Why Did Britain Do It?

...Balfour went on to tell his colleagues, as the official minutes recorded: He saw nothing inconsistent between the establishment of a Jewish national focus in Palestine and the complete assimilation and absorption of Jews into the nationality of other countries...

...I understand," Ronald Graham minuted on October 24, "that consideration by the War Cabinet of the assurance to be given by His Majesty's Government to the Zionists is again being postponed...

...Sir Herbert Samuel stressed that a Jewish Palestine under Turkish control would fall under German influence, while a Jewish Palestine under British control would not...

...On July 2 Harry Sacher proposed a bolder version, that "The British Government declares that one of its essential war aims is the reconstitution of Palestine as a Jewish State," but Sokolow warned Sacher on July 10: "If we want too much we shall get nothing...

...I beg respectfully to submit that this further delay will have a deplorable result and may jeopardise the whole Jewish situation...

...As well as the Foreign Office memorandum circulated to the War Cabinet on October 17, was one most persuasive note prepared by a Conservative Member of Parliament, Ronald McNeill...

...Weizmann focussed on the arguments of the anti-Zionists, of whom he wrote: Although it is unfortunately true that a certain numbers of Jews, chiefly in western countries, are opposed to the idea of a Jewish national home in Palestine, it is no less true that these opponents, who are comparatively few in number, are almost exclusively to be found amongst those Jews who by education and social connections have lost touch of the real spirit animating the Jewish people as a whole...

...Edwin Montagu, in another attempt to block the declaration, had urged his colleagues to consult ten "representative Jewish leaders...

...They regarded themselves as one of the great historic races of the world, whose original home was Palestine, and these Jews had a passionate longing to regain once more this ancient national home...

...Araham went on to comment on the divisions within England between the Zionists and anti-Zionists...

...But when the Jews have a national home, surely it follows that the impetus to deprive us of rights of British citizenship must be enormously increased...

...All the arguments for and against a pro-Zionist declaration were now in front of them, and item twelve on the agenda was the question of the Zionist movement...

...Kerr added a note of caution...

...As they drove the Turks before them, the capture of Gaza itself became a certainty, while at the same time a way was opened to advance on Jerusalem from the south...

...His letter continued: Whether these masses are "scientifically" justified in thinking of themselves as a nation is a mere academic question...

...The opposition to the Zionist movement came, he wrote, "from a small group of eminent and influential Jews," and was based upon what Graham believed to be "unfounded apprehensions with regard to the effect of the movement on Jews who desire to remain entirely British...

...It would be a strange and glaring anomaly if, while professing to observe that principle, we were to deny or ignore the claims of nationality in the case of the people who have throughout history clung to them more tenaciously than any other...

...Weizmann pointed out that an all-Jewish Congress of eight of the provinces of southern Russia had voted by 333 votes to 26 in favour of Zionism...

...On September 2, three days after the fall of Riga, a Kiev newspaper Razsvet declared: Russian people, awake from your sleep...

...Apart from Russia, Zionist propaganda in favour of the Allies is also desirable...

...The Zionist leaders," he minuted, "are prepared to proceed themselves to send agents to Russia, America, Egypt etc...

...As discussions continued in London, events in Palestine itself ensured that Britain would indeed soon be the arbiter of Palestine's destiny...

...The telegram, from several leading Palestinian Jews, read as follows: During Passover the entire Jewish population of Jaffa expelled towards North...

...and on May 6 Jabotinsky wrote direct to Ronald Graham, explaining why a Jewish Legion was important to the Jews: Without exaggerating my modest forces, and provided no miracles are expected, I simply think that there is in Russia plenty of inflammable material for a great pro-war movement and that setting it ablaze is only a question of a strong concentrated will and of a good battle cry...

...Weizmann answered this claim that the Jews were not a nationality...

...Our opponents are overcome by fear lest the existence of a Jewish national home compromises to a certain extent their own position in the eyes of the peoples in whose midst they are living and with whom they desire to be totally identified...

