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90th Anniv of Balfour Declaration: Did we double-cross the Arabs?
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
sent by Tim Murphy - activ-l - Oct 4, 2007
NewStatesman - Sep 27, 2007
http://www.newstatesman.com/200709270051
This coming 2 November marks the 90th anniversary of the Balfour
Declaration, which promised the Jews a "national home" in Palestine
As a result, the state of Israel was formed in 1947. This article,
written by the Middle East expert Peter Mansfield half a century after
the Balfour Declaration, provides an insightful analysis of a fateful
do***ent that provoked the most insoluble problem in contem****ary
international politics.
Selected by Robert Taylor
Taken from The New Statesman 3 November 1967
40 years on from the Balfour Declaration
Did we double-cross the Arabs?
By Peter Mansfield
The root cause of the chronic instability of the Middle East is an
irresponsible act of statesman****p of half a century ago. When the
Balfour Declaration was issued on 2 November 1917, in the form of a
letter from the British Foreign Secretary to Lord Rothschild, saying
that His Majesty's Government 'view with favour the establishment in
Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people', some members of
the Lloyd George government forecast the storms ahead. Curzon, who had
studied Zionist literature, said he 'could not share the optimistic
views held concerning the future of Palestine' and he feared that the
Declaration 'raised false expectations which could never be realised'.
Edwin Montagu, Secretary of State for India and the only Jew in the
Cabinet, regarded the Declaration as an anti-Semitic act because it
would jeopardise the position of Jews throughout the world. He also
believed that it broke promises made to the Arabs and violated the
principle of self-determination. These opponents were easily
overwhelmed by the confidence of the Declaration's three champions -
Balfour, Cecil and Lloyd George himself.
Their motives have been the subject of endless speculation. They seem to
have been a peculiarly British blend of hard-headed realism and romantic
idealism, strongly tinged with hypocrisy. The Declaration's sponsors
were so vague about their reasons that they were driven to post hoc
rationalisation in later years. Lloyd George told the House of Commons
in 1936 that in 1917 the war was going so badly for the Allies that 'we
came to the conclusion that it was vital that we should have the
sympathies of the Jewish community'. But there is no evidence that they
thought of this at the time.
An im****tant influence on the minds of the government was the
Bible-reading Protestant belief in the return of the Jews to Zion on
which men like Lloyd George (and the agnostic Churchill - another
enthusiastic Zionist) had been nourished. Imperialist motives also
played their part, but it was less the specific aims of balancing
French influence in Syria with a pro-British community in Palestine
which would also help to protect the Suez Canal (although this was in
the back of their minds) than the general idea that the Jews, as
civilised Europeans, would carry the white man's burden in an area
where Britons were unlikely to do so themselves.
Did they understand the implications of their action? Were they aware
that the Zionist aim was to make Palestine a Jewish national state? Had
they considered the reactions of the 'natives' - that is, the Arabs who
formed more than 90 per cent of the population - and, if so, did they
think they mattered? There are several pieces of evidence to help
answer these questions. One is that the first draft of the Declaration
prepared by the Zionist Organisation at Balfour's invitation foresaw
the creation of an autonomous Jewish state under the protection of one
of the Allied powers. It was after the strong protests of the Jewish
Conjoint Committee, representing British Jewry, backed by Edwin
Montagu, that the draft was changed to refer to the establishment of a
national home for the Jewish people in Palestine, adding the words '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.' But, as Balfour was undoubtedly aware, a Jewish
national state was what the Zionists wanted.
In his efforts to persuade the war cabinet. Balfour said the Declaration
'did not necessarily involve the early establishment of an independent
Jewish state, which was a matter of gradual development in accordance
with the ordinary laws of political evolution.' But, being a
philosopher more than a politician, Balfour could be unusually candid.
In August 1919 he wrote a memorandum on Syria, Palestine and
Mesopotamia in which he said:
The contradiction between the letter of the Covenant and the policy of
the Allies is even more flagrant in the case of the independent nation
of Palestine than in that of the independent nation of Syria. For in
Palestine we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting
the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country, though the
American Commission [the 1919 King-Crane Commission] has been through
the form of asking what they are. The four great powers are committed
to Zionism, and Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted
in age-long tradition, in present needs, in future hopes of far
profounder im****t than the desires and prejudices [sic] of 700,000
Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land.
He went on to say that in his opinion this was quite right but that he
did not see how this policy could be harmonised with all the other
declarations and pledges that had been made by the Allies. 'In fact, so
far as Palestine is concerned, the powers have made no statement of
fact that is not admittedly wrong, and no declaration of policy which,
at least in the letter, they have not always intended to violate.'
