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British Perfidy, Jewish Infirmity of Purpose and Arab Intransigence
On November 2, 1917, the British government released the Balfour Declaration that laid the groundwork for a future Jewish State. During the last year of World War I (WWI) and then in the early years of the "peace", the intent, meaning and scope of the Declaration was distorted and whittled away. Those years saw the reduction of the promise of Palestine for the Jews from boundaries extending on both sides of the Jordan to the fragment on the west bank of the Jordan that was to be further partitioned in 1948.
By 1921 at the "Cairo Conference", there were open calls for its effective redefinition and the concomitant modification of the (then draft) League of Nation's Palestine mandate to Great Britain. Submitting to these pressures during the Conference committed Britain to an ever more progressively pro-Arab policy in what was left of Palestine: the part west of the Jordan. Thus, the road-map that led to the infamous British White paper of 1939 was drawn in 1922. The 1939 document, in turn, effectively determined the shape of the Middle East for the subsequent quarter century, and not so incidently, the fate of European Jewry during the 1940s and 1950s.
Part 1 deals with events leading up to the Declaration. It shows that even in its inception it was terribly compromised. Several pre-existing overt British commitments to their French Allies and to the Arabs were incompatible with the Declaration's stated intent. The Sykes-Picot agreement and the McMahon-Hussein letters were, in many provisions, mutually exclusive. Certainly, neither individually nor together could they be completely implemented in a Palestine governed by the principles of the Declaration.
In Part II, the further consequences of imperial British duplicity, both at the Peace conference and subsequently, will be presented in terms of the effect on Palestine and the prospects of a Jewish State.The role of rapidly growing British anti-Zionism paralleled and encouraged Arab opposition and violence. Finally, the first British White Paper resulting from the Cairo conference, despite Arab rejection, was nonetheless effectively anti-Zionist.
No government is at any time a monolith. There are always within it at least small or even large differences in the policy advocated at all levels. The Foreign Office does not always see eye-to-eye with the Colonial Office and usually the Treasury sees eye-to-eye with no one else. In dealing with what was one of the most complicated problems of the 19th and 20th centuries, "The Eastern Question", it should not surprise us that large differences in proposed schemata were not only considered but even adopted by different arms of the same governments at the same time.
India was not only the richest of the British possessions, it was itself the gateway to further economic and political expansion into the Far East. For almost a century, Britain had defended its lifelines to India: the Mediterranean, Egypt, Suez, the southern Arabian peninsula, Afghanistan, southern Persia, and the Gulf. France and especially Russia were viewed as major threats. After the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, Germany became another player.
Since the Indian Mutiny of 1857, a major anxiety for British administrators was the (largely Sunni) Moslem populations of India and Afghanistan. The fear of subversion of those millions of people was as much a factor in overall policy toward the Ottoman Empire as the security of the sea lanes and overland routes to India. Because of this concern, there was frequently a wide difference in the policies proposed by the India and Colonial Office (which had Egypt in its jurisdiction). Even wider differences could and did exist between the Cairo men in the field and those of the subcontinent.
In the decade before WWI, the Ottoman Empire seemed near collapse. Large areas such as Egypt and the Sudan - nominally part of the empire - had long been under British control. In the 19th century, what is roughly now Yemen and Oman were already British protectorates, while still regarded by the Turks as parts of their empire. Several nations had assumed "protection" of minorities, such as that of France for the Catholics and Russia for the Eastern Orthodoxies. Italy had designs on Turkey's remaining North African provinces and on the Dodecanese Islands, and soon obtained control of Cyrenaica. A series of Balkan wars at the beginning of the 1910s left the European portion of Turkey as a minute fragment of Thrace, but still in control of the Dardanelles.
Thus even before the War, the European powers anticipated a fragmentation of the Ottoman Empire. The critical question was how and when the disruption would take place and which of the predators would pick up which of the pieces.
To understand the future of Israel, we need to examine the policies of the British at the time. Until the first decade of the 20th century, it had adhered to this basic pattern, while maintaining the European balance of power:
This policy, developed by Palmerston, was pursued almost without a break. During the prime ministry of Gladstone, there was a break in this policy. At the turn of the century the anti-Russian slant was resumed. Thus, in 1904, Balfour as prime minister negotiated a naval treaty with Japan - one which was in conflict with that made with France against Germany, because France was already a Russian ally.
A return to Gladstone's pro-Russian policy was signalled by the Asquith/Grey government's treaty with Russia in 1907. After the Russo-Japanese war and the Revolution of 1905, Russia did not have the strength to make as firm demands on Britain as she would have perhaps liked. Consequently, the British obtained complete external control of Afghanistan, and Persia was carved into three zones, with the British controlling the southern one, the one closest to India. If there was such a thing as Kipling's Great Game, at this point England was the winner. However, the settlement did not touch on what was to happen when the Ottoman empire collapsed, when the fate of Constantinople would become the center of world attention. We now know that Grey had secretly (and the secret was kept even from most of the Cabinet) committed England to granting Russia control of the Dardanelles at the end of the War.