...When the War Cabinet met on October 4, Balfour warned his colleagues that the German Government were making "great efforts to capture the Zionist movement," and that although that movement was opposed in Britain by "a number of wealthy Jews," it had behind it "the support of a majority of Jews, at all events in Russia and America, and probably in other countries...

...b) The difficulty felt with regard to the future position of Jews in Western countries...

...Let us throw off that yoke, we can no longer bear it...

...Graham continued: We are anxious to induce Monsieur Sokolow to proceed to Russia as soon as possible with a view to impressing the British case upon the Jews and to arousing Jewish enthusiasm for the expulsion of the Turks from Palestine...

...on September 20 the British forces on the western front launched their own massive offensive in the Ypres salient, towards the Passchendaele ridge...

...It did not necessarily involve the early establishment of an independent Jewish State, which was a matter for gradual development in accordance with the ordinary laws of political evolution...

...With regard to the second point, he felt that, so far from Zionism hindering the process of assimilation in Western countries, the truer parallel was to be found in the position of an Englishman who leaves his country to establish a permanent home in the United States...

...When Jews are told that Palestine is a national home, every country will immediately desire to get rid of its Jewish citizens, and you will find a population in Palestine driving out its present inhabitants, taking all the best in the country, drawn from all quarters of the globe, speaking every language on the face of the earth, and incapable of communicating with one another except by means of an interpreter...

...These eight provinces," he pointed out, "represent a population of two million Jews...

...instead, it was decided to postpone any decision to a future date...

...Skillfully supported and encouraged by German money, the anti-war movement in Russia had brought almost all military activity to a halt...

...The declaration read: 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 non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country...

...The very existence of these masses and of their hopes throughout the ages, in spite of all destructive forces within and without, which have been making for their disappearance, is the most powerful testimony to the existence of the Jewish nation and to the tenacious will to persist, whatever some few Jewish assimilationists may decree to the contrary...

...The United States, having entered the war in April, expected that it would take as much as a year before her troops were ready for action in Europe in any appreciable numbers...

...Masses of young Jerusalem Jews deported, northward, destination unknown...

...On May 11 Ronald Graham, a senior Foreign Office official, received a telegram, sent through Sir Reginald Wingate in Cairo, reporting on the most recent atrocities...

...The official War Cabinet minutes recorded Balfour's words as follows: The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs stated that he gathered that everyone was now agreed that, from a purely diplomatic and political point of view, it was desirable that some declaration favourable to the aspirations of the Jewish nationalists should now be made...

...Fear for the outcome of the war was not confined to the eastern front...

...The terrible suffering of six million Russian Jews both before and during the war had, the Foreign Office memorandum noted, "brought home to many of them the consciousness of their unity and the necessity of a refuge of their own...

...From the book Exile and Return: The Struggle of a Jewish Homeland...

...At daybreak on October 31, helped by intelligence, the British army advanced against the Turkish defences around Beer-sheba...

...That same day Sacher explained to Sokolow: "We must control the State machinery in Palestine...

...The War Cabinet's acceptance of what was to become known as the "Balfour Declaration," made it clear that two pressing and potentially conflicting interests were now in harmony: the long-term needs and aspirations of Zionism, and the immediate, harsh dictates of war...

...As the interests of the British Government and the Zionists were drawing closer, an attempt was made by a number of anti-Zionist Jews to oppose the Zionist efforts...

...On June 13 Weizmann sent Ronald Graham a letter, asking that the British Government "should give expression of its sympathy and support to Zionist aims and should recognize the justice of the Jewish claims to Palestine...

...More and more we are educated in public schools and at the Universities, and take our part in politics, in the Army, in the Civil Service, of our country...

...Cecil's arguments failed to convince the War Cabinet to issue the declaration...

...Now you find Jews everywhere...

...McNeill went on to stress the importance of Zionism in the context of national movements...

...Weizmann asked Sacher to draw up a document on the lines, as Weizmann wrote, "That the British Government declares its conviction, its desire or its intention to support Zionist aims for the creation of a Jewish National home in Palestine...

