The Balfour Declaration: Britain’s colonial interests and the rise of Zionism.
At the end of the 19th century, just as Palestine was on the verge of a new era, Zionism emerged. Zionism was a foreign and alien phenomenon that had emerged in Europe in the 16th century as an evangelical Christian project. A significant number of Protestant Christians believed that the return of the Jews to “Zion” was the fulfillment of the promises that God had made to the Jews in the Old Testament. This would pave the way for the second coming of Christ and the beginning of the end of time.
They were the first to consider Jews not as followers of a religion but as members of a nation or race. These groups were particularly active in the United States and Britain, and some of them held high positions.
In his book, Lobbying for Zionism on Both Sides of the Atlantic, Israeli historian Ilan Pappe shows how more than a century of lobbying has convinced British and American politicians to turn a blind eye to the regime’s flagrant violations of international law, grant it unprecedented military aid, and deny Palestinian rights.
Pappe is known for his critical views, particularly on the “Day of the Catastrophe” and the displacement of Palestinians. He taught at the University of Haifa for many years before emigrating to Britain due to political pressure. He is now a professor of history at the University of Exeter and director of the European Center for Palestine Studies.
We previously published the translation of chapters one and two of Pappe’s book in Iran for the first time.
Chapter One: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four
Chapter Two: Part One, Part Two, Part Three
Parts One, Two, and Three of Chapter Three of this book, entitled “The Road to the Balfour Declaration,” were previously published. Part Four follows:
“Vladimir Ze’ev Jabotinsky” enthusiastically promoted the idea of a high Zionist influence in America. He was one of the Zionists who founded the “Jewish Battalion” [1] of the British Army and led the radical “Revisionist Zionism” movement that later formed the current Likud party. Jabotinsky wrote in a letter to British officials: “American Jews, especially those living in New York, who number 1.25 million, are a factor of serious influence even in international politics.”
The over-emphasis on American Zionism was coupled with the fear that if Britain disappointed the Zionists, they might seek German support, which the British government saw as disastrous.
Mark Sykes and his compatriots had one thing in common when the British War Cabinet decided to create an Anglo-Zionist Palestine: they knew practically nothing about Palestine. In Whitehall and at the highest levels of government, no one could question the assumptions contained in Herbert Samuel’s notes and similar documents presented to the cabinet by the Zionist lobby throughout 1915.
These documents were very detailed and depicted the prospect of the colonization of Palestine by the Jews of the Russian Empire as a win-win scenario. The documents explained how the Allied support for the project could be secured in the war, and reported that Russia had declared that it would view the creation of a Jewish Palestine favourably.
Despite the lobby’s success in convincing the government, its work was not yet over and it was necessary to secure Britain’s commitment to the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The Zionist lobby had to overcome two groups of opponents to pro-Zionist policy in 1915–16: politicians who were reluctant to support the Zionist project, knowing that they would face the displeasure of the native Palestinians; and prominent Jewish figures who feared the consequences of the plan for the wider Anglo-Jewish community. They were simply concerned that their efforts to become part of the British nation would be undermined, regardless of the impact the Zionist project would have on Palestinian life.
The view of the opponents of the Zionist project in the cabinet was summed up by one member who implored his colleagues to bear in mind that the creation of a Jewish Palestine was not possible as long as the vast majority of the inhabitants were Arabs, and that to ignore the right of the majority of the inhabitants to self-determination was contrary to the main and declared aim of the Allies for which they were fighting. Others were also opposed to the idea, knowing that they would encounter opposition from the French and the Hashemites.
Herbert Samuel was tasked with taking action to counter politicians who saw the demographic reality as an obstacle to the idea of a Jewish Palestine. He insisted that the government ignore the unpleasant fact that the majority of the inhabitants of Palestine were Arabs: “It is not necessary to accept that the present population of Palestine, small though it is, has the right to prevent the return of a people whose connection with this land was formed long before them; Especially since in the past the presence of these peoples has been the source of events of spiritual and cultural value to humanity, and nothing like this has been seen in the barren history of the last thousand years.”
The final piece of the puzzle fell into place when Herbert Asquith resigned as Prime Minister and was replaced by David Lloyd George. Lloyd George’s view was that a Jewish Palestine would, from a strategic point of view, serve the interests of the British Empire in relation to Egypt much more effectively than an Arab Palestine.
Lloyd George’s argument was repeated at a conference in London in 1919, when Max Nordau, a prominent leader of the Zionist movement, emphasized: “We must be the guardians of the Suez Canal. We will guard your route to India in the Near East [2].”
Lloyd George, like Arthur Balfour and many senior British politicians, admired Chaim Weizmann, which increased his willingness to support Weizmann’s Zionist views.
Lloyd George was a founding partner of the law firm Lloyd George, Roberts and Partners, whose services were used by the British Zionist Federation to pursue and assist in the Uganda Project, partly because of his close ties to the Foreign Office.[3] But what seems to have impressed Lloyd George most of all was Weizmann’s contribution to the British war effort.
When Lloyd George was appointed Minister of Munitions in 1915, Britain was facing a severe shortage of strontium, a vital ingredient in the production of heavy munitions. The shortage had been caused by the blockade of corn imports by German submarines.
C. P. Scott, editor of the Manchester Guardian newspaper, a mutual friend of Wiseman and Lloyd George, told him about Wiseman’s chemical skills and the process he had devised to produce strontium from the Indian chestnut, which was abundant in Britain. A factory in King’s Lynn successfully replaced the corn with chestnuts, and strontium could once again be mass-produced, thus averting the impending arms crisis.
When Lloyd George became Prime Minister in December 1916, he had not forgotten Wiseman’s kindness. They met a few weeks before the Balfour Declaration, and Lloyd George wanted to award Weizmann an honorary medal for his services to the British war effort, but Weizmann refused, saying that the only reward he wanted was a Jewish homeland. George Bernard Shaw depicted the incident in his 1936 play Arthur and the Acetone.
Of course, British foreign policy was not necessarily based on personal favors, and the process of issuing the Balfour Declaration was already underway and moving quickly.
From September 1915, Balfour became Weizmann’s superior at the Admiralty and employed him as an “honorary technical adviser.” Although a British civil servant, Weizmann was initially hesitant about using his position to advance the Zionist cause, and it was this old acquaintance who encouraged him to take a more active role in promoting and strengthening Zionist activities in Britain in his new position.
Some accounts suggest that history here took on a new ironic twist. While the lobbyist Weizmann was hesitant to pressure the British government, it was Balfour who encouraged him to do so, the very person Weizmann was lobbying.
According to the diaries of Balfour’s beloved niece, Blanche Buffy Dugdale, she once went to Weizmann’s room and said, “If the Allies win the war, you may have Jerusalem.” Such conversations between Lloyd George, Weizmann, and Balfour led to increased British interest in the Zionist project and indirectly paved the way for the Balfour Declaration.
By convincing the British government that its geopolitical interests would be served by the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, the Zionists were able to overcome cabinet opposition by the time the Balfour Declaration was issued. But there was still another obstacle, and that was the prominent members of the Anglo-Jewish community who opposed the Zionist vision.