"There was an intellectual time lag between London and the outposts of empire. Grey, Asquith and their Liberal colleagues saw Britain's traditional rivals, France and Russia, as British friends and allies in the post-Victorian Age. But British officers, agents and civil servants stationed along the great arc that swung from Egypt and the Sudan to India failed in many cases to adopt the new outlook. Having spent a lifetime countering Russian and French intrigues in the Middle East, they continued to regard Russia and France as their country's enemies. Events in 1914 and the succeeding years were to bring their Victorian political views back into unexpected prominence." (Fromkin, p. 32)
The British in the Middle East pursued an almost pure defense-of-India policy. It must be recalled that, at this time, Middle Eastern oil provided only a minuscule amount of the world's petroleum supply. The as yet undeveloped energy resources of Arabia and the Gulf did not play a significant role in Great Power calculations. At the end of four years of war, the increase of oil-burning ships changed the importance of Mosul and the Gulf.
"Most of Britain's oil (more than 80 percent, before and during the First World War) came from the United States. At the time, Persia was the only significant Middle Eastern producer other than Russia, and even Persia's output was insignificant in terms of world production. In 1913, for example, the United States produced 140 times more oil than did Persia." (Fromkin, p. 29)
With the rise of German colonialism and German Naval power and with the concurrent relative decline of British Industry, the pre-WWI decade saw a re-evaluation of British foreign policy. England's essentially anti-Russian alliance with Japan was subordinated in practice to the alliance with France and then also with France's ally, Russia. Germany was promoted to the role of the major imperial enemy. Progress toward a Berlin-to-Baghdad railway and other German penetrations of Turkish economy only confirmed these new policies of Asquith and Grey.
Most of the Moslems of the then British Empire were Sunnis. The Sultan of Turkey in Istanbul was by his office also the Caliph, and thus the religious ruler, of Sunni Moslems throughout the world. To most English colonial administrators, the possibility of Russia controlling the "ruler" of the non-Arab Afghan and Indian Moslem majority was as intolerable as the prospect of a Russian navy in the Mediterranean. The fall of the Ottoman empire was expected. Might it not be the best policy to anticipate the breakup and somehow make sure that the proper pieces and controls came into the proper hands?
Some specific terms need to be understood to follow the British-Arab interactions at that time:
"Arab" was used as a generic term for the Arabic-speaking Semitic peoples of the Ottoman Empire residing in the Fertile Crescent: Palestine, Syria, Mesapotamia and adjacent territories. The "True Arabs" inhabited the Arabia Peninsula. There were only a few of these in the larger cities of the Fertile Crescent. The population of Egypt was also a very mixed bag.
The political structure of the Arabian peninsula was ill-defined and fluid. Some areas outside the central desert, which themselves were of shifting boundaries, were held by sheiks or emirs. Their control can scarely be considered a government. The individual villagers were controlled by the clan or family chief. His individual voice was taken as the position of the group.
The Moslem holy cities of Mecca and Medina are in the Hejaz - the Western (Red Sea) coast of the Arabian peninsula. The Emir of Hejaz, Hussein ibn Ali, of the "House of Hashem" was called Sherif of Mecca. This title also implied a descent from Mohammed. Hussein called his family Hashemites. Even though he was a friend of the Sultan, he was opposed by the Young Turks in Istanbul. So in 1914, even before Turkey entered the war, he groped for British support. His son Abdullah (who was to become the first King of Jordan) pretended that Hussein could call forth the entire Arab peninsula as an Arab rebel army. The pretence was uncritically accepted and conveyed by Gilbert Clayton, head of Intelligence in Cairo, to the War Minister, Lord Kitchener.
The British have always pretended to special knowledge and skills in dealing with "natives". Unfortunately, their actual behavior was a succession of misjudgments and repeated intelligence failures, ending in the backing of the wrong horses in the complex game of internecine Arab politics.
"A characteristic flaw in the information-gathering conducted by Clayton and Storrs was that they frequently accepted information supplied by a single informant without testing and checking it. Instead they seemingly relied on the sort of intuitive ability...the gift of being able to divine the extent to which any native is telling the truth...we are the only race on earth that can produce men capable of getting inside the skin of remote peoples." (Fromkin, p. 93)
The hero of the Boer War, General Horatio Kitchener, had been stationed in Cairo before the First World War. During those years, Cairo was firmly established as the "headquarters" of the western portion of the British Middle East. When Kitchener departed for England to become War Minister, he left behind in Egypt and the Sudan several "old hands", staff members and associates, who took effective command of the western portions of Britain's Middle Eastern holdings. Henry McMahon was appointed in his place - "to hold it till Kitchener got back" (Fromkin, p. 89).