...Only one final obstacle now lay in the path of the British declaration: the continuing opposition of the anti-Zionist British Jews...

...In the latter case there was no difficulty in the Englishman or his children becoming full nationals of the United States, whereas, in the present position of Jewry, the assimilation was often felt to be incomplete, and any danger of a double allegiance or non-national outlook would be eliminated...

...His letter was published in The Times on May 28...

...The initiative now lay with the Zionists, in whose hands the draft declaration underwent many changes...

...While Weizmann and Lord Rothschild were together preparing a letter to Balfour, in answer to Montagu, the course of the war both on the eastern and on the western fronts had begun to worsen considerably for Britain and its Allies...

...Homes, property sacked, population in flight, robbed in connivance with Turkish authorities...

...In a memorandum circulated to his Ministerial colleagues, Montagu, nervous that Zionism posed a threat to the position of Jews like himself who had been accepted in British public life, declared that "Zionism" had always seemed to him "to be a mischievous political creed, untenable by any patriotic citizen of the United Kingdom...

...On the morning of October 31, while the battle for Beersheba was at its height, the War Cabinet met in London...

...A short time ago the sun shone and the Russian tsar used to visit Kiev...

...The draft referred to British acceptance of the principle that Palestine should be reconstituted as "the national home of the Jewish people...

...Give the Arabs all the guarantees they like for cultural autonomy...

...As the pressure from anti-Zionist Jews mounted, several amendments were made...

...but the State must be Jewish...

...With regard to the first, he understood that there were considerable differences of opinion among experts regarding the possibility of the settlement of any large population in Palestine, but he was informed that, if Palestine were scientifically developed, a very much larger population could be sustained than had existed during the period of Turkish misrule...

...the raising of a Jewish unit for use in Palestine, if coupled with assurances from the British Government of their sympathy with the desire of many Jews to settle in Palestine and build up a community within it, might produce a very beneficial effect in making the Jews in America and Russia much keener on helping to see the war through...

...If we could make a declaration favourable to such an ideal, we should be able to carry on extremely useful propaganda both in Russia and America...

...His memorandum continued: If a Jewish Englishman sets his eyes on the Mount of Olives and longs for the day when he will shake British soil from his shoes and go back to agricultural pursuits in Palestine, he always seemed to me to have acknowledged aims inconsistent with British citizenship, and to have admitted that he was unfit for a share in public life in Great Britain, or to be treated as an Englishman...

...I assert that there is not a Jewish nation...

...The wave of defeatism in the Russian army had turned to mass desertion, and the collapse of all government authority, so much so that Russia's ability to remain at war was suddenly in doubt...

...Such forcing would arouse a conflict with the Arab population of Palestine at once, and would upset a certain powerful section of non-Zionist Jews...

...The situation on the eastern front had taken a decided turn against the Allies...

...As for countries like Britain, where the Jews "were identified with the nation of which they were citizens," it was argued, against Montagu's main contention, that "their position would be unaffected by the existence of a Jewish national community elsewhere...

...Graham added: At the present moment uncertainty as regards to the attitude of His Majesty's government is growing into suspicion, and not only are we losing the very valuable cooperation of the Zionist forces in Russia and America, but we may bring them into antagonism with us and throw the Zionists into the arms of Germany...

...But within the Foreign Office this delay was most unwelcome...

...We might at any moment be confronted by a German move on the Zionist question and it must be remembered that Zionism was originally if not a German at any rate an Austrian idea...

...Within four days more than 10,000 British soldiers had been killed...

...I think," he told Graham, "that the British Government can affirm their sympathy for Zionist ideals without committing themselves to a full Zionist programme...

...if we don't the Arabs will...

...The Russian revolution on March 1917, in which the Tsar had been overthrown, failed to bring back the Russian fighting spirit...

...Dr Weizmann, who is a most able and energetic propagandist, is prepared to proceed himself to Russia and to take charge of the campaign...