A rare and remarkable confession, Apart from the Allies' general
pledges to set up national governments in the Middle East which would
derive their authority 'from the free exercise and choice of the
indigenous population', the British government had committed itself in
two other ways. One was in the correspondence in 1915 between Sir Henry
McMahon, the British High Commissioner in Cairo, and the Sherif Hussain
of Mecca, the leader of the Arab revolt against the Turks, and the
other was the so-called Sykes-Picot agreement, an Anglo-French
understanding on the partition of the Middle East into great-power
spheres of influence, which was published by the Russians, to the acute
embarrassment of the Allies, after October 1917.
Fountains of ink have flowed in the discussion of how far the British
government was to blame for making these pledges which, though couched
in ambiguous and evasive language, were undeniably incompatible with
each other. Evidence which has recently come to light proves fairly
condo. sively that at least the Foreign Office believed that the Sherif
Hussain had been promised that Palestine should be an independent Arab
state.
The question is whether this has any relevance to the present day.
Israelis celebrate, while Arabs mourn, the anniversary of the
Declaration, but does it mean any more than, say, the British and
French attitudes to Agincourt? The answer is surely yes. It is
sometimes said that, whatever the rights or wrongs of the past, the
Zionists have taken Palestine, the Arabs have lost and should recognise
the fact, just as Germany will have to forget about her eastern
provinces. But the peculiar nature of Zionism invalidates this
agreement. What the Arabs remember is that out of this small beginning
- - a brief letter from the British Foreign Secretary to a prominent
English Jew - a 9-percent minority in Palestine grew in 30 years to
establish its own exclusive and powerful nation-state on land which had
been theirs for 1,500 years. They can be forgiven for regarding Zionism
as expansionist by nature - especially when Zionists reassert their aim
of gathering in the Dias****a of 12 million Jews. Possibly the
Palestinian Arabs would have done better to settle for half a loaf by
accepting almost any of the proposals for the partition of their
country which were made during the British mandate. But would they? It
is hard to imagine that Zionism would have been content to live within
even narrower frontiers than it occupied last June. And Britain was
incapable of seeing that it did.
***
October 1st 2007
The Bureau of Counterpropaganda
http://bureauofcounterpropaganda.blogspot.com/
Far profounder im****t
Next month marks the 90th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration. Its only
short, so here it is for reference.
Foreign Office,
November 2nd, 1917.
Dear 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
***
The new statesman http://www.newstatesman.com/200709270051
commemorates
the occasion by reprinting Peter Mansfield's essay, "Did we double-cross
the Arabs?" from their 3 November 1967 issue. [Hat tip to Moshe
Machover] Among the interesting revelations in the article is that,
Edwin Montagu, Secretary of State for India [no less! EH] and the only Jew
in the Cabinet, regarded the Declaration as an anti-Semitic act because it
would jeopardise the position of Jews throughout the world. He also
believed
that it broke promises made to the Arabs and violated the principle of
self-determination. These opponents were easily overwhelmed by the
confidence of the Declaration's three champions - Balfour, Cecil and Lloyd
George himself.
Lord Montagues A Dissenting Note on the Balfour Declaration of November 2,
1917 On the Anti-Semitism of the Present Government was reprinted on
Counterpunch last November.
http://www.counterpunch.org/montague11112006.html
I hasten to add that Montague explicitly had no desire to deny that
anti-Semitism can be held by rational men In his view,
Zionism has always seemed to me to be a mischievous political creed,
untenable by any patriotic citizen of the United Kingdom. If a Jewish
Englishman sets his eyes on the Mount of Olives, he has always seemed to
me
to have acknowledged aims inconsistent with British citizen****p and to
have
admitted that he is unfit for a share in public life in Great Britain, or
to
be treated as an Englishman.
Mansfield goes on to quote Balfour himself.
being a philosopher more than a politician, Balfour could be unusually
candid. In August 1919 he wrote a memorandum on Syria, Palestine and
Mesopotamia in which he said:
The contradiction between the letter of the Covenant and the policy of the
Allies is even more flagrant in the case of the independent nation of
Palestine than in that of the independent nation of Syria.
For in Palestine we do not propose even to go through the form of
consulting
the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country, though the American
Commission [the 1919 King-Crane Commission] has been through the form of
asking what they are. The four great powers are committed to Zionism, and
Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long
tradition,
in present needs, in future hopes of far profounder im****t than the
desires
and prejudices [sic] of 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land.
He went on to say that in his opinion this was quite right but that he did
not see how this policy could be harmonised with all the other
declarations
and pledges that had been made by the Allies. 'In fact, so far as
Palestine
is concerned, the powers have made no statement of fact that is not
admittedly wrong, and no declaration of policy which, at least in the
letter, they have not always intended to violate.'
Plus ga change, nest-ce pas?
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