Several of Kitchener's former staff would play critical roles in the watering down of the Balfour Declaration and the development of Britain's effectively pan-Arab policies, policies that have persisted to this day. Officials and officers such as William Deeds, Francis Wingate and Sir John Maxwell persisted in their view of Russia as the primary enemy in the long term (until the Bolshevik Revolution). Civil servants like Ronald Storrs and Gilbert Clayton, Storrs' chief, played determining roles in post-war Palestine, the Cairo Conference of 1921, and beyond.
Not only was the atmosphere pro-Arab in Cairo, it was also anti-Semitic. As early as the end of 1914, General Francis Wingate "blamed the war on a syndicate of Jews, financiers, and low-born intriguers in Constantinope." (Fromkin, p. 92) The "old hands" began to plan a large Arab State under the nominal rule of some Arab or Egyptian notable, which would leave Britain in real control. This was in contrast to Britain's policy in India that favored direct British suzerainty.
During the 19th century, Britain had acquired a dominant position in the southern Arabian peninsula and in the Gulf. This put her under various economic and military obligations to the various area sultans. Click here for details.
Soon after reaching London, Kitchener sent a series of messages to the Sharif of Mecca. They were intended to bind the Arabs to the cause of Britain after the war when the Ottoman Empire would be dissected. It was assumed that Russia would try for control of the Dardanelles and the Sultanate. Kitchener hoped to have the Sharif, with pan-Arab support, assume the role of Caliph in place of the Sultan. In the incomplete British view, he saw the Arab ruler as the Sunni religious ruler. In translating Kitchener's messages into Arabic, it is now clear that Storrs and Clayton (under McMahon's direction), significantly expanded the reassurances of Arab unity and freedom that were made to the supposed Arab chief. The Cairo "cabal" shifted from seeking Arab support after the war to the possibility of Arab support against Turkey during the war. This was accepted by London in large part because they were on the ground. As Fromkin notes (pp. 104-5):
"The proposal which Kitchener and his followers sent off to Mecca misled its recipient, who read it as an offer to make him ruler of a vast kingdom; for that, of course, is what the new Caliph of Islam would have been...when the ruler of Mecca opened the discussion of what the boundaries of his new kingdom were to be, Storrs was appalled; for he and Kitchener had not intended that the area ruled by the Emir [Hussein] should be expanded..." "The British intended to support the candidacy of Hussein for the position of "Pope" of Islam - a position that (unbeknownst to them) did not exist; while (unbeknown to them too) the language they used encouraged him to attempt to become ruler of the entire Arab world."
Hussein, by playing on recurrent fears that the Arabs might get a better deal with the Germans and that the plans for a post-war Kitchener viceroyalty of "PanArabia" would be ruined, forced McMahon in a second letter to spell out some anticipated boundaries. McMahon also continued the large annual subsidy that Hussein received. Incidently, the Indian group was paying a somewhat smaller annual bribe to Hussein's rival, Aziz ibn Saud.
The geographic problem created by the McMahon correspondence with Hussein developed into the major basis of post World War I Arab demands in Palestine. In responding to Hussein's request for boundaries for the British-sponsored Arab state, McMahon was very careful in describing the portions of northern Syria to be excluded. But, unfortunately, he was unclear about the southern boundaries - Palestine was not specifically mentioned as being outside the boundary. The boundary limits that the Arabs were later to interpret from the letter were incompatible both with the to-be-negotiated Sykes-Picot agreement and with the to-be-issued Balfour Declaration. Click here for details. Hussein's part of the bargain was to engineer a revolt of Arabs, particularly the many Arabs serving in the Turkish army. He really had no intention of doing this at all. "..his policy had been to remain neutral and collect bribes from both sides." (Fromkin, p. 218)
His negotiations with the British were discovered by the Young Turk, Djemal Pasha, Governor of Syria, and again Hussein was faced with the threat of deposition as Emir of the Hejaz. Despite the fact that most of the other rulers of the Arabian peninsula were indifferent and independent, and further that several were powerful and open enemies, Hussein presented himself to the British as the leader of all Arabia.
"Prudently, Hussein had already obtained more than 50,000 gold pounds from the Porte with which to raise and equip forces to combat the British. To this he added the first installment of a substantial payment from Britain with which to raise and forces to combat the Turks." (Fromkin, p. 219)
He proclaimed the revolt in June 1916.
In 1915 Prime Minister Asquith created an advisory group, the de Bunsen Committee. Its task was to recommend what Britain should want in the Middle East at the end of the war. Mark Sykes was coopted as Kitchener's representative, and in effect, was the War Minister's spokesman, because the other committee members believed him to speak for the general. Sykes already had extensive Eastern experience and could speak knowledgeably in areas that no one else could.