...Martin Gilbert, distinguished British historian, is a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford, and the official biographer of Winston Churchill...

...The Russian revolution of March 1917, with its call for liberty, "far from weakening Jewish nationalism, did but deepen and intensify the national aspirations...

...After Montagu had elaborated on his arguments, "it was urged," as the official minutes of the meeting recorded, "that the existence of a Jewish State or autonomous community in Palestine would strengthen rather than weaken the situation of Jews in countries where they were not yet in possession of equal rights...

...Graham's conclusion was: "Apart from the merits of the question itself, our political interests seem to lie in encouraging the Zionists...

...The War Cabinet discussed Montagu's memorandum on September 3. Neither Lloyd George nor Balfour were present...

...The vast majority of Jews in Russia and America, as, indeed, all over the world, now appeared to be favourable to Zionism...

...The German success provoked yet another outburst of Russian anti-semitism, for the wretched Jews of the Pale welcomed the German occupation, hoping there would be an improvement on the rigours of Russian rule...

...This motive, which they do not conceal, is in itself an indication that they are conscious of being an isolated minority in Jewry and of having the bulk of the Jewish people not with them but against them...

...Just as English emigrants to the United States became, either in the first or subsequent generations, American nationals, so, in future, should a Jewish citizenship be established in Palestine, would Jews become either Englishmen, Americans, Germans or Palestinians...

...The Foreign Office was particularly anxious to enlist the support of Russian Jewry in reviving the eastern war effort, now severely hampered by the continuing German advance, and by the increasingly widespread demoralization throughout the Russian armies...

...Overcrowding of Colony increasing misery, disease...

...almost every Jew in Russia is a Zionist, and if they can be made to realise that the success of Zionist aspirations depends on the support of the Allies and the expulsion of the Turks from Palestine, we shall enlist a most powerful element in our favour...

...Jews in Italy, South Africa and Canada had all, Weizmann wrote, "expressed their approval of the Zionist policy...

...What was at the back of the Zionist Movement was the intense national consciousness held by certain members of the Jewish race...

...THE EVOLUTION OF THE BALFOUR DECLARATION MARTIN GILBERT Throughout April, May, and June (1917), the Zionists pressed the British Government for a public declaration of support for "a Jewish Palestine under British Protectorate," as Weizmann put it to Sokolow (then a leading Zionist diplomat) on April 27...

...Reprinted by permission by J. B. Lippincott Company...

...The idea of asking for full statehood was, however, supported by Herbert Sidebotham, who wrote, in a memorandum on July 11: "by a Jewish State is meant a State composed not only of Jews, but one whose dominant national character...

...shall be as Jewish as the dominant national character of England is English...

...As for the Zionist Organization, he added, it was "largely run, as my information goes, at any rate in the past, by men of enemy descent or birth, who by this means have dealt a severe blow to the liberties, position and opportunities of service of their Jewish fellow countrymen...

...The Jews, he wrote, must have a goal, and "such a goal can only be Palestine...

...As to the meaning of the words "national home," to which the Zionists attach so much importance, he understood it to mean some form of British, American, or other protectorate, under which full facilities would be given to the Jews to work out their own salvation and to build up, by means of education, agriculture, and industry, a real centre of national culture and focus of national life...

...They will destroy the Fatherland...

...On September 22 the Germans captured the Baltic fortress town of Jacobstadt...

...The real motive underlying their opposition is of an eminently individual nature...

...On May 24 The Times published a letter from two leading British Jews, D. L. Alexander and C. G. Montefiore, rejecting what they called the Zionist belief that "all the Jewish communities of the world" constituted "one homeless nationality, incapable of complete social and political identification with the nations among whom they dwell...

...Sacher's arguments were in vain, and when Lord Rothschild gave Balfour the Zionist draft on July 18, Sacher described it as "inadequate," and "defective in form...

...Graham advised: "The sooner this starts the better," and thus it was that, on the following day, November 2, A. J. Balfour's letter was actually sent to Lord Rothschild...

