewish race might make a considerable difference.
{p. 725} The solution of Germany's food and raw material dificulties depended on the attitude of Russia and the goodwill of its people. We realised, and so did the Germans, that Russia could take no further part in the War with her army, but the question was: when would she conclude peace with Germany and what manner of peace would it be? Time counted for both sides, and the conditions and the temper of the peace between Germany and Russia counted even more. Would the peace be of a kind which would afford facilities for the Germans to secure supplies of grain, oil, and copper from the immeasurable natural resources of that vast and rich country, or would it be a sulky pact which would always stand in the way of Germany's attempt to replenish her stores from Russian resources? In the former case, we could not hope for a better issue of the War than a stalemate after another year or two of carnage. In the latter case, the stranglehold of our fleet would be effective, and the Central Powers would be deprived of essential food and material and their will and power of resistance would be weakened to a breaking-point. The Germans were equally alive to the fact that the Jews of Russia wielded considerable influence in Bolshevik circles. The Zionist Movement was exceptionally strong in Russia and America. The Germans were, therefore, engaged actively in courting favour with that Movement all over the world. A friendly Russia would mean not only more food and raw material for Germany and Austria, but fewer German and Austrian troops on the Eastern front and, therefore, more available for the West. These considerations were brought to our notice by the Foreign Office, and reported to the War Cabinet.
The support of the Zionists for the cause of the Entente would mean a great deal as a war measure. Quite naturally Jewish sympathies were to a great extent anti-Russian, and therefore in favour of the Central Powers. No ally of Russia, in fact, could escape sharing that immediate and inevitable penalty for the long and savage Russian persecution of the Jewish race. In addition to this, the German General Staff, with their wide outlook on possibilities, urged, early in 1916, the advantages of promising Jewish restoration to Palestine under an arrangement
{p. 726} to be made between Zionists and Turkey, backed by a German guarantee. The practical difficulties were considerable; the subject was perhaps dangerous to German relations with Turkey; and the German Government acted cautiously. But the scheme was by no means rejected or even shelved, and at any moment the Allies might have been forestalled in offering this supreme bid. In fact in September, 1917, the German Government were making very serious efforts to capture the Zionist Movement.
Another most cogent reason for the adoption by the Allies of the policy of the declaration lay in the state of Russia herself. Russian Jews had been secretly active on behalf of the Central Powers from the first; they had become the chief agents of German pacifist propaganda in Russia; by 1917 they had done much in preparing for that general disintegration of Russian society, later recognised as the Revolution. It was believed that if Great Britain declared for the fulfilment of Zionist aspirations in Palestine under her own pledge, one effect would be to bring Russian Jewry to the cause of the Entente.
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.
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From Our Roots Are Still Alive: The Story of the Palestinian People by the Palestine Book Project: Joy Bonds, Jimmy Emerman, Linda John, Penny Johnson, Paul Rupert (SF, Calif.: People's Press, 1977),
"In February of 1917, Chaim Weizmann and Sir Mark Sykes sat down to work out an agreement. Weizmann guaranteed that the Zionists would accept only British control of Palestine in return for an official expression of British support for Zionist settlement in Palestine. Throughout the spring and summer of 1917, British statesmen and Zionist leaders worked on the British declaration of support for Zionism. The first draft stated:
"`His Majesty's Government accepts the principle that Palestine should be reconstituted as the national home of the Jewish people...and will be ready to consider any suggestions on the subject which the Zionist organization may desire to lay before them.'"
"The draft was reworded several times to find a version that didn't offend English Jews, many of whom opposed Zionism. The largest Jewish organization in England strongly protested against the declaration because it `must have the effect throughout the world of stamping the Jews as strangers in their native lands.' The final version of the declaration was a compromise. The Zionists' real goal--the Jewish state--was concealed in the diplomatic term `national home.' On November 2, 1917, the declaration was released publicly in the form of a letter from Lord Balfour of the British government to Lord Rothschild, a wealthy English Jew...
"The Balfour Declaration was meant to be kept secret from the Palestinian Arabs, the `existing non-Jewish communities' in Palestine that were 93 percent of the population and owned 95 percent of the land! On the other hand, British planes dropped copies of the Declaration over cities in Russia and Eastern Europe which had large Jewish populations. Britain hoped the Declaration would win Russian Jews to the war effort and help stem the tide of revolution against the Czar.
"But five days after the publication of the Balfour Declaration, the Russian revolution swept Lenin and the Bolsheviks into power...
"...The Soviet government published all the secret agreements that Russia had made under the Czar. They relased a copy of the Sykes-Picot Agreement and news of the Agreement filtered through to the Arab countries. Soon, the Palestinians also learned of the Balfour Declaration.
"The first Arab reaction to the Sykes-Picot Agreement and the Balfour Declaration was disbelief...
"At the Versailles peace conference, Feisal denounced the Sykes-Picot Agreement...Feisal urged that an international commission visit Syria and Palestine to determine the wishes of the people. Under pressure from President Woodrow Wilson, the conference reluctantly agreed. Wilson wanted an American mandate in the area and hoped that the commission would propose just that. He immediately appointed two U.S. representatives, Henry King and Charles Crane, to the commission...
"People in Greater Syria organized for their independence. Elections were held throughout Syria, Palestine, and Lebanon for delegates to a national congress. On July 2, 1919, the General Syrian Congress, meeting in Damasacus, unanimously condemned the Sykes-Picot Agreement, the Balfour Declaration, and the plans of the Zionists. They put a pointed question to the Great Powers:
"`How can the Zionists go back in history two thousand years to prove that by their short sojourn in Palestine they have now a right to claim it and return to it as a Jewish home, thus crushing the nationalism of a million Arabs?'
"The Congress denounced the mandate system...As the resolutions became known, people demonstrated throughout Syria, Palestine and Lebanon in support of the Congress.
"In the meantime, the King-Crane Commission had arrived in Jaffa. It consisted of only the two American representatives; France, Britain and Italy had backed out. The Commission spent six weeks in Syria and Palestine, interviewing delegations and reading petitions. King and Crane...recommended `serious modification of the extreme Zionist program.' The report stated:
"`The commissioners began their study of Zionism with minds predisposed in its favor...The facts came out repeatedly in the Commissioners' conferences with Jewish representatives that the Zionists looked forward to a practically complete dispossession of the present non-Jewish inhabitants of Palestine by various forms of purchase...No British officers, consulted by the Commissioners, believed that the Zionist program could be carried out except by force of arms...the initial claim, often submitted by Zionist representatives, that they have a `right' to Palestine based on occupation of two thousand years ago, can barely be seriously considered.'
"On April 5, 1920, Britain, France and the Untied States met at San Remo, Italy. The findings of the King-Crane Commission were ignored...Great Britain received two mandates, one for Iraq and one for Palestine. The mandate gave Britain a free hand to implement the Balfour Declaration.
"But a formal public reading of the Balfour Declaration by a British official in Palestine in February of 1920 had already sparked large demonstrations in Palestinian cities...As British officials prepared to govern Palestine, Palestinians had already given warning that they would not accept a British-sponsored settler colony on their land."
(excerpts from pages 29 -34)
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