"The Committee, led by Mark Sykes, proposed the creation of five largely autonomous provinces in the decentralized Ottoman Empire which they envisioned. They were to be Syria, Palestine, Armenia, Anatolia, and Jazirah-Iraq (the northern and southern parts of Mesopotamia). As the Committee saw it, British influence or control would be desirable in a wide swath across the Middle East from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf." (Fromkin, p. 148)
The government sent Sykes on an extended Middle Eastern trip to discuss the de Bunsen findings with British officers from Cairo to Bombay. His first stop was in Cairo, where he met with Clayton, and was converted to the Egyptian Empire scheme which Clayton and Storrs had evolved.
"This proposed a single Arabic-speaking entity under the spiritual rule of the Sharif and the nominal temporal rule of the figurehead monarch of Egypt, to be governed by the British High Commissioner - who was to be Lord Kitchener." (Fromkin, p. 169)
During 1915-16, an extremely complex series of inter Allied secret messages prepared the way for a seemingly final arrangement between France and Britain regarding the proposed Arab state (cf. Sanders, pp. 275-291; Kleiman, pp. 1-19; Fromkin, pp. 169-199). Lord Grey had already promised the Russians the Dardanelles. After this, Russia's only remaining interest in Palestine had to do with the holy places and the orthodox Christians. Sykes on returning from his Middle East tour met with Picot, the French representative. It seems that Sykes was well aware of the pro-Zionist cabinet memoranda circulated by Herbert Samuel the year before. In the infamous Sykes-Picot agreement, the Brown area (colored brown on the proposed partition map) included all of what is today coastal Israel from Haifa to Rafah. This area was supposed to be under international control - including Russia, France, Italy, and England and possibly the United States. Further, the way in which the A and B zones were set up, it is unlikely that the Arab state(s) could be in any sense unified. Sykes, (who was not yet converted to Zionism in addition to his pro-Arab and pro-Armenian convictions) kept the Sykes-Picot Agreement secret from the Zionists for more than 18 months, even though he was aware that Sokolow and Weizmann would have changed their strategies with the British government if they had known. Lastly, it must be noted that Sykes-Picot conflicted with promises to the Sharif, just as promises to him conflicted with some of those made decades before to the chieftains of the Gulf coast of the Arabian peninsula and Mesopotamia as well. Click here for details.
The Arab revolt was a failure. Instead of 250,000 Arabs, the Sharif of Mecca was only able to muster a force of 3 to 4,000 of his immediate followers. Later the charade planned for Arabs under Faisal (Hussein's son) to take Damascus fell apart. Allenby took Jerusalem without Arab assistance in December 1917. The Balfour Declaration was barely a month old.
Despite the internecine disagreements characteristic of Jewish organizations, the Zionists slowly progressed to a high point of influence prior to 1917 and the Balfour Declaration. At least within the Zionist Organization, there was uniformity of objective - Palestine was to be settled by Jews. Part of the tragedy then, as now, is the pattern of upper-class Jewish opposition, which was superimposed on a Zionist reluctance (unlike Arab maximalist demands) to ask for as much as possible from the granting power. Nowadays, Israel asks the United States for permission to respond to Arab terror in, at most, trivial ways. In 1917, the Jews could have asked for an immediate Jewish State. They may not have gotten it, but they would have come away with a great deal more than they did. Instead, they put their faith in Britain's implied promises and believed that when they became a majority, they would have a State.
Theodor Herzl's book, "The Jewish State", was published in 1896. He presided over the first Zionist Congress in 1897. His principles of Zionism were set forth in the Basle Program:
"Zionism seeks to secure for the Jewish People a publicly recognized, legally secured home in Palestine for the Jewish people. For the achievement of its purpose the congress envisages the following methods:
- The programmatic encouragement of the settlement of Palestine with Jewish agricultural workers, labourers and those pursuing other trades.
- The unification and organization of all Jewry into local and wider groups in accordance with the laws of their respective countries.
- The strengthening of Jewish self-awareness and national conciousness.
- Preparatory steps to obtain the consent of the various governments necessary for the fulfilment of the aims of Zionism." (Laqueur, p. 106]
The program, especially its preamble and item 4 are the essence of Herzl's view of the strategy to be followed. Immediate colonization was to be subordinated to the political, one might say top-down, approach to obtaining the legally secured home with the aid of heads of states. It was this role that Herzl felt particularly qualified to fill. Perhaps more important for the long term survival of the movement was the decision that the Congress should be the governing body and that interim political matters were to be handled by the elected Action Committee.
Herzl had begun the political/diplomatic efforts for the Jewish State even before the 1st Congress. Contacts with Jewish "nobility" such as Baron de Hirsch and the French Rothschilds were not productive, and the Duke of Baden was merely encouraging. His first visit to Constantinople was unsuccessful, meeting only the grand vizir and not the sultan. Despite having no significant commitments from Jewish bankers, he dangled the prospect of Jewish management of the crushing Turkish debt as an incentive for the promise of the "legal secured home". The bluff did not work. Click here for more details.