...Four of those consulted opposed the declaration, including Montagu himself, and Claude Montefiore, and on October 17 the collective answers were circulated to the War Cabinet...

...but, with the spread of Bolshevik antiwar propaganda behind the lines, a mood of despondency had begun to influence the advancing armies and from September 1 the Germans had begun to reverse the tide, capturing Riga on September 3, and driving the Russians back towards Petrograd...

...Weizmann went on to tell Balfour that the Jewish masses all over the world now looked to Britain for the realization of their hopes...

...For Britain, it was becoming a matter of urgency to stimulate both Russian and American patriotism...

...The battle-cry, so far as Jews are concerned, is Palestine—a goal which implies victory—and a legion as a live link connecting every Jew with the fortunes of the war...

...On October 3 Weizmann answered the assimilationist, anti-Zionist view in a forceful memorandum, prepared for the War Cabinet meeting at which the long-delayed declaration would again be discussed...

...Thousands wandering helplessly on roads, starving...

...On August 23 the Zionist cause was again strongly challenged by Edwin Montagu, the most senior Jew in Lloyd George's Government...

...Lord Rothschild supported the declaration as offering an opportunity "for permanent and cordial relations between Jews, Armenians, Arabs and the other inhabitants of the country...

...As Foreign Secretary, Balfour presented the case in favour of the declaration, basing himself largely upon the views, and actual words, of Ronald Graham's minute of October 24 and drawing upon some of the details in Mark Sykes' memorandum of the previous day...

...He is the author of more than 25 books...

...The War Cabinet were to discuss the declaration on October 24, but the defeat of the Italian forces at Caporetto was so severe a blow to the Allies that it took complete precedence over all other matters...

...Rothschild's reply continued, "I can assure you that the gratitude of ten millions of people will be yours, for the British Government has opened up, by their message, a prospect of safety and comfort to large masses of people who are much in need of it...

...For Jews wishing to escape poverty and persecution in various parts of Europe," Palestine would not only provide "an asylum" but would also satisfy the "secular national sentiment of the Jewish race...

...The British Government were receptive for, as 1917 progressed, the course of the war seemed to be turning against the Allies...

...two days later, on September 24, Ronald Graham pressed his superiors not to delay the pro-Zionist declaration...

...On April 20 Jabotinsky had again urged on the Foreign Office the creation of a Jewish force, in order to revive Jewish war morale...

...The spirit of Nationality amongst the Jews was an active force for centuries before it became an influence among European nations, and it has shown an unconquerable persistence without parallel in the history of any other people...

...Once Palestine was admitted to be the Jewish national home, Montagu warned, all Jews living outside Palestine "will be foreign Jews...

...Six days after this letter, A. J. Balfour, the Foreign Secretary, saw both Weizmann and Lord Rothschild, and asked them, as Weizmann reported to Harry Sacher on June 20, "to submit to him a declaration which would be satisfactory to us which he would try and put before the War Cabinet for sanction...

...The Zionist leaders are rendered uncertain, if not dissatisfied," he minuted, and their propaganda on behalf of the Allies "has practically ceased...

...It was therefore not surprising that a sense of urgency permeated the Foreign Office...

...Copyright © 1978 by Martin Gilbert...

...That same afternoon, one of the members of the War Cabinet Secretariat, Leopold Amery, who had helped to draft the declaration in its latter stages, wrote in his diary: "After lunch Weizmann (and Aaronsohn) came in, the Cabinet having at last agreed to issue the declaration on Zionism, and fell on my neck with gratitude for my efforts on their behalf...

...Commenting on this, Balfour minuted: "Yes, but as this question was (in my absence) decided by the Cabinet against the Zionists I cannot do anything until the decision is reversed...

...Other Jews had become absorbed into the nations among whom they and their forefathers had dwelt for many generations...

...A memorandum prepared within the Foreign Office also dealt with the positive reasons, historical as well as political, for a Jewish National Home in Palestine...

...Throughout September, Weiz-mann sought to combat Montagu's influence...

...On September 18 he saw Leopold Amery, a member of the War Cabinet secretariat, and was, as Amery recorded in his diary, "very interesting in his scorn for Montagu and all that class of 'tame Jew' who doesn't want to be bothered with Zionism or national aspirations, and only regards the nuisance it may be to himself...

...Our opponents, therefore, are entitled to speak in their own name only, but have no right to speak for the Jewish masses whose hopes, aspirations, ideals and sufferings they do not share...

...Jews, resisting, pillaged, hanged...

...Two days later, on November 4, Lord Rothschild replied, thanking Balfour for the interest he had shown "in the wishes of the large mass of the Jewish people...

...The British Government realized from the outset that a pro-Zionist policy could have serious repercussions...

...These agents, Graham added, would help "to work up a pro-ally and especially pro-British campaign of propaganda among the Jews...

...For three months, from June to August, the Russians had launched a successful military offensive on the eastern front...

...But he will not go until this question of an assurance is settled, not will Dr Weizmann take any more active steps...

...The "anti-nationalists," Weizmann wrote, were represented "by a small minority of so-called assimilated cosmopolitan Jews, most belonging to haute finance, who have lost contact with the development of Jewish life and ideas...

...The fact that the Jews are a nationality," he wrote, "is attested by the conviction of the overwhelming majority of Jews throughout all ages right to the present time, a conviction which had always been shared by non-Jews in all countries...

...The great thing to guard against," William Ormsby Gore minuted on August 18, "is the appearance of a Christian power 'forcing' the realisation of Zionist aims...

...While Jews and Zionists in both Russia and Britain were helping the Allied cause, in Palestine, itself, the Jewish population was increasingly the victim of Turkish persecution...

...On May 5, Lloyd George's private secretary, Philip Kerr, wrote to Ronald Graham, a senior Foreign Office official, urging the Foreign Office to support Jabotinsky's scheme...

...As Kerr explained...

...Down with the Jews...

...The members of my family, for instance, who have been in this country for generations, have not the sort or kind of community of view or of desire with any Jewish family in any other country beyond the fact that they possess to a greater or to a lesser degree the same religion...

...He gathered that the main arguments still put forward against Zionism were twofold: (a) That Palestine was inadequate to form a home for either the Jewish or any other people...

...The moment this assurance is granted the Zionist Jews are prepared to start an active pro-ally propaganda throughout the world...

...And I am glad to think that the prejudices against intermarriage are breaking down...

...The memorandum was signed jointly by himself and Lord Rothschild...

...On November 1 Ronald Graham urged the immediate publication of Balfour's declaration...

...It was not only Weizmann and his fellow Zionists who put forward Zionist arguments in the War Cabinet paper of October 17...

...But the phrase "national home," enshrined in the Zionist draft of July 18, survived intact...

...Palestine, he wrote, was capable "under improved conditions of supporting a population of some 5 or 6 millions...

...At the same time, German efforts to pose as sponsors of the Zionist movement continued unabated...

...It was "presumptious" of these Jews, for whom Judaism had become "a mere religious formula," to take it upon themselves to represent the Jewish people "at this critical time of their history...

...At the War Cabinet of September 3, the Zionists had a powerful ally in Lord Robert Cecil, the Minister of Blockade, who had tried, but in vain, to persuade his colleagues not to postpone the issue of a declaration, as "there was a very strong and enthusiastic organisation, more particularly in the United States, who were zealous in the matter," and who was convinced that "it would be of most substantial assistance," both to Britain and the Allies, "to have the earnestness and enthusiasm of these people on our side...

...Weizmann added his regret "that there should be even two Jews who think it their duty to exert such influence as they may command against the realization of a hope which has sustained the Jewish nation through 2,000 years of exile, persecution, and temptation...

...Information from every quarter shows the very important role the Jews are now playing in the Russian political situation...

...Although the attack was to be renewed, and the Commander-in-Chief, Sir Douglas Haig, was confident of success, in England the prospect of further trench warfare with such high casualties cast a pall of apprehension...