Despite setbacks, the rise of Zionism to prominence as an international movement was rapid, and largely Herzl's doing. His perception that England would play the vital role in the movement's future was solidified during a stay in London where he testified before a Royal Commission on Alien Immigration. In preparing for his testimony Herzl reached a modus vivendi with Lord Nathan Rothschild. This connection opened several doors to Herzl, including contacts with Joseph Chamberlain and Lord Lansdowne.
In the meanwhile, because of the crises generated by the pogroms in Russia and Roumania, there was immediate need of a place to relocate Eastern European Jews. At the moment, Turkey was not allowing immigration into Palestine. Since the assassination of the Tsar in 1881, there had been an influx of Jewish refugees into England. Already, even this relatively slight movement of Jews provoked a growing anti-semitism in the lower classes. Some in Whitehall were sufficiently sympathetic to Zionism to explore British colonial territory as an alternative to Palestine. Two solutions were offered: el-Arish and Uganda. Click here for details.
The revolutionary movement in Russia grew rapidly after 1881, and still more so after the abortive revolution of 1905. Particularly painful for the Zionists such as Sokolow, was the attractiveness of the Bund (the major Jewish socialist movement) for Jewish youngsters. It is clear then that if the Zionist leadership did entertain el-Arish or Uganda, it was desperation that drove them.
Practical Zionism was the alternative to Herzl's political Zionism. It placed an emphasis on slow colonization and the development of in-Palestine Jewish culture. It was based on the cultural theories of Achad Ha'Am and was implemented by his followers, such as Chaim Weizman. The growth of the practical Zionists after 1903 was inevitable. It was made more so by Herzl's death in July 1904.
Chaim Weizmann, who would acquire increasing influence in Zionist affairs in the years prior to the declaration, came to Manchester as a German/Swiss trained chemist in 1904 His Zionist activities were in abeyance for several years thereafter, but he did have an interchange concerning Uganda with Balfour. He made clear the position of his opposition group within the Zionist movement. Also, he perhaps convinced Balfour that there was a future political power in Zionism.
"The modest name he had made for himself in the movement before the war was as an opponent rather than as a supporter of Herzl whom he charged, in company with other 'synthetic', 'practical,' and 'cultural' Zionists with being too much wedded to 'diplomacy' and too uninterested in, and unfamiliar with, Jewry in its allegedly true and authentic, namely, eastern European form. A sharp critic of Herzl in his lifetime, Weizmann became openly derisive of him once the great man was in his grave. None the less, without ever turning a hair, in the role he would create for himself in Jewish public life when the war came he would follow Herzl's example and teaching with precision ...And as in Herzl's case, the central basis on which Weizman believed it was indispensable to proceed comprised three components: personal and confidential political relations, a great and friendly ally under whose auspices the indispensable formal, legally defined, internationally acceptable foothold in Palestine might eventually be gained, and untiring reliance on the root argument that Zionism offered advantages to Jews and gentiles alike. " (Vital, pp. 686-687)
In the 8th Congress, Weizmann suffered a temporary setback. The Congress substituted a presidium for the presidency. This was headed by Otto Warburg, a German, which placed the official Zionist Headquarters in Berlin. Later, this tended to frighten some Foreign Office officials into a greater solicitude for the Weizmann et al claim for Palestine.
Between 1906 and 1914, the Zionists had helped increase Jewish population in Palestine (2nd Aliyah), had promoted Hebrew as the national language, and had founded the Jewish National Library and the Technikum of Haifa. They also greatly improved agricultural methods. Click here for details.
Despite slow settlement progress, as long as Palestine remained Ottoman territory, the Jewish State, the dream of most Zionists, remained just that, a dream. The Young Turks who deposed Abdul Hamid in 1909 were no more inclined to preside at the dismemberment of the Empire than was the Sultan before them. In 1914 having survived two Balkan Wars and one with Italy, all costing territory, the Turks were even less inclined to even allow individual emigration. Above all they needed peace for financial recovery and for instituting internal reforms. For a time after August 1914, Turkey remained neutral.
Though he did not know it at the time, Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, helped make the State of Israel possible. He initiated a most complex sequence of events beginning with the seizure of 2 Turkish battleships (just constructed) in England. The details of the botched British pursuit of 2 substitute German vessels and the eventual entry of Turkey into WW I (Nov 1914) is a tragi-comedy of more than oriental complexity. (cf. Fromkin p. 54-74, Sanders p. 41-57 for details.)
Now that Britain was at war with Turkey, something might be done about territory in Palestine. England was sure that Turkey would be defeated. Although the senior statesman were not saying much about it, who but England would have control of Palestine after victory? Certainly not the French. Suddenly the Zionists had a case to plead. Even this early in the game there was already an obstacle or two in place, most of which were unknown to Weizmann, Sokolow et al, and did not become known until nearly three years later.
[Herbert Samuel]"...a member of the Jewish establishment at a time when it was overwhelmingly, sometimes venomously anti-Zionist ...Samuel had been to Balliol, that nest of atheism, and was forced to confess to his mother that he lost his faith there. But he conformed outwardly, continued to pay his synagogue dues, and proudly called himself a Jew." (Johnson, p. 425)
It is not entirely clear how this complex, and later, controversial man acquired his Zionist convictions. But by November 1914, when Britain and Turkey were at war, he approached the Foreign Secretary, Lord Grey, concerning a National Home for the Jews in Palestine. Grey, who had also supported the Uganda scheme, was in general supportive. But he said that he could not so early in the war engage in any serious planning. Grey's major reservation was met by Samuel's comment that Syria could and should be separated from the proposed Palestinian state. It is at this point that one of the fuses leading to the mine of the Sykes-Picot agreement was laid.
That same day, Samuel saw Lloyd George, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was in fact a Zionist supporter. He like Grey was fully aware of the modern principle that small nationalities do not gain or maintain independence without great power protection. Now that gaining the land was a possibility, the war however made significant population growth impossible. Even if the country were conquered the next day, most of the Russian Jews would not be allowed to leave during the war.
About two months after his initial meetings with Grey and Lloyd George, Samuel prepared a memorandum about the future of Palestine, which was circulated in the British cabinet. He saw population considerations as primary determinants.
"The most desirable solution therefore would be to annex Palestine to the British empire. Under British rule Jewish colonization and institutions would prosper and immigration be encouraged so that in course of time the Jewish people grown into a majority and settled in the land may be conceded such a degree of self-government as the conditions of that day may justify. " (Friedman, p. 10)
While a few in official Britain were thinking about a Jewish homeland, the Zionists were making their own approaches. Via his acquaintance with C.P.Scott, the editor of the Manchester Guardian, Weizman was enabled to renew the 8 year old contact with Balfour. At the end of 1914 he met with Samuel.
"When asked by Samuel what he expected from the British Government, Weizmann replied:'encouragement...in our work...a wide measure of local government and freedom for the development of our own culture.' This was a much more modest formula than that put by Samuel to Grey a month earlier and this too may have persuaded Samuel to shelve the proposal for a Jewish state to some indefinite future" (Friedman, p. 11)
The English Zionists were sometimes of unconscious help to the British in the maneuverings to extend Palestine (and therefore the British cut) northward to the Litani river. They were used, as Vital points out:
"They could be trusted to prefer Britain to France as the protecting power. They could be asked to say as much to the French or to anyone else who might be interested and listening (the Vatican, for example). Zionism, in brief, might serve as that largish fig leaf under which a gentle, but firm effort to dislodge the French from any part at all in the future management of Palestine could proceed, Weizmann personally functioning as one of the elements of the equation" (Vital, pp. 690-691)
It is almost fundamental to this developing tragedy that both the Zionists and pro-Zionists in Whitehall assumed the Arabs would sit still for the many years of the planned protectorate, which would provide for a progressive Jewish immigration. The field men in Egypt and the Sudan knew better, and worse, they would later not be adverse to actively promoting their view by encouraging Arab resistance in many ways large and small.
Through the years 1914-1916, there was considerable anti-Zionist opposition both within the Cabinet and in Parliament. Many of these opponents were Jews, and one of the most prominent was Herbert Samuel's cousin, Edwin Montagu, a Cabinet member and friend of Prime Minister Asquith. Montagu's active opposition to Zionism had many facets but what seems fundamental was the perceived threat to the status of his class. His generation had "arrived"; he and his cousin were among the first Jews to be Cabinet members. If Palestine became a national home he and his kind might be considered primarily not as Englishmen but as Jews. Another of the same class was Lucien Wolf, who helped lead a more than two year long battle against the Zionists. At the end, the Foreign Office began to doubt that Wolf spoke for the Jewish community. The anti-Zionists were never reconciled to the Zionist assertion of Jewish Nationality, and they did the Zionist cause no good making the controversy among Jews public in the Times. Their opposition continued into the postwar period where it was even more damaging.
Many in England regarded Zionism as essentially German, and this perception was shared by many Jews in America as well. The ambivalence generated by hatred of Czarist Russia often qualified Jewish feelings about the allied cause. During the early years of the war, German "correct" behavior in their occupied portions of the Pale of Settlement generated Jewish approval and consequently British anxiety. With the revolution in the spring of 1917, there was an almost complete turnover as to the practicalities of Zionist support. All the western allies, were deeply concerned to keep Russia in the war. Somewhat simplistically, the British thought the Menshevik government was Jewish-dominated. They considered the now likely national homeland declaration as a probable carrot to encourage Jewish-directed, continued Russian belligerency. Even more a declaration would encourage American Jews in support of the war effort, because many of them were of Russian origin.
There was one area in which most Zionists and anti-Zionists were agreed. They were opposed to the Zion Mule Corps, a supply contingent made up of Jews the Turks had expelled from Palestine. The unit under Col. Patterson served with great distinction in the Gallipoli campaign. They (with the notable exception of Weizmann himself, who at that time was close to Jabotinsky) were even more opposed to the fulfilment of Patterson's and Jabotinsky's hopes for a Jewish Legion. Despite Zionist opposition and British military reluctance, three battalions of Royal Fusiliers ("Jewish Legion" was still unacceptable) were formed to fight under British command. These were in fact the Jewish Legion. Their participation in the conquest of Palestine was limited by Allenby's staff's Arabism, The Legion's accomplishments were down played, especially in contrast to the highly inflated record of the almost non-existent Arab revolt.
In 1916 Lord Kitchener died at sea. At the end of that year, Lloyd George with the connivance of Bonar Law brought about the fall of the Asquith ministry, and became Prime Minister. The new Foreign Office chief was Arthur Balfour.
Of critical importance was the appointment of Sir Mark Sykes to the War Cabinet secretariat. He became the Assistant Secretary with special responsibility for British Policy toward Palestine. Sykes had been considered a Middle East expert for years before the war began. The role that he had filled for Kitchener including acting as his 'grey eminence' in the de Bunsen committee was continued during the rest of the Asquith ministry. The Sykes-Picot agreement was still a closely held secret. Sykes had been pro-Arab and pro-Armenian. He added pro-Zionism to the list of his enthusiasms, after contact with Aaron Aaronsohn and Rabbi Moses Gaster, the Chief Rabbi of the Sephardic communities in England. It is interesting that Sykes employed Sokolow as his Zionist advisor. Sokolow was introduced to Picot and other French politicians in London and later in Paris. In what was a sort of dance of the seven veils, Sykes managed to have the French convey the dangerous French position on "Syria/Palestine" to Sokolow, without breaking the secrecy of the Sykes-Picot agreement.
Not all of the pro-Zionists could have been as ignorant as Weizmann about Sykes-Picot. For example, James Rothschild with his many offical contacts at the highest levels was likely to have been informed, but until June 1917, the Zionist leadership remained in ignorance. Through all of the negotiations and intrigue, Sykes continued to dismiss the possible "Arab problems" of the future as being minimal or otherwise to be easily dealt with if and when they arose.
The pieces of power were now falling into place for the Zionists. It was also increasingly evident that the events in Russia and the entry of the United States as a belligerent made it a most opportune time for Britain to appeal to World Jewry
"James [Rothschild, son of Walter] also considered that the moment had arrived for Weizman and his friends to make an official statement of position, for presentation both to Government and to Anglo-Jewish leaders. In effect, the younger Baron and some of his powerful English friends were 'electing' Weizmann to the leadership in Zionism that he had long been effectively assuming." (Sanders, p. 431)
Before the final step of initiating Cabinet action, the Rothschilds wanted a concise statement of the Zionist program. It was prepared by Sokolow at the end of 1916. It was privately known as the "Demands".
- "BASIS OF SETTLEMENT. Recognition of Palestine as the Jewish National Home
- STATUS OF JEWISH POPULATION IN PALESTINE GENERALLY. The Jewish population present and future throughout Palestine is to possess and enjoy full national, political and civic rights
- IMMIGRATION INTO PALESTINE. The Suzerain Government shall grant full and free rights of immigration into Palestine to Jews of all countries.
- THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A CHARTERED COMPANY. The Suzerain Government shall grant a Charter to a Jewish Company for the Colonization and development of Palestine, the Company to have power to acquire and take over any concessions for works of a public character, which may have been or may hereafter be granted by the Suzerain Government, and the rights of pre-emption of Crown Lands or other lands not held in private or religious ownership and such other powers and privileges as are usual in Charters of Statutes of similar colonizing bodies
- COMMUNAL AUTONOMY. Full autonomy is to be enjoyed by Jewish communities throughout Palestine in all matters bearing upon their educational, religious or communal welfare.
SUMMARY. Palestine is to be recognized as the Jewish National Home. Jews of all countries to be accorded full liberty of immigration. Jews to enjoy full national, political and civic rights according to their place of residence in Palestine. A Charter to be granted to a Jewish Company for the development of Palestine. The Hebrew language to be recognized as the official language of the Jewish Province" (Sanders, p. 432)
During the months of 1917 until July, the Rothschild view of what would be submitted to Balfour gradually weakened until its relation to the "Demands" became very tenuous. The definite article in the 1st clause was however retained. The chartered company did not appear and communal autonomy was not mentioned at all in what was finally submitted by Lord Rothschild as the formula requested by Balfour. Both Sokolow and Weizman felt it best not to 'risk all' by asking for 'too much'.
"Weizmann...always accepted the British at their own valuation, as tolerant and fair minded, loving freedom and justice." (Johnson, p. 425) He seemed to be very proud, that he, a Russian Jew, was able to enter the offices of power in Whitehall.
The Rothschilds, at least the pro-Zionists among them, had slightly different views. They were native Britons, and they were scarcely parvenus in government and the power structures in and out of office.
"...Walter's [Lord Rothschild's] chief concern throughout the period prior to the Declaration was linking the concept of a future 'home' for the Jews with the British Empire. He felt that sooner or later those in authority must see the light,...would realize that the Russian and French Claims were irrelevancies which could be swept aside. A Jewish Palestine without the British Army was a nonsense, while a well-disposed, loyal, Jewish population in that area would justify its existence by greatly adding to the strategic advantages which the Empire would thereby gain." (Rothschild, p. 250)
In early 1917, Weizmann who had just been elected President of the British Zionist Federation, was still unaware of the Sykes-Picot agreement, not to mention numerous other conflicting British commitments and was in general following the Rothschild view. Despite so many encounters of British politicians with Zionist leaders, the question of "suzerainty" remained open. Tentative proposals by Balfour for an American or mixed American/British rule went by the wayside, after the Balfour/Brandeis meetings. The Zionists were united in the belief that any multinational arrangement would be disasterous.
From July 18 on (when Rothshild's letter was sent), the struggle of anti-Zionist Jews against the Declaration was, although in the nature of a last ditch defense, forceful and regrettably effective in further modifying the final version. Edwin Montagu (at that time the only Jew in the cabinet) wrote about the pending Declaration in a sneering way:
"...I assume that it means that Mohammedans and Christians are to make way for the Jews, and that the Jews should be put in all positions of preference and should be peculiarly associated with Palestine in the same way that England is with the English or France with the French, that Turks and other Mohommedans in Palestine will be regarded as foreigners, just in the same way as Jews will hearafter be treated as foreigners in every country but Palestine. Perhaps also citizenship must be granted only as a result of a religious test" (Sanders, p. 566)
There is little doubt that the opposition of Montagu et al was effective. As Paul Johnson notes:
"Weizmann believed to his dying day that, without Montagu's opposition, they would have got all three [the national home, unrestricted immigration and Jewish autonomy] 'there cannot be the slightest doubt that, without outside interference - ENTIRELY FROM JEWS [caps added] - the draft would have been accepted [by the war cabinet] early in August, substantially as we submitted it.'" (Johnson, p. 430)
At Balfour's invitation, Rothschild sent him a formula upon which it was expected the declaration would be based. It was, as quoted by Ingrams:
- "1. His Majesty's Government accepts the principle that Palestine should be reconstituted as the National Home for the Jewish People.
- 2. His Majesty's Government will use its best endeavours to secure the achievement of this object and will discuss the necessary methods and means with the Zionist Organization." (Ingrams, p. 9)
In the nearly 5 months that elapsed until Balfour's letter to Rothschild on Nov 2 1917, there were extensive changes to the formula. For example "reconstituted" was considered too strong an expression, and so the first clause was reduced to
"...view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a [!!!] national home for the Jewish people..."
In the second clause "secure" was considered as too strong and so the second part of the formula was softened to "facilitate" But worst of all was the addition of the following wording which represented victories for both the Arabists and the anti-Zionist Jews in the Government:
"...it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country"
The full text of the Balfour Declaration is:
November 2nd, 1917Dear Lord Rothschild,
I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty's Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet.
"His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."
I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.
Yours sincerely,
Arthur James Balfour
(http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/mideast/balfour.htm)
Achad Ha-'Am summarized the evolution quite succinctly: He wrote:
"In the months preceding the publication of the 'Balfour Declaration'...we were busy in London with formulations of its text for submission to the English government for signature. Several drafts were prepared...But in the end the government issued its OWN formulation and paid little attention to our proposals."
What did it mean?
"It was at the Basle Conference in 1897 that the term 'National Home' was first used instead of Jewish State, as explained by Max Nordau...'I did my best to persuade the claimants of the Jewish State in Palestine that we might find a circumlocution that would express all we meant, but would say it in a way so as to avoid provoking the Turkish rulers of the coveted land. I suggested 'Heimstatte' as a synonym for 'State'...This is the history of the much commented expression. It was equivocal, but we all understood what it meant. To us it signified 'Judenstaat' then and it signifies the same now.'" (Ingrams, p.5)
It is clear that the use of the indefinite article 'a' in place of the definite 'the' weakened the declaration, allowing the possibility of other 'national homes'.
It should be obvious that the term "state" implies sovereignty while "home" is a much weaker term. Clearly, the danger of the equivocation was that others could interpret the "National Home" to serve their own, and not necessarily Jewish, interests. It may have given Sokolow and Weizmann flexibility in dealing with the various British statesmen, but the opposition in England and later in Palestine also had enough leeway in interpretation to almost emasculate the Declaration.
The circumlocution of "National Home" was to further hamstring the efforts of Zionists, working at a Peace Conference as representatives without a country but in an atmosphere which put a priority on Wilsonian self determination. The flabbiness of the Balfour's promise left the representatives of Jewry in a poker game in which they held no cards at all, except that of moral suasion. Despite all this, the game was not completely lost. We shall see in Part II the processes that resulted in the present day stunting of the geography of the State of Israel.
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